Twins 1988 (LA) premiere
Thursday December 8th, AMC Century City 15 10250 Santa Monica Blvd #2000, Los Angeles, CA 90067
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With an almost unpronounceable surname and a thick Austrian accent, who would have ever believed that a brash, quick talking bodybuilder from a small European village would become one of Hollywood's biggest stars, marry into the prestigious Kennedy family, amass a fortune via shrewd investments and one day be the Governor of California!?
The amazing story of megastar Arnold Schwarzenegger is a true "rags to riches" tale of a penniless immigrant making it in the land of opportunity, the United States of America. Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger was born July 30, 1947, in the town of Thal, Styria, Austria, to Aurelia Schwarzenegger (born Jadrny) and Gustav Schwarzenegger, the local police chief. From a young age, he took a keen interest in physical fitness and bodybuilding, going on to compete in several minor contests in Europe. However, it was when he emigrated to the United States in 1968 at the tender age of 21 that his star began to rise.
Up until the early 1970s, bodybuilding had been viewed as a rather oddball sport, or even a mis-understood "freak show" by the general public, however two entrepreneurial Canadian brothers Ben Weider and Joe Weider set about broadening the appeal of "pumping iron" and getting the sport respect, and what better poster boy could they have to lead the charge, then the incredible "Austrian Oak", Arnold Schwarzenegger. Over roughly the next decade, beginning in 1970, Schwarzenegger dominated the sport of competitive bodybuilding winning five Mr. Universe titles and seven Mr. Olympia titles and, with it, he made himself a major sports icon, he generated a new international audience for bodybuilding, gym memberships worldwide swelled by the tens of thousands and the Weider sports business empire flourished beyond belief and reached out to all corners of the globe. However, Schwarzenegger's horizons were bigger than just the landscape of bodybuilding and he debuted on screen as "Arnold Strong" in the low budget Hercules in New York (1970), then director Bob Rafelson cast Arnold in Stay Hungry (1976) alongside Jeff Bridges and Sally Field, for which Arnold won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Acting Debut in a Motion Picture". The mesmerizing Pumping Iron (1977) covering the 1975 Mr Olympia contest in South Africa has since gone on to become one of the key sports documentaries of the 20th century, plus Arnold landed other acting roles in the comedy The Villain (1979) opposite Kirk Douglas, and he portrayed Mickey Hargitay in the well- received TV movie The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980).
What Arnold really needed was a super hero / warrior style role in a lavish production that utilized his chiseled physique, and gave him room to show off his growing acting talents and quirky humor. Conan the Barbarian (1982) was just that role. Inspired by the Robert E. Howard short stories of the "Hyborean Age" and directed by gung ho director John Milius, and with a largely unknown cast, save Max von Sydow and James Earl Jones, "Conan" was a smash hit worldwide and an inferior, although still enjoyable sequel titled Conan the Destroyer (1984) quickly followed. If "Conan" was the kick start to Arnold's movie career, then his next role was to put the pedal to the floor and accelerate his star status into overdrive. Director James Cameron had until that time only previously directed one earlier feature film titled Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), which stank of rotten fish from start to finish. However, Cameron had penned a fast paced, science fiction themed film script that called for an actor to play an unstoppable, ruthless predator - The Terminator (1984). Made on a relatively modest budget, the high voltage action / science fiction thriller The Terminator (1984) was incredibly successful worldwide, and began one of the most profitable film franchises in history. The dead pan phrase "I'll be back" quickly became part of popular culture across the globe. Schwarzenegger was in vogue with action movie fans, and the next few years were to see Arnold reap box office gold in roles portraying tough, no-nonsense individuals who used their fists, guns and witty one-liners to get the job done. The testosterone laden Commando (1985), Raw Deal (1986), Predator (1987), The Running Man (1987) and Red Heat (1988) were all box office hits and Arnold could seemingly could no wrong when it came to picking winning scripts. The tongue-in-cheek comedy Twins (1988) with co-star Danny DeVito was a smash and won Arnold new fans who saw a more comedic side to the muscle- bound actor once described by Australian author / TV host Clive James as "a condom stuffed with walnuts". The spectacular Total Recall (1990) and "feel good" Kindergarten Cop (1990) were both solid box office performers for Arnold, plus he was about to return to familiar territory with director James Cameron in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). The second time around for the futuristic robot, the production budget had grown from the initial film's $6.5 million to an alleged $100 million for the sequel, and it clearly showed as the stunning sequel bristled with amazing special effects, bone-crunching chases & stunt sequences, plus state of the art computer-generated imagery. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) was arguably the zenith of Arnold's film career to date and he was voted "International Star of the Decade" by the National Association of Theatre Owners.
Remarkably, his next film Last Action Hero (1993) brought Arnold back to Earth with a hard thud as the self-satirizing, but confusing plot line of a young boy entering into a mythical Hollywood action film confused movie fans even more and they stayed away in droves making the film an initial financial disaster. Arnold turned back to good friend, director James Cameron and the chemistry was definitely still there as the "James Bond" style spy thriller True Lies (1994) co-starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Tom Arnold was the surprise hit of 1994! Following the broad audience appeal of True Lies (1994), Schwarzenegger decided to lean towards more family-themed entertainment with Junior (1994) and Jingle All the Way (1996), but he still found time to satisfy his hard-core fan base with Eraser (1996), as the chilling "Mr. Freeze" in Batman & Robin (1997) and battling dark forces in the supernatural action of End of Days (1999). The science fiction / conspiracy tale The 6th Day (2000) played to only mediocre fan interest, and Collateral Damage (2002) had its theatrical release held over for nearly a year after the tragic events of Sept 11th 2001, but it still only received a lukewarm reception.
It was time again to resurrect Arnold's most successful franchise and, in 2003, Schwarzenegger pulled on the biker leathers for the third time for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003). Unfortunately, directorial duties passed from James Cameron to Jonathan Mostow and the deletion of the character of "Sarah Connor" aka Linda Hamilton and a change in the actor playing "John Connor" - Nick Stahl took over from Edward Furlong - making the third entry in the "Terminator" series the weakest to date.
Schwarzenegger married TV journalist Maria Shriver in April, 1986 and the couple have four children.
In October of 2003 Schwarzenegger, running as a Republican, was elected Governor of California in a special recall election of then governor Gray Davis. The "Governator," as Schwarzenegger came to be called, held the office until 2011. Upon leaving the Governor's mansion it was revealed that he had fathered a child with the family's live-in maid and Shriver filed for divorce.
Schwarzenegger contributed cameo roles to The Rundown (2003), Around the World in 80 Days (2004) and The Kid & I (2005). Recently, he starred in The Expendables 2 (2012), The Last Stand (2013), Escape Plan (2013), The Expendables 3 (2014), and Terminator Genisys (2015).- Producer
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Maria Shriver was born on 6 November 1955 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is a producer and actress, known for Last Action Hero (1993), Still Alice (2014) and Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert (2014). She was previously married to Arnold Schwarzenegger.- Actor
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If "born to the theater" has meaning in determining a person's life path, then John Lithgow is a prime example of this truth. He was born in Rochester, New York, to Sarah Jane (Price), an actress, and Arthur Washington Lithgow III, who was both a theatrical producer and director. John's father was born in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, where the Anglo-American Lithgow family had lived for several generations.
John moved frequently as a child, while his father founded and managed local and college theaters and Shakespeare festivals throughout the Midwest of the United States. Not until he was 16, and his father became head of the McCarter Theater in Princeton New Jersey, did the family settle down. But for John, the theater was still not a career. He won a scholarship to Harvard University, where he finally caught the acting bug (as well as found a wife). Harvard was followed by a Fulbright scholarship to study at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. Returning from London, his rigorous dramatic training stood him in good stead, and a distinguished career on Broadway gave him one Tony Award for "The Changing Room", a second nomination in 1985 for "Requiem For a Heavyweight", and a third in 1988 for "M. Butterfly". But with critical acclaim came personal confusion, and in the mid 1970s, he and his wife divorced. He entered therapy, and in 1982, his life started in a new direction, the movies - he received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of Roberta Muldoon in The World According to Garp (1982). A second Oscar nomination followed for Terms of Endearment (1983), and he met a UCLA economics professor who became his second wife. As the decade of the 1990s came around, he found that he was spending too much time on location, and another career move brought him to television in the hugely successful series 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996).
This production also played a role in bringing him back together with the son from his first marriage, Ian Lithgow, who has a regular role in the series as a dimwitted student.- Music Artist
- Music Department
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Richard Wayne Penniman, better known as Little Richard, the self-proclaimed "Architect of Rock 'n' Roll", traveled in his early days with the legendary vaudeville star Spencer "Snake" Anthony. One of Richard's early bands had the young, then unknown singer James Brown (the Godfather of Soul), a fourteen-year-old keyboardist named Billy Preston, and the famous and legendary rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix. His first recording session took place at WGST in Atlanta, Georgia, USA; he was backed by a local band led by Billy Wright. This session produced a local hit called "Every Hour" which enjoyed heavy airplay on Atlanta's WERD radio station which was the first completely Black-owned radio station in the United States. Little Richard was backed up by his idol Billy Wright, once referred to him as the most fantastic entertainer he had ever seen. Indeed, it was Wright who used a brand of makeup called Pancake 31.
Little Richard admitted to copying Wright's penchant for heavy makeup and wild stage theatrics. With a public persona and personal life marked by sexual ambiguity, he would make his mark with later hits such as the suggestive "Tutti Frutti" and "Good Golly Miss Molly". Unbeknownst to many fans, Richard overcame a debilitating drug habit and eventually became an ordained minister. Beginning in the 1980s, he saw a resurgence in his popularity as he acquired small acting roles where he impressed fans, old and new, with his unique comedic timing. As versatile and ageless as ever, Little Richard continues to delight fans the world over with his extraordinary stage presence and flamboyant antics. Now inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the American Songwriters Hall of Fame, he remains one of the most popular entertainers in the world.- Actress
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Kelly Preston was born on October 13, 1962 in Honolulu, Hawaii. A talented and captivating performer, she first garnered international attention with her role as "Marnie Mason" in Ivan Reitman's Twins (1988), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. With her diverse character portrayals in films, such as director Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire (1996); Citizen Ruth (1996) for Alexander Payne; and For Love of the Game (1999), directed by Sam Raimi, she continued to capture audience attention.
In the early part of her career, Kelly worked with notable director John Frankenheimer in the Elmore Leonard film, 52 Pick-Up (1986), alongside Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret. Her career saw her cast her beside some of Hollywood's most notable names, including Kevin Spacey in Casino Jack (2010); Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney, and Harvey Keitel in Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996); Kevin Bacon in Death Sentence (2007); Meg Ryan and Matthew Broderick in Addicted to Love (1997); Debra Winger, Zooey Deschanel, and Hank Azaria in Eulogy (2004); Mike Myers in The Cat in the Hat (2003); and Rod Steiger and Julie Harris in the Academy Award-nominated short, Little Surprises (1996).
Kelly was actively involved in education, drug reform and many charitable organizations. She was acknowledged with numerous awards as a result of her work. She married John Travolta on September 12, 1991, and they had three children.
Kelly died on July 12, 2020, in Ocala, Florida, after a two-year battle with breast cancer. She was 57.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Offbeat leading lady Chloe Webb began her acting career as a member of the satirical Off-Broadway revue, Forbidden Broadway. She entered motion pictures starring opposite Gary Oldman in the romantic tragedy Sid and Nancy (1986). Her performance in the film won a number of awards. Several interesting film and television characters followed.
Fan picks: Sid and Nancy (1986), Tales of the City (1993) and Shameless (2011).- Actress
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Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading Places (1983), Perfect (1985) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988). She starred in one of the biggest action films ever, True Lies (1994), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance. Curtis also appeared on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), and starred in Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981) as the title role. Her first starring role was opposite Richard Lewis on the ABC situation comedy Anything But Love (1989). In 1998, she starred in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) in which she reprised her role that made her famous back in 1978.
Jamie Lee served as an honorary chairperson for the Building Resilience for Young Children Dealing with Trauma program held at the Shakespeare Theatre - Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. She was an inspiration for the youth that were celebrated. Curtis was also given an award from US Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman for her work on behalf of children through her charities and children's books.- Actor
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Danny DeVito has amassed a formidable and versatile body of work as an actor, producer and director that spans the stage, television and film.
Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. was born on November 17, 1944, in Neptune, New Jersey, to Italian-American parents. His mother, Julia (Moccello), was a homemaker. His father, Daniel, Sr., was a small business owner whose ventures included a dry cleaning shop, a dairy outlet, a diner, and a pool hall.
While growing up in Asbury Park, his parents sent him to private schools. He attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel grammar school and Oratory Prep School. Following graduation in 1962, he took a job as a cosmetician at his sister's beauty salon. A year later, he enrolled at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts so he could learn more about cosmetology. While at the academy, he fell in love with acting and decided to further pursue an acting career. During this time, he met another aspiring actor Michael Douglas at the National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Connecticut. The two would later go on to collaborate on numerous projects. Soon after he also met an actress named Rhea Perlman. The two fell in love and moved in together. They were married in 1982 and had three children together.
In 1968, Danny landed his first part in a movie when he appeared as a thug in the obscure Dreams of Glass (1970). Despite this minor triumph, Danny became discouraged with the film industry and decided to focus on stage productions. He made his Off-Broadway debut in 1969 in "The Man With the Flower in His Mouth." He followed this up with stage roles in "The Shrinking Bride," and "Lady Liberty." In 1975, he was approached by director Milos Forman and Michael Douglas about appearing in the film version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), which would star Jack Nicholson in the leading role. With box office success almost guaranteed and a chance for national exposure, Danny agreed to the role. The movie became a huge hit, both critically and financially, and still ranks today as one the greatest movies of all time. Unfortunately, the movie did very little to help Danny's career. In the years following, he was relegated to small movie roles and guest appearances on television shows. His big break came in 1978 when he auditioned for a role on an ABC sitcom pilot called Taxi (1978), which centered around taxi cab drivers at a New York City garage. Danny auditioned for the role of dispatcher Louie DePalma. At the audition, the producers told Danny that he needed to show more attitude in order to get the part. He then slammed down the script and yelled, "Who wrote this sh**?" The producers, realizing he was perfect for the part, brought him on board. The show was a huge success, running from 1978 to 1983.
Louie DePalma, played flawlessly by Danny, became one of the most memorable (and reviled) characters in television history. While he was universally hated by TV viewers, he was well-praised by critics, winning an Emmy award and being nominated three other times. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Danny maintained his status as a great character actor with memorable roles in movies like Romancing the Stone (1984), Ruthless People (1986), Throw Momma from the Train (1987) and Twins (1988). He also had a great deal of success behind the camera, directing movies like The War of the Roses (1989) and Hoffa (1992). In 1992, Danny was introduced to a new generation of moviegoers when he was given the role of The Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot in Tim Burton's highly successful Batman Returns (1992). This earned him a nomination for Best Villain at the MTV Movie Awards. That same year, along with his wife Rhea Perlman, Danny co-founded Jersey Films, which has produced many popular films and TV shows, including Pulp Fiction (1994), Get Shorty (1995), Man on the Moon (1999) and Erin Brockovich (2000). DeVito has many directing credits to his name as well, including Throw Momma from the Train (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Hoffa (1992), Death to Smoochy (2002) and the upcoming St. Sebastian.
In 2006, he returned to series television in the FX comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005). With a prominent role in a hit series, Devito's comic talents were now on display for a new generation of television viewers. In 2012, he provided the title voice role in Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012).
These days, he continues to work with many of today's top talents as an actor, director and producer.- Actress
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Rhea Perlman was born on 31 March 1948 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Cheers (1982), Barbie (2023) and Matilda (1996). She has been married to Danny DeVito since 28 January 1982. They have three children.- Actor
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Chevy Chase was born Cornelius Crane Chase on October 8, 1943 in Lower Manhattan, New York, to Cathalene Parker (Browning), a concert pianist and librettist, and Edward Tinsley "Ned" Chase, an editor and writer. His parents both came from prominent families, and his grandfathers were artist and illustrator Edward Leigh Chase and Admiral Miles Browning. His recent ancestry includes English, Scottish, Irish, and German.
His grandmother gave him the nickname "Chevy" when he was two years old. Chase was a cast member of Saturday Night Live (1975) from its debut until 1976, and then embarked on a highly successful movie career. He scored in the 1980s with hits such as Caddyshack (1980), Vacation (1983) and its sequels, Fletch (1985) and Fletch Lives (1989). All his films show his talent for deadpan comedy. Sadly, his career generally worsened through the 1990s, starring in disappointments such as the mediocre Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), and Cops and Robbersons (1994). More recently, Community (2009) marked a return for him, as he played a regular role for the first four seasons.- Actor
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Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margaret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.- Actor
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George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of his youth in Ohio and Kentucky, and graduated from Augusta High School. He was very active in sports such as basketball and baseball, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but was not offered a contract.
After his cousin, Miguel Ferrer, got him a small role in a feature film, Clooney began to pursue acting. His first major role was on the sitcom E/R (1984) as Ace. More roles soon followed, including George Burnett, the handsome handyman on The Facts of Life (1979); Booker Brooks, a supervisor on Roseanne (1988); and Detective James Falconer on Sisters (1991). Clooney had his breakthrough when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross on the award-winning drama series ER (1994), opposite Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies.
While filming "ER" (1994), Clooney starred in a number of high profile film roles, such as Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and One Fine Day (1996), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1997, Clooney took on the role of Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997). The film was a moderate success in the box office, but was slammed by critics, notably for the nipple-laden Batsuit. Clooney went on to star in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).
In 1999, Clooney left "ER" (1994) (though he would return for the season finale) and appeared in a number of films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). Collaborating once again with Steven Soderbergh, Ocean's Eleven (2001) received critical acclaim, earned more than $450 million at the box office, and spawned two sequels: Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).
In 2002, Clooney made his directorial debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), an adaptation of TV producer Chuck Barris' autobiography. This was the first film under the banner of Section Eight Productions, a production company he founded with Steven Soderbergh. The company also produced many acclaimed films, including Far from Heaven (2002), Syriana (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005). Clooney won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana (2005), and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
In 2006, Section Eight Productions was shut down so that Soderbergh could concentrate on directing, and Clooney founded a new production company, Smokehouse Productions, with his friend and longtime business partner, Grant Heslov.
Clooney went on to produce and star in Michael Clayton (2007) (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), directed and starred in Leatherheads (2008), and took leading roles in Burn After Reading (2008), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Clooney received critical acclaim for his performance in Up in the Air (2009) and was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award. He didn't win that year, but took home both Best Actor awards (as well as countless nominations) for his role as a father who finds out his wife was unfaithful as she lays in a coma in Alexander Payne's The Descendants (2011). Through his career, Clooney has been heralded for his political activism and humanitarian work. He has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008, has been an advocate for the Darfur conflict, and organized the Hope for Haiti telethon, to raise money for the victims of the 2010 earthquake. In March 2012, Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience while protesting at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.
Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam, from 1989 until 1993. After their divorce, he swore he would never marry again. Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman bet him $10,000 that he would have children by the age of 40, and sent him a check shortly after his birthday. Clooney returned the funds and bet double or nothing he wouldn't have children by the age of 50. Although he has remained a consummate bachelor, Clooney has had many highly publicized relationships, including with former WWE wrestler Stacy Keibler. In 2014, he married lawyer and activist Amal Clooney, with whom he has two children, twins.- Actor
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A remarkably seasoned actor of stage, screen and television, Darren McGavin has notched in excess of 200 performances; however, he is most fondly remembered by cult TV fans as heroic newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak in the classic but short-lived horror TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974). In a long and varied career, McGavin has often turned up as authority figures including policemen, military officers, stern-faced business executives or father figures; however, he is equally adept at light-hearted comedic performances.
Darren McGavin was born William Lyle Richardson on May 7, 1922, in Spokane, Washington, to Grace Mitton (Bogart) and Reed D. Richardson. His mother was from Ontario, Canada. He received his dramatic arts training at New York's Neighborhood Playhouse and the Actors Studio, and debuted on screen in an uncredited role in A Song to Remember (1945). Several standard roles followed over the next decade before he landed the key role of Louie the drug pusher in The Man with the Golden Arm (1955) and Capt. Russ Peters in The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955), both directed by Otto Preminger. Each of these performances showcased McGavin's versatility, and his virile looks scored him the role of Mickey Spillane's hard-boiled private eye in Mike Hammer (1958).
McGavin stayed continually employed throughout the 1960s, appearing in such films as The Great Sioux Massacre (1965), The Outsider (1967), The Challengers (1970) and The Tribe (1970). In addition, he was regularly guest-starring in dozens of TV shows, including Gunsmoke (1955), Dr. Kildare (1961), Mission: Impossible (1966) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). In 1971 he landed the role of cynical reporter Carl Kolchak in the low-budget horror thriller The Night Stalker (1972), about a vampire running amok in Las Vegas. The film was a monster ratings winner (pun intended!) and the highest-rated telemovie of 1972, and original scriptwriters were soon hard at work on a punchier sequel. The Night Strangler (1973) saw Kolchak in Seattle (after being booted out of Las Vegas by the police), and this time on the trail of a serial killer seeking the elixir of eternal youth. The second movie was equally successful, and spawned the short-lived TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974) with Simon Oakland as McGavin's long-suffering editor and a host of weekly guest stars including Jim Backus, Phil Silvers, Richard Kiel, Tom Skerritt, Scatman Crothers and Larry Storch.
"Kolchak" only lasted one season, but it became a bona-fide cult classic, and many years later its premise of "the unknown amongst us" inspired writer Chris Carter to create the phenomenally successful long-running TV series The X-Files (1993), which saw McGavin guest-star in several episodes.
McGavin remained busy throughout the rest of the 1970s and into the 1980s, appearing in Airport '77 (1977), as Gen. George S. Patton in the TV miniseries Ike: The War Years (1979), alongside Rock Hudson in the uneven sci-fi miniseries The Martian Chronicles (1980) and a few years later endeared himself to to a whole new generation of fans with his superb performance as the vitriolic, yet buffoonish, father in the delightful Christmas classic A Christmas Story (1983). The always versatile McGavin also popped up as a detective in Turk 182 (1985), assisted Arnold Schwarzenegger in cleaning up the mob in Raw Deal (1986) and was a doctor in the bizarre zombie/cop/zombie cop film Dead Heat (1988).
At this point it's worth mentioning that, along with his film and TV work, McGavin has also enjoyed an illustrious career on the stage, with appearances in dozens of critically acclaimed productions across the length and breadth of the US. He has appeared in stage presentations of "Death of a Salesman", "The Rainmaker", "The King and I" and "Blood Sweat & Stanley Poole", to name a few.
In 1990 the opportunity arose for McGavin to play another somewhat stern, yet comedic, father figure, this time as "Bill Brown" to Candice Bergen in the much loved sitcom Murphy Brown (1988). McGavin was again wonderful, and his entertaining performances resulted in an Emmy Award nomination in 1990. Several other film roles followed in the 1990s, in such films as Adam Sandler's hit Billy Madison (1995). He died on 25th February 2006 at the age of 83.- Actress
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Kathie Browne was born Jacqueline Sue Browne on September 19, 1930 in San Luis Obispo, California. She got her break in TV after appearing in a Los Angeles production of Tennessee Williams's play, "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof", making her TV debut in 1957 in The Gray Ghost (1957), The Sheriff of Cochise (1956), and Gunsmoke (1955). The following year, she made her movie debut in the B-movie, Murder by Contract (1958), but it was mostly television that was her métier. She made numerous guest appearances on a plethora of TV shows. The blonde haired, blue-eyed beauty played mainly ingénue parts, and was a very busy TV actress of the 1960s and 1970s.
One of her most famous acting role was as the prospective bride of "Adam Cartwright", during the 1963-64 season of Bonanza (1959). She had appeared on the series twice before, as different characters, in 1961 and 1962, but was cast as the pretty widow, Laura Dayton, in 1963, appearing in 4 episodes broadcast between December 8, 1963 and May 17, 1964, which was the penultimate show of the season. Laura was supposed to marry Adam and ride off with him into the sunset as Pernell Roberts was unhappy with the show and threatening to leave. The producers, at the demand of NBC (which owned the show), hired Guy Williams as a potential replacement for Roberts. Instead of leaving after the 1963-64 season, Roberts signed on for one more year on the Ponderosa, and Browne (as Laura) rode off with Adam's cousin, Will Cartwright, instead (played by Williams). A year after her turn as a regular on the short-lived western series, Hondo (1967), Browne gave another memorable performance, in the Star Trek (1966) episode, Wink of an Eye (1968), in which she played the beautiful Scalosian who (what else?) falls in love (or at least lust) with Captain Kirk.
Browne married actor Darren McGavin in 1969, and they were frequent co-stars, including his starring series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974), during the 1970s. She retired from acting in 1980.
Kathie Browne (legally Jacqueline K. McGavin) died on April 8, 2003 in Beverly Hills, California, aged 72.- Actor
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Robert Davi is an award-winning actor, screenwriter, director, producer and jazz vocalist.
From his portrayal of the opera singing baddie in "The Goonies" and one of the most popular James Bond villains Franz Sanchez in "License to Kill" to FBI Special Agent Big Johnson in "Die Hard" or Al Torres in "Showgirls" to most recently Leo Marks in "The Iceman " Robert Davi is one of the film industry's most recognized tough guys. He has also starred in the small screen in hit shows like Profiler, Stargate Atlantis, Criminal Minds and CSI. With over 140 film and TV credits he has frightened us, romanced us, made us cry or split our seams laughing. He is also one of the top vocalists of our day in interpreting the Great American Songbook, thrilling audiences by playing top venues like the Venetian in Las Vegas where he headlines or for 10,000 people at the Harry Chapin Theater in East Meadow, Long Island or the Orleans in Vegas where he gave 3 sellout shows with Don Rickles. His debut album Davi Sings Sinatra- On the Road to Romance produced by Phil Ramone shot to number 6 for more than several weeks on Billboard's Jazz Charts.
In his early acting years, Davi attended Hofstra University on a drama scholarship. He then moved to Manhattan, New York where he studied with the legendary acting coach Stella Adler, who became his mentor. Davi became a lifetime member of the Actors Studio, where he studied with acting teacher Lee Strasberg. Always perfecting his craft, Davi studied under Sandra Seacat, Larry Moss, Milton Katselas, Martin Landau, Mala Powers and George Shdanoff, the creative partner and collaborator with Michael Chekhov.
Robert Davi was born in Astoria, Queens, to Maria (Rulli) and Sal Davi. His father was an Italian immigrant and his mother was of Italian descent. Davi was introduced to film when he was cast opposite Frank Sinatra in the telefilm, "Contract on Cherry Street." Later, his work as a Palestinian terrorist in the award-winning television movie, "Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami" brought him critical acclaim and caught the eye of legendary James Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli and writer Richard Maibaum, who cast Davi as Colombian drug lord and lead villain Franz Sanchez in the Bond film "License to Kill." Today, Davi is one of the top Bond villains of all time ranking at the top on many lists. Davi also received critical acclaim within the industry for his provocative portrayal of Bailey Malone in "Profiler." The show struck a chord with audiences, paving the way for such shows as "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation," "Without a Trace," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent," "Criminal Minds" and many others. In 2004, Davi joined the cast of television's "Stargate: Atlantis," which earned Davi many science fiction fans. He has also shown his comedic strength in films such as "The 4th Tenor" with Rodney Dangerfield and "The Hot Chick," produced by Rob Schneider and Adam Sandler.
Having appeared in more than 100 motion pictures, some of Davi's most notable film credits span 30 years and include cult-classics and blockbuster hits with roles as Jake Fratelli in "The Goonies," Max Keller in "Raw Deal," Special Agent Big Johnson in "Die Hard," Al Torres in "Showgirls," Leo Marks in "The Iceman" with Michael Shannon, Winona Ryder, Ray Liotta, Chris Evans and James Franco, and most recently, with Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger among a large A-list cast in "Expendables 3." He has worked with such directors as Steven Spielberg, Richard Donner, Blake Edwards, John McTiernan, Paul Verhoeven and Patrick Hughes. In addition, he has worked on film projects with acting talent such as Marlon Brando, Roberto Benigni, Bruce Willis, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Walken, Benicio Del Toro, Danny Glover and Catherine Zeta Jones, to name a few.
In 2007, Davi produced, directed, co-wrote, and starred in "The Dukes," which tells the story of a once-successful Doo Wop group who fall on hard times. The film won nine awards including the coveted Coup de Coeur award. Davi was also awarded Best First-time Director and Best Screenplay in the Monte Carlo Festival of Comedy by the legendary director Ettore Scola where Prince Albert presented him with the awards. Davi was the only first-time director in the Premiere Section of the International Rome Film Festival along with Sean Penn, Robert Redford, Sidney Lumet, Julie Taymor and others.
In October of 2011, Davi released his debut album, Davi Sings Sinatra: On the Road to Romance (produced by Grammy award-winning producer Phil Ramone) to rave reviews. Within weeks of its highly anticipated release, the album soared onto Billboard Magazine's Top 10 Jazz Chart taking the number 6 spot for several weeks. In response to the release, the legendary Quincy Jones stated, "As FS would say, 'Koo, Koo.' Wow! I have never heard anyone come this close to Sinatra's sound - and still be himself. Many try, but Robert Davi has the voice, tone, the flavor and the swagger. What a surprise. He absolutely touched me down to my soul and brought back the essence and soul of Ol' Blue Eyes himself." In support of the album release, Davi is touring the U.S. with his live stage show, receiving standing ovations. He has performed at The Venetian Resort Hotel Casino in Las Vegas for a three-night engagement, the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza with a 55-piece orchestra, the National Italian-American Foundation's (NIAF) special tribute to the 25th anniversary of its Lifetime Achievement Award to Frank Sinatra at the Washington Hilton in D.C., the Soboba Casino in San Jacinto, Calif., with David Foster at the Beverly Hilton, and in August of 2013, at Long Island's Eisenhower Park for more than 10,000 people. In November of 2013, Davi released the Christmas single, "New York City Christmas."
Besides working in film, television, and music and raising his five children, four dogs and two cats, Davi keeps busy volunteering his time with such charities as The Dream Foundation, Exceptional Children's Foundation, Heart of a Child Foundation, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Youth Foundation, The Humane Society of the United States, Heart of a Horse, NIAF, The Order 'Sons of Italy' in America (OSIA), and UNICO. Since its inception in 1998, Davi has been the National Spokesperson for i-Safe America, which is regarded by many internet experts as the most complete internet safety program in the country and is available in grades K-12 in all 50 U.S. states.
Among his numerous awards for career achievement and community involvement, Davi has received the George M. Estabrook Distinguished Service Award from the Hofstra University Alumni Association (past recipients include Francis Ford Coppola and William Safire). In 2000, Davi was awarded the FBI's Man of the Year Award in Los Angeles. In 2004, Davi was named KNX radios' "Citizen of the Week" for saving a young girl from a fire in her home. The same year, he also received the Sons of Italy's Royal Court of the Golden Lion Award, including a $20,000 donation to a foundation in which he is involved. In addition, he received the 2004 STEP Award (Science, Technology and Education Partnership). In 2007, Davi was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Italian Board of Governors in New York, where New York State recognized his value as an artist and community leader. In 2008, he received the Italo-Americano Award from the Capri-Hollywood Festival. In 2011, Davi was awarded the "Military Order of the Purple Heart" (MOPH) Special Recognition Award for dedication and service honoring America's service members, veterans, and their families. In June of 2013, Davi was honored with a star on the Italian Walk of Fame in Toronto, Canada.
Davi is on The Steering Committee for George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute and is the only entertainer among 28 members, which consists of mainly Senators and former heads of the FBI and CIA. Davi has developed Civilian Patrol 93, which is at Homeland Security, where a lesson plan is being written.- Actor
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Martin Hayter Short OC is a Canadian-American actor, comedian, singer, and writer. He has received various awards including two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Tony Award. In 2019 Short became an Officer of the Order of Canada, and has received Medals from Queen Elizabeth II, including in 2002 the Queen Elizabeth II Golden Jubilee Medal and in 2012 the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.- Actress
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Sondra Locke was born May 28, 1944 as Sandra Louise Smith, in Shelbyville, Tennessee, a quiet little town about 60 miles southeast of Nashville. She was the daughter of Raymond Smith, a military man stationed at nearby Tullahoma, and Pauline Bayne. Smith departed the scene before Sondra's birth. In 1945, her mother wed William B. Elkins, and together they had a son, Donald, on April 26, 1946. The short union ended in divorce. In 1948, Bayne remarried. Alfred Locke bestowed his surname on Pauline's children and raised them as his own. Sondra's stepfather was a carpenter; her mother worked in a pencil factory. For the smart, fanciful Locke, "My childhood felt as if I had been dropped off at an extended summer camp from which I was waiting to be picked up." The bright girl loved to read, which puzzled her simple mother, who was always pushing her to spend more time outside. Sondra's happiest moments occurred on weekend visits to the local movie theater.
Locke was a cheerleader in junior high and graduated valedictorian of Shelbyville Mills' 1957-1958 eighth grade class. At Shelbyville Central High School, the "classroom was the one place where I felt like I had a chance to prove myself and I continued to excel. I felt safe there and I liked it." Her best friend was classmate Gordon Anderson, the son of a teacher, whose family had relocated to the area from Arkansas around 1953. He was a fey young man, who shared many of Sondra's fanciful hopes about the future and was her collaborator in devising harmless ways to make their lives in Shelbyville more magical. One of the duo's frequent activities was making home movies with Gordon's Super 8 camera.
When Gordon attended Middle Tennessee State University (in Murfreesboro, about 30 miles from Nashville) in 1962, Sondra enrolled there too. Upon completing freshman year, Sondra had a blowup with her mother, left home, and did not return to college. Instead, she worked in Nashville as a promotions assistant for WSM-TV, with occasional modeling and voiceover work. While in Nashville, Locke began acting in community theater as a member of Circle Players Inc. Along the way she dated George Crook, a cameraman from WSM, and Brad Crandall, head of the station's public relations department. She also enjoyed a romance with law student Gary Gober, whom she had been in plays with. Meanwhile, Gordon revealed to her that he was homosexual. He went off to Manhattan to study acting and, for a while, had a lover there. Anderson was talented but unfocused about his theater craft and eventually returned to Tennessee. Because of Locke's spiritual kinship with Anderson, she and Gordon decided to wed. The mixed-orientation couple were married at First Presbyterian Church in Nashville on September 25, 1967. (Reputedly, the marriage was never consummated.)
If Gordon was unable to launch his own acting career, he had no such problems igniting Sondra's. Months before their wedding, he learned that Warner Bros. was holding a nationwide search for a young actress to play a key role in the screen adaptation of Carson McCullers' novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968). Anderson helped Locke research the part of Mick, a teenage waif in a southern town who befriends a suicidal deaf-mute (Alan Arkin) boarding at the house where she lives. For the audition, in Birmingham, Alabama, Gordon bleached her eyebrows, bound her bosom and carefully fixed her hair, makeup and outfit so that she would instantly impress casting agents. The ploy succeeded, and, after several callbacks, Locke -- who lied about her age to seem younger -- was hired. The movie was released in the summer of 1968 and earned respectful reviews from critics, although many filmgoers found the picture too arty. Sondra was Oscar-nominated for her sensitive portrayal.
Next, Sondra moved to Los Angeles, with Gordon in tow. She hoped to parlay her Academy Award nomination into further movie assignments. The big-eyed, wiry bottle blonde found it difficult to win choice roles, making her accept lesser projects, the most famous of which was Willard (1971), a film about marauding rats. Cover Me Babe (1970), A Reflection of Fear (1972) and The Second Coming of Suzanne (1974) faded into cinematic obscurity. In the lattermost, Locke played a Christ figure and had torrid love scenes with Paul Sand. Episodic television provided steadier acting opportunities: the anthology program Night Gallery (1969) and dramatic series including The F.B.I. (1965), Cannon (1971), Kung Fu (1972) and Barnaby Jones (1973). Thanks in part to the limited media of the time, she was able to maintain the ruse of younger age, which no doubt extended her shelf-life amid professional lulls. It was in 1972 that she first met rising kingpin Clint Eastwood when he was preparing to direct his second feature film, Breezy (1973). For the title role, Locke was passed over in favor of nine-years-younger Kay Lenz.
For half of the 1970s, the Andersons resided at West Hollywood's Andalusia condominium complex whilst seeing other people. For a time, Sondra was involved with Bruce Davison, her co-star from Willard (1971). While working on the teleplay Gondola (1974), she gained a new boyfriend, sandy-haired actor Bo Hopkins. He was once divorced and shared her penchant for falsifying birthdates. In the spring of 1974, she visited the set of Hopkins' current project, The Killer Elite (1975), and networked with composer Jerry Fielding, who was about to score a new Western showcase for Clint Eastwood. The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) had a role that Locke thought could revitalize her career. This time, Eastwood was responsive and hired the 31-year-old to play his romantic interest. In early October 1975, the complementary pair fell hard for each other on location in Page, Arizona. "We were almost living together from the very first days of the film," Locke remembered. Besotted Clint confided he'd never been in love before and wrote a poem for his new mate: "She made me monogamous." This serially philandering megastar was 14 years her senior and a foot taller than she.
The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) was indeed a hit, with Sondra sparking a flurry of interest among male viewers as virtually nonspeaking eye candy. Yet she stopped pursuing film roles on her own initiative to assume wifely duties, appearing on the big screen exclusively in Eastwood-controlled projects thereon. The sole exception to this was The Shadow of Chikara (1977), an Arkansas-lensed Western with burly Joe Don Baker. (The home invasion thriller Death Game (1977), though released after Locke and Eastwood became an item, was actually shot in 1974.) "Clint wanted me to work only with him," she said. "He didn't like the idea of me being away from him."
Over the next few years, Locke had two abortions from her relationship with Eastwood. In 1979, she underwent a tubal ligation at UCLA to prevent further pregnancies. She and Clint settled into a $1.12 million, seven-bedroom Spanish-style Bel-Air mansion originally built in 1931, which she spent months renovating and decorating, and which she believed would be hers for life. She continued to spend platonic time with Gordon, whom she never divorced, nurtured by their spiritual relationship. Gordon moved in and out of gay relationships, and sometimes he and a boyfriend would socialize with Clint and Sondra. As for the professional side of things, Locke and Eastwood reteamed for his action opus The Gauntlet (1977), slapstick adventure-comedy Every Which Way But Loose (1978), its sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980), the quirky satire Bronco Billy (1980) and the fourth, darkest, most ambitious "Dirty Harry" vehicle, Sudden Impact (1983). All were stellar box office performers and cemented the twosome as filmdom's most visible couple.
During this period, Sondra took a few TV roles when Clint was starring in a movie that had no part for her to play (such as Escape from Alcatraz (1979) or Firefox (1982)). The first time she worked apart from him for any length of time since The Shadow of Chikara (1977) in 1976 was Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story (1982). (Rosemary Clooney personally asked Locke to star in the CBS biopic on the strength of her performance in Bronco Billy (1980).) She later made an appearance on Britain's Tales of the Unexpected (1979) series. For the most part, however, she found herself sitting on the sidelines waiting for Eastwood to cast her in something.
By the mid-1980s, Sondra, over 40 but still refusing to admit it, was acutely aware that in Hollywood terms her leading lady days were just about finished. She had long been interested in film directing and had observed carefully how Eastwood and others directed the pictures she was in. With his blessing, she found a property that intrigued her and that his Malpaso production company would package, and developed it into a project for Warner Bros. She made Ratboy (1986), but despite good reviews, the film received scant distribution. In retrospect, Locke concluded that her exertion of authority over the project caused her longtime paramour to turn away from her, to find someone who was more compliant. (In an unpublicized affair with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves, Eastwood sired two legally fatherless children born in 1986 and 1988, in Monterey -- an "evil betrayal" Locke was unaware of.)
The showdown between Sondra and Clint occurred on December 29, 1988 at their mountain hideaway in Sun Valley, Idaho. After an unpleasant screaming match, Eastwood suggested Locke go back to Los Angeles. She sensed their relationship had passed a point of reconciliation, a fact confirmed when she scarcely saw Eastwood in subsequent months and when industry friends they knew in common shunned her. As she admitted later, "In my head I guess I knew it was over, but in my heart Clint and I were still not severed." On April 10, 1989, while she was directing a demanding sequence in a new police procedural, Impulse (1990), Eastwood had the locks changed on their house in Bel-Air. He also ordered her possessions to be boxed and put in storage. A letter addressed to "Mrs. Gordon Anderson," imperatively telling her not to come home, was delivered to her lawful husband's doorstep. When Gordon telephoned Sondra on the set and read her the letter, she fainted dead away in front of the cast and crew.
On April 26, 1989, Sondra filed a palimony lawsuit against her domestic partner of 14 years. Her "brazenness" in taking on the powerful Eastwood amazed and shocked Tinseltown and titillated the public. Her action sought unspecified damages and an equal division of the property she and Eastwood had acquired during their relationship. Locke asked for title to the Bel-Air home they had shared and to the Crescent Heights (West Hollywood) place Eastwood had purchased in 1982 (in which Gordon lived). The closed hearing was held on May 31, 1989, before a private judge. Before any court decision could be made, a private settlement was reached between the parties. Locke received $450,000, the Crescent Heights property, and a $1.5 million multiyear development-directing pact at Warner Bros. In return, she dropped her suit. By then, the fall of 1990, she was happy to end the hassle. (In the past months she had been diagnosed with cancer, undergone a double mastectomy, and endured chemotherapy.)
For the next three years Locke submitted over 30 projects to Warner Bros., but none received a green light to move ahead. Moreover, the studio refused to assign her to direct any of their in-house projects. In the mid-1990s, Sondra discovered evidence that Eastwood had arranged to reimburse Warner Bros. for her three-year studio contract -- a matter that he had never mentioned to her. It became obvious that the studio's negative professional attitude toward her had little or nothing to do with her directing or project-finding abilities. On June 5, 1995, Locke sued Eastwood again, alleging fraud and breach of fiduciary duty. She claimed that Clint's behind-the-scene actions had sent a message "to the film industry and the world at large ... that Locke was not to be taken seriously." (According to Sondra's lawyer, the situation was Clint's "way of terminating the earlier palimony suit.")
While Locke's case was revving up at the Burbank Courthouse, Eastwood begged her to settle. On September 24, 1996 -- the morning jurors were set to begin a second day of deliberation -- Sondra announced her decision to drop her suit against Clint for an undisclosed monetary reward. One contingency was laid down: she would not reveal the settlement amount. The jubilant plaintiff said, "This was never about money. It was about my fighting for my professional rights." According to the victor, "I didn't enjoy it. But sometimes you have to do things you don't enjoy." Locke added, "In this business, people get so accustomed to being abused, they just accept the abuse and say, 'Well, that's just the way it is.' Well, it isn't."
But Locke was not finished. She had a pending action against Warner Bros. for allegedly harming her career by agreeing to the sham movie-directing deal that Eastwood had purportedly engineered. On May 24, 1999, just as jury selection was beginning (and four days before Locke turned 55), the studio reached an out-of-court settlement with Sondra.
In the decade following her courtroom saga, Sondra did not direct another movie. She did make a brief return to acting with cameo roles in back-to-back low-budget independent features, The Prophet's Game (2000) and Clean and Narrow (2000), both of which failed to secure a theatrical release. In 2001, she sold her home in the Hollywood Hills and moved to another part of L.A. After interim flings with producer Hawk Koch and John F. Kennedy's nephew Robert Shriver, she had a live-in relationship with one of the physicians who had treated her during her cancer siege. Dr. Scott Cunneen, described by Locke as "Herculean," was 17 years her junior, his mother only three years older than Sondra. She eventually split up with him.
In 2016, preceded by a protracted absence from the public eye, trade press reported that Locke would come out of retirement to co-star in Alan Rudolph's Ray Meets Helen (2017) opposite Keith Carradine. The film was booked for a limited run in spring 2018. No longer able to hide her true year of birth in the post-internet era, Sondra was playing a romantic lead at the unheard of age of 74.
Locke died on November 3, 2018, of cardiac arrest stemming from metastatic breast cancer. It was not publicized until mid-December. The mysterious six-week delay raised a lot of eyebrows, especially since the belated news leaked opening day of the latest Eastwood blockbuster, The Mule (2018). According to a death certificate obtained by the media, her cancer had returned in 2015 and spread to her bones. Locke's remains were cremated at Westwood (Village) Mortuary and the ashes entrusted to her husband of 51 years. Rosanna Arquette, Frances Fisher and Evan Rachel Wood were among the celebrities who paid tribute. Despite the acrimony that followed the collapse of her famous relationship, Locke will be long remembered for her prominent roles in some of Eastwood's most popular works -- and perhaps dichotomously, as a pioneer for the rights of independent working women.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Bonnie Bartlett grew up in Moline, Illinois. Her father E.E. was a failed Shakespearean actor who became an insurance salesman. Her mother Carrie was a homemaker. At an early age, Bonnie became determined to fulfill her father's failed acting career. She went to Northwestern University to study acting. In her freshman year, she met fellow thespian William Daniels. Soon after graduation, the two were married and moved to New York to seek acting opportunities. She studied under Lee Strasberg and initially supported them.
In the 1950s she spent four years on the CBS soap Love of Life (1951) as Vanessa Raven. In 1961, their first child was born, but died within 24 hours due to complications in birth. This prompted the two to adopt two children later. Son Michael (b. 1964) is now an assistant director and stage manager in Los Angeles. Son Robert (b. 1966) is an artist and computer graphics designer in New York City. Bonnie was a stay-at-home mom through most of the 1970s, acting only occasionally in recurring roles, but rejuvenated her career in the early 1980s, most notably in the hit TV series St. Elsewhere (1982) and later in a recurring role in Boy Meets World (1993)- Actress
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Heather Joan Graham was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Joan (Bransfield), a schoolteacher and children's book author, and James Graham, an FBI agent. She and her sister, actress Aimee Graham, were raised by their strictly Catholic parents. They relocated often, as a result of their father's occupation, and Heather became increasingly shy. Surprisingly, she had a passion for acting from an early age and despite being labeled a 'theater geek' by her peers, she was voted Most Talented by her high school senior class. Unfortunately, her love of acting created a tension between Heather and her family although her mother obligingly drove her to auditions in Hollywood throughout her adolescence.
After high school Heather moved to Los Angeles and received small roles in a variety of films including Drugstore Cowboy (1989). When her career did not take off as quickly as was hoped, Heather enrolled in the University of California at Los Angeles to get her degree in drama. It was at UCLA that she was noticed by actor James Woods and received a subsequent part in a film Woods starred in, Diggstown (1992). Heather dropped out of UCLA after two years to pursue her acting career on a full time basis. Aside from gaining a modeling contract with Emanuel Ungaro Liberte, Heather has risen to star in such films as Swingers (1996), a role she received after being taken out swing dancing by Jon Favreau, to blockbusters like Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999), and Boogie Nights (1997).- Actor
- Producer
His low-keyed intensity, deep-voiced somberness, pale skin, puffy-eyed baby face and crop of carrot-red hair are all obvious and intriguing trademarks of TV star David Caruso. A hugely popular item in the 1990s as a result of a smash crime series, he got way too caught up in all the hoopla surrounding him. Those working with him on the innovative cop series were not exactly unhappy when he decided to abandon ship after only one season in order to pursue movie star fame. Despite his own predictions, the show prospered quite well after the loss of his focal character...but it would be a major understatement to state that Caruso did not fare as well.
TV to film crossover fame is tricky and David did not have the right formula to pull it off. Bad judgment calls, bad publicity after his departure from his TV series, a couple of poor film vehicles, and virtual unemployment in its wake eventually led him back to the small screen again a somewhat humbler person. Not many are given a second chance but Caruso, the enigmatic talent that he is, found gold a second time as (again) a wan, brooding lead in a hip, unconventional cop series.
David Stephen Caruso was born in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, the son of Charles Caruso, a magazine and newspaper editor, and Joan, a librarian. The Irish Catholic youngster attended elementary and middle school at Our Lady Queen of Martyrs and then Archbishop Molloy High School, both in Queens.
Following high school graduation in 1974, he toyed with some commercial work. A few years later he began to make a slight dent in films. He first appeared in Getting Wasted (1980) and Without Warning (1980), which led to a succession of secondary roles in such 80s movies as An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), First Blood (1982) (as a sheriff's deputy), Thief of Hearts (1984), Blue City (1986), China Girl (1987) and Twins (1988). But the break into full-fledged TV stardom proved elusive. It was argued that the thin and lanky actor was not handsome enough to become a leading man in film and didn't have the charisma credentials to carry a big movie.
Making his unbilled debut in a daytime episode of "Ryan's Hope", TV proved to be a more inviting medium and police stories seemed to be the name of the game for him. He had a strong recurring role as a gang leader on Hill Street Blues (1981) and showed to good advantage in the series Crime Story (1986). This sudden notoriety on police TV gave way to some even stronger stuff in streetwise film crimers such as King of New York (1990) as a cop gone bad, and Mad Dog and Glory (1993), in which he earned excellent marks as a cynical urban cop. But his star-making role came via TV and his portrayal of Detective John Kelly the critically-acclaimed series NYPD Blue (1993). Audience adoration was immediate.
His volatile but principled character on the gritty, boldly-written, unconventional show earned him impressive and sexy notices with a Golden Globe Award and Emmy nomination placed in his hands. Confident now that he could be a magnetic force in front of a movie camera, stories began to circulate that the instant fame had gone to his head, that he was moody, demanding and difficult on the set, and that he was quickly alienating not only his co-stars but the show's directors and writers.
Ready to prove all those naysayers wrong about his chances in film, Caruso made tabloid headlines when he announced his decision to leave the highly-rated show after only one season (and only four episodes into the second season) to pursue film stardom. Rumors also bounced around that he left following unresolved salary negotiations. For whatever reason, he wasted no time in scouting out movie vehicles for himself. Again, he focused on his specialty -- crime thrillers. The first, Kiss of Death (1995), in which he played a petty thief trying to go straight, did not go over well box-office-wise despite its good reviews, and the second, Jade (1995), in which he portrayed a homicide detective, was a grisly, unappetizing thriller that was given the thumbs down almost immediately. As a comeuppance for coming up short, he was nominated for the dubious "Razzie" award as the "Worst New Star" of those two films. With no movie releases at all in 1996, by the time Cold Around the Heart (1997) was released, in which he played a jewel thief who is betrayed by his sexy partner-in-crime (Kelly Lynch), the TV star had lost all of his movie star momentum.
In 1997, Caruso made an inauspicious return to the small screen as the placid title prosecutor Michael Hayes (1997), a law series, but it was a very short-lived experience. Audiences had become fickle and indifferent to his "heralded comeback". Finding a serious lack of offers, he returned to supporting others in films such as Russell Crowe in Proof of Life (2000), and copped a couple of leads for himself in such low-budgeted films as Session 9 (2001) and the Canadian film Black Point (2002).
But in 2002, he found TV magic once again behind a badge as Lt. Horatio Caine in the popular CSI spin-off series CSI: Miami (2002). Strongly anchoring the show, which focuses more on crime methodology and whodunnit twists than character development, Caruso has nevertheless earned cult fame for his slick demeanor and deliberately slow speech patterns, reminding one of William Shatner's heady, methodical approach to Captain Kirk. Known for his deep, dry tones and parade of droll one-liners, many of which include him slipping on his dark shades during mid-sentence, he has been the subject of many a late-nite parody and satire.
A difficult interviewee who has admitted to keeping his monumental ego in check since his return to TV, he has been little seen since the "Miami" series ended in 2012 after ten season. David has been married and divorced three times, which includes a brief 1980s union to actress Rachel Ticotin. He has a daughter, Greta, from that union. On the sly, Caruso was a co-owner of now long-defunct Steam, a clothing and furniture store in Miami, Florida. He and his current girlfriend (since 2005), Liza Marquez, have two children -- son Marquez Anthony and and daughter, Paloma Raquel.- Actor
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Houston-born character actor Trey Wilson was at his best playing rural, authoritarian type roles, usually in comedic productions. He was really starting to hit his straps in feature films when he unfortunately succumbed to a cerebral hemorrhage only days from his 41st birthday. Probably best remembered as fast talking, furniture store mogul "Nathan Arizona" looking for one of his missing sons (although he's not too sure which one !) in the off the wall comedy Raising Arizona (1987). Wilson was equally entertaining as shifty, corporate crook "Beetroot McKinley" in Twins (1988) and as quirky manager "Joe Riggins" in the much loved tale of baseball romance, Bull Durham (1988).- A tall, imposing character actor with a penetrating stare, Marshall Bell has provided excellent support in a variety of roles and genres. He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on September 28, 1942, and had been working as a consultant, teaching senior executives how to improve their speaking skills, prior to starting an acting career relatively late in life. His connection was his wife, the veteran costume designer Milena Canonero, herself a winner of three Academy Awards and nominee for five more. He made his motion picture debut in the drama Birdy (1984), which was seen by enough people to effectively jump-start his career. One of his next few roles was one of his most infamous: the creepy Coach Schneider of A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985). But the role that really got him noticed was as resistance leader George / Kuato in Total Recall (1990) (the role re-united him with Arnold Schwarzenegger, as he'd played a hit man in the comedy Twins (1988)). Other substantial film roles include a frightening homeless man terrorizing Bill Paxton in the movie The Vagrant (1992), Gordies' emotionally distant father in Stand by Me (1986), and General Owen in the movie Starship Troopers (1997), re-uniting him with "Total Recall" director Paul Verhoeven. He's done many TV series, including Good vs Evil (1999), Wiseguy (1987), The X-Files (1993), Tales from the Crypt (1989), Hill Street Blues (1981), House (2004), and Deadwood (2004). He's also appeared in commercials and done voice-over work.
A solid, reliable actor with an authoritative presence, Bell is a natural for playing "tough guy" roles, although movies like Airheads (1994) show him to be able to play comedy equally well. He continues to add many credits to his resume, including the critically acclaimed Capote (2005), the prisoner of war drama Rescue Dawn (2006), and the family film Nancy Drew (2007). - Actor
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Tony Jay was a British actor and narrator. He is known for his deep and distinctive British voice. He was well-known for voicing Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Megabyte from ReBoot, Monsieur D'Arque from Beauty and the Beast, Shere Khan from The Jungle Book 2, Magneto in X-Men Legends and the Elder God in the Legacy of Kain. He was considered to portray Obi-Wan in Star Wars before he was turned down by George Lucas.- Actor
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Hugh O'Brian had the term "beefcake" written about him during his nascent film years in the early 1950s, but he chose to avoid the obvious typecast as he set up his career.
O'Brian was born Hugh Charles Krampe on April 19, 1925, in Rochester, New York, to Ohio-born parents Edith Lillian (Marks) and Hugh John Krampe, a United States Marine Corps officer. His paternal grandparents were German immigrants, while his mother was of half German Jewish and half English/Scottish descent. O'Brian first attended school at New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, then Kemper Military School in Booneville, Missouri. Moving from place to place growing up, he managed to show off his athletic prowess quite early. By the time he graduated from high school, he had lettered in football, basketball, wrestling and track. Originally pursuing law, he dropped out of the University of Cincinnati in 1942 (age 19) and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Upon his discharge he ended up in Los Angeles. Hugh joined a little theater group and a Santa Barbara stock company, where he developed his acting chops and slowly built up his résumé. He was discovered for TV by director/actress Ida Lupino, which opened the door to his signing with Universal Studios for films.
Hugh's gentlemanly ruggedness, similar to a James Garner or a Gene Barry, was ideal for pictures, and his lean physique and exceptionally photographic mug had the modest, brown-eyed, curly-haired looker plastered all over the movie magazines. He rebelled against the image for the most part and, as a result, his years with Universal were not as fruitful as they could have been. For the duration, he was pretty much confined as a secondary player to standard action pictures such as The Return of Jesse James (1950), The Cimarron Kid (1952), The Battle at Apache Pass (1952), Red Ball Express (1952), Son of Ali Baba (1952), The Lawless Breed (1952), Seminole (1953), Saskatchewan (1954) and Drums Across the River (1954). It was Rock Hudson who earned all of the Universal glamour guy roles and the out-and-out stardom that could easily have been Hugh's. In 1954, he left Universal to freelance but did not fare any better with more serviceable roles in White Feather (1955) and The Twinkle in God's Eye (1955).
Hugh finally earned top status in the "B" action adventure The Brass Legend (1956) but it did little to advance his film career. Offered the starring role in The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp (1955) on TV, a year later, it became a mainstay hit and Hugh an "overnight" star. During his six-year run on the western classic, he managed to show off his singing talents on variety shows and appeared on Broadway, replacing Andy Griffith for a week in the musical "Destry Rides Again" in January of 1960.
The hirsutely handsome bachelor remained a durable talent throughout the 60s and 70s with plentiful work on the big screen, including Come Fly with Me (1963), Love Has Many Faces (1965), Ten Little Indians (1965), Ambush Bay (1966), Africa: Texas Style (1967), Strategy of Terror (1969), John Wayne's last film The Shootist (1976), and Bruce Lee's last film Game of Death (1978), as well as with the TV-movies Wild Women (1970), Harpy (1971), Murder on Flight 502 (1975), Benny and Barney: Las Vegas Undercover (1977), Murder at the World Series (1977), Cruise Into Terror (1978). He also starred in the crime adventure series Search (1972), but never got the one role to earn the critical attention he merited. In addition, he kept busy on the summer stock circuit.
In later years, he appeared in the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny DeVito comedy "Twins"; returned as "Wyatt Earp" in the TV movies The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw (1991) and Wyatt Earp: Return to Tombstone (1994); and made guest appearances on such TV shows as "Fantasy Island," "The Love Boat," "Matt Houston," "Murder, She Wrote," "L.A. Law" and made his last on-camera appearance on the series "Call of the Wild" in 2000.
A sports enthusiast, his hobbies included sailing, tennis, swimming and long-distance bicycling, and his many philanthropic efforts did not go unrecognized. His proudest achievement was the Hugh O'Brian Youth Leadership (HOBY), which he founded in 1958 after spending considerable time with Dr. Albert Schweitzer and his clinic in Africa. Struck by the impassioned work being done by Schweitzer, O'Brian set up his own program to help develop young people into future leaders. O'Brian was awarded honorary degrees by several prestigious institutions of higher learning. The perennial bachelor finally "settled down" and tied the knot at age 81 with longtime companion Virginia Barber, who was close to three decades his junior. They lived in his Benedict Canyon home.
Hugh died on September 5, 2016, in Beverly Hills, California, of natural causes.- Actor
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Born in 1919 in Jerusalem, Nehemiah Persoff emigrated with his family to America in 1929.
Following schooling at the Hebrew Technical Institute of New York, he found a job as a subway electrician doing signal maintenance until an interest in the theater altered the direction of his life.
He joined amateur groups and subsequently won a scholarship to the Dramatic Workshop in New York. This led to what would have been his Broadway debut in a production of "Eve of St. Mark", but he was fired before the show opened. He made his official New York debut in a production of "The Emperor's New Clothes" in 1940.
WWII interrupted his young career in 1942, when he was inducted into the United Sates Army, returning to the stage after his hitch was over in 1945, three years later. He sought work in stock plays and became an intern of Stella Adler and, as a result, a strong exponent of the Actor's Studio. Discovered by Charles Laughton and cast in his production of "Galileo" in 1947, Persoff made his film debut a year later with an uncredited bit in The Naked City (1948).
Short, dark, chunky-framed and with a distinct talent for dialects, Persoff became known primarily for his ethnic villainy, usually playing authoritative Eastern Europeans.
In a formidable career which had him portraying everything from cab drivers to Joseph Stalin, standout film roles would include Leo in The Harder They Fall (1956) with Humphrey Bogart, Gene Conforti in Alfred Hitchcock's The Wrong Man (1956), Albert in This Angry Age (1958) and gangster Johnny Torrio in Al Capone (1959). That same year he played another gangster, the small role of Little Bonaparte, in Some Like It Hot (1959).
He was a durable performer during TV's "Golden Age" (Gunsmoke (1955), The Twilight Zone (1959)) and well beyond (Chicago Hope (1994), Law & Order (1990)), playing hundreds of intense, volatile and dominating characters.
In later years, his characters grew a bit softer as Barbra Streisand's Jewish father in Yentl (1983) and the voice of Papa Mousekewitz in the An American Tail (1986) will attest. Later stage work included well-received productions of "I'm Not Rappaport" and his biographical one-man show "Sholem Aleichem".
After declining health and high blood pressure forced him to slow down, Persoff took up painting in 1985, studying sketching in Los Angeles. Specializing in watercolor, he created more than 100 works of art, many of which have been exhibited up and down the coast of California. He celebrated his 100th birthday in 2019.- Actor
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- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
The award-winning Canadian-American character actor Maury Chaykin was born on July 27, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Professor Irving J. Chaykin and his wife Clarice. Irving Chaykin, an American citizen, taught accountancy at the City College of New York. The former Clarice Bloomfield, his mother, was born in Winnipeg, raised in Montreal, and educated at the Beth Israel Hospital nursing school in Newark, New Jersey. Because of his parents, Maury held dual Canadian and American citizenship.
He was raised in New York City but moved to Toronto after graduating from the State University of New York, Buffalo, where he studied drama. His uncle, George Bloomfield, made his name in Canada as a movie and television writer, director and producer. Maury would later star in two theatrical movies, one TV movie and 14 TV episodes directed by his uncle.
Maury made his debut in the 1975 Canadian film Me (1975). In his 35-year-long career, he appeared in over 150 parts in films and TV series shot in Canada and the U.S. He was best known for his eccentric role as Kevin Costner's commanding officer in the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves (1990), three films of Atom Egoyan, including The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and his role as Nero Wolfe on cable TV. (His uncle George Bloomfield directed some of the Nero Wolfe episodes.)
He won a Genie Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Oscar, as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as a has-been rock star in Whale Music (1994) and two Gemini Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy. Recently, he had a semi-recurring role as a movie producer based on Harvey Weinstein in the cable-TV series Entourage (2004) and a regular role on the Canadian TV series Less Than Kind (2008).
Chaykin was suffering from kidney disease in the last years of his life. He died on his 61st birthday, July 27, 2010, at Toronto General Hospital, surrounded by members of his family. He was married to the Canadian actress Susannah Hoffmann, by whom he had a daughter, Rose.- Actor
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Born in Denmark, Sven-Ole Thorsen has a remarkable sporting background as a champion bodybuilder, champion power-lifter, and karate black belt that made him an obvious choice for movies roles as "muscle for hire." The hulking almost 6' 4" actor first came to attention as one of Thulsa Doom's bodyguards... The hammer wielding Thorgrim, in the highly popular, Conan the Barbarian (1982). He came to Hollywood in 1985, appearing in nearly every Arnold Schwarzenegger film, including Predator (1987), Twins (1988), Red Heat (1988), and End of Days (1999). His other on screen appearances include Lethal Weapon (1987), The Quick and the Dead (1995), The Hunt for Red October (1990), On Deadly Ground (1994), and Gladiator (2000). Thorsen's extensive stunt work includes Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Bulletproof (1996), Eraser (1996), Soldier (1998) and Collateral (2004). On television, he has been seen in Baywatch (1989) and The A-Team (1983).- Gus Rethwisch was born on 3 February 1947 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. He is an actor, known for The Running Man (1987), The Scorpion King (2002) and Twins (1988).
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A veteran of stage, film and television with a variety of characters to his credit, Richard Portnow was named one of the "Actors We Love" by the actors' trade newspaper Back Stage West. "Portnow knows exactly how to hook an audience with every character." This Brooklyn native has worked steadily for 30 years and has built a solid list of credits, appearing in some of the most highly regarded and successful films and television shows of the past three decades.
His entire family hails from Brooklyn. His folks, Al and Flo, are gone, but he has a brother (Jay), a sister (Gayle), two nephews (John and Sam) and three nieces (Samara, Ilana and Maia). He graduated with a BA degree as a speech and theater major from Brooklyn College. He did not shine while in college, and was discouraged from continuing as an actor with the critique that he was "hopeless and without any ability or talent" (he continues to wonder if the faculty was right). He has been a bartender, an antique dealer, a boxer, an international drug trafficker, a fifth-grade teacher in the NYC public school system, a competitive body builder, a truck driver, a bouncer, a bagel maker, a short-order cook, a marathon runner, a designer, a competitive gymnast, a background extra, a disco dancer at the famed "Arthur" discotheque, and a confused and aimless layabout. Richard is 6'0", weighs in at a trim 180 lb. and continues to box. He has excellent defensive skills and his ability to stop punches with his face has made him a local favorite.
Portnow assayed the role of attorney Hal "Mel" Melvoin on the Emmy-winning HBO series The Sopranos (1999), the lawyer for Uncle Junior, whom he singlehandedly kept out of prison and managed to get placed under house arrest instead. His rates for defending Corrado Soprano (Uncle Juniors's full name) are astronomical, but as Uncle June has said, "Mel, you're worth every penny". He has held this role since the show's inception in 1999.
Richard began his professional career at the famed Cafe La Mama in New York City, appearing in plays by Tom Eyen, Leonard Melfi, Jeff Weiss, Megan Terry, Tom O'Horgan and Lanford Wilson. He won "The Best Newcomer of the Year" award from Show Business Magazine as a result of his early work off-off-Broadway. He continued his stage career with starring roles on Broadway in "The House of Blue Leaves" and "A Month of Sundays". He was in the original cast of "Moonchildren" at the prestigious Royal Court Theatre in London. He has also worked extensively at some of the most highly regarded regional theaters in the country, including The Long Wharf Theater, The Berkshire Theatre Festival for the brilliant director Josephine Abady, The Philadelphia Drama Guild, The Lowell Regional Theater and the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. Neil Simon's "Oscar and Felix" at The Geffen Playhouse marked Richard's Los Angeles stage debut. His has also appeared in Woody Allen's "Writer's Block", which was directed by Allen at The Atlantic Theater Company in New York.
Richard has been fortunate and privileged to work with some of the best directors in film today. Among those who have had a profound influence on him are Barry Levinson, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, David Fincher, Woody Allen, Sydney Pollack, James Foley, Jim Jarmusch, Heywood Gould, Cameron Crowe and Sidney Lumet. He has also appeared as a regular on the critically acclaimed series EZ Streets (1996) and on the police drama Ryan Caulfield: Year One (1999). He has had guest-starring appearances on ""Elementary" (2016), "The Good Wife"(2015), "Grimm"(2015), "Parks and Recreation" (2014), "Suits (2014), "Castle" (2014), "CSI New York" (2012), "Hawaii Five-0" (2012), "Nip/Tuck." (2009), "Cold Case" (2008), "Boston Legal" (2006), Seinfeld (1989), Mad About You (1992), Going to California (2001), Spin City (1996), NYPD Blue (1993), The Shield (2002), Dave's World (1993), Civil Wars (1991), Homefront (1991), Double Rush (1995), JAG (1995), Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993), The Nanny (1993), Middle Ages (1992), The Commish (1991) Wiseguy (1987) and Walker, Texas Ranger (1993).
Richard has also starred in numerous movies of the week and mini series, most notably Neil Simon's Laughter on the 23rd Floor (2001), Double Bang (2001), Bella Mafia (1997), A Deadly Silence (1989), Original Sin (1997), Peter Gunn (1989) and Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995).
Richard shares his home with an unpredictable Chow/Shiba Inu named "Sweetie" and a feisty English Cocker Spaniel named "Jackpot" Richard is an avid collector of Americana from the 1940s and 1950s, with special focus on the original oil paintings created for the "pulp magazine" covers of the 1930s and 1940s.- Robert Harper was born on 19 May 1951 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Creepshow (1982), Once Upon a Time in America (1984) and The War of the Roses (1989). He was married to Sascha Noorthoorn van der Kruyff and Lisa Pelikan. He died on 23 January 2020 in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
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- Script and Continuity Department
William Davies is known for How to Train Your Dragon (2010), Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992) and Flushed Away (2006).- Writer
- Producer
- Script and Continuity Department
Timothy Harris was born on 21 July 1946 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Trading Places (1983), Astro Boy (2009) and Falling Down (1993). He has been married to Mary Bess Walker since 1980.- Writer
- Producer
- Script and Continuity Department
William Osborne is known for Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (1992), The Scorpion King (2002) and Twins (1988). He has been married to Debra Hayward since 2001. They have four children.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
Herschel Weingrod was born on 30 October 1947 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Trading Places (1983), Falling Down (1993) and My Stepmother Is an Alien (1988).- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Georges Delerue was born on 12 March 1925 in Roubaix, Nord, France. He was a composer and actor, known for Platoon (1986), Twins (1988) and The Day of the Dolphin (1973). He was married to Micheline Gautron. He died on 20 March 1992 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Randy Edelman was born on 10 June 1947 in Paterson, New Jersey, USA. He is a composer and actor, known for The Last of the Mohicans (1992), xXx (2002) and Anaconda (1997). He has been married to Jackie DeShannon since 3 June 1976. They have one child.- Cinematographer
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Esteemed cinematographer known for his long, durable association with Sidney Lumet. Trained at the Polish Film School in his native Lódz. After he immigrated to the U.S.A. he began working in commercials filming hundreds of memorable spots for IBM, Xerox, American Express, Pepsi ,Coca Cola, Chrysler revival with Lee Iacocca, Toyota and hundreds more. Breakthrough film was his work on the gritty urban thriller Prince of the City his first collaboration with Sidney Lumet. Bartkowiak worked on the director's next 11 films over the next 12 years. Bartkowiak became much in demand after his taut camera work in Speed and has worked three times for Barbra Streisand in Broadway Album Video, Nuts and The Mirror Has Two Faces. Some of the directors that Bartkowiak collaborated with are James Ivory, John Huston, Tony Scott, Billy Friedkin James Brooks, Ivan Reitman, Jan de Bont, Dick Donner, Taylor Hackford Producer Joel Silver started his directorial career with Romeo Must Die. And continued with Exit Wounds, Cradle to the Grave. Recently re released DOOM on Netflix, was called one of the best 15 action films .- Music Department
- Editor
- Editorial Department
Donn Cambern was born on 9 October 1929 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an editor, known for Romancing the Stone (1984), The Bodyguard (1992) and Easy Rider (1969). He was married to Patricia Lee Cambern. He died on 18 January 2023 in the USA.- Editor
- Producer
- Editorial Department
Sheldon Kahn was born on 21 March 1940 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is an editor and producer, known for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Out of Africa (1985) and Junior (1994).- Actor
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Best known as Scotty in Star Trek he was educated at High School in Sarnia, Ontario, where he acted in school productions.
When WWII began he joined the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery eventually obtaining the rank of Captain. He was wounded on D-Day, suffering severe damage to his right middle finger which was removed ahead of first knuckle, then became a flying observer for the rest of the war. His daring aerial maneuvers flying in an observation plane got him known as the craziest pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Once the war ended, he found himself on many other adventures although none of them would come anywhere close to what he experienced before.
He would become a popular voice actor who participated in thousands of CBC programs spread across both radio and television.
Later on, during the mid-1960's, he would develop into the Star Trek great we now know as Montgomery Scott, "Scotty".
In 1946 he won a 2 year scholarship to the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York City and from there went to teach for three years.
In 1953 he returned to Canada and lived in Toronto for 8 years acting on radio, television and some films before moving to Hollywood where he also appeared in a number of popular television series such as the Canadian version of The Howdy Doody Show, Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans, R.C.M.P., Gunsmoke, The Twilight Zone, Hazel, The Gallant Men, Bonanza, The Richard Boone Show, The Outer Limits, Ben Casey, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Fugitive, Laredo, Bewitched, The Virginian, The Man from Uncle, The F.B.I., Peyton Place, Daniel Boone, Marcus Welby M.D., Fantasy Island, Magnum P.I., Danger Bay and The Bold and The Beautiful, while in between he made a return to the stage for various plays.
James Doohan departed the scene at the age of 85 on 20 July 2005.
Many current-day engineers credit Scotty with being their childhood inspiration and in honour of his memory a portion of Doohan's ashes were sprinkled in space by the rocket SpaceLoft XL.- Actor
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Jackson DeForest Kelley was born in Toccoa, Georgia, to Clora (Casey) and Ernest David Kelley.
He graduated from high school at age 16 and went on to sing at the Baptist church where his father was a minister. At age 17, he made his first trip outside the state to visit an uncle in Long Beach, California. He intended to stay for two weeks but ended up staying a year. Upon returning home, he told his parents he was moving to California to become an actor. His mother encouraged him but the idea did not go over well with his father.
In California, Kelley was spotted by a Paramount talent scout while working on a United States Navy training film. He became a reliable character actor (often in Westerns in which he often played the villain), but hit the big time when he was offered the role of the somewhat irascible Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy on the television series Star Trek (1966). He later reprised his role for a string of successful Star Trek films: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).
DeForest Kelley died at age 79 of stomach cancer in his home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles on June 11, 1999.- Actor
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Walter Koenig began his acting career in 1962 as an uncredited Sentry in the TV series Combat! (1962), and in the following few years had bit roles in several television shows, until he landed the role that would catapult his career in ways he could never have imagined, as Ensign Pavel Chekov in Star Trek's Original Series (Star Trek (1966)). He went on to reprise that role in all 7 of the original Star Trek movies (The 7th movie, Star Trek: Generations (1994) was mostly ST: The Next Generation, but had the original series section at the beginning, and Kirk at the end), as well as voicing the same character in several of the video games. He has continued to reprise that character in several different Star Trek video's, and TV series, rising in rank to Lieutenant, Commander, Captain and Admiral through the years (his most recent being Admiral Chekov in the pilot of Star Trek: Renegades (2015), which never launched, but that evolved to Renegades (2017), a 2 part, crowd-funded, fan-made mini series that also stars fellow Original Series star Nichelle Nichols (as a character NOT named 'Uhura'). Since it was Fan-Made (and to avoid violating studio rights) they couldn't use the Star Trek Character's names, like Uhura or Chekov, so they simply called him 'The Admiral'. (however the uniforms and technology are remarkably Star Trek like.)
He also had a recurring role of the quintessential scoundrel Bester on the television series Babylon 5 (1993). He has been the "Special Guest Star" in twelve episodes and, at the end of the third season, the production company applied for an Emmy nomination on his behalf. He once again played Bester in the spin-off series Crusade (1999).
In between filming the 4th and 5th Star Trek films he took his first leading role in the video feature, Moontrap (1988). In an interactive state-of-the-art video game from Digital Pictures called Maximum Surge (1996), Koenig played as Drexel, another scoundrel.
Walter worked in the low budget feature film Drawing Down the Moon (1997) from Chaos Productions, and has star billing as a German psychologist in the martial arts picture, Sworn to Justice (1996). A one character piece that Koenig wrote and performed entitled "You're Never Alone when You're a Schizophrenic" was a finalist in the 1996 New York Film Festival awards. Koenig filmed a guest appearance as himself on the CBS situation comedy Almost Perfect (1995), did sketch comedy on the Comedy Central series "Viva Variety" (1996) and performed on an ESPN sports commercial that aired in the spring of 1998. Walter also hosted a cult movie marathon for Comedy Central. It played once a week for the course of a month.
Koenig's autobiography, "Warped Factors - A Neurotic's Guide to the Universe" was released through Taylor Publishing on April 1, 1998. The audio tape reading of the book by the author has been released through Dove Video in January 1999. Koenig performed as the Shadow Guy in an episode of Diagnosis Murder (1993) and went to New York to perform in a new radio broadcast version of "War of the Worlds" in tribute to both H.G. Wells and Orson Welles. From "The Girls of Summer" to "The Boys in Autumn", Koenig's stage career spans thirty years and includes stops in New York with "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (Quince) and "Six Characters in Search of an Author" (Oldest Son). In Chicago, he guested in "Make a Million" (Johnny) opposite Jackie Coogan and on the road -- from Arizona to Philadelphia -- Mark Lenard (Sarek: Spock's father) and he performed in the short plays "Box and Cox" (Box) and "Actors" (Dave). They also toured in a two character play, "The Boys in Autumn", the comedy-drama about the reunion of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn forty years later.
By himself, Koenig also starred as Larry the Liquidator in "Other People's Money" in Reno, Nevada. His Los Angeles productions include "Steambath" (God), "The White House Murder Case" (Captain Weems), "Night Must Fall" (Danny), "La Ronde" (Gentleman), "The Typist and the Tiger" (Paul), and "The Deputy" (Jacobson) among almost two dozen others ("Blood Wedding", "The Collection", et al.). Directorial credits include "Hotel Paradiso" for Company of Angles, "Beckett" for Theatre 40, "America Hurrah!" at the Oxford Theater, "Twelve Angry Men" at the Rita Hayworth Theatre, "Matrix" at the Gascon Theatre Institute, and "Three by Ten" at Actor's Alley. Walter has performed in the television movies Antony and Cleopatra (1984) (Pompey) opposite Timothy Dalton and Lynn Redgrave as well as the MOW's Goodbye, Raggedy Ann (1971) and The Questor Tapes (1974).
Walter has written for the television series The Powers of Matthew Star (1982), What Really Happened to the Class of '65? (1977), Family (1976), Land of the Lost (1974), and the animated Star Trek: The Animated Series (1973) series. This actor-writer has seen publication with the non-fiction "Chekov's Enterprise" and the satiric fantasy novel "Buck Alice and the Actor-Robot". He also created the three issues of the comic book story "Raver" published by Malibu Comics. Koenig has taught classes in acting and directing privately at UCLA, The Sherwood Oaks Experimental Film College and at the California School of Professional Psychology. Most recently, he has been an instructor at the Actor's Alley Repertory Company in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Nichelle Nichols was one of 10 children born to parents Lishia and Samuel Nichols in Robbins, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. She was a singer and dancer before turning to acting and finding fame in her groundbreaking role of Lt. Nyota Uhura in the Star Trek (1966) series.
As long as she could remember, she wanted to do nothing but sing, dance, act and write despite no one else in her family following any of those tracks; although her father could tap dance. He not only became mayor of their town, Robbins, IL, but also a magistrate. On stage, Nichelle was twice nominated for the Sarah Siddons Award as Best Actress of the Year; while on film she danced with Sammy Davis, Jr. in Porgy and Bess, and opposite James Garner in Mister Budwing (1965). In a complete changearound soon after the Star Trek television series came to an end, she played a blousey madam, then co-starred with Lynn Redgrave n Antony and Cleopatra. She was been married twice and had a son, Kyle Johnson, from her first marriage to a tap dancer.- Writer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
While in junior high school, he became interested in science fiction, and years later while reading a copy of 'Astounding Stories' when he was working as an airline pilot, he decided to give it up and become a writer. He moved West and joined the Los Angeles police force to gain experience that would help him toward a writing career in Hollywood. He began selling scripts for television shows such as 'Dragnet' and 'Naked City'. He was head writer on 'Have Gun Will Travel' for two years, winning the 'Writer's Guild Award' for 'Best Script'. He created and produced 'The Lieutenant' followed by 3 years of the 'Star Trek' television series and produced the films 'Pretty Maids All in a Row', the first 'Star Trek' film and was executive consultant on the following two.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
George Takei was born Hosato Takei in Los Angeles, California. His mother was born in Sacramento to Japanese parents & his father was born in Japan. Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, he & his family were relocated from Los Angeles to the Rohwer Relocation Center in Arkansas. Later, they were moved to a camp at Tule Lake in Northern California. His first-hand knowledge of the unjust internment of 120,000 Japanese Americans in World War II, poignantly chronicled in his autobiography, created a lifelong interest in politics & community affairs.
After graduating from Los Angeles High School in 1956, he studied architecture at UC Berkeley. An ad in a Japanese community paper led to a summer job on the MGM lot where he dubbed 8 characters from Japanese into English for Rodan (1956). Bitten by the acting bug, he transferred to UCLA as a theater arts major. Contacting an agent he had met at MGM led to his appearance as an embittered soldier in postwar Japan in the Playhouse 90 (1956) production. Being spotted in a UCLA theater production by a Warner Bros. casting director led to his feature film debut in Ice Palace (1960), various roles in Hawaiian Eye (1959) &other feature work. In June 1960, he completed his degree at UCLA and studied at the Shakespeare Institute at Stratford-Upon-Avon in England that summer.
After starting a master's degree program at UCLA, he was cast in the socially relevant stage musical production Fly Blackbird! but was replaced when the show moved to New York. He took odd jobs until returning to his role at the end of the run. Getting little work in Manhattan, he returned to Los Angeles to continue his studies, once again appearing in TV & films. He earned his master's in 1964. Wanting a multi-racial crew, Gene Roddenberry cast him in Where No Man Has Gone Before, the second Star Trek (1966) pilot. Mr. Sulu remained a regular character when the series went into production. In the hiatus after the end of shooting the first season, he worked on The Green Berets (1968), playing a South Vietnamese Special Forces officer.
After Star Trek (1966) was canceled, he did guest stints in several TV shows, voiced Sulu for the animated Star Trek series & regularly appeared at Star Trek conventions. He also produced & hosted a public affairs show Expression East/West, which aired in Los Angeles from 1971-1973. That year, he ran for the L.A. City Council. Although he lost by a small margin, Mayor Tom Bradley appointed him to the board of directors of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, where he served until 1984 & contributed to plans for the subway. During this period, he co-wrote a sci-fi novel Mirror Friend, Mirror Foe. He campaigned to get more respect for his character in the Star Trek features, resulting in Sulu finally obtaining the rank of captain in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), a role reprised in the Star Trek: Voyager (1995) episode Flashback.
He has run several marathons and was in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Torch Relay. He received a star on Hollywood Boulevard's Walk of Fame in 1986. He also left his signature & hand print in cement at the Chinese Theater in 1991. His 1994 autobiography, To the Stars, was well-received. He remains active as a stage, TV & film actor as well as as an advocate for the interests of Japanese Americans.- Judy Levitt was born on 24 April 1939 in Manchester, New Hampshire, USA. She was an actress, known for Star Trek: Generations (1994), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). She was married to Walter Koenig. She died on 9 December 2022 in the USA.
- Lew Wasserman was born on 22 March 1913 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He was married to Edie Wasserman. He died on 3 June 2002 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
With features chiseled in stone, and renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's top leading men of his prime and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty years. As a Hollywood star, he appeared in 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film, The Ten Commandments (1956) , for which he received his first Golden Globe Award nomination. He also starred in Touch of Evil (1958) with Orson Welles; Ben-Hur, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor (1959); El Cid (1961); and Planet of the Apes (1968). He also starred in the films The Greatest Show on Earth (1952); Secret of the Incas (1954); The Big Country (1958); and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). A supporter of Democratic politicians and civil rights in the 1960s, Heston later became a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston's most famous role in politics came as the five-term president of the National Rifle Association, from 1998 to 2003.
Heston was born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1923, in No Man's Land, Illinois, to Lila (Charlton) and Russell Whitford Carter, who operated a sawmill. He had English and Scottish ancestry, with recent Canadianforebears.
Heston made his feature film debut as the lead character in a 16mm production of Peer Gynt (1941), based on the Henrik Ibsen play. In 1944, Heston enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He served for two years as a radio operator and aerial gunner aboard a B-25 Mitchell stationed in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands with the 77th Bombardment Squadron of the Eleventh Air Force. He reached the rank of Staff Sergeant. Heston married Northwestern University student Lydia Marie Clarke, who was six months his senior. That same year he joined the military.
Heston played 'Marc Antony' in Julius Caesar (1950), and firmly stamped himself as genuine leading man material with his performance as circus manager 'Brad Braden' in the Cecil B. DeMille spectacular The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), also starring James Stewart and Cornel Wilde. The now very popular actor remained perpetually busy during the 1950s, both on TV and on the silver screen with audience pleasing performances in the steamy thriller The Naked Jungle (1954), as a treasure hunter in Secret of the Incas (1954) and another barn storming performance for Cecil B. DeMille as "Moses" in the blockbuster The Ten Commandments (1956).
Heston delivered further dynamic performances in the oily film noir thriller Touch of Evil (1958), and then alongside Gregory Peck in the western The Big Country (1958) before scoring the role for which he is arguably best known, that of the wronged Jewish prince who seeks his freedom and revenge in the William Wyler directed Ben-Hur (1959). This mammoth Biblical epic running in excess of three and a half hours became the standard by which other large scale productions would be judged, and its superb cast also including Stephen Boyd as the villainous "Massala", English actor Jack Hawkins as the Roman officer "Quintus Arrius", and Australian actor Frank Thring as "Pontius Pilate", all contributed wonderful performances. Never one to rest on his laurels, steely Heston remained the preferred choice of directors to lead the cast in major historical productions and during the 1960s he starred as Spanish legend "Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar" in El Cid (1961), as a US soldier battling hostile Chinese boxers during 55 Days at Peking (1963),played the ill-fated "John the Baptist" in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), the masterful painter "Michelangelo" battling Pope Julius II in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), and an English general in Khartoum (1966). In 1968, Heston filmed the unusual western Will Penny (1967) about an aging and lonely cowboy befriending a lost woman and her son, which Heston has often referred to as his favorite piece of work on screen. Interestingly, Heston was on the verge of acquiring an entirely new league of fans due to his appearance in four very topical science fiction films (all based on popular novels) painting bleak futures for mankind.
In 1968, Heston starred as time-traveling astronaut "George Taylor", in the terrific Planet of the Apes (1968) with its now legendary conclusion as Heston realizes the true horror of his destination. He returned to reprise the role, albeit primarily as a cameo, alongside fellow astronaut James Franciscus in the slightly inferior sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Next up, Heston again found himself facing the apocalypse in The Omega Man (1971) as the survivor of a germ plague that has wiped out humanity leaving only bands of psychotic lunatics roaming the cities who seek to kill the uninfected Heston. And fourthly, taking its inspiration from the Harry Harrison novel "Make Room!, Make Room!", Heston starred alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson and Chuck Connors in Soylent Green (1973). During the remainder of the 1970s, Heston appeared in two very popular "disaster movies" contributing lead roles in the far-fetched Airport 1975 (1974), plus in the star-laden Earthquake (1974), filmed in "Sensoround" (low-bass speakers were installed in selected theaters to simulate the earthquake rumblings on screen to movie audiences). He played an evil Cardinal in the lively The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), a mythical US naval officer in the recreation of Midway (1976), also filmed in "Sensoround", an LA cop trying to stop a sniper in Two-Minute Warning (1976) and another US naval officer in the submarine thriller Gray Lady Down (1978). Heston appeared in numerous episodes of the high-rating TV series Dynasty (1981) and The Colbys (1985), before moving onto a mixed bag of projects including TV adaptations of Treasure Island (1990) and A Man for All Seasons (1988), hosting two episodes of the comedy show, Saturday Night Live (1975), starring as the "Good Actor" bringing love struck Mike Myers to tears in Wayne's World 2 (1993), and as the eye patch-wearing boss of intelligence agent Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies (1994). He also narrated numerous TV specials and lent his vocal talents to the animated movie Hercules (1997), the family comedy Cats & Dogs (2001) and an animated version of Ben Hur (2003). Heston made an uncredited appearance in the inferior remake of Planet of the Apes (2001), and his last film appearance to date was in the Holocaust-themed drama of My Father (2003).
Heston narrated for highly classified military and Department of Energy instructional films, particularly relating to nuclear weapons, and "for six years Heston [held] the nation's highest security clearance" or Q clearance. The Q clearance is similar to a DoD or Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) clearance of Top Secret.
Heston was married to Lydia Marie Clark Heston since March 1944, and they have two children. His highly entertaining autobiography was released in 1995, titled appropriately enough "Into The Arena". Although often criticized for his strong conservative beliefs and involvement with the NRA, Heston was a strong advocate for civil right many years before it became fashionable, and was a recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, plus the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and did appear in a film or TV production after 2003. He died in April 2008, a memorable figure in the history of US cinema.- Producer
- Executive
- Manager
Sid Sheinberg was born on 14 January 1935 in Corpus Christi, Texas, USA. He was a producer and executive, known for What Lola Wants (2015), For Richer or Poorer (1997) and The Devil's Tomb (2009). He was married to Lorraine Gary. He died on 7 March 2019 in Beverly Hills, California, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
In his early career as the 4-year-old "World's Youngest Ordained Minister," Pentecostal preacher Hugh Marjoe Ross Gortner became a 'Miracle Child' extraordinaire. Born in Long Beach, California, the young tyke, who ministered the gospel from memory and performed faith healings, drew capacity crowds as he barnstormed throughout the Bible Belt. The son of Vernon Robert Gortner, an evangelical minister who preached at revivals, it was his mother Marge who pushed and introduced Marjoe to the world as a boy preacher, and it the primary reason for his success. At age 16, however, Marjoe grew acutely disillusioned with what he considered a horrible deception, eventually withdrawing from the scene.
Unbeknownst to his father and other ministers, Marjoe agreed to let a film crew follow him throughout his final 1971 national tour of revival meetings before leaving "the business." The fascinating Oscar-winning documentary Marjoe (1972) that resulted, based on his life as a fake evangelist, introduced the public to a new and profoundly hypnotic performer. Prior to filming the documentary, Marjoe displayed his musical talents. As prolific musician, he could play the drums, saxophone, organ, guitar, accordion and piano and performed with a Los Angeles rock band. On the strength of the documentary's critical success, he managed to record a 1973 solo album for RCA, "Bad, But Not Evil." Feeling a strong compulsion to act, Marjoe's talents for drawing an audience and public speaking were quickly put to use. Handed potent roles in the TV projects The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973) and The Gun and the Pulpit (1974), roles that capitalized on his magnetism and off-center flamboyance, the extremely positive reviews he received helped catapult him into 1970's films.
Unfortunately, most of Marjoe's cinematic efforts went on to earn harsh critical reviews. Following a featured psychotic role in the all-star disaster film Earthquake (1974), Marjoe went on to star in a few wild-eyed roles -- as a Billy the Kid type outlaw in the romantic crime drama Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976), a man framed as a drug smuggler in the action crime film Acapulco Gold (1976), a hunter being attacked by giant killer wasps in the horror opus The Food of the Gods (1976), a cocky cowboy in the motorcycle action film Viva Knievel! (1977), a robot-battling intergalactic outlaw in the space action flick Starcrash (1978) and a vicious, hostage-taking drug dealer in the drama When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979). Because of such poor box office receipts for these film, Marjoe's quest for top film stardom never materialized.
The tall (6'2"), tousle-haired Marjoe did thrive, however, as an offbeat guest on a number of popular TV shows, including "Barnaby Jones," "Nakia," "Medical Center," "Police Story," "Fantasy Island," "The A-Team," "Matt Houston," "Airwolf" and "T.J. Hooker." During the 1986-1987 season, Marjoe had the somewhat close-to-home role of Vince Karlotti, a villainous charlatan who posed as a psychic medium in the nighttime soap opera series Falcon Crest (1981).
Marjoe stumbled through some more films in the 80s, but even with his undeniable charm and charisma, he couldn't rise above the poor material offered in such movies as Mausoleum (1983), Jungle Warriors (1984), Hellhole (1985), The Survivalist (1987), American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989) and Feuer, Eis & Dynamit (1990). He ended his career in the featured role of a preacher in the biography of Wild Bill Hickock entitled Wild Bill (1995) starring Jeff Bridges.
Before retiring in 2010, the man who blew the whistle on evangelism produced Celebrity Sports Invitational charity golf tournaments and ski events for charitable purposes. Briefly married (1978-1979) to second wife Candy Clark, his co-star in When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder? (1979), Marjoe waited four decades before attempting to marry again in 2019, this time to set decorator Susan Magestro.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Richard Roundtree shot to fame as the ultra-hip, flamboyantly-dressed -- not to mention charismatic-- private eye John Shaft. The film Shaft (1971) spawned a genre, two sequels and a series. It made Roundtree a household name, and, for a while, one of the hottest box-office stars in Hollywood. As New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby put it: "Shaft is the sort of man who can drink five fingers of scotch without gagging or his eyes watering. He moves through Whitey's world with perfect ease and aplomb, but never loses his independence, or his awareness of where his life is really at." Rather aptly, Roundtree has been described as blaxploitation's James Bond.
Fame and success did not come at once. The son of Kathryn (a nurse and/or maid), and John Roundtree (employed variously as a garbage collector and caterer), Richard was born in New Rochelle, New York. During high school, he excelled at football and duly won an athletic scholarship at Southern Illinois University. However, he dropped out in 1963 and worked a succession of different jobs, including as janitor and salesman. He became a fashion model after being signed by Eunice Johnson of Ebony Magazine, later posing as an advertising model for a brand of hair grease and for Salem cigarettes. Deciding to give acting a go, Roundtree returned to New York to take drama lessons. In 1967, he joined the acclaimed Negro Ensemble Company, working alongside people like Robert Hooks, Rosalind Cash and Moses Gunn. He was soon cast in several off-Broadway productions and had a first headlining role as boxing legend Jack Johnson in The Great White Hope.
In 1971, Roundtree, then a virtual unknown in show biz, ignited the screen as the macho sleuth Shaft. Slickly directed by Gordon Parks and filmed on location in Harlem, Greenwich Village and Times Square, the picture was a tangible box-office hit, which satisfied both black and white audiences alike and likely saved a struggling MGM from impending bankruptcy. Shaft can also be said to have spawned the blaxploitation action genre of the 70s. Roundtree went on to star in two less successful sequels (Shaft's Big Score! (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973)) and a series. He reprised his character for a 2000 motion picture which starred Samuel L. Jackson as John Shaft's nephew.
Down the line, Roundtree portrayed a few other robust characters: a Union army deserter teaming up with a crippled Indian to escape a sadistic bounty hunter in Charley-One-Eye (1973), a professional jewel thief in Diamonds (1975) (alternatively titled 'Diamond Shaft'-- a curious coincidence), a treasure hunter in Day of the Assassin (1979) and a Zimbabwean guerrilla in Game for Vultures (1979). By the mid-80s, however, the actor found himself increasingly relegated to the supporting cast as conventional establishment figures, often police or army officers.Television afforded him several good roles, notably in the Emmy Award-winning miniseries Roots (1977) and as former slave-turned gunslinger Isaiah "Ice" McAdams in Outlaws (1986). He subsequently had recurring roles in the cast of the soap Generations (1989) (as a doctor), the drama Being Mary Jane (2013) (as the titular talk show host's dad) and (as a grandfather) in the sitcom Family Reunion (2019).
Roundtree's accolades have included an MTV Lifetime Achievement Award for Shaft in 1994, a Peabody Award in 2002 and a Black Theater Alliance Award Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010.
Though diagnosed with male breast cancer in 1993 and having undergone both chemotherapy and a double mastectomy, Roundtree bravely soldiered on in his chosen profession and continued to act on screen right up to his death from pancreatic cancer on October 24 2023, at the age of 81.- Kyle Aletter was born on 31 May 1960 in Los Angeles, California, USA. She is an actress, known for The Day After (1983), Barnaby Jones (1973) and Finder of Lost Loves (1984). She is married to Rory Oldham. They have one child.
- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Anne Archer was nominated for an Academy Award®, a Golden Globe and the British (BAFTA) Academy Award for her role as Michael Douglas' sympathetic, tortured wife, "Beth Gallagher", in Adrian Lyne's 1987 thriller Fatal Attraction (1987). Archer is also well-known for her poignant Golden Globe-winning performance in the ensemble cast of Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993) and for playing CIA agent Jack Ryan's beleaguered wife, "Cathy", in Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994), both based on Tom Clancy bestsellers.
Archer was born into a show business family in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of actors Marjorie Lord (née Marjorie F. Wollenberg), who appeared on TV's The Danny Thomas Show (1953), and John Archer (born Ralph Bowman), who starred in White Heat (1949). Her ancestry includes German, English, Czech, and Scots-Irish.
Archer studied theatre arts at Claremont College before debuting on the motion picture screen opposite Jon Voight in The All-American Boy (1973). She won critical acclaim for her leading role in Lifeguard (1976) as Sam Elliott's old flame.
Throughout her motion picture career, Archer has starred opposite some of Hollywood's most dynamic and respected leading men, not only Michael Douglas and Harrison Ford, but also Gene Hackman in Narrow Margin (1990), Tom Berenger in director Alan Rudolph's romantic comedy Love at Large (1990), Donald Sutherland in Eminent Domain (1990) and Sylvester Stallone in Paradise Alley (1978). In 2000, she appeared in The Art of War (2000) with Wesley Snipes and Rules of Engagement (2000) (her first project with Tommy Lee Jones), which was one of the box office hits in Spring of that year.
With husband Terry Jastrow (an Emmy-winning sports producer), she co-produced and starred in the feature Waltz Across Texas (1982), a modern romance set in the Texas oil fields. In 1998, Archer worked with husband Jastrow again as co-producer and co-host, with Isabella Rossellini, on ABC's World Fashion Premiere from Paris (1998), a history-making two-hour special. Again the following year, she served as a producer on the telecast. With complete backstage access, the shows spotlighted the haute couture shows of the most famous designers in the world.
Archer has essayed dramatic roles as complex and disparate characters in cable productions of equally distinct genres. She starred with Michael Murphy in the contemporary romantic drama Indiscretion of an American Wife (1998) for Lifetime and opposite William Petersen in Present Tense, Past Perfect (1995), based on a bittersweet story by Richard Dreyfuss, who also directed the Showtime drama. Previously, for the same network, she portrayed Dennis Hopper's sexy former wife in the contemporary, gritty Nails (1992) and for HBO, again, starred with Jon Voight in the period piece The Last of His Tribe (1992).
Her television performances have also included Neil Simon's Jake's Women (1996) opposite Alan Alda and CBS's Jane's House (1994) opposite James Woods. Recently, she received acclaim for a three episode arc on Fox-TV's series Boston Public (2000), created by David E. Kelley.
She had a starring role opposite Courteney Cox in the independent feature November (2004) and appeared in Revolution Studios' comedy Man of the House (2005), portraying Prof. Molly McCarthy, opposite Tommy Lee Jones. She also had a role on Showtime's provocative series The L Word (2004) with Jennifer Beals, Mia Kirshner and Pam Grier.
Her stage work includes the world premiere of "The Poison Tree" at Los Angeles' Mark Taper Forum, the Williamstown Theatre Festival production of "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" in Massachusetts and the starring role in the London West End production of "The Graduate", for which she received rave reviews. Archer's New York stage debut was as "Maude Mix" in the celebrated Off-Broadway production of John Ford Noonan's "A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking".- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Actress-comedienne Bea Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922 in New York City to a Jewish family. She grew up in Maryland, where her parents ran a dress shop. At 12 years old, she was the tallest girl in her school at 5'9".
She earned the title of "Wittiest Girl" in her school, and her dream was to be in show business, but she didn't think her family would support her. She then worked as a laboratory technician, and in the Marine Corps; she drove a truck, and worked as a typist. Her brief first marriage ended in divorce. Afterwards, she told her parents that she wanted to pursue a career in show business, and they supported her decision to join the New York's Dramatic Workshop for the New School for Social Research.
Arthur (her acting name based on a variation of her first husband's surname) played classical and dramatic roles, but it would be years before she found her niche in comedy. Her breakthrough came on stage while appearing in the musical play "The Threepenny Opera," with Lotte Lenya. For one season in the 1950's, she was a regular on Sid Caesar's television show,Caesar's Hour (1954). In 1964, she became truly famous as Yente the Matchmaker, in the original Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof". Despite this being a small supporting role, Arthur stole the show night after night.
In 1966, she went to work on a new Broadway musical, "Mame", directed by her second husband, Gene Saks, winning a Tony Award for the featured role of Vera Charles. The show's star, Angela Lansbury, also won a Tony Award, and she and Bea became lifelong friends. In 1971, Arthur appeared on the hit sitcom All in the Family (1971) as Maude Findlay, Edith Bunker's cousin, who was forever driving Archie Bunker crazy with her liberal politics. The guest appearance led to Arthur's own series, Maude (1972). The show was a hit, running for six years, during which many controversial topics of the time, including abortion, were tackled, and Bea won her first Emmy Award. While doing Maude (1972), Arthur repeated the role of Vera Charles in the film version of Mame (1974), again directed by Gene Saks, but it was a dismal flop. She also appeared on The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). While appearing in Maude (1972), she raised her two sons, whom she had adopted with husband Gene Saks. After the show ended, so did her marriage to Saks. She never remarried. She became a lifelong animal rights' activist.
In 1983, she started working on a new sitcom, Amanda's (1983), patterned after Britain's Fawlty Towers (1975) but it was short-lived. In 1985, The Golden Girls (1985) made its debut. Co-starring Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show was about the lives of three middle-aged women, and one elderly mother, (played by Getty, who was actually younger than White and Arthur), living in Miami. It was an immediate hit, running for seven seasons. All of the cast members, including Arthur, won Emmy Awards during the show's run. She left when she thought each show was at its peak. The producers realized the shows wouldn't be the same without her. In 1992, The Golden Girls (1985) was canceled. Arthur kept a low profile, appearing in only two movies: For Better or Worse (1995) and Enemies of Laughter (2000).
In 1999, Arthur made an appearance at The N.Y. Friars Club Roast of Jerry Stiller (1999). She did a one-woman stage show in 2001, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. In 2003, she reunited with Betty White and Rue McClanahan for The Golden Girls (1985) reunion special on the Lifetime Channel. Noticeably absent was supporting actress Estelle Getty, who was ill. The three lead actresses made appearances together for the rest of the decade to promote DVD releases of The Golden Girls (1985). They appeared together for the last time in 1998, at the TV Land Awards, receiving a standing ovation as they accepted the Pop Culture Award. She attended her induction into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, with Angela Lansbury.
On April 25, 2009, at home with her family, Arthur died of cancer. She was 86. She was survived by her two sons, Matthew and Daniel, and her grandchildren, Kyra and Violet. In her will, she left $300,000 to New York's Ali Forney Center, an organization supporting homeless LGBT youths.- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Known as an Actor's Actor, the Four time Golden Globe Nominee, Emmy Award Winning Actor ( Gotti 1996 ) Assante has received acclaim for his work for close to Five decades. Internationally he has been the recipient of Twelve Lifetime Achievement Awards in the past ten years.
Full Biography at ArmandAssante.net- Producer
- Actress
- Writer
Firebrand Roseanne Barr has long been one of America's funniest and most controversial comedians.
She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Helen (Davis), a cashier and bookkeeper, and Jerome Hershel "Jerry" Barr, a salesman. Her family was Jewish, and had moved to the U.S. from Russia, Lithuania, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. She dropped out of high school when she was seventeen, and, after a car accident, was admitted to a mental institution, claiming she was having nightmares and memory loss. She left the institute less than a year later. At seventeen, she gave birth to her first daughter, Brandi Brown, and gave her up for adoption. She began working at a restaurant as a dishwasher and waitress. Her hilarious comments to the customers she waited on led her to doing stand-up comedy at the restaurant. She married Bill Pentland and they had three children together, Jessica, Jennifer, and Jacob Pentland.
Roseanne worked doing stand-up comedy until her August 23, 1985 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) thrust her into the limelight. In 1987, HBO offered her a show of her own, On Location: The Roseanne Barr Show (1987). It was canceled after a short time. In 1989, Roseanne starred opposite Meryl Streep and Ed Begley Jr. in She-Devil (1989). Though her first picture wasn't as successful as she might have hoped, her sitcom, Roseanne (1988), debuted in 1988 and ran for 9 seasons on ABC, co-starring John Goodman. It dealt with real-life issues in a lower middle-class working family. During its first season on ABC, it leaped to #2 in the ratings. After the sitcom's first season, Roseanne gained notoriety when she gave a screeching, crotch-grabbing performance of "The Star Spangled Banner" at a baseball game.
When Roseanne divorced her first husband, Bill Pentland, after 16 years of marriage in 1990 and married Roseanne (1988) co-star Tom Arnold only four days later, her sitcom was already beginning its downward spiral. In 1991, she started to be billed as Roseanne Arnold. Around this time, she began to claim that she, as well as her siblings, had been physically and sexually abused as a child. Both her siblings and parents denied the charges, and lie detector tests used on Roseanne's parents came back negative. The court battles led to ten years of estrangement with her parents and siblings. Her marriage with Arnold lasted four years before she filed for divorce from him for physical abuse and domestic violence. It is still not known if the accusations were true. Although she insisted that he hit her, she admits that he never abused her three children from her previous marriage:
In 1996, she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and won, but she was not there to accept it. Luckily, Tom Arnold's exit from "Roseanne" happened towards the end of the sixth season, allowing the show to have an almost smooth ending. However, after the sixth season of Roseanne (1988), the plots started to run dry and ratings began to drop. During the season following her divorce, she insisted on being billed as simply "Roseanne." After Roseanne (1988) was canceled, she went on Broadway to play "The Wicked Witch of the West" in "The Wizard of Oz" to rave reviews.
On Valentine's Day 1995, Roseanne married former bodyguard Ben Thomas. With Thomas, she had her tubal ligation surgery reversed in order to become pregnant with her fifth child, Buck Thomas. In 1997, she slowly began being billed as "Roseanne Thomas", as in the last 11 episodes of Roseanne, as executive producer (she was still "Roseanne" in the cast credits). She guest-starred in The Nanny (1993) as Roseanne Thomas in late 1997. In 2002, she filed for divorce against Thomas for the second time (the first time, in 1998, she dropped the suit), accusing him of being disturbed and claiming that he threatened to run off with their son.
After the divorce, she began to study the Kabballah, a form of Jewish mysticism, and those around her said she became amazingly centered and stable. In the 2000s, she ended the feud with her parents and siblings and went back to being billed as Roseanne Barr. Today, Roseanne Barr Pentland Arnold Thomas spends her time with her family in her home in El Segundo, California.
Always outspoken, Roseanne began commenting on politics in earnest in the 2000s, and unsuccessfully ran for the Green Party's presidential nomination in 2012. She was subsequently chosen as the Peace and Freedom Party's candidate for President of the United States in '12, receiving 61,971 votes in the general election, and placing sixth. Her run is depicted in the documentary Roseanne for President! (2015).
Initially a left-leaning liberal, she became considerably more right-wing throughout the 2010s. Her show Roseanne returned for a tenth season in 2018, to blockbuster ratings, but was canceled after Roseanne sent a racially-offensive tweet that capped off a longer run of incendiary comments.- Actress
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One cool, eternally classy lady, Candice Bergen was elegantly poised for trendy "ice princess" stardom when she first arrived on the '60s screen, but she gradually reshaped that débutante image in the '70s, both on- and off-camera. A staunch, outspoken feminist with a decisive edge, she went on to take a sizable portion of those contradicting qualities to film and, most particularly, to late 1980s TV.
The daughter of famed ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and former actress and "Chesterfield Girl" model Frances Bergen (née Westerman), Candice Patricia Bergen was born in Beverly Hills, California, of Swedish, German, and English descent. At the age of six, she made her radio debut on her father's show. She attended Westlake School for Girls in Los Angeles, the Cathedral School in Washington D.C. and then went abroad to the Montesano (finishing) School in Switzerland. Although she began taking art history and creative drawing at the University of Pennsylvania, she did not complete her studies.
In between she also worked as a Ford model in order to buy cameras for her new passion--photography. Her Grace Kelly-like glacial beauty deemed her an ideal candidate for Ivy League patrician roles, and Candice made an auspicious film debut while still a college student portraying the Vassar-styled lesbian member of Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966) in an ensemble that included the debuts of other lovely up-and-comers including Kathleen Widdoes, Carrie Nye, Joan Hackett and Joanna Pettet.
Film offers started coming her way, both here and abroad (spurred by her love for travel). Other than her top-notch roles as the co-ed who comes between Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel in Carnal Knowledge (1971) and her prim American lady kidnapped by Moroccan sheik Sean Connery in The Wind and the Lion (1975), her performances were deemed a bit too aloof to really stand out among the crowd. During this time, she found a passionate second career as a photographer and photojournalist. A number of her works went on to appear in an assortment of magazines including Life, Playboy and Esquire.
Most of Candice's 1970s films were dismissible and unworthy of her talents, including the campus comedy Getting Straight (1970) opposite the hip counterculture star of the era -- Elliott Gould; the disturbingly violent Soldier Blue (1970); the epic-sized bomb The Adventurers (1970); T.R. Baskin (1971); Bite the Bullet (1975); The Domino Principle (1977), Lina Wertmüller's long-winded and notoriously long-titled Italian drama A Night Full of Rain (1978); and the inferior sequel to the huge box-office soaper Love Story (1970), entitled Oliver's Story (1978) alongside original star Ryan O'Neal. Things picked up toward the second half of the decade, however, when the seemingly humorless Candice made a clever swipe at comedy. She made history as the first female guest host of Saturday Night Live (1975) and then showed an equally amusing side of her in the dramedy Starting Over (1979) as Burt Reynolds' tone-deaf ex-wife, enjoying a "best supporting actress" Oscar nomination in the process. She and Jacqueline Bisset also worked well as a team in George Cukor's Rich and Famous (1981), in which her mother Frances could be glimpsed in a Malibu party scene.
Candice made her Broadway debut in 1985 replacing Sigourney Weaver in David Rabe's black comedy "Hurlyburly". In 1980 Candice married Louis Malle, the older (by 14 years) French director. They had one child, Chloe. In the late 1980s, Candice hit a new career plateau on comedy television as the spiky title role on Murphy Brown (1988), giving great gripe as the cynical and competitive anchor/reporter of a TV magazine show. With a superlative supporting cast around her, the CBS sitcom went the distance (ten seasons) and earned Candice a whopping five Emmys and two Golden Globe awards. TV-movie roles also came her way as a result with colorful roles ranging from the evil Arthurian temptress "Morgan Le Fey" to an elite, high-classed madam -- all many moons away from her initial white-gloved debs of the late 60s.
Husband Malle's illness and subsequent death from cancer in 1995 resulted in Candice maintaining a low profile for an extended period. In time, however, she married a second time (since 2000) to Manhattan real estate developer Marshall Rose and returned to acting with a renewed vigor (or vinegar), with many of her characters enjoyable extensions of her sardonic "Murphy Brown" character. As for TV, she joined the 2005 cast of Boston Legal (2004) playing a brash, no-nonsense lawyer while trading barbs with a much less serious William Shatner, earning an Emmy nomination in the process. In 2018, Candice revisited her Murphy Brown character in a revised series form with many of the cast back on board. The show, however, was cancelled after only one season.
Candice also ventured into the romantic comedy film genre with a spray of crisp supports -- sometimes as a confidante, sometimes as a villain. Such films include Miss Congeniality (2000), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The In-Laws (2003), Sex and the City (2008), The Women (2008), Bride Wars (2009), A Merry Friggin' Christmas (2014), Rules Don't Apply (2016), The Meyerowitz Stories (2017), Home Again (2017) and Book Club (2018).- Actor
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- Writer
Corbin Bernsen made his initial mark on the seminal television series L.A. Law as opportunistic divorce lawyer "Arnie Becker" earning him multiple Emmy and Golden Globe nominations over the show's eight-year run. He proved along the way the role was not to be a dead-end stereotype, maintaining a steady career in both television and film over the course of three decades. Moreover, his intent devotion to his career and love for the craft has compelled him in recent years to climb into the producer/writer, and director's chair.
Born in North Hollywood, California, on September 7, 1954, Corbin was raised in and around the entertainment business. The eldest of three children, his father film and television producer Harry Bernsen and mother, veteran actress Jeanne Cooper encouraged him to continue the family tradition. After high school he originally attended UCLA with the intention of pursuing law, but instead, he went on to receive a BFA in Theatre Arts and MFA in Playwriting. He worked on the Equity-waiver L.A. stage circuit as both actor and set designer, making his film debut as a bit player in his father's picture Three the Hard Way. He then set his sights on New York in the late 70s. In the early years he carved out a living as a carpenter building rooftop decks in NYC that still stand to this day. Then in 1983 he landed the role of "Ken Graham" on daytime's Ryan's Hope and he put his tool belt away. This break led to an exclusive deal with NBC and eventually the TV role in L.A. Law. The perks of his "newly-found stardom" on L.A. Law included a hosting stint on Saturday Night Live and the covers of numerous major magazines.
Not one to settle for what he knew could be fleeting comfort, he worked diligently to parlay his small screen success into a diverse resume of feature film roles, both starring and supporting, often enjoying the challenge of portraying unsympathetic characters with an infusion of charm and likability. He co-starred as Shelley Long's egotistical husband in the reincarnation comedy Hello Again; played an equally vain Hollywood star in the musical comedy Bert Rigby, You're a Fool; and starred as a disorganized ringleader of a band of crooks in the bank caper Disorganized Crime. He capped the 1980s decade opposite Charlie Sheen and Tom Berenger in the box office hit Major League, which took advantage of his natural athleticism, playing ballplayer-cum-owner "Roger Dorn". Two sequels followed. Other notable feature film work includes the mystery thriller Shattered, directed by Wolfgang Peterson, which re-teamed him with Tom Berenger, Stephen Frears' Lay The Favorite, and a turn opposite Robert Downey Jr. in Shane Black's Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
On the TV front, he has appeared in many MOW's including Line of Fire: The Morris Dees Story as the famed civil rights attorney who founded the Southern Poverty Law Center. Topping it off, Corbin's title role in the horror/ thriller The Dentist for HBO had audiences developing a similar paranoia of tooth doctors as Anthony Perkins invoked decades before to motel clerks. As spurned husband-turned-crazed dentist "Dr. Alan Feinstone", Corbin reached cult horror status. The movie spawned a sequel in which he also served as a producer. Most recently, he has reunited with Dentist director Brian Yuzna on a slate of films exploring similar themes starting with "The Plastic Surgeon."
More recently Bernsen wrapped eight seasons on USA Network's hit series Psych as Henry Spencer playing James Roday's retired cop father who taught his "fake psychic," crime solving son everything he knows.
In 2006 he formed his own production company, Team Cherokee Productions to exert more creative control over his projects and begin exploring material both as writer, director and producer. Today that company has taken root as Home Theater Films, an early player in the Faith and Family film genre. The company has explored a wide variety of themes beginning with the film "Rust" which was distributed by Sony Pictures. With five other films under their belt, including "25 Hill," "Beyond the Heavens," "Christian Mingle" starring Lacey Chabert, and the upcoming "Jesse and Naomi," Home Theater Films has firmly carved a niche and name in this lucrative genre.
Corbin has been happily married (since 1988) to British actress Amanda Pays who most recently be seen on "The Flash." They have appeared together in the sci-fi film Spacejacked and the TV-movies Dead on the Money and The Santa Trap, among others. The couple has four sons. Never one to become complacent or fall prey to the hype - a lesson learned from his mother - he still practices his carpenter skills at home as he continues to write, produce, and direct. Perseverance and dedication has played a large part in his continued success. Having a savvy take-charge approach hasn't hurt either -- characteristics worthy of many of the characters he's explored on screen.- Actress
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Mayim Bialik grew up in San Diego and got her first acting job (Pumpkinhead (1988)) when she was just 12 years old. A number of TV roles followed until in 1990 she was cast in Blossom (1990), the role which made her famous.
By 1993, while Blossom was still airing, she had already won a deferred place at Harvard and was also accepted by Yale but chose in the end to attend UCLA. She was awarded her Bachelor's degree in 2000 and began reading for a PhD in Neuroscience (studying Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in adolescents with Prader-Willi syndrome) which she eventually completed in 2007.
She continued working throughout her studies and was a regular on US TV screens, becoming a Prime Time face again in 2010 when she began her regular appearances as "Sheldon's friend who is not his girlfriend" in the hit series The Big Bang Theory (2007).- Writer
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- Additional Crew
Attended Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon University) as a playwriting major. Barbara Bosson (his second wife), Michael Tucker, Bruce Weitz and Charles Haid were classmates; he and Tucker drove cross-country to Hollywood for full-time jobs at Universal, where Bochco would remain for 12 years.
In 1978, he moved to MTM Enterprises, who after several attempts gave him carte Blanche to create a show similar to Fort Apache the Bronx (1981) (Hill Street Blues (1981)). In 1985, MTM fired him, in part for his inability to keep HSB on budget. After creating L.A. Law (1986) and Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989) for NBC, he struck a $15M deal with ABC in 1987 to create 10 series pilots over 10 years.- Actor
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Tall (6' 4"), agile, energetic, and ever-so-confident as both actor and singer, especially on the award-winning Broadway stage, Barry Bostwick possesses that certain narcissistic poise, charm and élan that reminds one instantly (and humorously) of a Kevin Kline -- both were quite brilliant in their respective interpretations of The Pirate King in "The Pirates of Penzance". Yet, for all his diverse talents (he is a Golden Globe winner and was nominated for the Tony Award three times, winning once), Barry is indelibly caught in a time warp. Even today, 35 years after the fact, he is indelibly associated with the role of nerdy hero Brad Majors in the midnight movie phenomena The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). While it is extremely flattering to be a part of such a cult institution, Barry's acting legacy deserves much more than this.
He was born Barry Knapp Bostwick on February 24, 1945, in San Mateo, California, one of two sons of Elizabeth "Betty" (Defendorf) and Bud Bostwick (Henry Bostwick), a city planner and actor. A student at San Mateo High School, he and his elder brother Peter use to put on musicals and puppet shows for the neighborhood kids. Barry attended San Diego's United States International University's School for the Performing Arts in 1967, and switched from music to drama during the course of his studies. He also worked occasionally as a circus performer, which would come in handy on the musical stage down the line. He subsequently moved to New York and attended the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at New York University.
Making his stage debut at age 22 in a production of "Take Her, She's Mine," Barry performed in a number of non-musical roles in such productions of "War and Peace" (1968) and "The Misanthrope (1968). Making his 1969 Broadway debut in "Cock-a-Doodle Dandy", which ran in tandem with "Hamlet" in which he was featured as Osric, it was his portrayal of the swaggering, leather jacket-wearing 50s "bad boy" Danny Zuko in the 1972 Broadway high-school musical smash "Grease" that put Barry's name prominently and permanently on the marquee signs. Originating the role, he was nominated for a Tony but lost out that year to the older generation (Phil Silvers for "A Funny Thing Happened...").
In the midst of all this star-making hoopla, Barry was also breaking into films with a minor role in Jennifer on My Mind (1971) and leading parts in the comedy spoofs Road Movie (1973) and The Wrong Damn Film (1975). It all paled after winning the role as Susan Sarandon's simp of a boyfriend in the The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), which featured a delicious Tim Curry camping it up as a transvestite monster-maker. The movie, based on the macabre 1973 British stage musical "The Rocky Horror Show," packed the midnight movie houses with costumed fans replicating every move and, word and offering puns and props aplenty in recapturing the insanity of the show.
While the "Rocky" association hit like a tornado, Barry ventured on and tried to distance himself. He created sparks again on Broadway, garnering a second Tony nomination for the comedy revival "They Knew What They Wanted" in 1976. He finally took home the trophy the following year for the musical "The Robber Bridegroom" (1977), which relied again on his patented bluff and bravado as a Robin Hood-like hero. Following top roles in the musicals "She Loves Me" and "The Pirates of Penzance", Barry turned rewardingly to film and TV.
The two-part feature Movie Movie (1978), which played like an old-style double feature, was a great success, performing alongside esteemed actor George C. Scott. Barry excelled in both features, but especially the musical parody. He fared just as well on the smaller screen in TV movies, playing everything from historical icons (George Washington) to preening matinée idols (John Gilbert), and winning a Golden Globe for his role as a military officer in the epic miniseries War and Remembrance (1988). A variety of interesting roles followed in glossy, soap-styled fare, farcical comedies and period drama.
A welcomed return to Broadway musicals in the form of "Nick & Nora" (he as sleuth Nick "The Thin Man" Charles) was marred when the glitzy production folded after only nine perfs. Instead, the prematurely grey-haired actor found steadier success in sitcoms as a smug comedy foil to Michael J. Fox playing Mayor Randall Winston for six seasons in Spin City (1996). He later enjoyed a recurring role as a dauntless attorney on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). Then again, Barry could be spotted pitching items in commercials or hamming it up in family-oriented Disneyesque entertainment in the "Parent Trap" and "101 Dalmatian" mold.
In 1997, Bostwick was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and 10 days later had his prostate removed. The operation was successful and in 2004, he won the Gilda Radner Courage Award from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Just a year earlier he appeared on an episode of "Scrubs" as a patient also having prostate cancer. Barry married somewhat late in life. For a brief time he was wed to actress Stacey Nelkin (1987-1991), but has since become a father of two, Brian and Chelsea, with second wife Sherri Jensen Bostwick, an actress who appeared with Barry in the TV movie Praying Mantis (1993).- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Sônia Braga was born June 8, 1950, in Maringá, Paraná State, Brazil, to a seamstress mother and a realtor father. She starred in the film adaptation of Jorge Amado's Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands (1976), in the central role of Dona Flor. She earned American recognition and a Golden Globe nomination for performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985), and was nominated for a second Golden Globe for her performance in Moon Over Parador (1988), where she played the part of Madonna Mendez.- Actor
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James Brolin is an American actor. Brolin has won two Golden Globes and an Emmy. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 27, 1998. He is the father of actor Josh Brolin.
He is best known for his TV roles such as Stephen Kiley on Marcus Welby, M.D.(1969-1976), Peter McDermott on Hotel (1983-1988), and John Short in Life in Pieces (2015-2019), and his film roles such as Sgt. Jerome K. Weber in Skyjacked (1972), John Blane in Westworld (1973), General Ralph Landry in Traffic (2000), Jack Barnes in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Emperor Zurg in the 2022 Toy Story spin-off film Lightyear.- Actor
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John Cleese was born on October 27, 1939, in Weston-Super-Mare, England, to Muriel Evelyn (Cross) and Reginald Francis Cleese. He was born into a family of modest means, his father being an insurance salesman; but he was nonetheless sent off to private schools to obtain a good education. Here he was often tormented for his height, having reached a height of six feet by the age of twelve, and eventually discovered that being humorous could deflect aggressive behavior in others. He loved humor in and of itself, collected jokes, and, like many young Britons who would grow up to be comedians, was devoted to the radio comedy show, "The Goon Show," starring the legendary Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, and Harry Secombe.
Cleese did well in both sports and academics, but his real love was comedy. He attended Cambridge to read (study) Law, but devoted a great deal of time to the university's legendary Footlights group, writing and performing in comedy reviews, often in collaboration with future fellow Python Graham Chapman. Several of these comedy reviews met with great success, including one in particular which toured under the name "Cambridge Circus." When Cleese graduated, he went on to write for the BBC, then rejoined Cambridge Circus in 1964, which toured New Zealand and America. He remained in America after leaving Cambridge Circus, performing and doing a little journalism, and here met Terry Gilliam, another future Python.
Returning to England, he began appearing in a BBC radio series, "I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again", based on Cambridge Circus. It ran for several years and also starred future Goodies Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden. He also appeared, briefly, with Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman and Marty Feldman in At Last the 1948 Show (1967), for television, and a series of collaborations with some of the finest comedy-writing talent in England at the time, some of whom - Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Chapman - eventually joined him in Monty Python. These programs included The Frost Report (1966) and Marty Feldman's program Marty (1968). Eventually, however, the writers were themselves collected to be the talent for their own program, Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969), which displayed a strange and completely absorbing blend of low farce and high-concept absurdist humor, and remains influential to this day.
After three seasons of the intensity of Monty Python, Cleese left the show, though he collaborated with one or more of the other Pythons for decades to come, including the Python movies released in the mid-70s to early 80s - Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), Life of Brian (1979), Monty Python Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1982), and The Meaning of Life (1983). Cleese and then-wife Connie Booth collaborated in the legendary television series Fawlty Towers (1975), as the sharp-tongued, rude, bumbling yet somehow lovable proprietor of an English seaside hotel. Cleese based this character on a proprietor he had met while staying with the other Pythons at a hotel in Torquay, England. Only a dozen episodes were made, but each is truly hilarious, and he is still closely associated with the program to this day.
Meanwhile Cleese had established a production company, Video Arts, for clever business training videos in which he generally starred, which were and continue to be enormously successful in the English-speaking world. He continues to act prolifically in movies, including in the hit comedy A Fish Called Wanda (1988), in the Harry Potter series, and in the James Bond series as the new Q, starting with The World Is Not Enough (1999), in which he began as R before graduating to Q. Cleese also supplies his voice to numerous animated and video projects, and frequently does commercials.
Besides the infamous Basil Fawlty character, Cleese's other well-known trademark is his rendition of an English upper-class toff. He has a daughter with Connie Booth and a daughter with his second wife, Barbara Trentham.
Education and learning are important elements of his life - he was Rector of the University of Saint Andrews from 1973 until 1976, and continues to be a professor-at-large of Cornell University in New York. Cleese lives in Santa Barbara, California.- Actress
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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.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Phil Collins was born in Chiswick, London, England, to Winifred (Strange), a theatrical agent, Greville Philip Austin Collins, an insurance agent. He spent most of his early entertainment life as a young actor and model. He played the "Artful Dodger" in the West End production of "Oliver!" alongside the future movie screen "Artful Dodger," Jack Wild. His interest in music and drumming began at school, where he drummed with a stage school band "The Real Thing," subsequently joining "Freehold" and "Flaming Youth." "Flaming Youth" recorded an album to some critical acclaim, although the group disbanded shortly afterward. Collins later successfully auditioned for Genesis, taking over vocals from Peter Gabriel when he left the band in 1975.
After separating from his first wife, Collins recorded his first solo album, "Face Value." The album was well received and Collins started to become a household name after the song "In the Air Tonight" was featured on the US TV show Miami Vice (1984). This instigated a guest appearance on the show playing a game show host. His third LP, "No Jacket Required," produced multiple chart hits and awards.
Collins is an active musician and entertainer, contributing and guesting regularly on many albums, ranging from Gary Brooker and Camel (Peter Barden's old band) to Eric Clapton. Collins also played as the drummer for the jazz fusion group Brand X and later formed his own big band to play swing and jazz music.
Collins was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Genesis in 2010. With over 200 million album sales (when his solo career and Genesis career are combined), Collins is one of the most successful musicians of all time, as well as probably the most successful British pop star to have been consistently overlooked for the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to British music.
Actress Lily Collins is his daughter (her mother is his second wife, Jill Tavelman).- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
One of America's most loved actresses was born Doris Mary Kappelhoff on April 3, 1922, in Cincinnati, Ohio, to Alma Sophia (Welz), a housewife, and William Joseph Kappelhoff, a music teacher and choir master. Her grandparents were all German immigrants. She had two brothers, Richard, who died before she was born and Paul, a few years older.
Her parents divorced while she was still a child, and she lived with her mother. Like most little girls, Doris liked to dance. At fourteen, she formed a dance act with a boy, Jerry Doherty, and they won $500 in a local talent contest. She and Jerry took a brief trip to Hollywood to test the waters. They felt they could succeed, so she and Jerry returned to Cincinnati with the intention of packing and making a permanent move to Hollywood. Tragically, the night before she was to move to Hollywood, she was injured riding in a car hit by a train, ending the possibility of a dancing career.
It was a terrible setback, but after taking singing lessons she found a new vocation, and at age 17, she began touring with the Les Brown Band. She met trombonist Al Jorden, whom she married in 1941. Jorden was prone to violence and they divorced after two years, not long after the birth of their son Terry. In 1946, Doris married George Weidler, but this union lasted less than a year. Day's agent talked her into taking a screen test at Warner Bros. The executives there liked what they saw and signed her to a contract (her early credits are often confused with those of another actress named Doris Day, who appeared mainly in B westerns in the 1930s and 1940s).
Her first starring movie role was in Romance on the High Seas (1948). The next year, she made two more films, My Dream Is Yours (1949) and It's a Great Feeling (1949). Audiences took to her beauty, terrific singing voice and bubbly personality, and she turned in fine performances in the movies she made (in addition to several hit records). She made three films for Warner Bros. in 1950 and five more in 1951. In that year, she met and married Martin Melcher, who adopted her young son Terry, who later grew up to become Terry Melcher, a successful record producer.
In 1953, Doris starred in Calamity Jane (1953), which was a major hit, and several more followed: Lucky Me (1954), Love Me or Leave Me (1955), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) and what is probably her best-known film, Pillow Talk (1959). She began to slow down her filmmaking pace in the 1960s, even though she started out the decade with a hit, Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960).
In 1958, her brother Paul died. Around this time, her husband, who had also taken charge of her career, had made deals for her to star in films she didn't really care about, which led to a bout with exhaustion. The 1960s weren't to be a repeat of the previous busy decade. She didn't make as many films as she had in that decade, but the ones she did make were successful: Do Not Disturb (1965), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Where Were You When the Lights Went Out? (1968) and With Six You Get Eggroll (1968). Martin Melcher died in 1968, and Doris never made another film, but she had been signed by Melcher to do her own TV series, The Doris Day Show (1968). That show, like her movies, was successful, lasting until 1973. After her series went off the air, she made only occasional TV appearances.
By the time Martin Melcher died, Doris discovered she was millions of dollars in debt. She learned that Melcher had squandered virtually all of her considerable earnings, but she was eventually awarded $22 million by the courts in a case against a man that Melcher had unwisely let invest her money. She married for the fourth time in 1976 and since her divorce in 1980 has devoted her life to animals.
Doris was a passionate animal rights activist. She ran Doris Day Animal League in Carmel, California, which advocates homes and proper care of household pets.
Doris died on May 13, 2019, in Carmel Valley Village, California. She was 97.- Actress
- Producer
Susan Dey was born on 10 December 1952 in Pekin, Illinois, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for The Partridge Family (1970), L.A. Law (1986) and Skyjacked (1972). She has been married to Bernard Sofronski since 20 February 1988. She was previously married to Leonard Hirshan.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
A legendary actor with 50 celebrated years of film, television and producing experience, Michael Douglas is known for his era-defining roles and enduring cultural impact.
In addition to his career accomplishments, Douglas has remained a steadfast public servant, activist and philanthropist dedicated to peace and human welfare, democracy, gun control advocacy, support of the arts and support of nuclear disarmament. In 1998, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Douglas as a Messenger of Peace for his commitment on disarmament issues, including nuclear non-proliferation and halting the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.
Since his earliest acting work on Hail, Hero! (1969) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972) Douglas has played some of the most memorable and enigmatic American anti-heroes of the last half century. He is most known for his iconic screen roles, like his Academy Award-winning turn as Gordon Gekko Wall Street (1987) as well as the critically and commercially acclaimed films Fatal Attraction (1987), The American President (1995), Basic Instinct (1992), Traffic (2000) and Romancing the Stone (1984). He is also a prolific producer with credits on politically relevant and socially influential motion pictures like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The China Syndrome (1979), Traffic (2000) the television series: The Kominsky Method (2018) and an upcoming limited series where Douglas portrays Benjamin Franklin (2024) during his nine years in France lobbying for French aid for the American Revolution.
With a passion for complex protagonists and darkly humorous undercurrents, Douglas has received numerous accolades for his work, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, AFI Life Achievement Award, two French César Awards for Career Achievement and, most recently, the Palme d'or d'honneur for lifetime achievement at the 76th Annual Festival de Cannes as well as the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Cinema at the Goa Film Festival in India.
Michael Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to actors Diana Douglas (Diana Love Dill) and Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch). His paternal grandparents were Belarusian Jewish immigrants, while his mother was born in Bermuda, the daughter of a local Attorney General, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill; Diana's family had long been established in both Bermuda and the United States. Douglas's parents divorced when he was six, and he went to live with his mother and her new husband. Only seeing Kirk on holidays, Michael attended Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he was about a year younger than all of his classmates.
Douglas attended the elite preparatory Choate School and spent his summers with his father on movie sets. Although accepted at Yale, Douglas attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. Deciding he wanted to be an actor in his teenage years, Michael often asked his father about getting a "foot in the door" Kirk was strongly opposed to Michael pursuing an acting career, saying that it was an industry with many downs and few ups, and that he wanted all four of his sons to stay out of it. Michael, however, was persistent, and made his film debut in his father's film Cast a Giant Shadow (1966).
After receiving his B.A. degree in 1968, Douglas moved to New York City to continue his dramatic training, studying at the American Place Theatre with Wynn Handman, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he appeared in workshop productions of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1976) and Thornton Wilder's Happy Journey (1963). A few months after he arrived in New York, Douglas got his first big break, when he was cast in the pivotal role of the free-spirited scientist who compromises his liberal views to accept a lucrative job with a high-tech chemical corporation in the CBS Playhouse production of Ellen M. Violett's drama, The Experiment, which was televised nationwide on February 25, 1969.
Douglas' convincing portrayal won him the leading role in the adaptation of John Weston's controversial novel, Hail, Hero! (1969), which was the initial project of CBS's newly organized theatrical film production company, Cinema Center Films. Douglas starred as a well-meaning, almost saintly young pacifist determined not only to justify his beliefs to his conservative parents but also to test them under fire in the jungles of Indochina. His second feature, Adam at Six A.M. (1970) concerned a young man's search for his roots. Douglas next appeared in the film version of Ron Cowen's play Summertree (1971), produced by 'Kirk Douglas'' Bryna Company, and then Napoleon and Samantha (1972), a sentimental children's melodrama from the Walt Disney studio.
In between film assignments, he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway productions, among them "City Scenes," Frank Gagliano's surrealistic vignettes of contemporary life in New York, John Patrick Shanley's short-lived romance "Love is a Time of Day" and George Tabori's "Pinkville," in which he played a young innocent brutalized by his military training. He also appeared in the made-for-television thriller, "When Michael Calls," broadcast by ABC-TV on February 5, 1972 and in episodes of the popular series "Medical Center" and "The F.B.I."
Impressed by Douglas' performance in a segment of The F.B.I. (1965), producer 'Quinn Martin' signed the actor for the part of Karl Malden's sidekick in the police series "The Streets of San Francisco", which premiered in September 1972 and became one of ABC's highest-rated prime-time programs in the mid-1970s. Douglas earned three successive Emmy Award nominations for his performance and he directed two episodes of the series.
During the annual breaks in the shooting schedule for The Streets of San Francisco (1972), Douglas devoted most of his time to his film production company, Big Stick Productions, Ltd., which produced several short subjects in the early 1970s. Long interested in producing a film version of Ken Kesey's grimly humorous novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Douglas purchased the movie rights from his father and began looking for financial backing. After a number of major motion picture studios turned him down, Douglas formed a partnership with Saul Zaentz, a record industry executive, and the two set about recruiting the cast and crew. Douglas still had a year to go on his contract for "The Streets of San Francisco," but the producers agreed to write his character out of the story so that he could concentrate on filming "Cuckoo's Nest."
A critical and commercial success, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress, and went on to gross more than $180 million at the box office. Douglas suddenly found himself in demand as an independent producer. One of the many scripts submitted to him for consideration was Mike Gray's chilling account of the attempted cover-up of an accident at a nuclear power plant. Attracted by the combination of social relevance and suspense, Douglas immediately bought the property. Deemed not commercial by most investors, Douglas teamed up with Jane Fonda and her own motion picture production company, IPC Films.
A Michael Douglas-IPC Films co-production, The China Syndrome (1979) starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, and Michael Douglas and received Academy Award nominations for Lemmon and Fonda, as well as for Best Screenplay. The National Board of Review named the film one of the best films of the year.
Despite his success as a producer, Douglas resumed his acting career in the late 1970s, starring in Michael Crichton's medical thriller Coma (1978) with Genevieve Bujold, Claudia Weill's feminist comedy It's My Turn (1980) starring Jill Clayburgh, and Peter Hyams' gripping tale of modern-day vigilante justice, "The Star Chamber" (1983). Douglas also starred in Running (1979), as a compulsive quitter who sacrifices everything to take one last shot at the Olympics, and as Zach the dictatorial director/choreographer in Richard Attenborough's screen version of the Broadway's longest running musical A Chorus Line (1985).
Douglas' career as an actor/producer came together again in 1984 with the release of the tongue-in-cheek romantic fantasy "Romancing the Stone." Douglas had begun developing the project several years earlier, and with Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, the dowdy writer of gothic romances, Danny DeVito as the feisty comic foil Ralphie and Douglas as Jack Colton, the reluctant soldier of fortune. "Romancing the Stone" was a resounding hit and grossed more than $100 million at the box office. Douglas was named Producer of the Year in 1984 by the National Association of Theater Owners. Douglas, Turner and DeVito teamed up in 1985 for the successful sequel The Jewel of the Nile (1985).
It took Douglas nearly two years to convince Columbia Pictures executives to approve the production of Starman (1984), an unlikely tale of romance between an extraterrestrial, played by Jeff Bridges, and a young widow, played by Karen Allen. Starman (1984) was the sleeper hit of the 1984 Christmas season and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Jeff Bridges. In 1986 Douglas created a television series based on the film for ABC which starred Robert Hays.
After a lengthy break from acting, Douglas returned to the screen in 1987 appearing in two of the year's biggest hits. He starred opposite Glenn Close in the phenomenally successful psychological thriller, "Fatal Attraction," which was followed by his performance as ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987), earning him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Douglas next starred in Ridley Scott's thriller Black Rain (1989) and then teamed up again with Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito in the black comedy The War of the Roses (1989).
In 1988, Douglas formed Stonebridge Entertainment, Inc., which produced Flatliners (1990), directed by Joel Schumacher and starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin and Radio Flyer (1992) starring Lorraine Bracco and directed by Richard Donner. Douglas followed with David Seltzer's adaptation of Susan Isaacs' best-selling novel, "Shining Through," opposite Melanie Griffith. In 1992 he starred with Sharon Stone in the erotic thriller from Paul Verhoeven Basic Instinct (1992), one of the year's top grossing films.
Douglas gave one of his most powerful performances opposite Robert Duvall in Joel Schumacher's controversial drama Falling Down (1993). That year he also produced the hit comedy "Made in America" starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Danson and Will Smith. In 1994-95 he starred with Demi Moore in Barry Levinson's "Disclosure," based on the best seller by Michael Crichton. In 1995, Douglas portrayed the title role in Rob Reiner's romantic comedy The American President (1995) opposite Annette Bening, and in 1997, starred in The Game (1997) directed by David Fincher and co-starring Sean Penn.
Douglas formed Douglas/Reuther Productions with partner Steven Reuther in May 1994. The company, under the banner of Constellation Films, produced The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), starring Douglas and Val Kilmer, and John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997), based on John Grisham's best selling novel, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Matt Damon,Claire Danes, Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Mary Kay Place, Virginia Madsen, Andrew Shue, Teresa Wright, Johnny Whitworth and Randy Travis.
Michael Douglas and Steve Reuther also produced John Woo's action thriller Face/Off (1997) starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, which proved to be one of '97's major hits.
In 1998, Michael Douglas starred with Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen in the mystery thriller A Perfect Murder (1998), and formed a new production company, Furthur Films. 2000 was a milestone year for Douglas. "Wonder Boys" opened in February 2000 to much critical acclaim. Directed by Curtis Hanson and co-starring Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes, Douglas starred in the film as troubled college professor Grady Tripp. Michael was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Film Award for his performance.
"Traffic" was released by USA Films on December 22, 2000 in New York and Los Angeles and went nationwide in January 2001. Douglas played the role of Robert Wakefield, a newly appointed drug czar confronted by the drug war both at home and abroad. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and co-starring Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Amy Irving, Dennis Quaid and Catherine Zeta-Jones, "Traffic" was named Best Picture by New York Film Critics, won Best Ensemble Cast at the SAG Awards, won four Academy Awards (Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro) and has been recognized on more than 175 top ten lists.
In 2001, Douglas produced and played a small role in USA Films' outrageous comedy "One Night at McCool's" starring Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser and directed by Harald Zwart. "McCool's" was the first film by Douglas' company Furthur Films. Also in 2001, Douglas starred in "Don't Say A Word" for 20th Century Fox. The psychological thriller, directed by Gary Fleder, also starred Sean Bean, Famke Janseen and Brittany Murphy.
In 2002, Douglas appeared in a guest role on the hit NBC comedy "Will & Grace," and received an Emmy Nomination for his performance.
Douglas starred in two films in 2003. MGM/BVI released the family drama "It Runs in the Family," which Douglas produced and starred with his father Kirk Douglas, his mother Diana Douglas his son Cameron Douglas, Rory Culkin and Bernadette Peters. He also starred in the Warner Bros. comedy "The-In Laws," with Albert Brooks, Candice Bergen and Ryan Reynolds.
In 2004, Douglas, along with his father Kirk, filmed the intimate HBO documentary "A Father, A Son... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". Directed by award-winning filmmaker Lee Grant, the documentary examines the professional and personal lives of both men, and the impacts they each made on the motion picture industry.
In 2005, Douglas produced and starred in "The Sentinel", which was released by 20th Century Fox in April 2006. Based on the Gerald Petievich novel and directed by Clark Johnson, "The Sentinel" is a political thriller set in the intriguing world of the Secret Service. Douglas stars with Keifer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Bassinger. Douglas then filmed "You, Me & Dupree," starring with Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon. The comedy, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, was released by Universal Pictures during the summer of 2006. In 2007 Douglas made "King of California," co-starring Evan Rachel Wood and is written and directed by Michael Cahill, and produced by Alexander Payne and Michael London.
Michael had two films released in early 2009, "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" directed by Peter Hyams and "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner and directed by Mark Waters. He followed with the drama "Solitary Man" directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, co-starring Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary Louise-Parker, and Jenna Fischer, produced by Paul Schiff and Steven Soderbergh. In 2010, Douglas reprised his Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," earning a Golden Globe for his performance. Again directed by Oliver Stone, he co-starred with Shia Labeouf, Cary Mulligan, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon.
In 2011, Douglas had a cameo role in Steven Soderbergh's action thriller "Haywire."
"Behind the Candelabra," based on the life of '70's/80's musical icon Liberace and his partner Scott Thorson, directed by Steven Soderbergh and costarring Matt Damon, premiered on HBO in May 2013. Douglas won an Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor in a television movie or mini series for his performance as the famed entertainer. He followed with the buddy comedy "Last Vegas," directed by John Turtletaub co-starring Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline and the romantic comedy "And So It Goes," co-starring Diane Keaton directed by Rob Reiner.
Douglas recently starred in and produced the thriller "Beyond The Reach," directed by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti and costarring Jeremy Irvine. He and portrayed Dr. Hank Pym in Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) opposite Paul Rudd. The franchise was his first venture into the realm of comic book action adventure.
In 2017, he starred in the spy thriller "Unlocked" starring with Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich and directed by Michael Apted.
In 1998 Douglas was made a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Kofi Annan. His main concentrations are nuclear non-proliferation and the control of small arms. He is on the Board of Ploughshares Foundation and The Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Michael Douglas was recipient of the 2009 AFI Lifetime Achievement as well as the Producers Guild Award that year. In Spring '10 he received the New York Film Society's Charlie Chaplin Award.
Douglas has hosted 11 years of "Michael Douglas and Friends" Celebrity Golf Event which has raised over $6 million for the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Douglas is very passionate about the organization, and each year he asks his fellow actors and to come out and show that "we are an industry that takes care of own".
Douglas is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones. The couple has one son, Dylan, and one daughter, Carys. Douglas also has one son, Cameron, from a previous marriage.- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Lamont Dozier was born on 16 June 1941 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Bad Times at the El Royale (2018), Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014). He was married to Barbara Ellen Ullman, Daphe Dumas and Elizabeth Ann Dozier. He died on 8 August 2022 in Arizona, USA.- Actor
- Director
Larry Drake was born on 21 February 1949 in Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Darkman (1990), L.A. Law (1986) and The Karate Kid (1984). He was married to Ruth de Sosa. He died on 17 March 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
The couple who plays together stays together. While this old and familiar adage probably would not work for a number of the happily married, high-profiled Hollywood star couples still thriving around town, it certainly has done wonders for one of Hollywood's more popular pairs -- actress Jill Eikenberry and her actor/husband, Michael Tucker. Broaching on a four-decade union, the couple has enjoyed a highly productive personal, as well as professional, pairing. Balancing strong solo careers as well, they have appeared together in all three mediums at one time or another, and one of their more recent projects was a cabaret act aptly titled, "Life Is a Duet", which came alive in 2007.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut on January 21, 1947, Jill was raised in Madison, Wisconsin, before moving to Missouri. She began her college studies taking up anthropology at Barnard College in New York. In her second year, however, she auditioned for and was accepted into the Yale School of Drama in New Haven.
She met Tucker while the two of them were performing at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.. Appearing in "The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail" (1970), they were later cast in the play, "Moonchildren" (1971), which eventually took them to Broadway in 1972. Jill and Michael married the following year and decided to settle in New York City. Together, they have a son, Max Tucker, a sometime actor, and Jill has a stepdaughter, actress Alison Tucker, from Michael's first marriage.
Throughout the early-to-mid 1970s, Jill focused on the theater, building up a strong reputation, with roles in "The Beggar's Opera" (1972), "Lotta" (1973), "All Over Town" (1974) (her Broadway debut), "Summer Brave" (1975) and "Saints" (1976). Films began to come her way, with Rush It (1978) (her debut) and Between the Lines (1977). In 1978, she and Michael earned small roles in both Lina Wertmüller's A Night Full of Rain (1978) [also "The End of the World in Our Usual Bed in a Night full of Rain"] and in the social drama, An Unmarried Woman (1978), starring Oscar nominee Jill Clayburgh. Jill finished the decade with sterling theater performances as "Alma Winemiller" in the play, "Eccentricities of a Nightingale", and in Wendy Wasserstein's "Uncommon Women and Others", which was taped for the small screen. The entire cast got to recreate their roles except for Glenn Close, who was replaced by Meryl Streep, for the TV presentation of Uncommon Women... and Others (1979).
Jill also began to gain some ground on the larger screen, with roles in Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979), Rich Kids (1979) and Hide in Plain Sight (1980). Making a formidable dent in TV-movies as well, she appeared in the PBS mini-series, The Best of Families (1977), and the TV-movies, The Deadliest Season (1977), Orphan Train (1979), and Swan Song (1980).
A gentle, effortless sweet nature befits the lovely Jill but it also can belie some of the stronger-willed, resourceful, even neurotic character that have played figuratively into her versatile career. This was never displayed better on film than with her breakthrough role as dipsomaniac Dudley Moore's ever-patient but extremely passive-aggressive fiancée, "Susan", in the classic comedy film, Arthur (1981). This success helped put her on the map in Hollywood.
Following a 1985 off-Broadway Obie Award win for her work in both "Lemon Sky" and "Life Under Water", she and husband Michael were cast in the acclaimed TV law series, L.A. Law (1986). Produced by Steven Bochco, who had remembered them after using the duo in two episodes of his established series, Hill Street Blues (1981), the couple not only enjoyed the steady employment but the richness in the writing of the show. While both went on to receive multiple Emmy nominations, neither won. Jill did pick up, however, a Golden Globe statuette for her excellent work on the series. The taller blonde (5'8") and her shorter husband (5'5") soon became instantly identifiable as a TV couple. Art imitated life, as well, when their characters, lawyer "Ann Kelsey" and tax specialist "Stuart Markowitz", wound up marrying on the series.
Just before the beginning of the run of the law series, Jill was diagnosed with breast cancer. The cancer eventually went into remission but, as a result of her ordeal, she became committed to her new cause and co-produced a 1989 documentary for NBC called "Destined to Live", which featured interviews with other cancer survivors, including former actress Nancy Reagan [aka Nancy Reagan]. To this day, Jill remains an ardent activist for breast cancer research and early detection. Her efforts have been recognized with awards and commendations and both she and Michael have been official spokespersons for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. She has since been inducted into the Cancer Survivors' Hall of Fame.
Jill and Michael went on to parlay their TV success into acting projects for themselves, creating a number of mini-movies as vehicles, including the social/domestic comedies, Assault and Matrimony (1987) and The Secret Life of Archie's Wife (1990) and the more dramatic A Town Torn Apart (1992) and Gone in a Heartbeat (1996). They also appeared together in A Family Again (1988) and reunited with their former series' cast members for the TV-movie, L.A. Law: The Movie (2002). On film, they played the mother and father of the groom in the comedy The Happiest Day of His Life (2007) and have cameos as themselves in Humor Me (2017). On the theatre stage, the couple appeared in productions of "Love Letters", plus "Emma's Child" (1997) and "The Last Schwartz" (2004).
Independent of Tucker, Jill has more recently appeared in the films Manna from Heaven (2002), Suburban Girl (2007), Something Borrowed (2011), Young Adult (2011), Keep in Touch (2015) and In Reality (2018).- Actress
- Producer
- Director
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
- Producer
Few actresses have the distinction of being recognized and revered worldwide for multiple iconic roles in groundbreaking television shows. Sharon Gless is one of them.
Generations of TV viewers know and love the remarkable characters brought to life by this standout multi Emmy and Golden Globe winning actress: Christine Cagney (Cagney & Lacey), Debbie Novotny (Queer As Folk) and Madeline Westen (Burn Notice), among many others. With over four decades of indelible television, film, and stage roles to her credit, Gless continues to enchant her longtime followers and captivate new fans with every appearance.
In 1972, the head of Talent at Universal Studios perceived a take-notice quality in Sharon Gless and signed her as a contract player, a coveted breakthrough opportunity for any young actress. Gless remained under contract for the next decade, until the studio ended all talent contracts in 1982, earmarking her as the last contract player in the history of Hollywood.
During her contract years with Universal, Gless appeared in top-rated television series including: The Rockford Files, The Bob Newhart Show, Kojack, Adam-12, and Faraday and Company. After reoccurring guest-star spots on Marcus Welby, M.D., Gless was offered the role of Kathleen Faverty, a medical professional and James Brolin's first love interest. Robert Young appreciated the young rising star's talent and she was cast in two television movies to play his daughter. When the Marcus Welby, M.D. storyline changed, Gless' career advanced when she was chosen to play Maggie Philbin, the only female main character on Switch, an action series starring Robert Wagner and Eddie Albert, for all three seasons from 1975 to 1978.
L.A. Law creator, Steven Bocho, had earlier developed a situation comedy, Turnabout, (1979), in which a married couple, through magic, switch bodies. Loving the cross-gender acting challenge, Gless played Penny, who has embodied her husband, Sam. Noting her naturally husky and sultry voice and precise comic timing, Gless was next cast to play Carole Lombard in a successful TV movie directed by John Erman, The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980). It was during a screening of The Scarlett O'Hara War that television producer Barney Rosensweig discovered Gless and entreated her to star in his upcoming TV project, Cagney and Lacey. By the start of production, Gless had already been cast in the popular series, House Calls, as Jane Jeffries, making her unavailable for Cagney & Lacey's 2-hour pilot movie and first episodes.
Gless stepped in to the role of New York Police Detective Christine Cagney in 1982 and Cagney and Lacey made television history as the first hour-long drama to feature two females in the leading roles, who brought public awareness to serious cultural issues for women: date rape, breast cancer, addiction, sexism in the workplace, career choices, abortion, and moral dilemma. Over 30 million American viewers watched the show every week and Gless garnered two Emmy awards for Best Lead Actress in a Drama and six total nominations, along with a Golden Globe award and six nominations during the show's highly-rated run. After the show ended, Gless won an additional Golden Globe for her starring role in the drama series, The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, and two more Emmy nominations.
In popular demand, Gless, also costarred in a feature film with Michael Douglas, The Star Chamber, as well as telefilms: Honor Thy Mother, Hobson's Choice, Hard Hat & Legs, Separated by Murder, and the heartbreaker, Letting Go, with John Ritter.
From 1994 to 1996, Gless reunited with TV partner Tyne Daly for a quartet of critically acclaimed Cagney & Lacey television movies.
In 2000, Gless took a daring chance with a role that opened to viewers the underground lives of gay and lesbians in America, playing the outrageous and bold, yet tender, character Debbie Novotny in Queer as Folk. Her portrayal of a devoted mother to a gay son and confidant to his gay friends in this unexpected Showtime smash series, touched countless hearts and changed the definition of family for millions of viewers. In five seasons, Gless accomplished with her brilliant interpretation of Debbie what had previously taken decades in acceptance of gay and lesbian family members.
Now known for her ability to portray characters with multi-layered, startling and complex emotions, U.S.A. network cast her in their radical series, Burn Notice, (2007- 2013) as a chain-smoking persuasive woman, Madeline Westen, who helps her son establish a new life, by using an unpredictable mixture of heart and heat. Gless earned her 10th Emmy nomination for work in this series. Her 11th Emmy nomination was for Guest Actress in a Drama series, portraying Colleen Rose, an ambitious Hollywood agent harboring chilling secrets on FX's Nip / Tuck in 2008.
Recently, Gless also appeared in two independent features, Once Fallen, with Ed Harris and Amy Madigan, and Hannah Free, in the title role of Hannah.
In 2016, Gless became an intriguing surprise character, much talked about on social media, in four episodes of The Exorcist on Fox TV, sharing the screen with Geena Davis.
Throughout her TV and film career, Gless has also acted on stage to rave reviews in various productions, debuting with Oscar-winner Kim Hunter in Watch on the Rhine at Stage West in Massachusetts. She then starred in London's famed West End as Annie Wilkes in the adaptation of Misery alongside Bill Paterson, for an extended run. Her comedy chops were applauded in Neil Simon's Chapter Two with Tom Conti, and she returned to the West End to star in Jane Prowse's A Round-Heeled Woman in 2011-12 to standing ovations. Gless has also led the cast of Claudia Allen's Cahoots at Victory Gardens in Chicago and appeared in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues at Madison Square Garden.
Gless has a star on the renowned Hollywood Walk of Fame, an award for Excellence in the Arts from DePaul University in Chicago, and has recorded radio plays, including 'Night, Mother, which earned her the International Sony Award.
Always the happiest when acting in a series or on screen, Gless also finds great fulfillment in lending her indomitable voice to issues involving human rights and LGBTQ causes and was honored by Norman Lear's People for the American Way for her unwavering dedication to helping others. 2017 finds Gless joining stars like Chita Rivera, Kelli O'Hara, and Ben Vereen in "Concert for America: Stand up, Sing Out," on Broadway and in Chicago, benefiting Planned Parenthood, NAACP, and the Sierra Club, and others.- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Valeria Golino is an Italian actress and film director. She is known to English-language audiences for her role in Rain Man, Big Top Pee-wee and the two Hot Shots! films, especially the olive-in-the-belly-button scene. The second child of an Italian germanist and a Greek painter, Valeria Golino grew up in Naples until her parents parted. After three years in Athens with her mother and another three in Naples with her father, she began to work as a model. She left high school after her first movie and didn't study performing arts at all. In 1985 she got the leading role in Little Flames (1985) by Peter Del Monte and the next year won the Best Actress Award at the Venice Film Festival for Storia d'amore (1986). After some European co-productions (Dernier été à Tanger (1987), The Gold Rimmed Glasses (1987), Three Sisters (1988)) she began to work in Hollywood (Big Top Pee-wee (1988)). She soon gained prominent roles in Rain Man (1988), Hot Shots! (1991) and Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993). Now she works in the US (Clean Slate (1994), An Occasional Hell (1996)), Europe (The King's Whore (1990), Immortal Beloved (1994)) and in Italy. too, especially with young directors (Come due coccodrilli (1994), Le acrobate (1997), L'albero delle pere (1998)). In 1994 she produced and acted in Slaughter of the Cock (1996) by Greek director Andreas Pantzis. Her voice is more appreciated in Hollywood (where she took speech therapy) than in Italy (where she is sometimes dubbed); in "The Slaughter of the Cock" she acts as a deaf and dumb woman. She speaks four languages: Italian, Greek, French and English. Her brother is a musician and their uncle Enzo Golino is a famous journalist.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
John Stephen Goodman's an American film, TV & stage actor. He was born in Affton, Missouri to Virginia Roos (Loosmore), a waitress and saleswoman & Leslie Francis Goodman, a postal worker who died when he was a small child. He's of English, Welsh & German ancestry. He's best known for his role as Dan Conner on the TV show Roseanne (1988), which ran until 1997 & for which he earned him a Best Actor Golden Globe in 1993. He's also noted for appearances in films of the Coen brothers, w/ prominent roles in Raising Arizona (1987) as an escaped convict, in Barton Fink (1991) as a congenial murderer, in The Big Lebowski (1998) as a volatile bowler & in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) as a cultured thief. Additionally, he has done voice work in numerous Disney & Pixar films, including the Sulley in Monsters, Inc. (2001). Having contributed to more than 50 films, he has also won 2 American Comedy Awards & hosted Saturday Night Live (1975) 14 times.- Actress
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Linda Gray was born on 12 September 1940 in Santa Monica, California, USA. She is an actress and director, known for Dallas (1978), Oscar (1991) and Star of Jaipur (1998). She was previously married to Ed Thrasher.- Actress
- Producer
Melanie Griffith was born on August 9, 1957 in New York City, to then model/future actress Tippi Hedren and former child actor turned advertising executive Peter Griffith. Her parents' marriage ended when she was four years old and Tippi brought Melanie to Los Angeles to get a new start. Tippi caught the eye of the great director Alfred Hitchcock, who gave her starring roles in The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964). She married her then-agent, Noel Marshall, in 1964 (they divorced in 1982), and Melanie grew up with three stepbrothers. Meanwhile, her father married Nanita Greene and had two more children: Tracy Griffith and Clay A. Griffith.
Melanie also grew up with tigers and lions, as Tippi and Noel were raising them for the movie Roar (1981), in which the family later starred. Melanie's acting career, however, began as a model at just nine months old in a commercial and she later appeared as an extra in Smith! (1969) and The Harrad Experiment (1973), where she fell in love with her mother's co-star, Don Johnson. She was only 14 years old, while he was a 22-year-old with two annulled marriages. Tippi took a very liberal approach and allowed Melanie to move in with Don at a tender age. Even though Melanie didn't like modeling, she continued to do it to pay the bills. One day she went to meet with director Arthur Penn for what she thought was a modeling assignment. It was actually an audition for his film Night Moves (1975), and Penn gave her the role of a runaway nymphet. She was hesitant, but Johnson encouraged her to take the role. She agreed but was terrified of performing in front of the camera. Penn took a paternal interest in her, and she felt confident and gave a riveting performance, doing racy nude scenes. It immediately typecast her and led to more nymphet roles, with her beautiful nude body a permanent fixture in movies like Ha-Gan (1977) and Joyride (1977). She also married Johnson, eloping in 1976, but the union ended within six months.
Unfortunately, as her career progressed, she became increasingly dependent on drugs and alcohol, a fact well-known to studio executives, who stopped considering her for feature film roles. Melanie started doing television work, where she met her second husband, Steven Bauer, on the set of the TV movie She's in the Army Now (1981). He helped her to overcome her drug and alcohol problems and got her to take acting classes with Stella Adler in New York. The classes paid off, as director Brian De Palma cast her as a porno actress in his murder mystery Body Double (1984) and her sexy, funny performance won her rave reviews and the Best Supporting Actress Award by the National Society of Film Critics and a Golden Globe nomination. Jonathan Demme was so impressed with her performance that he gave her the female lead in Something Wild (1986) without even auditioning her. The film was a commercial failure but quickly became a cult favorite on video and cable, with Melanie again getting critical plaudits and a Golden Globe nomination.
The birth of her first child, Alexander, in 1985, didn't help to save her struggling marriage, and she and Bauer separated shortly thereafter. Melanie was given starring roles in Cherry 2000 (1987) and Stormy Monday (1988), but the films were barely released. Soon writers were asking when the public at large was going to take notice of this unique and talented actress. Melanie's career skyrocketed when Mike Nichols cast her as spunky secretary Tess McGill in Working Girl (1988), a box-office hit for which she received an Oscar nomination as Best Actress and won the Golden Globe Award as Best Actress in a Comedy. However, her ongoing substance abuse had almost destroyed her career yet again, and Nichols pushed her into a rehabilitation clinic. En route to the clinic she called ex-husband Johnson for support, and they reconciled after her release from the clinic. She got pregnant, divorced Bauer and remarried Johnson in 1989, and later that year their daughter Dakota Johnson was born. A sober Melanie now concentrated on her film career: her follow-up to "Working Girl" was John Schlesinger's Hitchcockian urban thriller Pacific Heights (1990). It was a moderate success, but most of the films she chose flopped badly, especially The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), which reunited her with director Brian De Palma. Even though she gave heartfelt performances in all her films, she was often miscast, with her breathy little-girl voice not helping matters in her role as a spy in Shining Through (1992) and as a homicide detective going undercover in the Hassidic Jewish community in New York City in A Stranger Among Us (1992).
Melanie was charming as a street hooker who befriends a group of elementary students in Milk Money (1994), but the film received negative reviews and performed dismally at the box office. She made a minor comeback with the critics for her supporting role as a desperate housewife in Nobody's Fool (1994), which reunited her with Bruce Willis, her co-star in "Bonfire", and Paul Newman, her co-star from The Drowning Pool (1975). She also earned a Golden Globe nomination for her work in the well-received TV miniseries Buffalo Girls (1995), followed by another hit film, the ensemble Now and Then (1995). Her personal life was making headlines again, though, as she left Johnson because of his own substance-abuse problems, reconciled with him briefly when he became sober, only to leave him again, this time for Antonio Banderas, her married co-star from Two Much (1995). Both she and Banderas created a scandal in 1995 with their torrid romance, and the tabloids followed their every move, including her divorce from Johnson and his divorce from wife Ana Leza. Melanie became pregnant with her third child, and she and Banderas married in 1996. Their daughter Stella Banderas was born, and the notorious couple were forgiven by the public and the media.
Melanie won strong reviews in independent films like Another Day in Paradise (1998), where she played a heroin-using criminal accomplice on the run, and the made-for-cable movie RKO 281 (1999), in which she portrayed actress Marion Davies, a part that garnered her Golden Globe and Emmy nominations as Best Supporting Actress. Melanie became dependent to pain killers, however, returning to rehab in 2000. She wrote about her struggle and recovery in her journal on her official website. Greenmoon Productions, the production company that she formed with Banderas, produced several flops, such as her starring vehicle Crazy in Alabama (1999), directed by Banderas. Her career took another blow when her TV series, Me & George (1998), never even aired. After making Cecil B. Demented (2000) and Forever Lulu (2000), Melanie did a voice-over role in Stuart Little 2 (2002) and played supporting roles in minor films Tempo (2003), as Sylvester Stallone's girlfriend in Shade (2003), and as Barbara Sinatra in All the Way (2003) with Dennis Hopper playing Frank Sinatra, but none of these films made a ripple at the box office. As a result, film and television offers dried up.
In 2003, a resourceful Melanie turned to the Broadway stage, and packed houses with her turn as the murderess "Roxie Hart" in the musical "Chicago," for which she received a rave review from the New York Times theater critic. It renewed her confidence, as she had never sang, danced or been on the Broadway stage before. In 2005 she surprised viewers by playing a mom to two grown women in the TV series Twins (2005), which was canceled after one season. She tried to resurrect her career with another attempt at a TV series, Viva Laughlin (2007), but it was canceled after just two episodes. Melanie didn't act again for the remainder of the decade, because, by self-admission, she couldn't obtain any worthwhile roles. In 2009, she was back in rehab after yet another relapse, emerging after a three-month stay. Professionally, she was faced with more disappointment in 2012 when This American Housewife (2012), a Lifetime series that Banderas produced for her to star in, never aired. She went back to the stage in 2012 and played Scott Caan's mother in a play that he wrote titled "No Way Around but Through." She impressed Caan enough to recommend her to producers of his television show Hawaii Five-0 (2010). Since 2014, she started playing a recurring role as his mother on the show.
Also in 2014, Melanie filed for divorce from Banderas citing "irreconcilable differences" after nearly twenty years together. She never publicly discussed her reasons for the divorce, and she didn't promote her feature film Automata (2014), the final time that she acted with Banderas. It took a year for the divorce to be finalized, during which time, she and Banderas made one important appearance together at their daughter Stella's high school graduation. She also made another public appearance with another ex-husband, Don Johnson, on Saturday Night Live (1975) to support their daughter Dakota, who was the host for that week. Dakota was promoting her star-making turn in Fifty Shades of Grey (2015), thus carrying on the family tradition of being a film actress. Melanie maintains close ties with her three children and her mother Tippi Hedren. She is involved in various charities, including raising funds for Tippi's Shambala preserve, a refuge for wild animals. Melanie also runs a non-profit organization for benefiting burned children. Melanie is single and her children are living on their own, so she has devoted most of her time to seeking out acting roles.- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Ann Lydia Elizabeth (Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman, who operated a newspaper printing press. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, and Scottish ancestry, partly by way of Canada, where his mother was born. After several moves, his family settled in Danville, Illinois. Gene grew up in a broken home, which he left at the age of sixteen for a hitch with the US Marines.
Moving to New York after being discharged, he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and television production on the G.I. Bill at the University of Illinois. Hackman would be over 30 years old when he finally decided to take his chance at acting by enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse. Legend says that Hackman and friend Dustin Hoffman were voted "least likely to succeed."
Hackman next moved back to New York, where he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway. In 1964 he was cast as the young suitor in the Broadway play "Any Wednesday." This role would lead to him being cast in the small role of Norman in Lilith (1964), starring Warren Beatty. When Beatty was casting for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), he cast Hackman as Buck Barrow, Clyde Barrow's brother. That role earned Hackman a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, an award for which he would again be nominated in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). In 1972 he won the Oscar for his role as Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection (1971). At 40 years old Hackman was a Hollywood star whose work would rise to new heights with Night Moves (1975) and Bite the Bullet (1975), or fall to new depths with The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Eureka (1983). Hackman is a versatile actor who can play comedy (the blind man in Young Frankenstein (1974)) or villainy (the evil Lex Luthor in Superman (1978)). He is the doctor who puts his work above people in Extreme Measures (1996) and the captain on the edge of nuclear destruction in Crimson Tide (1995). After initially turning down the role of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992), Hackman finally accepted it, as its different slant on the western interested him. For his performance he won the Oscar and Golden Globe and decided that he wasn't tired of westerns after all. He has since appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), and The Quick and the Dead (1995).- Actor
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Noted these days for his dashing, sporting, jet-setting playboy image and perpetually bronzed skin tones in commercials, film spoofs and reality shows, George Hamilton was, at the onset, a serious contender for dramatic film stardom. Born George Stevens Hamilton in Memphis, TN, on August 12, 1939, the son of gregarious Southern belle beauty Anne Lucille (Stevens) Potter Hamilton Hunt Spaulding, and her husband (of four), George William "Spike" Hamilton, a touring bandleader. Moving extensively as a youth due to his father's work (Arkansas, Massachusetts, New York, California), young George got a taste of acting in plays while attending Palm Beach High School. With his exceedingly handsome looks and attractive personality, he took a bold chance and moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s.
MGM (towards the end of the contract system) saw in George a budding talent with photogenic appeal. It wasted no time putting him in films following some guest appearances on TV. His first film, a lead in Crime & Punishment, USA (1959), was an offbeat, updated adaptation of the Fyodor Dostoevsky novel. While the film was not overwhelmingly successful, George's heartthrob appeal was obvious. He was awarded a Golden Globe for "Most Promising Newcomer" as well as being nominated for "Best Foreign Actor" by the British film Academy (BAFTA). This in turn led to an enviable series of film showcases, including the memorable Southern drama Home from the Hill (1960), which starred Robert Mitchum and Eleanor Parker and featured another handsome, up-and-coming George (George Peppard); Angel Baby (1961), in which he played an impressionable lad who meets up with evangelist Mercedes McCambridge; and Light in the Piazza (1962) (another BAFTA nomination), in which he portrays an Italian playboy who falls madly for American tourist Yvette Mimieux to the ever-growing concern of her mother Olivia de Havilland. Along with the good, however, came the bad and the inane, which included the dreary sudsers All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960) and By Love Possessed (1961) and the youthful spring-break romps Where the Boys Are (1960), which had Connie Francis warbling the title tune while slick-as-car-seat-leather George pursued coed Dolores Hart, and Looking for Love (1964), which was more of the same.
Not yet undone by this mixed message of serious actor and glossy pin-up, George went on to show some real acting muscle in the offbeat casting of a number of biopics -- as Moss Hart in Act One (1963), an overly fictionalized and sanitized account of the late playwright (the real Moss should have looked so good!), as ill-fated country star Hank Williams in Your Cheatin' Heart (1964), and as the famed daredevil Evel Knievel (1971).
The rest of the '60s and '70s, however, rested on his fun-loving, idle-rich charm that bore a close resemblance to his off-camera image in the society pages. As the 1960s began to unfold, he started making headlines more as a handsome escort to the rich, the powerful and the beautiful than as an acclaimed actor -- none more so than his 1966 squiring of President Lyndon B. Johnson's daughter Lynda Bird Johnson. He was also once engaged to actress Susan Kohner, a former co-star. Below-average films such as Doctor, You've Got to Be Kidding! (1967), A Time for Killing (1967) and The Power (1968) effectively ended his initially strong ascent to film stardom.
From the 1970s on George tended to be tux-prone on standard film and TV comedy and drama, whether as a martini-swirling opportunist, villain or lover. A wonderful comeback for him came in the form of the disco-era Dracula spoof Love at First Bite (1979), which he executive-produced. Nominated for a Golden Globe as the campy neck-biter displaced and having to fend off the harsh realities of New York living, he continued on the parody road successfully with Zorro: The Gay Blade (1981) in the very best Mel Brooks tradition.
This renewed popularity led to a one-year stint on Dynasty (1981) during the 1985-1986 season and a string of fun, self-mocking commercials, particularly his Ritz Cracker and (Toasted!) Wheat Thins appearances that often spoofed his overly tanned appearance. In recent times he has broken through the "reality show" ranks by hosting The Family (2003), which starred numerous members of a traditional Italianate family vying for a $1,000,000 prize, and participating in the second season of ABC's Dancing with the Stars (2005), where his charm and usual impeccable tailoring scored higher than his limberness. On the tube he can still pull off a good time, whether playing flamboyant publisher William Randolph Hearst in Rough Riders (1997), playing the best-looking Santa Claus ever in Very Cool Christmas (2004), hosting beauty pageants or making breezy gag appearances. In 1989 he started a line of skin-care products and a chain of tanning salons.
Into the millennium, he has had featured roles in the "opera singer trio reunion" comedy Off Key (2001) also starring Joe Mantegna and Danny Aiello; the offbeat underground film Reflections of Evil (2002); the comedy romps The L.A. Riot Spectacular (2005) and Melvin Smarty (2012); the political drama The Congressman (2016); the family dramedy Silver Skies (2016); and the romantic comedy Swiped (2018). On TV, he enhanced several programs including "Nash Bridges," "Pushing Daisies," "Hot in Cleveland" and "Grace and Frankie." He also had a recurring role on the series American Housewife (2016). Beginning in the summer of 2016, Hamilton appeared in TV commercials as the "Extra Crispy" sun-tanned version of KFC's Colonel Harland Sanders. He later played the Colonel on an episode of "General Hospital."
George managed one brief marriage to actress/TV personality Alana Stewart from 1972 to 1975 (she later married and divorced rock singer Rod Stewart), the pair have a son, actor Ashley Hamilton, born in 1974. Another son, George Thomas Hamilton, born in 2000, came from his involvement with Kimberly Blackford.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in Salisbury, Maryland, USA, following high school Linda studied for two years at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, before moving on to acting studies in New York. In New York she attended acting workshops given by Lee Strasberg. Her first parts were small parts in TV series, with her biggest break coming with her role in The Terminator (1984). Most known to public at large from her part in the TV series Beauty and the Beast (1987) (before Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), at least).- Actor
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Harry Robinson Hamlin is an American actor of stage, television and films. He was born in 1951, in Pasadena, California, to Berniece (Robinson), a socialite, and Chauncey Jerome Hamlin, Jr., an aeronautical engineer. He graduated from Yale University in 1974 with degrees in Drama and Psychology and was later awarded a Master of Fine Arts in acting from The American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco. Though awarded an ITT-Fullbright scholarship in acting in 1977 he opted instead to make his feature film debut in Stanley Donen's comedy spoof "Movie Movie" opposite George C. Scott for which he received his first Golden Globe nomination. Best known for his roles a Perseus in "Clash of the Titans" with Lawrence Olivier and Michael Kusac in the Emmy winning TV series "LA Law", he is the son of Chauncey Jerome Hamlin Jr. who helped design the Saturn V rocket with Dr.Wernher Von Braun at Rocketdyne and North American Aviation. He is the grandson of Chauncey Jerome Hamlin who founded the Buffalo Museum of Science in Buffalo, New York. Chauncey Hamlin was also a president of the American Association of Museums and created the International Council of Museums.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has called a "fractured" family. He moved around a great deal after his parents' divorce, living with a succession of step-families. No problems, no alcoholism - just a confused childhood. He has no acting experience in college and credits the fact that he could not get cast in a college play with actually starting his career. He went downtown, and auditioned for a community theater play, was invited by the director of that play to go to Cleveland, and there his acting career started.
Ron Howard was working on Splash (1983), a fantasy-comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a business executive. Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, which eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role and the film went on to become a surprise box office success, grossing more than $69 million. After several flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet (1987), Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success with the fantasy-comedy Big (1988) established him as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the film industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor.
Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of movie making ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and then with Philadelphia (1993). The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of Time magazine called his performance "charming", and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.
In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay.
Hanks followed Philadelphia with the blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office. Hanks remarked: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.
Hanks' next role - astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the docudrama Apollo 13 (1995) - reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's computer-animated film Toy Story (1995), as the voice of Sheriff Woody. A year later, he made his directing debut with the musical comedy That Thing You Do! (1996) about the rise and fall of a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer.
As of 2022, Hanks is 66-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and has remained active in the film industry for more than four decades.- Actor
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Neil Patrick Harris was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 15, 1973. His parents, Sheila Gail (Scott) and Ronald Gene Harris, were lawyers and ran a restaurant. He grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a small town 120 miles south of Albuquerque, where he first took up acting in the fourth grade. While tagging along with his older brother of 3 years, Harris won the part of Toto in a school production of The Wizard of Oz (1939).
His parents moved the family to Albuquerque in 1988, the same year that Harris made his film debut in two movies: Purple People Eater (1988) and Clara's Heart (1988), which starred Whoopi Goldberg. A year later, when Neil was 16, he landed the lead role in Steven Bochco's television series about a teen prodigy doctor at a local hospital, Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989), which launched Harris into teen-heartthrob status. The series lasted1989-1993 and earned him a People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Series (1990) and a Golden Globe Nomination (1990). Harris attended the same high school as Freddie Prinze Jr., La Cueva High School in Albuquerque. Neil acted on stage in a few plays while there, one of which was his senior play, Fiddler on the Roof (1971), in which he portrayed Lazar Wolf the butcher (1991).
When "Doogie Howser, M.D." stopped production in 1993, Harris took up stage acting, which he had always wanted to do. After a string of made-for-television movies, Harris acted in his first big screen roles in nine years, Starship Troopers (1997) with Casper Van Dien and then The Proposition (1998). In July 1997, Harris accepted the role of Mark Cohen for the Los Angeles production of the beloved musical, Rent (2005). His performance in "Rent" garnered him a Drama-League Award in 1997. He continued in the musical, to rave reviews, until January 1998. He later reprised the role for six nights in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in December 1998.
In 1999, Harris returned to television in the short-lived sitcom Stark Raving Mad (1999), with Tony Shalhoub. He was also in the big-screen projects The Next Best Thing (2000) and Undercover Brother (2002), and he can be heard as the voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the newest animated Spider-Man (2003) series. Harris has continued his stage work, making his Broadway debut in 2001 in "Proof." He has also appeared on stage in "Romeo and Juliet," "Cabaret," Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001), and, most recently, "Assassins." In 2005, Harris returned to the small screen in a guest-starring role on Numb3rs (2005) and a starring role in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005). Neil played the title role in the web-exclusive musical comedy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008), widely downloaded via iTunes to become the #1 TV series for five straight weeks, despite not actually being on television.- Actress
- Director
- Producer
Jackée Harry was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and reared from the age of nine in Harlem, New York, by her mother, Flossie. At the tender age of fourteen, Jackée landed the lead role of the King in her school's production of The King and I. Upon graduation from New York City's High School of Music and Art with a distinction in Opera, Jackée attended the University of Long Island, where she earned her B.A. degree in education.
Jackée began her career as a history teacher at Brooklyn Technical High School but left after two years to pursue a career in acting. She studied acting at the Henry Street Settlement on the Lower East Side and made her professional acting debut in 1973 in Richard Wesley's Goin' Through Changes; not long afterward, she made her Broadway debut in A Broadway Musical as Melinda Bernard.
In 1983, Jackée made her television debut opposite Morgan Freeman in the daytime soap opera Another World. A year later, she landed her iconic role of Sandra Clark on the NBC sitcom 227. As the breakout star of the series, Jackée became the first African American to win an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series and was also nominated for a Golden Globe. Her performance on 227 inspired NBC producers to create a television pilot for her entitled Jackée. After departing 227 in 1989, she starred opposite Oprah Winfrey in the critically acclaimed adaptation of Gloria Naylor's novel The Women of Brewster Place.
In 1991, Jackée joined an all-star cast led by Della Reese when she played the role of Ruth 'CoCo' Royal in The Royal Family. From 1994-1999, she starred as the adoptive mother of Tia and Tamara Mowr and y's characters on the ABC/WB sitcom Sister, Sister, winning the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for two consecutive years in 1999 and 2000. Jackée also made guest appearances on Amen, Designing Women, Dave's World, Hollywood Squares, 7th Heaven, and That's So Raven, before joining the cast of Everybody Hates Chris in 2006.
Hollywood success did not lead Jackée to turn her back on theater; in 1994 she returned to the stage as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, and in 2003 she played the role of the Madam in The Boys From Syracuse on Broadway. More recently, Jackée performed before sold-out audiences across the nation in the J.D. Lawrence stage play The Cleanup Woman.
More recently Jackée has starred in The First Family on Centric and has had a recurring role on BET's Let's Stay Together.- Actress
- Soundtrack
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.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Dustin Lee Hoffman was born in Los Angeles, California, to Lillian (Gold) and Harry Hoffman, who was a furniture salesman and prop supervisor for Columbia Pictures. He was raised in a Jewish family (from Ukraine, Russia-Poland, and Romania). Hoffman graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955, and went to Santa Monica City College, where he dropped out after a year due to bad grades. But before he did, he took an acting course because he was told that "nobody flunks acting." Also received some training at Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. Decided to go into acting because he did not want to work or go into the service. Trained at The Pasadena Playhouse for two years.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Multi-talented and unconventional actor/director regarded by many as one of the true "enfant terribles" of Hollywood who led an amazing cinematic career for more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas. The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a young age and first appeared in a slew of 1950s television shows, including Medic (1954), Cheyenne (1955) and Sugarfoot (1957). His first film role was in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), quickly followed by Giant (1956) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Hopper actually became good friends with James Dean and was shattered when Dean was killed in a car crash in September 1955.
Hopper portrayed a young Napoléon Bonaparte (!) in the star-spangled The Story of Mankind (1957) and regularly appeared on screen throughout the 1960s, often in rather undemanding parts, usually as a villain in westerns such as True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). However, in early 1969, Hopper, fellow actor Peter Fonda and writer Terry Southern, wrote a counterculture road movie script and managed to scrape together $400,000 in financial backing. Hopper directed the low-budget film, titled Easy Rider (1969), starring Fonda, Hopper and a young Jack Nicholson. The film was a phenomenal box-office success, appealing to the anti-establishment youth culture of the times. It changed the Hollywood landscape almost overnight and major studios all jumped onto the anti-establishment bandwagon, pumping out low-budget films about rebellious hippies, bikers, draft dodgers and pot smokers. However, Hopper's next directorial effort, The Last Movie (1971), was a critical and financial failure, and he has admitted that during the 1970s he was seriously abusing various substances, both legal and illegal, which led to a downturn in the quality of his work. He appeared in a sparse collection of European-produced films over the next eight years, before cropping up in a memorable performance as a pot-smoking photographer alongside Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen in Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979). He also received acclaim for his work in both acting and direction for Out of the Blue (1980).
With these two notable efforts, the beginning of the 1980s saw a renaissance of interest by Hollywood in the talents of Dennis Hopper and exorcising the demons of drugs and alcohol via a rehabilitation program meant a return to invigorating and provoking performances. He was superb in Rumble Fish (1983), co-starred in the tepid spy thriller The Osterman Weekend (1983), played a groovy school teacher in My Science Project (1985), was a despicable and deranged drug dealer in River's Edge (1986) and, most memorably, electrified audiences as foul-mouthed Frank Booth in the eerie and erotic David Lynch film Blue Velvet (1986). Interestingly, the offbeat Hopper was selected in the early 1980s to provide the voice of "The StoryTeller" in the animated series of "Rabbit Ears" children's films based upon the works of Hans Christian Andersen!
Hopper returned to film direction in the late 1980s and was at the helm of the controversial gang film Colors (1988), which was well received by both critics and audiences. He was back in front of the cameras for roles in Super Mario Bros. (1993), got on the wrong side of gangster Christopher Walken in True Romance (1993), led police officer Keanu Reeves and bus passenger Sandra Bullock on a deadly ride in Speed (1994) and challenged gill-man Kevin Costner for world supremacy in Waterworld (1995). The enigmatic Hopper continued to remain busy through the 1990s and into the new century with performances in All the Way (2003), The Keeper (2004) and Land of the Dead (2005).
As well as his acting/directing talents, Hopper was a skilled photographer and painter, having had his works displayed in galleries in both the United States and overseas. He was additionally a dedicated and knowledgeable collector of modern art and had one of the most extensive collections in the United States. Dennis died of prostate cancer on May 29, 2010, less than two weeks after his 74th birthday.- Actor
- Producer
- Sound Department
Thomas Edward Hulce was born in Detroit, Michigan, and grew up in Plymouth, MI, where he was raised with his two sisters and older brother. He is the son of Joanna (Winkleman), who had sung professionally, and Raymond Albert Hulce, who worked for Ford. He has English, German, and Irish ancestry. Wanting to be a singer, Tom had to make a switch in plans when his voice began changing. Knowing that if he wanted to be in show business he needed to become an actor, Tom began taking the necessary steps almost immediately.
When asked once why he chose acting Tom replied, "Because someone told me I couldn't." It is determination like this that has helped him achieve his respected position in the acting community to this day. Tom set goals early on. Graduating from school at 19 years old, he gave himself a decade to succeed as an actor. Working in Ann Arbor as usher and ticket seller with a small theatrical company was a start. It was around this time he saw the first play and actor that made him realize that acting was "cool." Christopher Walken was in a play in Stratford, Ontario. The performance made quite an impression on Tom.
While Mr. and Mrs. Hulce weren't totally sold on the idea of their son becoming a thespian, Tom had determination and headed off for the training he knew he'd need if he was going to achieve his goal. He studied at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem; at Booth Bay Harbor, Maine; Sarasota, Florida; and spent a summer in England before heading off to New York City to try his hand at Broadway. Within a month after his arrival, Tom was chosen to understudy the role being performed by Peter Firth in the Broadway play "Equus." He had originally been hired to play one of the horses, but it was decided that his time was better spent learning the understudy role and so he never donned the horse's attire.
Tom had pangs of guilt where this role was concerned. On one hand he wanted the role ... badly. On the other hand he wondered what would happen if Peter left the role; could he fill those shoes? When the time came, nine months after being hired, Tom found out that it was up to him to play the role as his own. He wasn't expected to be another Peter Firth... he had been hired to play the role his way. "... it actually went quite well, " Tom recalled. "I realized I was a different actor and that I would tackle the part in my own way." And tackle it he did! Equus has a few "firsts" for Tom. One, it was his first big role; two, it was his first Broadway role and third, it was his first nude performance. For nine minutes Tom and his costar, Roberta Maxwell, were naked in a scene that seemed impossible for the stage a decade earlier (1960s). In a past interview Tom reflected, "It's so skillfully written and developed that it doesn't seem an unusual thing to do. There's no embarrassment, I just don't think about it at all." During the run of "Equus," Tom turned down a big television offer, to the delight of the director and cast. At that time in Tom's life the stage was all there was, and he was going to do it right! Other plays that followed "Equus" were George S. Kaufman's "Butter and Egg Man," Arthur Miller's "Memory of Two Mondays," along with such works as "Julius Caesar," "Romeo and Juliet," Shaw's "Candida," and Chekhov's "The Sea Gull," and, again on Broadway in his Tony nominated role in Aaron Sorkin's "A Few Good Men."
Tom has even directed the off-Broadway musical "Sleep Around Town" at Playwrights Horizon. Back in 1977 Tom landed his first motion picture role in the film about the day James Dean died, September 30, 1955 (1977). This was to be the first of a long line of period films. His next was National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). Set in the 1960's, Tom played "Pinto" along with such comedy alumni as 'John Belushi', Tim Matheson, and Donald Sutherland.
1984 gave him the role that put him on the map. The title role of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the Oscar-winner Amadeus (1984) was such a wonder that it even boosted the sales of Mozart's music by 30%! Filmed in Prague, it was eerie for Tom to actually be standing in the very spot where the original Amadeus had stood conducting the opera Tom was recreating for the film. Dressed in a purple velvet jacket, knickers, and white hose, wearing a bushy white wig and doling out a hilarious laugh (often likened to that of a hyena's) Tom's portrayal of the "man-child" musical genius was an Oscar-nominated performance.
Tom has been in many more films set in the past: Those Lips, Those Eyes (1980)(1950s), Shadowman (1988) (World War II), Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) (1800s), Wings of Courage (1995)(1930's), and Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)(1500s). Tom appeared in Echo Park (1985) with Susan Dey, a film that had a struggle to get released remains one of Tom's best performances and one that he is quite proud of. Another film that Tom feels a lot of pride for is Dominick and Eugene (1988). Starring with Ray Liotta and Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom played Dominick Luciano, a mentally handicapped twin brother to Liotta's Eugene. The young man works as a garbage collector to help put his brother through medical school so he can become a "rich doctor" and they can afford to get a "house by a lake." Tom spent time studying people in a Pittsburgh neighborhood and handicapped people in an occupational training center so he could master the innocence and determination that the lead role required. He received the Best Actor award at the Seattle Fest for his performance.
Murder in Mississippi (1990) was Tom's second television movie (the first was Forget-Me-Not-Lane (1975) (aka "Neli, Neli"), a Hallmark Hall of Fame production). Playing the role of Michael Schwerner, the New York social worker and Freedom Fighter who is murdered by K.K.K. members in 1964 during Freedom Summer, Tom received an Emmy nomination and his third Golden Globe nomination.
The Inner Circle (1991) (aka "The Projectionist") took Tom to Russia where he was Ivan Sanshin, the private film projectionist to Stalin within the Kremlin walls. Based on a true story, Ivan was a perfect example of how many were blinded to the horrific conditions that men like Stalin conducted and followed in ignorant loyalty. While there, Tom was fortunate to meet and spend time with Alexander Ganshin, upon whose life the film was based.
The next three years held special items for Tom. His portrayal of Peter Patrone, in T.N.T.'s The Heidi Chronicles (1995), earned him an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Special, and 1994 and 1996 brought two of Tom's last period pieces. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) had Tom playing opposite Kenneth Branagh as Victor Frankenstein's college chum, Henry. And 1996 was a whole new experience for Tom. Disney was looking for someone special to portray their gentle Quasimodo in their newest full feature animation motion picture, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996).
Tom had never done voiceover work for a full film; to sing before a microphone was one thing, but to do song and voice for someone that he couldn't watch while performing was a whole new experience for him. Herecalled that when he first auditioned he thought it strange that the producers and director stood looking at the floor while he sang...until he noticed they were looking at sketches of Quasimodo and were trying to "feel" if he sounded like their bell ringer.
1998 saw Tom returning to the stage but this time as director again, as he undertook the enormous task of bringing John Irving's 1985 novel, "The Cider House Rules", to the stage. An 8-hour production which required the audience two days to see the whole performance, it was quite an undertaking. Co-directing with Jane Jones (of "BookIt" in Seattle, Washington) Tom took the play from its Seattle opening to the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, California where it received wonderful reviews.
During the past recent years Tom has resided in Seattle, Washington where he owns his own home. He figures he could live in Los Angeles or New York - the acting hubs - but in Seattle, he's near the things he loves. "Up in Seattle people look after their lives in a way you can't do in New York or Los Angeles," he says. But no matter where he calls home, we can always count on Tom for bringing us into a world that will thrill, excite, fascinate, move and inspire us either through his films, the stage, or his beautiful singing.- Actress
- Producer
- Music Department
Naturally brunette/blue-eyed beauty Amy Davis Irving was born in Palo Alto, California. She is the youngest of three children, and the daughter of influential theatrical/television director and producer Jules Irving, and actress Priscilla Pointer. Her father was of Russian Jewish descent, and her mother's ancestry includes English, Scots-Irish, Welsh, Jewish, and German.
Amy was brought up in the world of theater. She was put on stage from the time she was nine-months-old, her father was the director and her mother was the actress, they didn't want baby sitters for their children, so if she wasn't performing, she would stay in the wardrobe department or her mother used to put her in the second row center where she could watch her. And, before she was 10-years-old, she had already worked in several plays. At a young age, Amy Irving was trained at the American Conservatory Theater and Britain's London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (L.A.M.A.D.A.). She made her off-Broadway debut at the age of 17 and, from that moment to date, she received critical acclaim, appearing in such plays as: "Heartbreak House" (1983), "The Road to Mecca" (1988), "Broken Glass" (1994), "The Three Sisters" (1997), "The Guys" (2002), "Ghosts" (2002) and "Celadine" (2004), among others.
In 1976, Amy made her film debut, playing "Sue Snell", one of her most unforgettable characters in Stephen King's Carrie (1976), a classic in the horror genre, taken to the big screen by director Brian De Palma. For the next few years, Irving continued working in important films, The Fury (1978), also directed by De Palma, Voices (1979) and The Competition (1980). Later, in 1983, she gave a fine performance as "Hadass", in Barbra Streisand's Yentl (1983); earning an Oscar nomination. Two of her best opportunities arrived in the late 80s, when she played "Anna Anderson" in Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986) and "Isabelle Grossman" in the romantic comedy, Crossing Delancey (1988); she received a Golden Globe nomination for each movie.
Amy was married to director Steven Spielberg from 1985 to 1989 and she has a son with him, Max Spielberg. And, in 1990, after her divorce, she met Brazilian director Bruno Barreto while they were working on A Show of Force (1990). They wed a few years later and they have a son (Gabriel). In 1997, Irving made a guest appearance on Woody Allen's Deconstructing Harry (1997) and, in 1999, she came back in the sequel of Carrie (1976), The Rage: Carrie 2 (1999).
Unfortunately, her film opportunities narrowed in the 90s. However, in the year 2000, she surprised the whole world again when she performed as "Mary Ann Simpson", a very funny and sensual, at the same time, English teacher in the film, Bossa Nova (2000). She managed to capture this peculiar character very well. After this romantic comedy, Amy had a great opportunity, playing "Barbara Wakefield", Michael Douglas' wife in Traffic (2000), the film was a huge success and she won an Actor Award, shared with the rest of the cast. Then, this beautiful and talented actress continued working in remarkable films such as 13 Conversations About One Thing (2001), with her Carrie (1976) co-star, Sissy Spacek, in the Walt Disney production, Tuck Everlasting (2002) and in the horror film, Hide and Seek (2005), along with Robert De Niro. Recently, she had an important part as "Emily Sloane" in the very-known show, Alias (2001).
In addition to her talents as an actress, she is a great dancer and also showed off her vocal talents, singing in films such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), Honeysuckle Rose (1980), Rumpelstiltskin (1987) and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991).
Nowadays, Amy Irving continues working on stage in Broadway productions and spends most of her time with her friends and family, especially with her two children.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Ann Jillian was born on January 29, 1950 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA as Ann Jura Nauseda to Lithuanian immigrant parents. Her career began as a child actress in the 1960s. She is possibly best known for her role as Cassie Cranston on the 1980s sitcom It's a Living (1980). She is also known for her work on Mae West (1982), Babes in Toyland (1961), and Gypsy (1962). She has been married to Andy Murcia since March 27, 1977. They have one child.- Actor
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- Director
Best known for his starring role as Det. Sonny Crockett on the hugely successful TV series Miami Vice (1984), Don Johnson is one of the stars who really defined the 1980s. As James "Sonny" Crockett he went toe-to-toe with drug dealers, pimps, prostitutes, assassins, illegal arms-dealers and crooked cops on a weekly basis from 1984 to 1989, appearing in a grand total of 110 episodes. The show, which was executive-produced by four time Oscar-nominated director, producer and writer Michael Mann, paired Johnson with the equally cool Philip Michael Thomas as Det. Ricardo Tubbs and the calm and stoic presence of Edward James Olmos as Lt. Martin Castillo. It revolutionized television with its modern fashion, pop music, unique style and use of real locations. Johnson typically wore $1000 Armani, Versace and Hugo Boss suits over pastel cotton T-shirts, drove a Ferrari 365 GTS/4 Daytona (later a Ferrari Testarossa) and lived on an Endeavour 42-foot sailboat named "St. Vitus' Dance" with his pet alligator Elvis. He also had full use of an offshore powerboat. Still, "Miami Vice" had not only style but substance, and his portrayal of the Vietnam veteran turned vice detective turned Sonny Crockett into the world's favorite cop. For his work on "Miami Vice" Johnson won a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a TV Series in 1986, and was nominated in the same category a year later. He also picked up an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1985.
Johnson was born in Flat Creek, Missouri, the son Eva Lea "Nell" (Wilson), a beautician, and Wayne Fred Johnson, a farmer. As a kid, he wanted to become a professional bowler. Later, after a few brushes with the law at a young age, he discovered acting. After working on the stage for a while he ventured into films and television, but was not able to break into stardom despite, among other things, starring in the sci-fi cult classic A Boy and His Dog (1975).
Johnson starred in four failed TV pilots before landing his career-high role on "Miami Vice", which propelled him to superstardom. He directed four highly praised episodes of the show. He balanced his work on the series by appearing in a praised TV-movie adaption of the William Faulkner novel The Long Hot Summer (1985) and the feature Sweet Hearts Dance (1988) with Susan Sarandon. After the series ended he focused solely on his film career. Although movies like Dead Bang (1989), The Hot Spot (1990) and Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (1991) did not fare well with the critics, quite a few of them have obtained a considerable cult following, with fans praising them as all being quality contributions to their genre. His film work has given Johnson the opportunity to work with legendary filmmakers like John Frankenheimer, Sidney Lumet and Dennis Hopper.
After working steadily, Johnson returned to TV in 1996 with the cop show Nash Bridges (1996). The show, which Johnson created and produced, did very well. It co-starred Cheech Marin and Jodi Lyn O'Keefe. Johnson played the title role, a captain in the San Francisco PD's Special Investigations Unit. He was again paired with a flashy vehicle, this time an electric-yellow 1971 Plymouth Barracuda convertible. After "Nash Bridges" went off the air Johnson kept a low profile, but continued to appear in films and on television. He starred in the failed WB courtroom drama Just Legal (2005), which was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and traveled to Europe to make the Norwegian screwball comedy Lange flate ballær II (2008) and the Italian films Bastardi (2008) and Torno a vivere da solo (2008). As a supporting actor, he's been seen in mainstream films such as Machete (2010), Django Unchained (2012) and Knives Out (2019).
Johnson had two pre-fame marriages that were annulled within a matter of days. In the early 1970s, he lived with rock groupie Pamela Des Barres. In 1972, Tippi Hedren, his co-star in The Harrad Experiment (1973), allowed him to date her daughter Melanie Griffith despite the fact she was only 14 and he was 22; the relationship culminated in a six-month marriage during 1976. From 1981 to 1985, he lived with actress Patti D'Arbanville and they had one son together. After short-lived liaisons with Cybill Shepherd, Barbra Streisand and a barely legal Uma Thurman, he remarried Griffith in 1989. The couple divorced again in 1996, after she left him for Antonio Banderas. Johnson was engaged to "Nash Bridges" co-star O'Keefe, but broke it off before they made it to the altar. Since 1999 he's been married to former debutante Kelley Phleger, with whom he has three children.- Producer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Actor
Mark Johnson was born on 27 December 1945 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He is a producer and assistant director, known for Rain Man (1988), The Holdovers (2023) and El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019). He has been married to Lezlie Brooks Johnson since 26 September 1982. They have two children.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Sally Kirkland, Best Actress Oscar Nominee, Golden Globe winner, Independent Spirit Award winner, LA Film Critics Circle Award winner, and veteran of over 200 movies. Feisty, hard-working, famously liberal, with the trademark blonde hair, actress Sally Kirkland has certainly made an indelible mark on Hollywood history. Born in New York City, her mother was the fashion editor at Vogue and LIFE magazine. Sally began her career on the off-Broadway circuit and trained under Lee Strasberg. Sally Kirkland is a movie, television, and theater veteran since the 1960s and is probably best known for the drama movie Anna (1987), for which she garnered the Best Actress Oscar nomination and won the Best Actress Golden Globe, the Independent Spirit Award, and the LA Film Critic's Circle Award.
Sally's first director was Andy Warhol in The 13 Most Beautiful Women (1964). Her 220 movies also include Coming Apart (1969), The Sting (1973), The Way We Were (1973), Cold Feet (1989), Best of the Best (1989), Revenge (1990), JFK (1991), Edtv (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Coffee Date (2006) and Archaeology of a Woman (2012). In the past couple of years, she has starred in Buddy Solitaire (2016), Gnaw (2017), and The Most Hated Woman in America (2017) co-starring with Melissa Leo and Peter Fonda. And coming out soon, she has starred in Sarah Q (2018), Cuck (2019), Invincible (2020) and Hope for the Holidays (2020). She was nominated for Best Actress in a television movie by the Hollywood Foreign Press for The Haunted (1991). Her television credits include: guest starring on Criminal Minds (2005), and recurring roles on Head Case (2007) and The Simple Life (2003). She guest starred on Resurrection Blvd. (2000) and in the television movie Another Woman's Husband (2000).
Sally had a recurring role on Felicity (1998) and starred in the NBC movie Brave New World (1998). She also starred in the television episode Song of Songs (1994), and was a series regular on the television series Valley of the Dolls (1994). She also co-starred in the television movie The Woman Who Loved Elvis (1993). She had a recurring role as Barbara Healy in the original Roseanne (1988) series. She starred in the television movie Heat Wave (1990), and recurred as Tracy on Days of Our Lives (1965). Sally is also an exhibited painter, poet, renowned acting coach and ordained minister.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Swoosie is the only child of author Margo and Frank Kurtz. As her father was a colonel in the U.S. Air Force, she moved often during her school years, living in eight different states. At the University of Southern California she majored in drama; later she attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, collected Broadway's "triple crown" (the Tony, Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards) for her portrayal of Gwen in Lanford Wilson's "The Fifth of July". Since then she has appeared in many TV shows and movies, and received several Emmy and Golden Globe nominations and an Emmy for her guest-starring performance on Carol Burnett's comedy series Carol & Company (1990).- Actress
- Director
- Soundtrack
Christine Lahti was born April 4, 1950 in Birmingham, Michigan, to Elizabeth Margaret (Tabar), a painter and nurse, and Paul Theodore Lahti, a surgeon. She is of half Finnish and half Austro-Hungarian descent. She studied fine arts at Florida State University and received a bachelors degree in drama from the University of Michigan. In New York, Christine worked as a waitress and did commercials before she found her breakthrough role in And Justice for All (1979) with Al Pacino. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Swing Shift (1984) and won an Academy Award for Best Short Film, Live Action for Lieberman in Love (1995) in which she starred and directed. Throughout her acting career, Christine primarily focused on television, with performances in Chicago Hope (1994), and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Oscar-winning character actor Martin Landau was born on June 20, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York. At age 17, he was hired by the New York Daily News to work in the promotions department before he became a staff cartoonist and illustrator. In his five years on the paper, he served as the illustrator for Billy Rose's "Pitching Horseshoes" column. He also worked for cartoonist Gus Edson on "The Gumps" comic strip. Landau's major ambition was to act and, in 1951, he made his stage debut in "Detective Story" at the Peaks Island Playhouse in Peaks Island, Maine. He made his off-Broadway debut that year in "First Love".
Landau was one of 2,000 applicants who auditioned for Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in 1955; only he and Steve McQueen were accepted. Landau was a friend of James Dean and McQueen, in a conversation with Landau, mentioned that he knew Dean and had met Landau. When Landau asked where they had met, McQueen informed him he had seen Landau riding on the back of Dean's motorcycle into the New York City garage where he worked as a mechanic.
Landau acted during the mid-1950s in the television anthologies Playhouse 90 (1956), Studio One (1948), The Philco Television Playhouse (1948), Kraft Theatre (1947), Goodyear Playhouse (1951), and Omnibus (1952). He began making a name for himself after replacing star Franchot Tone in the 1956 off-Broadway revival of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," a famous production that helped put off-Broadway on the New York theatrical map.
In 1957, he made a well-received Broadway debut in the play "Middle of the Night." As part of the touring company with star Edward G. Robinson, he made it to the West Coast. He made his movie debut in Pork Chop Hill (1959), but scored on film as the heavy in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller North by Northwest (1959), in which he was shot on top of Mount Rushmore while sadistically stepping on the fingers of Cary Grant, who was holding on for dear life to the cliff face. He also appeared in the blockbuster Cleopatra (1963), the most expensive film ever made up to that time, which nearly scuttled 20th Century-Fox and engendered one of the great public scandals, the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton love affair that overshadowed the film itself. Despite the difficulties with the film, Landau's memorable portrayal in the key role of Rufio was highly favored by the audience and instantly catapulted his popularity.
In 1963, Landau played memorable roles in two episodes of the science-fiction anthology series The Outer Limits (1963), The Bellero Shield (1964), and The Man Who Was Never Born (1963). He was Gene Roddenberry's first choice to play Mr. Spock on Star Trek (1966), but the role went to Leonard Nimoy, who later replaced Landau on Mission: Impossible (1966), the show that really made Landau famous. Landau originally was not meant to be a regular on the series, which co-starred his wife Barbara Bain, whom he had married in 1957. His character, Rollin Hand, was supposed to make occasional, recurring appearances, on Mission: Impossible (1966), but when the producers had problems with star Steven Hill, Landau was used to take up the slack. Landau's characterization was so well-received and so popular with the audience, he was made a regular. Landau received Emmy nominations as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for each of the three seasons he appeared. In 1968, he won the Golden Globe award as Best Male TV Star.
Eventually, he quit the series in 1969 after a salary dispute when the new star, Peter Graves, was given a contract that paid him more than Landau, whose own contract stated he would have parity with any other actor on the show who made more than he did. The producers refused to budge and he and Bain, who had become the first actress in the history of television to be awarded three consecutive Emmy Awards (1967-69) while on the show, left the series, ostensibly to pursue careers in the movies. The move actually held back their careers, and Mission: Impossible (1966) went on for another four years with other actors.
Landau appeared in support of Sidney Poitier in They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), the less-successful sequel to the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night (1967), but it did not generate more work of a similar caliber. He starred in the television movie Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972) on CBS, playing a prisoner of war returning to the United States from Vietnam. The following year, he shot a pilot for NBC for a proposed show, "Savage." Though it was directed by emerging wunderkind Steven Spielberg, NBC did not pick up the show. Needing work, Landau and Bain moved to England to play the leading roles in the syndicated science-fiction series Space: 1999 (1975).
Landau's and Bain's careers stalled after Space: 1999 (1975) went out of production, and they were reduced to taking parts in the television movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981). It was the nadir of both their careers, and Bain's acting days and their marriage were soon over. Landau, one of the most talented character actors in Hollywood, and one not without recognition, had bottomed out career-wise. In 1983, he was stuck in low-budget sci-fi and horror movies such as The Being (1981), a role far beneath his talent.
His career renaissance got off to a slow start with a recurring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill (1983), starring Dabney Coleman. On Broadway, he took over the title role in the revival of "Dracula" and went on the road with the national touring company. Finally, his career renaissance began to gather momentum when Francis Ford Coppola cast him in a critical supporting role in his Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), for which Landau was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. He won his second Golden Globe for the role. The next year, he received his second consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his superb turn as the adulterous husband in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). He followed this up by playing famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in the TNT movie Max and Helen (1990). However, the summit of his post-Mission: Impossible (1966) career was about to be scaled. He portrayed Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood (1994) and won glowing reviews. For his performance, he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Martin Landau, the superb character actor, finally had been recognized with his profession's ultimate award. His performance, which also won him his third Golden Globe, garnered numerous awards in addition to the Oscar and Golden Globe, including top honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. Landau continued to play a wide variety of roles in motion pictures and on television, turning in a superb performance in a supporting role in The Majestic (2001). He received his fourth Emmy nomination in 2004 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for Without a Trace (2002).
Martin Landau was honored with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.
Martin Landau died in Los Angeles, California on July 15, 2017.- Actress
- Producer
- Executive
Angela Lansbury was born in 1925 into a prominent family of the upper middle class living in the Regent's Park neighborhood of London. Her father was socialist politician Edgar Isaac Lansbury (1887-1935), a member of both the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Labour Party. Edgar served as Honorary Treasurer of the East London Federation of Suffragettes (term 1915), and Mayor of Poplar (term 1924-1925). He was the second Communist mayor in British history, the first being Joe Vaughan (1878-1938). Lansbury's mother was Irish film actress Moyna Macgill (1895-1975), originally from Belfast. During the first five years of Angela's life, the Lansbury family lived in a flat located in Poplar. In 1930, they moved to a house located in the Mill Hill neighborhood of north London. They spend their weekends vacationing in a farm located in Berrick Salome, a village in South Oxfordshire.
In 1935, Edgar Lansbury died from stomach cancer. Angela reportedly retreated into "playing characters", as a coping mechanism to deal with the loss. The widowed Moyna Macgill soon became engaged to Leckie Forbes, a Scottish colonel. Moyna moved into his house in Hampstead.
From 1934 to 1939, Angela was a student at South Hampstead High School. During these years, she became interested in films.. She regularly visited the local cinema, and imagined herself in various roles. Angela learned how to play the piano, and received a musical education at the Ritman School of Dancing.
In 1940, Lansbury started her acting education at the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art, located in Kensington, West London. She made her theatrical debut in the school's production of the play "Mary of Scotland" (1933) by Maxwell Anderson (1888-1959). The play depicted the life of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542-1587, reigned 1542-1567), and Lansbury played one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting.
Also in 1940, Lansbury's paternal grandfather, George Lansbury, died from stomach cancer. When the Blitz started, Moyna Macgill had reasons to fear for the safety of her family and few remaining ties to England. Macgill moved to the United States to escape the Blitz, taking her three youngest children with her. Isolde was already a married adult, and was left behind in England.
Macgill secured financial sponsorship from American businessman Charles T. Smith. She and her children (including Angela) moved into Smith's house in Mahopac, New York, a hamlet in Putnam County. Lansbury was interested in continuing her studies, and secured a scholarship from the American Theatre Wing. From 1940 to 1942, Lansbury studied acting at the Feagin School of Dramatic Art, located in New York City. She appeared in performances organized by the school.
In 1942, Lansbury moved with her family to a flat located in Morton Street, Greenwich Village. She soon followed her mother in her theatrical tour of Canada. Lansbury secured her first paying job in Montreal, singing at the nightclub Samovar Club for a payment of 60 dollars per week. Lansbury was 16 years old at the time, but lied about her age and claimed to be 19 in order to be hired.
Lansbury returned to New York City in August, 1942, but Moyna Macgill soon moved herself and her family again. The family moved to Los Angeles, where Moyna was interested in resurrecting her film career. Their first home there was a bungalow in Laurel Canyon, a neighborhood in the Hollywood Hills.
Lansbury helped financially support her family by working for the Bullocks Wilshire department store in Los Angeles. Her weekly wages were only 28 dollars, but she had a secure income while her mother was unemployed. Through her mother, Lansbury was introduced to screenwriter John Van Druten (1901-1957), who had recently completed his script of "Gaslight" (1944). He suggested that young Lansbury would be perfect for the role of Nancy Oliver, the film's conniving cockney maid. This helped secure Lansbury's first film role at the age of 17, and a seven-year contract with the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. She earned 500 dollars per week, and chose to continue using her own name instead of a stage name.
In 1945, Lansbury married actor Richard Cromwell (1910-1960), who was 15 years older than she. The troubled marriage ended in a divorce in 1946. The former spouses remained friends until Cromwell's death.
In 1946, Lansbury started a romantic relationship with aspiring actor Peter Shaw (1918-2003), who was 7 years older than her. Shaw had recently ended his relationship with actress Joan Crawford (c. 1908-1977). The new couple started living together, while planning marriage. They wanted to be married in the United Kingdom, but the Church of England refused to marry two divorcees. They were married in 1949, in a Church of Scotland ceremony at St. Columba's Church, located in Knightsbridge, London. After their return to the United States, they settled into Lansbury's home in Rustic Canyon, Malibu. In 1951, both Lansbury and Shaw became naturalized citizens of the United States, while retaining their British citizenship.
Meanwhile, Lansbury continued appearing in MGM films. She appeared in 11 MGM films between 1945 and 1952. MGM at times loaned Lansbury to other film studios. She appeared in United Artists' "The Private Affairs of Bel Ami" (1947), and Paramount Pictures' "Samson and Delilah" (1949). In 1948, Lansbury made her debut in radio roles, followed by her television debut in 1950.
In 1952, Lansbury requested the termination of her contract with MGM, instead of its renewal. She felt unsatisfied with her film career as an MGM contract player. She then joined the East Coast touring productions of two former Broadway plays. By 1953, Lansbury had two children of her own and was also raising a stepson. She and her family moved into a larger house, located on San Vincente Boulevard in Santa Monica. In 1959, she and her family moved into a house in Malibu. The married couple were able to send their children to a local public school.
Meanwhile she continued her film career as a freelance actress, but continued to be cast in middle-aged roles. She regained her A-picture actress through well-received roles in the drama film "The Long, Hot Summer" (1958) and the comedy film "The Reluctant Debutante" (1958). She also appeared regularly in television roles, and became a regular on game show "Pantomime Quiz" (1947-1959).
In 1957, Lansbury made her Broadway debut in a performance of "Hotel Paradiso". The play was an adaptation of the 1894 "L'Hôtel du libre échange" ("Free Exchange Hotel"), written by Maurice Desvallières (1857-1926) and Georges Feydeau (1862-1921). Lansbury's role as "Marcel Cat" was critically well received. She continued appearing in Broadway over the next several years, most notably cast as the verbally abusive mother in "A Taste of Honey". She was cast as the mother of co-star Joan Plowright (1929-), who was only four years younger.
In the early 1960s, Lansbury was cast as an overbearing mother in "Blue Hawaii" (1961). The role of her son was played by Elvis Presley (1935-1977), who was only 10 years than her. The film was a box office hit, it finished as the 10th-top-grossing film of 1961 and 14th for 1962 on the "Variety" national box office survey. It gained Lansbury renewed fame, at a difficult point of her career.
Lansbury gained critical praise for a sympathetic role in the drama film "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" (1960), and the role of a manipulative mother in the drama film "All Fall Down" (1962). Based on her success in "All Fall Down", she was cast in a similar role in the Cold War-themed thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962). She was cast as Eleanor Iselin, the mother of her co-star Laurence Harvey (1928-1973), who was only 3 years younger than she. This turned out to be one of the most memorable roles in her career. She received critical acclaim and was nominated for a third time for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. The award was instead won by Patty Duke (1946-2016).
Lansbury made a comeback in the starring role of Mame Dennis in the musical "Mame" (1966), by Jerome Lawrence (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994). The play was an adaptation of the novel "Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade" (1955) by Patrick Dennis (1921-1976), and focused on the life and ideas of eccentric bohemian Mame Dennis. The musical received critical and popular praise, and Lansbury won her first Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical. Lansbury gained significant fame from her success, becoming a "superstar".
Her newfound fame led to other high-profile appearances by Lansbury. She starred in a musical performance at the 1968 Academy Awards ceremony, and co-hosted the 1968 Tony Awards. The Hasty Pudding Club, a social club for Harvard students. elected her "Woman of the Year" in 1968.
Lansbury's next theatrical success was in 1969 "The Madwoman of Chaillot" (1945) by Jean Giraudoux (1882-1944). The play concerns an eccentric Parisian woman's struggles with authority figures. Lansbury was cast in the starring role of 75-year-old Countess Aurelia, despite her actual age of 44. The show was well received and lasted for 132 performances. Lansbury won her second Tony Award for this role.
In 1970, Lansbury's Malibu home was destroyed in a brush fire. Lansbury and her husband decided to buy Knockmourne Glebe, an 1820s Irish farmhouse, located near the village of Conna in rural County Cork.
Her film career reached a new height. She was cast in the starring role of benevolent witch Eglantine Price in Disney's fantasy film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" (1971). The film was a box-office hit; it was critically well received, and introduced Lansbury to a wider audience of children and families.
In 1972, Lansbury returned to the British stage, performing in London's West End with the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1973, Lansbury appeared in the role of Rose in London performances of the musical "Gypsy" (1959) by Arthur Laurents. It was quite successful. In 1974, "Gypsy" went on tour in the United States. with the same cast. For her role, Lanbury won the Sarah Siddons Award and her third Tony Award. The musical had its second tour in 1975.
Tired from musicals. Lansbury next sought Shakespearean roles in the United Kingdom. From 1975 to 1976, she appeared as Queen Gertrude in the National Theatre Company's production of Hamlet. In November 1975, Lansbury's mother Moyna Macgill died at the age of 79. Lansbury arranged for her mother's remains to be cremated, and the ashes scattered near her own County Cork home.
In 1976, Lansbury returned to the American stage. In 1978, Lansbury temporarily replaced Constance Towers (1933-) in the starring role of Anna Leonowens (1831-1915) in The King and I. While Towers was on a break from the role, Lansbury appeared in 24 performances.
In 1978, Lansbury appeared in her first film role in seven years, as the novelist and murder victim Salome Otterbourne in the mystery film "Death on the Nile" (1978). The film was an adaptation of the 1937 novel by Agatha Christie (1890-1976); Otterbourne was loosely based on real-life novelist Elinor Glyn (1864-1943). The film was a modest box-office hit, and Lansbury befriended her co-star Bette Davis (1908-1989).
In 1979, Lansbury was cast in the role of meat pie seller Mrs. Lovett in the musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" (1979), by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler (1912-1987). The musical was loosely based on the penny dreadful serial novel "The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance" (1846-1847), which first depicted fictional serial killer Sweeney Todd. Lansbury remained in the role for 14 months, and was then replaced by Dorothy Loudon (1925-2003). Lansbury won her fourth Tony Award for this role. She returned to the role for 10 months in 1980.
Lansbury's next prominent film role was that of Miss Froy in "The Lady Vanishes" (1979), a remake of the 1938 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980). She was next cast in the role of amateur sleuth Miss Jane Marple in the mystery film "The Mirror Crack'd" (1980), an adaptation of the novel "The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side" (1962) by Agatha Christie. The novel was loosely inspired by the life of Gene Tierney (1920-1991). The film was a modest commercial success. There were plans for at least two sequels, but they ended in development hell.
In 1982, Lansbury was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, She appeared at the time in the new play "A Little Family Business" and a revival of "Mame", but both shows were commercial failures. In film, Lansbury voiced the witch Mommy Fortuna in the animated fantasy film "The Last Unicorn" (1982). The film was critically well received, but was not a box-office hit.
Lansbury played Ruth in the musical comedy "The Pirates of Penzance" (1983), a film adaptation of the 1879 comic opera by William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) and Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900). The film was a box office bomb, earning about 695,000 dollars.
Lansbury's next film role was that of Granny in the gothic fantasy film "The Company of Wolves" (1984), based on a 1979 short story by Angela Carter (1940-1992). Lansbury was cast as the grandmother of protagonist Rosaleen (played by Sarah Patterson), in a tale featuring werewolves and shape-shifting. The film was critically well received, but barely broke even at the box office.
At about that time, Lansbury appeared regularly in television films and mini-series. Her most prominent television role was that of Jessica Fletcher in the detective series "Murder, She Wrote" (1984-1996). Jessica was depicted as a successful mystery novelist from Maine who encounters and solves many murders. The character was considered an American counterpart to Miss Marple. The series followed the "whodunit" format and mostly avoided depictions of violence or gore.
The series was considered a television landmark for having an older female character as the protagonist. It was aimed primarily at middle-aged audiences, but also attracted both younger viewers and senior citizen viewers. Ratings remained high for most of its run. Lansbury rejected pressure from network executives to put her character in a relationship, as she believed that Fletcher should remain a strong single female.
In 1989, Lansbury co-founded the production company Corymore Productions, which started co-producing the television series with Universal Television. This allowed Lansbury to have more creative input on the series. She was appointed an executive producer. By the time the series ended in 1996, it tied with the original "Hawaii Five-O" (1968-1980) as the longest-running detective drama series in television history.
Her popularity from "Murder, She Wrote" made Lansbury a much-sought figure for advertisers. She appeared in advertisements and infomercials for Bufferin, MasterCard and the Beatrix Potter Company.
Lansbury's highest-profile film role in decades was voicing the character of singing teapot Mrs. Potts in Disney's animated fantasy film "Beauty and the Beast" (1991). Lansbury performed the film's title song, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song, the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song, and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.
During the late 1980s and 1990s, Lansbury lived most of the year in California. In 1991, she had Corymore House, a farmhouse at Ballywilliam, County Cork, built as her new family home. She spend Christmases and summers there.
Following the end of "Murder, She Wrote", Lansbury returned to a career as a theatrical actress. She temporarily retired from the stage in 2001, to take care of her husband Peter Shaw, whose health was failing. Shaw died in 2003, from congestive heart failure at the couple's Brentwood, California home. Their marriage had lasted for 54 years (1949-2003).
Lansbury felt at the time that she could not take on any more major acting roles, but that she could still make cameos. She moved back to New York City in 2006, buying a condominium in Manhattan. Her first prominent film role in years was that of Aunt Adelaide in the fantasy film "Nanny McPhee" (2005). She credits her performance in the film with pulling her out of depression, a state of mind which had lasted since her husband's death.
Lansbury returned to performing on the Broadway stage in 2007, after an absence of 23 years. In 2009, she won her fifth Tony Award. She shared the record for most Tony Award victories with Julie Harris (1925-2013). In the 2010s, she continued regularly appearing in theatrical performances. In 2014, she returned to the London stage, after an absence of nearly 40 years.
In 2015, Lansbury received her first Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actress. At age 89, she was among the oldest first-time winners. Also in 2015, November 2015 was awarded the Oscar Hammerstein Award for Lifetime Achievement in Musical Theatre.
In 2017, she was cast as Aunt March in the mini-series "Little Women". The mini-series was an adaptation of the 1868-1869 novel of the same name by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888). The series lasted for 3 episodes, and was critically well received.
In 2018, Lansbury gained her next film role in Disney's fantasy film "Mary Poppins Returns" (2018), a sequel to "Mary Poppins". Lansbury was cast in the role of the Balloon Lady, a kindly old woman who sells balloons at the park. The films was a commercial hit, earning about 350 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
In 2019, Lansbury performed at a one-night benefit staging of Oscar Wilde's play "The Importance of Being Earnest" (1895). a farce satirizing Victorian morals. She was cast in the role of society lady Lady Bracknell, mother to Gwendolen Fairfax.
By 2020, Lansbury was 95 years old, one of the oldest-living actresses. She has never retired from acting, and remains a popular icon.