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- Director
- Writer
- Actor
Art Clokey was born on 12 October 1921 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was a director and writer, known for Gumby: The Movie (1995), Gumby Adventures (1988) and The Gumby Show (1956). He was married to Gloria Clokey and Ruth Clokey. He died on 8 January 2010 in Los Osos, California, USA.- Mina Bern was born on 5 May 1911 in Bielsk Podlaski, Podlaskie, Poland. She was an actress, known for It Could Happen to You (1994), Celebrity (1998) and Flawless (1999). She was married to Ben Bonus. She died on 10 January 2010 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Elizabeth Moody was born on 29 October 1939 in Worthing, Sussex, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Dead Alive (1992), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and Heavenly Creatures (1994). She was married to Terence Moody. She died on 12 January 2010 in Christchurch, New Zealand.
- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Teddy Pendergrass was born on 26 March 1950 in Kingstree, South Carolina, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for The Nutty Professor (1996), Undercover Brother (2002) and 40 Days and 40 Nights (2002). He was married to Joan Pendergrass and Karen Still. He died on 13 January 2010 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA.- Mark Jones was born on 22 April 1939 in the UK. He was an actor, known for Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Under Milk Wood (1971) and Doctor Who (1963). He died on 14 January 2010 in Shropshire, England, UK.
- Madeline Charanis was born on 4 February 1911 in Lier, Belgium. She was an actress, known for The Deadly Spawn (1983). She died on 18 January 2010 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929, in Crouch End, London. As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). She had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), produced by Gabriel Pascal, starring Vivien Leigh, and co-starring her future husband Stewart Granger. Pascal saw potential in Simmons, and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organization, and she went on to make a name for herself in such major British productions as Great Expectations (1946) (as the spoiled, selfish Estella), Black Narcissus (1947) (as a sultry native beauty), Hamlet (1948) (playing Ophelia to Laurence Olivier's great Dane and earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination), The Blue Lagoon (1949) and So Long at the Fair (1950), among others.
In 1950, she married Stewart Granger, and that same year, she moved to Hollywood. While Granger was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned RKO Pictures. Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances. Her first Hollywood film was Androcles and the Lion (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by Angel Face (1952), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum. To further punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to Paramount, where William Wyler wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film Roman Holiday (1953); the role made a star of Audrey Hepburn. A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952. They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money. Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio - she would be lent out. MGM cast her in the lead of Young Bess (1953) playing a young Queen Elizabeth I with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled Affair with a Stranger (1953) with Mature; it flopped.
Simmons went over to 20th Century Fox to play the female lead in The Robe (1953), the first CinemaScope movie and an enormous financial success. Less popular was The Actress (1953) at MGM alongside Spencer Tracy, despite superb reviews; it was one of her personal favorites. Fox asked Simmons back for The Egyptian (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular. She had the lead in Columbia's A Bullet Is Waiting (1954). More popular with moviegoers was Désirée (1954), where Simmons played Désirée Clary to Marlon Brando's Napoleon Bonaparte. Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955). She then starred in the musical Guys and Dolls (1955) with Brando and Frank Sinatra; she used her own singing voice and earned her first Golden Globe Award. Simmons played the title role in Hilda Crane (1956) at Fox, a commercial failure. So, too, were This Could Be the Night (1957) and Until They Sail (1957), both at MGM. Simmons had a big success, though, in The Big Country (1958), directed by Wyler. She starred in Home Before Dark (1958) at Warner Bros. and This Earth Is Mine (1959) with Rock Hudson at Universal.
Simmons divorced Granger in 1960 and almost immediately married writer-director Richard Brooks, who cast her as Sister Sharon opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960), a memorable adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. That same year, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) and played a would-be homewrecker opposite Cary Grant in The Grass Is Greener (1960).
Off the screen for a few years, Jean captivated moviegoers with a brilliant performance as the mother in All the Way Home (1963), a literate, tasteful adaptation of James Agee's "A Death in the Family". However, after that, she found quality projects somewhat harder to come by, and took work in Life at the Top (1965), Mister Buddwing (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), Rough Night in Jericho (1967), The Happy Ending (1969) (a Richard Brooks film for which she was again Oscar-nominated, this time as Best Actress).
Jean continued making films well into the 1970s. In the 1980s, she appeared mainly in television miniseries, such as North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and The Thorn Birds (1983). She made a comeback to films in 1995 in How to Make an American Quilt (1995) co-starring Winona Ryder and Anne Bancroft, and most recently voiced the elderly Sophie in the English version of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004). She now resided in Santa Monica, California, with her dog, Mr. Gates, and her two cats, Adisson and Megan. Jean Simmons died of lung cancer on January 22, 2010, nine days before her 81st birthday.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Best recalled as the eldest son and first member of the "Bonanza" Cartwright clan to permanently leave the Ponderosa in the hopes of greener acting pastures, dark, deep-voiced and durably handsome Pernell Roberts' native roots lay in Georgia. Born Pernell Elvin Roberts, Jr. on May 18, 1928, in North Carolina and moved to Waycross as an infant, he was singing in local USO shows while still in high school (where he appeared in plays and played the horn). He attended both Georgia Tech and the University of Maryland but flunked out of both colleges, with a two-year stint as a Marine stuck somewhere in between. He eventually decided to give acting a chance and supported himself as a butcher, forest ranger, and railroad riveter during the lean years while pursuing his craft.
On stage from the early 1950s, he gained experience in such productions as "The Adding Machine," "The Firebrand" and "Faith of Our Fathers" before spending a couple of years performing the classics with the renowned Arena Stage Company in Washington, DC. Productions there included "The Taming of the Shrew" (as Petruchio), "The Playboy of the Western Word," "The Glass Menagerie," "The Importance of Being Earnest," and "Twelfth Night." He made his Broadway debut in 1955 with "Tonight in Samarkind" and that same year won the "Best Actor" Drama Desk Award for his off-Broadway performance as "Macbeth," which was immediately followed by "Romeo and Juliet" as Mercutio. Other Broadway plays include "The Lovers" (1956) with Joanne Woodward, "A Clearing in the Woods" (1957) with Kim Stanley, a return to Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew" (1957) and "The Duchess of Malfi" (1957). He returned to Broadway fifteen years later as the title role opposite Ingrid Bergman in "Captain Brassbound's Conversion" (1972).
Pernell then headed for Hollywood and found minor roles in films before landing the pivotal role of Ben Cartwright's oldest and best-educated son Adam in the Bonanza (1959) series in 1959. The series made Roberts a bona fide TV star, while the program itself became the second longest-running TV western (after "Gunsmoke") and first to be filmed in color. At the peak of his and the TV show's popularity, Pernell, displeased with the writing and direction of the show, suddenly elected not to renew his contract and left at the end of the 1964-1965 season to the utter dismay of his fans. The show continued successfully without him, but a gap was always felt in the Cartwright family by this abrupt departure. The story line continued to leave open the possibility of a return if desired, but Pernell never did.
With his newfound freedom, Roberts focused on singing and the musical stage. One solo album was filled with folks songs entitled "Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies." Besides such standard roles in "Camelot" and "The King and I," he starred as Rhett Butler to Lesley Ann Warren's Scarlett O'Hara in a musical version of "Gone with the Wind" that did not fare well, and appeared in another misguided musical production based on the life of "Mata Hari." During this period he became an avid civil rights activist and joined other stalwarts such as Dick Gregory, Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte who took part in civil rights demonstrations during the 60s, including the Selma March.
The following years were rocky. He never found a solid footing in films with roles in rugged, foreign films such as Tibetana (1970) [The Kashmiri Run], Four Rode Out (1969), making little impression. He maintained a viable presence in TV, however, with parts in large-scale mini-series and guest shots on TV helping to keep some momentum. In 1979 he finally won another long-running series role (and an Emmy nomination) as Trapper John, M.D. (1979) in which he recreated the Wayne Rogers TV M*A*S*H (1972) role. Pernell was now heavier, bearded and pretty close to bald at this juncture (he was already wearing a toupee during his early "Bonanza" years), but still quite virile and attractive. The medical drama co-starring Gregory Harrison ran seven seasons.
The natural-born Georgia rebel was a heavily principled man and spent a life-time of work fighting racism, segregation, and sexism, notably on TV. He was constantly at odds with the "Bonanza" series writers of his concerns regarding equality. He also kept his private life private. Married and divorced three times, he had one son, Jonathan Christopher, by first wife Vera. Jonathan was killed in a motorcycle crash in 1989. In the 1990s, Pernell starred in his last series as host of FBI: The Untold Stories (1991). It had a short life-span.
Retiring in the late 1990s, Roberts was diagnosed with cancer in 2007 and died about two years later at age 81 on January 24, 2010, survived by fourth wife Eleanor Criswell. As such, the rugged actor, who never regretted leaving the "Bonanza" series, managed to outlive the entire Cartwright clan (Dan Blocker died in 1972; Lorne Greene in 1987); and Michael Landon in 1991).- Erika Young was born on 18 May 1918 in Germany. She was an actress, known for The Princess Diaries (2001), Clownhouse (1989) and Sounder, Part 2 (1976). She died on 25 February 2010 in Marysville, California, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Betty Lou Keim was born, in 1938, in Malden, Massachusetts. She made her debut as Peggy Allison in the television series, My Son Jeep (1953). She later appeared on The Philco Television Playhouse (1948) and The Alcoa Hour (1955). Two movie roles followed in 1956, those being These Wilder Years (1956) and Teenage Rebel (1956). Betty's best performance was in Some Came Running (1958). In this fine film, she played Dawn Hirsh, the pretty, out of control daughter of a small town jeweler and his wife, played by Arthur Kennedy and Leora Dana. After appearing in the TV series The Deputy (1959) as Fran McCord in 1959, Betty married Warren Berlinger in 1960 and left show business. They have four children.- A marvelously quirky and distinctive 4' 3" character actress, with a larger-than-life presence on film and TV, Zelda Rubinstein gave up a long and stable career in the medical field as a lab technician in order to strive for something more self-fulfilling as middle age settled in. At the age of 45, the feisty lady gave up the comfort of a stable paycheck and attempt an acting career, a daunting task for anyone but especially someone of her stature and type. Within a few years, she had beaten the odds and became a major movie celebrity thanks to one terrific showcase in a Steven Spielberg horror classic. In the process, she served as an inspiration to all the "little people" working in Hollywood who are forced to toil in cruel and demeaning stereotypes.
Zelda May Rubinstein was born on May 28, 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Dolores and George Rubinstein, who were Polish Jewish immigrants. Zelda was the youngest of three children, and the only "little person" in the family. Her childhood and teenage years were decidedly difficult in terms of coping with her "interesting variation," which was caused by a pituitary gland deficiency. With no designs on acting at the time, she went the normal route of college and received a scholarship to study at the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her degree in bacteriology and worked for a number of years as a lab technician in blood banks. In 1978, Zelda, in a pursuit of something more creative in her life, abandoned her cushy but mundane job and threw herself completely into acting. She made her movie debut as one of the little people in the Chevy Chase slapstick comedy Under the Rainbow (1981). It all came together so quickly with her second film Poltergeist (1982) in the scene-stealing role of Tangina, the saucy, self-confident, prune-faced "house cleaner" with the whispery, doll-like voice who is brought in to rid a suburban home of demonic possession. Co-writer/producer Spielberg claims he designed the psychic role specifically for a "little person". The film became an instant summertime hit and Zelda created absolute magic and wonderment with the testy role, receiving some of the movie's best reviews. The character actress went on to appear in the two "Poltergeist" sequels. The "Poltergeist" movie projects were eventually dubbed "cursed" due to the untimely deaths of some of its performers, particularly two of the three children of film parents Craig T. Nelson and JoBeth Williams. 22-year-old Dominique Dunne was slain in 1982 by a jealous ex-boyfriend only a few months after the first film's release, and angelic little Heather O'Rourke, age 12, died of an intestinal obstruction just months before Poltergeist III (1988) made it to the screen.
Although Zelda would not find a role quite up to the standards and popularity of Tangina, her subsequent career remained surprisingly active with a number of weird parts woven into both comedies and chillers -- often variations of her eccentric Tangina role. She played a mental patient in the Frances Farmer biopic Frances (1982), which showcased Jessica Lange in the Oscar-nominated title role; a squeaky-shoed organist in John Hughes sweet-sixteen comedy classic Sixteen Candles (1984) co-starring Brat Packers Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall; the demented mom in the gruesome, Spanish-made horror-thriller Anguish (1987) [aka Anguish], which has since reached cult status; a mentor witch in the comic fantasy Teen Witch (1989); a hermit in a National Lampoon-based slapstick Last Resort (1994); a betting clerk in the Sci-Fi adventure Timemaster (1995); an ill-fated nun in the thriller Little Witches (1996), and; a theatre director in the flick Critics and Other Freaks (1997).
Into the millennium, she made some odd, slapdash appearances in such minor fare as Maria & Jose (2000), Wishcraft (2002), Cages (2005), Angels with Angles (2005), Unbeatable Harold (2006) and Southland Tales (2006). In her last film, she furthered her horror icon status with a small cameo in the slim-budgeted indie Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006) that also featured Robert Englund of "Freddy Krueger" fame. Zelda also found an "in" doing voiceovers, her doll-like tones ideal for cartoons and such, and in commercials promoting such items as Skittles candy. She enjoyed extended popularity on TV with a regular series role on the first couple of seasons of Picket Fences (1992). Her character later was killed off in a freakish accident (fell into a freezer!). In her last years she narrated, and "Exorcist" child star Linda Blair hosted, TV's Scariest Places on Earth (2000). The actress also appeared on stage in such productions as "Deathtrap" (as a psychic, of course), "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Suddenly, Last Summer," "The Slab Boys" and "Black Comedy". She also appeared as Yente in a production of "Fiddler on the Roof".
An outspoken social activist, Zelda was a staunch advocate for the rights of little people who formed the nonprofit Michael Dunn Memorial Repertory Theater Company in Los Angeles in 1985. The actress gained additional attention and respect, if not popularity (her career suffered for a time as a result), as an early and outspoken HIV/AIDS activist. As the poster mom for AIDS awareness, she valiantly appeared in a series of maternal newspaper/billboard advertisements imploring her gay son to practice safe sex. The series of ads ran from the mid-to-late 1980s. Zelda also participated in the first AIDS Project Los Angeles AIDS Walk and attended the 25th Anniversary Walk on October 12, 2009.
A couple of months before her death on January 27, 2010, Zelda suffered a heart attack. Complications set in (kidney and lung failure) and she passed away at age 76 on January 27, 2010, at Barlow Respiratory Hospital in Los Angeles, California. - Writer
- Additional Crew
U.S. writer whose novel "The Catcher in the Rye" (1951) won critical acclaim and devoted admirers, especially among the post-World War II generation of college students. His entire corpus of published works consists of that one novel and 13 short stories, all originally written in the period 1948-59. Salinger was the son of a Jewish father and a mother who adopted Judaism, and, like Holden Caulfield, the hero of "The Catcher in the Rye", he grew up in New York City, attending public schools and a military academy. After brief periods at New York and Columbia universities, he devoted himself entirely to writing, and his stories began to appear in periodicals in 1940. After his return from service in the U.S. Army (1942-46), Salinger's name and writing style became increasingly associated with "The New Yorker" magazine, which published almost all of his later stories. Some of the best of these made use of his wartime experiences: "For Esmé - With Love and Squalor" (1950) describes a U.S. soldier's poignant encounter with two British children; "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" (1948) concerns the suicide of the sensitive, despairing veteran Seymour Glass. Major critical and popular recognition came with the publication of "The Catcher in the Rye", whose central character, a sensitive, rebellious adolescent, relates in authentic teenage idiom his flight from the "phony" adult world, his search for innocence and truth, and his final collapse on a psychiatrist's couch. The humor and colorful language of "The Catcher in the Rye" place it in the tradition of Mark Twain's "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and the stories of Ring Lardner, but its hero, like most of Salinger's child characters, views his life with an added dimension of precocious self-consciousness. "Nine Stories" (1953), a selection of Salinger's best work, added to his reputation. The reclusive habits of Salinger,an obsessively private man especially over the last half-century of his life, made his personal life a matter of speculation among devotees, while his small literary output was a subject of controversy among critics. "Franny and Zooey" (1961) brought together two earlier New Yorker stories; both deal with the Glass family, as do the two stories in "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters"; and "Seymour: An Introduction" (1963).- Jack Brisco was born on 21 September 1941 in Blackwell, Oklahoma, USA. He was an actor, known for WWF Championship Wrestling (1972), WCW Worldwide (1975) and Saturday Night's Main Event (1985). He was married to Jan Carol Bateman and Sandra Lee Riney. He died on 1 February 2010 in Tampa, Florida, USA.
- Producer
David Brown was born on 28 July 1916 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer, known for The Player (1992), Cocoon (1985) and Jaws (1975). He was married to Helen Gurley Brown. He died on 1 February 2010 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Sam Gray was born on 18 July 1923 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Wolfen (1981), Celebrity (1998) and The Cowboy Way (1994). He died on 1 February 2010 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Born in Wichita Falls, Texas, and was raised in Berkeley, California, she attended/graduated at The Pasadena Community Playhouse where her major was acting, and she pursued her career immediately. The Emmy Award nominee who has played Alice Horton for the entire 37 years that Days of Our Lives has been on the air, is daytime's television's most beloved mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. As one of the two remaining original cast members, she is indisputably one of the most revered veterans in soap opera history. She has won the Soap Opera Digest Award for Outstanding Actress/Mature Role in 1978, 1979, 1984 and 1985, and was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series in 1986-87, and for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 1978-79. It should come as a surprise that many longtime fans that watched Days who knew her as Alice that Frances had an accomplished acting career prior to her debut on November 8, 1965. Her Broadway appearances include Hamlet with Maurice Evans, Cyrano de Bergerac with Jose Ferrer, Twelfth Night and a Theater Hill production of The Rivals with Mary Boland. Her first radio job was at NBC as Ann Rutledge in Prologue To Glory, which was followed by her role of Mrs. Moonlight in Mrs. Moonlight and Charlotte Corday in Charlotte Corday. Little did she know at that time how the name Corday was to play an important role in her life. Her television credits include "The Eleventh Hour," "Little Mister," "Wagon Train," and the movie-of-the-week, "Mercy Or Murder?"
- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Unassuming, innocent-eyed and undeniably ingratiating, Brit comedy actor Ian Carmichael was quite the popular chap in late 50s and early 60s film. He was born in Hull, Yorkshire, England on June 18, 1920, the son of Arthur Denholm Carmichael, an optician, and his wife Kate (Gillett). After receiving his schooling at Bromsgove High School and Scarborough College, he was accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and trained there, making his stage debut as a mute robot in "RUR". in 1939. That same year he also appeared as Claudius in "Julius Caesar" and was appearing a revue production of "Nine Sharp" (1940) when his young career was interrupted by WWII. He served in Europe for many years with the Royal Armoured Corps as a commissioned officer in the 22nd Dragoons.
Ian returned to the theatre in 1947 with roles in four productions: "She Wanted a Cream Front Door", "I Said to Myself", "Cupid and Mars" and "Out of the Frying Pan". He also sharpened his farcical skills in music hall revues where he worked with such revue legends as Hermione Baddeley and Dora Bryan. Given his first film bit as a waiter in Bond Street (1948), he continued in rather obscure roles for several years. While he was sincerely capable of playing it serious, which would include roles in the U.S. film Betrayed (1954) starring Clark Gable and Lana Turner, as well as the war-themed adventures The Colditz Story (1955) and Storm Over the Nile (1955), it was his association with late 50s "silly-ass" comedy that gave his cinematic career a noticeable boost. After repeating his stage success (the only cast member to do do) playing David Prentice in the film version of Simon and Laura (1955) opposite Kay Kendall and Peter Finch, he co-starred in a series of droll satires for the Boulting Brothers and Ealing Studios. While he might have been upstaged on occasion by a motley crew of scene-stealers (Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Raymond Huntley, Margaret Rutherford), Ian was sublimely funny himself as the hapless klutz caught up in their shenanigans. Private's Progress (1956), the service comedy which got the whole ball rolling, and its sequel, I'm All Right Jack (1959), along with the Boulting's Lucky Jim (1957) Brothers in Law (1957) and Happy Is the Bride (1958) firmly established Ian as a slapstick movie star.
The inane fun continued into the 60s with ripe vehicles in Skywatch (1960), School for Scoundrels (1960), Double Bunk (1961), The Amorous Mr. Prawn (1962) and Heavens Above! (1963). During the late 1960s and 1970s, he found more fulfillment playing wry, bemused, upper-crust characters on comedy TV, particularly his Bertie Wooster in The World of Wooster (1965) which reunited him with frequent Boulting Brothers co-star Dennis Price as Jeeves, Wooster's chilly-mannered personal valet. Ian's leading role as the Bachelor Father (1970), based on the story of a real-life perennial bachelor who took on several foster children, only added to his popularity. In later years, he was frequently heard on the BBC radio.
Ian made vigilant returns to the comedy stage whenever possible in such lightweight vehicles as "The Tunnel of Love", "The Gazebo", "Critic's Choice", "Birds on the Wing", "Darling, I'm Home", "Springtime for Henry" and appeared in his last musical "I Do! I Do!" in 1968. Earlier, in 1965, he made his Broadway debut starring in "Boeing-Boeing", which lasted only a few weeks. A more successful revival of this show showed up on Broadway in 2008.
Semi-retired since the mid-1980s, Ian continued to show elderly spryness here and there with a smattering of films including The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971), From Beyond the Grave (1974), The Lady Vanishes (1979) and Diamond Skulls (1989). On TV, he was quite popular in the role of the gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey in several crime mystery mini-series: Clouds of Witness (1972), The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (1972), Murder Must Advertise (1973), The Nine Tailors (1974) and Five Red Herrings (1975), and had a recurring role on the TV series Strathblair (1992).
To cap his career off, he was honored as an OBE in the 2003 Queen's Birthday Honours List. Made a widower after 40 years by his first wife Jean (Pym) McLean, he married novelist/radio producer Kate Fenton, who is over thirty years his junior, in 1992. He has two daughters, Lee and Sally, from his first marriage. In 1979, his autobiography, "Will the Real Ian Carmichael?...", was published.
A charmer to the end, his last (recurring) appearance was on the TV series The Royal (2003) in 2009. The actor died on February 7, 2010, following a month-long illness.- Actor
- Stunts
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Robert F. Hoy was equally at home as a stuntman and as an actor. He appeared as Joe Butler on the acclaimed TV Western, The High Chaparral. He stunt-doubled for such actors as Charles Bronson, Tony Curtis, Robert Forrester, Ross Martin, Tyrone Power, David Jansen, and Telly Savalas. He appeared in such films as The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Lone Ranger, Gambler II, Nevada Smith, Bronco Billy, and The Enforcer, and on television in such programs as Wanted Dead or Alive, Walker Texas Ranger, JAG, Dallas (recurring role), The Wild Wild West, Magnum P.I. (five episodes), and The Young Riders. Aside from appearing in front of the cameras, he was the 2nd Unit Director and Stunt Coordinator in Spain on the TV series Zorro and on the pilot episode of The Three Musketeers.
In his work as a stuntman, Bob specialized in horse work, although he was also called upon to double in fight scenes, do car work and handle high falls. The films in which lead actors and others were doubled for stunts are too numerous to mention but include: Operation Petticoat, The Defiant Ones, Spartacus, Tobruk, They Call Me Bruce, River of No Return, To Hell and Back, Drumbeat, Wings of the Hawk, and Revenge of the Creature From the Black Lagoon.
He held lifetime membership in the Stuntmen's Association, of which he was a founding member. He was also a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures, Arts and Sciences, Directors Guild of America, AFTRA, and the Screen Actors Guild (later SAG-AFTRA).- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Caroline McWilliams was born on 4 April 1945 in Seattle, Washington, USA. She was an actress and director, known for Mermaids (1990), Benson (1979) and Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990). She was married to Michael Keaton. She died on 11 February 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Editor
Andrew Koenig was born on 17 August 1968 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor and director, known for InAlienable (2007), Batman: Dead End (2003) and Growing Pains (1985). He died on 14 February 2010 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.- Character actor John Davis Chandler was born on January 28, 1935, in Hinton, West Virginia. He was raised in Charleston, West Virginia. Tall and thin, with fair hair, piercing blue eyes, a pale complexion and a nasal, whiny voice, Chandler specialized in portraying mean, neurotic and dangerous villains. He made an impressive film debut in his sole starring part as the titular sniveling, psychotic, homicidal weasel gangster in Mad Dog Coll (1961). He acted in a trio of Westerns for director Sam Peckinpah, and is especially memorable (and frightening) as the creepy Jimmy Hammond in the magnificent Ride the High Country (1962). He was excellent as vicious punk Arthur Reardon in The Young Savages (1961). He made an effectively loathsome appearance as a vile bushwhacker in the supremely spooky horror-western The Shadow of Chikara (1977) and had a nice bit as a bounty hunter in Clint Eastwood's terrific The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976). He even played a good guy--of sorts--in Peckinpah's Major Dundee (1965).
Chandler popped up in three entertaining drive-in exploitation features for director William Grefé: at his wacky best as the crazed, doped-up Acid in The Hooked Generation (1968), a foul shark poacher in the fun Jaws (1975) copy Mako: The Jaws of Death (1976) and an evil pot farmer in Whiskey Mountain (1977). Among the many TV shows John did guest spots on are Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), Walker, Texas Ranger (1993), Chicago Hope (1994) ER (1994), Simon & Simon (1981), Hunter (1984), Murder, She Wrote (1984), Hill Street Blues (1981), T.J. Hooker (1982), Fantasy Island (1977), The Incredible Hulk (1978), Police Woman (1974), Gunsmoke (1955), Adam-12 (1968), The Fugitive (1963), Combat! (1962), The Rifleman (1958), Route 66 (1960) and The Virginian (1962). In real life he was an avid practitioner of yoga. Chandler died at age 75 on February 16, 2010 in Toluca Lake, California. - Actress
- Soundtrack
Kathryn Grayson was born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick in Winston-Salem, NC, on February 9, 1922. This pretty, petite brunette with a heart-shaped face was discovered by MGM talent scouts while singing on the radio. The studio quickly signed her to a contract, and she was given acting lessons along and had to pose for countless publicity photos. Kathryn, a coloratura soprano, made her first film in 1941, a "B" picture called Andy Hardy's Private Secretary (1941). She soon was cast opposite some of MGM's top musical stars of the 1940s, such as Gene Kelly and Mario Lanza. She was paired with Lanza a few times, but the two never got along due mostly to Lanza's hot temper and alcohol abuse. The pairing of Lanza and Grayson would never match the success of lyrical soprano Jeanette MacDonald and baritone Nelson Eddy, although Kathryn and MacDonald did become great friends. Jeanette became a mentor and an older sister figure for Kathryn.
Grayson's most memorable roles came in the early 1950s. They were Show Boat (1951), where she played "Magnolia", opposite Ava Gardner and Howard Keel; Kiss Me Kate (1953), playing actress "Lilli Vanessi", who portrayed "Katherine" in the movie's "show within a show", a musical version of "The Taming of the Shrew". In 1953 she exited MGM, then made only one more film, The Vagabond King (1956), at Paramount. She later worked in nightclubs and on stage.- Actor
- Director
- Camera and Electrical Department
Born in New York City, Jamie Gillis trained as a legitimate actor. In the early 1970s he drifted into performing in pornographic films, and continued to work in that field through the late 1990s. Despite the occasional foray into "legitimate" film, such as a cameo in Nighthawks (1981), Gillis remained identified with the porn industry, and is regarded as one of its most prolific and potent actors. After a stint as one of the "Nasty Bros". in producer Ed Powers' series of amateur "Dirty Debutantes" series, Gillis began branching out to produce homemade porn videos of his own, some of them made in France (where he was able to show off his command of the French language). Never having made a secret of his bisexuality, Gillis made his first all-gay porn film in 1997, a sado-masochistic video in which he did not actually perform sex acts, but rather issued orders to the other members of the cast.- Actor
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- Director
With his bald head, firm jawline and bristling moustache, Lionel Jeffries played a nice line of English eccentrics. This belied his RADA training. Following military service in WWII, he played his major roles - everything from Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) to the Marquis of Queensberry in The Trials of Oscar Wilde (1960) - in the 1960s.
His surprisingly brief career as a director included the highly popular family films The Railway Children (1970) and The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972).- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Richard Devon wanted to be an actor from the time he was in first grade and played a small part in a school production. After finishing high school he answered a small ad in a Los Angeles newspaper for a school that offered training to the novice actor. This drama school, "Stage Eight", allowed him to work his way through, as he hadn't the money for tuition. He painted walls, built sets, waxed floors and strung lights. It was during this time that he made his first live television appearance for the experimental TV station W6XAO, atop Mt. Lee in the Hollywood Hills. Amidst much additional work in TV, Devon also played a recurring character in the kiddie-oriented teleseries Space Patrol (1950) (when Devon asked for a pay hike, his character was put into permanent suspended animation). He made his first film in the early '50s.- Actor
- Writer
Martin Benson was born on 10 August 1918 in London, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for The Omen (1976), The King and I (1956) and Goldfinger (1964). He was married to Joan Hayward and Joy. He died on 28 February 2010 in Markyate, Hertfordshire, England, UK.- Actress
- Make-Up Department
Nan Martin was born on 15 July 1927 in Decatur, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Shallow Hal (2001), A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors (1987) and Cast Away (2000). She was married to Harry Harmer Gesner and Robert Emmett Dolan. She died on 4 March 2010 in Malibu, California, USA.- Director
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- Producer
Charles Bryant Pierce was an independent filmmaker from Arkansas whose movies have become cult classics. Films that he wrote, directed and/or produced were not only made in Arkansas with local actors but also drew their inspiration from Arkansas themes. He is believed to be the source of one of the most famous lines in American film history from the 1983 film 'Sudden Impact': "Go ahead, make my day."
Charles B. Pierce was born in Hammond, IN, on June 16, 1938, the son of Mack McKenny Pierce and Mayven Bryant Pierce. When he was a few months old the family moved to Hampton, Calhoun County, in the south-central part of Arkansas. Living in Hampton, Pierce grew up next door to Harry Thomason, who later became successful as a producer and director of such projects as TV's "Designing Women" (1986).
According to Pierce's family, one of his chores growing up was mowing the lawn. His father came home one day at lunchtime and asked if the boy planned to mow the yard anytime soon, adding, "When I come home tonight and the yard has not been mowed, you're gonna make my day." Later in life, Pierce would use the admonition to great advantage.
In the mid-1960s, Pierce was working as an art director at KTAL-TV in Shreveport, LA, and later became a weatherman and hosted a children's cartoon program at the small independent-owned TV station. Returning to Arkansas, he started an advertising business on State Line Avenue in Texarkana, Miller County, in addition to playing a character called Mayor Chuckles on a local television show.
In 1971, there were local headlines about a Sasquatch-like creature sighted in the wetlands vicinity around the nearby town of Fouke in Miller County. The "Fouke Monster" was reportedly seen in the Boggy Creek area and was suspected of attacking dogs and livestock as well as a local family. In mid 1972, while still working in advertising, Pierce created a semi-documentary film originally titled "Tracking the Fouke Monster"--later renamed 'The Legend of Boggy Creek.' Pierce shot the movie with a 16mm camera he assembled himself at home. Much of the movie was filmed in Fouke and Texarkana with local residents and students as actors and/or crew. Estimates place the cost of making the film at about $165,000. Becoming popular as a drive-in horror feature around the country, it became one of the top ten highest-grossing movies of the year, earning over $20 million.
Earning several hundred thousand dollars in residuals from the film, Pierce used his new found wealth to write and direct several other films, which included the crime comedy-drama Bootleggers (1974), the westerns Winterhawk (1975) and The Winds of Autumn (1976), the true-life horror flick The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976), the western Grayeagle (1977), the viking adventure The Norseman (1978), another true-life thriller The Evictors (1979), the western Sacred Ground (1983), a sequel to "Boggy Creek" titled Boggy Creek II (1985), the violent western Hawken's Breed (1987), the family drama Renfroe's Christmas (1997) and Chasing the Wind (1998). His earlier films in particular were shot in Arkansas and/or featured Arkansas themes and local residents in their production.
After moving to California in the early 1980s to further his career, he became friends with actor/director Clint Eastwood while living in Carmel, where Eastwood was elected mayor in 1986. After sharing a story treatment that Eastwood liked, Pierce became a writer for the fourth in the Dirty Harry series, Sudden Impact (1983), which Eastwood directed. Its most famous line, "Go ahead, make my day," has been ranked in the top ten of the American Film Institute's top movie quotes of all time.
Returning to his own independent;y produced films, Pierce was the star, writer, director and co-producer of The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II, (1985), a sequel to "Boggy Creek" that was eventually re-titled Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues (1985). The movie also contains footage of a University of Arkansas (UA) Razorback football game in Fayetteville, Washington County), complete with hog-hatted fans.
Pierce acquired the nickname "Sparkplug" due to his energy; he was always thinking about his next project while completing another. Pierce was married to Florence Lyons, a Tennessee native, for ten years and they had three children, one of whom was Charles Pierce Jr. They eventually divorced. Pierce's second wife was Cindy Butler; they also later divorced. While filming "Hawken's Breed" in 1987 with Peter Fonda (I) in the area around Dover, TN, Pierce met his third wife Beth Pulley; they married the following year.
Along with starring and directing Boggy Creek II, Pierce acted in several of his films, in small roles; these included "Bootleggers," "The Winds of Autumn," and "The Town that Dreaded Sundown." Pierce directed a number of noted character actors, such as Slim Pickens (I), Jack Elam, Kathleen Freeman (I), Woody Strode and L.Q. Jones, along with lead actors including Jaclyn Smith (I), Dawn Wells (I), Andrew Prine, Lee Majors (I), Cornel Wilde, Mel Ferrer (I), Vic Morrow, Michael Parks (I) and Academy Award winner Ben Johnson (I).
Suffering from poor health later in life, Charles B. Pierce died on March 5, 2010, at the Signature Care nursing home in Dover, TN, at age 71, where he had been living for the past seven years. He is buried at Stewart Memorial Gardens near his home in Dover. Two years before his death, the frail-looking Pierce attended and was spotlighted by the Little Rock Film Festival in 2008 with a retrospective, received the Arkansas Arts Council's Judges Special Recognition award in 2009, honored annually by the Little Rock Film Festival through the Charles B. Pierce Award for Best Film Made in Arkansas. He was inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame in 2010.- Carol Marsh was an English actress from Southgate, an urban area which at the time of her birth was outside London. She was in the prime of her career during the late 1940s and the 1950s. She worked frequently in radio plays until the 1980s. Her later life was reportedly reclusive.
Marsh was educated at a convent school. During her school years, she often appeared in school plays. She later decided to follow an acting career, and won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music (RAM). She was trained in both acting and singing. She also received speech lessons, and additional additional lessons through joining "The Company of Youth", an acting school for young contract players maintained by British film studio The Rank Organisation.
In 1947, Marsh won an audition to play the role of Rose Brown in the film noir Brighton Rock (1948) (1948). The film was based on the popular thriller novel of the same title by Graham Greene, published in 1938, which had previously been adapted into a hit play. Marsh's character was the frail and naive wife of psychopathic gangster Pinkie Brown (played by Richard Attenborough), who is unaware that he had ulterior motives when he romanced her. Reportedly over 3,000 women had auditioned for the role. Marsh, a then-obscure rookie, was chosen due to closely matching the character's appearance and vulnerability. This was her film debut, and it is still regarded as her most popular role.
Marsh was next chosen for the lead role of Alice in a French film, "Alice in Wonderland" (1949). The film was based on the novel by Lewis Carroll, and most of Wonderland's characters were portrayed by stop-motion animated puppets. The film was not distributed in the United Kingdom, due to including a satirical version of Queen Victoria.
Marsh's third film was the romantic comedy Marry Me (1949) (1949). It included a frame story of a journalist investigating a matchmaking service, but it depicted the stories of various people involved in the service, in the style of an anthology. Marsh had the leading role of teenaged heiress Susan Graham in the romantic comedy "Helter Skelter" (1949). The film depicts Susan's efforts to avoid the matchmaking efforts of her legal guardians, to cure herself from a persistent case of hiccups, and to face the overbearing mother of her new boyfriend.
Marsh's next significant film role was in the Christmas film "Scrooge" (1951), an adaptation of the novella "A Christmas Carol" (1843) by Charles Dickens. Marsh played the role of Fan Scrooge, the beloved sister of Ebenezer Scrooge (played by Alastair Sim). The film expanded Ebenezer's backstory, fleshed out his business career, and explored his ambivalent relationship with his family; it was one of the most popular films in Britain during 1952.
Marsh next had the female lead role in the "Salute the Toff" (1952). The film was the sixth part in a film series about the upper-class detective The Toff/Richard Rollinson, based on the novels of John Creasey (1908-1973). Marsh played Fay Gretton, the woman who hires Rollinson and tasks him with locating her missing employer. The film was popular at the time of its release, but was considered lost for decades. It was rediscovered in the early 2010s, and received its first home video release.
Marsh worked extensively in radio and television during the 1950s, but her film career went on hiatus. She made a comeback in the horror film "Dracula" (1958), in her first film role since 1952. The film was a loose adaptation of the novel by Bram Stoker. Marsh played the female vampire Lucy Holmwood, based on the novel's Lucy Westenra. Marsh was one of the first actresses to portray female vampires for Hammer Film Productions, a film studio that specialized on horror films.
Marsh next played the female lead in the crime film "Man Accused" (1959), playing Kathy, a baronet's daughter. The film's protagonist Bob Jensen (played by Ronald Howard) is Kathy's fiance. Bob has been framed for murder, and tries to discover the identities of the real killers. The film was poorly received, in part due to its plot recycling elements from previous works. This was Marsh's last film role.
Marsh continued working extensively on radio, and it is estimated that she performed in over a hundred BBC radio plays. She also voiced roles for BBC's radio anthology "Children's Hour" (1922-1964), which was primarily aimed at an audience of children. During the 1970s, Marsh had a role in theatrical productions of the play "The Mousetrap" (1952) by Agatha Christie. The play features a small group of staff and residents in a guesthouse, as they start to suspect that one of them is a wanted killer. Christie used elements of the real-life Dennis O'Neill manslaughter case (1945) as elements in the origin of the play's killer.
Marsh retired in the 1980s. She spent the rest of her life in Bloomsbury, London, living alone. She never married, and (according to her obituary) became a recluse. In March 2010, she died in London, aged 83. Her name remains familiar to fans of classic British (and French) cinema, due to several of her films having had cult followings. - Actor
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Corey Haim was born in Toronto, Ontario, to Judy Haim, an Israeli-born data processor, and Bernie Haim, a clothing sales representative. He has a sister, Carol, and a half-brother, Daniel. His family is Jewish. He was raised mostly in Willowdale.
Corey appeared in 26 episodes of the early 1980s Canadian series The Edison Twins (1982). He broke into the film industry in 1984, playing a young child caught up in a family war in the movie Firstborn (1984). The following year, he starred in the TV movie A Time to Live (1985), for which he received a Young Artist Award, appeared in the comedies Secret Admirer (1985) and Murphy's Romance (1985), and had the leading role, Marty Coslaw , in the Stephen King werewolf film Silver Bullet (1985). Lucas (1986), in which he starred alongside Kerri Green and Winona Ryder, showed his acting abilities, with praise coming particularly from Roger Ebert.
In 1987, he had a breakthrough when he played one of the major roles, Sam Emerson, in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys (1987). He later starred in the comedy films License to Drive (1988) and Dream a Little Dream (1989), the horror movie Watchers (1988), and the science fiction action drama Prayer of the Rollerboys (1990). Many of his 1990s and 2000s roles were in direct-to-video releases, and he also had a cameo in the action film Crank: High Voltage (2009). His last two films were The Hostage Game (2010) and Decisions (2011).
He died suddenly on March 10, 2010 in Burbank, California, of pneumonia.- Merlin Olsen was born on 15 September 1940 in Logan, Utah, USA. He was an actor, known for Mitchell (1975), The Undefeated (1969) and Fathers and Sons (1986). He was married to Susan Wakely. He died on 11 March 2010 in Duarte, California, USA.
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- Soundtrack
Peter Graves was born Peter Duesler Aurness on March 18, 1926 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. While growing up in Minnesota, he excelled at sports and music (as a saxophonist), and by age 16, he was a radio announcer at WMIN in Minneapolis. After two years in the United States Army Air Force, he studied drama at the University of Minnesota and then headed to Hollywood, where he first appeared on television and later made his film debut in Rogue River (1951). Numerous film appearances followed, especially in Westerns. However, Graves is primarily recognized for his television work, particularly as Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible (1966). Peter Graves died of a heart attack on March 14, 2010, just four days before his 84th birthday.- Actor
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- Additional Crew
Lisle Wilson was born on 2 September 1943 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Incredible Melting Man (1977), Falcon Crest (1981) and Sisters (1972). He was married to Barbara Collins. He died on 14 March 2010 in Rancho Mirage, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
David first started acting in college stage productions and received his professional training in the theatre. Best known for his fine and appealing performance as Warwick Davis's loyal friend Meegosh in the enjoyable epic fantasy adventure "Willow," Steinberg's other film credits include "Love & Sex," "The Hebrew Hammer," "Agent One-Half," and "Transylmania." David made guest appearances on episodes of the TV series "Are You Afraid of the Dark?," "Charmed," "Ugly Betty," and "Zooey 101." Moreover, Steinberg acted in theatrical productions for the New York Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore's Central Stage, and the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis. He portrayed the lead elf in a performance of the Radio City Music Hall's Christmas Spectacular. David not only was featured in Baz Luhrmann's production of "La Boheme" in both New York and Los Angeles, but also acted in a Grammy Award-nominated national tour of "The Wizard of Oz." Steinberg moved to Valencia, California in 2004. David died at the tragically young age of 45.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
A former college athlete at the University of Texas, Fess studied drama in the early fifties and debuted in Springfield Rifle (1952). He made only a handful of movies until he was signed by Walt Disney to star in the "Davy Crockett" series. When Walt was looking for an actor to play the part of Davy, he screened the sci-fi movie Them! (1954) with James Arness. When he saw Fess in a scene, he chose him over Arness and Fess became an instant celebrity when "Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" debuted in 1955. His appeal with children was enormous with the coon-skinned hat, the #1 hit song "The Ballad Of Davy Crockett", The Davy Crockett Bubble Gum Cards and Comic Books. But the craze ended almost as fast as it started in 1956, and Fess was typecast. Fess appeared in other Disney movies dealing with the early years of Davey and also in non-Crockett parts such as Old Yeller (1957). By 1959, unable to achieve the success that he had gained as Crockett, his career had leveled off. He made guest appearances on a number of television shows, but his attempted return to television in the series Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1962) was not successful. Unable to procure the rights to play Crockett from Disney, Fess tried the frontiersman role once again with the TV series Daniel Boone (1964). He played this role for six years and the fact that he had a beautiful red-headed wife in a color series did not hurt him at all. After Daniel Boone (1964), Fess retired from the screen and went into real estate, which was profitable. He was later forced to sue his "Daniel Boone" producers over the profits generated by the series.- Mikel Scicluna was born on 29 July 1929 in Malta. He was an actor, known for WWF Championship Wrestling (1972), Spectrum Wrestling (1977) and WWF All-Star Wrestling (1972). He was married to Gloris. He died on 20 March 2010 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.
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Tall, slim and exceedingly good-looking American leading man Robert Culp, a former cartoonist in his teen years, appeared off-Broadway in the 1950s before settling into polished, clean-cut film leads and "other man" supports a decade later. Hitting the popular TV boards in the hip, racially ground-breaking espionage program I Spy (1965), he made a slick (but never smarmy), sardonic name for himself during his over five-decade career with his sly humor, casual banter and tongue-in-cheek sexiness. Though he had the requisite looks and smooth, manly appeal (not to mention acting talent) for superstardom, a cool but cynical and somewhat detached persona may have prevented him from attaining it full-out.
He was born Robert Martin Culp on August 16, 1930, in Oakland California. The son of attorney Crozie Culp and his wife, Bethel Collins, who was employed at a Berkeley chemical company, he offset his only-child loneliness by playacting in local theater productions. Culp also showed a talent for art while young and earned money as a cartoonist for Bay Area magazines and newspapers in high school, but the fascination with becoming an actor proved much stronger. He attended Berkeley High School and graduated in 1947. The athletically-inclined Culp dominated at track and field events and, as a result, earned athletic scholarships to six different universities. He selected the relatively minor College of the Pacific in Stockton, California primarily because of its active theater department. Transferring to various other colleges of higher learning (including San Francisco State in 1949), he never earned a degree. After performing in some theatre in the San Francisco area, he moved to Seattle and then New York in 1951.
Studying under famed teacher Herbert Berghof and supporting himself during this time teaching speech and phonetics, Bob eventually found work on the theatre scene, making his 1953 Broadway debut (as Robert M. Culp) in "The Prescott Proposals" with Katharine Cornell. He eventually returned to Broadway with "Diary of a Scoundrel" starring Blanche Yurka and Roddy McDowall in 1956 and with a strong role in "A Clearing in the Woods" (alongside Kim Stanley) a year later. He earned an off-Broadway Obie Award for his very fine work in "He Who Gets Slapped" in 1956, and also appeared in the plays "Daily Life" and "Easter".
Gracing a few live-TV dramas during his New York days, he returned to his native California for his first major TV role. It was an auspicious one as post-Civil War Texas Ranger "Hoby Gilman" in the western series Trackdown (1957). He earned widespread attention in the series that based many of its stories from actual Texas Ranger files, and the show itself received the official approval not only of the Rangers themselves but by the State of Texas. The series led to a CBS spin-off of its own: Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958), which made a TV star out of Steve McQueen.
From there, Culp guested on a number of series dramas: Bonanza (1959), The Rifleman (1958), Rawhide (1959), The Detectives (1959), Ben Casey (1961), The Outer Limits (1963), Naked City (1958) and Combat! (1962). He also starred in the two-part Disney family-styled program "Sammy the Way Out Seal" (1962), which was subsequently released as a feature in Europe. He and Patricia Barry played the hapless parents of precocious Bill Mumy and Michael McGreevey whose "adopted" pet animal unleashes major chaos in their suburban neighborhood.
During this time, Bob began to seek lead and supporting work in films. Despite his co-starring with Cliff Robertson, Rod Taylor and the very perky Jane Fonda (as her straight-laced boyfriend) in the sparkling Broadway-based sexcapade Sunday in New York (1963); playing Robertson's naval mate in the popular John F. Kennedy biopic PT 109 (1963); recreating the legendary "Wild Bill" Hickok in the western tale The Raiders (1963); and heading up the adventurous cast of the Ivan Tors' African yarn Rhino! (1964) (which included Harry Guardino and the very fetching British import Shirley Eaton), Culp wasn't able to make a serious dent in the medium.
TV remained his best arena and gave him more lucrative offers, professionally. It rewarded him quite richly in 1965 with the debonair series lead "Kelly Robinson", a jet-setting, pro-circuit tennis player who leads a double life as an international secret agent in I Spy (1965). Running three seasons, Culp co-starred with fellow secret agent Bill Cosby, who, as "Alexander Scott", posed as Culp's tennis trainer. The role was tailor-made for the suave, Ivy-League-looking actor. He looked effortlessly cool posing in sunglasses amid the posh continental settings and remained handsomely unflinching in the face of danger. It was the first U.S. prime-time network drama to feature an African-American actor in a full-out starring role and the relationship between the two meshed perfectly and charismatically on screen. Both were nominated for acting Emmys in all three of its seasons, with Cosby coming out the victor each time. Filmed on location in such cities as Hong Kong, Acapulco and Tokyo, Culp also wrote and directed certain episodes of the show He also met his third wife, the gorgeous Eurasian actress France Nuyen, while on the set. They married in 1967 but divorced three years later. At this stage, the actor already had four children (by second wife, sometime actress Nancy Ashe).
Following the series' demise, Culp took on perhaps his most-famous and controversial film role as Natalie Wood's husband "Bob" in the titillating but ultimately teasing "flower power" era film Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), with Elliott Gould and Dyan Cannon as the other-half couple who examine the late 60s "free love" idea of wife-swapping. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards (two went to supporting actors Gould and Cannon). The movie did not reignite Culp's popularity on the large screen, but it did lead to his rather strange pairing with buxom Raquel Welch in the violent-edged western Hannie Caulder (1971) and a reunion with his I Spy (1965) pal Cosby in the far-more entertaining Hickey & Boggs (1972), which reestablished their great tongue-in-cheek rapport as two weary-eyed private eyes. Culp also directed the film while his real-life wife, actress Sheila Sullivan, played his screen wife as well.
The late 1970s produced a flood of routine mini-movies and B-pictures, the latter including Inside Out (1975), Sky Riders (1976), Breaking Point (1976), The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday (1976), Flood (1976), Goldengirl (1979) and Hot Rod (1979). While he remained a sturdy and standard presence in such mini-movies as Houston, We've Got a Problem (1974), Spectre (1977) and Calendar Girl Murders (1984), his better TV-movie roles were in A Cold Night's Death (1973), Outrage (1973), A Cry for Help (1975) and as "Lyle Pettyjohn" in the acclaimed mini-series sequel Roots: The Next Generations (1979).
Bob returned to series TV as stern FBI Special Agent "Bill Maxwell", whose job was to work with handsome William Katt, who starred as an ersatz The Greatest American Hero (1981). The show lasted three seasons. Other series guest spots, both comedic and dramatic, included Hotel (1983), Highway to Heaven (1984), The Golden Girls (1985) and an episode of his old buddy's show The Cosby Show (1984). He was also a guest murderer in three of the "Columbo" episodes. Although he was relegated to appearing in such film fodder as Turk 182 (1985), Big Bad Mama II (1987) and Pucker Up and Bark Like a Dog (1989), the 1990s offered him one of his best film roles in years as the ill-fated President in the Denzel Washington/Julia Roberts political thriller The Pelican Brief (1993). A year later, he again reteamed with Cosby in the TV-movie I Spy Returns (1994).
Culp became very active in the 1960s Civil Rights movement and later became a prominent face in local civic causes, joining in a lawsuit to cease construction of an elephant exhibit at the Los Angeles Zoo and accusing officials there of mistreatment. In the long run, however, the construction was given the green light. Culp also married a fifth time to Candace Faulkner and, by her, had daughter Samantha Culp in 1982. Older sons Jason Culp (born 1961) and Joseph Culp (born 1963) became actors, while another son, Joshua Culp (born 1958), entered the visual effects field. Daughter Rachel, an outré clothing designer for rock stars, was born in 1964.
In later years, Culp could be seen occasionally as Ray Romano's father-in-law on the hugely popular Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). His last film, the family drama The Assignment (2010), was unreleased at the time of his death. On March 24, 2010, the 79-year-old Culp collapsed from an apparent heart attack while walking near the lower entrance to Runyon Canyon Park, a popular hiking area in the Hollywood Hills. Found by a hiker, Culp was transported to a nearby hospital where he died from the head injuries he sustained in the fall. Five grandchildren also survive.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Musical theater devotees will undoubtedly know that the song "Let Me Entertain You" was from the classic musical "Gypsy", the born-in-a-trunk story of resilient kid troopers Gypsy Rose Lee and June Havoc who were mercilessly pushed into vaudeville careers by an unbearably headstrong mother. While the lesser-talented Gypsy, of course, became the legendary ecdysiast who turned stripping into an art form, sister June survived her "Baby June" vaudeville child days of old and the tougher road of Depression-era dance marathons to become a reputable actress of stage, screen and TV, among other things. While June may have immortalized in "Gypsy," based on her older sister's memoirs, it was a bittersweet notoriety as she felt it was a very unjust, hurtful and highly inaccurate portrait of her. It also caused a deep rift between the sisters that lasted for well over a decade.
The Canadian-born actress (she was born in Vancouver, not Seattle) entered the world in 1912 (some sources insist 1913 or 1916, but Havoc confirmed her true birth date in 2006), the younger daughter of audacious "stage mother" Rose Thompson Hovick and her husband, John Olaf Hovick, a cub reporter for a Seattle newspaper. Baby June was primed for stardom by Rose by age 2 and was soon dancing with the great ballerina Anna Pavlova and appearing in Hal Roach film shorts (1918-1924) with Harold Lloyd. A flexible, high-kicking vaudeville sensation at 5, she was featured front-and-center in an act completely built around her ("Dainty June and Her Newsboys"). Earning around $1,500 a week at her peak, the delightful child star had audiences eating out of the palm of her little hand while sharing the stage with the likes of "Red-Hot Mama" Sophie Tucker and "Baby Snooks" Fanny Brice. The unrelenting pressures and suffocating dominance of her mother, however, led to a capricious elopement at age 13 with a young boy from the act (Bobby Reed, who inspired the dancing character of Tulsa in "Gypsy"). They married in North Platte, Nebraska with each lying about their age. By the time the Depression hit, however, vaudeville, the nation's economy and her marriage had all collapsed.
Now a mother of a young daughter, April (born out of wedlock in 1930, April Kent acted briefly in the 1950s and died of a heart attack in 1998), June made ends meet by modeling, posing and toiling in dance marathons. The blonde, blue-eyed stunner also found work in stock musicals and on the Borscht Belt circuit. She made her Broadway debut in the musical "Forbidden Melody in 1936". Years passed before she earned her big break as Gladys in Rodgers and Hart's classic musical "Pal Joey" opposite Van Johnson and Gene Kelly in 1940. As a result of their scene-stealing work, the trio earned movie contracts - the two men heading off to the MGM studio and June to RKO.
Unlike her male counterparts, June found herself inextricably caught up in "B" level material. Her film debut in the war-era Four Jacks and a Jill (1942) was followed by the equally ho-hum Powder Town (1942) and Sing Your Worries Away (1942), neither requiring much in the line of acting. Her personality was big for the screen due to her broad vaudeville background, but she nevertheless could show some true grit and talent on occasion, particularly with her support role in My Sister Eileen (1942).
For the next few years she experienced both highs and lows. Her Broadway shows were either hits, such as the musical "Mexican Hayride" (1944) (for which she won the Donaldson Award), and the dramatic "The Ryan Girl" (1945), or complete misses, which included a musical version of the Sadie Thompson saga Rain. June's film acting continued to be a stumbling block, scoring best when asked to play brassy, cynical dames. While she fared well as the femme fatale in Intrigue (1947), the racist secretary in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and the gun moll The Story of Molly X (1949), more often than not, she was handed second-rate fodder to flounder in such as The Iron Curtain (1948), Once a Thief (1950) and Follow the Sun (1951). She appeared on TV in the early 50s, and she received her own short-lived vehicles as a lawyer in Willy (1954) and as host of her own show The June Havoc Show (1964).
After completing her last film Three for Jamie Dawn (1956), June refocused on stage and TV - particularly the former. She earned some of her best reviews both here and abroad in later years: Titania in "A Midsummer Night's Dream," Mistress Sullen in "The Beaux' Stratagem," Sabina in "The Skin of Our Teeth," Millicent in "Dinner at Eight," Jenny in "The Threepenny Opera," Mrs. Swabb in "Habeas Corpus," and Mrs. Lovett in "Sweeney Todd". In 1982 she pulled out all the stops on Broadway and gave a real Rose's Turn as a Miss Hannigan replacement in "Annie".
June expanded her talents to include both playwriting and directing. In addition to "I Said the Fly," she wrote "Marathon '33" (based on her Depression-era struggles) and received a 1964 Tony nomination for directing the play. June became the artistic director of the New Orleans Repertory Theatre in 1970, and later went on tour with her own one-woman show "An Evening with June Havoc". On stage and broaching age 80, the never-say-die actress appeared in a production of "Love Letters" and "An Old Lady's Guide to Survival".
June's mid-career biography "Early Havoc" was published in 1959. Married three times (her last husband, producer/director/writer William Spier died in 1973), June was long estranged from her sister, none too happy with Gypsy's portrayal of her in the best-selling memoir, "Gypsy" and equally dismayed of her Baby June character in the smash musical hit. The girls, noted for their trademark elongated faces and shapely gams, were estranged as children as well, but eventually patched things up for a time as adults. The sisters didn't truly grow close until Gypsy told June that she was dying of lung cancer in 1970. June elaborated more about her relationship with her sister in her second autobiography, "More Havoc" in 1980.
Ms. Havoc died peacefully on March 28, 2010, at her home in Stamford, Connecticut of natural causes. She was 97 years young.- Actress
- Casting Department
Jadin Wong was born on 24 May 1913 in Marysville, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Year of the Dragon (1985), Skin Art (1993) and Circus of Love (1954). She was married to Edward Dowling. She died on 30 March 2010 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
John Forysthe was born Jacob Lincoln Freund in Penns Grove, New Jersey, the son of Blanche Materson (Blohm) and Samuel Jeremiah Freund, a Wall Street businessman. He chose to pursue acting over the objections of his father. He did some work in radio soaps and on Broadway before signing a movie contract with Warner Bros. His early career was interrupted by World War II. During the war, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps appearing in the Air Corps show "Winged Victory". After the war, he helped found the Actors Studio. He has had the most success on television, with healthy runs on Bachelor Father (1957), Dynasty (1981) and as the unseen voice of Charlie Townsend on Charlie's Angels (1976). John Forsythe died at age 92 of complications from pneumonia on April 1, 2010 in Santa Ynez, California.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Bill Mullikin was born on 19 April 1927 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He was an actor, known for The Arrogant (1988), Hell Is for Heroes (1962) and Mod Squad (1968). He was married to Regina Bahlman. He died on 3 April 2010 in Aptos, California, USA.- Lori Martin was born Dawn Catherine Menzer in Glendale, California. She was born at 10 am, four minutes before her twin sister, Doree, arrived. Having an elder sister, Jean, and a younger brother, Stephen, she had plenty of company at an early age. At the age of six, her mother took her to an agent who dealt with child actresses. Her first job was filming a commercial for "Chrysler", followed by many other commercials. Her first film part was in Machine-Gun Kelly (1958), followed by The FBI Story (1959) and Cash McCall (1960), both in 1959. She also appeared on many television shows of the time. It was at the age of 12 that she won the part of "Velvet Brown" on television's National Velvet (1960), and changed her name to Lori Martin. Being a natural blonde, Lori had to have her hair dyed black for the part, many thought she had a resemblance to Elizabeth Taylor. It was this reason that the producers chose her out of 974 hopefuls for this part. The show ran for 54 episodes and was axed in 1962 after making Lori famous. In 1962, she made Cape Fear (1962) and said, afterward, that it was the best performance of her life. She went on to continue in television shows and films for the cinema. She had also made a name for herself making records for her fans but, sadly, they were not hits.
Lori later married her husband, Charles Breitenbucher, and retired to Oakhurst, California, where she enjoyed nature, birds, wild animals, and her dog, Taylor. Sadly, her husband died in 1999, leaving her with an only son to raise. At this time, she became ill with bipolar disorder and battled this for many years up until her death. - Actor
- Casting Director
James Aubrey was born on 28 August 1947 in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria [now Klagenfurt am Wörthersee, Carinthia, Austria]. He was an actor and casting director, known for Lord of the Flies (1963), Spy Game (2001) and The Hunger (1983). He was married to Agnes Kristin Hallander. He died on 6 April 2010 in Cranwell, Lincolnshire, England, UK.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Corin Redgrave, a towering, award-winning force on the British stage but a lesser universally recognized third-generation scion of the acting dynasty, was the reddish-haired middle brother of his more internationally famous sisters, Vanessa Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave who achieved widespread celebrity during their course of work on the American stage, film and TV.
Nevertheless Corin was a treasured actor in England and much less inspired to acquire the fame cast upon his sisters. The tall, amiably handsome actor built for an enviable career for himself on the British stage. Like Vanessa he was a fiery and impassioned political radical and embraced a host of liberal causes during his lifetime. Most notably, he was a potent member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party, and supported a motion to impeach Prime Minister Tony Blair following the British participation in the war in Iraq. He also campaigned for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In 2004, he, along with Vanessa, founded the Peace and Progress Party in 2004, which offered several candidates for the 2005 national election. He strongly believed that his early political activism impeded his nascent progress as an actor at the time, explaining the late bloom of his career.
The son of renowned actors Sir Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson, Corin William was born in London, England on July 16, 1939. The patriarch and matriarch of the acting family was his paternal grandparents Roy Redgrave and Margaret Scudamore. Educated at Westminster public school and at King's College at the University of Cambridge, he inherited his parents' intense passion for acting and was determined to follow in the family's natural acting ways. His career took longer to ignite than older sister Vanessa, who quickly became an international star.
Corin's first stage appearance at age 22 occurred auspiciously, however, at London's famed Royal Court Theatre in 1961 portraying Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" that was produced by Tony Richardson, Vanessa's husband-to-be. Following this he appeared in "Twelfth Night" and then appeared in "Chips with Everything" (also at the Royal) which eventually went to New York. Following theatre roles in "The Right Honourable Gentleman" (1964), "Lady Windemere's Fan" (1966) and "Abelard and Heloise" (1971), Corin joined the Royal Shakespeare Company for the 1972 season at Stratford and at the Aldwych, playing Octavius in both "Julius Caesar" and "Antony and Cleopatra," as well as Ephesus in "The Comedy of Errors". Under the direction of David Thacker, a prominent British director of Arthur Miller works, he appeared in the Miller plays "The Crucible" at the Young Vic.
As for his early years on 1960s film, Corin appeared in several of his sisters' films. Making his debut in the unmemorable Crooks in Cloisters (1964), he showed up with Vanessa in the films A Man for All Seasons (1966), The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968), and Oh! What a Lovely War (1969) and in Lynn's The Deadly Affair (1967). He actually fared better at the time in classier TV productions such as David Copperfield (1970); a production of "Dracula" in 1969 (as Jonathan Harker); and in Antony and Cleopatra (1974) (as Octavius, his stage role). Corin enjoyed a rare lead movie role in the Australian-made Between Wars (1974) and also appeared in the well-received Excalibur (1981) before making a strong impression in the Daniel Day-Lewis starrer In the Name of the Father (1993). Often playing gentlemen of strong authority and nobility, his on-camera career seemed to hit its stride as a character performer in later years.
Elsewhere, Corin and sister Vanessa founded the Moving Theatre company in 1993, that proved an exciting and creative outlet for their acting and directing ambitions. He went on to portray a critically acclaimed King Lear and also appeared opposite Vanessa and second wife Kika Markham in a successful revival of Noël Coward's "A Song at Twilight". Even better, he played the brutal prison warden Boss Whalen in the "lost" Tennessee Williams' work "Not About Nightingales" for which he won a 1998 Olivier Award and was nominated for a Tony award a year later. In 2000 he appeared in Trevor Nunn's production of Chekov's "The Cherry Orchard" at the National.
An occasional playwright ("Bluntly Speaking"), Corin also authored a very well-received book about his tormented father, "Michael Redgrave: My Father," which was hailed for its candid examination of both his father's bisexuality and BBC "blacklisting" (for his alleged ties with the Communist party).
Corin was plagued by illness come the millennium. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000 and suffered a serious heart attack in 2005. Rebounding however, he appeared in the one-man play "Tynan" in 2007, and made a triumphant return to the London stage in late March of 2009 playing the title role in "Trumbo," which is based on the life of blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. The actor dedicated his opening-night performance to the memory of his niece, actress Natasha Richardson, who had just died earlier in the month of injuries sustained in a Canadian skiing accident.
Redgrave's first marriage to former model Deirdre Hamilton-Hill (they divorced and she later died of cancer in 1997) produced son Luke and actress/daughter Jemma Redgrave. He subsequently married actress Kika Markham and had two more sons, Harvey and Arden. Thriving on stage, TV and film as late as 2009, the 70-year-old Corin died in a London hospital after a short illness in April of 2010.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Christopher Cazenove was born on 17 December 1943 in Winchester, Hampshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for A Knight's Tale (2001), Three Men and a Little Lady (1990) and Dynasty (1981). He was married to Angharad Rees. He died on 7 April 2010 in Lambeth, London, England, UK.- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
In the mid 1970s, as a young man not yet thirty, Malcolm McLaren owned and operated a London shop simply called "Sex" and dreamed of fame and fortune. He met a half formed group of teenage rock star hopefuls and fed them happy half truths about the great bands he had led to stardom. With his help in finding corner stone members John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) and Sid Vicious, those boys became the English punk rock legends Sex Pistols. The group met its ends less then four years later and McLaren walked away with a little bit of personal fame, but with most of his big dreams unfulfilled. Using his status as a legend maker McLaren would later manage such 80s punk influenced pop successes as Adam Ant, Bow Wow Wow and Boy George, and even release albums of music under his own name. Though Malcolm McLaren has never achieved the Beatle-mania level of fame that he so clearly strives for, he's never strayed to far from the spotlight. Writing, producing and always looking for new talent to show the world, hopefully for a profit.- Raabe was born in Watertown, Wisconsin, in 1915. In 1934, he was a member of the Midget City cast at the Chicago World's Fair. The money from his appearances at the fair and other places was how he paid for his bachelor's in accounting and master's in business administration.
His wife, Marie Hartline, worked for a vaudeville show called Rose's Royal Midget Troupe.
After Oz, while the film always remained a large presence in his life, he was a pilot and an instructor in the Civil Air Patrol during World War II, worked as a spokesman for the Oscar Mayer hot dog company for 30 years, a horticulturist, and teacher as well as during later years toured fan conventions. - Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Dixie is the middle of three children. Her father owned several small retail stores. Early on, she dreamed of being an opera singer, but a botched tonsillectomy at age 7 spoiled any chances for that dream. Still, she sang regularly and studied classical music. She can play the piano, trumpet, and the harmonica. She graduated from Memphis State with an English degree. In 1960, she made her professional debut in a local production of "Carousel". Three year's later, she moved to New York and landed a role in Joseph Papp's production of Shakespeare's "A Winter's Tale". When she married businessman, Arthur Carter, she left the stage for eight years to raise two daughters, Ginna Carter - now an actress and Mary Dixie Carter, a screenwriter. At age 35, she returned to acting, but found that no agent wanted to give her a chance. A second marriage to Broadway actor, George Hearn, quickly ended.- Peter Haskell was born on 15 October 1934 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Child's Play 3 (1991), Child's Play 2 (1990) and Bracken's World (1969). He was married to Dianne Tolmich and Annie Compton. He died on 12 April 2010 in Northridge, California, USA.
- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Peter Steele was born on 4 January 1962 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Night of the Demons (2009) and The Darkness II (2012). He died on 14 April 2010 in New York City, New York, USA.- Robert Brubaker, son of George Brubaker and descendant of Jonas Sparks, a friend of frontiersman Daniel Boone, was born October 9, 1916 in Robinson, Illinois, a little town located two hundred and ten miles south of Chicago and seven miles from the Wabash River. Probably the towns only claim to fame is it is the home of Heath Candy Company. Bard Heath, the man who developed the English Toffee that eventually became the Heath Candy Bar, was the best man at Bob's parents wedding. Bob attended Robinson Township High School, which was where he became interested in theatrics. Bob started as a freshman, appearing in every production that was at the high school. When a lot of kids are growing up they want to be a soldier or a fireman; Bob had always wanted to be an actor. While in high school Bob was captain of the debating team and won the State Oratory contest. He had a public speaking teacher whose name was Helen Mowry, who was the one that really urged him about continuing his ambition as an actor. As a result of her urgings and her talking and her pushing, she suggested that Bob go to Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, at the Annie Mae Swift School of Speech. Bob's freshman year was in September of 1934 and he decided they were trying to teach him to be a teacher instead of how to be an actor. While there he appeared in a show, which was a revival of a musical comedy called "Good News", in which he played the comedy lead, and it was a tremendous success. He received reviews in the Chicago Tribune where the critic stated he liked Bob's characterization of "Bobby" better than that of Jack Haley, which Bob felt was quite an accomplishment. After two years, Bob decided to leave school and learn his profession on the job. Martin Burton, who had, in conjunction with George Condoff, become producers of the first musical ever done by the Federal Theater, had seen Bob's work in "Good News", and offered him a great opportunity. The Federal Theater was the only time that this government had ever subsidized the theater. That was during the Works Progress Administration when Franklin D. Roosevelt was President. In the summer of 1936, Bob went to work in the Federal Theater in a show called "Oh Say Can You Sing, Dance or Act". One of the people in that show who went on to become very famous was a young seventeen-year old kid who did a tap dancing number with a pair of drumsticks. His name was Buddy Rich. That was Bob's first professional show and he worked in that until September 1937. Then, he had to make a decision. There were two ways he could go - he could go to New York or go to Hollywood, but was much more drawn to Hollywood than he was to New York. Which, as a matter of fact, may have been a decision that worked against him rather than for him, because when he got to Hollywood in 1937 there was a great feeling, and there was for many years afterward, the only people who knew how to act had to be brought out from New York. The first thing Bob did when he arrived in Hollywood was to go back to school. He went to a dramatic school by the name of "Bards". There are some well-known alumni from "Bards" that were in school when he was there: Alan Ladd, Jack Carson and Gig Young. Bob was with "Bards" off and on for over two years and finally became a teacher there to help pay for his tuition. While teaching there, Bob was the principal person who taught Turhan Bey how to speak English. In addition to attending "Bards", Bob worked on a number of radio shows at the original KMPC out on Wilshire Boulevard opposite the Beverly Hotel. At that time, Clete Roberts was staff announcer and William Conrad was one of the staff actors. While at "Bards", Bob was brought to the attention of a man who was at that time head of Paramount Studios on the West Coast. They used to have a talent show every so often at "Bards" and all the major talent scouts and casting directors and hierarchy of the production side of the studios that Ben Bard could get into the theater would come to see these talent shows. They did original skits and also scenes from plays and motion pictures. Bob did a scene as a young drunk, and when this guy saw him - it was right at the time Warner Brothers had picked up John Garfield and he made a big splash. When Bob first came to Hollywood, he was told he was not a leading man. His hair was curly and they typed him right away in what was called a juvenile character because, in those days, the leading man was the Robert Taylor / Tyrone Power type -- the very handsome, almost beautiful, absolute straight slick-down patent leather hair. Bob went through all kinds of hell; they tried to straighten his hair. He went to Max Factor and you would not believe the agony he went through and they could do nothing. Bob's hair is curly and that's all there is to it; they were never able to straighten it. But anyway, this guy said they wanted Bob to be Paramount's answer to John Garfield, because that was sort of a breakthrough in that they were accepting a man who looked like that as a possible leading man. All these contracts were drawn up and sent back to be consummated by the head office in New York, and then there was a big rollover in the studio and all the people who were in the top echelon were all gone and nothing ever came of it. This was one of Bob's first "almosts" that didn't happen. Bob was involved in a radio program called "Gateway to Hollywood" in 1939. The producer of the show was a man from RKO named Jesse L. Lasky, and Bob appeared with guest stars such as Merle Oberon and Sir Cedric Hardwicke. It was a talent search and Bob made his way to the finals of that particular show. The first prize was a year contract for RKO. "Josephine Cottle" won the female prize and was given the name of Gale Storm; the fellow who won was Lee Bonnell, who later married Gale Storm. After leaving "Bards", Bob became involved with the Bliss-Hayden Theater for a time and then had the opportunity to go to New York and landed the male lead in a play called "Days of Our Youth" which was being done for the opening of The New School of Social Research, which was off-Broadway. That was in 1941. It was directed by John Baird who had been one of Bob's teachers at Northwestern. They had outstanding critical reviews from the major critics in the New York area, so much so that there were a couple of guys who were looking to invest some money. Their names were Olsen and Johnson, well-known comics who wanted to bring the show to Broadway. They did not think it was necessary to go out of town, so what they did was post an Equity Bond and got a theater lined up on Broadway. The show closed at The New School of Social Research and went into rehearsals for uptown, or Broadway, and, during this time, December seventh came along. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, and they paid off the Equity Bond and that was the end of that. Bob eventually returned to Hollywood in the early part of 1942, and subsequently volunteered for the US Army Air Force, was selected, went into the cadet program and became a pilot. He was an instructor and then became an aircraft commander in B-24's. His group was selected to go overseas two different times - They got as far as San Francisco and, both times, they canceled their orders and they ended the war at Gowen Field up in Boise, Idaho. Bob was discharged from the service on December 15, 1945, and returned to Hollywood, and had to start all over again. When you are gone for any period of time, memory is very short in this town or in New York. He did some more radio work and performed on some of the major radio shows of that period. Then, Bob decided to return to New York, where he was a Hollywood actor in New York, and, at that time, they did not have much use for Hollywood actors in New York, so he went to work in the men's section for Lord and Taylor Department Store to survive. Then, Bob was recalled into the service. Anybody who was a pilot at the end of World War II and in physically good health was not discharged, just given separation papers from active duty but kept on active reserve. Bob was recalled to fly the airlift in 1949 on what they called a contract and was supposed to be in the service for eighteen months. He was to serve six months on the airlift, and then spend a year in the training command as an instructor. Bob did his six months on the airlift, flying one hundred and thirty missions into Berlin. When he returned home at the end of his six months, he was greeted by General Curtis LeMay, who was the Commanding General of the Strategic Air Command. General LeMay put out an emergency requisition letter saying that all four-engine pilots returning from the Berlin Airlift with bombardment experience would be assigned to the Strategic Air Command. So, instead of going into the training command for a year, Bob went into the Strategic Air Command and, instead of getting out in a year, he finally got out in February of 1954. During his second tour in the Air Force, Bob flew B-29's and was involved in the Korean War. He flew almost one hundred missions over Korea during the nine months he was over there. When he got out of the service, he came back to Hollywood and started his career all over again. He still had some friends who were active in the business. One was a woman by the name of Eve McVeagh. She had an agent that she steered him to by the name of Leon O. Lance (aka Leo Lance). Bob was very fortunate as he started working almost immediately in television. One of the very first shows that he was involved with was Reed Hadley's show, Public Defender (1954). Bob went on to work on Gunsmoke (1955). The first five years, off and on, he played "Jim Buck", the stagecoach driver; then from the fifth year to the nineteenth year he did a lot of Gunsmoke (1955)'s as a guest; and then when Glenn Strange, who played "Sam" the bartender, died, Bob took over that job as "Floyd". Bob also co-starred as "Deputy Blake" in the 1958 season of U.S. Marshal (1958) with John Bromfield. He also worked on such shows as Mr. Lucky (1959), Broken Arrow (1956), I Love Lucy (1951), Tombstone Territory (1957), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), The Deputy (1959), Tales of Wells Fargo (1957), _"The Rough Riders" (1950)_ (qv, _"The Invaders" (1970)_, Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958), The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Bonanza (1959), "The Texan" (1950)_, _"Kojak" (1970)_, The Rebel (1959), The Untouchables (1959), The Man from Blackhawk (1959), Dragnet (1951), Two Faces West (1960), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), Death Valley Days (1952), Cheyenne (1955), The F.B.I. (1965), The Twilight Zone (1959), Navy Log (1955), Daniel Boone (1964), My Three Sons (1960), Tarzan (1966), Perry Mason (1957), Wide Country (1962), Dr. Kildare (1961), Kung Fu (1972), The Streets of San Francisco (1972), Barnaby Jones (1973), and later as a regular on Days of Our Lives (1965). Bob was signed by MGM to star in the series The Asphalt Jungle (1961) that Jack Warden eventually did. The networks were extremely powerful as far as what's on the air and what's not, and who gets on the air and who doesn't. When they received notice that MGM had signed Bob, they sent a query to MGM and said that they wanted an actor named Jack Warden, who was in New York, and asked, Who is Bob Brubaker? That was the syndrome about New York actors that was very prevalent in this business at one time. Anyway, they had to pay Bob off for the series, but he never got on the tube with it and he would much rather have gotten on the tube than to be paid off. Bob was involved in some major motion pictures in minor roles. He was "Major Hap Arnold" in The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955), with Gary Cooper; as a motion picture director with James Cagney in Man of a Thousand Faces (1957); the airport doctor in Airport (1970); a ferryboat operator in Barquero (1970) with Lee Van Cleef; in My Man Godfrey (1957) with June Allyson in which he played a fellow who had to carry a chimp above his head across a crowded dance floor. The last picture he did of any magnitude was The Sting (1973). He was in the famous gambling scene on the train when Redford really puts it to Robert Shaw. Other films included two Audie Murphy westerns, Apache Rifles (1964) and 40 Guns to Apache Pass (1967). Bob's favorite role was in the summer of 1954 after he was discharged from the Air Force. He was stationed in Savannah, Georgia, and had been active while there in the little theater. Bob Porterfield, who owned the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia, saw him do the lead in "Detective Story" and asked him to spend the summer at his theater. Bob went there and that summer he did "Stalag 17" and "Mister Roberts", but his favorite role of all time was when he had the opportunity to play "Willy Loman" in "Death of a Salesman". Bob told me that he had a lot of thrills as far as the theater is concerned, but the greatest thrill of his life was on opening night of "Death of a Salesman". At the end of the final curtain, there was absolute silence for about thirty seconds and then there was thunderous applause and shouts of "Bravo!" and stomping of feet; and again, very well received by the critics. Bob enjoyed his work on Gunsmoke (1955). He loved the opportunity to work in it and with the people who were part of it. He and Dennis Weaver became friends and their sons went to school together. He had worked with James Arness prior to the time he took on the "Matt Dillon" role. One of those things Bob was involved in was the first experiment that NBC did - A thing called "Matinee Theater". An hour color live production, a different one every day at noon. Bob and Arness did "Damian and Phythias". In the late 1970's, Bob took on employment as the Director of the Training Department for before-needs salespeople at Forest Lawn. Bob, after retiring from his employment, moved away from Los Angeles to a smaller California community, where he resided until his death in 2010.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Excellent, prolific and versatile character actor Michael Pataki had a long, varied and impressive career in both movies and TV shows, alike, that spanned a little over 50 years. Pataki was born on January 16, 1938 in Youngstown, Ohio. He attended the University of Southern California as a double major in Drama and Political Science. Michael made his film debut with an uncredited small part in the 1958 feature, Ten North Frederick (1958). However, it was his acclaimed acting on stage in 1966 at a summer stock festival in Edinburgh that really launched Pataki's career. Although usually cast as mean and unlikable antagonistic characters, Michael on occasion portrayed more appealing folks with equal skill and conviction. Pataki gave a superbly chilling and compelling performance as vicious bloodsucker "Caleb Croft" in the creepy horror winner, Grave of the Vampire (1972). Other memorable roles included nasty biker "Snake" in The Dirt Gang (1972), Marianna Hill's weak masochistic boyfriend "Dennis" in the perverse The Baby (1973), the lecherous "Sergeant Ward" in the crummy, The Bat People (1974), hi-jacker "Wilson" in Airport '77 (1977), Dracula's modern-day descendant "Michael Drake" in the hilariously horrible Dracula's Dog (1977), sleazy bounty hunter "Harry Iverson" in The Glove (1979), hard-nosed "District Attorney Dino Fulgoni" in the splendidly gritty The Onion Field (1979), oddball cemetery caretaker "Sam" in the offbeat zombie doozy Dead & Buried (1981), ramrod Russian sports official "Nicoli Koloff" in Rocky IV (1985) and the stern "Dr. Hoffman" in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (1988). Pataki had a recurring role on the TV series, The Amazing Spider-Man (1977); he also appeared in the two spin-off theatrical pictures, Spider-Man (1970) and Spider-Man Strikes Back (1978). Among the numerous TV shows Michael made guest appearances on are The Twilight Zone (1959), Star Trek (1966), Combat! (1962), Rawhide (1959), My Favorite Martian (1963), Ben Casey (1961), Batman (1966), Mission: Impossible (1966), The Flying Nun (1967), Baretta (1975), Happy Days (1974), McCloud (1970), Barney Miller (1975), Little House on the Prairie (1974), Charlie's Angels (1976), T.J. Hooker (1982), WKRP in Cincinnati (1978), Laverne & Shirley (1976), The Jeffersons (1975), The Fall Guy (1981), Airwolf (1987), St. Elsewhere (1982) and Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). Moreover, Pataki provided voices for cartoon television programs; he was especially notable as the voice of the demented "George Liquor" on The Ren & Stimpy Show (1991). Michael directed two low-budget 70s drive-in exploitation features for producer Charles Band: the potently unnerving horror shocker, Mansion of the Doomed (1976), and the amusingly silly soft-core comedy musical, Cinderella (1977). In addition, Pataki also worked as an acting coach. Michael died of cancer at age 72 on April 15, 2010 in North Hollywood, California.- Sid Conrad was born on 10 August 1923 in Otsego, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for King Kong (1976), ER (1994) and Chicago Hope (1994). He was married to Sheila Conrad. He died on 16 April 2010 in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA.
- Shay Duffin was born on 26 February 1931 in Dublin, Ireland. He was an actor and writer, known for Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992), Leprechaun (1992) and Seabiscuit (2003). He died on 23 April 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Music Department
- Actress
- Producer
Gail Jensen was born on 5 October 1949 in Sanger, California, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Future Zone (1990), Maniac Cop (1988) and The Fall Guy (1981). She was married to David Carradine. She died on 23 April 2010 in Fresno, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Flashy, leggy, bouffant blonde Dorothy Provine was a solid screen representation of the Kennedyesque era when life seemed so full of fun, so innocent and so optimistic. This sparkling beauty also gave TV audiences a double dose blast to the past via her popular co-starring roles on late 50s/early 60s series TV. A talented girl whose comedic gifts were never sufficiently tapped into by Hollywood, Dorothy nevertheless secured a dedicated fan base merely on her sunny smile, creamy good looks and carefree radiance alone.
Graduating from the University of Washington with a degree in Theater Arts. Hollywood folklore has it that the South Dakota-born (but raised in San Francisco) actress landed the role of the notorious femme bank robber in the low-budget "B" film The Bonnie Parker Story (1958) just three days after arriving in Hollywood. It certainly proved to be a lucky break, although it didn't clinch the movie stardom she might have expected. On the contrary, Dorothy was forced to languish in such predicable programmers as Riot in Juvenile Prison (1959) and Live Fast, Die Young (1958), while playing the gigantic, radiation-exposed love interest in the poorly-executed The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock (1959) opposite rolypoly comedian Lou Costello in his only film effort after breaking up with partner Bud Abbott. Fortunately, TV made up for her lack of success on film.
Signed up by Warner Bros. and seemingly better suited for the small screen, Dorothy became one of the more visible female faces on TV and would be best remembered for her period roles as 1890s saloon singer Rocky Shaw, the friend of "Gold Rush" fortune seekers Roger Moore and Jeff York in The Alaskans (1959) and, better yet, as Pinky Pinkham, the Charleston-dancing flapper in the Warner Bros. adventure series The Roaring 20's (1960).
A vivacious guest on scores of other TV shows, Dorothy occasionally reappeared in lightweight 1960s films wherein she generally projected a squeaky-clean image playing various sparkly housewives, girlfriends and sisters. She was part of the all-star zaniness in It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) as Milton Berle's wife; appeared as Jack Lemmon's bright-eyed better half in the suburban comedy Good Neighbor Sam (1964); played Hayley Mills's beleaguered older sis in the feline caper That Darn Cat! (1965); had a slam-bang cameo as Lily Olay the barroom singer who belts out the memorable "He Shouldn't-A, Hadn't-A, Oughtn't-A Swang on Me" in the slapstick farce The Great Race (1965); showed up as the true-blue gal pining for Jim Hutton in the bank heist comedy Who's Minding the Mint? (1967); and made her last silver screen appearance alongside Dick Van Dyke in the comedy Never a Dull Moment (1968), which did not live up to its title.
During this time Dorothy occasionally made use of her vocal talents on the live stage, and appeared briefly as a duo with George Burns in a 1963 Las Vegas nightclub act, replacing Burns' ailing wife Gracie Allen, who by this time had fully retired due to serious heart problems. Eventually, however, she lost interest in her career.
Dorothy abruptly left the business in 1969 after marrying director Robert Day, who was involved in several of the Tarzan movies. She showed up a couple of times on TV in the 70s but, for the most part, found her self-imposed retirement completely to her liking. The couple moved permanently to Bainbridge Island, Washington in 1981, and there she found contentment simply gardening and tending to her animals. They had one son, Robert Day Jr., who became a musician. Dorothy battled emphysema in her last years and died at a nearby hospice on April 25, 2010, at age 75.- Actress
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Susan Reed was born on 11 January 1926 in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. She was an actress, known for The Doctors (1963), Glamour Girl (1948) and Goodyear Playhouse (1951). She was married to James Karen. She died on 25 April 2010 in Greenport, New York, USA.- Actress
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Actress of both the English and American stage and screen, Lynn Redgrave was born in Marylebone, London, England, into one of the world's most famous acting dynasties. As the daughter of Rachel Kempson and Sir Michael Redgrave, sister of Vanessa Redgrave and Corin Redgrave, and granddaughter of Roy Redgrave and Margaret Scudamore, all of whom were actors, her early aspirations were surprisingly to become an equestrienne or a chef. It was not until the age of 15 that she became more and more involved in acting and her father's stage performances.
Attending London's Central School of Music and Drama, she made her stage debut in 1962 and began film work a year later. It wasn't until her lovable role as the ugly-duckling in Georgy Girl (1966), that she was taken notice and, as a result, won both the Golden Globe, New York Film Critics Circle Award and a nomination for the coveted Best Actress at the 1967 Academy Awards. Despite this promising performance, Lynn struggled to find promising follow-up work, she played the lead in the fluffy Smashing Time (1967) and The Virgin Soldiers (1969), low-key films that were relevant at the time of London's swinging 60s, but very quickly became largely forgotten. She married stage actor/director John Clark and her sister, Vanessa Redgrave, who was also Oscar-nominated the same year for Morgan! (1966), was also gaining exposure and critical success if not surpassing Lynn, on both the British stage and films and was largely considered the leading face of England's breakout actresses of the '60s, alongside Julie Christie and other high-profile actresses.
Becoming the label of Vanessa Redgrave's younger and chubbier sister "that did that film a few years ago" didn't sit well with Lynn and, as a result, she lost considerable weight and permanently settled in the U.S. in 1974 to distance herself from this. Primarily based in southern California, she regularly commuted to New York and became notable particularly on the Broadway stage, and had successful runs in "Black Comedy/White Lies" (1967), "My Fat Friend" (1974), "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1976), "Knock Knock" (1976), "Saint Joan" (1977-1978), "Aren't We All" (1985) and "Sweet Sue" (1987). She was prolifically hired by major networks to appear on a variety of TV talk and game shows and held the position of co-host for a few seasons of Not for Women Only (1968), while acting on prime-time TV, whether it was guest spots, mini-series or short-lived TV series. For over 20 years, Redgrave's film career was infrequent and admittedly "terrible" by the actress herself, she notoriously played the title character in the critically-bashed, The Happy Hooker (1975), and the all-star cast misfire, The Big Bus (1976), and, in the 1980s, she focused in a different direction, becoming a spokesperson and commercial actress for "Weight Watchers". This coincided with the release of her well- received book: "This Is Living: How I Found Health and Happiness", that detailed her weight issues and eating binges, it was also revealed that for years she suffered bulimia. In the mid-to-late '90s, Redgrave had somewhat of a resurgence in her career, from 1993-1994, she spent over 8 months on Broadway, as well as touring across the world, performing her own personally written show of "Shakespeare for My Father", that explored the bisexuality, aloof persona and intimidating resume of her father. In 1996, Scott Hicks reignited her film career after many years of inactivity by casting her in the Australian Oscar-winning hit, Shine (1996), in which she gave a short yet tender performance as "Gillian", the woman Geoffrey Rush's character falls in love with. Another Golden Globe win/Oscar nomination followed (this time in the supporting category) for her role as the Hungarian housekeeper in Gods and Monsters (1998). Her marriage abruptly ended in 1999, when infidelity was discovered on her husband's behalf and a nasty divorced followed, they produced three children Benjamin, Kelly Clark and Annabel Clark.
Continually working her way through film, television and stage performances in the '00s, recently awarded the OBE, Lynn Redgrave was shocked to discover lumps on her body and was diagnosed with breast cancer. As a result, she took time to write "Journal: A Mother and Daughter's Recovery from Breast Cancer" with her youngest daughter, Annabel Clark, in 2003 and tragically lost her 7-year battle on 2 May 2010 (aged 67) in her family home, surrounded by her loved ones. Her diagnosis led her to realize the beauty and simplicities of life, and she was quoted as saying: "there isn't any such thing as a bad day. Yes, bad things happen. But any day that I'm still here, able to feel and think and share things with people, then how could that possibly be a bad day?".- Jimmy Gardner was born on 24 August 1924 in Newmarket, Suffolk, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Frenzy (1972), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). He died on 3 May 2010 in London, England, UK.
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David E. Durston was born on 10 September 1921 in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer and director, known for I Drink Your Blood (1971). He died on 6 May 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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She was born Adelaide Delgado on August 28, 1923 (some references list 1925) to Spanish-speaking parents. The future Adela Mara began dances lesson at age 6 and was discovered as a young teenager by the legendary Xavier Cugat. Singing and dancing with his in the Detroit area, Cugat took the beautiful, brown-eyed brunette to New York where she performed in his shows at such esteemed clubs as the Copacabana.
While touring as a singer/dancer, she was spotted in Florida by a Columbia talent scout and signed to a Hollywood contract in 1942 at age 19. Starting off in bit exotic roles in such films as Honolulu Lu (1941), she quickly grew to alluring co-starring status opposite top banana Glynis Ahearn in Shut My Big Mouth (1942). There continued playing brisk leading ladies in a series of standard, uneventful "B" films including Vengeance of the West (1942) with Tex Ritter and Alias Boston Blackie (1942) starring Chester Morris.
A couple of years later she was transformed into a sexy platinum blonde pin-up after signing with Republic Studios and kept herself quite busy predominantly cast as senorita-types opposite cowboy stars Roy Rogers in Bells of Rosarita (1945) and Gene Autry in Twilight on the Rio Grande (1947). She was also fetching fodder in crime dramas including Blackmail (1947) and Web of Danger (1947) and a pleasant diversion in adventure pictures such as Wake of the Red Witch (1948) with John Wayne and The Avengers (1950).
Arguably Adele's best parts would come with Angel in Exile (1948) and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), the latter again starring Duke Wayne. Seldom was she given the chance to capitalize on her acting talents, however, and her film career waned in the mid 1950s. Her last screen appearance would be in The Big Circus (1959) with Victor Mature. Adele subsequently moved into TV and was featured in a number of guest spots, primarily in westerns. She eventually abandoned her career and settled down to raise her three sons from her 1952 marriage to TV mogul Roy Huggins who produced many hit shows including 77 Sunset Strip (1958) and Maverick (1957). On a rare occasion, she would appear as a guest in one of his efforts, including an episode of the TV series Cool Million (1972).
Huggins died in 2002 and Adele passed away eight years later of natural causes in Los Angeles on May 7, 2010. The 87-year-old actress was interred at San Fernando Mission Cemetery.- Actress
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Lena Calhoun Horne was born June 30, 1917, in Brooklyn, New York. In her biography she stated that, on the day she was born, her father was in the midst of a card game trying to get money to pay the hospital costs. Her parents divorced while she was still a toddler. Her mother left later in order to find work as an actress and Lena was left in the care of her grandparents. When she was seven, her mother returned and the two traveled around the state which meant that Lena was enrolled in numerous schools. For a time she also attended schools in Florida, Georgia and Ohio. Later she returned to Brooklyn.
Lena quit school when she was 14 and got her first stage job at 16 dancing and later singing at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem, a renowned theater in which black performers played before white audiences immortalized in The Cotton Club (1984)). She was in good hands at the club, especially when people such as Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington took her under their wings and helped her over the rough spots. Before long, her talent resulted in her playing before packed houses.
If Lena had never made a movie, her music career would have been enough to have ensured her legendary status in the entertainment industry, but films were icing on the cake. After she made an appearance on Broadway, Hollywood came calling. At 21 years of age, Lena made her first film, The Duke Is Tops (1938). It would be four more years before she appeared in another, Panama Hattie (1942), playing a singer in a nightclub. By now Lena had signed with MGM but, unfortunately for her, the pictures were shot so that her scenes could be cut out when they were shown in the South since most theaters in the South refused to show films that portrayed blacks in anything other than subservient roles to whites. Most movie studios did not want to take a chance on losing that particular source of revenue. Lena did not want to appear in those kinds of stereotyped roles and who could blame her?
In 1943, MGM loaned Lena to 20th Century-Fox to play the role of Selina Rogers in the all-black musical Stormy Weather (1943), which did extremely well at the box office. Her rendition of the title song became a major hit on the musical charts. In 1943, she appeared in Cabin in the Sky (1943), regarded by many as one of the finest performances of her career. She played Georgia Brown opposite Ethel Waters and Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson in the all black production. Rumors were rampant that she and Waters just did not get along well, although there was never any mention of the source of the alleged friction. However, that was not the only feud on that picture. Other cast members sniped at one another and it was a wonder the film was made at all. Regardless of the hostilities, the movie was released to very good reviews from the ever tough critics. It went a long way in showing the depth of the talent that existed among black performers in Hollywood, especially Lena.
Lena's musical career flourished, but her movie career stagnated. Minor roles in films such as Boogie-Woogie Dream (1944), Words and Music (1948) and Mantan Messes Up (1946) did little to advance her film career, due mainly to the ingrained racist attitudes of the time. Even at the height of Lena's musical career, she was often denied rooms at the very hotels in which she performed because they would not let blacks stay there. After Meet Me in Las Vegas (1956), Lena left films to concentrate on music and the stage. She returned in 1969 as Claire Quintana in Death of a Gunfighter (1969). Nine years later, she returned to the screen again in the all black musical The Wiz (1978) where she played Glinda the Good Witch. Although that was her last big-screen appearance, she stayed busy in television appearing in A Century of Women (1994) and That's Entertainment! III (1994).
Had it not been for the prevailing racial attitudes during the time when Lena was just starting her career, it's fair to say that it would have been much bigger and come much sooner. Even taking those factors into account, Lena Horne is still one of the most respected, talented and beautiful performers of all time.- Actress
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Doris Eaton was born in Norfolk, Virginia, into a show business family. The young Doris began appearing on stage with her brothers Charles and Joseph and her sisters Mary and Pearl when she was five years old. She made her Broadway debut aside her brother Charles in "Mother Carey's Chickens" in 1917. The following year, the 14-year-old Doris became a Ziegfeld Girl, performing in the "Ziegfeld Follies" of 1918 and 1920 and the "Ziegfeld Midnight Frolic" in 1919. After having served her dance apprenticeship in legendary theatrical impresario Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s chorus for three years, she decamped for the movies. She made her screen debut in "At the Stage Door" (1921) in support of Billie Dove.
She moved to England to appear as the lead in three films, Tell Your Children (1922), The Call of the East (1922), and The Call of the East (1922). Back in America, she made The Broadway Peacock (1922) with Pearl White and High Kickers (1923) with Jack Cooper and the Gorham Follies Girls.
Doris returned to Broadway in 1924, appearing in the musical "No Other Girl" and the plays "The Sap" and "Excess Baggage." In 1925, she co-starred with Al Jolson in the musical comedy "Big Boy." She then appeared in the comedy "Excess Baggage" in 1927, and the musical comedy "Cross My Heart" the next year. Moving to Hollywood in 1929, she began a career as a featured dancer at the Music Box Review Theater on Sunset Boulevard. It was there that she introduced the song "Singin' in the Rain." Her last appearance on Broadway in a legitimate production was in the comedy "Page Pygmalion" in 1932.
Her career as a dancer began to peter out during the Great Depression, and she became an Arthur Murray dance instructor in 1936. Relocating to the state of Michigan, she eventually became the operator of 18 Arthur Murray dance schools. Eventually, Doris retired to Oklahoma with her husband Paul Tavis, where they operated a quarter horse ranch. When they built their house in Norman, Oklahoma, Doris demanded that the house have a foyer large enough for dancing. Doris still dances in the foyer at night.
"I have my little Victrola there and I play the records and I dance the foxtrot and the waltz and the rumba, though swaying by myself."
Doris has become a regular performer at Broadway's annual AIDS benefit. People express surprise that she was a Ziegfeld Girl.
"It seems that when people find out about it, they're astonished; and possibly because I'm still walking around."
Since her husband passed away in the year 2000, Doris lets people use the ranch to board their horses. Doris jokes, "I call it the Travis Ranch Nursing Home for Horses."
She had dropped out of school to pursue her dance career, but in the 1980s, Travis went back to college and graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 1992. She was named a member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society while at the university.
At 101 years old, Doris was quoted as saying that dance was the primary reason for her longevity. In fact, her last stage appearance was one month short of her death at age 106.- Actor
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Massimo Sarchielli was born on 9 April 1931 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy. He was an actor and director, known for Ladyhawke (1985), The Conformist (1970) and Under the Tuscan Sun (2003). He died on 11 May 2010 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Actor
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How many rock stars can brag about recording and touring consistently in six different decades? That's just one of the many claims to fame enjoyed by Ronnie James Dio. Born on July 10, 1942, this Cortland, New York native began his recording career back in 1958. Even back then, the seeds of Ronnie James Dio's future musical excesses had already been sown. After more than 40 years in the rock business, Ronnie James Dio has shown he still has what it takes to get the job done. The mystery surrounding Ronnie's age is still going. He himself says the age is not important, the only thing that matters is the music. He was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, but was raised in Cortland, near Syracuse in New York State in the USA, in a quiet, Italian, middle class community. Ronnie changed his name sometime (the exact date is unknown) from Padovana to Dio - Which means "God" in Italian.- Actor
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Art Linkletter was born on 17 July 1912 in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was an actor and producer, known for Champagne for Caesar (1950), Philippine Adventure (1964) and The Jack Benny Program (1950). He was married to Lois Marguerite Foerster. He died on 26 May 2010 in Bel-Air, California, USA.- Actor
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Eddie Barth was born on 29 September 1931 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Fame (1980), Babe: Pig in the City (1998) and Bananas (1971). He was married to Sally Hada. He died on 28 May 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Without a doubt Gary Coleman was THE child TV star of the late 1970s and early 1980s. A refreshingly confident little tyke with sparkling dark, saucer-like eyes and an ingratiating, take-on-anyone burst of personality, the boy charmed the pants right off of TV viewers the minute he was glimpsed in national commercials. Amazed by how mature he came across, Gary was in truth older than he looked, which was brought upon by a congenital kidney condition. Sadly, the pint-sized phenomena outgrew his chubby-cheeked welcome and found the course of his grown-up Hollywood career brutally rough and patchy. The fragile condition of his health coupled with this lack of adult career acceptance, sparked an aggressively defensive behavior mechanism in his adult years and led to great personal unhappiness, chronic legal/financial hassles and early death.
He was born Gary Wayne Coleman on February 8, 1968, to a homeless woman, and was adopted by a fork-lift operator and his nurse practitioner wife from a Chicago hospital when he was just a few days old. Raised in Zion, Illinois, it was discovered that little Gary had severe health issues before the age of 2. Born with one atrophied kidney and an endangering weak second one, he had two kidney transplants by the time he reached age 16 and the effects of his dialysis medication permanently stunted his growth (to 4'8").
A highly precocious comedy cut-up on-camera, Gary proved a natural in local Chicago commercials. As his commercials spread nationwide, audiences began wondering just who this diminutive dynamo was. Norman Lear's talent scout spotted him in a Chicago bank commercial (he was 9 at the time) and decided to reveal to the world who the little guy was. Brought in to brighten up such Lear sitcoms as "The Jeffersons" and "Good Times" (the latter as a friend of little Janet Jackson's character), NBC quickly recognized the boy's comedy prowess and handed the 10-year-old his own prime-time sitcom playground to mug in.
While Diff'rent Strokes (1978)'s underlying approach was to preach racial and social tolerance (it revolved around two lower-class African-American brothers from Harlem who are taken in and adopted by a wealthy, debonair Park Avenue white man after their housekeeper mother dies), the show's powers-that-be smartly deduced that it was the wisecracking gifts of young Coleman, who played the youngest brother, Arnold Jackson, that gave the show its spark. Deemed "NBC's Littlest Big Man," Gary's sly, pouting-lipped delivery of, "What'chu talkin' about, Willis?" soon became a popular American catchphrase.
Legendary comics such as Bob Hope and Lucille Ball absolutely gushed about the little boy's comedy genius and Gary soon became a hit on the talk show circuit, trading clever banter with the likes of Johnny Carson among others. The boy was also outfitted with a series of lightweight TV-movie showcases which included The Kid from Left Field (1979), Scout's Honor (1980), The Kid with the Broken Halo (1982), The Kid with the 200 I.Q. (1983), The Fantastic World of D.C. Collins (1984) and Playing with Fire (1985). All of them wisely centered around Gary's adorable persona. Modest film comedies also came his way with On the Right Track (1981) and Jimmy the Kid (1982). Topping it all off, the Hanna-Barbera-produced series The Gary Coleman Show (1982) produced an animated version of the child star. Little Gary would make close to $18 million during his nearly decade-long TV reign.
Like many others in his shoes, however, the aging Coleman felt trapped and pigeonholed by his stifling juvenile image and begged to get out from under it. The 18-year-old was truly thankful when the series ended in 1986. Coleman found, however, that a very fickle public was not as receptive to seeing him grow up. Like fellow TV star Emmanuel Lewis, Coleman began aging in appearance but remained trapped in the body of a young boy and the contrast proved too strange for audiences. As a result, Hollywood had little resources as to what to do with Gary Coleman the man. It wasn't long before Coleman was reduced to making weird guest appearances and small parts in even smaller films.
This crash course in reality triggered an increasingly erratic and aggressive behavior in Gary Coleman as he became increasingly angry and bitter about his lack of work when he was so used to be on top of everything. The subsequent tragedies suffered by all three young stars from the "Diff'rent Strokes" show, in fact, was sold out as a jinx package known as the "Diff'rent Strokes curse". While distaff co-star Dana Plato fell heavily into drug addiction, petty crime and pornography before taking her own life in 1999, Todd Bridges, who played Coleman's older brother, battled major cocaine abuse and was later charged (but acquitted of) attempted murder in the late 1980s.
In addition to his life-long health issues, Gary's adult problems came in the form of scattered financial and legal entanglements, as well as scrapes with the law. He was once arrested in 1999 for punching a persistent female autograph fan, in which he was fined and ordered to take anger-management classes. This became tabloid fodder for late night comics who joked that he must have landed "several good uppercuts." He also had many disorderly conduct and reckless driving charges brought up against him at various times. He would admit that the tally of his life problems led to more than a few feigned suicide attempts. In 1989, Coleman successfully sued his adopted parents and business manager after they allegedly pilfered his youthful fortune for their own self interest totaling $3.8 million in losses, and he won $1,280,000. Despite the large settlement, all of the money was soon spent on taxes, legal fees, as well as his increasingly high medical bills for his continuing dialysis treatments. As a result by 1999 (with no steady acting work) Coleman had to declare bankruptcy, finding work outside the Hollywood industry as a security guard. For self-preservation, he went the reality-show route and became the object of self-mocking cameos to help bring in some cash. As a gag, he ran for California's 2003 governorship during its recall election.
In 2007, he married the much younger actress Shannon Price, whom he met on the set of the low budget film Church Ball (2006), but the quickly marriage dissolved quickly into domestic squabbles that put him in front of the court system yet again on domestic abuse charges. He later moved and settled in Utah.
In early 2009, Coleman managed to star in his very last film, the crude independent comedy Midgets vs. Mascots (2009) filmed in Dallas, Texas before the end came. Following heart surgery complicated by pneumonia in the fall of 2009, he suffered a heart seizure in February 2010 while performing on a Hollywood set. The 42-year-old actor died of a brain hemorrhage on May 28, 2010, after suffering an epidural haematoma from a fall at home. A sad end to a very bright and talented, but very troubled and bitter, child star who, at his peak, brought such joy to TV audiences.- Actor
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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.- George Martin was born on 15 August 1929 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990) and Léon: The Professional (1994). He was married to Katherine Helmond. He died on 1 June 2010 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
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A New York stage actress in the 1950s, McClanahan was plucked from the stage by Norman Lear for roles on All in the Family (1971) and later Maude (1972). For two years (1982 - 1984), she played "Aunt Fran" on Mama's Family (1983) until her character was killed off and she joined the cast of The Golden Girls (1985), in which she hit her comedic stride as a sharp tongued oversexed Southern belle.- Actor
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Andréas Voutsinas was born on 22 August 1930 in Khartoum, Sudan. He was an actor and director, known for The Producers (1967), History of the World: Part I (1981) and The Big Blue (1988). He died on 8 June 2010 in Athens, Greece.- Actor
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Jimmy Dean, the musician, actor and entrepreneur, was instrumental in the mainstreaming of country music, a genre that now enjoys popularity in some regions of the United States but which, back in the 1960s, was accorded little respect by mass media. Jimmy Dean had a #1 hit in the US and England with his song "Big Bad John," which established his fame, fame that continues to this day due to his long stint as a spokesman for "Jimmy Dean Pure Pork Sausage," a company he founded and then sold to Consolidated Foods in 1984. He continued as the pitchman for the eponymous brand for 20 years.
Jimmy Dean, a distant cousin of the actor James Dean, was born Jimmy Ray Dean on August 10, 1928 in Plainview, Texas. He took to the life of a professional singer after serving in the U.S. Air Force during the late 1940s. Dean began building his reputation as a musician touring with his band, The Texas Wildcats, which featured Roy Clark as lead guitarist. In 1953, he scored his first hit, "Bummin' Around."
Dean landed a gig as the host of a TV program in the Washington D.C. market, "Town and Country Time." (The District of Columbia has in many ways always been a Southern town.) Dean was a promoter of rising country acts, and such top country singers as Clark and Patsy Cline got their starts with Dean. (He eventually fired Clark but later promoted his career.) Dean subsequently moved to New York after signing with Columbia Records, where he hosted a TV variety show for the CBS network.
In 1961, his song "Big Bad John" went to No. 1 on the Billboard charts and won him the 1962 Grammy Award for Best Country & Western Recording. Several of his subsequent songs charted in the Top 40, and he scored a Top 10 hit in 1962 with a song commemorating President John F. Kennedy's patrol torpedo boat, "PT 109." Because of his affability and his burgeoning popularity, he occasionally was booked to guest-host "The Tonight Show." ABC offered him a variety show in the mid-1960s, and Dean used it as a forum to present country music on his terms, as a mainstream entertainment. His show offered the first major TV exposure to a number of country singers, including George Jones, Charlie Rich, and Buck Owens. His show also introduced the first Muppet, Jim Henson's Rowlf the Dog.
Aside from a featured part as a Howard Hughes-like billionaire in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever (1971) (Dean said he was offered the role on the basis of his having had a #1 hit with "Big John" in Britain, which surprised him as it had been a decade before), Dean has mostly stuck to his music and the business he founded in 1969, "Jimmy Dean Pure Pork Sausage." The TV commercials featuring the very likable Dean were the best advertising the new brand could have had, and it became #1 in its product category.
In the fall of 2004, Jimmy Dean published his autobiography, "30 Years of Sausage, 50 Years of Ham." He semi-retired and lived with his second wife, the former singer Donna Meade Dean until his death in 2010.- John Tracy was born on 11 January 1938 in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. He was an actor, known for Mister Buddwing (1966), The Drifter (1966) and IOWA (2005). He was married to Carolan Daniels. He died on 15 June 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Joe B. Barton was born on 18 November 1955 in Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for Slaughterhouse (1987), Blood Diner (1987) and Water Rats (1996). He died on 16 June 2010 in Missouri, USA.
- Cinematographer
- Director
- Producer
A British filmmaker who, over the years, worked as assistant director, cinematographer, producer, writer and ultimately director, Ronald Neame was born on April 23, 1911. His father, Elwin Neame, was a film director and his mother, Ivy Close, was a film star. During the 1920s, he started working at famous Elstree Studios. One of his first jobs was assistant cameraman for Alfred Hitchcock on Blackmail (1929), the first talking picture made in England.
Neame became a cinematographer during the 1930s. In 1942, he and sound designer C.C. Stevens received a special effect Oscar nomination for One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942), a film by the Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger team. In 1944, after working together on In Which We Serve (1942), Neame, David Lean and producer Anthony Havelock-Allan formed a production company, Cineguild. The screenplays for its films Brief Encounter (1945) and Great Expectations (1946) received best writing Oscar nominations.
After a fall-out with Lean and the demise of Cineguild in 1947, Neame turned to directing with Take My Life (1947). As a director, he would be quite versatile, touching genres like comedy (The Promoter (1952), Hopscotch (1980)), psychological studies (The Chalk Garden (1964)), musical (Scrooge (1970)), thriller (The Odessa File (1974)) and even disaster movies (The Poseidon Adventure (1972), the one that started the trend, produced by Irwin Allen). Under Neame's guidance, Alec Guinness won the best actor trophee at the 1958 Venice festival for The Horse's Mouth (1958), a comedy based on a book adapted by Guinness himself. Two years later, John Mills received the same award for Tunes of Glory (1960), also directed by Neame. In 1969, Maggie Smith got her first Oscar for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) under Neame's direction, and in 1970, Albert Finney got his first Golden Globe for his role in Neame's "Scrooge".
In 1996, Neane was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition for his contributions to the film industry. In 2003, he published his autobiography, "Straight from the Horse's Mouth". Keeping up the family tradition, his son Christopher Neame is a movie producer and his grandson, Gareth Neame, works for the BBC. Ronald Neame died at age 99 of complications from a fall on June 16, 2010 in Los Angeles, California.- Stephen Gilbert was born on 22 July 1912 in Newcastle, County Down, Ireland [now Northern Ireland], UK. He was a writer, known for Willard (2003), Willard (1971) and Ben (1972). He died on 23 June 2010 in Whiteabbey, County Antrim, Northern Ireland.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Aldo Giuffrè was born on 10 April 1924 in Naples, Italy. He was an actor, known for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), Ghosts, Italian Style (1967) and When Women Had Tails (1970). He was married to Liana Trouche and Elena Pranzo Zaccaria. He died on 26 June 2010 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
Corey Allen earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from UCLA in Theatre in 1954. While there, he received the department's Best Actor award and starred in the UCLA film, "A Time Out of War", which won the Academy Award & Cannes & Venice Film Festival for Best Short Film. Upon graduation, he appeared in approximately twenty plays in the Los Angeles area. Director Nicholas Ray spotted Allen and subsequently chose him for the role of "Buzz" in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This led to featured roles in another dozen films such as Private Property (1960), Party Girl (1958), Darby's Rangers (1958) and The Chapman Report (1962). Allen also appeared in many leading television series including Perry Mason (1957) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955). Meanwhile, he created, directed for and co-produced the Freeway Circuit Theatre which toured the Southwest for six seasons. Allen also directed numerous Equity productions in Los Angeles theatres. This led to a thirty year directorial career in television and film during which he directed three movies including Avalanche; television movies including the Emmy winning The Ann Jillian Story (1988); created a dozen pilots for television series including Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), Murder, She Wrote (1984), Simon & Simon (1981), Code Name: Foxfire (1985), Stone (1979) and Capitol (1982). He has earned two Directors Guild nominations for Best Direction in a television series, the Award for Cable Excellence for Best Direction of The Paper Chase (1978) and received an Emmy for Best Direction of a Hill Street Blues (1981). Throughout this career, Allen instructed acting, including three years at the Actors Workshop, and for the last nine years, conducted cold reading workshops at the Margie Haber Studio. This year, Allen was presented with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Columbia College-Holllywood for his work in helping to create their acting and directing curricula.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ilene Woods was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the daughter of a backstage mom who was responsible for Ilene getting her show biz start on the stage at 2. At 14, she received an offer to top-line her own radio show once she became available at the end of that school year during a vacation in New York City. The Ilene Woods Show soon started its run on the Blue Network as a 3-nights-a-week, 15-minute musical series. She then did radio work in Chicago before moving to California, where she landed her first & only on-screen movie role (On Stage Everybody (1945)) as well as a stint on the Jack Carson-starring radio series Sealtest Village Store. Her songwriter-friends Mack David & Jerry Livingston asked her to record 2 of their newest songs, not telling her that they were for the upcoming Disney film Cinderella (1950). When Walt Disney heard her voice on the recordings, he chose her to voice that film's title role.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Greg Dawson was born on 25 May 1958 in Santa Monica, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Berserker (1987). He died on 3 July 2010 in the USA.- Tom Signorelli was born on 19 October 1935 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Thief (1981), Sleepers (1996) and Dick Tracy (1990). He died on 6 July 2010 in New York, New York, USA.
- Born Lawrence Vonetta McGee, she got her break in Melinda (1972) and Hammer (1972) and hit paydirt as the love interest of the vampire in Blacula (1972), then starred with her then-boyfriend Max Julien in Thomasine & Bushrod (1974). In 1978 she starred opposite Bernie Casey and Ron O'Neal in Brothers (1977). Other movies include Repo Man (1984) To Sleep with Anger (1990). She has also done much work on television. She was married to actor Carl Lumbly.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Prolific, versatile, and ubiquitous character actor Aldo Sambrell was featured in over 140 international motion pictures in a remarkably long, varied, and illustrious career that spanned four and a half decades. Swarthy and burly, usually sporting a thick mustache, and often projecting an air of quiet oily menace, Sambrell was frequently cast in colorful supporting parts as hateful villains and lethal gunslingers in numerous Italian spaghetti Westerns. Sambrell was born Alfredo Sanchez Brell on February 23, 1931 in Madrid, Spain. His family fled Spain because of the Spanish Civil War and he was raised in Mexico. While in Mexico Aldo played professional soccer in the Mexican leagues in Pueblo and Monterrey. After beginning his career in the entertainment industry as a singer, Sambrell eventually returned to Spain and made his film debut in an uncredited bit role as a Jewish rebel in the biblical epic King of Kings (1961). Aldo appeared in his first spaghetti western in 1963. Sambrell was perhaps best known for his gritty portrayals of scruffy bandit gang members in Sergio Leone's classic spaghetti westerns A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) and C'era una volta questo pazzo, pazzo, pazzo West (1973). Sambrell gave a memorably chilling performance as ruthless bandit gang leader Mervyn Duncan in Navajo Joe (1966). He had a rare lead role as voodoo priest Gatenebo in the laughably lousy horror clunker Voodoo Black Exorcist (1974). Among the many directors Aldo worked for are David Lean, Richard Fleischer, John Milius, Sergio Corbucci, Umberto Lenzi, León Klimovsky, Jess Franco, Richard Lester, Jackie Chan, Charlton Heston, Matt Cimber and Enzo G. Castellari. Moreover, Sambrell also wrote, produced and directed a few films. He was married to actress Cándida López. His last film role was as an aging actor in the poignant short Río seco (2006). Aldo died at age 79 on July 10, 2010 in Alicante, Spain after suffering a series of strokes.- Rugged-looking James Gammon first broke into the entertainment industry not as an actor but as a TV cameraman. From there, his weatherbeaten features, somewhat menacing attitude and a tough-as-nails voice--the kind that used to be described in detective novels as "whiskey-soaked"--reminiscent of '40s noir icon Charles McGraw got him work in front of the cameras in TV westerns (though he sounds as if he's from Texas or Oklahoma, he was actually born and raised in Illinois) and he made his film debut in 1967. Not the kind of guy you'd see in a tuxedo in a Noël Coward drawing-room comedy--unless he was one of a gang holding them up--Gammon could play lighter parts also, as evidenced by his work as the manager in the baseball comedy Major League (1989) and in his regular role as Don Johnson's rambunctious father in Johnson's Nash Bridges (1996) series.
- Holly Harris was born on 27 December 1920 in St. Charles, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Once Upon a Tune (1951), Act of Vengeance (1974) and Dogs (1977). She was married to Duhhaine Waeker. She died on 23 July 2010 in North Newton, Kansas, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- 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
- Art Department
- Additional Crew
Derf Scratch was born on 30 October 1951 in Monmouth, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Class of 1984 (1982), Good-bye Cruel World (1982) and Forty Days of Musa Dagh (1982). He died on 28 July 2010 in Camarillo, California, USA.- Tom Basham was born on 16 May 1942 in Arizona, USA. He was an actor, known for An Eye for an Eye (1973), Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970) and Squares (1972). He died on 29 July 2010 in Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Lorene Yarnell Jansson was born on 21 March 1944 in Inglewood, California, USA. She was an actress, known for Spaceballs (1987), The Wild Wild West Revisited (1979) and Bye Bye Birdie (1963). She was married to Bjorn Jansson, Robert Shields and John R. Hartmann. She died on 29 July 2010 in Sandefjord, Norway.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Dan Resin was born on 22 February 1931 in South Bend, Indiana, USA. He was an actor, known for Caddyshack (1980), Richard (1972) and Music Box (1989). He was married to Margaret Gacke. He died on 31 July 2010 in Wayne, New Jersey, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Patricia Neal, the Oscar and Tony Award-winning actress, was born Patsy Louise Neal in Packard, Kentucky, where her father managed a coal mine and her mother was the daughter of the town doctor. She grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she attended high school. She was first bit by the acting bug at the age of 10, after attending an evening of monologues at a Methodist church. She subsequently wrote a letter to Santa Claus, telling him, "What I want for Christmas is to study dramatics". She won the Tennessee State Award for dramatic reading while she was in high school.
She apprenticed at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia, when she was 16-years-old, between her junior and senior years in high school. After studying drama for two years at Northwestern University, she headed to New York City and landed the job as an understudy in The Voice of the Turtle (1947). It was the producer of the play that had her change her name from Patsy Louise to Patricia. After replacing Vivian Vance in the touring company of "Turtle", she won a role in a play that closed in Boston and then appeared in summer stock. She won the role of the teenage "Regina" in Lillian Hellman's play, Another Part of the Forest (1948), for which she won a Tony Award in 1947. Subsequently, she signed a seven-year contract with Warner Bros.
In the first part of her film career, her most impressive roles were in The Fountainhead (1949), opposite Gary Cooper, with whom she had three-year-long love affair, and in director Robert Wise's sci-fi classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), which she made at 20th Century-Fox. Warners hadn't been thrilled with her and let her go before her contract was up, so she signed with Fox. With her film career stagnating, she returned to Broadway and achieved the success that eluded her in films, appearing in the revival of Hellman's play, The Children's Hour (1961), in 1952. She met and married writer, Roald Dahl, in 1953, and they would have five children in 30 years of marriage.
In 1957, she had one of her finest roles in Elia Kazan's parable about the threat of mass-media demagoguery and home-grown fascism in A Face in the Crowd (1957). Before she had appeared in the movie, Neal had taken over the role of "Maggie" in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), the Broadway smash that had been directed by Kazan. Returning to the stage, she appeared in the London production of Williams' Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) and co-starred with Anne Bancroft in the Broadway production of The Miracle Worker (1962).
After appearing in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), she had what was arguably her finest role, as Alma the housekeeper, in Hud (1963) opposite Paul Newman. The film was a hit and Neal won the Best Actress Oscar. In 1965, she suffered a series of strokes that nearly killed her. She was filming John Ford's film, 7 Women (1965), at the time, and had to be replaced by Anne Bancroft (who would later take a role she turned down, that of "Mrs. Robinson" in The Graduate (1967)). Neal was pregnant at the time.
She underwent a seven-hour operation on her brain and survived, later delivering her fifth child. She underwent rehabilitation supervised by her husband. She had turned down The Graduate (1967) as she had not recovered fully from her stroke. When she returned to the screen, in 1968 in The Subject Was Roses (1968), she suffered from memory problems. According to her director, Ulu Grosbard, "The memory element was the uncertain one. But when we started to shoot, she hit her top level. She really rises to the challenge. She has great range, even more now than before".
She received an Oscar nomination for her work. Subsequently, new acting roles equal to her talent were sparse. She did receive three Emmy nominations, the first for originating the role of "Olivia Walton" in the 1971 TV movie The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971), that gave birth to the TV show The Waltons (1972).
Patricia Neal died on August 9, 2010 in Edgarton, Massachusetts from lung cancer. She was 84 years old.- Beautiful, buxom, and shapely blonde bombshell Ahna Capri was born Anna Marie Nanasi on July 6, 1944 in Budapest, Hungary. Capri moved with her family to the United States when she was a child and started acting in television series at age 11. She made her film debut at age 13 in the Western Outlaw's Son (1957). Ahna achieved her greatest enduring popularity as the enticing Tania in the martial arts cult classic Enter the Dragon (1973). Capri gave an excellent and impressive performance as country singer Rip Torn's snobbish, annoyed girlfriend Mayleen Travis in Payday (1973). Ahna's other memorable movie roles include the terrified Nicky in the creepy Devil-worship horror winner The Brotherhood of Satan (1971), feisty wildlife photographer Terry Pendrake in Piranha (1972), and luscious assassin Londa Wyeth in the Crown International exploitation romp The Specialist (1975).
Among the many television series Capri has done guest spots on are Mrs. Columbo (1979), Baretta (1975), Kojak (1973), Police Story (1973), Cannon (1971), Mannix (1967), Ironside (1967), Adam-12 (1968), Mod Squad (1968), The Invaders (1967), The Wild Wild West (1965), I Spy (1965), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), Branded (1965), Leave It to Beaver (1957) and Maverick (1957). A longtime resident of the San Fernando Valley, Ahna was involved in a fatal traffic accident in North Hollywood on August 9, 2010 when a five-ton truck collided with her car. After spending more than a week in a coma on life support at a hospital, Ahna Capri passed away with family members at her side at age 66 on August 19, 2010. - Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
David Dortort was born on 23 October 1916 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for Bonanza (1959), The High Chaparral (1967) and The Lusty Men (1952). He was married to Rose Seldin. He died on 5 September 2010 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
William G. Scott was born in 1952 in Bessemer, Alabama. He attended Birmingham-Southern College for two years. He lived in New York City prior to moving to Hollywood in the late 1970s.
Changing his name to Glenn Shadix, he made his film debut in the poorly received The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981), later winning a breakthrough role in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice (1988) as Otho, the pretentious and treacherous interior designer who dangerously dabbles in the paranormal. Tim Burton went on to cast Shadix as the voice of the Mayor of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), and Senator Nado in Planet of the Apes (2001).
Notable television credits include NBC's Seinfeld (1989), and HBO's Carnivàle (2003). On September 7, 2010, Shadix accidentally fell at his condominium in Birmingham, Alabama, and died of blunt trauma to his head. He had already had mobility problems and was wheelchair-bound. Shadix was survived by his mother, sister and brother-in-law.- Bunny Summers was born on 23 February 1924 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986) and The Last Starfighter (1984). She died on 9 September 2010 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Harold Gould earned a Ph.D. in theater and taught speech and drama at Cornell University.
Pursuing off-Broadway work in the 1950s, he decided to practice what he preached and became a full-time professional actor in the 1960s.
He appeared in hundreds of TV programs during his distinguished performing career, usually playing a father, grandfather, or other varieties of authority figures.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Handsome, chisel-jawed character actor Kevin McCarthy appeared in nearly 100 movies in a career that spanned seven decades. He also had some starring roles, most notably the horror cult classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). He played the disillusioned son Biff Loman in the 1951 screen adaptation of Arthur Miller's classic Death of a Salesman (1951), for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and won the Golden Globe Award for most promising newcomer (male).
He is the younger brother of the late author Mary McCarthy and distant cousin of former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate Eugene McCarthy.
McCarthy was orphaned at the age of four when both his parents died in the great flu epidemic of 1918. He was raised by his father's parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and later by an uncle and aunt. He graduated from Campion Jesuit High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, in 1932. He attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington, DC, in 1933, intending to enter into the diplomatic field. He also attended the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in 1936 and the Actors Studio New York, New York. He had roles in two short-lived TV series: The Survivors (1969), with Lana Turner, and Flamingo Road (1980) as Claude Weldon, the father of the character played by Morgan Fairchild.
The stage-trained McCarthy frequently appeared on Broadway. He starred as Jerry in "Two for the Seesaw" (1959) and as Van Ackerman in "Advise and Consent" (1960). He also played President Harry S. Truman in the one-man show "Give 'Em Hell, Harry!"
McCarthy showed no signs of retiring as late as June 2007. McCarthy acted in the film The Ghastly Love of Johnny X (2012), playing the role of the Grand Inquisitor, at age 93, which was finally released in 2011. He died of pneumonia on September 11, 2010.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A petite and extremely lovely blonde "B" film actress who eventually deserted her career in favor of standing by her man (cowboy icon William Boyd, aka, "Hopalong Cassidy"), Grace Bradley spent the rest of her life in his shadow and devoting herself to her husband's career. Bill's Hoppy was the longest span of any fictional character played by the same actor. Following his death in 1972, she spent a good deal of her time keeping his good name and image intact.
The former film lead and second lead was born in Brooklyn, New York, on September 21, 1913, and initially studied to be a concert pianist. At age 15 she played Carnegie Hall, representing the state of New York in one of its annual competitions for up-and-coming pianists. She took advantage of all her assets by modeling full time and taking singing/dancing lessons on the sly. She went on to act, sing, and dance on the Broadway stage in the musicals "Strike Me Pink" and "The Little Show".
While performing at the Paradise nightclub in Manhattan in 1933, she was "discovered" by a Paramount Pictures director and signed for films.
Out west, Bradley often was cast as an assertive "bad girl" or femme-fatale at Paramount with names like Goldie, Trixie, Flossie, Lily and Sadie.
Her first full-length movie was as a second lead in the Bing Crosby/Jack Oakie musical comedy Too Much Harmony (1933), in which she sang and danced to the feisty tune "Cradle Me With a Hotcha Lullaby". She subsequently appeared in the W.C. Fields classic Six of a Kind (1934); the Richard Arlen pictures Come On, Marines! (1934) and She Made Her Bed (1934); the Claudette Colbert/Fred MacMurray comedy The Gilded Lily (1935), and had the female lead opposite Bruce Cabot in Redhead (1934). Appearing secondary in the Bing Crosby/Ethel Merman version of Anything Goes (1936), her musical talents were tapped into with the films The Cat's-Paw (1934), Stolen Harmony (1935), Old Man Rhythm (1935), Sitting on the Moon (1936), and Wake Up and Live (1937). Elsewhere, various "B" male co-stars would include Wallace Ford, Lee Tracy, Jack Haley, John Boles, Robert Livingston, Jack Holt and Robert Armstrong.
In 1937, she happened to cross paths with William Lawrence Boyd, who became her literal "Prince Charming on a big white horse". She had harbored a long-time school-girl crush on the man and she was instantly smitten upon their first meeting. He was 42 and she 23. Their courtship was fast and furious. He asked her to marry him within a few days and they were married three weeks later on June 5th. Boyd had already been married four times, none of which lasted any longer than six years. She would become the fifth (and last) Mrs. William Boyd in a marriage lasting 35 years. The couple had no children together; Bill had one child from his third marriage.
Grace continued on with her cinematic career for a time. She appeared in the mystery Romance on the Run (1938) with Donald Woods; enjoyed top billing in the "B" crime drama The Invisible Killer (1939); supported heavy-duty singers Allan Jones and Susanna Foster in the musical romance The Hard-Boiled Canary (1941); and provided decorative diversion in the Jack London adventure Sign of the Wolf (1941) opposite Michael Whalen. Her last three pictures had the actress co-starring as Sadie McGuerin and mingling with cab company owners William Bendix and Joe Sawyer in the Hal Roach full-length comedies Brooklyn Orchid (1942), The McGuerins from Brooklyn (1942), and Taxi, Mister (1943). She then retired completely.
By 1944, Boyd's movie career had faltered and the couple sought the purchasing rights to his old movies and the identifiable Hoppy character. Selling their Malibu ranch home and moving to a Hollywood apartment, the risk paid off. By 1946 he had formed his own production company and began churning out new Hopalong Cassidy films and serials. They took the character to episodic television in 1948 and he became a hit all over again. "Hoppymania" burst onto the American scene with hundreds of products bearing his name and likeness becoming instant collectible items (lunch boxes, tee shirts, cowboy hats, cowboy boots, toy guns, etc).
Boyd retired from show business in 1953 now quite wealthy. He and his wife then moved to Palm Desert, California. In 1968, Boyd had surgery to remove a tumor from a lymph gland. From that point on, he refused all requests for interviews and photographs. Suffering from Parkinson's disease, he died as the result of heart failure in Laguna Beach, California, on September 12, 1972, at age 77.
Bradley went on to spend the last decades of her life devoting herself to volunteer work at the same hospital where her husband had died. She later withstood legal battles stemming from copyright infringements, although enjoyed appearing occasionally at Hopalong Cassidy tributes. The definitive biography Hopalong Cassidy, "An American Legend", was co-authored by Bradley and Michael Cochran in 2008.
Grace Bradley Boyd died of natural causes on her 97th birthday. She was interred next to her husband at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Burly, handsome and rugged character actor John Crawford appeared in over 200 movies and TV shows combined in a career that spanned over 40 years, usually cast as tough and/or villainous characters.
Crawford was born Cleve Richardson on September 13, 1920, in Colfax, Washington. He was discovered by a Warner Bros. scout while attending the University of Washington's School of Drama. Although he failed his screen test, Crawford nonetheless joined RKO as a laborer. He then got a job building sets at Circle Theater in Los Angeles, and eventually persuaded the producers to cast him in some of their plays. He was soon signed to Columbia Pictures to act in secondary roles in westerns. In the late 1950s he graduated to bigger parts in such films as Orders to Kill (1958), The Key (1958) and Hell Is a City (1960), all of which were made in the UK. Crawford returned to America in the early 1960s and began a prolific career in both movies and TV series, up until 1986. His most memorable film roles include the ill-fated chief engineer in The Poseidon Adventure (1972), the hearty Tom Iverson in Night Moves (1975), the bumbling mayor of San Francisco in The Enforcer (1976), hard-nosed police chief Buzz Cavanaugh in Outlaw Blues (1977) and amiable old mine hand Brian Deerling in The Boogens (1981). John had recurring parts as Sheriff Ep Bridges in The Waltons (1972) and Capt. Parks on Police Woman (1974). Among the many TV shows he made guest appearances in are The Lone Ranger (1949), Adventures of Superman (1952), I Spy (1965), The Twilight Zone (1959), The Untouchables (1959), Wagon Train (1957), The Fugitive (1963), Star Trek (1966), Lost in Space (1965), Bonanza (1959), Hogan's Heroes (1965), Mission: Impossible (1966), Gunsmoke (1955), The Bionic Woman (1976), Dallas (1978) and Dynasty (1981). Crawford died at age 90 following complications from a stroke on September 21, 2010, in Thousand Oaks, California. He's survived by his ex-wife Ann Wakefield, four daughters and two grandchildren.