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1-15 of 15
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Character actor Jason Wingreen was born on October 9, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York City. The son of a Jewish tailor father, Wingreen grew up in the Howard Beach neighborhood of Queens. Jason attended John Adams High School and majored in English and Speech at Brooklyn College (he initially planned on being a sportswriter and wrote about high school sporting events for the daily newspaper the Brooklyn Eagle during his high school years). While at Brooklyn College Wingreen caught the acting bug after taking a mandatory speech course and joined the undergraduate theater group the Masquers, which he became president of in his senior year at college. Following graduation from Brooklyn College in June, 1941, Jason got his first show business job with a marionette company.
Wingreen went on to serve in the armed forces during World War II as a member of the 81st Fighter Squadron, 50th Fighter Group, 9th Air Force. In the wake of his tour of duty, Jason returned to Howard Beach and went to the New School on the G.I. Bill. Wingreen helped to found the famed Circle in the Square Theatre company in Greenwich Village in the early 1950's and in 1954 acted for the first time on Broadway in the plays "Fragile Fox" and "The Girl on the Via Flaminia." Jason acted on his first TV show in 1955 and acted in his first movie shortly thereafter. In addition, Wingreen was a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences since the early 1960's. Jason died at age 95 at his home in Los Angeles, California on December 25, 2015. He's survived by his son Ned, two grandchildren, and his sister Harriett Wingreen, who was the orchestra pianist for the New York Philharmonic for several decades.- Actress
- Director
- Soundtrack
Sadhana was born on September 2, 1941 and was named after her father's favorite actress Sadhona Bose. Her father and actor Hari Shivdasani were brothers, and Hari's daughter is actress Babita Kapoor. Sadhana was an only child and her parents made her the center of their lives; in fact, her mother home-schooled her until she was 8 years old. The family fled from Karachi in Pakistan during Post Partition riots. Although they encountered difficult times, their daughter was allowed to see as many as two films a week. When she was 15 years old, she was discovered by some producers who had seen her act in a college play. They cast her in India's first Sindhi film titled Abana (1960), where she played the heroine's younger sister for which she was paid a token of Rps. 1 and the film became a major hit. A photograph of her publicizing the film appeared in a movie magazine. Subodh Mukherji, one of India's leading producers at that time, saw the magazine and gave her the lead role in her first Hindi film Love in Simla (1959), opposite his newcomer son, Joy Mukherjee. The film was directed by another newcomer, R.K. Nayyar, who created her trademark look called 'the Sadhana fringe.' It was modeled after Audrey Hepburn's hairstyle to cover up Sadhana's flaw, her broad forehead. The film became a great success and Sadhana became a overnight star. She also fell in love with the film's director, but she was only 16 years old, and her parents threatened the 22-year-old Nayyar with legal action if he didn't end the relationship. He became scared and backed away.
Sadhana continued making films and became the one of the biggest stars of the 1960s with hits like Mere Mehboob, Hum Dono, and Asli-Naqli. In addition to the 'Sadhana fringe,' she started the trend of the churidar pyjama and kameez with saleem shai in the film Waqt (1965). Her acting in that film was appreciated too, as she was nominated for a Film Fare Award as Best Actress.
Sadhana had stated that she subconsciously modeled her acting style after her idol, Nutan. Most of her films were major hits, and many of them still remembered as all time classics. Her films such as Ek Musafir Ek Hasina, Raaj Kumar, Budtameez and Arzoo were known for their romantic plots and beautiful music, but Raj Khosla, her director in Ek Musafir Ek Hasina, saw an enigmatic, mysterious side to Sadhana and cast her in Woh Kaun Thi (1964). The film became a huge hit with its themes of the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo (1958) and gave Sadhana her signature role of the "mystery girl," where her performance kept everyone guessing till the very end. She was nominated for a Film Fare Award as Best Actress, and Khosla later directed her in two more box-office hit suspense thrillers, Mera Saaya (1965)and Anita (1968).
Sadhana also worked well with her leading men, Shammi Kapoor, Sunil Dutt, Rajendra Kumar, and Raj Kapoor. In fact, it was Raj Kapoor who reintroduced her to her first film director, R.K. Nayyar. They fell in love again and wanted to get married. Her mother was against it, since Nayyar wasn't a Sindhi and wanted someone who looked like actor Rajendra Kumar Tuli, but Sadhana was adamant and with her father backing her up, her mother eventually came around. Sadhana and Nayyar married in 1966 and it seemed like she retired from films. At first, she was content to be a housewife and took cooking lessons and became well-known in the film industry for her culinary skills. But she had serious health problems with her thyroid, and she went to Boston for treatment and she recovered, but there was a physical change. The thyroid condition affected the appearance of her eyes. Her husband's financial problems propelled her return to films after a two-year absence and delivered the hit film Inteqam (1969) directed by her husband followed by by another hit film Ek Phool Do Mali (1969). She and Nayyar went through a difficult time when she suffered a miscarriage. Later they had no children. She directed and starred in her last film playing dual roles in Geeta Mera Naam (1974), which was a box office hit. She wanted to end her acting career in Hindi films just as she started, in a starring role as a young heroine. She didn't want to play supporting character roles as a old mother or a bhabhi (sister-in-law), so she retired as an actress and formed a production company with her husband. Their marriage lasted until his death in the 1990s. She closed down the production company and retired, quietly living the life of a widow. The real-life "mystery girl" rarely gave interviews and didn't like to be photographed saying that she wants her fans to remember her as a young, beautiful, heroine. She faced turbulent times in her later years. Sadhana lived as an tenant in an apartment building for many years, when the builder wanted to evict her in 2012. Suddenly, she was thrust into the public eye when she went to the police station to file a complaint against the builder. Several court cases came out of this incident, and the stress took a toll on her fragile health. She also was estranged from her cousin Babita Kapoor because of a family problem. She did keep in touch with her friends Waheeda Rehman, Asha Parekh, Helen, and Nanda Karnataki. She once said that she and Nanda were alike, since they don't step out at public events. However, when Nanda died in 2014, she lost her comrade, and thus she suddenly changed her stance on public events. Just a few weeks later, she invited her relative, actor Ranbir Kapoor, to escort her on the ramp of a fashion show for charity. She wore a beautiful pink sari and took center-stage on the arm of the handsome young Kapoor. She looked cheerful and glamorous being in the limelight with the audience applauding her. That turned out to be her last public event, and the star that she was, she wanted that to be her lasting impression on her fans. It also left a lasting impression on her, since she kept a framed picture of her and Ranbir from that fashion show on her nightstand. A year-and-a-half later, on December 25, 2015, she died from a high fever. Her friends, fans, and the film industry veterans all attended her funeral.- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
George Clayton Johnson was born on 29 July 1929 in Cheyenne, Wyoming, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Logan's Run (1976), Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). He was married to Lola Brownstein. He died on 25 December 2015 in North Hills, California, USA.- Producer
- Writer
Paul Gregory was born on 27 August 1920 in Waukee, Iowa, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for The Night of the Hunter (1955), Ford Star Jubilee (1955) and The Naked and the Dead (1958). He was married to Kathryn (Kay) Williams Obergfel and Janet Gaynor. He died on 25 December 2015 in Desert Hot Springs, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
John Anthony Sarno, was born in New York City, New York. His family origin is Italian from Sarno, Italy. John worked for Revlon on Park Avenue and backstage at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts under Directors Arthur Miller and Elia Kazan. Elia asked him to audition and cast him to debut as a Spear Holder on stage. He attended schools in New York and was instructed in Stanislavski's techniques by Lee Strasberg at The Actor's Studio. There at the Actor's Studio John attended class with Al Pacino, Sidney Poitier, Ellen Burstyn, and others. John continued to work as an actor progressing to the Broadway stage as Billy Bibbit in Dale Wasserman's adaptation of Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. John was consequently cast in Director Russ Meyer's film The Seven Minutes and moved to Los Angeles, California. John Sarno was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his breakthrough performance in The Seven Minutes. John is also famous for his television work as in Smoot's death scene on Kojack, William Keho on NYPD Blue and films such as David Fincher's Zodiac. John continues to work in film as a supporting actor and recently traveled outside of California to play in the film: Monday at 11:01 AM. John Anthony Sarno passed away on Christmas Day, 25 December 2015 from lung cancer.- Alan Mason was born on 11 February 1931 in Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Doctor Who (1963), The Avengers (1961) and The Wednesday Play (1964). He was married to Diana Bishop. He died on 25 December 2015 in London, England, UK.
- During a long association with the master farceur Ray Cooney, Brian Godfrey appeared in many of the veteran's romps, most notably Run for Your Wife. He also took part in foreign tours mounted by Derek Nimmo in his role as an impresario. In addition, he played dame or ugly sister for no fewer than 25 years for Qdos Entertainment, the world's largest pantomime producer.
Godfrey came from a theatrical family. His grandmother appeared in pantomime at the old Surrey Theatre; his uncle was the Cockney character actor, Tommy Godfrey. At the age of 14, he was seen in the Judy Garland movie I Could Go On Singing. For Cooney, he was assistant director at the Whitehall Theatre. In Run for Your Wife, he was cast as Bobby Franklin, the gay neighbour of a bigamously married cab driver, whose life, in the tradition of farce, is unbelievably complicated. He played the role more than any other actor, both in London and around the world. Other Cooney farces in which he took part included Wife Begins at Forty and Caught in the Net.
Godfrey's television career began with Z-Cars and Dr Finlay's Casebook and went on to embrace Jackanory, Father, Dear Father, the Kenny Everett Television Show and Hi-de-Hi!, in which he played a holiday camp comic after Ted Bovis, portrayed by Paul Shane, was sacked.
His film career was less successful. Queen Kong, a 1976 spoof of King Kong, never even made it to the screen after the producer Dino De Laurentiis (whose own big-budget remake was released the same year) successfully launched a legal injunction against it. The 2012 cinema version of Run for Your Wife, in which Godfrey had a cameo role, grossed only £600 during its first weekend after being panned by the critics.
Brian Godfrey was born on May 26, 1949 and died on December 25, 2015 at the age of 66. - Karen Friesicke was born on 11 April 1962 in Hamburg, West Germany. She was an actress, known for Rote Rosen (2006), Supai Zoruge (2003) and Die Gang (1997). She died on 25 December 2015 in Hamburg, Germany.
- Ottavio Jemma was born on 1 January 1925 in Salerno, Campania, Italy. He was a writer, known for Sacco & Vanzetti (1971), When Women Had Tails (1970) and Bambina (1974). He was married to Enza Sampò. He died on 25 December 2015 in Rome, Italy.
- Robert Spitzer was born on 22 May 1932 in White Plains, New York, USA. He was married to Judith Berg and Janet Williams. He died on 25 December 2015 in Seattle, Washington, USA.
- Bouboule was born on 4 August 1916 in Paris, France. She was an actress, known for La gosseline (1923), Pierrot, Pierrette (1924) and Le p'tit Parigot (1926). She died on 25 December 2015 in Paris, France.
- Ignacio Rupérez was married to Francisca Morey. He died on 25 December 2015 in Madrid, Spain.
- Vladimir Kamardin was born on 5 June 1960. He was an actor, known for An Ordinary Miracle (1979). He died on 25 December 2015.
- Manuel Agujetas died on 25 December 2015 in Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, Andalucía, Spain.
- Andrei Galushko was born on 24 June 1959 in Ilovaysk, Donetsk Oblast, Ukrainian SSR, USSR [now Ilovaisk, Ukraine]. He was an actor, known for Predel zhelaniy (1983), Skoryy poezd (1988) and Sindikat-2 (1981). He died on 25 December 2015 in Moscow, Russia.