My Favorite Female Celebrities
My favorite female actors, singers, musicians, politicians, reality stars, dancers, historical figures, etc. Women who have had their 15 minutes of fame, achieved legendary status or more.
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One of the brightest film stars to grace the screen was born Emilie Claudette Chauchoin on September 13, 1903, in Saint Mandé, France where her father owned a bakery at 57, rue de la République (now Avenue Général de Gaulle). The family moved to the United States when she was three. As Claudette grew up, she wanted nothing more than to play to Broadway audiences (in those days, any actress or actor worth their salt went for Broadway, not Hollywood). After her formal education ended, she enrolled in the Art Students League, where she paid for her dramatic training by working in a dress shop. She made her Broadway debut in 1923 in the stage production of "The Wild Wescotts". It was during this event that she adopted the name Claudette Colbert.
When the Great Depression shut down most of the theaters, Claudette decided to make a go of it in films. Her first film was called For the Love of Mike (1927). Unfortunately, it was a box-office disaster. She wasn't real keen on the film industry, but with an extreme scarcity in theatrical roles, she had no choice but to remain. In 1929 she starred as Joyce Roamer in The Lady Lies (1929). The film was a success and later that year she had another hit entitled The Hole in the Wall (1929). In 1930 she starred opposite Fredric March in Manslaughter (1930), which was a remake of the silent version of eight years earlier. A year after that Claudette was again paired in a film with March, Honor Among Lovers (1931). It fared well at the box-office, probably only because it was the kind of film that catered to women who enjoyed magazine fiction romantic stories. In 1932 Claudette played the evil Poppeia in Cecil B. DeMille's last great work, The Sign of the Cross (1932), and once again was cast with March. Later the same year she was paired with Jimmy Durante in The Phantom President (1932). By now Claudette's name symbolized good movies and she, along with March, pulled crowds into the theaters with the acclaimed Tonight Is Ours (1933).
The next year started a little on the slow side with the release of Four Frightened People (1934), where Claudette and her co-stars were at odds with the dreaded bubonic plague on board a ship. However, the next two films were real gems for this young actress. First up, Claudette was charming and radiant in Cecil B. DeMille's spectacular Cleopatra (1934). It wasn't one of DeMille's finest by any means, but it was a financial success and showcased Claudette as never before. However, it was as Ellie Andrews, in the now famous It Happened One Night (1934), that ensured she would be forever immortalized. Paired with Clark Gable, the madcap comedy was a mega-hit all across the country. It also resulted in Claudette being nominated for and winning the Oscar that year for Best Actress. IN 1935 she was nominated again for Private Worlds (1935), where she played Dr. Jane Everest, on the staff at a mental institution. The performance was exquisite. Films such as The Gilded Lily (1935), Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and No Time for Love (1943) kept fans coming to the theaters and the movie moguls happy. Claudette was a sure drawing card for virtually any film she was in. In 1944 she starred as Anne Hilton in Since You Went Away (1944). Again, although she didn't win, Claudette picked up her third nomination for Best Actress.
By the late 1940s and early 1950s she was not only seen on the screen but the infant medium of television, where she appeared in a number of programs. However, her drawing power was fading somewhat as new stars replaced the older ones. In 1955 she filmed the western Texas Lady (1955) and wasn't seen on the screen again until Parrish (1961). It was her final silver screen performance. Her final appearance before the cameras was in a TV movie, The Two Mrs. Grenvilles (1987). She did, however, remain on the stage where she had returned in 1956, her first love. After a series of strokes, Claudette divided her time between New York and Barbados. On July 30, 1996, Claudette died in Speightstown, Barbados. She was 92.- Actress
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Angie Dickinson was born in Kulm, North Dakota, in 1931, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Brown. Mr. Brown was the publisher of The Kulm Messenger. The family left North Dakota in 1942 when Angie was 11 years old, moving to Burbank, California. In December of 1946, when she was a senior at Bellamarine Jefferson High School in Burbank, she won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Contest. Two years later her sister Janet, did likewise. Being the daughter of a printer, Angie at first had visions of becoming a writer, but gave this up after winning her first beauty contest. After finishing college she worked as a secretary in a Burbank airplane parts factory for 3-1/2 years. In 1953 she entered the local Miss America contest one day before the deadline and took second place. In August of the same year she was one of five winners in a beauty contest sponsored by NBC and appeared in several TV variety shows. She got her first bit part in a Warner Brothers movie in 1954 and gained television fame in the TV series The Millionaire (1955) and got her first good film role opposite John Wayne and Dean Martin in Rio Bravo (1959). Her success then climbed until she became one of the nation's top movie stars.- Actress
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Clara Gordon Bow, destined to become "The It Girl", was born on July 29, 1905 in Brooklyn, New York, and was raised in poverty and violence. Her often absentee and brutish father could not or did not provide and her schizophrenic mother tried to slit Clara's throat when the girl spoke of becoming an actress. Bow, nonetheless, won a photo beauty contest which launched her movie career that would eventually number 58 films, from 1922 to 1933.
The movie It (1927) defined her career. The film starred Clara as a shopgirl who was asked out by the store's owner. As you watch the silent film you can see the excitement as she prepared for her date with the boss, her friend trying hard to assist her. She used a pair of scissors to modify her dress to try to look "sexier." The movie did much to change society's mores as there were only a few years between World War I and Clara Bow, but this movie went a long way in how society looked at itself. Clara was flaming youth in rebellion. In the film she presented a worldly wisdom that somehow sex meant having a good time. But the movie shouldn't mislead the viewer, because when her boss tries to kiss her goodnight, she slaps him. At the height of her popularity she received over 45,000 fan letters a month. Also, she was probably the most overworked and underpaid star in the industry. With the coming of sound, her popularity waned. Clara was also involved in several court battles ranging from unpaid taxes to being in divorce court for "stealing" women's husbands. After the court trials, she made a couple of attempts to get back in the public eye. One was Call Her Savage (1932) in 1932. It was somewhat of a failure at the box office and her last was in 1933 in a film called Hoopla (1933).
She then married cowboy star Rex Bell at 26 and retired from the film world at 28. She doted on her two sons and did everything to please them. Haunted by a weight problem and a mental imbalance, she never re-entered show business. She was confined to sanitariums from time to time and prohibited access to her beloved sons. She died of a heart attack in West Los Angeles, on September 26, 1965 at age 60. Today she is finding a renaissance among movie buffs, who are recently discovering the virtues of silent film. The actress who wanted so much to be like the wonderful young lady in It (1927) has the legacy of her films to confirm that she was a wonderful lady and America's first sex symbol.- Actress
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Pam Grier was born in Winston-Salem, NC, one of four children of Gwendolyn Sylvia (Samuels), a nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier Jr., an Air Force mechanic. Pam has been a major African-American star from the early 1970s. Her career started in 1971, when Roger Corman of New World Pictures launched her with The Big Doll House (1971), about a women's penitentiary, and The Big Bird Cage (1972). Her strong role put her into a five-year contract with Samuel Z. Arkoff of American-International Pictures, and she became a leading lady in action films such as Jack Hill's Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974), the comic strip character Friday Foster (1975) and William Girdler's 'Sheba, Baby' (1975). She continued working with American-International, where she portrayed William Marshall's vampire victim in the Blacula (1972) sequel, Scream Blacula Scream (1973).
During the 1980s she became a regular on Miami Vice (1984) and played a supporting role as an evil witch in Ray Bradbury's and Walt Disney Pictures' Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983), then returned to action as Steven Seagal's partner in Above the Law (1988). Her most famous role of the 1990s was probably Jackie Brown (1997), directed by Quentin Tarantino, which was an homage to her earlier 1970s action roles, She occasionally did supporting roles, as in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! (1996), In Too Deep (1999) and a funny performance in Jawbreaker (1999). She also appeared in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (2001) and co-starred with Snoop Dogg in Bones (2001). Her entire career of over 30 years has brought only success for this beautiful and talented actress.
A sister of Grier's died from cancer in 1990 and the son of that sister committed suicide because of his mother's illness. Pam herself was diagnosed with cancer in 1988 and given 18 months to live, which has had an effect on how she has chosen to live. She has never been wed, although she has been romantically linked to Richard Pryor and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in the past.- Actress
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One of the leading sex symbols of the 1950s and 1960s, film actress Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, the only child of Vera J. (nee Palmer; later Peers) and Herbert W. Palmer. Her parents were well-to-do, with her father a successful attorney in Phillipsburg, New Jersey, where she spent a portion of her childhood. Her parents were both born with the same surname, and her ancestry was seven eighths English and Cornish and one eighth German. She was reportedly a talented pianist and played the violin when she was young.
Tragedy struck when Jayne was three, when her father suddenly died of a heart attack. Three years later, her mother remarried and she and her mother moved to Dallas, Texas, buying a small home where she had violin concerts in the driveway of their home. Her IQ was reportedly 163, and she attended the University of Dallas and participated in little-theater productions. In 1949, at the age of 16, she married a man five years her senior named Paul Mansfield. In November 1950, when Jayne was seventeen, their daughter, Jayne Marie Mansfield was born. The union ended in divorce but she kept the surname Mansfield as a good surname for an actress.
After some productions there and elsewhere, Jayne decided to go to Hollywood. Her first film was a bit role as a cigarette girl in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). Although the roles in the beginning were not much, she was successful in gaining those roles because of her ample physical attributes which placed her in two other films that year, Hell on Frisco Bay (1955) and Illegal (1955). Her breakout role came the next year with a featured part in The Burglar (1957). By the time she portrayed Rita Marlowe in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957) and Playgirl After Dark (1960), Jayne was now known as the poor man's Marilyn Monroe. She did not get the plum roles that Marilyn got in her productions. Instead, her films were more of a showcase for her body more than anything else. She did have a real talent for acting, but the movie executives insisted she stay in her dumb blonde stereotype roles. By the 1960s, her career had options that grew lower. She made somewhat embarrassing guest appearances like on the popular game show What's My Line? (1950), she appeared on the show four times in 1956, 1957, 1964, and 1966 and many other 1950s and 1960s game shows. By 1962, she was dropped from 20th Century Fox and the rest of her career had smaller options like being in B movies and low budget movies or performing at food stores or small nightclubs.
While traveling from a nightclub in Biloxi, Mississippi and 30 miles from New Orleans to where she was to be on television the following day, she was killed instantly on Highway 90 in Slidell, Louisiana in a car crash in the early hours of June 29, 1967, when the car in which she was riding slammed into the back of a semi-tractor trailer truck that had stopped due to a truck in front of the tractor trailer that was spraying for bugs. Her car went under the truck at nearly 80 miles per hour. Her boyfriend Samuel Brody and their driver Ronnie Harrison, were also killed. The damage to the car was so bad that the engine was twisted sideways. She was not, however, decapitated, as had long been misreported. She was 34 years old.
Mansfield's funeral was on July 3, 1967 and hundreds of people lined the main street of Pen Argyl for Mansfield's funeral, a small private ceremony at Fairview Cemetery in Plainfield (outside Pen Argyl), Pennsylvania (where her father was also buried), attended by her family. The only ex-husband to attend was Mickey Hargitay. Her final film, Single Room Furnished (1966), was released the following year. In 2000, Mansfield's 97 year old mother, Mrs. Vera Peers, was interred alongside Mansfield.
After Mansfield's death, Mansfield's mother, as well as her ex-husband Mickey Hargitay, William Pigue (legal guardian for her daughter, Jayne Marie), Charles Goldring (Mansfield's business manager), and Bernard B. Cohen and Jerome Webber (both administrators of the estate) all filed unsuccessful suits to gain control of her estate, which was initially estimated at $600,000 ($3,712,000 in 2018 dollars), including the Pink Palace (estimated at $100,000 ($619,000 in 2018 dollars)), a sports car sold for $7,000 ($43,000 in 2018 dollars), her jewelry, and Sam Brody's $185,000 estate left to her in his last will ($1,145,000 in 2018 dollars).
In 1971, Beverly Brody sued the Mansfield estate for $325,000 ($2,011,000 in 2018 dollars) worth of presents and jewelry given to Mansfield by Sam Brody; the suit was settled out of court.
In 1977, Mansfield's four eldest children (Jayne Marie, Mickey, Zoltan, and Mariska) went to court to discover that some $500,000 in debt which Mansfield had incurred ($3,093,000 in 2018 dollars) and litigation had left the estate insolvent.- Actress
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Hedy Lamarr, the woman many critics and fans alike regard as the most beautiful ever to appear in films, was born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Austria. She was the daughter of Gertrud (Lichtwitz), from Budapest, and Emil Kiesler, a banker from Lemberg (now known as Lviv). Her parents were both from Jewish families. Hedwig had a calm childhood, but it was cinema that fascinated her. By the time she was a teenager, she decided to drop out of school and seek fame as an actress, and was a student of theater director Max Reinhardt in Berlin. Her first role was a bit part in the German film Geld auf der Straße (1930) (aka "Money on the Street") in 1930. She was attractive and talented enough to be in three more German productions in 1931, but it would be her fifth film that catapulted her to worldwide fame. In 1932 she appeared in a Czech film called Ekstase (US title: "Ecstasy") and had made the gutsy move to appear nude. It's the story of a young girl who is married to a gentleman much older than she, but she winds up falling in love with a young soldier. The film's nude scenes created a sensation all over the world. The scenes, very tame by today's standards, caused the film to be banned by the U.S. government at the time.
Hedy soon married Fritz Mandl, a munitions manufacturer and a prominent Austrofascist. He attempted to buy up all the prints of "Ecstasy" he could lay his hands on (Italy's dictator, Benito Mussolini, had a copy but refused to sell it to Mandl), but to no avail (there are prints floating around the world today). The notoriety of the film brought Hollywood to her door. She was brought to the attention of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who signed her to a contract (a notorious prude when it came to his studio's films, Mayer signed her against his better judgment, but the money he knew her notoriety would bring in to the studio overrode any moral concerns he may have had). However, he insisted she change her name and make good, wholesome films.
Hedy starred in a series of exotic adventure epics. She made her American film debut as Gaby in Algiers (1938). This was followed a year later by Lady of the Tropics (1939). In 1942, she played the plum role of Tondelayo in the classic White Cargo (1942). After World War II, her career began to decline, and MGM decided it would be in the interest of all concerned if her contract were not renewed. Unfortunately for Hedy, she turned down the leads in both Gaslight (1940) and Casablanca (1942), both of which would have cemented her standing in the minds of the American public. In 1949, she starred as Delilah opposite Victor Mature's Samson in Cecil B. DeMille's epic Samson and Delilah (1949). This proved to be Paramount Pictures' then most profitable movie to date, bringing in $12 million in rental from theaters. The film's success led to more parts, but it was not enough to ease her financial crunch. She made only six more films between 1949 and 1957, the last being The Female Animal (1958).
Hedy retired to Florida. She died there, in the city of Casselberry, on January 19, 2000.- Actress
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From the age of five, Linda Blair had to get used to the spotlight, first as a child model and then as an actress, when out of 600 applicants she was picked for the role of Regan, the possessed child, in The Exorcist (1973). Linda quickly rose to international fame, won the Golden Globe, and seemed to be set to take the Academy Award for that role, but when it leaked how some parts of the role were not performed by her (the demonic voice was dubbed by Mercedes McCambridge, and eight seconds of a stunt dummy were used) that dream broke, and with that disappointment probably came the first blow to what looked like the beginning of an A-list career.
Over the next few years she had no trouble securing lead roles in a number of pictures, including the highly successful television films Born Innocent (1974) (the #1 TV movie of that year) and Sarah T. - Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic (1975), as well as the Exorcist sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). However, when she was peer pressured into buying cocaine at the age of 18, it led to an arrest and subsequent sentencing to three years probation. The much-publicized drug bust caused Linda to be blacklisted in Hollywood, and her career was soon reduced to B-movies and occasional TV guest appearances only.
Although her career never returned to its former glory, Linda proved to be a good sport about embracing the change, and out of the '80s emerged lead roles in two cult classics: the women-in-prison film Chained Heat (1983) and the femme fatale vigilante action film Savage Streets (1984). She continued acting in numerous films throughout the '80s and '90s, including the Exorcist spoof Repossessed (1990). In 1997, she also took to the Broadway stage and starred as "Rizzo" in the revival of "Grease." She received widespread mainstream attention again in the 2000's with the theatrical re-release of the Exorcist, followed by a hosting job on the hit Fox Family TV series Scariest Places on Earth (2000), which ran for six years and followed Linda as she visited notorious "haunted" locations around the world.
Linda was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Elinore, a real estate agent, and James, an executive headhunter. She has a brother, Jimmy, and a sister, Debbie. Linda has been a Hollywood icon for over 40 years, but it is her first love of animals that has ultimately taken center stage in her life. She now runs the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, a non-profit 501C3 tax deductible organization dedicated to rescuing and rehabilitating abused, neglected, and abandoned animals from the harsh streets of the Los Angeles area, as well as from the overcrowded and overwhelmed city and county animal shelters. She works and lives on the 2-acre rescue sanctuary full-time in California, which was featured on The Today Show in a segment titled "From Devil to Angel." Of course, she also makes frequent appearances at horror fan conventions to celebrate the legacy of The Exorcist (1973) .- Actress
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Mariel Hemingway was born on 22 November 1961 in Mill Valley, California, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Manhattan (1979), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) and The Sex Monster (1999). She was previously married to Stephen Crisman.- Actress
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Sylvia Miles was an American actress, born and raised in Greenwich Village, New York City. She was twice nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, without ever winning the Award.
Miles was born under the name "Sylvia Scheinwald". Her parents were furniture maker Reuben Scheinwald and his wife Belle Feldman. Miles attended Washington Irving High School, located in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan. She received her acting education at the Actors Studio, located the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan.
Miles made her theatrical debut in 1947, at the age of 23. She started appearing on television in 1954. Her film debut was the gangster film "Murder, Inc." (1960), dramatizing the career of an organized crime group active from c. 1930 to 1940. The real-life group were enforcers for the National Crime Syndicate, a loose confederation of American crime organizations.
Subsequent film appearances for Miles included the generation-gap themed drama "Parrish" (1961), the serial-killed themed horror film "Violent Midnight" (1963), and the child-labor themed drama "Pie in the Sky" (1964), Meanwhile, Miles lost a chance at television fame, when playing the character of comedy writer Sally Rogers in the 1960 pilot episode "Head of the Family". The pilot was the basis of the popular television show "The Dick Van Dyke Show" (1961-1966), and Sally Rogers was part of the main cast. But in the regular series, Miles was replaced by fellow actress Rose Marie (1923-2017).
Miles had a scene-stealing performance in her next film project, "Midnight Cowboy" (1969). She played Cass, an aging kept woman, who invites Joe Buck (played by Jon Voight) to her apartment for sex. The role allowed Miles to Show off her "voluptuous figure" and overall sex-appeal. For this role, she received her first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Goldie Hawn (1945-).
Miles subsequent films included the meta-fictional drama "The Last Movie" (1971), the mystery film "Who Killed Mary What's 'Er Name?" (1971), and the seduction-themed comedy-drama "Heat" (1972). Her most notable role at the time was that of Jessie Halstead Florian in the crime thriller "Farewell, My Lovely". The film was the second film adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1940 novel, and depicted private detective Philip Marlowe working in a missing-person case. For her role in the film Miles received her second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Lee Grant (c. 1925-).
Miles subsequent films films included the rivalry-themed drama "92 in the Shade" (1975), the period comedy "The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday" (1976), the supernatural horror film "The Sentinel" (1977), the repossession-themed comedy "Zero to Sixty" (1978), and the heist film "Shalimar".
The 1980s opened with Miles playing murdered prostitute Madame Zena in the horror film "The Funhouse" (1981), with the murder setting off the film's main plot. She next played theatrical producer Myra Gardener in the mystery film "Evil Under the Sun" (1982). The film was an adaptation of the 1941 novel by Agatha Christie, and featured Myra as one on the film's murder suspects.
Miles' next few films included hospital-themed comedy "Critical Condition" (1987), the fairy-tale themed fantasy film "Sleeping Beauty" (1987), the romantic comedy "Crossing Delancey" (1988), the mafia-themed comedy-drama "Spike of Bensonhurst" (1988), and the revenge-themed black comedy "She-Devil" (1989). Her most notable role in this period was that of Dolores the Realtor in the corporate-raider themed drama "Wall Street" (1987), a box office hit of the time.
Miles' career slowed down in the 1990s, in part due to her increasingly poor health. She was suffering from anemia and respiratory issues. Her next few films included the friendship-themed comedy "Denise Calls Up" (1995), the marijuana-themed comedy "High Times' Potluck" (2002), and the strip-club themed comedy "Go Go Tales" (2007).
Miles returned to the role Dolores the Realtor in the sequel film "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" (2010). It was her last notable film role. She spend the last months of her life in a nursing home, and died during her transportation to a hospital in 2019. She was 94 years old, one of the oldest living actresses at the time.- Actress
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Phoebe Belle Cates was born on July 16, 1963 in New York City, New York, and raised there. She is the daughter of Lily and Joseph Cates, who was a Broadway producer and television pioneer. Her uncle was director/producer Gilbert Cates. Phoebe is of Russian Jewish, and one quarter Chinese, descent. She studied at Miss Hewitt's school and at the Professional Children's School in New York City. She took classes at Juilliard when she was ten-years-old for three and a half years until a knee injury forced her to stop. Phoebe had been a busy New York model starting at the age of fourteen. She's since been featured on the covers of four Seventeens, two Elle covers, a British Vogue, and Andy Warhol's Interview, as well as in numerous layouts in other magazines. She actively pursued her modeling career, until she met her film agent at a party at New York's Studio 54. She trains with Robert Ravan, founder of The Actors' Circle in New York. Previously she studied with Alice Spivack of the H.B. Studios. Cates made her motion picture debut as Sarah in Paradise (1982) in the same year she starred as Jennifer Jason Leigh's "experienced" confidante in Amy Heckerling's acclaimed Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982). Cates then landed the role of "Christine Ramsey" in Private School (1983), then co-starred in the innovative Gremlins (1984) for Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, directed by Joe Dante. Cates has remained active in theatre, as well. After making her New York debut in Joseph Papp's Off-Broadway production of "The Nest of the Wood Grouse" in 1984, she followed with David Henry Hwang's "Rich Relations" at The Second Stage and a one-act festival at the Manhattan Punchline. On the West Coast, Cates played "Nina" in the La Jolla Playhouse production of Anton Chekhov's "The Sea Gull" and has since appeared in "Much Ado About Nothing" at New York's Public Theatre, and as "Juliet" in Chicago's Goodman Theatre production of "Romeo and Juliet".
Since 1989, Cates has been married to actor Kevin Kline, with whom she has two children.- Actress
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Born in Portland, Oregon, she grew up in on a farm in Ketchum, Idaho. But dad was Jack Hemingway, son of the Nobel prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway and, with that heritage, fame was almost foreordained. By the time she was 21, after the lead in the rape melodrama Lipstick (1976), she had a budding movie career, a $1 million promotional contract with Faberge perfume, and her face on magazine covers around the world. But, within the decade, it was all lost. Her sister Mariel Hemingway, whose role in Lipstick (1976) had been suggested by Margaux, was a much greater success. Margaux had started drinking heavily; two marriages had failed. In 1988, she checked herself into the Betty Ford Center for rehabilitation. Attempts to parley her recovery from alcohol into a revived career failed and, by the time she was 41, almost nothing was left. She lived alone in a studio apartment, no children, no lover, few friends. Neighbors informed police that she had not been seen for days and, on July 1, they entered through a 2nd-floor window. Dental records had to be used to confirm her identity.- Actress
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Statuesque 5'7" blonde beauty Sybil Danning reigns supreme as one of the sexiest, most dynamic, and commanding actresses to achieve cult B-movie queen status. Born in Austria as daughter of US Army major and Austrian mother she grew up on army bases in New Jersey, Maryland and Sacramento, CA.. Sybil started as a model then film debut as the beautiful tragic Lorelei, German legend who threw herself into the Rhine River in despair over a faithless lover then transformed into a siren who lured fishermen to destruction. As Nibelungen princess Kriemhild, she turns she-devil revenges death of her love Siegfried by her brutal Burgundian King brothers. Sybil studied 3 years with noted German drama coach Anne-Marie Hanschke, multiple mainstream European and American movies followed. When offered lead in prestigious Francis Durbridge play for Germany, Switzerland, and Austria; she chose Hollywood instead. Sybil's (Raid on Entebbe) Oscar nominated Best Foreign Film OPERATION THUNDER BOLT, aka MIVTSA JONATAN with Klaus kinski was her calling card. It was her impressive performance as vivacious Valkyrie warrior "St Exmin" for which she won multiple awards, science-fiction cult movie BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS that introduced Sybil to young and old worldwide. A studio contracted Sybil to produce an action figure based on St Exmin with street date April 2021. Male & female fans love her rare beauty, sexiness, & toughness as tough prison inmate, formidable swanky swordfighter, wicked werewolf queen, cunning femme fatale English professor, Queen of the Moon, wicked warden, alien queen, loyal LAPD officer, brave bounty hunter, etc. Sybil has 2 comics, RUGER(TM) currently in discussion for an action TV series. Away for a while due to personal reasons, Tarantino and Rob Zombie brought her back in GRINDHOUSE as Nazi Villain and HALLOWEEN as nasty nurse! Sybil's back in action!- Actress
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Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, comedienne, singer, and model. Monroe is of English, Irish, Scottish and Welsh descent. She became one of the world's most enduring iconic figures and is remembered both for her winsome embodiment of the Hollywood sex symbol and her tragic personal and professional struggles within the film industry. Her life and death are still the subjects of much controversy and speculation.
She was born Norma Jeane Mortenson at the Los Angeles County Hospital on June 1, 1926. Her mother, Gladys Pearl (Monroe), was born in Piedras Negras, Coahuila, Mexico, to American parents from Indiana and Missouri, and was a film-cutter at Consolidated Film Industries. Marilyn's biological father has been established through DNA testing as Charles Stanley Gifford, who had been born in Newport, Rhode Island, to a family with deep roots in the state. Because Gladys was mentally and financially unable to care for young Marilyn, Gladys placed her in the care of a foster family, The Bolenders. Although the Bolender family wanted to adopt Marilyn, Gladys was eventually able to stabilize her lifestyle and took Marilyn back in her care when Marilyn was 7 years old. However, shortly after regaining custody of Marilyn, Gladys had a complete mental breakdown and was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and was committed to a state mental hospital. Gladys spent the rest of her life going in and out of hospitals and rarely had contact with young Marilyn. Once Marilyn became an adult and celebrated as a film star, she paid a woman by the name of Inez Melson to look in on the institutionalized Gladys and give detailed reports of her progress. Gladys outlived her daughter, dying in 1984.
Marilyn was then taken in by Gladys' best friend Grace Goddard, who, after a series of foster homes, placed Marilyn into the Los Angeles Orphan's Home in 1935. Marilyn was traumatized by her experience there despite the Orphan's Home being an adequate living facility. Grace Goddard eventually took Marilyn back to live with her in 1937 although this stay did not last long as Grace's husband began molesting Marilyn. Marilyn went to live with Grace's Aunt Ana after this incident, although due to Aunt Ana's advanced age she could not care properly for Marilyn. Marilyn once again for the third time had to return to live with the Goddards. The Goddards planned to relocated and according to law, could not take Marilyn with them. She only had two choices: return to the orphanage or get married. Marilyn was only 16 years old.
She decided to marry a neighborhood friend named James Dougherty; he went into the military, she modeled, they divorced in 1946. She owned 400 books (including Tolstoy, Whitman, Milton), listened to Beethoven records, studied acting at the Actors' lab in Hollywood, and took literature courses at UCLA downtown. 20th Century Fox gave her a contract but let it lapse a year later. In 1948, Columbia gave her a six-month contract, turned her over to coach Natasha Lytess and featured her in the B movie Ladies of the Chorus (1948) in which she sang three numbers : "Every Baby Needs a Da Da Daddy", "Anyone Can Tell I Love You" and "The Ladies of the Chorus" with Adele Jergens (dubbed by Virginia Rees) and others. Joseph L. Mankiewicz saw her in a small part in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and put her in All About Eve (1950) , resulting in 20th Century re-signing her to a seven-year contract. Niagara (1953) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a sex symbol superstar.
When she went to a supper honoring her in the The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she arrived in a red chiffon gown borrowed from the studio (she had never owned a gown). That same year, she married and divorced baseball great Joe DiMaggio (their wedding night was spent in Paso Robles, California). After The Seven Year Itch (1955) , she wanted serious acting to replace the sexpot image and went to New York's Actors Studio. She worked with director Lee Strasberg and also underwent psychoanalysis to learn more about herself. Critics praised her transformation in Bus Stop (1956) and the press was stunned by her marriage to playwright Arthur Miller . True to form, she had no veil to match her beige wedding dress so she dyed one in coffee; he wore one of the two suits he owned. They went to England that fall where she made The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) with Laurence Olivier , fighting with him and falling further prey to alcohol and pills. Two miscarriages and gynecological surgery followed. So had an affair with Yves Montand . Work on her last picture The Misfits (1961) , written for her by departing husband Miller, was interrupted by exhaustion. She was dropped from the unfinished Something's Got to Give (1962) due to chronic lateness and drug dependency.
On August 4, 1962, Marilyn Monroe's day began with threatening phone calls. Dr. Ralph Greenson, Marilyn's physician, came over the following day and quoted later in a document "Felt it was possible that Marilyn had felt rejected by some of the people she had been close to." Apart from being upset that her publicist slept too long, she seemed fine. Pat Newcombe, who had stayed the previous night at Marilyn's house, left in the early evening as did Greenson who had a dinner date. Marilyn was upset he couldn't stay, and around 7:30pm she telephoned him to say that her second husband's son had called her. Peter Lawford also called Marilyn, inviting her to dinner, but she declined. Lawford later said her speech was slurred. As the evening went on there were other phone calls, including one from Jose Belanos, who said he thought she sounded fine. According to the funeral directors, Marilyn died sometime between 9:30pm and 11:30pm. Her maid unable to raise her but seeing a light under her locked door, called the police shortly after midnight. She also phoned Ralph Greenson who, on arrival, could not break down the bedroom door. He eventually broke in through French windows and found Marilyn dead in bed. The coroner stated she had died from acute barbiturate poisoning, and it was a 'probable suicide' though many conspiracies would follow in the years after her death.- Actress
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Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell was born on June 21, 1921, in Bemidji, Minnesota. Her father was a United States Army lieutenant and her mother had been a student of drama and an actress with a traveling troupe. Once Mr. Russell was mustered out of the service, the family took up residence in Canada but moved to California when he found employment there. The family was well-to-do and although Jane was the only girl among four brothers, her mother saw to it that she took piano lessons. In addition to music, Jane was interested in drama much as her mother had been and participated in high school stage productions. Upon graduation, Jane took a job as a receptionist for a doctor who specialized in foot disorders. Although she had originally planned on being a designer, her father died, and she had to go to work to help the family. Jane modeled on the side and was very much sought-after especially because of her figure.
She managed to save enough money to go to drama school, with the urging of her mother. She was signed by Howard Hughes for his production of The Outlaw (1943) in 1941, the film that was to make Jane famous. The film was not a classic by any means but was geared through its marketing to show off Jane's ample physical assets rather than acting abilities. Although the film was made in 1941, it was not released until two years later and then only on a limited basis due to the way the film portrayed Jane's assets. It was hard for the flick to pass the censorship board. Finally, the film gained general release in 1946. The film was a smash at the box office.
Jane did not make another film until 1945 when she played Joan Kenwood in Young Widow (1946). She had signed a seven-year contract with Hughes, and it seemed the only films he would put her in were those that displayed Jane in a very flattering light due to her body. Films such as His Kind of Woman (1951) and The Las Vegas Story (1952) did nothing to highlight her true acting abilities. The pinnacle of her career was in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) as Dorothy Shaw, with Marilyn Monroe. This film showed Jane's comedic side very well. Jane did continue to make films throughout the 1950s, but the films were at times not up to par, particularly with Jane's talents being wasted in forgettable movies to show off her sexy side. Films such as Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955) and The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) did do Jane's justice and were able to show exactly the fine actress she was.
After The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957) (a flop), Jane took a hiatus from films, to dabble a little in television, returning in 1964 to film Fate Is the Hunter (1964). Unfortunately, the roles were not there anymore as Jane appeared in only four pictures during the entire decade of the 1960s. Her last film of the decade was The Born Losers (1967). After three more years away from the big screen, she returned to make one last film called Darker Than Amber (1970). Her last play before the public was in the 1970s when Jane was a spokesperson for Playtex bras. Had Jane not been wasted during the Hughes years, she could have been a bigger actress than what she was allowed to show. Jane Russell died at age 89 of respiratory failure on February 28, 2011, in Santa Maria, California.- Actress
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Mamie Van Doren was born on 6 February 1931 in Rowena, South Dakota, USA. She is an actress, known for Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), Teacher's Pet (1958) and The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966). She has been married to Thomas Dixon since 26 June 1979. She was previously married to Ross McClintock, Lee Meyers, Ray Anthony and Jack Newman.- Actress
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Mae West was born August 17, 1893 in Brooklyn, New York, to "Battling Jack" West and Matilda Doelger. She began her career as a child star in vaudeville, and later went on to write her own plays, including "SEX", for which she was arrested. Though her first movie role, at age 40, was a small part in Night After Night (1932), her scene has become famous. A coat check girl exclaims, "Goodness! What lovely diamonds!", after seeing Mae's jewelry. Mae replies, "Goodness had nothing to do with it". Her next film, in which she starred, came the following year. She Done Him Wrong (1933) was based on her earlier and very popular play, "Diamond Lil". She went on to write and star in seven more films, including My Little Chickadee (1940) with W.C. Fields. Her last movie was Sextette (1977), which also came from a play. She died on November 22, 1980.- Actress
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Esther Jane Williams was born on August 8, 1921 in Inglewood, California. Her youth was spent as a teenage swimming champion and she won three United States National championships. She eventually was spotted by a MGM talent scout while working in a Los Angeles department store. She made her film debut with MGM in an "Andy Hardy" picture called Andy Hardy's Double Life (1942). She became Mickey Rooney's love interest in the movie, and her character was called Sheila Brooks. Following this movie, stardom was not far away. MGM created a special sub-genre for her known as "Aqua Musicals". Her first swimming role was in Bathing Beauty (1944). This was a simple movie compared to her later big splashes such as Million Dollar Mermaid (1952), co-starring Victor Mature and Walter Pidgeon. Esther Williams was often called "America's Mermaid", as it appeared that she could stay underwater forever!
Following the decline of the once lucrative MGM aqua musical, she attempted dramatic roles. The Unguarded Moment (1956), is one example of this new found dramatic confidence. It co-starred George Nader and John Saxon. Also, The Big Show (1961), co-starring Cliff Robertson and Robert Vaughn was another dramatic role. Overall, Esther's acting skills were limited and, as a musical star in the audience's eyes, she was unsuccessful. She retired from the movie industry in the 1960s, returning as a star guest in That's Entertainment! III (1994) discussing her appearance in MGM films. She certainly is recognized today for bringing enjoyment, escapism and entertainment on the big screen and has also a highly successful business in swimwear. Occasional television work discussing her contribution to the film industry is a treat for her fans from time to time.
Esther Williams died at age 91 in her sleep on June 6, 2013 in her home in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
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Mary Sean Young was born on November 20, 1959 in Louisville, Kentucky. She is the daughter of Lee Guthrie (née Mary Lee Kane), an Emmy-nominated producer, screenwriter, public relations executive, and journalist, and Donald Young, Jr., an Emmy award winning television news producer and journalist. She has Irish, English, and Swiss-German ancestry. She grew up with an older brother Donald Young III and a sister Cathleen Young in Cleveland, Ohio. She attended Cleveland Heights High School, and then transferred to and graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy. A trained dancer, she studied at the School of American Ballet in New York City, and did some modeling. Sean Young began a promising film career by acting in a Merchant-Ivory film Jane Austen in Manhattan (1980) for Academy Award winning director James Ivory, She followed that up in the comedy hit film Stripes (1981) for Academy Award nominated producer-director Ivan Reitman. Soon, important directors were casting her in their films, such as Garry Marshall in Young Doctors in Love (1982), Academy Award nominee David Lynch in Dune (1984), and Academy Award nominee Ridley Scott in Blade Runner (1982) in what is her most respected film. 1987 was a big year for her, since she appeared in two big movies. Academy Award winner Oliver Stone cast her in the hit film Wall Street (1987). However, her other hit film No Way Out (1987), which involved a famous steamy scene in the backseat of a limousine with Kevin Costner, gave her star status. She was at the height of her fame, which led to her being cast as Vicky Vale in Batman (1989). She had an accident while she was training for the film. As a result, she lost the role to Kim Basinger for what turned out to be the biggest hit of 1989. Young put on a brave face and gamely moved on to do comedies Fatal Instinct (1993) for director Carl Reiner, and Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), the latter's box office success made Jim Carrey a star, who immediately landed the role of the Riddler in the Batman sequel. Mary Sean Young is living in Austin, Texas. She created a new business venture called Austin Film Tours. It is Austin's first and only film location tour.- Actress
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Of Irish, English, and Scottish descent, Maureen Paula O'Sullivan was born on May 17, 1911 in Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland. Her father was Charles Joseph O'Sullivan, an officer in the Connaught Rangers, and his wife, the former Mary Fraser (or Frazer). She was educated at Catholic schools in Dublin, Paris, and London (Convent of the Sacred Heart, Roehampton, where a fellow student was fellow future actress Vivien Leigh). Even as a schoolgirl, Maureen desired an acting career, despite her father's initial opposition. She studied hard and read widely. When the opportunity to be an actress came along, it almost dropped in her lap. American film director Frank Borzage was in Dublin in 1929, filming Song o' My Heart (1930), when the 18 year old met him. He suggested a screen test, which she took. The results were more than favorable and she won the substantial role of Eileen O'Brien, then went to Hollywood to complete filming.
Once in sunny California, Maureen wasted no time landing roles in other films such as Just Imagine (1930), The Princess and the Plumber (1930), and So This Is London (1930). She was perhaps MGM's most popular ingenue throughout the 1930s in a number of non-Tarzan vehicles. In 1932, she teamed up with Olympic medal winner Johnny Weissmuller for the first time in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932), as Jane Parker. Five other Tarzan films followed, the last being Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942). The Tarzan epics rank as one of the most memorable series ever made. Most people agree that those movies would not have been as successful as they were, had it not been for the talent, grace, and radiant beauty of O'Sullivan. But she was more than Jane Parker. She went on to roles in such films as The Flame Within (1935), David Copperfield (1935), and Anna Karenina (1935). She turned in another fine performance in Pride and Prejudice (1940). After the 1940s, however, she made fewer films, primarily for personal reasons, i.e. caring for her large family.
It isn't always easy to walk away from a lucrative career, but O'Sullivan did because she wanted to devote more time to her husband, John Farrow, an Australian-American writer, and their seven children: Michael, Patrick, Maria (a.k.a. Mia Farrow), John, Prudence, Theresa (a.k.a. Tisa Farrow), and Stephanie Farrow. The couple were married from 1936 until his death in 1963. After her last Tarzan venture she asked for release from her contract to care for her husband who had just left the U.S. Navy with typhoid. She did not retire completely and still found time to make occasional movies and television programs, as well as operate a bridal consulting service (Wediquette International).
O'Sullivan made her Broadway debut opposite Paul Ford in "Never Too Late" (November 27, 1962-April 24, 1965), a great success. She would appear on Broadway again in various vehicles through 1981, and later also co-produced two Broadway productions. Later movie patrons remember her as Elizabeth Alvorg in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986) (playing opposite fellow silver screen film veteran Leon Ames). Her final celluloid role was in The River Pirates (1988). Some made-for-television movies followed and she retired completely in 1996, two years before her death in Scottsdale, Arizona on June 23, 1998 during heart surgery. She was 87 years old.- Producer
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Robin Roberts was born on 23 November 1960 in Tuskegee, Alabama, USA. She is a producer and actress, known for The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017), He Got Game (1998) and Pitch Perfect 2 (2015). She has been married to Amber Laign since 8 September 2023.- Actress
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Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1940), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies.- Writer
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Rita Lakin was born on 24 January 1930. She was a writer and producer, known for Mod Squad (1968), Executive Suite (1976) and The Invaders (1967). She died on 23 March 2023.- Actress
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Born in Bristol, England, Veronica is the older sister of the popular child actress Angela Cartwright. In her early career, Veronica was cast in a number of popular movies such as William Wyler's The Children's Hour (1961), Spencer's Mountain (1963) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). As such, she was cast as "Jemima Boone" in the popular television series Daniel Boone (1964), which ran from 1964 to 66. Her career after "Daniel Boone" may have been influenced by Hitchcock, since she appeared in both the remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and the horror classic Alien (1979). On television, she appeared twice as Lumpy's younger sister, "Violet Rutherford" and once as "Peggy MacIntosh" on Leave It to Beaver (1957) and had a small role in the television movie Still the Beaver (1983).
Cartwright also appeared in Robert Kennedy and His Times (1985), Tanner '88 (1988) and had a recurring role on L.A. Law (1986). Her big screen features included The Right Stuff (1983), Flight of the Navigator (1986) and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). Veronica worked on the stage in "Electra", "Talley's Folly", "Homesteaders", "Butterflies are Free" and "The Triplet Connection". Alternating between television and big screen movies in the 90s, Cartwright has appeared in such films as Hitler's Daughter (1990) and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995).- Actress
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Mariette Hartley was born Mary Loretta, a name she dislikes, in Weston, Connecticut. She was raised in accordance with the principles espoused by her behavioral psychologist grandfather, John B. Watson, who believed that children should never be held or cuddled. She says that the lack of warmth at home is what drove her to the theatre. She studied with John Houseman at the Repertory Stratford and with Eva Le Gallienne at Lucille Lortel's White Barn Theatre. It took her six years to get her first movie, Ride the High Country (1962) with Joel McCrea. She then made a series of TV appearances and sitcoms. She is most known, however, for her series of Polaroid commercials with James Garner. Mariette's father committed suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot in 1962. Her family kept it a secret for 25 years, but she eventually revealed the incident. This brought her considerable acclaim for speaking out about her devastation. She co-founded a suicide prevention foundation based on her own past situation. She continues to work in the theatre and, in 2000, was hosting the syndicated Wild About Animals (1995). Her children, Justine E. Boyriven (b. 1978) is an actress and singer, and Sean Boyriven (b. 1975) is a film-school graduate.- Producer
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During the 1950s and 1960s, she made dozens of guest appearances on such television programs as The Twilight Zone (1959), Dr. Kildare (1961), The Felony Squad (1966), Gunsmoke (1955), Daniel Boone (1964), and Mannix (1967). She had a short role as Doris Schuster on Peyton Place (1964). She also appeared on daytime's Bright Promise (1969) as Ann Boyd Jones (1970-1972). Kobe began to work behind the camera as supervising producer and associate producer on such daytime programs as The Edge of Night (1956) and Return to Peyton Place (1972). In 1982 she became executive producer of Texas (1980) during its final few months. She then became executive producer of Guiding Light (1952) where she stayed from 1982 to 1987.- Actress
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Jeanne Cooper was born on 25 October 1928 in Taft, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Young and the Restless (1973), Ben Casey (1961) and Kansas City Bomber (1972). She was married to Harry Bernsen. She died on 8 May 2013 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Barbara Hershey was born Barbara Lynn Herzstein in Hollywood, California, to Melrose (Moore) and Arnold Nathan Herzstein, a horse racing columnist. Her father, born in Manhattan, was from a Jewish family (from Hungary and Russia), and her mother, originally from Arkansas, had English and Scots-Irish ancestry. Hershey was raised in a small bungalow, and had aspirations of being an actress from her earliest memories.
The multi-award-winning actress has been in some of Hollywood's most memorable films. She has been a winner of an Emmy and a Golden Globe for A Killing in a Small Town (1990). She won two consecutive Best Actress awards at the Cannes Film Festival, (which is unprecedented) for Shy People (1987) and A World Apart (1988). She won a Gemini Award for Anne of Green Gables: A New Beginning (2008) for PBS and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Vienna International Film Festival.
Hershey was nominated for an Academy Award for The Portrait of a Lady (1996).
She's worked with some of the world's great directors, among them: Martin Scorsese, William Wyler, Woody Allen, Jane Campion and Darren Aronofsky.
The versatile actress was first discovered by a talent agent while she was attending Hollywood High School. She began working in television, The Monroes (1966), and film, With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), with Doris Day. And with roles in The Baby Maker (1970) and Boxcar Bertha (1972), Hershey quickly advanced to starring roles.
The 1980's catapulted Hershey's film career, when she starred in The Stunt Man (1980) with Peter O'Toole, The Entity (1982), The Right Stuff (1983), The Natural (1984) with Robert Redford, Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) with Woody Allen, Hoosiers (1986) with Gene Hackman, Tin Men (1987), Shy People (1987), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), A World Apart (1988) and Beaches (1988) with Bette Midler.
Hershey returned to television in 1990 with her highly-lauded performance in A Killing in a Small Town (1990), Paris Trout (1991), Return to Lonesome Dove (1993), the British mini-series, Daniel Deronda (2002) and the last season of Chicago Hope (1994).
During the same period, Hershey remained active in features. She was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe for The Portrait of a Lady (1996). She also starred in Merchant-Ivory's A Soldier's Daughter Never Cries (1998) and the award-winning Australian film, Lantana (2001).
In the 2010 years, Hershey has performed in James Wan's cult-hit, Insidious (2010) and Darren Aronofsky's award-winning Black Swan (2010), playing Natalie Portman's insane mother.
Hershey resides in Los Angeles.- Marj Dusay was born on 20 February 1936 in Hays, Kansas, USA. She was an actress, known for All My Children (1970), Guiding Light (1952) and Star Trek (1966). She was married to Thomas Allen Perine Jr. and John Murray Dusay. She died on 28 January 2020 in New York City, New York, USA.
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Jill Ireland was a British-American actress best known for her appearance as "Leila Kalomi," the only woman Mr. Spock ever loved (in the Star Trek (1966) episode, This Side of Paradise (1967)) and for her many supporting roles in the movies of Charles Bronson. She is also known for her battle with breast cancer, having written two books on her fight with the disease and serving as a spokesperson for the American Cancer Society.
Jill Dorothy Ireland was born in London on April 24, 1936, to wine merchant Jack Ireland and his wife Dorothy, who were fated to outlive their daughter. Young Jill started her entertainment career at age 16 as a dancer, and made her screen debut in 1955, in Michael Powell's Oh... Rosalinda!! (1955). On May 11, 1957, she married actor David McCallum, whom she met on the set of the Stanley Baker action picture Hell Drivers (1957). In the mid-'60s, they moved to the United States so McCallum could star as agent "Ilya Kuryakin" in the TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). She got steady work on American television and would co-star with her husband in five episode of the series in 1964, 1965 and 1967.
Ireland separated from McCallum, with whom she had two biological sons and one adopted son, in June 1965. He filed for divorce in August 1966, and it was finalized in February 1967. On October 5, 1968, she married Charles Bronson, who was 15 years her senior and still several years away from coming into his own as a leading man. They had first met when McCallum introduced them on the set of The Great Escape (1963). With Bronson, she had two children, a daughter born to the couple in 1971, and an adopted daughter. They first co-starred together in the 1970 French movie Rider on the Rain (1970), which made Bronson a major star in Europe (she had first played an uncredited bit part in his movie London Affair (1970), released that same year). They starred in 13 more pictures over the next 17 years, a period during which Bronson and Ireland rivaled Clint Eastwood and Sondra Locke as the most prolific screen couple. During her marriage to Bronson, Ireland appeared in only one TV episode, one TV movie and one theatrical picture that didn't star her husband.
She was diagnosed with cancer in her right breast in 1984 and underwent a mastectomy. She wrote about her battle and became an advocate for the American Cancer Society, which led to the organization giving her its Courage Award. Ireland was presented with the award by President Ronald Reagan. Tragically, she lost her battle with the disease after it metastasized and died at her home in Malibu, California, on May 18, 1990, aged only 54. She was survived by her husband, children, stepchildren, parents, brother, and extended family.- Actress
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Actress Carole Cook showed a knack for comic timing from early on, so much so that the legendary Lucille Ball took her on as a protégée. Cook would make many appearances on Ball's TV shows The Lucy Show (1962) and Here's Lucy (1968), as well as other shows like Magnum, P.I. (1980), Dynasty (1981), and Grey's Anatomy (2005). She would also appear in several movies, like Sixteen Candles (1984) and Home on the Range (2004), while maintaining an active stage career and supporting many AIDS charities.- A flashy, aggressive, cold and calculating villainess and eternally hopeless meddler on a number of daytime soap operas, Louise Sorel has given her opulent, show-stopping characters major doses of humor and grit that have allowed her to become one of daytime's more popular figures for over six decades.
Of Jewish heritage, Louise, whose roots are in theatre, was born on August 6, 1940 in Los Angeles to entertainment professionals. Studying at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, she made her Broadway debut playing a teenager in the 1961 comedy "Take Her, She's Mine" starring Art Carney and also had subsequent roles in "Lorenzo" (1963) and "Man and Boy" (1963). Her initial interest obviously was sparked by her actress/concert pianist mother Jeanne Sorel, and father Albert J. Cohen, who produced films in the 1940s and 1950s. Louise went on to co-star on Broadway with Rita Moreno in "The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window" in 1964 and appeared with George C. Scott and Colleen Dewhurst as Princess Alais in the 1967 Bucks County Playhouse production of "The Lion in Winter."
Given a bit part (billed as Jacqueline Sorel) in the exploitation teen film Eighteen and Anxious (1957), Louise, in 1964, married comic actor Herb Edelman, best known for his recurring role of Bea Arthur's ex husband Stan in The Golden Girls (1985). Around this time, she began setting her sights on TV drama, appearing on various dramatic shows including "Dr. Kildare," "The Defenders," "The Trials of O'Brien," "Route 66," "The Rat Patrol," "The Virginian," "Run for Your Life," "Star Trek," "The Big Valley," "The Fugitive," "Night Gallery," "The Bold Ones," "Banacek," "Hawaii Five-0," "Owen Marshall," "Kojak," "Hart to Hart," "The Incredible Hulk," "Ironside" and several episodes of "Medical Center," as well as a recurring part on the short-lived nighttime soap opera The Survivors (1969) starring Lana Turner and George Hamilton. In a change of pace, Louise turned to comedy as Don Rickles' wife on his poorly-received series The Don Rickles Show (1972).
Though she divorced Edelman in 1972, Louise nevertheless co-starred with him again in the failed sitcom Ladies' Man (1980). She met second husband actor Ken Howard in 1972 while appearing with him in a Philadelphia stage production of "Volpone." They married a year later but divorced a couple of years later in 1975.
Appearing in support in the films Plaza Suite (1971), Every Little Crook and Nanny (1972), Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Where the Boys Are (1984), and Crimes of Passion (1984), Louise moved quite steadily ahead not only with a regular role in the short-lived comedy series Ladies' Man (1980), but with co-star/featured roles in the TV movies The Girl Who Came Gift-Wrapped (1974), The Mark of Zorro (1974), When Every Day Was the Fourth of July (1978), Mazes and Monsters (1982), Sunset Limousine (1983) and A Masterpiece of Murder (1986).
Various daytime soap operas reinvigorated Louise's career tenfold in the late 1980s. She began her road to sudsy infamy in 1984 as the eccentric archvillainess Augusta Lockridge for the entire run of Santa Barbara (1984). From there she was given recurring roles as Judith Sanders on One Life to Live (1968) and as Donatella Stewart Port Charles (1997). In 1992, Louise joined the cast of Days of Our Lives (1965) as the manipulative Vivian Alamain. By the time she left in 2000, she had won five Soap Opera Digest Awards.
More recently, Louise has had devilish fun in the quirky soap Passions (1999) and in a recurring role on the political drama Beacon Hill (2014). - Blue-eyed, blonde, demure-looking 50s leading lady, the daughter of screenwriter Stephen Morehouse Avery and his wife Evelyn. Phyllis was said to have spent her childhood in France and in California. After graduating, she studied acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and first appeared on Broadway in 'Orchids Preferred' in 1937. Her screen debut happened quite a long time later in Queen for a Day (1951), adapted from a popular daytime Mutual Broadcasting Company radio program. In her next film, the high voltage melodrama Ruby Gentry (1952), she was cast as 'the other woman' (the one of 'socially acceptable' standing) opposite muscular Charlton Heston and fiery Jennifer Jones. Her only other notable big screen outing was the musical biopic The Best Things in Life Are Free (1956) in which she played the wife of composer/songwriter Ray Henderson. When interviewed, Phyllis balked at being called 'sweet' and proudly proclaimed to have played plenty of bad girls, at least on television (citing an episode of Peter Gunn (1958) in which she tries to frame her gangster husband for murder). Still, she remained typically featured as wholesome gals, never more so than as Peggy McNutley (the name was changed to 'McNulty' in season 2), wife of a punctilious, hopelessly absent-minded English and Drama (Ray Milland) professor at a fictitious all-girls college in The Ray Milland Show (1953). Phyllis continued her career as a prolific guest star of TV anthologies and crime dramas and reinvented herself as a successful real estate broker in west L.A. during the 60s (often selling houses to people she had worked with in her acting past). Her second husband was Don Taylor with whom she had once co-starred on Broadway in a 1943 U.S. Army Air Forces production of 'Winged Victory'.
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Virginia Gregg was born on 6 March 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Operation Petticoat (1959), Police Story (1973) and Crime in the Streets (1956). She was married to Jaime Del Valle. She died on 15 September 1986 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Arguably best remembered for her role as Miss Ellie, the Ewing family matriarch on the long-running TV series Dallas (1978), Barbara Bel Geddes had earlier scored success on stage and screen long before gaining more lasting fame on television. She was born in New York City on Halloween Day 1922, the daughter of noted theatrical and industrial designer Norman Bel Geddes, who staged more than 200 plays. After growing up amidst the theatre, Bel Geddes began acting on stage at age 18 and soon moved on to Broadway. The silver screen also beckoned; she made her film debut in The Long Night (1947). She was quickly labeled a star, gracing the cover of Life magazine on April 12, 1948. Her third motion picture, I Remember Mama (1948), garnered Bel Geddes an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. Other notable films include Panic in the Streets (1950) directed by Elia Kazan; Alfred Hitchcock's classic mystery-thriller Vertigo (1958) with James Stewart and Kim Novak; and The Five Pennies (1959) opposite Danny Kaye. Though she achieved immediate success in films, Bel Geddes also continued to tread the boards on Broadway, since theatre was her first love. In 1952, she received the prestigious Woman of the Year Award from Hasty Pudding Theatricals USA, America's oldest theater company. She was nominated for Tony Awards as best dramatic actress for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1956 and for the lead in Mary, Mary in 1961. Bel Geddes made several TV appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) and other programs in the mid 1950s, but her greatest television role came as Miss Ellie Ewing Farlow on Dallas (1978), which enjoyed a run of 13 years (1978-1991). She won the Emmy Award for best actress in 1980 and was nominated in the same category in 1979 and 1981. Bel Geddes left the show for health reasons during the 1984-85 season, with Donna Reed taking over the role of Miss Ellie. Bel Geddes returned for the 1985-86 season and continued on Dallas (1978) until 1990, when she effectively retired from acting. She did not appear in either of the two Dallas TV reunion movies. On August 8, 2005, she died following a long illness.- Actress
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Undoubtedly the woman who had come to epitomize what we recognize today as "celebrity," Zsa Zsa Gabor, is better known for her many marriages, personal appearances, her "dahlink" catchphrase, her actions, gossip, and quotations on men, rather than her film career.
Zsa Zsa was born as Sári Gabor on February 6, 1917 in Budapest, Hungary, to Jolie Gabor (née Janka Tilleman) and Vilmos Gabor (born Farkas Miklós Grün), both of Jewish descent. Her siblings were Eva Gabor and Magda Gabor. Zsa Zsa studied at a Swiss finishing school, was second runner-up in the fifth Miss Hungary pageant, and began her stage career in Vienna in 1934. In 1941, the year she obtained her first divorce, she followed younger sister Eva to Hollywood.
A radiant, beautiful blonde, Zsa Zsa began to appear on television series and occasional films. Her first film was at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in Lovely to Look At (1952), co-starring Kathryn Grayson and Red Skelton. She next made a comedy called We're Not Married! (1952) at 20th Century Fox with Ginger Rogers. It was far from a star billing; she appeared several names down the cast as a supporting actress. But in 1952 she broke into films big time with her starring role opposite José Ferrer in Moulin Rouge (1952), although it has been said that throughout filming, director John Huston gave her a very difficult time.
In the following years, Zsa Zsa slipped back into supporting roles in films such as Lili (1953) and 3 Ring Circus (1954). Her main period of film work was in the 1950s, with other roles in Death of a Scoundrel (1956), with Yvonne De Carlo, and The Man Who Wouldn't Talk (1958) with Anna Neagle; again, these were supporting roles. By the 1960s, Zsa Zsa was appearing more as herself in films. She now appeared to follow her own persona around, and cameo appearances were the order of the day in films such as Pepe (1960) and Jack of Diamonds (1967). This continued throughout the 1970s.
She was memorable as herself in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991), in which she humorously poked fun at a 1989 incident where she was convicted of slapping a police officer (Paul Kramer) during a traffic stop. She spent three days in jail and had to do 120 hours of community service. Such infamous incidents contributed to her becoming one of the most all-time recognizable of Hollywood celebrities, and sometimes ridiculed as a result. She was also memorable to British television viewers on The Ruby Wax Show (1997).
In 2002, Gabor was reported to be in a coma in a Los Angeles hospital after a horrifying car accident. The 85-year-old star was injured when the car she was traveling in hit a utility pole in West Hollywood, California. The reports about her coma eventually proved to be inaccurate.
Zsa Zsa's life, spanning two continents, nine husbands, and 11 decades, came to an end on December 18, 2016, when she died of cardiac arrest in Los Angeles, California. She was 99.- Actress
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Zooey Deschanel's quirky charm, striking blue eyes, and distinctively offbeat humor have made her one of the most beloved indie darlings of recent decades. Hailing from a renowned entertainment family, she began her career in the late 1990s. Deschanel's talent shines through her diverse roles, encompassing both comedic and dramatic territory, as well as her musical abilities.
After a brief guest appearance on the sitcom 'Veronica's Closet,' Deschanel made her feature film debut in Lawrence Kasdan's 'Mumford' (1999). Her breakout role came courtesy of Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical 'Almost Famous' (2000), where she portrayed the enigmatic Anita Miller, the older sister of the film's protagonist. Deschanel effortlessly embodies the rebellious and free-spirited youth of the 1970s rock scene. Her nuanced performance in 'Almost Famous' solidified her status as a rising star.
Deschanel's reputation is built on her ability to portray endearingly awkward and unconventional female characters. Her portrayal of the heartbroken yet resilient Summer Finn in '(500) Days of Summer' (2009) became an iconic portrayal of unconventional romance in the 21st-century. Her deadpan delivery and self-aware humor found perfect expression in her most well-known role, Jessica Day, in the hit sitcom 'New Girl' (2011 - 2018). As the bubbly and optimistic school teacher who moves in with three male roommates, she quickly became a beloved television icon, earning numerous award nominations for her performance.
While widely recognized for her comedic roles, Deschanel has also proven her dramatic chops in independent films such as 'All the Real Girls' (2003). This critically-acclaimed film earned her recognition for authentically portraying a young woman navigating a complex relationship. She further demonstrated her versatility with the role of Trillian in the science-fiction comedy 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'(2005), demonstrating her ability to adapt to fantastical and quirky settings.
Deschanel's off-screen talents extend to her musical abilities. She often showcases her singing in films and television, notably in 'Elf' (2003) where her rendition of 'Baby, It's Cold Outside' with Will Ferrell is a holiday classic. She also starred in the television adaptation of 'Once Upon a Mattress' (2005). Deschanel formed the musical duo 'She & Him' in 2006 with singer-songwriter M. Zooey Claire Deschanel, is an American actress and musician.
Ward, where her retro-inspired vocals and songwriting talents have produced multiple successful albums.
Beyond acting and music, Deschanel has become a multi-faceted figure in popular culture. Her co-founding of the women-focused digital media company HelloGiggles in 2011 demonstrated her entrepreneurial spirit and desire to empower women. Her carefully curated personal style, often featuring vintage-inspired pieces, has also earned her recognition as a fashion icon.
Deschanel's career has continued to thrive in recent years. She lent her voice to the animated film 'Trolls' (2016) and its sequel 'Trolls World Tour' (2020), playing the cheerful and optimistic Princess Bridget. She also took on supporting roles in films like 'Rock the Kasbah' (2015) and 'The Driftless Area' (2015). Alongside her continued musical endeavors, Deschanel remains an active figure on television, hosting 'The Celebrity Dating Game' (2021).
Looking ahead, Deschanel has several projects in development. She's attached to star in 'Dreamin' Wild', a biopic where she will portray legendary singer-songwriter Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas. Deschanel is also slated to make a return to dramatic territory with the film 'Harold and the Purple Crayon,' a live-action adaptation of the beloved children's book. Her continued willingness to experiment across genres solidifies her place as a dynamic and enduring talent in the entertainment world.
With her endearing personality, comedic timing, and the ability to imbue both quirky and serious characters with depth and heart, Zooey Deschanel has built a captivating and enduring career. Her contributions to film, television, and music have earned her a devoted following and a position as a beloved figure in popular culture. As she ventures into new projects, Deschanel continues to captivate audiences with her unique blend of charm, talent, and undeniable individuality.- Actress
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Zoe Saldana was born on June 19, 1978 in Passaic, New Jersey, to Asalia Nazario and Aridio Saldaña. Her father was Dominican and her mother is Puerto Rican. She was raised in Queens, New York. When she was 10 years old, she and her family moved to the Dominican Republic, where they would live for the next seven years. While living there, Zoe discovered a keen interest in performance dance and began her training at the prestigious ECOS Espacio de Danza Dance Academy where she learned ballet as well as other dance forms. Not only did her training provide an excellent outlet for the enthusiastic and energetic youngster, it would also prove to be a fortunate precursor for the start of her professional acting career. At age 17, Zoe and her family moved back to the United States where her love for dance followed and an interest in theater performance became stronger.
She began performing with the Faces theater troupe which put on plays geared to provide positive messages for teens with themes dealing with issues such as substance abuse and sex. These performances not only gave her valuable experience but also a source of great pride knowing that she was making a difference in the lives of young people like herself. While performing with the Faces troupe and also the New York Youth Theater, Zoe was recruited for a talent agency and her dance training years before coupled with her acting experience greatly helped her land her first big screen role as Eva Rodriguez, the talented and headstrong ballet dancer in the film Center Stage (2000). Since her professional career began several years ago, Zoe's talent and determination have allowed her to be involved in blockbuster films and act with major actors, actresses and industry insiders at a pace that very few young professionals have experienced.
Zoe has not only held her own in major motion picture productions but gained the respect and praise from industry insiders such as Jerry Bruckheimer and Steven Spielberg and actors/actresses such as Tom Hanks, Bernie Mac, Keira Knightley, Ashton Kutcher, Kirsten Dunst and Orlando Bloom. According to many of her co-stars, producers and directors, the sky is no limit for this young star who has incredible range, intense concentration, and a steely determination to be involved with projects that challenge her professionally with wide-ranging subject matters and characters. Just to ask practically anyone who she has worked for or with about her, glowing comments abound and earned friendships and respect are readily revealed. A star has been born, and growing every day.- Actress
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Zoe McLellan is an American television actress, known for roles in JAG, Dirty Sexy Money, NCIS: New Orleans (2014-2016) and Designated Survivor. McLellan was born in La Jolla, California, and raised in Washington. In 1992, she was homecoming queen at South Kitsap High School in Port Orchard, Washington.- Mary Fickett was born on 23 May 1928 in Bronxville, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for All My Children (1970), The Nurses (1965) and Kathy O' (1958). She was married to Allen Fristoe, Jay Leonard Scheer and James Congdon. She died on 8 September 2011 in Callao, Virginia, USA.
- The daughter of a United Press executive, Mala Powers attended the Max Reinhardt Junior Workshop as a kid and fell in love with acting the first time she set foot on a stage. She made her film debut in Universal's 1942 Tough As They Come (1942) before actress Helene Thimig (Max Reinhardt's wife) convinced her to continue studying rather than become a child actress. Powers worked in radio ("Cisco Kid", "Red Ryder", "This Is Your F.B.I.", "Lux Radio Theater", "Screen Guild on the Air") and met actress Ida Lupino while working on the latter show; Lupino auditioned and approved Powers for the top role in Outrage (1950), made by Lupino's Filmmakers production company. Powers' promising career was derailed by illness in the early '50s; when she resumed work, it was as the "B queen" of Westerns and sci-fi flicks (and much TV). For many years she has been lecturing on and teaching the Michael Chekhov acting technique throughout the U.S.
- Lesley Woods was born on 22 August 1910 in Berwick, Iowa, USA. She was an actress, known for Nurse Betty (2000), Battlestar Galactica (1978) and Young Dr. Malone (1958). She was married to Richard McMurray. She died on 2 August 2003 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Brooke Bundy was born on 8 August 1943 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987), A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) and Mission: Impossible (1966). She was previously married to Peter Helm.- Actress
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Kathleen Freeman's introduction to show business came very early in life. Her parents were vaudevillians, and she made her debut at age 2 in their act. Later she attended UCLA with intentions of becoming a pianist, but was bitten by the acting bug and never looked back. She gained experience on stage in various stock and repertory companies, and made her film debut in 1948. One of the most memorable character actresses in recent memory, her stocky build, incredibly expressive face and hearty laugh have kept audiences convulsed for decades, playing a variety of neighborhood gossips, busybodies and eccentrics. Memorable as Sister Mary Stigmata ("The Penguin"), Dan Aykroyd's and John Belushi's nemesis, in The Blues Brothers (1980). She was used as a comic foil by Jerry Lewis in many of his films, always to great advantage. She did much television work, playing in everything from The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) to Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964) to Hogan's Heroes (1965) to Married... with Children (1987), where she was the voice of Peg's monstrous but never-seen mother, Al Bundy's nemesis. She was working on Broadway in a production of "The Full Monty" when she died of lung cancer in 2001.- Actress
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This most consummate, vibrant and versatile actress established a distinguished reputation on the stage, in films and on TV. The former Miss Chicago of 1948 beauty pageant winner and Miss America semifinalist was born in Oak Park, Illinois. Her family was impoverished and her parents divorced early on. Young Lois used make-believe to escape her reality by creating small plays in her backyard, which led to an affinity with the idea of acting. Having set her sights on the stage she joined a community theatre at the tender age of eleven and appeared on local radio and television. She later continued her training at Chicago's Goodman Theatre and then studied 'the method' at the Actors' Studio in New York City, eventually making her Broadway debut in Dalton Trumbo's "The Biggest Thief in Town" (1948) using the stage moniker "Lydia Scott" (her given name, she felt, was too plain and sounded "schoolmarmy").
Lois was understudy to Barbara Bel Geddes for the role of "Maggie the Cat" in the original 1955 Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer-Prize winning "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", staged by Elia Kazan. Occasionally, she got to play "Maggie", herself. Of her (own personal favourite) role as Blanche DuBois in the 1973 stage production of "A Streetcar Named Desire", New York Times critic Clive Barnes wrote: ""Miss Nettleton plays Blanche as a woman of nearly unshatterable courage." Williams himself called her one of the greatest actresses with whom he had ever worked. Not surprisingly then, that the self-confessed method actress went on to win the prestigious Clarence Derwent Award for her performance in "God and Kate Murphy".
Lois was married for seven years to Jean Shepherd, a radio host and television humorist. She and Shepherd clicked after she called his nightly radio show at WOR in the 1950s and the beguiled Shepherd broadcast their telephone conversations on the air. They later appeared together in Shepherd's off-Broadway play "Look Charlie" in 1959.
While her official film debut came in the 1962 adaptation of Tennessee Williams's "Period of Adjustment", Lois had previously played a bit part in Elia Kazan's classic A Face in the Crowd (1957), scripted by Budd Schulberg. She subsequently acted in many movies, but most of her best work was on stage and in television where she appeared in everything from sitcoms to soap operas. In a 1985 interview she referred to herself as 'a gypsy actress', saying "I always wanted to be as different in everything as possible". Consistently selective, on the lookout for 'interesting' characters and mature roles to play, she tackled pretty much every genre -- even playing one of Londo Mollari's bitchy wives in Babylon 5 (1993). She gave a particularly fine performances in the classic 1961 "Midnight Sun" episode of The Twilight Zone (1959). She declared her own personal favourite screen role to have been that of the Israeli prosecutor (opposite Maximilian Schell) in the American Film Theater production of The Man in the Glass Booth (1975). Roger Ebert for the New York Times wrote "She has a steadiness and intelligence and doesn't back down. She's the closest thing the film has to a moral center."
A charming and gracious actress, Lois was nominated six-times for Emmy Awards. She won twice for her TV work: for the daytime special The American Woman: Portraits of Courage (1976) and for "A Gun for Mandy" (1983), an episode of the syndicated religious anthology Insight (1960).- Dorothy Green was born on 12 January 1920 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Big Heat (1953), Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1963) and Tammy (1965). She was married to Dr. Arthur Leo Heller, Sidney Miller, Dr. Sidney Green and William Wade Woodson. She died on 8 May 2008 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Vibrant, increasingly lovely teen fave Shelley Fabares withstood the test of time by transitioning successfully into adult parts unlike many of her 1960s "teen queen" peers who faded quickly into the memory books. She was born Michele Marie Fabares on January 19, 1944, in sunny Santa Monica, California, the daughter of Elsa Rose (Eyler) and James Alan Fabares. As the niece of singer/comedienne Nanette Fabray, she was indoctrinated early into the show biz life. Tap dancing from age three, she also modeled during her elementary school and began appearing on such TV shows as Captain Midnight (1954) and Annie Oakley (1954) (the latter a recurring role). At age 12, she made her professional film debut in the Rock Hudson/Cornell Borchers tearjerker Never Say Goodbye (1956) as Hudson's daughter, and went on to play kid sister roles in the rock 'n' roll-themed Rock, Pretty Baby! (1956) and its sequel Summer Love (1958) both starring John Saxon.
Teen-idol status came with her coming-of-age role as the ever-wholesome daughter "Mary Stone" on The Donna Reed Show (1958), a part she played for five seasons before embarking on a more grown-up film career. During the run of the classic sitcom, she and TV "brother" Paul Petersen grew so popular that they sprinted to adjoining pop singing celebrity, although both admitted that their vocal talents were limited. Shelley especially enjoyed a #1 Billboard hit with the breathy, sultry-edged "Johnny Angel." The character of "Mary Stone" was gently phased out of the show as her character "left for college."
By this time, Shelley had turned into quite a curvaceous stunner. Her acting mettle hardly tested, she managed to become part of the bikini-clad blonde set with top femme parts in such fun-and-frolic fare as Ride the Wild Surf (1964), Hold On! (1966), which was a vehicle for British singing sensation Peter Noone of Herman's Hermits, and three of Elvis Presley's less-acclaimed vehicles of the later 1960s: Girl Happy (1965), Spinout (1966) and Clambake (1967).
A serious Vietnam-era stream of consciousness began to pervade film audiences in the late 1960s and Shelley's perky innocence that found so much favor during the Camelot years had lost its appeal. After a notoriously dry spell, she bounced back as the altruistic wife of a dying footballer "Brian Piccolo" in Brian's Song (1971), opposite James Caan, and settled comfortably again on the small screen with bright co-star roles on the series The Little People (1972), The Practice (1976), and Highcliffe Manor (1979). A more prickly character than usual, however, reared its head in the late-night soap spoof Forever Fernwood (1977), and this led to the equally malicious, vainglorious role of Bonnie Franklin's business competitor on the already-established hit sitcom One Day at a Time (1975). The show also featured her aunt Nanette Fabray as Franklin's meddling mom. In the late 1980s, Shelley found a fleshier character as Craig T. Nelson's resourceful mate on Coach (1989), earning steady work for eight seasons and two Emmy nominations in the process. A return to film stardom, however, would eclipse her.
Married and separated from record producer Lou Adler during her fun-in-the-sun years of the mid 1960s (they eventually divorced in 1980 after a separation of almost 14 years), Shelley found marital stability with actor/activist Mike Farrell of M*A*S*H (1972) fame, and became stepmother to his two children from a prior marriage. Following her recovery from a home accident that broke several ribs in 1998, Shelley was tested and diagnosed with severe auto-immune hepatitis, which resulted in a liver transplant in 2000. Thankfully, she survived the near-fatal ordeal and has been more heard than seen in recent years. She supplied the voice of "Martha Kent" on the Superman: The Animated Series (1996) animated series but has done little else in the ensuing years.- Actress
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Most baby-boomers remember actress Elena Verdugo from her pleasant, plain but rather dowdy Emmy-nominated role as "Consuelo Lopez", the altruistic assistant and sometime aide-de-camp to Robert Young's general practitioner for several seasons on the popular Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) dramatic series. However, decades before donning her drab white nurse's hat, she was an alluring 40s Universal player who displayed her best assets in their "B" adventure yarns and horror opuses. One who was probably wise to keep a set of hoop earrings nearby at all times, Elena reliably hauled out a reliable number of gypsies, harem dancers, peasant girls, Indian maidens and senoritas over the years before TV instigated the second stretch of her career.
Elena was born April 20, 1925, in Paso Robles, California, and began putting on dance shoes as a kindergartener. At age 6, she made her movie debut in the western Cavalier of the West (1931) starring Harry Carey, but didn't come back to films until her teen years. She nominally provided exotic footwork for such movies as Down Argentine Way (1940) with Betty Grable and Carmen Miranda, the Tyrone Power starrer Blood and Sand (1941), and the war picture To the Shores of Tripoli (1942), among others. She received her first big break featured as the object of desire of George Sanders's impressionist painter Paul Gauguin in The Moon and Sixpence (1942).
Universal used her consistently in the mid- to late-40s, starting her off as the touching and vulnerable gypsy girl "Ilonka" in the multiple monster bash House of Frankenstein (1944) which featured the holy horror trinity of Dracula, the Werewolf and Frankenstein's Monster. A natural blonde who got plenty of wear out of the dark wigs handed to her for these kinds of roles, her best scenes in the movie were with the doomed lycanthropic "Larry Talbot", played by Lon Chaney Jr.. She went on to appear with Chaney again in The Frozen Ghost (1945). While filming the Abbott and Costello comedy Little Giant (1946), she met and married movie writer Charles R. Marion, who also wrote for the comedy duo's radio show. The couple had one son, Richard Marion, who later became an actor/director in his own right. A real trooper despite her stereotype, Elena forged on in nothing-special "easterns" (i.e., Song of Scheherazade (1947); Thief of Damascus (1952)) and westerns (i.e., El Dorado Pass (1948); The Big Sombrero (1949)) playing whatever ethnic the script called for.
Television became a reality in the early 1950s. She found herself in a major sitcom hit playing a Brooklyn-born secretary for four seasons on Meet Millie (1952), initially replacing Audrey Totter in the lead role on radio. Elena retired for a time after this but eventually returned to perform on the occasional musical stage and on the small screen. After her big success as the nurse/receptionist on the "Welby" series, she slowed down considerably, but she and Young did reunite on The Return of Marcus Welby, M.D. (1984), sans the other series' star, James Brolin, a decade later.
Verdugo, who later married psychiatrist Charles Rosey Rosewall after her divorce from writer Marion, has since appeared occasionally at nostalgia-based film/TV conventions. In 1999, she suffered the loss of her only child, actor/director Richard Marion, to a heart attack. He was only 50. She survived her second husband, who died in 2012, by five years, dying at age 92 on May 30, 2017, in Los Angeles.- Actress
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A familiar character actress, Marianna Hill is the daughter of a building contractor. From her native southern California, her family moved around frequently, including to Canada, Spain and Great Britain. As a result, she became familiar with different accents and dialects, whether a French accent (for a guest appearance on My Three Sons (1960), or German Hogan's Heroes (1965). She started acting while a teenager, apprenticing at the La Jolla (Calif.) Playhouse, and also studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City. Marianna's exotic looks enabled her to portray a variety of types, including a Hawaiian girl, an Irish lass and Greek beauty. She has also been an acting coach and teacher at the Lee Strasberg Institute in London.- Robin Mattson was born on 1 June 1956 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for General Hospital (1963), Santa Barbara (1984) and All My Children (1970). She has been married to Werner Roth since 3 June 2006. She was previously married to Ray Manzella.
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The child of a teenage rape victim, Ethel Waters grew up in the slums of Philadelphia and neighboring cities, seldom living anywhere for more than a few weeks at a time. "No one raised me, " she recollected, "I just ran wild." She excelled not only at looking after herself, but also at singing and dancing; she began performing at church functions, and as a teenager was locally renowned for her "hip shimmy shake". In 1917 she made her debut on the black vaudeville circuit; billed as "Sweet Mama Stringbean" for her tall, lithe build, she broke through with her rendition of "St. Louis Blues", which Waters performed in a softer and subtler style than her rivals, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. Beginning with her appearances in Harlem nightclubs in the late 1920s, then on the lucrative "white time" vaudeville circuit, she became one of America's most celebrated and highest-paid entertainers. At the Cotton Club, she introduced "Stormy Weather", composed for her by Harold Arlen: she wrote of her performance, "I was singing the story of my misery and confusion, the story of the wrongs and outrages done to me by people I had loved and trusted". Impressed by this performance, Irving Berlin wrote "Supper Time", a song about a lyncing, for Waters to perform in a Broadway revue. She later became the first African-American star of a national radio show. In middle age, first on Broadway and then in the movies, she successfully recast herself as a dramatic actress. Devoutly religious but famously difficult to get along with, Waters found few roles worthy of her talents in her later years.- Fay Spain was was your typical B-movie drive-in bad girl - sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette, always bodacious. A tease, a taunt, and a temptress throughout most her career, Fay Spain was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1932, as Lona May Spain to R.C. Spain and Arminta Frances Cochran. She headed to New York where she initially found summer stock work and a bit of television exposure. One of her earliest TV appearances was not as an actress but as a contestant on You Bet Your Life (1950), starring Groucho Marx.
By 1956, this fetching starlet was winning episodic roles on the more popular shows of the day, including Perry Mason (1957), Cheyenne (1955) and Gunsmoke (1955). She was also gaining notice on the covers of magazines. This cheesecake attention led directly to her juvenile delinquent debut in Dragstrip Girl (1957) with John Ashley and Steven Terrell, where she immediately established herself as the party girl boys are willing to race cars and fight over. Other equally low-budget films followed, with Teenage Doll (1957), The Crooked Circle (1957), and The Abductors (1957).
She made an aggressive move into higher quality films with Erskine Caldwell's best-seller God's Little Acre (1958) as "Darlin' Jill", another amoral sexpot, and as Rod Steiger's moll in Al Capone (1959), but then it was right back to Grade Z level work with The Beat Generation (1959) co-starring Mamie Van Doren, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) in which she tempts Martin Milner with the old forbidden fruit routine, and a 1962 Italian spectacle as an evil queen trying to thwart the actions of Hercules. Although Fay made some efforts to return to TV work, her career was pretty much over by the mid-60s. One of her last roles was a bit part as a mafioso matriarch in The Godfather Part II (1974). Fay Spain died of cancer at age 50 in 1983. - Actress
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Lynn Loring made an unlikely, but impressive, transition from child actress to actress to president of a major TV studio. At age 6, she appeared in CBS's anthology series Studio One (1948); at 7, she began doing TV commercials (and was dubbed "The Junior Set's Betty Furness"); and from 6 to 16, she played Patty on Search for Tomorrow (1951). As a young adult, she made guest appearances on Playhouse 90 (1956), Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951), The Defenders (1961), and The Big Valley (1965), among other shows.
Loring focused on domestic life until 1979, when she worked as the casting director for a TV movie, The Last Ride of the Dalton Gang (1979) ("Raid on Coffeyville"). She shifted into producing and, for several years, had an initially fruitful partnership with Aaron Spelling. In the late 1980s, she assumed the presidency of MGM/UA Television Productions. Loring, then only in her 40s, was one of the first women to hold such a high-ranking role in Hollywood.- Actress
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Ellen Corby was born Ellen Hansen on June 3, 1911, in Racine, Wisconsin. She played many uncredited bit parts from the late '20s through the '30s. Ellen would not be seen on the big screen again until 1945 in Cornered (1945). In 1946, she appeared in 14 films, although mostly in small, minor roles. One of them was in the Christmas classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946). One of the highlights of her career came about in 1948 in I Remember Mama (1948) as Aunt Trina. Ellen garnered a nomination for Best Supporting Actress, which was ultimately won by Claire Trevor in Key Largo (1948). The Oscar nomination didn't send her to the heights she had hoped. This wonderful actress continued in roles that were mostly minor compared to some of her contemporaries. However, it was television where she would receive the acclaim that had eluded her on the screen. Time after time she played parts that were absolutely outstanding. One of the funniest was as Myrt "Hubcaps" Lesh in The Andy Griffith Show (1960). She was the ringleader of a gang that stole cars and then sold them, and she sold Barney Fife a stolen car that turned out to be a real lemon. The series that brought her worldwide recognition, though, was the highly acclaimed The Waltons (1972) as Esther "Grandma" Walton. The role got her Emmy awards in 1973, 1974, and 1975. Although a stroke in 1976 slowed her down, Ellen still made appearances on the series. Her last TV appearance was in 1997 in the TV movie A Walton Easter (1997). On April 14, 1999, Ellen died at the Motion Picture & Television Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. She was 87 years old.- Actress
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Despite being in just seven episodes, Nita Talbot is best remembered for her Emmy-nominated role as the crafty Russian spy Marya Parmanova in the iconic 60s wartime sitcom Hogan's Heroes (1965). Her character was the only one in the show capable of outmaneuvering Bob Crane's shrewd Colonel Hogan.
Nita was born Anita Sokol of Hungarian/Jewish ancestry in the Bronx, New York. Determined to break into show business, she often accompanied her older sister, Gloria Stone, to auditions at the various studios. On one of these outings, she was spotted by a talent scout and signed under contract by Warner Brothers, making her screen debut, aged eighteen, in 1949. This was followed two years later with her first curtain call on Broadway. Sultry, blonde, husky-voiced and with her gray/green eyes, Nita was proclaimed by studio publicists to resemble Hollywood legend Lauren Bacall. With that in mind, she was usually cast during the early years of her career as hard-boiled, street-wise chicks and ambitious career girls.
Nita's first recurring character role was that of Gloria in one of the first ever private detective serials, Man Against Crime (1949). She had to wait a decade for her next co-starring turn as an enterprising aide-de-camp to the star in The Jim Backus Show (1960), a sitcom which revolved around a second-rate news service. In addition to numerous anthology dramas, Nita regularly featured in prime time shows like Perry Mason (1957), The Thin Man (1957), Mike Hammer (1958), Johnny Staccato (1959) and Mr. Lucky (1959), often as gals named Blondie, Mimi, Narcissa, Kitten, Belle or Delilah (one cannot omit from this list her French Quarter nightclub singer and dancer 'Lusti Weather' in four episodes of Bourbon Street Beat (1959)).
In Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974)'s The Werewolf, her Paula Griffin helped Darren McGavin take down the creature with the requisite silver bullets during a swinging sixties cruise. She was Mickey Rooney's ex-flame in an episode of The Fugitive (1963) and the pawn in a cat-and-mouse game between Peter Falk and Leonard Nimoy in the Columbo (1971) episode A Stitch in Time. Nita fared rather less well in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) (strangled), McCloud (1970) (poisoned), The Untouchables (1959) and Mannix (1967) (shot in both).
In the 70s and 80s, Nita was co-star in a couple of half-hour sitcoms: as a conceited socialite and magazine editor in Here We Go Again (1973), and as Rose, the acerbic receptionist of veterinarian Bill Daily in Starting from Scratch (1988). She also featured as a semi-recurring character in the soap General Hospital (1963). Never short of work, Nita remained steadily engaged in television guest appearances right up to her retirement in 1997.
Her roles on the big screen seem to have paralleled those on TV: nightclub singer 'Saturday Night' in Who's Got the Action? (1962), Sunny Daze in the Elvis beach party musical Girl Happy (1965), tycoon Roddy McDowall's Girl Friday (Dee Dee Howitzer!) in the perfectly awful comedy The Cool Ones (1967) and brassy Madam Esther in the blaxploitation western Buck and the Preacher (1972). She had a small part in the acclaimed satirical drama The Day of the Locust (1975) (set in 1930s Hollywood) as the pretentious and hedonistic Joan Schwartzen.
The prolific Miss Talbot has racked up an impressive tally of 153 acting credits (according to IMDB). She was formerly married to actors Don Gordon and Thomas A. Geas. Both unions ended in divorce.- Brenda Benet, born Brenda Ann Nelson in Los Angeles, California, on August 14, 1945, was a classic example of the modern-day Hollywood tragedy. As a television actress with good dramatic scope, she managed to piece together a wide and impressive portfolio of guest shots in a career spanning just over 16 years before taking her life at the age of 36. She spent her childhood and early teenage years feeling awkward and self-conscious because her complexion was darker than those of her siblings. Because of this, she felt that she did not fit in with her family, and often fantasized about being adopted.
Brenda attended UCLA for a brief time, majoring in languages. In 1962 she entered show business; her breakthrough role came in 1964 when she was selected to play the part of Jill McComb in The Young Marrieds (1964). After that came stints on various comedy and drama series in the '60s and '70s, usually playing ethnic, exotic types. She was probably best known for her role as the kind-hearted prostitute in Walking Tall (1973). During this time she married and divorced actor Paul Petersen. She began a relationship with Bill Bixby and moved in with him in 1969, and they married in 1971. By the late '70s, however, they were divorced.
Brenda retired from the business in the mid-'70s to raise a family, and in late 1974 she gave birth to a boy, Christopher Sean Bixby. Tragically, Christopher died in 1981 during a winter ski vacation in California. It was believed that this and her divorce from Bixby were the events which caused Brenda's life to spin out of control. On April 7, 1982, Brenda went into the bathroom of her West Los Angeles home, lit and arranged some candles in a circle on the floor and lay down. She then placed a Colt .38-cal. revolver into her mouth and pulled the trigger. She died instantly. - Actress
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When, at 50, Mabel Albertson was given the supporting role of Mrs. Carter, young actress Aileen Stanley Jr.'s mother in a Warner Bros. Technicolor musical romance, little did she know that she was starting out a movie and TV career in which she would shine as "the ultimate haughty judgmental (often wealthy) mother-in-law (or mother, or stepmother, or auntie)" in an impressive series of films, TV films or TV series episodes. Mabel Albertson's comic gifts helped her to make these generally obnoxious characters hilarious. She is indeed memorable as Jerry Lewis' mother-in-law in Don't Give Up the Ship (1959), as George Hamilton's mother in All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960) or the domineering mother-in-law of poor Anthony Franciosa in Period of Adjustment (1962). On television, Tom Ewell, Dick Van Dyke and Dick Sargent, among others, were given the same treatment by their screen mother.
Even at 50 years of age, Mabel Albertson was no newcomer to the business. In fact, she had been a successful vaudeville performer in the 1920s, a radio star in the 1930s and a theater actress and director in the 1940s. She had tried her hand in films twice (in 1928 and 1940) but without much success. Ironically, it was the film business that had previously rejected her which would make her unforgettable from the early 1950s to the late 1970s when Alzheimer's Disease put an and end to a long and fruitful career.- A reliable featured player and occasional co-star, actress Jeff Donnell was born Jean Marie Donnell in a boys' reformatory in South Windham, Maine in 1921, the younger of schoolteacher Mildred and penologist Howard's two daughters. She took piano and dance lessons during her childhood in Maryland; she loved the popular "Mutt and Jeff" cartoon strip so much that she gave herself the nickname "Jeff."
She studied at the Yale School of Drama and performed briefly in summer stock before marrying her first husband at 19: Bill Anderson, a drama teacher from her Boston alma mater, Leland Powers Drama School. Together they started the Farragut Playhouse in Rye, New Hampshire. Almost immediately a Columbia Studios talent scout noticed her in a play there and quickly signed her.
Whisked to Los Angeles, Jeff made her first appearance in the war-era movie My Sister Eileen (1942) while husband Bill was hired on as a dialogue director. Hardly the chic, glamour-girl type, Jeff possessed a perky, unpretentious, tomboyish quality that worked comfortably in unchallenging "B" escapism --usually the breezy girlfriend or spirited bobbysoxer. Typical of her movie load at the time were the fun but innocuous Doughboys in Ireland (1943), What's Buzzin', Cousin? (1943), Nine Girls (1944), A Thousand and One Nights (1945), Carolina Blues (1944), and Eadie Was a Lady (1945). She also enlivened a number of musical westerns that prominently featured Ken Curtis (Festus of "Gunsmoke").
On a rare occasion, Jeff found herself in "A" pictures, most notably the Bogart film noir classic In a Lonely Place (1950), but more often than not she played the obliging or supportive friend of the leading lady. Unable to break away from her established "B" ranking, she later tried a move to RKO Studios (1949) but fared no better or worse. She did make a successful move to TV in the early 50s and was seen in a number of comedy and dramatic parts.
Long separated from and finally divorcing her first husband in 1953 (they had one son, Michael, and an adopted daughter, Sarah Jane), she married rising film actor Aldo Ray in 1954, but the marriage crumbled within two years, beset by drinking problems; she also suffered a miscarriage. She went on to marry and divorce twice more. As the 1950s rolled on, she earned steady work on TV, bringing to life comedian George Gobel's often-mentioned wife Alice on the sitcom The George Gobel Show (1954) for four seasons. She also had the opportunity to play Gidget's mom in a couple of the popular lightweight movies of the early 1960s -- Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Gidget Goes to Rome (1963).
Most daytime fans will remember Jeff's long-running stint on the soap drama General Hospital (1963) as Stella Fields, the Quartermain housekeeper, which started in 1979 and lasted until her death in 1988. Dogged by ill health in later years (including a serious bout with Addison's disease), Jeff died peacefully of a heart attack in her sleep at age 66. - Actress
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Joan Hackett was never one of your conventional leading ladies. Directors sometimes found her difficult to work with. Yet this strong-minded perfectionist had an unquenchable individuality that came through in her performances, and she never hesitated to appear unglamorous whenever the role demanded. Born of an Italian mother and an Irish-American father in East Harlem on March 1, 1934, teenage Joan left school during twelfth grade to become a model. On the cover of Harper's Junior Bazaar in 1952, the attractive brunette turned down the resulting offer of a contract with 20th Century-Fox and opted instead for acting classes at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio.
Joan made her Broadway debut in the John Gielgud production of "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1959 and also appeared in her first television episode that year. In 1961, she had her first success in an off-Broadway play, "Call Me By My Rightful Name", winning three awards, including an Obie. A later stage performance, "Night Watch" (1972), based on a play by Lucille Fletcher, saw her playing an emotionally disturbed woman with such intensity that Clive Barnes of The New York Times described her performance as "beautifully judged". From 1961 to 1962, Joan had regular work in the CBS courtroom drama series The Defenders (1961) (starring E.G. Marshall), playing social worker "Joan Miller", fiance of one of the partners in the law firm. During the remainder of the decade, she guest-starred in many top-rated TV shows, from The Twilight Zone (1959) to Bonanza (1959) and Ben Casey (1961) (an Emmy-nominated performance). She also played the second "Mrs. de Winter" in a television version of Daphne Du Maurier's classic "Rebecca".
Joan's off-beat personality likely limited her career in films. She was first featured as one of eight Vassar graduates making up The Group (1966), a 150-minute Sidney Lumet-directed part-satire, part-soap-opera film examining the lives and loves of the protagonists over the years. Her next motion pictures allowed Joan considerably more screen time: She co-starred with Charlton Heston in the moody, idiosyncratic western Will Penny (1967). She gave a decidedly understated, subtle performance as the down-to-earth frontier woman who befriends the hero, shares in his ordeals, and then is left by him when he realizes that there is no future in their relationship. In stark contrast was her role in the western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). She was very much in her element as feisty, accident-prone mayor's daughter "Prudy Perkins". In this film, she displayed a talent for visual comedy reminiscent of Lucille Ball, but otherwise rarely seen since silent films. There was also great chemistry and clever verbal interaction between her and co-star James Garner, as the newly appointed sheriff who catches her character in various embarrassing situations.
She was also featured in the spy film Assignment to Kill (1968), followed by the predictable "Baby Jane" look-alike TV thriller How Awful About Allan (1970). Joan then gave assured performances in two subsequent thrillers, the stylish The Last of Sheila (1973) and the made-for-TV disguised remake of Diabolique (1955), Reflections of Murder (1974) with Sam Waterston. Joan gave a spectacular performance in the Michael Crichton book adaption of The Terminal Man (1974) where she plays a compassionate psychiatrist who is tormented by her patient. There were to be few roles of interest until Only When I Laugh (1981). The film, based on Neil Simon's play "The Gingerbread Lady", won Joan a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress. By that time, she was already so ill with cancer that she had to travel to the award ceremony in a wheelchair.
Joan Hackett was well known as a social activist, embracing solar energy and losing causes such as the preservation of the old Morosco Theatre in Times Square with equal fervor. According to personal friends, she accepted her fate with equanimity and dignity, dying at the age of just 49 in a hospital in Encino, California, in October 1983.- Actress
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Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).- Actress
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Gloria Grahame Hallward, an acting pupil of her mother (stage actress and teacher Jean Grahame), acted professionally while still in high school. In 1944 Louis B. Mayer saw her on Broadway and gave her an MGM contract under the name Gloria Grahame. Her debut in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944) was auspicious, but her first public recognition came on loan-out in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Although her talent and sex appeal were of star quality, she did not fit the star pattern at MGM, who sold her contract to RKO in 1947. Here the same problem resurfaced; her best film in these years was made on loan-out, In a Lonely Place (1950). Soon after, she left RKO. The 1950s, her best period, brought her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar and typecast her as shady, inimitably sultry ladies in seven well-known film-noir classics.
Rumors of being difficult to work with on the set of Oklahoma! (1955) helped sideline her film career from 1956 onward. She also suffered from marital and child-custody troubles. Eight years after divorce from Nicholas Ray, who was 12 years her senior (and reportedly had discovered her in bed with his 13 year old son), and after a subsequent marriage to Cy Howard ended in divorce, in 1960 she married her former stepson Anthony Ray (who was almost 14 years younger than she was.) This led former husbands Nicholas Ray and Cy Howard to sue Grahame; each man seeking custody of his respective child, putting gossip columnists and scandal sheets into overdrive. Grahame herself underwent electroconvulsive therapy after the ensuing stress caused a nervous breakdown. Surprisingly, however, Grahame and Anthony "Tony" Ray proved a happy couple. The union would be Grahame's longest marriage, lasting almost 14 years (10 years longer than her previous union with Ray's father); the couple had two children, Anthony Jr. and James.
In 1960, Grahame resumed stage acting, combined with TV work and, from 1970, some mostly inferior films. She was described as a serious, skillful actress; spontaneous, honest, and strong-willed; imaginative and curious; incredibly sexy but insecure about her looks (prompting plastic surgery on her famous lips); loving appreciative male company; "a bit loony". In 1975, she was treated for breast cancer. Five years later, she was diagnosed with cancer again, although it is unclear if this was a new cancer or a metastasis of her breast cancer. Grahame eventually moved to England in 1978. Her busiest period of British and American stage work ended abruptly in 1981 when she collapsed from cancer symptoms during a rehearsal. She wished to remain in Liverpool with her partner, Peter Turner (almost 30 years her junior), but after Turner notified her children of her health condition and impending death, two of her children flew to England to retrieve her, insisting she return to the United States. She died a few hours later that same day of stomach cancer and peritonitis at St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan on October 5, 1981 at age 57.- Actress
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Reedy and regal actress Ruth Warrick will be remembered for two names and two names alone. In films, she will indelibly be referred to as the castoff first "Mrs. Citizen Kane," and on TV she will forever be synonymous with her character of Phoebe Tyler Wallingford, the obnoxiously wealthy, viper-tongued, manipulative and meddlesome Pine Valley grande dame who held court for 35 years until her death in 2005.
Born in St. Joseph, Missouri in 1915, Ruth moved to Kansas City while in high school and later studied at the University of Kansas City. An essay contest winner, a resulting promotional tour brought her to New York where her interest in acting was increasingly piqued. Stage-trained in New York, she appeared in such plays as "Bury the Dead" (1933) and was a radio singer at one point. She met her first husband during one her many broadcasts. This in turn led her to Orson Welles and his Mercury Theater, and the rest is history. In 1941 Welles escorted her and his company of members to Hollywood...and major stardom.
Exclusively chosen by Welles to make her ladylike debut as Emily Norton Kane in what most consider the greatest American film of all time, she followed Citizen Kane (1941) with nearly two dozen films, most of which were "B" melodramas and rugged adventures. She could play the altruistic wife with stoic ease but enjoyed more enthusiastic notices when controlling, tightly-wound or neurotic. Appearing with some of Hollywood's most illustrious male and female stars, she played a countess opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. in The Corsican Brothers (1941); co-starred with Mercury Theater compatriots Joseph Cotten, Agnes Moorehead and Everett Sloane in the classic film noir Journey Into Fear (1943); and starred in several war-themed movies including Secret Command (1944) with Chester Morris, Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944) with Edward G. Robinson, and China Sky (1945), with 'Randolph Scott' (I). Post-war credits tended to regress her to second lead status opposite the likes of Joan Crawford and Ingrid Bergman, yet she still managed a few top femme roles in such films as Driftwood (1947) and One Too Many (1950), the latter in which she played an alcoholic.
The focus of Ruth's career switched to the "Golden Age" of TV in the 1950s. Aside from her many live dramatic showcases, she made a lasting mark in daytime soap opera. Her tight-lipped matrons on Guiding Light (1952) and As the World Turns (1956) were only a warm-up for her once-in-a-lifetime portrayal of one of daytime's most dominant, colorful and enduring characters. Cast on All My Children (1970) from the show's inception, Phoebe Tyler became a clear and instant favorite -- the lady you relished hating. Her priggish socialite character carried strong story lines for nearly two decades until advancing age and failing health restricted her time. Her well-received (and aptly titled) autobiography "The Confessions of Phoebe Tyler" (1980) chronicled the lives of both her and her alter-ego. Prime time also made use of Ruth's sudsy-styled talent as her Emmy nomination for the role of Hannah Cord in Peyton Place (1964) will attest.
Making her Broadway debut with "Miss Lonelyhearts" in 1957, Ruth's talents also included singing and, in between on-screen assignments, enjoyed the musical stage now and then. She understudied in "Take Me Along" (1959) with Jackie Gleason and in 1973 enjoyed a successful return to Broadway with the revival of "Irene" starring Debbie Reynolds. In regional and summer theater she starred in "Dial M for Murder," "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night," among others. She also toured as Anna in "The King and I" and appeared in the musicals "Pal Joey" and "Roberta."
Her life, however, was not dedicated to just on-camera pursuits. On the contrary, long active in arts-in-education programs, including programs for the disadvantaged, Ruth received the first national Arts in Education Award in 1983 from the Board of Directors of Business and Industry for Arts in Education, Inc. The award was subsequently named the Ruth Warrick Award for Arts in Education and continued to be given annually. In 1991, she received her certification as a licensed metaphysical teacher. In her senior years, she became an avid spokesperson for the rights of senior citizens as well as the disabled, and was appointed to the U.N. World Women's Committee on Mental Health.
In frail health in later years, the still feisty, five times married-and-divorced actress made occasional appearances on her beloved daytime show, even while confined to a wheelchair after a serious fall in 2001. She made her final appearance on the show in early January, 2005 to commemorate its 35th anniversary, and passed away shortly after at age 89 of complications from pneumonia.- Actress
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The daughter of a well-to-do attorney and a socialite, Jane Bethel Leslie was born on August 3, 1929, in New York City. She was a 15-year-old student at the Brearley School on the Upper East Side when she was discovered by legendary producer George Abbott for the Broadway play "Snafu" in 1944. She quickly became a theatre mainstay with such plays as "The Dancer" (1946), "How I Wonder" (1947), "Goodbye, My Fancy" (1948), "Pygmalion" (1952) and "The Time of the Cuckoo" (1952) under her belt.
In later years she gave stunning theater performances in "Inherit the Wind" (1955), "Career" (1957), and "Catch Me If You Can" (1965), then capped her formidable career with a Tony nomination as drug-addicted mother Mary Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" in 1986 opposite Jack Lemmon, Kevin Spacey, and Peter Gallagher. It was subsequently televised.
While not as well known for her movie work, the seriously attractive actress was best utilized as a brittle support player in such films as The Rabbit Trap (1959) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963). Sporadic filming later included A Rage to Live (1965), The Molly Maguires (1970), Old Boyfriends (1979), Ironweed (1987), and Message in a Bottle (1999). On TV as a teen, her first series was playing Cornelia Otis Skinner in The Girls (1950), in 1950. Throughout the '50s, she appeared in scores of dramatic parts on episodic TV and became one of those faces without a name, playing neurotic or cruel villainesses. TV soaps took up her later years; she appeared in The Doctors (1963), All My Children (1970), and One Life to Live (1968), at various times. At one point, she was a head writer for The Secret Storm (1954).
Bethel died of cancer at age 70, survived by her daughter Leslie McCullough Jeffries.- Actress
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American character actress Madlyn Rhue was one of television's most prolific actresses and has starred in everything from sitcoms to soap operas to drama series and films for nearly 40 years. Her beautiful looks, natural red hair and brown eyes got her the attention of television producers and she found herself guest starring on such series as Rawhide (1959), Cheyenne (1955), Star Trek (1966), Hawaii Five-O (1968), Charlie's Angels (1976) and Fantasy Island (1977). She did several theatrical motion pictures, most notably Operation Petticoat (1959), He Rides Tall (1964), Kenner (1968) and It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). In 1977, she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, which she battled for nearly 25 years. However, the disease never got her down; she continued to work in numerous television films and was co-starring on such series and soap operas as Executive Suite (1976), Fame (1982) and Days of Our Lives (1965) and had a recurring role on Murder, She Wrote (1984). By 1997, Rhue was unable to work, and she spent her last years at the Motion Picture and Television Country Home retirement center in Woodland Hills, California. She passed away from pneumonia and multiple sclerosis there at age 68 on December 16, 2003.- Patricia Huston was born on 10 August 1929 in Mount Vernon, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Experiment in Terror (1962), Heaven's Prisoners (1996) and Mike Hammer (1958). She was married to John Brinkley. She died on 25 September 1995 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- A resolute, blue-eyed brunette with attractive, slightly pinched features, Geraldine Brooks was born to a Dutch couple on October 29, 1925, in New York City. Her parents had a theater-based background -- father, James Stroock, owned a top costume company and mother, Bianca, was a costume designer and stylist. In dance shoes from age 2, her closer relatives were also extensively involved in theater -- one aunt being a former Ziegfeld Follies girl and another a contralto with the Metropolitan Opera. Growing up surrounding by these theatrical types, it was only natural that it rubbed off on her. She attended the Hunter Modeling School as a young teen and graduated from Julia Richman High School in 1942 as president of her drama club. Older sister, Gloria Stroock, also became an actress, primarily on TV.
In New York, Geraldine studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art and the Neighborhood Playhouse before apprenticing in summer stock productions. In a pre-Broadway tryout of "Follow the Girls" in 1944, Geraldine subsequently went with the show to Broadway in May of that same year and enjoyed a nine-month run. Following her role as "Perdita" in "A Winter's Tale" at the Theatre Guild, she was signed by Warner Bros. and made her film debut promisingly as a second femme lead in the mystery thriller Cry Wolf (1947) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Errol Flynn. At this time, she shunned her odd-sounding last name of "Stroock" in favor of the more euphonious marquee name of "Brooks", which was the name of her father's costume company. Playing Flynn's cool, conniving niece who gives trouble to Stanwyck, she gave added suspense to the film. In her second movie, Possessed (1947), she is again at odds with another powerhouse star, this time Joan Crawford, but shows more sensitivity against the manic Crawford character in this film-noir chiller.
Geraldine moved to dramatic lead status with Embraceable You (1948) opposite Dane Clark, and played daughter to real wife-and-husband team Fredric March and Florence Eldridge in An Act of Murder (1948), a drama that dealt with the topic of euthanasia. Less impressive was the standard Warner Bros. "B" western The Younger Brothers (1949) and her MGM loanout appearance in Challenge to Lassie (1949). Floundering a bit at this time and failing to strike a star-making chord with audiences, she attempted a few continental film assignments, one in which she played Anna Magnani's younger sister, but grew quickly disillusioned there as well and returned to America.
Focusing instead on stage and TV, including a Broadway stint in "Time of the Cuckoo" starring Tony-winning Shirley Booth, Geraldine eventually went back to studying acting again. In 1956, she became a member of the Actor's Studio and became a strong exponent of its method style. Despite this renewed, enlightening acting technique, her film career found no momentum at all. In fact, she appeared in only two films in the oncoming years as brittle, harder-core ladies in Street of Sinners (1957) and Johnny Tiger (1966). Her greater notices were to be found guesting on various popular TV series. Particularly noteworthy were her roles on Perry Mason (1957), The Defenders (1961), Bus Stop (1961) (for which she earned an Emmy nomination), the pilot of Ironside (1967) and the last final climactic episode of The Fugitive (1963). A regular as Dan Dailey's secretary on the mildly received Faraday and Company (1973), she also appeared in the 70s episodes of Kung Fu (1972), Cannon (1971), Barnaby Jones (1973) and McMillan & Wife (1971), the last in which sister, Gloria Stroock, had a recurring role as Rock Hudson's secretary.
Geraldine's later theater included her Tony-nominated role in "Brightower" (1970) (despite it closing after only one performance) on Broadway and as wife "Golde" in the musical "Fiddler on the Roof". Her final movie part came in the rather ho-hum crime movie Mr. Ricco (1975) alongside Dean Martin. A short-lived series regular as the matriarch of The Dumplings (1976), a rare comedic venture for her, and a stage production of Jules Feiffer's "Hold Me!" in 1977 capped her capable but somewhat unsatisfying career. She deserved much better attention than she got, especially in films. Divorced from TV writer Herbert Sargent after only three years (1958-1961), she married author Budd Schulberg (best known for his screenplay of On the Waterfront (1954)), in 1964. The couple moved to Los Angeles and opened a writers' workshop together for the underprivileged. She also collaborated with Schulberg on the book Swan Watch (1975), a study on the elegant birds in which she also took photographs. In addition, she wrote poetry for children although she herself never had any. Sadly, Geraldine died in 1977 at age 51 of a heart attack while battling cancer, thus depriving the entertainment industry of a valuable talent. She was survived by her husband, mother and sister. - Actress
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The daughter of a clergyman, Anna Lee was born Joan Boniface Winnifrith and encouraged to pursue an acting career by her father. After training at London's Royal Albert Hall, she took to the boards and later began appearing in English films, first as an extra, then working her way up to featured roles and finally earning the unofficial title "The Queen of the Quota Quickies". Lee and her husband, director Robert Stevenson, relocated to Hollywood in the late 1930s, and Lee began starring in stateside productions as well as becoming a fixture of the John Ford stock company (she appeared in How Green Was My Valley (1941), Fort Apache (1948) and a half-dozen others). In 1970, she became the seventh wife of novelist, poet and playwright Robert Nathan (Portrait of Jennie (1948), The Bishop's Wife (1947)); they married three months after they met. Now widowed, Lee continued despite adversity, regularly playing wealthy Lila Quartermaine on the soap opera General Hospital (1963). She was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire at the 1982 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama. On May 14, 2004, Anna Lee passed away from pneumonia at age 91 at her home in Beverly Hills, California.- Anne Barton was born on 20 March 1924 in Evansville, Indiana, USA. She was an actress, known for What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Whirlybirds (1957). She was married to Dan Barton. She died on 27 November 2000 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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As an American character actress, Fran Ryan was a familiar face on stage, screen and television from her theatrical stage debut in the 1950s and continuing for nearly three decades. Ryan's similarity to actress Marjorie Main was soon noticed in the late 1960s, and she frequently played tough, mean-lipped, earthy and gruff-but-lovable female characters.
One of Ryan's first major television roles was playing Aggie Thompson, the housekeeper on The Doris Day Show (1968) and quickly found her place as a last-minute replacement on several television shows. She replaced the late Barbara Pepper in playing Doris Ziffel on the final season of Green Acres (1965). She also successfully succeeded Amanda Blake to play Miss Hannah on the final season of Gunsmoke (1955). Ryan's best-known TV credits include General Hospital (1963) and No Soap, Radio (1982).
Ryan also had supporting roles in major motion pictures including Big Wednesday (1978), The Long Riders (1980), Stripes (1981), Savannah Smiles (1982), Private School (1983), Eyes of Fire (1983) and Pale Rider (1985). Although she was never far from television, she returned to play Hannah the Barbarian in the short lived animated series Little Dracula (1991).
Fran Ryan passed away at her home in Burbank, California on January 15, 2000 of natural causes.- Donna Baccala was born on 26 April 1945 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She is an actress, known for Brainscan (1994), The Big Valley (1965) and Mannix (1967).
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Isabel Sanford was a Broadway actress for over thirty years before moving to Hollywood. She made numerous guest appearances on TV, including a stint as a supporting cast member on The Carol Burnett Show (1967). Until her passing, Isabel continued to act frequently, most recently in a series of commercials for Old Navy stores with The Jeffersons (1975) co-star, Sherman Hemsley. She made several commercials for Nick-at-Nite as well when the cable channel premiered The Jeffersons (1975).- Born in Toronto, Anne Helm's entire Canadian "show biz" career consisted of playing "Alice in Wonderland" at camp and acting in a Christmas pantomime at Montreal's Her Majesty's Theatre. When she was 14, she and her mother relocated to New York, where Helm studied ballet and began modeling for John Robert Powers. The title role in a Shirley Temple's Storybook (1958) TV production of "The Sleeping Beauty" lured her to the West Coast, where she landed roles in a succession of subsequent feature films and TV series (and was briefly Elvis Presley's main squeeze--on-screen and off). More recently billing herself as "Annie Helm", she is also a writer and illustrator of children's books.
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The amazingly gifted and versatile, Ms. Diane Ladd, received immense praise for her dramatic efforts throughout the course of her electric and unique seventy-year career. Her timeless offbeat charm and beauty reminiscent of a lamented Hollywood Golden Era actress gleam in the most understated roles and continue to make her a sought-after unconventional performer.- Actress
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Armed with an entrancing whiskey-like voice that complemented her stunning, creamy blonde looks, Southern-bred beauty Joanna Moore had so much going for her when her film and TV career first took off in the late 1950s. Sadly, what began as an exciting Hollywood carnival ride would all too soon careen out of control and turn into a dangerous and tragic rollercoaster ride filled with personal and professional ups and downs.
Born Dorothy Joan Cook on November 10, 1934 in Americus, Georgia, Joanna was the elder daughter of Dorothy Martha (née English) and Henry Anderson Cook III. A fatal car accident in 1941 took the lives of both her mother and her baby sister. When her father died from his severe injuries a year later, 7-year-old Joanna lived with her grandmother; when the lady grew too feeble to look after her, Joanna was adopted locally by a well-to-do family who changed her name from Dorothy to Joanna. In 1951, the 16-year-old girl married another teenager, Willis Moore, and divorced him within the year. She later enrolled at Agnes Scott, a women's college in Decatur, Georgia (near Atlanta).
Around this time, Joanna won a local Georgia beauty contest that would take her straight to Hollywood. Spotted at a party by a Universal producer, the actress was tested and quickly signed. A brief, impulsive marriage (1956-1957) to minor actor Don Oreck also occurred during this early career stage. She began as a lovely presence on such TV anthologies as "Lux Video Theatre," "Goodyear Theatre," "Studio One in Hollywood" and "Kraft Theatre," and also found work in top female lead and second lead roles in "B" movies. She started out promisingly as handsome George Nader's love interest in the film noir Appointment with a Shadow (1957), directed by Richard Carlson wherein both play crime reporters--he with an alcohol problem. She followed this with second femme roles in both the western comedy Slim Carter (1957) starring Julie Adams and Jock Mahoney as the title country singer, and the romantic drama Flood Tide (1958), which reunited her with Nader.
After Orson Welles gave her a small cryptic role in his classic film noir Touch of Evil (1958), Joanna went on to a secondary femme role in the Audie Murphy western Ride a Crooked Trail (1958) and co-starred as Arthur Franz's fiancée in the cult sci-fi horror programmer Monster on the Campus (1958) with Franz playing a Jekyll-and-Hyde college professor who turns ape caveman-like thanks to his radioactive exposure. She ended the decade with another second femme role in an "A" picture--The Last Angry Man (1959) starring Oscar-nominated Paul Muni as a Jewish doctor and featuring Joanna in a romantic subplot involving married TV producer David Wayne.
In the early 1960s, Joanna suffered severe auditory nerve loss (otosclerosis) to the point of having to read lips. An operation thankfully restored her hearing (in one ear) in 1962. By this time, Joanna had moved more towards TV and enjoyed guest parts on such dramatic shows as "Bourbon Street Beat," "Maverick," "The Rifleman," "Bat Masterson," "Tales of Wells Fargo," "The Rebel," "Adventures in Paradise" and "The Untouchables," with a few comedy shows such as "Bachelor Father" and "The Real McCoys" thrown in for good measure.
Joanna went on to portray more than a few wily females on screen as she did with her neurotic "Miss Precious" in the drama Walk on the Wild Side (1962), sexy "Alisha Claypoole" in the Elvis Presley vehicle Follow That Dream (1962), and Southern belle "Desiree de La Roche" in the light-hearted Disney comedy Son of Flubber (1962). She played the same kind of crafty gals on such TV shows as "Perry Mason," "Route 66," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Bewitched", and "The Wild Wild West." She is perhaps best remembered, however, for her down-home benevolent role of Peggy, the four-episode girlfriend of Sheriff Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) in the third season of TV's The Andy Griffith Show (1960).
At the peak of her career, Joanna married her third husband, "Prince Charming" actor Ryan O'Neal, on April 3, 1963. O'Neal would soon make a huge TV impact as handsome but troubled "Rodney Harrington" on the prime time soaper Peyton Place (1964). The exceptionally good-looking couple became a popular Hollywood twosome and went on to have two children who also became actors: Tatum O'Neal and Griffin O'Neal. Joanna's marriage to O'Neal was stormy, to say the least, and they divorced in February 1967.
Joanna went into a gradual, deep decline after her divorce from O'Neal. Depression set in and she developed a severe amphetamine and alcohol addiction. Multiple arrests over time for drunk driving (one much later resulted in the loss of three fingers) led to her losing custody of her children in 1970. That same year she checked into a state hospital for psychiatric treatment. Sadly, both her children, Tatum and Griffin, would battle similar substance abuse problems as adults. There was also talk that Joanna was growing more and more bizarre, living in self-styled communes and isolating herself from any Hollywood contact. She went on to marry and divorce a third and fourth time.
For awhile Joanna managed to stay afloat on both film with such occasional second-string offers as the sci-fi chiller Countdown (1967); the comedy caper Never a Dull Moment (1968); the "bikersploitation" yarn J.C. (1972) and the all-star thriller The Hindenburg (1975). She also co-starred in the TV adaptation of Three Coins in the Fountain (1970) with Yvonne Craig and Cynthia Pepper and was seen fairly regularly on such late 1960's TV programs as "The Virginian," "Judd for the Defense," "The High Chaparral," "The F.B.I.," "The Name of the Game," "The Waltons," "Kung Fu," "Bronk," "Police Story," "Petrocelli", and "The Blue Knight."
After this, however, Joanna's personal life unravel dramatically, which spilled into her professional career. By the late 1970s, Joanna, still abusing drugs and alcohol, had to be supported financially by daughter, Tatum, now an Oscar-winning film star. Little was heard for nearly a decade when it was learned that the actress was living in the Palm Springs area (Indian Wells) involving herself in small theater projects.
A long-time smoker, Joanna was diagnosed with lung cancer in 1996 and died a year later on November 22, 1997, age 63, with Tatum by her side. She was interred at Oak Grove Cemetery in her hometown of Americus, Georgia. In 2015, grandson Kevin Jack McEnroe (son of Tatum and her then-husband/tennis star John McEnroe) published a gripping novel entitled "Our Town," a "fictionalized account" of the damaging effects of substance abuse on a family. It is said to be strongly based on his own grandmother's devastating struggles.- Actress
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Born on December 5, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, Morgan Brittany was like most little girls and wanted to be an actress. She began her acting career as a child under her real name Suzanne Cupito. Her big break came in the musical film Gypsy (1962), where played the sister of Natalie Wood's character. Morgan's career would continue to grow and would make a name for herself when she landed a role on the soap opera Dallas (1978). On the soap opera, she played Katherine Wentworth, the scheming half-sister of Pamela Ewing and Cliff Barnes. She continues acting but now loves the job of raising her children.
Since 2009, Morgan has been a conservative political commentator appearing on such shows as "Hannity" (FOX News), "The Rick Amato Show" (One America) and "The Kudrow Report" (CNBC). She is also the co-author of the best-selling book "What Women Really Want", released on September 2, 2014. She continues to make appearances all across the United States speaking for conservative values and issues concerning out veterans. She is also the co-owner and anchor for "PolitiChicks", an online news site with a conservative perspective. Morgan also writes a weekly column for "World Net Daily" (WND) and "Townhall Finance".- Actress
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It would have been pretty difficult for willowy actress/model Dina Merrill to have pulled off playing a commoner on stage, film or TV in her day. She reeked of elegance and class. The epitome of style, poise and glamour, the New York-born socialite and celebrity was born Nedenia Marjorie Hutton on December 29, 1923, the daughter of E.F. Hutton, the financier and founder of the Wall Street firm that bore his name, and heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post, of the Post cereal fortune. Although Dina made elegant, elaborate use of her upbringing over the decades, she handled it all positively and graciously without tabloid incidents, instilling these same refined credentials into a large portion of her characters.
Dina did not originally intend on an acting career. After studying at George Washington University, she suddenly dropped out after only a year (to the chagrin of her disapproving parents) after demonstrating a late desire to perform. Enrolling at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and studying with Uta Hagen among others, Dina appeared in the comedy "The Man Who Came to Dinner" before taking her first Broadway curtain call in "The Mermaids Singing" in 1945. She took some time off to play wife and mother to three children after marrying Stanley Rumbough, Jr., heir to the Colgate toothpaste fortune.
Dina finally made an official film debut with a smart and stylish support role in the Spencer Tracy/Katharine Hepburn vehicle Desk Set (1957). She continued to charm in the same upper crust vein playing some version of the model wife or blue-blooded maven in frequent posh outings. Some of her more noticeable roles came with Operation Petticoat (1959) with the equally classy Cary Grant; BUtterfield 8 (1960) starring Elizabeth Taylor and Laurence Harvey; and The Young Savages (1961) opposite Burt Lancaster.
Following her divorce to Rumbough after 20 years, Dina married ruggedly handsome actor Cliff Robertson in 1966. The pair had one daughter and were a popular Hollywood fixture for nearly 20 years. With her film career on the wane in the mid 1960's, Dina gravitated toward TV guest spots on such popular shows as "Dr. Kildare," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "Burke's Law," "Rawhide," "Daktari," "Bonanza," "Daniel Boone," "Batman" (as the villainous "Calamity Jan" alongside Robertson's western bad guy "Shame"), "The Name of the Game," "The Virginian," "Night Gallery," "Marcus Welby," "The Love Boat" and "The Odd Couple." She also graced a number of TV-movie dramas beginning with The Sunshine Patriot (1968) co-starring husband Robertson and Seven in Darkness (1969) (as a blind survivor of a plane crash), and continuing with The Lonely Profession (1969), Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones (1971), Family Flight (1972), The Letters (1973), The Tenth Month (1979), and a featured part in the mini-series sequel Roots: The Next Generations (1979).
Dina returned to Broadway as the co-star of the drama "Angel Street" (1975) and again with the revival of the musical "On Your Toes" in which she played "Peggy Porterfield" in both the 1983 Broadway revival and 1986 national tour. In the same year that Dina divorced second husband Cliff Robertson (1989), she married actor/investment banker Ted Hartley. Together the couple bought RKO Studios and renamed it RKO Pavilion. He serves as chairman and she vice chairperson/creative director. The studio produced such popular efforts as Milk & Money (1996) and the remake of Mighty Joe Young (1998).
Admired for her tireless philanthropic contributions, Dina was a moderate Republican (vice chair of the Republican Pro-Choice Coalition), and an active lobbyist for women's health issues. She also devoted much time working for the disadvantaged, particularly for the New York City Mission Society. She remained active and was an avid tennis and golf player for quite some time. Broaching age 90, the ever-glamorous actress appeared in a summer stock production of "Only a Kingdom" (2004) and continued to appear in occasional movie and television productions until developing dementia. Dina died on May 22, 2017, at age 93, survived by her third husband.- Actress
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French character actress Lilyan Chauvin may be one of those actors or actresses whose face you know without knowing their names. Chauvin was a long time veteran of the European stage, and was adept at playing strict, but sometimes loving characters. To horror fans, she might be best known as the sinister Mother Superior in Silent Night, Deadly Night (1984), but her career started back in the 1950s when she was plucked from the stage to appear in small minor roles in motion pictures. One notable film was with John Wayne in North to Alaska (1960). For about thirty years, Chauvin was one of the busiest character actresses in Hollywood, appearing in over forty films as well as on television. Her many film credits include Private Benjamin (1980), Predator 2 (1990), No Place to Hide (1992), Universal Soldier (1992) as Jean-Claude Van Damme's mother, and most recently Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002) with Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio.- The daughter of a copper expert (William Stanley Eckert) and an actress and museum curator (May Davenport), character actress Anne Seymour was born on September 11, 1909 in New York City. She was the seventh generation of a theatrical family that could be tracked back to Ireland in 1740. Her great-uncle was the popular character actor Harry Davenport and her two older brothers were writer James Seymour (42nd Street (1933)) and actor John Seymour (The Sporting Club (1971)).
Anne trained for the stage at the American Laboratory Theatre School with Richard Boleslawski and Maria Ouspenskaya, and began her career performing with The Jitney Players. She, as did her brothers, eventually changed her stage moniker from Eckert to her mother's maiden name of Seymour. After touring throughout New England, Anne made her New York debut in Mr. Moneypenny in 1928. Other Broadway shows followed including At the Bottom (1930) and A School for Scandal (1931). The following year, she entered the world of radio drama. Her distinctively warm style and vocal timbre were perfect for playing some of radio's noblest, self-sacrificing heroines. She portrayed "Mary Marlin" for 11 popular seasons; it turned out to be her most identifiable role.
In the late 1940s Anne switched to film and made an auspicious debut as Lucy Stark in the Oscar-winning picture All the King's Men (1949). Although movie appearances would remain sporadic and relatively minor, Anne was a solid, capable player during the golden age of television and could be seen dressing up many glossy dramas, including Studio One (1948) and Robert Montgomery Presents (1950). Her rather hawkish, matronly features, which seemed in stark contrast to her smooth, modulated tones, nevertheless had her primarily playing benevolent roles as concerned relatives and professionals somewhat in the background.
In 1958, Anne earned strong marks for her portrayal of Sara Delano Roosevelt alongside Tony-winning Ralph Bellamy's FDR in "Sunrise at Campobello" on Broadway. She lost the 1960 movie role to Ann Shoemaker. Anne was actively involved on the SAG and AFTRA boards throughout a good portion of her career. Unmarried, she died in 1988 of natural causes after completing a small part in the popular film Field of Dreams (1989). - Actress
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Striking brunette Lori Saunders managed to capitalize on her sunny, daisy-fresh appeal during CBS-TV's famous 1960s "rural age," an era in which the network churned out a connected trio of bucolic hit shows -- The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Petticoat Junction (1963) and Green Acres (1965). As the studious, slightly ditzy middle daughter, "Bobbie Jo Bradley," on the second show, her character would occasionally "visit" the other two shows. Once Petticoat Junction (1963) was canceled in 1970, Lori crossed over to The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) set, with a recurring part as Mr. Drysdale's secretary, Elizabeth "Betty" Gordon, in its very last season (1970-1971).
Born Linda Marie Hines on October 4, 1941, in Kansas City, Missouri, Lori studied for a time under acting coach Jeff Corey. Her professional career began at age 19, in 1960, with multiple episodes of The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (1952). She then dropped her real name in favor of the stage moniker, "Linda Saunders," and became a popular presence, pitching well over 100 commercial products on TV. She also earned a few "pretty girl" film parts, in such minor fare as The Girls on the Beach (1965), Mara of the Wilderness (1965), and the horror opus, Blood Bath (1966).
Finding occasional work on such established series as Burke's Law (1963), Lori finally hit pay dirt in 1965 when she was brought in to replace actress Pat Woodell on Petticoat Junction (1963) as one of the gorgeous Bradley daughters, when Woodell decided to leave to pursue a singing career. Lori changed her marquee name for the final time, in order to avoid confusion with the other "Linda" on the show -- Linda Henning. During the "Petticoat" run, Lori, Linda and Meredith MacRae had a brief career as a singing trio in which they billed themselves as "The Girls from Petticoat Junction." The trio occasionally sang on the show (as the "Hooterville Honeys"), and one available CD contains original songs ("If You Could Only Be Me," "Thirty Days Hath September") as well as established hits from other artists ("Up, Up and Away"). The girls booked a string of nightclubs and fairs, and also made a singing appearance on Johnny Carson's late night show.
Following her TV peak, Lori continued to find acting work elsewhere, on such shows as Daniel Boone (1964) and The Courtship of Eddie's Father (1969), as well as an occasional TV pilot. She played sweet "Betsy McGuire" for 26 episodes on yet another countrified show, Dusty's Trail (1973), that co-starred Gilligan's Island (1964) star Bob Denver and F Troop (1965) star Forrest Tucker. By coincidence, the other female co-star on that series was none other than blonde Jeannine Riley, who played daughter "Billie Jo Bradley" on Petticoat Junction (1963), but deboarded the Cannonball just as Lori was boarding it in 1965.
An attempt to shake up her wholesome image with leading roles in minor film fare did not pan out. Head On (1971), A Day at the White House (1972), Frasier, the Sensuous Lion (1973) and the slasher film, So Sad About Gloria (1973), in which Lori played a former mental patient tormented by visions of ax murders, did little to advance her career. Lori eventually retired from acting, following her appearance in the low-budget sci-fi film, Captive (1980), co-starring Cameron Mitchell and David Ladd.
Married since 1961 to Bernard Sandler, who is retired as owner and agent of his Commercial Talent Agency, and living in Southern California, the couple have two children, Ronald Sandler and Stacy Sandler. Lori's long-time creative focus has been on photography, sculpture and painting. She is also a vegan and an avid outdoors person. She is into spiritual meditation and is involved in many charities as an advocate for child and animal rights.- Actress
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One of the finest classical and contemporary leading ladies ever to grace the 20th century American stage, five-time Tony Award winner Julie Harris was rather remote and reserved on camera, finding her true glow in front of the theatre lights. The freckled, red-haired actress not only was nominated for a whopping total of ten Tony awards and was a Sarah Siddons Award recipient for her work on the Chicago stage, she also earned awards in other areas of the entertainment industry, including three Emmys (of 11 nominations), a Grammy and an Academy Award nomination. (Note: Harris would hold the record for the most competitive Tony performance wins (five) for a couple of decades. Angela Lansbury finally caught up with her in 2009 and singer/actress Audra McDonald surpassed them both in 2014 with six). While Harris certainly lacked the buoyancy and glamor usually associated with being a movie star, she certainly made an impact in the early to mid 1950s with three iconic leading roles, two of which she resurrected from the Broadway stage. After that she pretty much deserted film.
Born Julie Ann Harris on December 2, 1925, in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, she was the daughter of William Pickett, an investment banker, and Elsie L. (née Smith) Harris, a nurse. Graduating from Grosse Pointe Country Day School, an early interest in the performance arts was encouraged by her family. Moving to New York City, Julie attended The Hewitt School and later trained as a teenager at the Perry-Mansfield Performing Arts School & Camp in Colorado. A mentor there, Charlotte Perry, saw great hope for young Julie and was insistent that her protégé study at the Yale School of Drama. Julie did just that -- for about a year.
Also trained at the New York School of Drama and one of the earliest members of the Acting Studio, young Julie made her Broadway debut in 1945 at age 19 in the comedy "It's a Gift". Despite its lukewarm reception, the demure, diminutive (5'3"), and delicate-looking thespian moved on. She apprenticed on Broadway for the next few years with ensemble parts in "King Henry IV, Part II" (1946), "Oedipus Rex" (1946), "The Playboy of the Western World" (1946), "Alice in Wonderland" (as the White Rabbit) (1947), and Macbeth" (1948).
More prominent roles came her way in such short-lived Broadway plays as "Sundown Beach" (1948), "The Young and Fair" (1948), "Magnolia Alley" (1949) and "Montserrat (1949). This led to her star-making theatre role at age 24 as sensitive 12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams in the classic drama "The Member of the Wedding" (1950) opposite veteran actress Ethel Waters and based on the Carson McCullers novel. The play ran for over a year. The Member of the Wedding (1952) would eventually be transferred to film and, despite being untried talents on film, director Fred Zinnemann wisely included both Harris and young Brandon De Wilde (as young John Henry) to reenact their stage triumphs along with Ms. Waters. Harris, at 27, received her first and only Academy Award nomination as the coming-of-age Georgian tomboy.
It wasn't long before Julie's exceptional range and power won noticed nationwide. In 1952, she received her first "Best Actress" Tony Award for creating the larger-than-life role of Sally Bowles in "I Am a Camera," the stage version of one of Christopher Isherwood's Berlin stories ("Goodbye to Berlin" (1939). (Note: In the 1960s, Isherwood's play would be transformed successfully into the Broadway musical "Cabaret".) Harris again was invited to repeat her stage role in I Am a Camera (1955) with Laurence Harvey and Shelley Winters, winning the BAFTA "Best Foreign Actress" Award. That same year Harris starred opposite the highly emotive James Dean (she had top billing) as his love interest in the classic film East of Eden (1955), directed by Elia Kazan from the John Steinbeck novel. Strangely, Julie's brilliance in the role of Abra was completely overlooked come Oscar time...a terrible miscarriage of justice in this author's view.
After this vivid film exposure, Julie's love for the theatre completely dominated her career focus. She continued to increase her Broadway prestige with such plays as "Mademoiselle Colombe" (title role) (1954), "The Lark" (Tony Award: as Joan of Arc) (1955), "The Country Wife" (1957), "The Warm Peninsula" (1959), "Little Moon Over Alban" (1960) (which she took to Emmy-winning TV), "A Shot in the Dark" (1961), "Ready When Your Are, C.B.!" (1964), "Skyscraper" (1965), "Forty Carats" (Tony Award) (1968), "And Miss Reardon Drinks a Little" ) (1971), "The Au Pair Man" (1973) and "In Praise of Love" (1974). In between she gave stellar performances on TV with her Joan of Arc in The Lark (1957); title role in Johnny Belinda (1958); Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House (1959); Catherine Sloper in The Heiress (1961); title role in Victoria Regina (1961) (for which received an Emmy award); Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion (1963), and title role in Anastasia (1967).Be
In later years Harris reaped praises and honors for her awe-inspiring one-woman touring shows based on the lives of certain distaff historical figureheads. Her magnificently tormented, Tony-winning "First Lady" Mary Lincoln in "The Last of Mrs. Lincoln" (1972) was the first to be seen on stage and TV, followed by another Tony (and Grammy) Award-winning performance as poetess Emily Dickinson in "The Belle of Amherst" (1976) (directed by close friend Charles Nelson Reilly, as well as her early 1980s solo portrait of author Charlotte Brontë in "Bronte," which started out as a radio play. Julie was now placed among the theatre's luminous "ruling class" alongside legendary veterans Helen Hayes, Katharine Cornell and Judith Anderson.
As time wore on, Harris would become equally respected on film and TV for her portrayals of over-the-edge neurotics, wallflowers and eccentric maiden aunt types as witnessed by her co-starring roles in the films The Haunting (1963), Hamlet (1964) (as Ophelia), Harper (1966), You're a Big Boy Now (1966), Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), The Bell Jar (1979), and the TV-movies How Awful About Allan (1970) and Home for the Holidays (1972). Perhaps a step down performance wise, the veteran actress, after a period of ill health, became a household name with her regular series work as Lilimae on the TV soap Knots Landing (1979).
At age 60, Harris continued to impress on Broadway with her 1990's versions of Amanda Wingfield in "The Glass Menagerie" and Fonsia Dorsey in "The Gin Game" for which she received her tenth and final Tony nomination. She also toured successfully with a production of "Lettice and Lovage". Unlike many other actors whose film roles disintegrated with appearances in bottom-of-the-barrel lowbudgets, Julie's final two supporting films roles were in two nicely constructed period romantic comedies -- The Golden Boys (2008) and The Lightkeepers (2009).
Ill health dogged Julie's later years (she battled breast cancer in 1981 and suffered two strokes -- one in 2001 (while performing in the Chicago play "Fossils") and again in 2010). Nevertheless, she continued to work almost until the end, including narrating five historical documentaries and giving Emmy-winning voice to such women suffragettes as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Married and divorced three times, Julie had one son by her second marriage -- Peter, who became a theatre critic. She also spent time enjoying the benefits of receiving special awards and honors for her full body of work. Among these, she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1979, was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994, received a "Special Lifetime Achievement" Tony Award in 2002 and was a 2005 Kennedy Center honoree.
Harris died on August 24, 2013, of congestive heart failure at her home in West Chatham, Massachusetts. She was 87.- Actress
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Kathy Garver was born in Long Beach, California Her break-through performance came as one of the young slaves in The Ten Commandments
She is most well known for starring as the teenage niece of Uncle Bill Davis, Cissy Davis on Family Affair (1966). The show was nominated for Emmys in various categories during its five year run.- Actress
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Emmy Award-winning Sarah Michelle Gellar was born on April 14, 1977 in New York City, the daughter of Rosellen (Greenfield), who taught at a nursery school, and Arthur Gellar, who worked in the garment industry. She is of Russian Jewish and Hungarian Jewish descent.
Eating in a local restaurant, Sarah was discovered by an agent when she was four years old. Soon after, she was making her first movie An Invasion of Privacy (1983). Besides a long list of movies, she has also appeared in many TV commercials and on the stage. Her breakthrough came with the television series Swans Crossing (1992). In 1997, she became known to the cinema audience when she appeared in two movies: I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) and Scream 2 (1997). But she is most commonly known for her title role in the long-running television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997). She also won an Emmy Award for her performance as Kendall Hart on the soap opera All My Children (1970).
Sarah has since starred in many films, including Simply Irresistible (1999), Cruel Intentions (1999), and the live-action Scooby-Doo (2002) movies as the lovable Daphne Blake. She also provided her voice to several movies, including Small Soldiers (1998), Happily N'Ever After (2006) and TMNT (2007), starred in the box office hit The Grudge (2004), and co-starred with Robin Williams and James Wolk in the television series The Crazy Ones (2013).
She resides in Los Angeles, California, with her husband, Freddie Prinze Jr.. They have been married since 2002, and have two children.- Actress
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Zoë Kravitz has captivated audiences in diverse group of acclaimed major motion picture films, notable independent releases and blockbuster franchises including The Batman, Mad Max and Fantastic Beasts, as well as the celebrated EMMY® Award-winning series Big Little Lies.
Following her role both starring in and Executive Producing the critically acclaimed series adaption of High Fidelity for Hulu, Kravitz most recently starred as Selina Kyle in Matt Reeves and Warner Bros.' acclaimed blockbuster film The Batman. In 2024, Kravitz will make her directorial debut with the original motion picture film, Blink Twice. Written by Kravitz and E.T. Feigenbaum, the film will star Naomi Ackie alongside Channing Tatum.
At the onset of this multi-talented entertainer's career, Variety touted her among its "10Actors to Watch," while Forbes spotlighted Kravitz on their coveted "30 Under 30 List." She has since gained global recognition and was recently named one of "the most influential people of 2022" by TIME.
Outside of her film endeavors, Kravitz is the global face of YSL Beauty and a brand ambassador for Saint Laurent, as well as the face of YSL's Black Opium fragrance.- Music Department
Zoë Conway is known for Artemis Fowl (2020), For Those About to Rock: The Story of Rodrigo y Gabriela (2014) and The Late Late Show (1962).- Actress
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Lovely, lithe and light-haired Zina Bethune, noted ballet dancer, choreographer and teacher, also had a promising acting career during the late 1950s and 1960s.
The native New Yorker was born on February 17, 1945, the daughter of William Charles Bethune (who died in 1950 when Zina was 5) and established actress Ivy Bethune (née Vigner) of General Hospital (1963) fame. Zina's mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant, born in Sevastopol.
Formally trained in dance from age 6, she was a student at George Balanchine's School of American Ballet, and performed with the New York City Ballet as a teen despite the fact she was diagnosed at various times with scoliosis, lymphedema and hip dysplasia.
As an adolescent, she appeared in several daytime TV dramas, including a breakthrough part (1956-1958) as the first "Robin Lang" on the serial Guiding Light (1952). Over time, she joined the cast of other soaps, including a lengthy running part on Love of Life (1951) from 1965-1971 and, many years later, a recurring part on Santa Barbara (1984). Zina co-starred with Shirl Conway on the TV drama The Doctors and the Nurses (1962) [best known as "The Nurses," the series was later entitled "The Doctors and the Nurses"], and won touching reviews for her naive student nurse role. She also played the sensitive role of "Amy" in one of several TV adaptations of Louisa May Alcott's beloved Little Women (1958). As a young adult, she continued to demonstrate a formidable dramatic flair on such popular shows as Route 66 (1960), Naked City (1958), Gunsmoke (1955), Lancer (1968), The Invaders (1967), Emergency! (1972) and CHiPs (1977).
Making her first movie appearance as one of the Roosevelt children in Sunrise at Campobello (1960) starring Ralph Bellamy and Greer Garson, she did not make as indelible a mark in film as promised, but did earn semi-cult notice for her moving streetwise role opposite Harvey Keitel in Martin Scorsese's autobiographical feature-length debut Who's That Knocking at My Door (1967) [aka Who's That Knocking at My Door?], a notable predecessor to his acclaimed star-maker Mean Streets (1973).
Zina graced many musicals as a singer/dancer and made her Broadway debut at age 11 playing "Tessie" in "The Most Happy Fella". A number of touring productions came her way in the form of "Sweet Charity", "Oklahoma!", "Damn Yankees!", "Carnival", "Carousel" and "The Unsinkable Molly Brown". Non-musical offerings came in the form of "The Member of the Wedding", "Barefoot in the Park" and "The Owl and the Pussycat". In 1992, Zina returned to Broadway as a replacement in "Grand Hotel" in which she portrayed Russian ballerina "Elizaveta Grushinskaya".
Ms. Bethune's ultimate passion and commitment, however, has remained in the art of dance...and on many levels. In her prime, she was a highly-regarded prima ballerina. Among her many credits were "Swan Lake", "Le Corsair", "Romeo and Juliet", "Black Swan", "Giselle", "Don Quixote" and "Sleeping Beauty", not to mention Balanchine's own "Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux". A guest artist with The Royal Danish Ballet, Nevada Dance Theatre and San Francisco Ballet Theatre, she went on to form her own New York-based company in 1969 -- Zina Bethune and Company. Her career as a dance director and choreographer has encompassed over 50 plays, films, videos and ballets.
Bethune was sporadically seen on camera in later years, including small roles in the film The Boost (1988) as a dance choreographer, the TV movie Nutcracker: Money, Madness & Murder (1987) and the TV series "Santa Barbara" and "Party of Five." Throughout her life, she has remained steadfast in her contribution to children with physical and mental disabilities. Helping them embrace the art of dance as a means of self-expression and therapy, she was prompted by her own physical ailments diagnosed while growing up. In addition to the Theatredanse (aka Theature Bethune) dance performance company she founded in 1980, she also organized Dance Outreach (now known as Infinite Dreams) in 1982, which continues to enroll disabled young children in dance-related activities throughout Southern California.
On February 12, 2012, Bethune was killed in an apparent hit-and-run accident while visiting the Griffith Park area in Los Angeles. She was five days short of her 67th birthday. She was survived by her husband, technical/visual effects artist 'Sean Feeley and mother Ivy.- Actress
- Director
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Canadian born actress/director, AJ is best known for her role as "Special Agent Jennifer 'JJ' Jareau" in the CBS long running series CRIMINAL MINDS. She can currently be seen reprising her role on CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION for Paramount+, which will be going into a second season later this year. AJ has also directed an episode of CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION this season and did so in season 14 of CRIMINAL MINDS, as well. AJ's film credits include THE VIRGIN SUICIDES, OUT COLD, BACK FORK and FINAL DESTINATION 2.
After 15 years playing Special Agent Jennifer "JJ" Jareau on CBS' Criminal Minds, AJ Cook turned her eye toward directing and successfully directed an episode of the series in Season 14. Most recently, she directed episode 1608 for CRIMINAL MINDS: EVOLUTION, now on Paramount+.- Music Artist
- Actress
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Talented. Beautiful. Modest. These three words described R&B singer-turned-actress Aaliyah perfectly.
Aaliyah Dana Haughton was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Diane (Hankerson) and Michael Haughton. Her uncle was music manager Barry Hankerson and her brother is director Rashad Haughton. Aaliyah was raised in Detroit. She got her first major exposure appearing on the syndicated television series Star Search (1983), where she awed the audience with her amazing voice and talent, singing "My Funny Valentine", a song which her mother had sung years earlier. At age 11, she sang with Gladys Knight in a five-night stint in Las Vegas. Withdrawing from the celebrity scene for a few years, Aaliyah lived the life of a normal teenage girl, attending Detroit's Performing Arts High School, where she majored in dance. It was around this same time that Aaliyah met singer/composer R. Kelly. Kelly assisted Aaliyah with the production of her debut album "Age Ain't Nothing But A number", which scored several number hits, specifically "Back and Forth." The album's title was a brief reference to her short-lived marriage to R. Kelly (she was 15 years of age at the time, and he was in his 20s). Thir marriage was annulled due to her status as a minor.
During her senior year, Aaliyah went on to record "One In A Million", which featured the songwriting talents of major R&B producers/writers Missy Elliott and Timbaland. The album was a major success and sealed Aaliyah's fame forever.
Aaliyah recorded the single 'Journey to the past' for the Anastasia (1997) soundtrack. After seeing her at an awards show and in the video for her hit song "Are You that Somebody?" (from the Eddie Murphy film Doctor Dolittle (1998)), film producer Joel Silver (producer of The Matrix (1999) and other major actor films) asked Aaliyah to audition for a role in an romance/action film, Romeo Must Die (2000). With her determination and sex appeal, Aaliyah won Silver over and was cast in her first major film role. Romeo Must Die (2000) was a hit at the box office. This film led to her being cast as one of the stars of the film based on Anne Rice's Queen of the Damned (2002), and in the two sequels to the major box office hit, The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003).
During the busy schedule of her film career, Aaliyah took time to record her third album, the self-titled "Aaliyah". July 2001 was a busy time for Aaliyah. After the success of her song "Try Again", for which she was nominated for a Grammy Award and won several MTV Video Awards, Aaliyah finally released her "Aaliyah" album. Debuting at number two on the Billboard charts, "Aaliyah" was a sales success, despite some lackluster reviews.
In August 2001, Aaliyah took time off from her busy album promotional tour to fly to the Bahamas to film a video for the song "Rock the Boat". The video, filmed on Abaco Island, was directed by Hype Williams, a major music video director known for his style and wit.
On August 25, 2001, after filming the video, Aaliyah and about 9-11 of her entourage took off from Marsh Harbour airport at 6:50pm EDT in a small Cessna 404 en route to Opa-Locka, Florida. A few minutes after take-off, the plane crashed about 200 feet from the runaway, killing Aaliyah and many others instantly. Four passengers were pulled alive from the wreckage, and one later died at a hospital in Nassau. Aaliyah was only 22 years old. Her funeral was held on Friday August 31st in New York, and 22 white doves were flown to celebrate each year of her life. Soon after her death, the hit singles 'More Than a woman' and 'Rock The Boat' were released, from her third album. In 2002, the film Queen of the Damned (2002) was released, in which Aaliyah played Queen Akasha. She was nominated for best Villain at the MTV Movie Awards 2002.
Aaliyah's short-lived, but brilliant career, was a true success story for a young African-American woman who went against all odds to be herself in an industry where originality is scarce. Truly missed by her family, friends, and fans, her music and film contributions will live forever. It's no wonder that her name means 'Highest, most ex-halted one; the best' in Hebrew. She had achieved so much in her twenty-two years.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Sleek and striking Abby Dalton became a very familiar perky and sexy presence in 1960s TV households. Known not only for her award-worthy acting on TV comedy, she became an avid game-show panelist and appeared on a slew of TV's more popular programs. It might come as a surprise to some that she honed her wholesome sitcom personality only after apprenticing in Roger Corman cheap-jack cult movies -- sometimes as a juvenile delinquent. She was born Gladys Marlene Wasden on August 15, 1932 in Las Vegas, Nevada, and started working in the entertainment field as a teen magazine cover model, also appearing at times on record album jackets. An acting company member for writer/producer Roger Corman beginning in 1957, Abby made her dubious debut in the low-grade beatnik film, Rock All Night (1957), in which she and others are trapped and held hostage in a bar by a pair of killers. Corman continued to use her in his films, some with and some without billing, including Teenage Doll (1957), Carnival Rock (1957), Stakeout on Dope Street (1958), and the absurdly-titled The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent (1957), in which she played Desir, a stalwart leader of Nordic women in search for men, after presumably losing their own at sea. Outside the Corman fold, she appeared in the equally low-budgeted and exploitable Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958) and Girls on the Loose (1958). The blonde, toothy beauty fared much better on TV starting in the late 1950s, popping up on several TV's best known westerns (Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), Rawhide (1959), Maverick (1957), The Rifleman (1958), Sugarfoot (1957)). She eventually earned a steady role on Jackie Cooper's Hennesey (1959) series and both actors received Emmy nominations for their roles -- she playing his girlfriend. The TV couple "married" just before the demise of the sitcom in 1962. A higher degree of visibility was achieved when Abby won the role of Joey Bishop's pert-looking wife on The Joey Bishop Show (1961). She gave birth to a TV baby in 1963 (played by her real-life infant son, Matthew David Smith). Her daughter, Kathleen Kinmont, also appeared on the program. Following the end of its four-season run, Abby engaged more fans to her corner by appearing regularly on the game show circuit. She showed off a delightfully off-the-cuff humor and sexy edge as a mainstay panelist, alongside Cliff Arquette, Wally Cox, and Rose Marie, on The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1965) and was located in the lower middle square for about four seasons before leaving her then-permanent post in 1970. During that time, she also played the "straight woman" in a number of sketch sequences for Jonathan Winters on his show, playing Margaret, his wife. The series, however, was rather short-lived (1967-1969). The only film she made during the 1960s was as "Calamity Jane" opposite Don Murray's Wild Bill Hickok and Guy Stockwell's Buffalo Bill Cody in a lackluster remake of the Gary Cooper starrer, The Plainsman (1966). For the most part, she focused on TV. Abby continued to be seen here and there throughout the 1970s. She might have enjoyed a major career boost as Hal Linden wife, Elizabeth, in the pilot of sitcom favorite Barney Miller (1975) had she stayed with it, but she was replaced by Barbara Barrie, when the show was picked up for its first season. Abby became part of the original cast of Falcon Crest (1981), a prime-time soap. As winery heiress Julia Cumson, Jane Wyman's daughter and Lorenzo Lamas' mother, she eventually shows her true colors as a murderous schemer. Coincidentally, Abby's daughter, actress Kathleen Kinmont, was later married for a time to "Falcon Crest" star Lorenzo Lamas. After leaving the show, she was seen only sporadically on TV and in films, including a short stint on a daytime soap. Her work continued until 1999, though she remained active in volunteer work. Twice married, her second to Jack Smith in 1960, produced three children, including daughter/actress Kathleen and son Matthew David. Her first marriage to Joe Mondragon ended in divorce in 1959.- Actress
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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.- A marvelously quirky and distinctive 4' 3" character actress, with a larger-than-life presence on film and TV, Zelda Rubinstein gave up a long and stable career in the medical field as a lab technician in order to strive for something more self-fulfilling as middle age settled in. At the age of 45, the feisty lady gave up the comfort of a stable paycheck and attempt an acting career, a daunting task for anyone but especially someone of her stature and type. Within a few years, she had beaten the odds and became a major movie celebrity thanks to one terrific showcase in a Steven Spielberg horror classic. In the process, she served as an inspiration to all the "little people" working in Hollywood who are forced to toil in cruel and demeaning stereotypes.
Zelda May Rubinstein was born on May 28, 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Dolores and George Rubinstein, who were Polish Jewish immigrants. Zelda was the youngest of three children, and the only "little person" in the family. Her childhood and teenage years were decidedly difficult in terms of coping with her "interesting variation," which was caused by a pituitary gland deficiency. With no designs on acting at the time, she went the normal route of college and received a scholarship to study at the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her degree in bacteriology and worked for a number of years as a lab technician in blood banks. In 1978, Zelda, in a pursuit of something more creative in her life, abandoned her cushy but mundane job and threw herself completely into acting. She made her movie debut as one of the little people in the Chevy Chase slapstick comedy Under the Rainbow (1981). It all came together so quickly with her second film Poltergeist (1982) in the scene-stealing role of Tangina, the saucy, self-confident, prune-faced "house cleaner" with the whispery, doll-like voice who is brought in to rid a suburban home of demonic possession. Co-writer/producer Spielberg claims he designed the psychic role specifically for a "little person". The film became an instant summertime hit and Zelda created absolute magic and wonderment with the testy role, receiving some of the movie's best reviews. The character actress went on to appear in the two "Poltergeist" sequels. The "Poltergeist" movie projects were eventually dubbed "cursed" due to the untimely deaths of some of its performers, particularly two of the three children of film parents Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams. 22-year-old Dominique Dunne was slain in 1982 by a jealous ex-boyfriend only a few months after the first film's release, and angelic little Heather O'Rourke, age 12, died of an intestinal obstruction just months before Poltergeist III (1988) made it to the screen.
Although Zelda would not find a role quite up to the standards and popularity of Tangina, her subsequent career remained surprisingly active with a number of weird parts woven into both comedies and chillers -- often variations of her eccentric Tangina role. She played a mental patient in the Frances Farmer biopic Frances (1982), which showcased Jessica Lange in the Oscar-nominated title role; a squeaky-shoed organist in John Hughes sweet-sixteen comedy classic Sixteen Candles (1984) co-starring Brat Packers Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall; the demented mom in the gruesome, Spanish-made horror-thriller Anguish (1987) [aka Anguish], which has since reached cult status; a mentor witch in the comic fantasy Teen Witch (1989); a hermit in a National Lampoon-based slapstick Last Resort (1994); a betting clerk in the Sci-Fi adventure Timemaster (1995); an ill-fated nun in the thriller Little Witches (1996), and; a theatre director in the flick Critics and Other Freaks (1997).
Into the millennium, she made some odd, slapdash appearances in such minor fare as Maria & Jose (2000), Wishcraft (2002), Cages (2005), Angels with Angles (2005), Unbeatable Harold (2006) and Southland Tales (2006). In her last film, she furthered her horror icon status with a small cameo in the slim-budgeted indie Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) that also featured Robert Englund of "Freddy Krueger" fame. Zelda also found an "in" doing voiceovers, her doll-like tones ideal for cartoons and such, and in commercials promoting such items as Skittles candy. She enjoyed extended popularity on TV with a regular series role on the first couple of seasons of Picket Fences (1992). Her character later was killed off in a freakish accident (fell into a freezer!). In her last years she narrated, and "Exorcist" child star Linda Blair hosted, TV's Scariest Places on Earth (2000). The actress also appeared on stage in such productions as "Deathtrap" (as a psychic, of course), "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Suddenly, Last Summer," "The Slab Boys" and "Black Comedy". She also appeared as Yente in a production of "Fiddler on the Roof".
An outspoken social activist, Zelda was a staunch advocate for the rights of little people who formed the nonprofit Michael Dunn Memorial Repertory Theater Company in Los Angeles in 1985. The actress gained additional attention and respect, if not popularity (her career suffered for a time as a result), as an early and outspoken HIV/AIDS activist. As the poster mom for AIDS awareness, she valiantly appeared in a series of maternal newspaper/billboard advertisements imploring her gay son to practice safe sex. The series of ads ran from the mid-to-late 1980s. Zelda also participated in the first AIDS Project Los Angeles AIDS Walk and attended the 25th Anniversary Walk on October 12, 2009.
A couple of months before her death on January 27, 2010, Zelda suffered a heart attack. Complications set in (kidney and lung failure) and she passed away at age 76 on January 27, 2010, at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles, California. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Classic comedienne Zasu Pitts, of the timid, forlorn blue eyes and trademark woebegone vocal pattern and fidgety hands, was born to Rulandus and Nellie (Shay) Pitts, the third of four children on January 3, 1894. Her aged New York-native father, who lost a leg back in the Civil War era, had settled the family in Kansas by the time ZaSu was born but relocated to Santa Cruz, California, when she was 9, seeking a warmer climate and better job opportunities. She attended Santa Cruz High and somehow rose above her excessively shy demeanor to join the school's drama department. She went on to cultivate what was once deemed her negative qualities by making a career out of her unglamorous looks and wallflower tendencies in scores and scores of screwball comedy treasures.
Pitts made her stage debut in 1915 and was discovered two years later by pioneer screenwriter Frances Marion, who got her work, though in small, obscure parts, in vehicles for such Paramount stars as Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Mary cast her in another of her films to greater effect and the rest is history. She grew in popularity following a series of Universal one-reeler comedies and earned her first feature-length lead in King Vidor's Better Times (1919). She met and married matinée idol Tom Gallery in 1920 and paired up with him in several films, including Bright Eyes (1921), Heart of Twenty (1920), Patsy (1921), and A Daughter of Luxury (1922).
Their daughter Ann was born in 1922. In 1924 the actress, now a reputable comedy farceur, was given the greatest tragic role of her career in Erich von Stroheim's epic classic Greed (1924), an over-four-hour picture cut down by the studio to less than two. The surprise casting initially shocked Hollywood but showed that she could draw tears and pathos as well as laughs with her patented doleful demeanor. The movie has grown tremendously in reputation over time, although it failed initially at the box office due to its extensive cutting.
Trading off between comedy shorts and features, she earned additional kudos in such heavy dramas as Sins of the Fathers (1928), The Wedding March (1928), also helmed by Von Stroheim, and War Nurse (1930). Still, by the advent of sound, which was an easy transition for Pitts, she was fully secured in comedy. One bitter and huge disappointment for her was when she was replaced in the war classic All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) by Beryl Mercer after her initial appearance drew unintentional laughs from preview audiences. She decided, however, to make the most of a not-so-bad situation. She had them rolling in the aisles in such wonderful and wacky entertainment as The Dummy (1929), Finn and Hattie (1931), The Guardsman (1931), Blondie of the Follies (1932), Sing and Like It (1934), and Ruggles of Red Gap (1935). She also excelled deliciously in her comedy partnerships with stunning blonde comedienne Thelma Todd (in short films) and gangly comedian Slim Summerville (in features).
Breezing through the 1940s in assorted films, she found work in vaudeville and on radio as well, trading quivery banter with Bing Crosby, Al Jolson, and Rudy Vallee, among others. She also tackled Broadway, making her debut in the mystery "Ramshackle Inn" in 1944. The play, which was written especially for her, fared quite well and, as a result, took the show on the road frequently in later years. Postwar films continued to give Pitts the chance to play comic snoops and flighty relatives in such quality fare as Life with Father (1947), but into the 1950s she started focusing on TV. This culminated in her best known series role, playing second banana to cruise line social director Gale Storm in The Gale Storm Show: Oh! Susanna (1956) [aka "Oh, Susannah"]. As Nugie, the shipboard beautician and partner-in-crime, she made the most of her timid, twitchy mannerisms.
Sadly, ill health dominated Pitts' later years when she was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-1950s. She bravely carried on, continuing to work until the very end, making brief appearances in The Thrill of It All (1963) and the all-star comedy epic It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). Having married a second time after her divorce from Gallery, the beloved sad sack comedienne passed away at age 69 on June 6, 1963, leaving behind a gallery of scene-stealing worrywarts for all to enjoy.- Lois Smith was born on 3 November 1930 in Topeka, Kansas, USA. She is an actress, known for Minority Report (2002), Lady Bird (2017) and Twister (1996). She was previously married to Wesley Dale Smith.
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Joan Collins is an English actress from Paddington, London. She is most famous for playing the role of vengeful schemer Alexis Carrington Colby in the soap opera "Dynasty" (1981-1989). In 1997, She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to drama. In 2015, She was promoted to the rank of Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to charity.
She was the daughter of talent agent Joseph William Collins (1902-1988) and his wife, dance teacher Elsa Bessant, (1906-1962). Joseph was born in South Africa, and of Jewish descent. As a talent agent, his most famous clients were Shirley Bassey, the Beatles, and Tom Jones. Elsa was born in the United Kingdom to an Anglican family.
Collins was educated at Francis Holland School in London, an independent day school for girls. She made her theatrical debut c. 1942, as a child actress. She had a role in a performance of the play "A Doll's House" (1879) by Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). In 1949, She started training as an actress at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. In 1950, she signed a contract with a British film studio, the Rank Organisation of businessman Joseph Arthur Rank, 1st Baron Rank (1888-1972).
Collins made her film debut in the short film "Facts and Fancies" (1951), and her feature film debut in "Lady Godiva Rides Again" (1951), where she played an unnamed Beauty Queen Contestant. She had supporting roles as the Greek maid Marina in "The Woman's Angle" (1952) and gangster's moll Lil Carter in "Judgment Deferred" (1952).
Collins had her big break when cast as juvenile delinquent Norma Hart in prison drama "I Believe in You" (1952). She was hailed as Britain's new "bad girl" and started being offered high-profile roles in British films. The next stage in her career started when cast as Princess Nellifer of Egypt in the historical epic "Land of the Pharaohs" (1955), an international production . While the film was not successful at the box office, it became a cult classic and Nellifer was one of her most recognizable roles. Studio executive Darryl Francis Zanuck (1902-1979) was sufficiently impressed to offer her a 7-year-long contract with American studio 20th Century Fox. She took the offer.
Collins' first American film was the historical drama "The Virgin Queen" (1955), where she shared the top-billing with established stars Bette Davis and Richard Todd. She then played the leading role of actress Evelyn Nesbit (1884/1885-1967) in the biographical film "The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing" (1955). The role was intended for established actress Marilyn Monroe, but she replaced Monroe based on a studio decision.
Collins was placed on loan to studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for her next role, that of gold digger Crystal in "The Opposite Sex" (1956). She received the top billing in the refugee-themed film "Sea Wife" (1956), and enjoyed box-office success with the interracial-love themed drama "Island in the Sun" (1957). In the drama film "The Wayward Bus" (1957), she received top-billing over her co-star Jayne Mansfield. Her next films included the spy thriller "Stopover Tokyo" (1957), the Western "The Bravados" (1958), the comedy "Rally Round the Flag, Boys" (1959), the caper film "Seven Thieves" (1960), and the biblical epic Esther and the King (1960).
By 1960, Collins was one of 20th Century Fox's biggest stars, but she demanded a release from her studio contract. She had campaigned for the title role in the upcoming production of "Cleopatra", but the studio chose to cast Elizabeth Taylor in the role. Collins felt slighted. As a freelance actress for most of the 1960s, she had few film roles. Among her most notable roles was playing the leading lady in "The Road to Hong Kong" (1962), the last film in the long-running "Road to ..." series. The male leads for the entire series were Bing Crosby and Bob Hope, but their usual leading lady Dorothy Lamour was considered too old for the role. Collins replaced Lamour.
Collins started appearing frequently on television guest star roles. Among her most notable television roles was the villainous Siren in "Batman", and pacifist spokeswoman Edith Keeler in "Star Trek: The Original Series". "Road to ..." played in only one episode of Star Trek, the time-travel episode "The City on the Edge of Forever" (1967). However the episode is regarded among the best episodes in the entire Star Trek franchise, with Collins considered one of the most memorable guest stars in the original series.
In 1970, Collins returned to her native United Kingdom. She started appearing frequently in British thriller and horror films of the decade. Among her films was revenge-themed drama "Revenge" (1971),science fiction film "Quest for Love" (1972), horror anthology "Tales from the Crypt" (1972), psychological horror "Fear in the Night" (1972), thriller "Dark Places", horror anthology "Tales That Witness Madness" (1973), and horror film "I Don't Want to Be Born" (1975).
Collins appeared in a few comedies in-between horror films, but none was particularly successful. She returned to the United States in order to play a role in the giant monster film "Empire of the Ants" (1977). She then returned to mostly appearing in thriller roles. She was catapulted back to stardom with the lead role of nymphomaniac Fontaine Khaled in the erotic drama "The Stud" (1978), an adaptation of a novel written by her younger sister Jackie Collins. The film was a surprise box office hit, earning 20 million dollars at the worldwide box office. "Road to ..." returned to the role of Fontaine in the sequel film ''The Bitch'' (1979), which was also a hit.
Collins found herself in high demand in both stage and film. But she gained more notoriety with the television role of Alexis Carington in "Dynasty". She started appearing in the role in the second season of the soap opera. Her performance is credited with the subsequent rise of the show's Nielsen's ratings. She became a household name, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1983.
By 1985, "Dynasty" was the number-one show in the United States, beating out rival soap opera "Dallas". Collins was nominated six times for a Golden Globe Award for her role, winning once in 1983. She was also once nominated for an Emmy as Best Actress in a Drama Series. Collins was viewed as a sex symbol at the time, and in 1983 appeared in a 12-page photo layout for Playboy magazine. She was 50-years-old, unusually old for a Playboy model.
Collins appeared in a total of 195 episodes of "Dynasty". The series was canceled with the last episode of its 9th season, due to falling ratings. New ABC entertainment president Bob Iger (1951-) is credited with ending the series as soon as possible. The show had a cliffhanger ending, and several of its subplots were not resolved. Collins returned to the role of Alexis in the sequel mini-series "Dynasty: The Reunion" (1991). The miniseries only lasted for 2 episodes, but resolved several subplots and was a ratings hit.
Throughout the 1990s., Collins returned to guest star roles in television. She appeared in (among others) "Roseanne", "Egoli: Place of Gold", and "The Nanny", She had the recurring role of Christina Hobson in the short-lived soap opera "Pacific Palisades" (1997). She appeared in 7 of its 13 episodes. Her next notable soap opera role was that of so-called "rich bitch" Alexandra Spaulding in 2002 episodes of the long-running series "Guiding Light". Collins was the third actress to play this role. following Beverlee McKinsey and Marj Dusay.
In film, Collins played Pearl Slaghoople, Wilma Flintstone's mother, in "The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" (2000). It was the second live-action film based on the popular animated series "The Flintstones". In 2006, she toured the United Kingdom with "An Evening with Joan Collins", an one-woman show where she narrated the highs and lows of her career and life. She later toured the word with both this show and its sequel "Joan Collins Unscripted".
Collins had a notable guest star-role as Ruth Van Rydock in the television film "Agatha Christie's Marple: They Do It with Mirrors" (2009). The film was an adaptation of the 1952 novel by Agatha Christie, where Ruth is an old school friend of Jane Marple, who assigned Jane to investigate a home for juvenile delinquents.
Collins played herself in three episodes of the sitcom "Happily Divorced" (2011-2013). She had the recurring role of Crystal Hennessy-Vass in the sitcom "Benidorm" (2007-2018). She had another recurring role as Alexandra, Grand Duchess of Oxford in the soap opera "The Royals" (2015-2018).
Collins had two different roles in the horror anthology series "American Horror Story". She played wealthy grandmother Evie Gallant, and witch Bubbles McGee. She appeared in a total of four episodes in 2018.
By 2024, Collins was 90-years-old. She has never retired from acting, and she continues to appear in new roles.- Actress
- Music Department
Rula Lenska was born on 30 September 1947 in St. Neots, Cambridgeshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Royal Flash (1975), Queen Kong (1976) and Seven Dials Mystery (1981). She was previously married to Dennis Waterman and Brian Deacon.- Actress
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Patsy started acting at 4 as the daughter of Robert Redford and Mia Farrow in The Great Gatsby and continued to study acting and working during school holidays. In 1973 she was in the television productions of For the Love of Ada and King Arthur and at 8 she spent 9 months in Russia with Elizabeth Taylor filming The Bluebird then on her return to London worked on television serials The Foundation, Gemma Shore, Luna and the American serial Pollyanna. In 1993 she made her debut with the RSC in Richard III. At 14 she joined the rock band Eighth Wonder, created by her brother, as a singer and composed songs Stay With Me and Cross My Heart. At one of their concerts director Julian Temple offered her the lead in the film Absolute Beginners. At 14 she interrupted her acting career to perform as a singer with Eighth Wonder, a rock band created by her brother and for which she composed several songs including Stay With Me and Cross My Heart, At one of the concerts she was offered the female lead in the upcoming film Absolute Beginners alongside David Bowie and went on to appear in the films Lethal Weapon II, A Chorus of Disapproval, Chicago Joe and the Showgirl and Prince of Shadows,- Actress
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Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; Crawford worked a variety of menial jobs. She was a good dancer, though, and -- perhaps seeing dance as her ticket to a career in show business -- she entered several contests, one of which landed her a spot in a chorus line. Before long, she was dancing in big Midwestern and East Coast cities. After almost two years, she packed her bags and moved to Hollywood. Crawford was determined to succeed, and shortly after arriving she got her first bit part, as a showgirl in Pretty Ladies (1925).
Three films quickly followed; although the roles weren't much to speak of, she continued toiling. Throughout 1927 and early 1928, she was cast in small parts, but that ended with the role of Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), which elevated her to star status. Crawford had cleared the first big hurdle; now came the second, in the form of talkies. Many stars of the silents saw their careers evaporate, either because their voices weren't particularly pleasant or because their voices, pleasing enough, didn't match the public's expectations (for example, some fans felt that John Gilbert's tenor didn't quite match his very masculine persona). But Crawford wasn't felled by sound. Her first talkie, Untamed (1929), was a success. As the 1930s progressed, Crawford became one of the biggest stars at MGM. She was in top form in films such as Grand Hotel (1932), Sadie McKee (1934), No More Ladies (1935), and Love on the Run (1936); movie patrons were enthralled, and studio executives were satisfied.
By the early 1940s, MGM was no longer giving her plum roles; newcomers had arrived in Hollywood, and the public wanted to see them. Crawford left MGM for rival Warner Bros., and in 1945 she landed the role of a lifetime. Mildred Pierce (1945) gave her an opportunity to show her range as an actress, and her performance as a woman driven to give her daughter everything garnered Crawford her first, and only, Oscar for Best Actress. The following year she appeared with John Garfield in the well-received Humoresque (1946). In 1947, she appeared as Louise Graham in Possessed (1947); again she was nominated for a Best Actress from the Academy, but she lost to Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter (1947). Crawford continued to choose her roles carefully, and in 1952 she was nominated for a third time, for her depiction of Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear (1952). This time the coveted Oscar went to Shirley Booth, for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). Crawford's career slowed after that; she appeared in minor roles until 1962, when she and Bette Davis co-starred in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Their longstanding rivalry may have helped fuel their phenomenally vitriolic and well-received performances. (Earlier in their careers, Davis said of Crawford, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie", and Crawford said of Davis, "I don't hate [her] even though the press wants me to. I resent her. I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words, and what have you got? She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that.")
Crawford's final appearance on the silver screen was in the flop Trog (1970). Turning to vodka more and more, she was hardly seen afterward. On May 10, 1977, Joan died of a heart attack in New York City. She was 71 years old. She had disinherited her adopted daughter Christina and son Christopher; the former wrote a tell-all book called "Mommie Dearest", The Sixth Sense published in 1978. The book cast Crawford in a negative light and was cause for much debate, particularly among her friends and acquaintances, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Crawford's first husband. (In 1981, Faye Dunaway starred in Mommie Dearest (1981) which did well at the box office.) Crawford is interred in the same mausoleum as fellow MGM star Judy Garland, in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.- Actress
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Laura Leggett Linney was born in New York City on February 5, 1964, into a theatre family. Her father was prominent playwright Romulus Linney, whose own great-grandfather was a congressman from North Carolina. Her mother, Miriam Anderson (Leggett), is a nurse. Although she did not live in her father's house (her parents having divorced when she was an infant), Linney's world revolved, in part, around his profession from the earliest age. She graduated from Brown University in 1986 and studied acting at Juilliard and the Arts Theatre School in Moscow and, thereafter, embarked on a career on the Broadway stage receiving favorable notices for her work in such plays as "Hedda Gabler" and "Six Degrees of Separation".
Linney's film career began in the early 1990s with small roles in Lorenzo's Oil (1992) and Dave (1993). She landed the role of Mary Anne Singleton in the PBS film adaptations of Armistead Maupin's "Tales of the City" series, playing her in Tales of the City (1993), More Tales of the City (1998) and Further Tales of the City (2001). Linney's first substantial big-screen role was as the ex-girlfriend of Richard Gere's character in Primal Fear (1996) and her superb performance brought her praise and a better selection of roles. Clint Eastwood chose Linney to play his daughter, another prominent role, in 1997's Absolute Power (1997), followed by another second billing in the following year's The Truman Show (1998).
Always a strong performer, Linney truly came into her own after 2000, starting the decade auspiciously with her widely-praised, arguably flawless performance in You Can Count on Me (2000). She found herself nominated for an Academy Award for this, her first lead role, for which her salary had been $10,000. Linney won numerous critics' awards for her role as Sammy, a single mother whose life is complicated by a new boss and the arrival in town of her aimless brother. On the heels of this success came her marvelous turn as Bertha Dorset in The House of Mirth (2000), clearly the best performance in a film of strong performances. Since then, Linney has frequently been offered challenging dramatic roles, and always rises to the occasion, such as in Mystic River (2003) and Kinsey (2004), for which she received another Academy Award nomination.- Actress
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Jessica Tuck was born in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Super 8 (2011), True Blood (2008) and Judging Amy (1999). She has been married to Robbie Koseff since 26 September 2004. They have one child.- Jackie began training for the classic ballet at age 5. She was accepted into the New Jersey Dance Company at age 15, and accepted a scholarship from New York University at age 15 to pursue a major in dance. The dark-haired beauty decided to try acting, and has become a staple of daytime drama (aka soap operas).
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Stephanie Beacham is without a doubt one of Britain's most talented, beautiful and well-known actresses. Despite becoming world famous and an icon of the 1980s due to her role as Sable Colby in the American soap operas Dynasty (1981) and The Colbys (1985) and going on to have starring roles in shows such as Sister Kate (1989), SeaQuest 2032 (1993), Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) and Bad Girls (1999), Stephanie Beacham had already carved a solid acting career back in her home country. Born in Hertfordshire in southern England, one of the four children of an insurance executive and a housewife, Beacham began an interest in acting at a young age and studied mime at the respected and renowned school of Étienne Decroux in Paris before completing her studies at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London. Guest roles on British television followed in the late 1960s such as The Saint (1962) and UFO (1970), however Beacham's breakthrough was her starring role opposite Marlon Brando in the cult horror film The Nightcomers (1971) that brought her critical acclaim and widespread attention. She became a regular staple in British horror films for the remainder of the 1970s and early 1980s such as Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972), The Confessional (1976), Schizo (1976) and Inseminoid (1981), however she was still a commonly seen face on television, such as being given her own soap opera in Marked Personal (1973) as well as regular modelling work. It was in the 1980s however that Beacham's career became supercharged. She had starring roles in the acclaimed television series Tenko (1981) and Connie (1985), the latter gaining particular interest in the US. Beacham moved to Hollywood in the mid-1980s and was given the role of Sable Colby in the ABC soap opera The Colbys (1985), and then joined it's parent show Dynasty (1981) where she remained until the show's cancellation. Both shows made Beacham a household name on both sides of the Atlantic as the glamour-puss wife of Charlton Heston's character Jason and cousin of Joan Collins' Alexis, with the two regularly involved in a 'battle of the bitches' scenario. Following the cancellation of Dynasty, Beacham headlined the sitcom Sister Kate (1989) for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, before going on to have main roles in Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) as Iris McKay, Steven Spielberg's SeaQuest 2032 (1993) as Dr. Kristen Westphalen and Countess Bartholomew in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) as well as film roles opposite Christopher Plummer in Secrets (1992) and Anthony Hopkins in To Be the Best (1991). Beacham maintained a regular presence on television and in theatre both in the US and the UK for the remainder of the 1990s until she played Phyllida Oswyn in the prison series Bad Girls (1999), a role she would play until the show's end in 2006. She would later have parts in films such as Love and Other Disasters (2006), Moving Target (2011) and Wild Oats (2016) and played Martha Fraser in Coronation Street (1960).- Actress
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Sally Margaret Field was born November 6, 1946 in Pasadena, California, to actress Margaret Field (née Morlan) and salesman Richard Dryden Field. Her parents divorced in 1950 and her mother then married stuntman Jock Mahoney, and they had a daughter, Princess O'Mahoney. She also has a brother, Richard Field. Sally attended Birmingham High School in Van Nuys, California.
Her acting career began in 1965, when she landed the role of Frances Elizabeth 'Gidget' Lawrence in Gidget (1965); it was canceled after only one season because of bad ratings. She went on to star in The Flying Nun (1967), which ran for three seasons. She also appeared in her first film in 1967, The Way West (1967) opposite Kirk Douglas. In the next few years she appeared in numerous TV movies and TV shows such as Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring (1971), Marriage: Year One (1971), The Girl with Something Extra (1973), and Sybil (1976). In 1977 she starred alongside then-boyfriend Burt Reynolds in the box office hit Smokey and the Bandit (1977), which led to a less successful sequel in 1980. In 1979 she starred in the popular film Norma Rae (1979) and she received her first Oscar for that role.
In the years that followed she starred in films such as Absence of Malice (1981), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), Places in the Heart (1984) (she received her second Oscar for her role), Murphy's Romance (1985), Punchline (1988) and Steel Magnolias (1989). In 1993 she starred alongside Robin Williams and Pierce Brosnan in the popular comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). A year after, she played the role of Tom Hanks character's mother (even though she's only ten years older than he is in real life) in Forrest Gump (1994). The film was a huge commercial success and won six Academy awards.
Since then she has appeared in TV movies and miniseries such as A Woman of Independent Means (1995), Merry Christmas, George Bailey (1997), From the Earth to the Moon (1998) and David Copperfield (2000). In 2000 she appeared in the film Where the Heart Is (2000) with Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd, and in 2003 she starred alongside Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (2003). She also appeared in 12 episodes of ER (1994) from 2000 to 2006. From 2006 to 2011, she played the role of matriarch Nora Walker in the hit television show Brothers & Sisters (2006), which earned her an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series. Getting back into film, she earned her third Oscar nomination for Lincoln (2012) and played Aunt May in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and its blockbuster sequel.
Sally has been married twice, first to Steven Craig from 1968 to 1973. They had two sons together, Peter Craig and Eli Craig. Her second marriage was to film producer Alan Greisman from 1984 to 1994. They had one son together, Samuel Greisman. Between marriages, from 1976 to 1980, she was in a relationship with Burt Reynolds.