Favorite Actors ... In List Form
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In 1979 with his Detroit friends, Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, Bruce Campbell raised $350,000 for a low-budget film, The Evil Dead (1981), in which he starred and co-executive produced. Completed piecemeal over four years, the film first gained notoriety in England where it became the best-selling video of 1983, beating out The Shining (1980). After its appearance at Cannes, where Stephen King dubbed it "the most ferociously original horror film of the year", New Line Cinema stepped forward to release "Evil Dead" in the U.S.
After co-producing Crimewave (1985), a cross-genre comedy written by Sam Raimi, Ethan and Joel Coen, Campbell moved to Los Angeles and quickly gained a foothold producing or starring in genre films such as the Maniac Cop (1988) series, Lunatics: A Love Story (1991), Moontrap (1988), and Mindwarp (1991), a post-apocalyptic "Jeremiah Johnson", during which he met his wife-to-be, filmmaker, Ida Gearon.
Campbell then rejoined his Detroit colleagues to star and co-produce the second and third films in the Evil Dead trilogy (Evil Dead II (1987) & Army of Darkness (1992)), completing 12 years of work on the cult favorite.
This rough-and-tumble background was a plus as Campbell made his foray into television, first starring in the highly touted Fox series The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993), then as a recurring guest-star on the hit show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (1993).
With these under his belt, Campbell easily made the transition to director, helming numerous episodes and recurring as the King of Thieves in the #1 syndicated Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995), and its follow-up phenomenon, Xena: Warrior Princess (1995).
Bruce has since expanded his range on television, appearing in anything from Disney's update of The Love Bug (1997), to decidedly dramatic turns on the acclaimed series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) and The X-Files (1993). At the invitation of ABC, Campbell ventured into the world of sitcoms with a recurring role on ABC's Emmy-nominated Ellen (1994), participating in one of the three touted "out" episodes.
But Campbell didn't abandon his film roots. During that time, he had featured roles in the blockbuster Congo (1995), John Carpenter's Escape from L.A. (1996), and the award-winning independent crime drama, Running Time (1997). He followed these up with roles in Paramount's romantic comedy, Serving Sara (2002), Jim Carrey's The Majestic (2001), and all three of Sam Raimi's blockbuster Spider-Man movies.
After a return to episodic television in the swashbuckling series, Jack of All Trades (2000), Campbell took the title role in MGM's cult sleeper Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). His directorial debut, Man with the Screaming Brain (2005) premiered on the Sci Fi Channel, and Dark Horse Comics published the comic adaptation.
Campbell then directed and starred as himself in My Name Is Bruce (2007), a spoof of his B-movie career, then re-teamed with Disney for their fun-filled hit, Sky High (2005).
Campbell has since made the leap into other forms of entertainment, and is enjoying his role as an author with back-to-back New York Times bestsellers: a memoir entitled "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor", and his first novel, "Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way".
In the multi-media industry, Bruce has enjoyed voicing characters for Disney's animated TV series The Legend of Tarzan (2001) and the Warner Brothers feature The Ant Bully (2006). He also portrayed the character of "Mayor Shelbourne" in the animated hit film, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009). Recently, Campbell voiced the role of "Rod Torque Redline" in Cars 2 (2011), the sequel to the smash Disney animated feature and for the immensely popular game, "Call of Duty".
In 2013, Bruce co-produced the hit remake of Evil Dead (2013), joined his filmmaking pal Sam Raimi on Oz the Great and Powerful (2013), and completed an impressive seven-year run on the spy show, Burn Notice (2007) (2007-2013), USA's #1 show on cable.
More than two decades after the release of Army of Darkness (1992), Bruce returned to his most iconic role for Ash vs Evil Dead (2015), a highly-anticipated series premiering on the Starz network on Halloween 2015.- Actor
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Kurt Vogel Russell was born on March 17, 1951 in Springfield, Massachusetts and raised in Thousand Oaks, California to Louise Julia Russell (née Crone), a dancer & Bing Russell, an actor. He is of English, German, Scottish and Irish descent. His first roles were as a child on television series, including a lead role on the Western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963). Russell landed a role in the Elvis Presley movie, It Happened at the World's Fair (1963), when he was eleven years old. Walt Disney himself signed Russell to a 10-year contract, and, according to Robert Osborne, he became the studio's top star of the 1970s. Having voiced adult Copper in the animated Disney film The Fox and the Hound (1981), Russell is one of the few famous child stars in Hollywood who has been able to continue his acting career past his teen years.
Kurt spent the early 1970s playing minor league baseball. In 1979, he gave a classic performance as Elvis Presley in John Carpenter's ABC TV movie Elvis (1979), and married the actress who portrayed Priscilla Presley in the film, Season Hubley. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role. He followed with roles in a string of well-received films, including Used Cars (1980) and Silkwood (1983), for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture. During the 1980s, he starred in several films by director Carpenter; they created some of his best-known roles, including the infamous anti-hero Snake Plissken in the futuristic action film Escape from New York (1981) (and later in its sequel Escape from L.A. (1996)), Antarctic helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady in the horror film The Thing (1982), and Jack Burton in the fantasy film Big Trouble in Little China (1986), all of which have since become cult classics.
In 1983, he became reacquainted with Goldie Hawn (who appeared with him in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968)) when they worked together on Swing Shift (1984). The two have lived together ever since. They made another film together, Garry Marshall's comedy Overboard (1987). His other 1980s titles include The Best of Times (1986), Tequila Sunrise (1988), Winter People (1989) and Tango & Cash (1989).
In 1991, he headlined the firefighter drama Backdraft (1991), he starred as Wyatt Earp in the Western film Tombstone (1993), and had a starring role as Colonel Jack O'Neil in the science fiction film Stargate (1994). In the mid-2000s, his portrayal of U.S. Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks in Miracle (2004) won the praise of critics. In 2006, he appeared in the disaster-thriller Poseidon (2006), and in 2007, in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007) segment from the film Grindhouse (2007). Russell appeared in The Battered Bastards of Baseball (2014), a documentary about his father and the Portland Mavericks, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014. Russell starred in the Western films Bone Tomahawk (2015) and The Hateful Eight (2015), and had a leading role in the dramatization Deepwater Horizon (2016). He also co-starred in the action sequels Furious 7 (2015) and The Fate of the Furious (2017).
Russell and Goldie Hawn live on a 72-acre retreat, Home Run Ranch, outside of Aspen. He has two sons, Boston Russell (from his marriage to Hubley) and Wyatt Russell (with Hawn). He also raised Hawn's children, actors Oliver Hudson and Kate Hudson, who consider him their father. Russell is also an avid gun enthusiast, a hunter and a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. He is also an FAA-licensed private pilot holding single/multi-engine and instrument ratings, and is an Honorary Board Member of the humanitarian aviation organization Wings of Hope.- Actor
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Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through the '00s.
Nicholson was born on April 22, 1937, in Neptune, New Jersey. He was raised believing that his grandmother was his mother, and that his mother, June Frances Nicholson, a showgirl, was his older sister. He discovered the truth in 1975 from a Time magazine journalist who was researching a profile on him. His real father is believed to have been either Donald Furcillo, an Italian American showman, or Eddie King (Edgar Kirschfeld), born in Latvia and also in show business. Jack's mother's ancestry was Irish, and smaller amounts of English, German, Scottish, and Welsh.
Nicholson made his film debut in a B-movie titled The Cry Baby Killer (1958). His rise in Hollywood was far from meteoric, and for years, he sustained his career with guest spots in television series and a number of Roger Corman films, including The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
Nicholson's first turn in the director's chair was for Drive, He Said (1971). Before that, he wrote the screenplay for The Trip (1967), and co-wrote Head (1968), a vehicle for The Monkees. His big break came with Easy Rider (1969) and his portrayal of liquor-soaked attorney George Hanson, which earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination. Nicholson's film career took off in the 1970s with a definitive performance in Five Easy Pieces (1970). Nicholson's other notable work during this period includes leading roles in Roman Polanski's noir masterpiece Chinatown (1974) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which he won his first Best Actor Oscar.
The 1980s kicked off with another career-defining role for Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining (1980). A string of well-received films followed, including Terms of Endearment (1983), which earned Nicholson his second Oscar; Prizzi's Honor (1985), and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). He portrayed another renowned villain, The Joker, in Tim Burton's Batman (1989). In the 1990s, he starred in such varied films as A Few Good Men (1992), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and a dual role in Mars Attacks! (1996).
Although a glimpse at the darker side of Nicholson's acting range reappeared in The Departed (2006), the actor's most recent roles highlight the physical and emotional complications one faces late in life. The most notable of these is the unapologetically misanthropic Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets (1997), for which he won his third Oscar. Shades of this persona are apparent in About Schmidt (2002), Something's Gotta Give (2003), and The Bucket List (2007). In addition to his Academy Awards and Oscar nominations, Nicholson has seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. He also became one of the youngest actors to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement award in 1994.
Nicholson has six children by five different women: Jennifer Nicholson (b. 1963) from his only marriage to Sandra Knight, which ended in 1966; Caleb Goddard (b. 1970) with Five Easy Pieces (1970) co-star Susan Anspach, who was automatically adopted by Anspach's then-husband Mark Goddard; Honey Hollman (b. 1982) with Danish supermodel Winnie Hollman; Lorraine Nicholson (b. 1990) and Ray Nicholson (b. 1992) with minor actress Rebecca Broussard; and Tessa Gourin (b. 1994) with real estate agent Jennine Marie Gourin. Nicholson's longest relationship was the 17 nonmonogamous years he spent with Anjelica Huston; this ended when Broussard announced she was pregnant with his child.- Producer
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Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has called a "fractured" family. He moved around a great deal after his parents' divorce, living with a succession of step-families. No problems, no alcoholism - just a confused childhood. He has no acting experience in college and credits the fact that he could not get cast in a college play with actually starting his career. He went downtown, and auditioned for a community theater play, was invited by the director of that play to go to Cleveland, and there his acting career started.
Ron Howard was working on Splash (1983), a fantasy-comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a business executive. Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, which eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role and the film went on to become a surprise box office success, grossing more than $69 million. After several flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet (1987), Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success with the fantasy-comedy Big (1988) established him as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the film industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor.
Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of movie making ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and then with Philadelphia (1993). The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of Time magazine called his performance "charming", and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.
In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay.
Hanks followed Philadelphia with the blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office. Hanks remarked: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.
Hanks' next role - astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the docudrama Apollo 13 (1995) - reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's computer-animated film Toy Story (1995), as the voice of Sheriff Woody. A year later, he made his directing debut with the musical comedy That Thing You Do! (1996) about the rise and fall of a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer.
As of 2022, Hanks is 66-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and has remained active in the film industry for more than four decades.- Actor
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John Stephen Goodman's an American film, TV & stage actor. He was born in Affton, Missouri to Virginia Roos (Loosmore), a waitress and saleswoman & Leslie Francis Goodman, a postal worker who died when he was a small child. He's of English, Welsh & German ancestry. He's best known for his role as Dan Conner on the TV show Roseanne (1988), which ran until 1997 & for which he earned him a Best Actor Golden Globe in 1993. He's also noted for appearances in films of the Coen brothers, w/ prominent roles in Raising Arizona (1987) as an escaped convict, in Barton Fink (1991) as a congenial murderer, in The Big Lebowski (1998) as a volatile bowler & in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) as a cultured thief. Additionally, he has done voice work in numerous Disney & Pixar films, including the Sulley in Monsters, Inc. (2001). Having contributed to more than 50 films, he has also won 2 American Comedy Awards & hosted Saturday Night Live (1975) 14 times.- Actor
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Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD.
Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, to a German mother, Marlene Kassel, and an American father, David Andrew Willis (from Carneys Point, New Jersey), who were then living on a United States military base. His family moved to the U.S. shortly after he was born, and he was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey, where his mother worked at a bank and his father was a welder and factory worker. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.
After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Moonlighting (1985). His sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. is seen by some as a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Die Hard (1988), in which Willis' character single-handedly battled a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. He reprised the role of McClane in the sequel, Die Hard 2 (1990), set at a snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), this time co-starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shop owner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in New York.
Willis found time out from all the action mayhem to provide the voice of "Mikey" the baby in the very popular family comedies Look Who's Talking (1989), and its sequel Look Who's Talking Too (1990) also starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Over the next decade, Willis starred in some very successful films, some very offbeat films and some unfortunate box office flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and Hudson Hawk (1991) were both large scale financial disasters that were savaged by the critics, and both are arguably best left off the CVs of all the actors involved, however Willis was still popular with movie audiences and selling plenty of theatre tickets with the hyper-violent The Last Boy Scout (1991), the darkly humored Death Becomes Her (1992) and the mediocre police thriller Striking Distance (1993).
During the 1990s, Willis also appeared in several independent and low budget productions that won him new fans and praise from the critics for his intriguing performances working with some very diverse film directors. He appeared in the oddly appealing North (1994), as a cagey prizefighter in the Quentin Tarantino directed mega-hit Pulp Fiction (1994), the Terry Gilliam directed apocalyptic thriller 12 Monkeys (1995), the Luc Besson directed sci-fi opus The Fifth Element (1997) and the M. Night Shyamalan directed spine-tingling epic The Sixth Sense (1999).
Willis next starred in the gangster comedy The Whole Nine Yards (2000), worked again with "hot" director M. Night Shyamalan in the less than gripping Unbreakable (2000), and in two military dramas, Hart's War (2002) and Tears of the Sun (2003) that both failed to really fire with movie audiences or critics alike. However, Willis bounced back into the spotlight in the critically applauded Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie Sin City (2005), the voice of "RJ" the scheming raccoon in the animated hit Over the Hedge (2006) and "Die Hard" fans rejoiced to see "John McClane" return to the big screen in the high tech Live Free or Die Hard (2007) aka "Die Hard 4.0".
Willis was married to actress Demi Moore for approximately thirteen years and they share custody to their three daughters.- Actor
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John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. When the ranch failed, the family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke" (the source of his own nickname). He did well at school both academically and in football. When he narrowly failed admission to Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7. Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. On the set he became close friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as John Wayne. His first featured film was Men Without Women (1930). After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine, Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in Stagecoach (1939), the movie that made him a star. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions. From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind", and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization, later becoming its President. His conservative political stance was also reflected in The Alamo (1960), which he produced, directed and starred in. His patriotic stand was enshrined in The Green Berets (1968) which he co-directed and starred in. Over the years Wayne was beset with health problems. In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed; in 1977 when Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope was being made, John Waynes archive voice was used for the character Garindan ezz Zavor, later in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery; and in January 1979 his stomach was removed. He received the Best Actor nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). A Congressional Gold Medal was struck in his honor in 1979. He is perhaps best remembered for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy - Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950).- Actor
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Andy Griffith is best known for his starring roles in two very popular television series, The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and Matlock (1986). Griffith earned a degree in music from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In the 1950s, he became a regular on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) and The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956). He was featured in the Broadway play "No Time for Sergeants" (1955) for which he received a Tony nomination, and he later appeared in the film version. His film debut was in the provocative and prophetic A Face in the Crowd (1957), in which Griffith gave a performance that has been described as stunning.
On The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Griffith portrayed a folksy small-town sheriff who shared simple heartfelt wisdom. The series was one of the most popular television series in history. It generated some successful spin-offs, and the original is still seen in reruns to this day. Griffith created his own production company in 1972, which produced several movies and television series. In 1981, he was nominated for an Emmy for his portrayal in Murder in Texas (1981). In 1983, Griffith was stricken with Guillain-Barre syndrome, but he recovered after rehabilitation. In 1986, he produced and starred in the very successful television series Matlock (1986). The series spawned numerous television movies as well. When he accepted the People's Choice Award for this series, he said this was his favorite role. Andy Griffith died at age 86 of a heart attack in his home in Dare County, North Carolina on July 3, 2012.- Actor
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Samuel L. Jackson is an American producer and highly prolific actor, having appeared in over 100 films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000), Formula 51 (2001), Black Snake Moan (2006), Snakes on a Plane (2006), and the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005), as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., to Elizabeth (Montgomery) and Roy Henry Jackson. He was raised by his mother, a factory worker, and his grandparents. At Morehouse College, Jackson was active in the black student movement. In the seventies, he joined the Negro Ensemble Company (together with Morgan Freeman). In the eighties, he became well-known after three movies made by Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990) and Jungle Fever (1991). He achieved prominence and critical acclaim in the early 1990s with films such as Patriot Games (1992), Amos & Andrew (1993), True Romance (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), and his collaborations with director Quentin Tarantino, including Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), and later Django Unchained (2012). Going from supporting player to leading man, his performance in Pulp Fiction (1994) gave him an Oscar nomination for his character Jules Winnfield, and he received a Silver Berlin Bear for his part as Ordell Robbi in Jackie Brown (1997). Jackson usually played bad guys and drug addicts before becoming an action hero, co-starring with Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996).
With Jackson's permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character, Nick Fury. He later did a cameo as the character in a post-credits scene from Iron Man (2008), and went on to sign a nine-film commitment to reprise this role in future films, including major roles in Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and minor roles in Thor (2011) and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). He has also portrayed the character in the second and final episodes of the first season of the TV show, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013). He has provided his voice to several animated films, television series and video games, including the roles of Lucius Best / Frozone in Pixar's film The Incredibles (2004), Mace Windu in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), Afro Samurai in the anime television series Afro Samurai (2007), and Frank Tenpenny in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).- Actor
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Since the start of his music career, Dwight Yoakam has proven he's more than just another guy with a guitar and a hat. He has risen from hot country star to being one of country music's biggest influences. While doing that, he has also become a critically acclaimed actor.
Dwight David Yoakam was born on October 23, 1956 in the coal mining community of Pikeville, Kentucky, to Ruth Ann (Tibbs), a key-punch operator, and David Yoakam, a gas-station owner. Soon after his birth, his family moved to Columbus, Ohio, where he was raised. As part of the Drama Club in his days at Northland High School in Columbus, he acted in school plays. He played Helen Keller's brother in his sophomore year in the school's production of "The Miracle Worker." He followed that his Junior year playing the lead as Charlie in "Flowers for Algernon." He capped off his high school acting career as Richard Bravo in The "Demon Seed." In 1977, Dwight moved to Nashville to pursue a career in music. At the time, Nashville was moving away from the traditional country sound that he was playing. After a brief time there, he moved to California, which was more receptive to the music he was doing. He hooked up with producer/guitar virtuoso Pete Anderson in 1982. That began a musical relationship that became country music's equivalent to rock's Glimmer Twins (Mick Jagger and Keith Richards).
Financial backing to make a high-quality recording came from Dwight's sister and brother-in-law, an insurance check that was meant to fix Dwight's El Camino and money raised from a benefit classical music concert staged by UCLA music professor Dr. Robert Winter. With the EP (extended play) that captured the "Dwight Yoakam sound." In1984, Dwight released the six-song EP "Guitars, Cadillacs, Etc., Etc." on the independent Oak label, and then hit the road with such artists as Los Lobos and Violent Femmes. Playing traditional country music, Dwight gained a following among not only country fans but punk rockers and rockabilly fans as well. This eclectic fan base brought him to the attention of many record labels. Warner Brothers signed him to its newly revived Reprise Record label in 1985. The EP's title and tracks were kept intact and more songs added to make a full album. At the time, country music was in the waning days of its Urban Cowboy (1980) phase, and fans of country were hungry for something "new." This new sound was a return to a more traditional style that had been abandoned when John Travolta put on a cowboy hat. After establishing himself in the music industry, Dwight set his sights on his second love, acting. In 1991 he appeared as a stuntman/country singer in an episode of P.S.I. Luv U (1991). This became the beginning of his professional acting career. In 1992, he appeared on the big screen for the first time in the Nicolas Cage/Dennis Hopper film Red Rock West (1993). In 1993, Dwight released what is considered his masterpiece, the album "This Time." He supported the album with a tour that lasted over a year and covered the world. In 1994, he received his first Grammy for the album's single, "Ain't That Lonely Yet." In 1996, he co-starred in Billy Bob Thornton's film Sling Blade (1996). His work as the evil Doyle Hargraves left audiences speechless and critics hailing his performance.
Dwight was included with the cast who were among the nominees for "Best Cast" by the Screen Actors Guild awards. As the 1990s drew to a close, Dwight proved that his music didn't have to suffer as he pursued more ventures into movies. While filming The Newton Boys (1998), he wrote what many consider his most personal album, "A Long Way Home." All the tracks were written solely by Dwight. He began 1999 with a Grammy win for his contribution to the track "Same Old Train" from the various artists' album "Tribute to Tradition." He then added two new items to his resume: director and screenwriter. In South of Heaven, West of Hell (2000), he not only starred, he made his directorial debut with a screenplay he authored. Dwight Yoakam continues to prove that he is able to successfully have careers in both film and music, without either profession suffering.- Actor
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Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded three times.
A distinguished stage actor in his native Hungary, Austria-Hungary, he began his stage career in 1901 and started appearing in films during World War I, fleeing to Germany in 1919 as a result of his left-wing political activity (he organized an actors' union). In 1920 he emigrated to the US and made a living as a character actor, shooting to fame when he played Count Dracula in the legendary 1927 Broadway stage adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. It ran for three years, and was subsequently, and memorably, filmed by Tod Browning in 1931, establishing Lugosi as one of the screen's greatest personifications of pure evil. Also in 1931, he became a U.S. citizen. Sadly, his reputation rapidly declined, mainly because he had been blacklisted by the main studios and had no choice but to accept any part (and script) handed to him, and ended up playing parodies of his greatest role, in low-grade poverty row films. Due to shady blacklisting among the top Hollywood studio executives, he refused to sell out or to compromise his integrity, and therefore ended his career working for the legendary Worst Director of All Time, Edward D. Wood Jr..
Lugosi was married to Ilona Szmik (1917 - 1920), Ilona von Montagh (? - ?), and Lillian Arch (1933 - 1951). He is the father of Bela Lugosi Jr. (1938). Lugosi helped organize the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-'30s, joining as member number 28.
Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956. He was buried in a Dracula costume, including a cape, but not the ones used in the 1931 film, contrary to popular--but unfounded--rumors.- Actor
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This remarkable, soft-spoken American began in films as a diffident juvenile. With passing years, he matured into a star character actor who exemplified not only integrity and strength, but an ideal of the common man fighting against social injustice and oppression. He was born in Grand Island, Hall, Nebraska, the son of Herberta Elma (Jaynes) and William Brace Fonda, who was a commercial printer, and proprietor of the W. B. Fonda Printing Company in Omaha, Nebraska. His distant ancestors were Italians who had fled their country and moved to Holland, presumably because of political or religious persecution. In the mid-1600s, they crossed the Atlantic and settled in upstate New York where they founded a community with the Fonda name.
Growing up, Henry developed an early interest in journalism after having a story published in a local newspaper. At the age of twelve, he helped in his father's printing business for $2 a week. Following graduation from high school in 1923, he got a part-time job in Minneapolis with the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company which allowed him at first to pursue journalistic studies at the University of Minnesota. As it became difficult to juggle his working hours with his academic roster, he obtained another position as a physical education instructor at $30 a week, including room and board. By this time, he had grown to a height of six foot one and was a natural for basketball.
In 1925, having returned to Omaha, Henry reevaluated his options and came to the conclusion that journalism was not his forte, after all. For a while, he tried his hand at several temporary jobs, including as a mechanic and a window dresser. Then, despite opposition from his parents, Henry accepted an offer from Gregory Foley, director of the Omaha Playhouse, to play the title role in 'Merton of the Movies'. His father would not speak to him for a month. The play and its star received fairly good notices in the local press. It ran for a week, after which Henry observed "the idea of being Merton and not myself taught me that I could hide behind a mask". For the rest of the repertory season, Henry advanced to assistant director which enabled him to design and paint sets as well as act. A casual trip to New York, however, had already made him set his sights on Broadway.
In 1928, he headed east and briefly played in summer stock before joining the University Players, a group of talented Princeton and Harvard graduates among whose number were such future luminaries as James Stewart (who would remain his closest lifelong friend), Joshua Logan and Kent Smith. Before long, Henry played leads opposite Margaret Sullavan, soon to become the first of his five wives. Both marriage and the players broke up four years later. In 1932, Henry found himself sharing a two-room New York apartment with Jimmy Stewart and Joshua Logan. For the next two years, he alternated scenic design with acting at various repertory companies. In 1934, he got a break of sorts, when he was given the chance to present a comedy sketch with Imogene Coca in the Broadway revue New Faces. That year, he also hired Leland Hayward as his personal management agent and this was to pay off handsomely.
It was Hayward who persuaded the 29-year old to become a motion picture actor, despite initial misgivings and reluctance on Henry's part. Independent producer Walter Wanger, whose growing stock company was birthed at United Artists, needed a star for The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935). With both first choice actors Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea otherwise engaged, Henry was the next available option. After all, he had just completed a successful run on Broadway in the stage version. The cheesy publicity tag line for the picture was "you'll be fonder of Fonda", but the film was an undeniable hit. Wanger, realizing he had a good thing going, next cast Henry in a succession of A-grade pictures which capitalized on his image as the sincere, unaffected country boy. Pick of the bunch were the Technicolor outdoor western The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the gritty Depression-era drama You Only Live Once (1937) (with Henry as a back-to-the-wall good guy forced into becoming a fugitive from the law by circumstance), the screwball comedy The Moon's Our Home (1936) (with ex-wife Sullavan), the excellent pre-civil war-era romantic drama Jezebel (1938) and the equally superb Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), in which Henry gave his best screen performance to date as the 'jackleg lawyer from Springfield'. Henry made two more films with director John Ford: the pioneering drama Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940), with Henry as Tom Joad, often regarded his career-defining role as the archetypal grassroots American trying to stand up against oppression. It also set the tone for his subsequent career. Whether he played a lawman (Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946)), a reluctant posse member (The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), a juror committed to the ideal of total justice in (12 Angry Men (1957)) or a nightclub musician wrongly accused of murder (The Wrong Man (1956)), his characters were alike in projecting integrity and quiet authority. In this vein, he also gave a totally convincing (though historically inaccurate) portrayal in the titular role of The Return of Frank James (1940), a rare example of a sequel improving upon the original.
Henry rarely featured in comedy, except for a couple of good turns opposite Barbara Stanwyck -- with whom he shared an excellent on-screen chemistry -- in The Mad Miss Manton (1938) and The Lady Eve (1941). He was also good value as a poker-playing grifter in the western comedy A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966). Finally, just to confound those who would typecast him, he gave a chilling performance as one of the coldest, meanest stone killers ever to roam the West, in Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Illness curtailed his work in the 1970s. His final screen role was as an octogenarian in On Golden Pond (1981), in which he was joined by his daughter Jane. It finally won him an Oscar on the heels of an earlier Honorary Academy Award. Too ill to attend the ceremony, he died soon after at the age of 77, having left a lasting legacy matched by few of his peers.- Actor
- Producer
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Tall, bald and nearly always bearded, Sid Haig provided hulking menace to many a low-budget exploitation film and high-priced action film.
Sid Haig was born Sidney Eddie Mosesian on July 14, 1939 in Fresno, California, a screaming ball of hair. His parents, Roxy (Mooradian) and Haig Mosesian, an electrician, were of Armenian descent. Sid's career was somewhat of an accident. He was growing so fast that he had absolutely no coordination. It was decided that he would take dancing lessons, and that's when it all began. At the age of seven, he was dancing for pay in a children's Christmas Show, then a revival of a vaudeville show... and on it went.
Sid also showed a musical inclination, particularly for the drums. So when his parents got tired of him denting all the pots and pans in the house, they bought him a drum set. The music was in him and he took to it immediately, a born natural. First it was swing, then country, then jazz, blues and rock 'n' roll. Sid always found it easy to make money with his music, and did very well. One year out of high school and signing a recording contract is not too bad. Sid went on to record the single "Full House" with the T-Birds in 1958. However, back while he was in high school, Sid got bitten by the "acting bug". Alice Merrill was the head of the drama department at that time and gave him all the encouragement in the world to pursue an acting career. The clincher came in his senior year. The way that the senior play was cast was that she would double cast the show, then have one of her friends from Hollywood come up and pick the final cast.
You see, Merrill was quite famous as an actress on Broadway and kept up her contacts in the business. When the appointed day came, the "friend" that showed up was Dennis Morgan, a big musical comedy star from the 1940s. The rest is history -- he picked Sid for the role, then two weeks later came back to see the show and told Sid that he should continue his education down south and consider acting as a career path. Two years later, Sid enrolled in the world famous Pasadena Playhouse, the school that trained such actors as Robert Preston, Robert Young, Gene Hackman, Dustin Hoffman, and so on. After two years of "actor's hell" (non-stop 7:00 am to 11:00 pm with homework thrown in just for the fun of it), it was time to move on to the big "H", Hollywood! Sid did so with longtime friend and roommate Stuart Margolin (Angel on The Rockford Files (1974)).
Sid's first acting job was in Jack Hill's student film at UCLA. It was called The Host (2000), which was released in 2004 on DVD as a companion to Switchblade Sisters (1975), another Hill film. That role launched a 40-year acting career during which Haig appeared in over 50 films and 350 television series. He has proven himself quite valuable to such filmmakers as producer Roger Corman. He also became a staple in the pictures of Jack Hill, appearing in Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967), Coffy (1973) and Foxy Brown (1974). Haig's other memorable credits include George Lucas' THX 1138 (1971), and the James Bond opus Diamonds Are Forever (1971) (he is one of the Slumber Brothers, and got to toss a topless Lana Wood from the window of a high-rise Vegas hotel).
Among his most significant television credits are appearances on such landmark series as The A-Team (1983), T.J. Hooker (1982), The Dukes of Hazzard (1979), Quincy M.E. (1976), Hart to Hart (1979), Fantasy Island (1977), Charlie's Angels (1976), Police Woman (1974), The Rockford Files (1974), The Six Million Dollar Man (1974), Mannix (1967), Mission: Impossible (1966), Gunsmoke (1955), Get Smart (1965), Here's Lucy (1968), The Flying Nun (1967), Daniel Boone (1964), Star Trek (1966), Batman (1966) and The Untouchables (1959).
Sid was never one to give-up on anything but after nearly 40 years of carrying a gun (except for the occasional Jack Hill or Roger Corman film), his dreams of being recognized as a more than competent actor were fading. Then in 1992, frustrated with being typecast, Sid retired from acting and quoted, "I'll never play another stupid heavy again, and I don't care if that means that I never work, ever." This just proves that if you take a stand people will listen, for Quentin Tarantino wrote for Sid the role of the judge in Jackie Brown (1997). Then things got better, much better. During the mid and late 1990s, Sid managed a community theatre company, as well as dabbled occasionally in theater in Los Angeles.
Then in 2000, Sid came out of his self-imposed retirement at the request of Rob Zombie for a role in Zombie's debut film House of 1000 Corpses (2003). He starred as the fun-loving, but murderous, Captain Spaulding. This role breathed new life into Sid's acting career and earned him an award for Best Supporting Actor in the 13th Annual Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, as well as an induction into the Horror Hall of Fame. Sid's character Captain Spaulding became an icon for the new horror genre. Sid has recently enjoyed success as Captain Spaulding once again in Rob Zombie's follow-up to House of 1000 Corpses (2003), entitled, The Devil's Rejects (2005). For this film, Sid received the award for best Actor in the 15th Annual Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, as well as sharing the award for "Most Vile Villain" at the First Annual Spike TV Scream Awards with Leslie Easterbrook, Sheri Moon Zombie and Bill Moseley as The Firefly Family.
In the 2000s and 2010s, Sid continued to enjoy his renewed success as an actor. In September 2019, he was hospitalized after falling in his home in Los Angeles, California. While recovering, he suffered from a lung infection after vomiting in his sleep. He died on September 21, 2019, from complications of the infection at age 80.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Actor, raconteur, art collector and connoisseur of haute cuisine are just some of the attributes associated with Vincent Price. He was born Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, to Marguerite Cobb "Daisy" (Wilcox) and Vincent Leonard Price, who was President of the National Candy Company. His grandfather, also named Vincent, invented Dr. Price's Baking Powder, which was tartar-based. His family was prosperous, as he said, "not rich enough to evoke envy but successful enough to demand respect." His uniquely cultivated voice and persona were the result of a well-rounded education which began when his family dispatched him on a tour of Europe's cultural centres. His secondary education eventually culminated in a B.A. in English from Yale University and a degree in art history from London's Courtauld Institute.
Famously, his name has long been a byword for Gothic horror on screen. However, Vincent Price was, first and foremost, a man of the stage. It is where he began his career and where it ended. He faced the footlights for the first time at the Gate Theatre in London. At the age of 23, he played Prince Albert in the premiere of Arthur Schnitzler 's 'Victoria Regina' and made such an impression on producer Gilbert Miller that he launched the play on Broadway that same year (legendary actress Helen Hayes played the title role). In early 1938, he was invited to join Orson Welles 's Mercury Theatre on a five-play contract, beginning with 'The Shoemaker's Holiday'. He gave what was described as "a polished performance". Thus established, Vincent continued to make sporadic forays to the Great White Way, including as the Duke of Buckingham in Shakespeare's 'Richard III' (in which a reviewer for the New Yorker found him to be "satisfactorily detestable") and as Oscar Wilde in his award-winning one man show 'Diversions and Delights', which he took on a hugely successful world-wide tour in 1978. While based in California, Vincent was instrumental in the success of the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, starring in several of their bigger productions, including 'Billy Budd' and 'The Winslow Boy'. In 1952, Vincent joined the national touring company of 'Don Juan in Hell' in which he was cast as the devil. Acting under the direction of Charles Laughton and accompanied by noted thespians Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke and Agnes Moorehead, he later recalled this as one of his "greatest theatrical excitements".
As well as acting on stage, Vincent regularly performed on radio network programs, including Lux Radio Theatre, CBS Playhouse and shows for the BBC. He narrated or hosted assorted programs ranging from history (If these Walls Could Speak) to cuisine (Cooking Price-Wise). He wrote several best-selling books on his favourite subjects: art collecting and cookery. In 1962, he was approached by Sears Roebuck to act as a buying consultant "selling quality pictures to department store customers". As if that were not enough, he lectured for 15 years on art, poetry and even the history of villainy. He recorded numerous readings of poems by Edgar Allan Poe (nobody ever gave a better recital of "The Raven"!), Shelley and Whitman. He also served on the Arts Council of UCLA, was a member of the Fine Arts Committee for the White House, a former chairman of the Indian Arts & Crafts Board and on the board of trustees of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
And besides all of that, Vincent Price remained a much sought-after motion picture actor. He made his first appearance on screen as a romantic lead in Service de Luxe (1938), a frothy Universal comedy which came and went without much fanfare. After that, he reprized his stage role as Master Hammon in an early television production of 'The Shoemaker's Holiday'. For one reason or another, Vincent was henceforth typecast as either historical figures (Sir Walter Raleigh, Duke of Clarence, Mormon leader Joseph Smith, King Charles II, Cardinal Richelieu, Omar Khayyam) or ineffectual charmers and gigolos. Under contract to 20th Century Fox (1940-46), Laura (1944) provided one of his better vehicles in the latter department, as did the lush Technicolor melodrama Leave Her to Heaven (1945) which had Vincent showcased in a notably powerful scene as a prosecuting attorney. His performance was singled out by the L.A. Times as meriting "attention as contending for Academy supporting honors".
His first fling with the horror genre was Dragonwyck (1946), a Gothic melodrama set in the Hudson Valley in the early 1800's. For the first time, Vincent played a part he actually coveted and fought hard to win. His character was in effect a precursor of those he would later make his own while working for Roger Corman and American-International. As demented, drug-addicted landowner Nicholas Van Ryn, he so effectively terrorized Gene Tierney's Miranda Wells that the influential columnist Louella Parsons wrote with rare praise: "The role of Van Ryn calls for a lot of acting and Vincent admits he's a ham and loves to act all over the place, but the fact that he has restrained himself and doesn't over-emote is a tribute to his ability". If Vincent was an occasional ham, he proved it with his Harry Lime pastiche Carwood in The Bribe (1949). Much better was his starring role in a minor western, The Baron of Arizona (1950), in which he was convincingly cast as a larcenous land office clerk attempting to create his own desert baronetcy.
With House of Wax (1953) , Vincent fine-tuned the character type he had established in Dragonwyck, adding both pathos and comic elements to the role of the maniacal sculptor Henry Jarrod. It was arduous work under heavy make-up which simulated hideous facial scarring and required three hours to apply and three hours to remove. He later commented that it "took his face months to heal because it was raw from peeling off wax each night". However, the picture proved a sound money maker for Warner Brothers and firmly established Vincent Price in a cult genre from which he was henceforth unable to escape. The majority of his subsequent films were decidedly low-budget affairs in which the star tended to be the sole mitigating factor: The Mad Magician (1954), The Fly (1958) (and its sequel), House on Haunted Hill (1959), the absurd The Tingler (1959) (easily the worst of the bunch) and The Bat (1959). With few exceptions, Vincent's acting range would rarely be stretched in the years to come.
Vincent's association with the genial Roger Corman began when he received a script for The Fall of the House of Usher, beginning a projected cycle of cost-effective films based on short stories by Edgar Allen Poe. As Roderick Usher, Vincent was Corman's "first and only choice". Though he was to receive a salary of $50,000 for the picture, it was his chance "to express the psychology of Poe's characters" and to "imbue the movie versions with the spirit of Poe" that clinched the deal for Vincent. He made another six films in this vein, all of them box office winners. Not Academy Award stuff, but nonetheless hugely enjoyable camp entertainment and popular with all but highbrow audiences. Who could forget Vincent at his scenery chewing best as the resurgent inquisitor, luring Barbara Steele into the crypt in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)? Or as pompous wine aficionado Fortunato Luchresi in that deliriously funny wine tasting competition with Montresor Herringbone (Peter Lorre) in Tales of Terror (1962)? Best still, the climactic battle of the magicians pitting Vincent's Erasmus Craven against Boris Karloff's malevolent Dr. Scarabus in The Raven (1963) (arguably, the best offering in the Poe cycle). The Comedy of Terrors (1963) was played strictly for laughs, with the inimitable combo of Price and Lorre this time appearing as homicidal undertakers.
For the rest of the 60s, Vincent was content to remain in his niche, playing variations on the same theme in City in the Sea (1965) and Witchfinder General (1968) (as Matthew Hopkins). He also spoofed his screen personae as Dr. Goldfoot and as perennial villain Egghead in the Batman (1966) series. He rose once more to the occasion in the cult black comedy The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) (and its sequel Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)) commenting that he had to play Anton Phibes "very seriously so that it would come out funny". The tagline, a parody of the ad for Love Story (1970), announced "love means never having to say you're ugly".
During the 70s and 80s, Vincent restricted himself mainly to voice-overs and TV guest appearances. His final role of note was as the inventor in Edward Scissorhands (1990), a role written specifically for him. The embodiment of gleeful, suave screen villainy, Vincent Price died in Los Angeles in October 1993 at the age of 82. People magazine eulogized him as "the Gable of Gothic." Much earlier, an English critic named Gilbert Adair spoke for many fans when he said "Every man his Price - and mine is Vincent."- Actor
- Soundtrack
Along with fellow actors Lon Chaney, Bela Lugosi and Vincent Price, Boris Karloff is recognized as one of the true icons of horror cinema, and the actor most closely identified with the general public's perception of the "Monster" from the classic Mary Shelley novel "Frankenstein". William Henry Pratt was born on November 23, 1887, in Camberwell, London, England, UK, the son of Edward John Pratt Jr., the Deputy Commissioner of Customs Salt and Opium, Northern Division, Indian Salt Revenue Service, and his third wife, Eliza Sarah Millard.
He was educated at London University in anticipation that he would pursue a diplomatic career; however, he emigrated to Canada in 1909, joined a touring company based out of Ontario and adopted the stage name of "Boris Karloff." He toured back and forth across the U.S. for over 10 years in a variety of low budget theater shows and eventually ended up in Hollywood, reportedly with very little money to his name. Needing cash to support himself, Karloff secured occasional acting work in the fledgling silent film industry in such pictures as The Deadlier Sex (1920), Omar the Tentmaker (1922), Dynamite Dan (1924) and Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927), in addition to a handful of serials (the majority of which, sadly, have not survived). Karloff supplemented his meager film income by working as a truck driver in Los Angeles, which allowed him enough time off to continue to pursue acting roles.
His big break came in 1931 when he was cast as "the Monster" in the Universal production of Frankenstein (1931), directed by James Whale, one of the studio's few remaining auteur directors. The aura of mystery surrounding Karloff was highlighted in the opening credits, as he was listed as simply "?". The film was a commercial and critical success for Universal, and Karloff was instantly established as a hot property in Hollywood. He quickly appeared in several other sinister roles, including Scarface (1932) (filmed before Frankenstein (1931)), the black-humored The Old Dark House (1932), as the namesake Chinese villain of Sax Rohmer's Dr. Fu Manchu novels in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932), as the undead Im-ho-tep in The Mummy (1932) and as the misguided Prof. Morlant in The Ghoul (1933). He thoroughly enjoyed his role as a religious fanatic in John Ford's The Lost Patrol (1934), although contemporary critics described it as a textbook example of overacting.
He donned the signature make-up, neck bolts and asphalt spreader's boots again to play the Frankenstein Monster twice, in the sensational Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and the less thrilling Son of Frankenstein (1939). Karloff, on loan to Fox, appeared in one of the best of the Warner Oland Charlie Chan films, Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936), before beginning his own short-lived Mr. Wong detective series. He was a wrongly condemned doctor in Devil's Island (1938), shaven-headed executioner "Mord the Merciless" in Tower of London (1939), another misguided scientist in The Ape (1940), a crazed scientist surrounded by monsters, vampires and werewolves in House of Frankenstein (1944), a murderous cabman in The Body Snatcher (1945) and a Greek general fighting vampirism in the Val Lewton thriller Isle of the Dead (1945).
While Karloff continued appearing in a plethora of films, many of them were not up to the standards of his previous efforts, including appearances in two of the hokey Bud Abbott and Lou Costello monster films (he had appeared with them in an earlier, superior film, Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet the Killer Boris Karloff (1949), of which theater owners often added his name to the marquee), the low point of the Universal-International horror film cycle. During the 1950s he was a regular guest on many high-profile TV shows, including The Milton Berle Show (1948), Tales of Tomorrow (1951), The Veil (1958), The Donald O'Connor Show (1954), The Red Skelton Hour (1951) and The Dinah Shore Chevy Show (1956), to name a few, and he appeared in a mixed bag of films, including Sabaka (1954) and Voodoo Island (1957). On Broadway, he appeared as the murderous Brewster brother in the hit "Arsenic and Old Lace" (his role, or rather the absence of him in it, was amusingly parodied in the 1944 film version) and 10 years later he enjoyed a long run in "Peter Pan," perfectly cast as "Captain Hook."
His career experienced something of a revival in the 1960s thanks to hosting the TV anthology series Thriller (1960) and indie director Roger Corman, with Karloff contributing wonderful performances in The Raven (1963), The Terror (1963), the ultra-eerie Black Sabbath (1963) and the H.P. Lovecraft-inspired Die, Monster, Die! (1965). Karloff's last great film role was as Byron Orlok, an aging horror film star on the brink of retirement confronting a modern-day sniper in the Peter Bogdanovich film Targets (1968). In 1970, he played the blind sculptor Franz Badulescu in Cauldron of Blood (1968) which was produced, directed and written by Edward Mann, who had also come to the art of film from the stage and the theater. His TV career was capped off by achieving Christmas immortality as both the voices of the titular character and the narrator of Chuck Jones's perennial animated favorite, How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Four low-budget Mexican-produced horror films starring an ailing Karloff were released in the two years after his death; however, they do no justice to this actor. In retrospect, he never took himself too seriously as an actor and had a tendency to downplay his acting accomplishments. Renowned as a refined, kind and warm-hearted gentleman with a sincere affection for children and their welfare, Karloff passed away on February 2, 1969 from emphysema. Respectful of his Indian roots and in true Hindu fashion, he was cremated at Guildford Crematorium, Godalming, Surrey, England, UK, where he is commemorated by a plaque in Plot 2 of the Garden of Remembrance.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Charlie Sheen was born Carlos Irwin Estévez on September 3, 1965, in New York City. His father, actor Martin Sheen (born Ramon Antonio Gerard Estevez), was at the time just breaking into the business, with performances on Broadway. His mother, Janet Sheen (née Templeton), was a former New York art student who had met Charlie's father right after he had moved to Manhattan. Martin and Janet had three other children, Emilio Estevez, Renée Estevez, and Ramon Estevez, all of whom became actors. His father is of half Spanish and half Irish descent, and his mother, whose family is from Kentucky, has English and Scottish ancestry.
At a young age, Charlie took an interest in his father's acting career. When he was nine, he was given a small part in his dad's movie The Execution of Private Slovik (1974). In 1977, he was in the Philippines where his dad suffered a near-fatal heart attack on the set of Apocalypse Now (1979).
While at Santa Monica High School, Charlie had two major interests: acting and baseball. Along with his friends, which included Rob Lowe and Sean Penn, he produced and starred in several amateur Super-8 films. On the Vikings baseball team, he was a star shortstop and pitcher. His lifetime record as a pitcher was 40-15. His interest and skill in baseball would later influence some of his movie roles. Unfortunately, his success on the baseball field did not translate to success in the classroom, as he struggled to keep his grades up. Just a few weeks before his scheduled graduation date, Charlie was expelled due to poor attendance and bad grades.
After high school, Charlie aggressively pursued many acting roles. His first major role was as a high school student in the teen war film Red Dawn (1984). He followed this up with relatively small roles in TV movies and low-profile releases. His big break came in 1986 when he starred in Oliver Stone's Oscar winning epic Platoon (1986). He drew rave reviews for his portrayal of a young soldier who is caught in the center of a moral crisis in Vietnam.
The success of Platoon (1986) prompted Oliver Stone to cast Charlie in his next movie Wall Street (1987) alongside his father and veteran actor Martin Sheen. The movie with its "Greed is Good" theme became an instant hit with viewers.
Shortly after, Stone approached Charlie about the starring role in his next movie, Born on the Fourth of July (1989). When Tom Cruise eventually got the part, Sheen ended up hearing the news from his brother Emilio Estevez and not even getting as much as a call from Stone. This led to a fallout, and the two have not worked together since.
The fallout with Stone, however, did nothing to hurt Charlie's career in the late 1980s and early '90s, as he continued to establish himself as one of the top box office draws with a string of hits that included Young Guns (1988), Major League (1989), and Hot Shots! (1991). However, as the mid-'90s neared, his good fortune both personally and professionally, soon came to an end.
Around this time, Charlie, who had already been to drug rehab, was beginning to develop a reputation as a hard-partying, womanizer. In 1995, the same year he was briefly married to model Donna Peele, he was called to testify at the trial of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. At the trial, while under oath he admitted to spending nearly $50,000 on 27 of Fleiss' $2,500-a-night prostitutes.
His downward spiral continued the following year when his ex-girlfriend Brittany Ashland filed charges claiming that he physically abused her. He was later charged with misdemeanor battery to which he pleaded no contest and was given a year's suspended sentence, two years' probation and a $2,800 fine. He finally hit rock bottom in May 1998 when he was hospitalized in Thousand Oaks, California, following a near-fatal drug overdose. Later that month, he was ordered back to the drug rehab center, which he had previously left after one day.
During this stretch, Charlie's film career began to suffer as well. He starred in a series of box office flops that included The Arrival (1996) and Shadow Conspiracy (1997). However as the 1990s came to end, so did Charlie's string of bad luck.
In 2000, Charlie, now clean and sober, was chosen to replace Michael J. Fox on the ABC hit sitcom Spin City (1996). Though his stint lasted only two seasons, Charlie's performance caught the eye of CBS executives who in 2003 were looking for an established star to help carry their Monday night lineup of sitcoms that included Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). The sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003) starred Charlie as a swinging, irresponsible womanizer whose life changes when his nephew suddenly appears on his doorstep. The show became a huge hit, breathing much needed life into Charlie's fading career.
Charlie's personal life also appeared to be improving. In 2002, he married actress Denise Richards, whom he first met while shooting the movie Good Advice (2001). In March 2004, they had a daughter, Sam, and it was announced shortly after that Denise was pregnant with the couple's second child. By all reports, the couple seemed to be very happy together. However, like all of Charlie's previous relationships, the stability did not last long. In March of 2005, Denise, who was six-months pregnant, filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. She gave birth to a second daughter, Lola, in June of that same year. Their divorce became final in late 2006.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one named 'The Kids'. When he married Lori A. Depp, he took a job as a ballpoint-pen salesman to support himself and his wife. A visit to Los Angeles, California, with his wife, however, happened to be a blessing in disguise, when he met up with actor Nicolas Cage, who advised him to turn to acting, which culminated in Depp's film debut in the low-budget horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), where he played a teenager who falls prey to dream-stalking demon Freddy Krueger.
In 1987 he shot to stardom when he replaced Jeff Yagher in the role of undercover cop Tommy Hanson in the popular TV series 21 Jump Street (1987). In 1990, after numerous roles in teen-oriented films, his first of a handful of great collaborations with director Tim Burton came about when Depp played the title role in Edward Scissorhands (1990). Following the film's success, Depp carved a niche for himself as a serious, somewhat dark, idiosyncratic performer, consistently selecting roles that surprised critics and audiences alike. He continued to gain critical acclaim and increasing popularity by appearing in many features before re-joining with Burton in the lead role of Ed Wood (1994). In 1997 he played an undercover FBI agent in the fact-based film Donnie Brasco (1997), opposite Al Pacino; in 1998 he appeared in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), directed by Terry Gilliam; and then, in 1999, he appeared in the sci-fi/horror film The Astronaut's Wife (1999). The same year he teamed up again with Burton in Sleepy Hollow (1999), brilliantly portraying Ichabod Crane.
Depp has played many characters in his career, including another fact-based one, Insp. Fred Abberline in From Hell (2001). He stole the show from screen greats such as Antonio Banderas in the finale to Robert Rodriguez's "mariachi" trilogy, Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). In that same year he starred in the marvelous family blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), playing a character that only the likes of Depp could pull off: the charming, conniving and roguish Capt. Jack Sparrow. The film's enormous success has opened several doors for his career and included an Oscar nomination. He appeared as the central character in the Stephen King-based movie, Secret Window (2004); as the kind-hearted novelist James Barrie in the factually-based Finding Neverland (2004), where he co-starred with Kate Winslet; and Rochester in the British film, The Libertine (2004). Depp collaborated again with Burton in a screen adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and later in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dark Shadows (2012).
Off-screen, Depp has dated several female celebrities, and has been engaged to Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Winona Ryder and Kate Moss. He was married to Lori Anne Allison in 1983, but divorced her in 1985. Depp has two children with his former long-time partner, French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis: Lily-Rose Melody, born in 1999 and John Christopher "Jack" III, born in 2002. He married actress/producer Amber Heard in 2015, divorcing a few years later.- Actor
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George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of his youth in Ohio and Kentucky, and graduated from Augusta High School. He was very active in sports such as basketball and baseball, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but was not offered a contract.
After his cousin, Miguel Ferrer, got him a small role in a feature film, Clooney began to pursue acting. His first major role was on the sitcom E/R (1984) as Ace. More roles soon followed, including George Burnett, the handsome handyman on The Facts of Life (1979); Booker Brooks, a supervisor on Roseanne (1988); and Detective James Falconer on Sisters (1991). Clooney had his breakthrough when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross on the award-winning drama series ER (1994), opposite Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies.
While filming "ER" (1994), Clooney starred in a number of high profile film roles, such as Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and One Fine Day (1996), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1997, Clooney took on the role of Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997). The film was a moderate success in the box office, but was slammed by critics, notably for the nipple-laden Batsuit. Clooney went on to star in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).
In 1999, Clooney left "ER" (1994) (though he would return for the season finale) and appeared in a number of films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). Collaborating once again with Steven Soderbergh, Ocean's Eleven (2001) received critical acclaim, earned more than $450 million at the box office, and spawned two sequels: Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).
In 2002, Clooney made his directorial debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), an adaptation of TV producer Chuck Barris' autobiography. This was the first film under the banner of Section Eight Productions, a production company he founded with Steven Soderbergh. The company also produced many acclaimed films, including Far from Heaven (2002), Syriana (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005). Clooney won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana (2005), and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
In 2006, Section Eight Productions was shut down so that Soderbergh could concentrate on directing, and Clooney founded a new production company, Smokehouse Productions, with his friend and longtime business partner, Grant Heslov.
Clooney went on to produce and star in Michael Clayton (2007) (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), directed and starred in Leatherheads (2008), and took leading roles in Burn After Reading (2008), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Clooney received critical acclaim for his performance in Up in the Air (2009) and was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award. He didn't win that year, but took home both Best Actor awards (as well as countless nominations) for his role as a father who finds out his wife was unfaithful as she lays in a coma in Alexander Payne's The Descendants (2011). Through his career, Clooney has been heralded for his political activism and humanitarian work. He has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008, has been an advocate for the Darfur conflict, and organized the Hope for Haiti telethon, to raise money for the victims of the 2010 earthquake. In March 2012, Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience while protesting at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.
Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam, from 1989 until 1993. After their divorce, he swore he would never marry again. Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman bet him $10,000 that he would have children by the age of 40, and sent him a check shortly after his birthday. Clooney returned the funds and bet double or nothing he wouldn't have children by the age of 50. Although he has remained a consummate bachelor, Clooney has had many highly publicized relationships, including with former WWE wrestler Stacy Keibler. In 2014, he married lawyer and activist Amal Clooney, with whom he has two children, twins.- Actor
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Actor, producer and humanitarian Danny Glover has been a commanding presence on screen, stage and television for more than 35 years.
Glover was born in San Francisco, California, to Carrie (Hunley) and James Glover, postal workers who were also active in civil rights. Glover trained at the Black Actors' Workshop of the American Conservatory Theater. It was his Broadway debut in Fugard's Master Harold...and the Boys, which brought him to national recognition and led director Robert Benton to cast Glover in his first leading role in 1984's Oscar®-nominated Best Picture Places in the Heart.
The following year, Glover starred in two more Best Picture nominees: Peter Weir's Witness and Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple. In 1987, Glover partnered with Mel Gibson in the first Lethal Weapon film and went on to star in three hugely successful Lethal Weapon sequels. Glover has also invested his talents in more personal projects, including the award-winning To Sleep With Anger, which he executive produced and for which he won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Actor; Bopha!; Manderlay; Missing in America; and the film version of Athol Fugard's play Boesman and Lena. On the small screen, Glover won an Image Award and a Cable ACE Award and earned an Emmy nomination for his performance in the title role of the HBO movie Mandela. He has also received Emmy nominations for his work in the acclaimed miniseries Lonesome Dove and the telefilm Freedom Song. As a director, he earned a Daytime Emmy nomination for Showtime's Just a Dream.
Glover's film credits range from the blockbuster Lethal Weapon franchise to smaller independent features, some of which Glover also produced. He co-starred in the critically acclaimed feature Dreamgirls directed by Bill Condon and in Po' Boy's Game for director Clement Virgo. He appeared in the hit feature Shooter for director Antoine Fuqua, Honeydripper for director John Sayles, and Be Kind, Rewind for director Michel Gondry.
Glover has also gained respect for his wide-reaching community activism and philanthropic efforts, with a particular emphasis on advocacy for economic justice, and access to health care and education programs in the United States and Africa. For these efforts, Glover received a 2006 DGA Honor. Internationally, Glover has served as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Development Program from 1998-2004, focusing on issues of poverty, disease, and economic development in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean, and serves as UNICEF Ambassador.
In 2005, Glover co-founded Louverture Films dedicated to the development and production of films of historical relevance, social purpose, commercial value and artistic integrity. The New York based company has a slate of progressive features and documentaries including Trouble the Water, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Africa Unite, award winning feature Bamako, and most recent projects Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, and The Disappearance of McKinley Nolan.- Actor
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- Writer
Malcolm John Taylor was born on June 13, 1943 in Leeds, England, to working-class parents Edna (McDowell), a hotelier, and Charles Taylor, a publican. His father was an alcoholic. Malcolm hated his parents' ways. His father was keen to send his son to private school to give him a good start in life, so Malcolm was packed off to boarding school at age 11. He attended the Tonbridge School and the Cannock House School in Eltham, Kent. At school, he was beaten with the slipper or cane every Monday for his wayward behavior. Whilst at school, he decided that he wanted to become an actor; it was also around this time that his love for race cars began. He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) to study acting. Meanwhile, he worked at his parents' pub but lost his job when the pub went bankrupt, his father drinking all the profits. He then had a variety of jobs, from coffee salesman to messenger.
His first big-screen role was in Poor Cow (1967), although his two-minute scene was ultimately cut from the completed film. Soon after, he caught the attention of director Lindsay Anderson who cast him in the role of a rebellious student in his film If.... (1968). The film catapulted Malcolm to stardom in Britain but failed everywhere else. He was so enthusiastic about the film's success that he wanted to do another right away. He began writing what would become the semi-autobiographical O Lucky Man! (1973). Then he starred as Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick's controversial A Clockwork Orange (1971), a role that gave him world fame, and legendary status (although typecasting him as a in villainous roles). In early 1976, he spent nearly a year working on what would later be one of the most infamous films of all time, the semi-pornographic Caligula (1979), financed by Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione. Around that time, the British film industry collapsed, forcing him to flee to America to continue working. His first American film was Time After Time (1979). He then did Britannia Hospital (1982), the last part of Lindsay Anderson's working-class trilogy that started with If.... (1968).
In the mid-1980s, the years of alcohol and drug abuse, including $1000 a week on cocaine, caught up with him. Years of abuse took its toll on him; his black hairs were now gray. Looking older than he really was, nobody wanted to cast him for playing younger roles. The big roles having dried up, he did many B-rated movies. The 1990s were kinder to him, though. In 1994, he was cast as Dr. Tolian Soran, the man who killed Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek: Generations (1994). He was back on the track, playing villains again. He played another in the classic BBC miniseries Our Friends in the North (1996). Today, with more than 100 films under his belt, he is one of the greatest actors in America. He still does not have American citizenship, but he likes the no-nonsense American ways. He resides in the northern suburbs of Los Angeles, California.- Actor
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- Soundtrack
Michael Clarke Duncan was born on December 10, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois. Raised on Chicago's South Side by his single mother, Jean, a house cleaner, Duncan grew up resisting drugs and alcohol, instead concentrating on school. He wanted to play football in high school, but his mother wouldn't let him, afraid that he would get hurt. He then turned to acting and dreamed of becoming a famous actor.
After graduating from high school and attending community college, he worked digging ditches at People's Gas Company in Chicago. When he quit his job and headed to Hollywood, he landed small roles while working as a bodyguard. Duncan's role in the movie Armageddon (1998) led to his breakthrough performance in The Green Mile (1999), when his Armageddon co-star Bruce Willis called director Frank Darabont, suggesting Duncan for the part of convict John Coffey. He landed the role and won critical acclaim as well as many other Awards and Nominations, including an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
After suffering a heart attack on July 13, 2012, he was taken to a Los Angeles hospital, in which his girlfriend Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth tried to save his life with CPR. Unfortunately, on September 3, 2012, Michael Clarke Duncan died at age 54 from respiratory failure.- Actor
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Danny Trejo was born Dan Trejo in Echo Park, Los Angeles, to Alice (Rivera) and Dan Trejo, a construction worker. A child drug addict and criminal, Trejo was in and out of jail for 11 years. While serving time in San Quentin, he won the lightweight and welterweight boxing titles. Imprisoned for armed robbery and drug offenses, he successfully completed a 12-step rehabilitation program that changed his life. While speaking at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting in 1985, Trejo met a young man who later called him for support. Trejo went to meet him at what turned out to be the set of Runaway Train (1985). Trejo was immediately offered a role as a convict extra, probably because of his tough tattooed appearance. Also on the set was a screenwriter who did time with Trejo in San Quentin. Remembering Trejo's boxing skills, the screenwriter offered him $320 per day to train the actors for a boxing match. Director Andrey Konchalovskiy saw Trejo training Eric Roberts and immediately offered him a featured role as Roberts' opponent in the film. Trejo has subsequently appeared in many other films, usually as a tough criminal or villain.
Trejo is of Mexican descent.- Actor
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Michael Connell Biehn was born on July 31, 1956 in Anniston, Alabama, to Marcia (Connell) and Don Biehn, a lawyer. He grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and at age 14 moved with his family to Lake Havasu, Arizona, where he won a drama scholarship to the University of Arizona. He left prematurely two years later to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. His first big role was as a psychotic fan stalking Lauren Bacall in The Fan (1981) and later appeared in The Lords of Discipline (1983). He hit the big-time when he was cast as Kyle Reese, the man sent back through time to stop Arnold Schwarzenegger in James Cameron's The Terminator (1984). This established a good working relationship with Cameron, a relationship that should have catapulted Biehn to international stardom. He starred in Cameron's subsequent films, Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989), the latter a standout performance as unstable Navy SEAL officer Lt. Hiram Coffey. In the 1990s he starred in films like Navy Seals (1990), K2 (1991) and was particularly memorable as Johnny Ringo in Tombstone (1993). Biehn is married and the father of five sons.- Actor
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Steve Zahn was born in Marshall, Minnesota, to Zelda, who worked at a YMCA, and Carleton Edward Zahn, a Lutheran pastor at Peace Lutheran Church, Robbinsdale, Minnesota. His career kicked off in his native Minnesota when he crashed the audition of a local stage production of "Biloxi Blues" and won the lead role. He next trained at American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, MA; then moved to New York City, where he won a role touring for 13 months in national company of Tommy Tune-directed version of "Bye Bye Birdie". Back in New York, he played opposite Ethan Hawke in "Sophistry" at Playwright's Horizon, where Ben Stiller noticed him and cast him and Hawke in Reality Bites (1994).- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi) and Sal Pacino. They divorced when he was young. His mother moved them into his grandparents' home in the South Bronx. Pacino found himself often repeating the plots and voices of characters he had seen in the movies. Bored and unmotivated in school, he found a haven in school plays, and his interest soon blossomed into a full-time career. Starting onstage, he went through a period of depression and poverty, sometimes having to borrow bus fare to succeed to auditions. He made it into the prestigious Actors Studio in 1966, studying under Lee Strasberg, creator of the Method Approach that would become the trademark of many 1970s-era actors.
After appearing in a string of plays in supporting roles, Pacino finally attained success off-Broadway with Israel Horovitz's "The Indian Wants the Bronx", winning an Obie Award for the 1966-67 season. That was followed by a Tony Award for "Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?" His first feature films made little departure from the gritty realistic stage performances that earned him respect: he played a drug addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971) after his film debut in Me, Natalie (1969). The role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) was one of the most sought-after of the time: Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, Robert De Niro and a host of other actors either wanted it or were mentioned, but director Francis Ford Coppola wanted Pacino for the role.
Coppola was successful but Pacino was reportedly in constant fear of being fired during the very difficult shoot. The film was a monster hit that earned Pacino his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. However, instead of taking on easier projects for the big money he could now command, Pacino threw his support behind what he considered tough but important films, such as the true-life crime drama Serpico (1973) and the tragic real-life bank robbery film Dog Day Afternoon (1975). He was nominated three consecutive years for the "Best Actor" Academy Award. He faltered slightly with Bobby Deerfield (1977), but regained his stride with And Justice for All (1979), for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Unfortunately, this would signal the beginning of a decline in his career, which produced flops like Cruising (1980) and Author! Author! (1982).
Pacino took on another vicious gangster role and cemented his legendary status in the ultra-violent cult film Scarface (1983), but a monumental mistake was about to follow. Revolution (1985) endured an endless and seemingly cursed shoot in which equipment was destroyed, weather was terrible, and Pacino fell ill with pneumonia. Constant changes in the script further derailed the project. The Revolutionary War-themed film, considered among the worst films ever made, resulted in awful reviews and kept him off the screen for the next four years. Returning to the stage, Pacino did much to give back and contribute to the theatre, which he considers his first love. He directed a film, The Local Stigmatic (1990), but it remains unreleased. He lifted his self-imposed exile with the striking Sea of Love (1989) as a hard-drinking policeman. This marked the second phase of Pacino's career, being the first to feature his now famous dark, owl eyes and hoarse, gravelly voice.
Returning to the Corleones, Pacino made The Godfather Part III (1990) and earned raves for his first comedic role in the colorful adaptation Dick Tracy (1990). This earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and two years later he was nominated for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He went into romantic mode for Frankie and Johnny (1991). In 1992, he finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his amazing performance in Scent of a Woman (1992). A mixture of technical perfection (he plays a blind man) and charisma, the role was tailor-made for him, and remains a classic.
The next few years would see Pacino becoming more comfortable with acting and movies as a business, turning out great roles in great films with more frequency and less of the demanding personal involvement of his wilder days. Carlito's Way (1993) proved another gangster classic, as did the epic crime drama Heat (1995) directed by Michael Mann and co-starring Robert De Niro. He directed the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Looking for Richard (1996). During this period, City Hall (1996), Donnie Brasco (1997) and The Devil's Advocate (1997) all came out. Reteaming with Mann and then Oliver Stone, he gave commanding performances in The Insider (1999) and Any Given Sunday (1999).
In the 2000s, Pacino starred in a number of theatrical blockbusters, including Ocean's Thirteen (2007), but his choice in television roles (the vicious, closeted Roy Cohn in the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003) and his sensitive portrayal of Jack Kevorkian, in the television movie You Don't Know Jack (2010)) are reminiscent of the bolder choices of his early career. Each television project garnered him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Never wed, Pacino has a daughter, Julie Marie, with acting teacher Jan Tarrant, and a set of twins with former longtime girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo. His romantic history includes Jill Clayburgh, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Carole Mallory, Debra Winger, Tuesday Weld, Marthe Keller, Carmen Cervera, Kathleen Quinlan, Lyndall Hobbs, Penelope Ann Miller, and a two-decade intermittent relationship with "Godfather" co-star Diane Keaton. He currently lives with Argentinian actress Lucila Solá, who is 36 years his junior.
As of 2022, Pacino is 82-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to appear regularly in film.- Actor
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- Additional Crew
An intense, versatile actor as adept at playing clean-cut FBI agents as he is psychotic motorcycle-gang leaders, who can go from portraying soulless, murderous vampires to burned-out, world-weary homicide detectives, Lance Henriksen has starred in a variety of films that have allowed him to stretch his talents just about as far as an actor could possibly hope. He played "Awful Knoffel" in the TNT original movie Evel Knievel (2004), directed by John Badham and executive produced by Mel Gibson. Henriksen portrayed "Awful Knoffel" in this project based on the life of the famed daredevil, played by George Eads. Henriksen starred for three seasons (1996-1999) on Millennium (1996), Fox-TV's critically acclaimed series created by Chris Carter (The X-Files (1993)). His performance as Frank Black, a retired FBI agent who has the ability to get inside the minds of killers, landed him three consecutive Golden Globe nominations for "Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Drama Series" and a People's Choice Award nomination for "Favorite New TV Male Star".
Henriksen was born in New York City. His mother, Margueritte, was a waitress, dance instructor, and model. His father, James Marin Henriksen, who was from Tønsberg, Norway, was a boxer and merchant sailor. Henriksen studied at the Actors Studio and began his career off-Broadway in Eugene O'Neill's "Three Plays of the Sea." One of his first film appearances was as an FBI agent in Sidney Lumet's Dog Day Afternoon (1975), followed by parts in Lumet's Network (1976) and Prince of the City (1981). He then appeared in Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) with Richard Dreyfuss and François Truffaut, Damien: Omen II (1978) and in Philip Kaufman's The Right Stuff (1983), in which he played Mercury astronaut Capt. Wally Schirra.
James Cameron cast Henriksen in his first directorial effort, Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), then used him again in The Terminator (1984) and as the android Bishop in the sci-fi classic Aliens (1986). Sam Raimi cast Henriksen as an outrageously garbed gunfighter in his quirky western The Quick and the Dead (1995). Henriksen has also appeared in what has developed into a cult classic: Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987), in which he plays the head of a clan of murderous redneck vampires. He was nominated for a Golden Satellite Award for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln in the TNT original film The Day Lincoln Was Shot (1998).
In addition to his abilities as an actor, Henriksen is an accomplished painter and potter. His talent as a ceramist has enabled him to create some of the most unusual ceramic artworks available on the art market today. He resides in Southern California with his wife Jane and their five-year-old daughter Sage.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Stanton was born in West Irvine, Kentucky, to Ersel (Moberly), a cook, and Sheridan Harry Stanton, a barber and tobacco farmer. He lived in Lexington, Kentucky and graduated from Lafayette Senior High School with the class of 1944. Drafted into the Navy, he served as a cook in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and was on board an LST during the Battle of Okinawa. He then returned to the University of Kentucky to appear in a production of "Pygmalion", before heading out to California and honing his craft at the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse. Stanton then toured around the United States with a male choir, worked in children's theater, and then headed back to California.
His first role on screen was in the tepid movie Tomahawk Trail (1957), but he was quickly noticed and appeared regularly in minor roles as cowboys and soldiers through the late 1950s and early 1960s. His star continued to rise and he received better roles in which he could showcase his laid-back style, such as in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), and in Alien (1979). It was around this time that Stanton came to the attention of director Wim Wenders, who cast him in his finest role yet as Travis in the moving Paris, Texas (1984). Next indie director Alex Cox gave Stanton a role that brought him to the forefront, in the quirky cult film Repo Man (1984).
Stanton was now heavily in demand, and his unique look got him cast as everything from a suburban father in the mainstream Pretty in Pink (1986) to a soft-hearted, but ill-fated, private investigator in Wild at Heart (1990) and a crazy yet cunning scientist in Escape from New York (1981). Apart from his film performances, he was also an accomplished musician, and "The Harry Dean Stanton Band" and their unique spin on mariachi music played together for well over a decade. They toured internationally. He became a cult figure of cinema and music and when Debbie Harry sang the lyric, "I want to dance with Harry Dean..." in her 1990s hit "I Want That Man", she was talking about him. Stanton remained consistently active on screen, lastly appearing in films including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Green Mile (1999) and The Man Who Cried (2000).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ed O'Neill is an American actor best known for playing Al Bundy on Married... with Children (1987), the most iconic working class character on television since Archie Bunker. Upon his debut on the world stage in Youngstown, Ohio on April 12, 1946, he was christened Edward Philip O'Neill, Jr. Both his father, Ed, Sr., a steelworker and truck driver, and his social worker mother, the former Ruth Ann Quinlan, were Irish-Americans.
A gifted athlete, the 6'1" O'Neill attended Ohio University on a football scholarship, but transferred after his sophomore year to Youngstown State University, where he played as a defensive lineman. In 1969, he was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but was cut in training camp. (Al Bundy was a former high-school football star constantly reminiscing about his glory days on the high school gridiron. Terry Bradshaw, the Hall of Fame Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback, twice appeared on "Married with Children".)
After being cut by the Steelers, O'Neill went back to YSU to join the new theater department. After graduating, he became a social studies teacher at his alma mater, Ursuline High School, before fully committing to acting. He was a member of the company at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the top regional theaters in America.
After numerous supporting parts in movies and television, he was cast as the New York City detective Popeye Doyle in the 1986 television movie that was a pilot for a proposed television series. "Popeye Doyle" was based on the classic police drama The French Connection (1971), with O'Neill playing the role originated by Gene Hackman). The television movie and O'Neill's performance got good reviews, but it was not picked up as a series.
A year later, O'Neill was cast as Al Bundy in the sitcom "Married with Children", which debuted on the then-new Fox Network in April 1987. It ran 10 years, until June 1997, and made O'Neill a star.
During the production of "Married with Children" and after its cancellation, O'Neill appeared in movies, guested on television shows, and made television commercials. The second iconic fictional policeman role that O'Neill took over was Sgt. Joe Friday in his 2003 remake of Jack Webb's classic crime series Dragnet (2003), which appeared on ABC. The network canceled the show during its second season. Since 2009, O'Neill has played Jay Pritchett on the ABC's sitcom Modern Family (2009), for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award in 2011.
Since 1986, O'Neill has been married to actress Catherine Rusoff. They have two daughters, Claire and Sophia.- Actor
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Leslie William Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and raised in Tulita (formerly Fort Norman), Northwest Territories. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (Davies), was Welsh. His father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen, was a Danish-born Mountie and a strict disciplinarian. Leslie studied at the Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto before moving on to New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. His acting career started at a much earlier age when he was forced to lie to his father in order to avoid severe punishment. Leslie starred in over fifty films and many more television films. One of his two brothers became the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. On October 10, 2002, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) in recognition of his contributions to the film and television industries. On November 28, 2010, Leslie Nielsen died at age 84 of pneumonia and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.- Actor
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Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.- Actor
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Eugene Levy is an award-winning actor, writer, and producer. He has appeared in more than 60 motion pictures to date, eight of which having topped the $100M mark. The box office success of films such as Bringing Down the House (2003), Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005) , and Father of the Bride Part II (1995) have established him as one of Hollywood's most popular comedic actors. But it was the role of Noah Levenstein in the American Pie franchise that cemented his reputation as America's favorite Dad. Levy's most recent big-screen role was that of Dory's Dad in the Disney/Pixar smash Finding Dory, in which he stars alongside Ellen DeGeneres and Diane Keaton. The film has surpassed the $1B mark worldwide, and is on track to become one of the highest-grossing animated films of all time.
Partnering with Christopher Guest, Levy earned critical acclaim for co-writing and co-starring in Best In Show, Waiting For Guffman, For Your Consideration, and A Mighty Wind. Levy has been nominated for and won countless awards for his films including a New York Film Critics Circle Award and a Grammy Award® for A Mighty Wind and a Golden Globe® nomination for Best In Show. Other films include Splash, Armed and Dangerous, Multiplicity, Club Paradise, and Serendipity.
In 2013, Levy formed Not A Real Company Productions (with his son Daniel Levy and principals Andrew Barnsley and Fred Levy) to produce Schitt's Creek, a television series for CBC/ITV he co-created, co-executive produces, and co-stars in with Daniel Levy. The single-cam, character-driven comedy also stars Catherine O'Hara, Annie Murphy, and Chris Elliott.
In 2016, Levy won Lead Actor in a Comedy at the Canadian Screen Awards and, as Executive Producer, the CSA for Best Comedy, an award he shared with Daniel Levy, among others. Schitt's Creek swept the Canadian Screen Awards, winning nine of a possible 10 categories. Levy also received the prestigious Legacy Award (along with co-star and long-time collaborator, Catherine O'Hara) from the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television. Levy won two Emmys® for his writing on SCTV in addition to many other awards and nominations for his television work.
Levy is a Member of the Order of Canada and a recipient of The Governor General's Performing Arts Award - the foremost honor presented for excellence in the performing arts.- Writer
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Steve Martin was born on August 14, 1945 in Waco, Texas, USA as Stephen Glenn Martin to Mary Lee (née Stewart; 1913-2002) and Glenn Vernon Martin (1914-1997), a real estate salesman and aspiring actor. He was raised in Inglewood and Garden Grove in California. In 1960, he got a job at the Magic shop of Disney's Fantasyland, and while there he learned magic, juggling, and creating balloon animals. At Santa Ana College, he took classes in drama and English poetry. He also took part in comedies and other productions at the Bird Cage Theatre, and joined a comedy troupe at Knott's Berry Farm. He attended California State University as a philosophy major, but in 1967 transferred to UCLA as a theatre major.
His writing career began on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967), winning him an Emmy Award. Between 1967 and 1973, he also wrote for many other shows, including The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour (1969) and The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour (1971). He also appeared on talk shows and comedy shows in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1972, he first appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), doing stand-up several times each year, and even guest hosting a few years later. In 1976, he served for the first time as guest-host on Saturday Night Live (1975). By 2016, he has guest-hosted 15 times, which is one less than Alec Baldwin's record, and also appeared 12 other times on SNL.
In 1977, he released his first comedy album, a platinum selling "Let's Get Small". He followed it with "A Wild and Crazy Guy" (1978), which sold more than a million copies. Both albums went on to win Grammys for Best Comedy Recording. This is when he performed in arenas in front of tens of thousands of people, and begun his movie career, which was always his goal. His first major role was in the short film, The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977), which he also wrote. His star value was established in The Jerk (1979), which was co-written by Martin, and directed by Carl Reiner. The film earned more than $100 million on a $4 million budget. He also starred in Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid (1982), The Man with Two Brains (1983), and All of Me (1984), all directed by Reiner. To avoid being typecast as a comedian, he wanted do more dramatic roles, starring in Pennies from Heaven (1981), a film remake of Dennis Potter's 1978 series. Unfortunately, it was a financial failure.
He also starred in John Landis's Three Amigos! (1986), co-written by himself, opposite Martin Short and Chevy Chase. That year, he also appeared in the musical horror comedy, Little Shop of Horrors (1986) opposite Rick Moranis. Next year, he starred in Roxanne (1987), co-written by himself, and in John Hughes' Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987), opposite John Candy. His other films include Parenthood (1989) and My Blue Heaven (1990), both opposite Moranis. In 1991, he wrote and starred in L.A. Story (1991), about a weatherman who searches meaning in his life and love in Los Angeles. It also starred his then-wife, Victoria Tennant. Same year, Father of the Bride (1991) was so successful that a 1995 sequel followed.
During the 1990s, he continued to play more dramatic roles, in Grand Canyon (1991), playing a traumatized movie producer, in Leap of Faith (1992), playing a fake faith healer, in A Simple Twist of Fate (1994), playing a betrayed man adopting a baby, and in David Mamet's thriller The Spanish Prisoner (1997). Other, more comedic roles include in HouseSitter (1992) and The Out-of-Towners (1999), opposite Goldie Hawn, in Nora Ephron's Mixed Nuts (1994), and in Bowfinger (1999), written by himself and co-starring Eddie Murphy. After Bowfinger, he starred in Bringing Down the House (2003) and Cheaper by the Dozen (2003), both earning more than $130 million. He wrote and starred in Shopgirl (2005), and appeared in the sequel of Cheaper by the Dozen. After them, he appeared in The Pink Panther (2006) and The Pink Panther 2 (2009), which he both co-wrote, as Inspector Clouseau.
He continues to do movies, more recently appearing in The Big Year (2011), Home (2015), and Love the Coopers (2015). Besides aforementioned, he has been an avid art collector since 1968, written plays, written for The New Yorker, written a well-received memoir (Born Standing Up), written a novel (An Object of Beauty; 2010), hosted the Academy Awards three times, released a Grammy award winning music album (The Crow: New Songs for the 5-String Banjo; 2009), and another album (Love Has Come For You; 2013) with Edie Brickell. Since 2007, he has been married to Anne Stringfield, with whom he has a daughter.- Actor
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Andrew Dice Clay was born on 29 September 1957 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Adventures of Ford Fairlane (1990), Blue Jasmine (2013) and A Star Is Born (2018). He has been married to Valerie Silverstein since 14 February 2010. He was previously married to Kathleen Monica and Kathleen Swanson.- Actor
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William Lambert Moseley (born November 11, 1951) is an American film actor and musician who has starred in a number of cult classic horror films, including House of 1000 Corpses (2003), Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008) and The Devil's Rejects (2005). His first big role was in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986) as Chop Top. On the HBO TV series Carnivàle (2003), Moseley had a recurring role as camp cook "Possum". He has released records with guitarist Buckethead in the band Cornbugs, as well as featuring on the guitarist's solo work.- Actor
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Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, the son of well-known film and TV star Lloyd Bridges and his long-time wife Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson). He grew up amid the happening Hollywood scene with big brother Beau Bridges. Both boys popped up, without billing, alongside their mother in the film The Company She Keeps (1951), and appeared on occasion with their famous dad on his popular underwater TV series Sea Hunt (1958) while growing up. At age 14, Jeff toured with his father in a stage production of "Anniversary Waltz". The "troublesome teen" years proved just that for Jeff and his parents were compelled at one point to intervene when problems with drugs and marijuana got out of hand.
He recovered and began shaping his nascent young adult career appearing on TV as a younger version of his father in the acclaimed TV- movie Silent Night, Lonely Night (1969), and in the strange Burgess Meredith film The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (1970). Following fine notices for his portrayal of a white student caught up in the racially-themed Halls of Anger (1970), his career-maker arrived just a year later when he earned a coming-of-age role in the critically-acclaimed ensemble film The Last Picture Show (1971). The Peter Bogdanovich- directed film made stars out off its young leads (Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Cybill Shepherd) and Oscar winners out of its older cast (Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman). The part of Duane Jackson, for which Jeff received his first Oscar-nomination (for "best supporting actor"), set the tone for the types of roles Jeff would acquaint himself with his fans -- rambling, reckless, rascally and usually unpredictable).
Owning a casual carefree handsomeness and armed with a perpetual grin and sly charm, he started immediately on an intriguing 70s sojourn into offbeat filming. Chief among them were his boxer on his way up opposite a declining Stacy Keach in Fat City (1972); his Civil War-era conman in the western Bad Company (1972); his redneck stock car racer in The Last American Hero (1973); his young student anarchist opposite a stellar veteran cast in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1973); his bank-robbing (also Oscar-nominated) sidekick to Clint Eastwood in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974); his aimless cattle rustler in Rancho Deluxe (1975); his low-level western writer who wants to be a real-life cowboy in Hearts of the West (1975); and the brother of an assassinated President who pursues leads to the crime in Winter Kills (1979). All are simply marvelous characters that should have propelled him to the very top rungs of stardom...but strangely didn't.
Perhaps it was his trademark ease and naturalistic approach that made him somewhat under appreciated at that time when Hollywood was run by a Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino-like intensity. Neverthless, Jeff continued to be a scene-stealing favorite into the next decade, notably as the video game programmer in the 1982 science-fiction cult classic Tron (1982), and the struggling musician brother vying with brother Beau Bridges over the attentions of sexy singer Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989). Jeff became a third-time Oscar nominee with his highly intriguing (and strangely sexy) portrayal of a blank-faced alien in Starman (1984), and earned even higher regard as the ever-optimistic inventor Preston Tucker in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988).
Since then Jeff has continued to pour on the Bridges magic on film. Few enjoy such an enduring popularity while maintaining equal respect with the critics. The Fisher King (1991), American Heart (1992), Fearless (1993), The Big Lebowski (1998) (now a cult phenomenon) and The Contender (2000) (which gave him a fourth Oscar nomination) are prime examples. More recently he seized the moment as a bald-pated villain as Robert Downey Jr.'s nemesis in Iron Man (2008) and then, at age 60, he capped his rewarding career by winning the elusive Oscar, plus the Golden Globe and Screen Actor Guild awards (among many others), for his down-and-out country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart (2009). Bridges next starred in Tron: Legacy (2010), reprising one of his more famous roles, and received another Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role in the Western remake True Grit (2010). In 2014, he co-produced and starred in an adaptation of the Lois Lowry science fiction drama The Giver (2014).
Jeff has been married since 1977 to non-professional Susan Geston (they met on the set of Rancho Deluxe (1975)). The couple have three daughters, Isabelle (born 1981), Jessica (born 1983), and Hayley (born 1985). He hobbies as a photographer on and off his film sets, and has been known to play around as a cartoonist and pop musician. His ancestry is English, and smaller amounts of Scots-Irish (Northern Irish), Irish, Swiss-German, and German.- Actor
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Born in Santa Ana, California in 1970, Jason Lee is an American film photographer, actor, producer, and director. Well known for having been a professional skateboarder during skateboarding's very pivotal late 80s and early 90s, Lee would go on to pursue acting in 1993, working in film, television, and voiceover, and with such directors as Kevin Smith, Cameron Crowe, Lawrence Kasdan, and Brad Bird.
Retiring from skateboarding in 1995, Lee has maintained solid ties to the industry, most notably through his partnership with longtime friend and fellow ex-professional skateboarder, Chris Pastras, and their now 25-year-old skate brand, Stereo Skateboards, which Lee co-manages with Pastras.
In 2002, Lee developed a passion for film photography and has been an active photographer and film advocate ever since, having had his work both published and exhibited throughout the years. In October 2016, Lee published a selection of small and large format Polaroid and Fuji instant film photographs spanning a decade as a special limited hardbound issue of Fort Worth-based Refueled Magazine. Just 500 sold-out signed and numbered copies were produced, with three of those copies now living in the libraries of the SFMOMA, Amon Carter, and Philbrook museums. Lee's next publication, to be released in 2017, will be a book comprised of large format color film photographs made throughout Texas.
Lee is also the subject of a 2018 documentary from director Greg Hunt that will take the viewer on the road with him as he exposes his remaining boxes of now-expired 8x10 Polaroid film, a favorite medium of Lee's and one that is no longer being produced. An accompanying book of the large format Polaroids will be published, with the originals being exhibited. Additionally in 2018, Lee will be publishing and exhibiting selections of B&W film photographs from the past 10 years, with the collection's focus primarily on the West Coast and Southwest.
Lee has also produced and directed music videos for Beck and the band Midlake, a short documentary and live concert film featuring Midlake, two Stereo Skateboards films, and a previously unreleased 2006 short film starring Giovanni Ribisi and Beth Riesgraf, which will have its online debut in 2017.
'Acting has been a lot of fun, and I've liked that I've been able to bounce around a bit, and that I was able to make some movies for my kids, do some dramas, play 'Earl,' work with Pixar... It's a fun gig. And I enjoy being a part of that bigger process. But just as with skateboarding, photography is much more uniquely personal, and more of an independent endeavor. Very fulfilling. I look forward to continuing to work as an actor, as I do maintaining my ties to skateboarding and having Stereo as the outlet that it's been for me for over two decades now, and perhaps directing more projects, but photography will remain my primary creative focus as it has been for the past 15 years.'
Lee can be followed on Instagram at @jasonlee, @stereoskateboards, and @filmphotographic, an Instagram film community gallery and resource page founded by Lee in 2015.- Actor
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Jeffrey Dean Morgan endeared himself to audiences with his recurring role on ABC's smash hit series Grey's Anatomy (2005). His dramatic arc as heart patient Denny Duquette, who wins the heart of intern Izzie Stevens (Katherine Heigl) in a star-crossed romance, made him a universal fan favorite. He also had recurring roles on The CW and Warner Bros' television series Supernatural (2005), The Good Wife (2009), and on Showtime and Lions Gate Television's award-winning comedy series Weeds (2005). He currently stars as Negan on the hit AMC series, The Walking Dead (2010).
Morgan starred in Warner Bros.' Watchmen (2009), director Zack Snyder's (300 (2006)) adaptation of the iconic graphic novel. He played the pivotal role of the Comedian, a Vietnam War vet who is a member of a group of heroes called the Minutemen. He next appeared in producer Joel Silver's The Losers (2010), for Warner Bros. It is an adaptation of DC-Vertigo's acclaimed comic book series about a band of black ops commandos who are set up to be killed by their own government. The team barely survives and sets out to get even. James Vanderbilt adapted the screenplay, and Sylvain White directed. He appeared in Focus Features' Taking Woodstock (2009), directed by Oscar-winning director Ang Lee. He also starred opposite Uma Thurman in Yari Film Group's romantic comedy The Accidental Husband (2008). Additional feature credits include a cameo role opposite Rachel Weisz in Warner Bros.' comedy Fred Claus (2007), and the independent office comedy Kabluey (2007), in which he played a charismatic yet smarmy co-worker of Lisa Kudrow's character.
In 2011, the in-demand actor starred in the independent murder mystery Texas Killing Fields (2011). In the film, based on a true story, Morgan plays a detective transplanted from New York who teams with a local investigator (Sam Worthington) to work on a series of unsolved murders in industrial wastelands surrounding Gulf Coast refineries, where as many as 70 bodies turned up over the past two decades. Together, they wage a war against the unknown assailants. Michael Mann produced the film, while his daughter, Ami Canaan Mann, directed. The actor traveled to Thailand, where he filmed the Weinstein Company's period drama Shanghai (2010), under the direction of Mikael Håfström (1408 (2007)). John Cusack stars as an American who returns to a corrupt, Japanese-occupied Shanghai four months prior to Pearl Harbor and learns that his friend Connor (Morgan) was killed. While trying to solve the murder, he discovers a much larger secret that his own government is hiding. In addition, Morgan has a role in Michael London's Groundswell Productions' All Good Things (2010), starring Kirsten Dunst and Ryan Gosling, also for the Weinstein Co.
He also stars opposite two-time Academy Award winner Hilary Swank in the suspense thriller The Resident (2011), for Hammer Films. It is the story of a young doctor (Swank) who moves into a Brooklyn loft and becomes suspicious that she is not alone. Morgan plays Max, her charming new landlord whom she discovers has developed a dangerous obsession with her. Morgan previously co-starred with Swank in Warner Bros.' P.S. I Love You (2007).
Morgan also appeared in the MGM/UA reboot of the 1984 action movie Red Dawn (2012). The plot focuses on a group of teenagers who form an insurgency called the Wolverines when their town is invaded by Cuban and Russian soldiers. Morgan plays the role of Lieutenant Andrew Tanner, the leader of the US Special Forces who finds the Wolverines.
Morgan was born in Seattle, Washington, to Sandy Thomas and Richard Dean Morgan. In his spare time, Morgan enjoys barbecuing on the grill, reading, watching movies, and listening to his favorite band, Eagles. He also loves to root for his home team, the Seattle Seahawks. He resides in Los Angeles with his dogs, Honey Dog and Bandit Morgan, a puppy he rescued in Puerto Rico while filming. He resides in a farm in New York's Hudson Valley, where he is also part-owner of a small coffee shop with business partner The Losers (2010).- Actor
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Lead and supporting actor of the American stage and films, with sandy colored hair, and pale complexion. He won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Deer Hunter (1978), and has been seen in mostly character roles, often portraying psychologically unstable individuals, though that generalization would not do justice to Walken's depth and breadth of performances.
Walken was born in Astoria, Queens, New York. His mother, Rosalie (Russell), was a Scottish emigrant, from Glasgow. His father, Paul Wälken, was a German emigrant, from Horst, who ran Walken's bakery. Christopher learned his stage craft, including dancing, at Hofstra University & ANTA, and picked up a Theatre World award for his performance in the revival of the Tennessee Williams play "The Rose Tattoo". Walken then first broke through into cinema in 1969 appearing in Me and My Brother (1968), before appearing alongside Sean Connery in the sleeper heist movie The Anderson Tapes (1971). His eclectic work really came to the attention of critics in 1977 with his intense portrayal of Diane Keaton suicidal younger brother in Annie Hall (1977), and then he scooped the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award in 1977 for his role as Nick in the electrifying The Deer Hunter (1978). Walken was lured back by The Deer Hunter (1978) director Michael Cimino for a role in the financially disastrous western Heaven's Gate (1980), before moving onto surprise audiences with his wonderful dance skills in Pennies from Heaven (1981), taking the lead as a school teacher with telepathic abilities in the Stephen King inspired The Dead Zone (1983) and then as billionaire industrialist Max Zorin trying to blow up Silicon Valley in the 007 adventure A View to a Kill (1985). Looking at many of Walken's other captivating screen roles, it is easy to see the diversity of his range and even his droll comedic talents with humorous appearances in Biloxi Blues (1988), Wayne's World 2 (1993), Joe Dirt (2001), Mousehunt (1997) and America's Sweethearts (2001). Most recently, he continued to surprise audiences again with his work as a heart broken and apologetic father to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can (2002).- Actor
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Quirky, inventive and handsome American actor Michael Keaton first achieved major fame with his door-busting performance as fast-talking ideas man Bill Blazejowski, alongside a nerdish morgue attendant (Henry Winkler), in Night Shift (1982). He played further comedic roles in Mr. Mom (1983), Johnny Dangerously (1984), and Beetlejuice (1988), earned further acclaim for his dramatic portrayal of Bruce Wayne / Batman in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992), and since then, has moved easily between film genres, ranging from drama and romantic comedy to thriller and action.
Keaton was born Michael John Douglas on September 5, 1951 in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, to Leona Elizabeth (Loftus), a homemaker, and George A. Douglas, a civil engineer and surveyor. He is of Irish, as well as English, Scottish, and German, descent. Michael studied speech for two years at Kent State, before dropping out and moving to Pittsburgh. An unsuccessful attempt at stand-up comedy led Keaton to working as a TV cameraman in a cable station, and he came to realize he wanted to work in front of the cameras. Keaton first appeared on TV in several episodes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood (1968).
He left Pittsburgh and moved to Los Angeles to begin auditioning for TV. He began cropping up in popular TV shows including Maude (1972) and The Mary Tyler Moore Hour (1979). Around this time, Keaton decided to use an alternative surname to remove confusion with better-known actor Michael Douglas. He looked into the "K"'s for surnames and thought it was inoffensive to chose 'Keaton'. His next break was scoring a co-starring role alongside Jim Belushi in the short-lived comedy series Working Stiffs (1979), which showcased his comedic talent and led to his co-starring role in Night Shift (1982). Keaton next scored the lead in the comedy hits Mr. Mom (1983), Johnny Dangerously (1984) , Gung Ho (1986), the Tim Burton horror-comedy Beetlejuice (1988), and The Dream Team (1989).
Keaton's career was given another major boost when he was again cast by Tim Burton, this time as the title comic book superhero, millionaire playboy/crime-fighter Bruce Wayne, in Batman (1989). Burton cast him because he thought that Keaton was the only actor who could portray someone who has the kind of darkly obsessive personality that the character demands. To say there were howls of protest by fans of the caped crusader comic strip is an understatement! Warner Bros. was deluged with thousands of letters of complaint commenting that comedian Keaton was the wrong choice for the Caped Crusader, given his prior work and the fact that he lacked the suave, handsome features and tall, muscular physicality often attributed to the character in the comic books. However, their fears were proven wrong when Keaton turned in a sensational performance, and he held his own on screen with opponent Jack Nicholson, playing the lunatic villain, "The Joker". Keaton's dramatic work earned widespread acclaim from critics and audiences alike, and Batman (1989) became one of the most successful films of the year.
Keaton remained active during the 1990s, appearing in a wide range of films. Keen to diversify his work, Keaton starred as a psychotic tenant in Pacific Heights (1990), as a hard-working cop in One Good Cop (1991), and then donned the black cape and cowl once more for Batman Returns (1992). He remained in demand during the 1990s, appearing in a wide range of films, including the star-studded Shakespearian Much Ado About Nothing (1993), the drama My Life (1993), another Ron Howard comedy The Paper (1994), with sexy Andie MacDowell in Multiplicity (1996), twice in the same role, dogged Elmore Leonard character Agent Ray Nicolette, in Jackie Brown (1997) and Out of Sight (1998). He also played a killer in the mediocre thriller Desperate Measures (1998).
In the 2000s, Keaton appeared in several productions with mixed success, including Live from Baghdad (2002), First Daughter (2004), and Herbie Fully Loaded (2005). He also provided voices for characters in the animated films Cars (2006), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Minions (2015).
He returned to major film roles in the 2010s, co-starring in The Other Guys (2010), RoboCop (2014) and Need for Speed (2014). Also that year, Keaton starred alongside Zach Galifianakis, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, and Naomi Watts in Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014), a film by 21 Grams (2003) and Biutiful (2010) director Alejandro G. Iñárritu. In the film, Keaton plays Riggan Thomson, a screen actor, famous for playing the iconic titular superhero, who puts on a Broadway play based on a Raymond Carver short story, to regain his former glory. Keaton's critically praised lead performance earned him a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, the Critics' Choice Award for Best Actor and Best Actor in a Comedy, and nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Award, British Academy Film Award, and Academy Award for Best Actor.
In 2015, he played a journalist in Spotlight (2015), which, like Birdman, won the Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2016, he starred as Ray Kroc, the developer of McDonald's, in the drama The Founder (2016).
He is a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Bill Paxton was born on May 17, 1955 in Fort Worth, Texas. He was the son of Mary Lou (Gray) and John Lane Paxton, a businessman and actor (as John Paxton). Bill moved to Los Angeles, California at age eighteen, where he found work in the film industry as a set dresser for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. He made his film debut in the Corman film Crazy Mama (1975), directed by Jonathan Demme. Moving to New York, Paxton studied acting under Stella Adler at New York University. After landing a small role in Stripes (1981), he found steady work in low-budget films and television. He also directed, wrote and produced award-winning short films including Barnes & Barnes: Fish Heads (1980), which aired on Saturday Night Live (1975). His first appearance in a James Cameron film was a small role in The Terminator (1984), followed by his very memorable performance as Private Hudson in Aliens (1986) and as the nomadic vampire Severen in Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987). Bill also appeared in John Hughes' Weird Science (1985), as Wyatt Donnelly's sadistic older brother Chet. Although he continued to work steadily in film and television, his big break did not come until his lead role in the critically acclaimed film-noir One False Move (1991). This quickly led to strong supporting roles as Wyatt Earp's naive younger brother Morgan in Tombstone (1993) and as Fred Haise, one of the three astronauts, in Apollo 13 (1995), as well as in James Cameron's offering True Lies (1994).
Bill died on February 25, 2017, in Los Angeles, from complications following heart surgery. He was 61.- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
Candy was one of Canada's greatest and funniest character actors. His well-known role as the big hearted buffoon earned him classics in Uncle Buck (1989) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). His career has handed him some dry spells but Candy always rebounded.
Born in Newmarket, Ontario, in the year 1950, Candy was the son of Evangeline (Aker) and Sidney James Candy. His mother was of Ukrainian and Polish ancestry. Candy found his passion for drama while attending a community college. In 1971 Candy made his TV debut in an episode of Police Surgeon (1971) co-starring Sharon Farrell, John Hamelin, and Nick Mancuso. Candy then found a number of bit parts in other Canadian television shows and also in such small films as Tunnel Vision (1976) and Find the Lady (1976). However, his big success came at the age of twenty-seven, when he became part of the comedy group "Second City" in Toronto. Alongside such soon-to-be Canadian stars as Catherine O'Hara (one of Candy's lifelong friends), Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, and Harold Ramis, Candy was also part of the television show the group inspired. SCTV (1976) earned Candy a reputation for his quirky humor and his uncanny imitations of others.
After the television series, Candy appeared alongside fellow Canadian Dan Aykroyd in the Steven Spielberg flop 1941 (1979). However, other jobs followed and Candy landed a role, once again with Aykroyd, in the successful classic The Blues Brothers (1980). Candy played a parole officer who is part of the chase after Jake and Elwood Blues. The film was a hit and Candy followed up accordingly.
Candy acted in the smash hit Stripes (1981) where he played a dopey, overweight recruit affectionately nicknamed 'Ox'. After the success of Stripes (1981), Candy returned to the Second City with the other former stars, in SCTV Network (1981). Candy also hosted "Saturday Night Live" before landing himself a role in the Ron Howard film Splash (1983), a romantic comedy about a mermaid who washes ashore and learns to live like a human. Candy played a sleazy womanizing brother to the character played by Tom Hanks. The film was a bigger success than even Stripes (1981) and a number of people have said that Splash (1983) was his breakout role.
He took a second billing in the comedic film Brewster's Millions (1985) where a man must spend thirty million in order to inherit three hundred million from his deceased relative. Candy played the man's best friend, who accidentally gets in the way as much as helping out. Candy continued making films tirelessly, including the film Armed and Dangerous (1986) where he and Eugene Levy play characters who become security guards.
1987 was an especially good year to Candy, giving him two classic roles: Barf the Mawg in the Mel Brooks comedy Spaceballs (1987) and the bumbling salesman Del Griffith alongside Steve Martin's uptight character in the John Hughes film Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). The latter film is a golden classic and is one of Candy's greatest films. He followed up immediately with The Great Outdoors (1988), once again alongside Dan Aykroyd. Candy landed another classic role in the film Uncle Buck (1989) which was about a bumbling uncle who must look after his brother's three children.
Although he was in the smash hit Home Alone (1990), Candy's career fell into a slump, turning out unsuccessful films in the early nineties. This caused him to change his strategy by taking more serious roles. The first of these serious roles was the corrupt lawyer Dean Andrews in the 'Oliver Stone' film JFK (1991). The film was a big success, and Candy moved on from this victory to make the film Cool Runnings (1993) about the first Jamaican bobsled team.
Candy was well known for his size, six feet two and weighing around 300 pounds. However, he was very sensitive about the subject and in the nineties tried to lose weight and quit smoking. He was aware that heart attacks were in his family: both his father and his grandfather died of heart attacks and Candy wanted to prevent that happening to him as best he could.
In the mid-nineties Candy filmed the Michael Moore comedy Canadian Bacon (1995) then went to Mexico to film the western spoof Wagons East (1994). It was in Mexico that Candy had a heart attack and passed away in March 1994. Canadian Bacon (1995) was released a year after his death and is his last film.
Candy was loved by thousands of people who loved his classic antics in Splash (1983) and The Great Outdoors (1988). He was well-known for his roles in Stripes (1981) and Uncle Buck (1989) and he himself never forgot his Canadian background.- Actor
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Peter Dinklage is an American actor. Since his breakout role in The Station Agent (2003), he has appeared in numerous films and theatre plays. Since 2011, Dinklage has portrayed Tyrion Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) . For this he won an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Series, Miniseries or Television Film in 2011.
Peter Hayden Dinklage was born in Morristown, New Jersey, to Diane (Hayden), an elementary school teacher, and John Carl Dinklage, an insurance salesman. He is of German, Irish, and English descent. In 1991, he received a degree in drama from Bennington College and began his career. His exquisite theatre work that expresses brilliantly the unique range of his acting qualities, includes remarkable performances full of profoundness, charisma, intelligence, sensation and insights in plays such as "The Killing Act", "Imperfect Love", Ivan Turgenev's "A Month in the Country" as well as the title roles in William Shakespeare's "Richard III" and in Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya".
Peter Dinklage received acclaim for his first film, Living in Oblivion (1995), where he played an actor frustrated with the limited and caricatured roles offered to actors who have dwarfism. In 2003, he starred in The Station Agent (2003), written and directed by Tom McCarthy. The movie received critical praise as well as Peter Dinklage's work including nominations such as for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role at the "Screen Actors Guild" and Best Male Lead at the "Film Independent Spirit Awards". One of his next roles has been the one of Miles Finch, an acclaimed children's book author, in Elf (2003). Find Me Guilty (2006), the original English Death at a Funeral (2007), its American remake Death at a Funeral (2010), Penelope (2006), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) are also included in his brilliant work concerning feature films.
His fine work in television also includes shows such as Entourage (2004), Life as We Know It (2004), Threshold (2005) and Nip/Tuck (2003). In 2011, the primary role of Tyrion Lannister, a man of sharp wit and bright spirit, in Game of Thrones (2011), was incarnated with unique greatness in Dinklage's unparalleled performance. The series is an adaptation of author George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, and his work has received widespread praise, also highlighted by his receiving of the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series at The 63rd Primetime Emmy Awards (2011), The 67th Primetime Emmy Awards (2015), The 70th Primetime Emmy Awards (2018) and The 71st Primetime Emmy Awards (2019) as well as of the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Miniseries or Motion Picture Made for Television at [error].
Dinklage, among others, has also voiced Captain Gutt in Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012) and The Mighty Eagle in The Angry Birds Movie (2016), starred in the comedy horror film Knights of Badassdom (2013) while his tour-de-force interpretations as a multifarious "chameleon" of substantial mastery and artistic generosity also include film and TV gems such as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Three Christs (2017) and I Think We're Alone Now (2018).- Actor
- Producer
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Kevin Norwood Bacon was born on July 8, 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ruth Hilda (Holmes), an elementary school teacher, and Edmund Norwood Bacon, a prominent architect who was on the cover of Time Magazine in November 1964.
Kevin's early training as an actor came from The Manning Street. His debut as the strict Chip Diller in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) almost seems like an inside joke, but he managed to escape almost unnoticed from that role. Diner (1982) became the turning point after a couple of television series and a number of less-than-memorable movie roles. In a cast of soon-to-be stars, he more than held his end up, and we saw a glimpse of the real lunatic image of The Bacon. He also starred in Footloose (1984), She's Having a Baby (1988), Tremors (1990) with Fred Ward, Flatliners (1990), and Apollo 13 (1995).
Bacon is married to actress Kyra Sedgwick, with whom he has 2 children.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.- Actor
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Sam Neill was born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to army parents, an English-born mother, Priscilla Beatrice (Ingham), and a New Zealand-born father, Dermot Neill. His family moved to the South Island of New Zealand in 1954. He went to boarding schools and then attended the universities at Canterbury and Victoria. The 6-foot tall star has a BA in English Literature. Following his graduation, he worked with the New Zealand Players and other theater groups. He also was a film director, editor and scriptwriter for the New Zealand National Film Unit for 6 years.
Sam Neill is internationally recognised for his contribution to film and television. He is well known for his roles in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993) and Jane Campion's Academy Award Winning film The Piano (1993). Other film roles include The Daughter (2015), Backtrack (2015) opposite Adrien Brody, MindGamers (2015), United Passions (2014), A Long Way Down (2014), Escape Plan (2013), The Hunter (2011) with Willem Dafoe, Daybreakers (2009), Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010), Little Fish (2005) opposite Cate Blanchett, Skin (2008), Dean Spanley (2008), Wimbledon (2004), Yes (2004), Perfect Strangers (2003), Dirty Deeds (2002), The Zookeeper (2001), Bicentennial Man (1999) opposite Robin Williams, The Horse Whisperer (1998) alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Sleeping Dogs (1977), and My Brilliant Career (1979).
He received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the NBC miniseries Merlin (1998). He also received a Golden Globe nomination for One Against the Wind (1991), and for Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983). The British Academy of Film and Television honoured Sam's work in Reilly by naming him Best Actor. Sam received an AFI Award for Best Actor for his role in Jessica (2004).
Other television includes House of Hancock (2015), Rake (2010), Doctor Zhivago (2002), To the Ends of the Earth (2005), The Tudors (2007) with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Crusoe (2008), Alcatraz (2012) and recently in Old School (2014) opposite Bryan Brown, Peaky Blinders (2013) alongside Cillian Murphy and The Dovekeepers (2015) for CBS Studios.- Actor
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Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is of mostly Irish descent.
Mel and his family moved to Australia in the late 1960s, settling in New South Wales, where Mel's paternal grandmother, contralto opera singer Eva Mylott, was born. After high school, Mel studied at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, performing at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts alongside future film thespians Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush.
After college, Mel had a few stints on stage and starred in a few TV shows. Eventually, he was chosen to star in the films Mad Max (1979) and Tim (1979), co-starring Piper Laurie. The small budgeted Mad Max made him known worldwide, while Tim garnered him an award for Best Actor from the Australian Film Institute (equivalent to the Oscar).
Later, he went on to star in Gallipoli (1981), which earned him a second award for Best Actor from the AFI. In 1980, he married Robyn Moore and had seven children. In 1984, Mel made his American debut in The Bounty (1984), which co-starred Anthony Hopkins.
Then in 1987, Mel starred in what would become his signature series, Lethal Weapon (1987), in which he played "Martin Riggs". In 1990, he took on the interesting starring role in Hamlet (1990), which garnered him some critical praise. He also made the more endearing Forever Young (1992) and the somewhat disturbing The Man Without a Face (1993). 1995 brought his most famous role as "Sir William Wallace" in Braveheart (1995), for which he won two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director.
From there, he made such box office hits as The Patriot (2000), Ransom (1996), and Payback (1999). Today, Mel remains an international superstar mogul, continuously topping the Hollywood power lists as well as the Most Beautiful and Sexiest lists.- Actor
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Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18, 1955 in Lynwood, California, the third child of Bill Costner, a ditch digger and ultimately an electric line servicer for Southern California Edison, and Sharon Costner (née Tedrick), a welfare worker. His older brother, Dan, was born in 1950. A middle brother died at birth in 1953. His father's job required him to move regularly, which caused Kevin to feel like an Army kid, always the new kid at school, which led to him being a daydreamer. As a teen, he sang in the Baptist church choir, wrote poetry, and took writing classes. At 18, he built his own canoe and paddled his way down the rivers that Lewis & Clark followed to the Pacific. Despite his present height, he was only 5'2" when he graduated high school. Nonetheless, he still managed to be a basketball, football and baseball star. In 1973, he enrolled at California State University at Fullerton, where he majored in business. During that period, Kevin decided to take acting lessons five nights a week. He graduated with a business degree in 1978 and married his college sweetheart, Cindy Costner. He initially took a marketing job in Orange County. Everything changed when he accidentally met Richard Burton on a flight from Mexico. Burton advised him to go completely after acting if that is what he wanted. He quit his job and moved to Hollywood soon after. He drove a truck, worked on a deep sea fishing boat, and gave bus tours to stars' homes before finally making his own way into the films. After making one soft core sex film, he vowed to not work again if that was the only work he could do. He didn't work for nearly six years, while he waited for a proper break. That break came with The Big Chill (1983), even though his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor -- he was remembered by director Lawrence Kasdan when he decided to make Silverado (1985). Costner's career took off after that.- Actor
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Christopher Robert Evans is an American actor, film producer, and director. Evans began his acting career in typical fashion: performing in school productions and community theatre.
He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Lisa (Capuano), who worked at the Concord Youth Theatre, and G. Robert Evans III, a dentist. His uncle is former U.S. Representative Mike Capuano. Chris's father is of half German and half Welsh/English/Scottish ancestry, while Chris's mother is of half Italian and half Irish descent. He has an older sister, Carly Evans, and two younger siblings, a brother named Scott Evans, who is also an actor, and a sister named Shana Evans. The family moved to suburban Sudbury when he was 11 years-old. Bitten by the acting bug in the first grade because his older sister, Carly, started performing, Evans followed suit and began appearing in school plays. While at Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, his drama teacher cited his performance as "Leontes" in "The Winter's Tale" as exemplary of his skill. After more plays and regional theatre, he moved to New York and attended the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute.
On the advice of friends, he landed an internship at a casting office and befriended a couple of the agents he regularly communicated with - one of whom later took him on as a client. The screen - not the stage - then became his focus; Evans soon began auditioning for feature films and television series. Evans made one of his first appearances on The Fugitive (2000) (CBS, 2000-2001), a remake of the 1960s series and feature film starring Harrison Ford. In the episode "Guilt", Evans played the son of a small-town sheriff who tries to exact revenge after Dr. Richard Kimble - incognito as a liquor store owner - refuses to sell him and his friends alcohol. After small roles in Cherry Falls (1999) and The Newcomers (2000) - two unknown low-budget features - Evans appeared in Boston Public (2000) (Fox, 2000-2004) as a murder suspect. He then appeared in his first major feature, Not Another Teen Movie (2001), a spoof on teen comedies wherein he played a jock who makes a bet that he can turn an unpopular and unkempt girl (Chyler Leigh) into prom queen.
After filming a couple of television pilots he was confident would be successful - Just Married (2003) and Eastwick (2002) - he appeared in another listless teen comedy, The Perfect Score (2004), playing an average, ho-hum student who takes part in a plot to steal the SAT test. Hijinks naturally ensue. Then, Evans broke through to the Big Time, grabbing the lead in the kidnapping thriller, Cellular (2004), a suspenseful B movie with a cheesy gimmick - a random wrong number on his cell phone forces him into a high-stakes race to save an unknown woman's life. Despite an unassuming performance from Evans and Kim Basinger as the damsel in distress, Cellular (2004) failed to break any box office records or please a wide majority of critics. Evans then prepared himself for super stardom when he signed on to play Johnny Storm in Fantastic Four (2005), 20th Century Fox's long-awaited adaptation of the Marvel comic. Although the film was wildly uneven and disappointing, Evans nearly stole the show with his energetic, unfettered performance. In that year itself, Chris was noticed by critics and made it into magazine and Internet countdowns, scoring himself a third position of the hot body countdown from Gay.com and #18 on E! Television's 2006 101 Sexiest Celebrity Bodies.
The year 2007 also proved to be one successful year for Chris, as he had two movies released around the world that same year, starting with the second installment of the Marvel franchise Fantastic Four. Chris received positive reviews for his performance. The Nanny Diaries (2007), where Evans played Harvard Hottie, showed his sensitive. The year 2008 saw Chris Evans' part of the movie Street Kings (2008), playing the character Detective Paul Diskant. The movie is about police officers trying to cover up their wrongdoings and audiences got to see a serious side of Chris. In the same year, Chris also worked on the movie The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond (2008).- Actor
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English actor, writer, and comedian Simon Pegg was born Simon John Beckingham in Brockworth, Gloucestershire, to Gillian Rosemary (Smith), a civil servant, and John Henry Beckingham, a jazz musician. His parents divorced when he was seven. He later took his stepfather's surname "Pegg." He was educated at Brockworth Comprehensive Secondary School in Gloucestershire and went on to Stratford-upon-Avon College to study English literature and performance studies. He then attended the University of Bristol, and earned a bachelor's degree in drama. In the early 2000s, Pegg moved to London and began forging a successful career in stand-up comedy. Television opportunities followed including roles in Six Pairs of Pants (1995), Asylum (1996), and We Know Where You Live (1997). In 1999, Pegg and Jessica Hynes teamed up to write and star in cult sitcom Spaced (1999), directed by Edgar Wright. The series also featured Pegg's best friend Nick Frost. Pegg's breakthrough in film came with the zom-rom-com Shaun of the Dead (2004), which he also co-wrote with director Edgar Wright. Again, the film featured Nick Frost. The trio also scored a hit with police comedy Hot Fuzz (2007). Further film successes followed for Pegg, notably in the iconic role of Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in Star Trek (2009) and alongside Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible III (2006) and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011).- Actor
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He was the ultra-cool male film star of the 1960s, and rose from a troubled youth spent in reform schools to being the world's most popular actor. Over 40 years after his untimely death from mesothelioma in 1980, Steve McQueen is still considered hip and cool, and he endures as an icon of popular culture.
McQueen was born in Beech Grove, Indiana, to mother Julian (Crawford) and father William Terence McQueen, a stunt pilot. His first lead role was in the low-budget sci-fi film The Blob (1958), quickly followed by roles in The St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959) and Never So Few (1959). The young McQueen appeared as Vin, alongside Yul Brynner, in the star-laden The Magnificent Seven (1960) and effectively hijacked the lead from the bigger star by ensuring he was nearly always doing something in every shot he and Brynner were in together, such as adjusting his hat or gun belt. He next scored with audiences with two interesting performances, first in the World War II drama Hell Is for Heroes (1962) and then in The War Lover (1962). Riding a wave of popularity, McQueen delivered another crowd pleaser as Hilts, the Cooler King, in the knockout World War II P.O.W. film The Great Escape (1963), featuring his famous leap over the barbed wire on a motorcycle while being pursued by Nazi troops (in fact, however, the stunt was actually performed by his good friend, stunt rider Bud Ekins).
McQueen next appeared in several films of mixed quality, including Soldier in the Rain (1963); Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) and Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965). However, they failed to really grab audience attention, but his role as Eric Stoner in The Cincinnati Kid (1965), alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson and Karl Malden, had movie fans filling theaters again to see the ice-cool McQueen they loved. He was back in another Western, Nevada Smith (1966), again with Malden, and then he gave what many consider to be his finest dramatic performance as loner US Navy sailor Jake Holman in the superb The Sand Pebbles (1966). McQueen was genuine hot property and next appeared with Faye Dunaway in the provocative crime drama The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), next in what many consider his signature role, that of a maverick, taciturn detective in the mega-hit Bullitt (1968), renowned for its famous chase sequence through San Francisco between McQueen's Ford Mustang GT and the killer's black Dodge Charger.
Interestingly, McQueen's next role was a total departure from the action genre, as he played Southerner Boon Hogganbeck in the family-oriented The Reivers (1969), based on the popular William Faulkner novel. Not surprisingly, the film didn't go over particularly well with audiences, even though it was an entertaining and well made production, and McQueen showed an interesting comedic side of his acting talents. He returned to more familiar territory, with the race film Le Mans (1971), a rather self-indulgent exercise, and its slow plot line contributed to its rather poor performance in theaters. It was not until many years later that it became something of a cult film, primarily because of the footage of Porsche 917s roaring around race tracks in France. McQueen then teamed up with maverick Hollywood director Sam Peckinpah to star in the modern Western Junior Bonner (1972), about a family of rodeo riders, and again with Peckinpah as bank robber Doc McCoy in the violent The Getaway (1972). Both did good business at the box office. McQueen's next role was a refreshing surprise and Papillon (1973), based on the Henri Charrière novel of the same name, was well received by fans and critics alike. He played a convict on a French penal colony in South America who persists in trying to escape from his captors and feels their wrath when his attempts fail.
The 1970s is a decade remembered for a slew of "disaster" movies and McQueen starred in arguably the biggest of the time, The Towering Inferno (1974). He shared equal top billing with Paul Newman and an impressive line-up of co-stars including Fred Astaire, Robert Vaughn and Faye Dunaway. McQueen does not appear until roughly halfway into the film as San Francisco fire chief Mike O'Halloran, battling to extinguish an inferno in a 138-story skyscraper. The film was a monster hit and set the benchmark for other disaster movies that followed. However, it was McQueen's last film role for several years. After a four-year hiatus he surprised fans, and was almost unrecognizable under long hair and a beard, as a rabble-rousing early environmentalist in An Enemy of the People (1978), based on the Henrik Ibsen play.
McQueen's last two film performances were in the unusual Western Tom Horn (1980), then he portrayed real-life bounty hunter Ralph "Papa' Thorson (Ralph Thorson) in The Hunter (1980). In 1978, McQueen developed a persistent cough that would not go away. He quit smoking cigarettes and underwent antibiotic treatments without improvement. Shortness of breath grew more pronounced and on December 22, 1979, after he completed work on 'The Hunter', a biopsy revealed pleural mesothelioma, a rare lung cancer associated with asbestos exposure for which there is no known cure. The asbestos was thought to have been in the protective suits worn in his race car driving days, but in fact the auto racing suits McQueen wore were made of Nomex, a DuPont fire-resistant aramid fiber that contains no asbestos. McQueen later gave a medical interview in which he believed that asbestos used in movie sound stage insulation and race-drivers' protective suits and helmets could have been involved, but he thought it more likely that his illness was a direct result of massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging from pipes aboard a troop ship while in the US Marines.
By February 1980, there was evidence of widespread metastasis. While he tried to keep the condition a secret, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer" on March 11, 1980. In July, McQueen traveled to Rosarito Beach, Mexico for an unconventional treatment after American doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life. Controversy arose over McQueen's Mexican trip, because McQueen sought a non-traditional cancer treatment called the Gerson Therapy that used coffee enemas, frequent washing with shampoos, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cows and sheep, massage and laetrile, a supposedly "natural" anti-cancer drug available in Mexico, but not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. McQueen paid for these unconventional medical treatments by himself in cash payments which was said to have cost an upwards of $40,000 per month during his three-month stay in Mexico. McQueen was treated by William Donald Kelley, whose only medical license had been (until revoked in 1976) for orthodontics.
McQueen returned to the United States in early October 1980. Despite metastasis of the cancer through McQueen's body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life. McQueen's condition soon worsened and "huge" tumors developed in his abdomen. In late October, McQueen flew to Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico to have an abdominal tumor on his liver (weighing around five pounds) removed, despite warnings from his American doctors that the tumor was inoperable and his heart could not withstand the surgery. McQueen checked into a Juarez clinic under the alias "Sam Shepard" where the local Mexican doctors and staff at the small, low-income clinic were unaware of his actual identity.
Steve McQueen passed away on November 7, 1980, at age 50 after the cancer surgery which was said to be successful. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea. He married three times and had a lifelong love of motor racing, once remarking, "Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting.".- Actor
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Intense was the word for Ray Liotta. He specialized in psychopathic characters who hide behind a cultivated charm. Even in his nice-guy roles in Field of Dreams (1989) and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995), you get the impression that something is smoldering inside of him. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, and was adopted by Mary (Edgar), a township clerk, and Alfred Liotta, an auto parts store owner. He studied acting at the University of Miami, where he became friends with Steven Bauer (Scarface (1983), Thief of Hearts (1984)). He spent his first years acting in TV: Another World (1964), a TV movie and several short-lived series. He broke into movies with the black comedy Something Wild (1986), which garnered him rave reviews. Originally unable to get a reading, he was recommended for the part by Melanie Griffith (then married to Bauer).
Following the success Something Wild (1986), he received more offers in the "psycho" vein, but refused them to avoid being typecast. Instead, he made "little movies" like Dominick and Eugene (1988), which earned him standing as an actor's actor, and Field of Dreams (1989), whose success always surprised him. When he heard Martin Scorsese was casting Goodfellas (1990), he lobbied hard for the part of Henry Hill. The film's huge success brought him wide popularity and garnered him star billing in future films such as Article 99 (1992), Unlawful Entry (1992), and Unforgettable (1996).
Liotta died on May 26, 2022, aged 67, in his sleep while filming on location in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.- Actor
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Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Ann Lydia Elizabeth (Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman, who operated a newspaper printing press. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, and Scottish ancestry, partly by way of Canada, where his mother was born. After several moves, his family settled in Danville, Illinois. Gene grew up in a broken home, which he left at the age of sixteen for a hitch with the US Marines.
Moving to New York after being discharged, he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and television production on the G.I. Bill at the University of Illinois. Hackman would be over 30 years old when he finally decided to take his chance at acting by enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse. Legend says that Hackman and friend Dustin Hoffman were voted "least likely to succeed."
Hackman next moved back to New York, where he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway. In 1964 he was cast as the young suitor in the Broadway play "Any Wednesday." This role would lead to him being cast in the small role of Norman in Lilith (1964), starring Warren Beatty. When Beatty was casting for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), he cast Hackman as Buck Barrow, Clyde Barrow's brother. That role earned Hackman a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, an award for which he would again be nominated in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). In 1972 he won the Oscar for his role as Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection (1971). At 40 years old Hackman was a Hollywood star whose work would rise to new heights with Night Moves (1975) and Bite the Bullet (1975), or fall to new depths with The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Eureka (1983). Hackman is a versatile actor who can play comedy (the blind man in Young Frankenstein (1974)) or villainy (the evil Lex Luthor in Superman (1978)). He is the doctor who puts his work above people in Extreme Measures (1996) and the captain on the edge of nuclear destruction in Crimson Tide (1995). After initially turning down the role of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992), Hackman finally accepted it, as its different slant on the western interested him. For his performance he won the Oscar and Golden Globe and decided that he wasn't tired of westerns after all. He has since appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), and The Quick and the Dead (1995).- Actor
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Thomas William Selleck is an American actor and film producer, best known for his starring role as Hawaii-based private investigator "Thomas Magnum" on the 1980s television series, Magnum, P.I. (1980).
Selleck was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Martha (Jagger), a homemaker, and Robert Dean Selleck, a real estate investor and executive. He is of mostly English descent, including recent immigrant ancestors. Selleck has appeared extensively on television in roles such as "Dr. Richard Burke" on Friends (1994) and "A.J. Cooper" on Las Vegas (2003). In addition to his series work, Selleck has appeared in more than fifty made-for-TV and general release movies, including Mr. Baseball (1992), Quigley Down Under (1990), Lassiter (1984) and, his most successful movie release, Three Men and a Baby (1987), which was the highest grossing movie in 1987.
Selleck also plays "Jesse Stone" in a series of made-for-TV movies, based on the Robert B. Parker novels. In 2010, he appears as "Commissioner Frank Reagan" in the drama series, Blue Bloods (2010) on CBS.- Actor
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Steve Buscemi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Dorothy (Wilson), a restaurant hostess, and John Buscemi, a sanitation worker. He is of Italian (father) and English, Dutch, and Irish (mother) descent. He became interested in acting during his last year of high school. After graduating, he moved to Manhattan to study acting with John Strasberg. He began writing and performing original theatre pieces with fellow actor/writer Mark Boone Junior. This led to his being cast in his first lead role in Parting Glances (1986). Since then, he has worked with many of the top filmmakers in Hollywood, including Quentin Tarantino, Jerry Bruckheimer, and The Coen Brothers. He is a highly respected actor.- Actor
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Robert Downey Jr. has evolved into one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. With an amazing list of credits to his name, he has managed to stay new and fresh even after over four decades in the business.
Downey was born April 4, 1965 in Manhattan, New York, the son of writer, director and filmographer Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey (née Elsie Ann Ford). Robert's father is of half Lithuanian Jewish, one quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one quarter Irish, descent, while Robert's mother was of English, Scottish, German, and Swiss-German ancestry. Robert and his sister, Allyson Downey, were immersed in film and the performing arts from a very young age, leading Downey Jr. to study at the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York, before moving to California with his father following his parents' 1978 divorce. In 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School to pursue acting full time. Downey Sr., himself a drug addict, exposed his son to drugs at a very early age, and Downey Jr. would go on to struggle with abuse for decades.
Downey Jr. made his debut as an actor at the age of five in the film Pound (1970), written and directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr.. He built his film repertoire throughout the 1980s and 1990s with roles in Tuff Turf (1985), Weird Science (1985), True Believer (1989), and Wonder Boys (2000) among many others. In 1992, Downey received an Academy Award nomination and won the BAFTA (British Academy Award) for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Chaplin (1992).
In Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), he appeared as an aspiring film make-up artist whose best friend commits murder. In Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, Downey starred as a tabloid TV journalist who exploits a murderous couple's killing spree to boost his ratings. For the comedy Heart and Souls (1993), Downey starred as a young man with a special relationship with four ghosts. In 1995, Downey starred in Restoration (1995), with Hugh Grant, Meg Ryan and Ian McKellen, directed by Michael Hoffman. Also that year, he starred in Richard III (1995), in which he appears opposite his Restoration (1995) co-star McKellen.
In 1997, Downey was seen in Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man (1998), alongside Kenneth Branagh, Daryl Hannah and Embeth Davidtz; in One Night Stand (1997), directed by Mike Figgis and starring Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski; and in Hugo Pool (1997), directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr. and starring Sean Penn and Patrick Dempsey. In September of 1999, Downey appeared in Black & White (1999), written and directed by James Toback, along with Ben Stiller, Elijah Wood, Gaby Hoffmann, Brooke Shields and Claudia Schiffer. In January of 1999, he starred with Annette Bening and Aidan Quinn in In Dreams (1999), directed by Neil Jordan.
In 2000, Downey co-starred with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys (2000), directed by Curtis Hanson. In this dramatic comedy, Downey played the role of a bisexual literary agent. In 2001, Downey made his prime-time television debut when he joined the cast of the Fox-TV series Ally McBeal (1997) as attorney "Larry Paul". For this role, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
The actor's drug-related problems escalated from 1996 to 2001, leading to arrests, rehab visits and incarcerations, and he was eventually fired from Ally McBeal (1997). Emerging clean and sober in 2003, Downey Jr. began to rebuild his career.
He marked his debut into music with his debut album, titled "The Futurist", on the Sony Classics Label on November 23rd, 2004. The album's eight original songs, that Downey wrote, and his two musical numbers debuting as cover songs revealed his sultry singing voice and his musical talents. Downey displayed his versatility in two different films in October 2003: the musical/drama The Singing Detective (2003), a remake of the BBC hit of the same name, and the thriller Gothika (2003) starring Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz. Downey starred in powerful yet humbling roles inspired by real-life accounts of some of history's most precious kept secrets, including Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly (2006) in 2006 co-starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) co-starring Nicole Kidman, a film inspired by the life of Diane Arbus, the revered photographer whose images captured attention in the early 1960s. These roles exhibited Downey's momentum from the previous year of 2005, in which he starred in the Academy Award®-nominated feature film Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), directed by George Clooney and in Shane Black's action comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) co-starring Val Kilmer. In 2007, he co-starred in David Fincher's suspenseful Zodiac (2007), alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, about the notorious serial killer who haunted San Francisco during the 1970s.
In May 2008, Downey achieved critical acclaim and worldwide box office success for his starring role in Iron Man (2008), Jon Favreau's big-screen rendering of the Marvel comic book superhero. The film co-starred Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard. In August of 2008, Downey starred with Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008), and went on to receive an Academy Award®-nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his, Kirk Lazarus.
In December 2009, Downey starred in the action-adventure Sherlock Holmes (2009). The film, directed by Guy Ritchie, co-starred Jude Law and Rachel McAdams and earned Downey a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical in January of 2010. In early Summer 2010, Downey re-teamed with director Jon Favreau and reprised his role as "Tony Stark/Iron Man" in the hugely successful sequel to the original film, Iron Man 2 (2010), starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Mickey Rourke.
Downey next starred in Due Date (2010), a comedy directed by Todd Phillips, in which he plays the role of an expectant father on a road trip racing to get back in time for the birth of his first child. Due Date (2010), starring The Hangover (2009)'s Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010.
Downey was honored by Time Magazine's "Time 100" in 2008, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His laurels include two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe wins, numerous other award nominations and wins, and tremendous popular and commercial success, particularly in his roles as Sherlock Holmes and Tony Stark (the latter of which he has so far played in Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). For three consecutive years, from 2012 to 2015, Downey has topped the Forbes list of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, making an estimated $80 million in earnings between June 2014 and June 2015.
In 2005, Downey Jr. married Susan Downey, with whom he has two children. Downey also has another son, Indio Falconer Downey, born 1993, from his first marriage to Deborah Falconer, from whom he was officially divorced in 2004.
Robert has jump-started the Team Downey Production Company with wife Susan Downey.- Actor
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George C. Scott was an immensely talented actor, a star of the big screen, stage and television. He was born on October 18, 1927 in Wise, Virginia, to Helena Agnes (Slemp) and George Dewey Scott. At the age of eight, his mother died, and his father, an executive at Buick, raised him. In 1945, he joined the United States Marines and spent four years with them, no doubt an inspiration for portraying General George S. Patton years later. When Scott left the Marines, he enrolled in journalism classes at the University of Missouri, but it was while performing in a play there that the acting bug bit him. He has said it "clicked, just like tumblers in a safe."
It was in 1957 that he landed a role in "Richard III" in New York City. The play was a success and brought the young actor to the attention of critics. He soon began to get work on television, mostly in live broadcasts of plays, and he landed the role of the crafty prosecutor in Anatomy of a Murder (1959). It was this role that got him his first Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.
However, George and Oscar wouldn't actually become the best of friends. In fact, he felt the whole process forced actors to become stars and that the ceremony was little more than a "meat market." In 1962, he was nominated again for Best Supporting Actor, this time opposite Paul Newman in The Hustler (1961), but sent a message saying "No, thanks" and refused the nomination.
However, whether he was being temperamental or simply stubborn in his opinion of awards, it did not seem to stop him from being nominated in the future. "Anatomy" and "The Hustler" were followed by the clever mystery The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), in which he starred alongside Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and cameos by major stars of the time, including Burt Lancaster and Frank Sinatra. It's a must-see, directed by John Huston with tongue deeply in cheek.
The following year, Scott starred as General "Buck" Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's comical anti-war film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). This became one of his favorites and he often said that he felt guilty getting paid for it, as he had so much fun making it. Another comedy followed, The Flim-Flam Man (1967), with Scott playing a smooth-talking con artist who takes on an apprentice whom he soon discovers has too many morals.
Three years followed, with some smaller television movies, before he got the role for which he will always be identified: the aforementioned General Patton in Patton (1970). This was a war movie that came at the end of a decade where anti-war protests had rocked a nation and become a symbol of youth dissatisfied with what was expected of them. Still, the actor's portrayal of this aggressive military icon actually drew sympathy for the controversial hero. He won the Oscar this time, but stayed at home watching hockey instead.
A pair of films that he made in the early 1980s were outstanding. The first of these was The Changeling (1980), a film often packaged as a horror movie but one that's really more of a supernatural thriller. He plays John Russell, a composer and music professor who loses his wife and daughter in a tragic accident. Seeking solace, he moves into an archaic mansion that had been unoccupied for 12 years. However, a child-like presence seems to be sharing the house with him and trying to share its secrets with him. From learning of the house's past, he discovers its horrific secret of long ago, a secret that the presence will no longer allow to be kept.
Then he starred -- along with a young cast of then largely unknowns, including Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn and Tom Cruise -- in the intense drama Taps (1981). He played the head of a military academy that's suddenly slated for destruction when the property is sold to local developers who plan to build condos. The students take over the academy when they feel that the regular channels are closed to them.
Scott kept up in films, television and on stage in the later years of his life (Broadway dimmed its lights for one minute on the night of his death). Among his projects were playing Ebenezer Scrooge in a worthy television update of A Christmas Carol (1984), an acclaimed performance on Broadway of "Death of a Salesman", the voice of McLeach in Disney's The Rescuers Down Under (1990) and co-starring roles in television remakes of two classic films, 12 Angry Men (1997) and Inherit the Wind (1999), to name just a few. After his death the accolades poured in, with Jack Lemmon saying, "George was truly one of the greatest and most generous actors I have ever known," while Tony Randall called him "the greatest actor in American history".- Actor
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Compact Italian-American actor Joe Pesci was born February 9, 1943 in Newark, New Jersey, to Mary (Mesce), a part-time barber, and Angelo Pesci, a bartender and forklift driver. Pesci first broke into entertainment as a child actor, and by the mid-1950s, was starring on the series "Star Time Kids". In the mid-1960s, he released a record under the stage name Joe Ritchie titled "Little Joe Sure Can Sing", and was also playing guitar with several bands, including Joey Dee and The Starliters. He even joined with his friend Frank Vincent to start a vaudeville-style comedy act, but met with limited success (interestingly, Pesci and Vincent would later go on to co-star in several gangster films together, including Goodfellas (1990) and Casino (1995).
Pesci's first film role was as an uncredited dancer in Hey, Let's Twist! (1961) and then he had to wait another 15 years for a minor role in The Death Collector (1976). His work in the second film was seen by Robert De Niro, who convinced director Martin Scorsese to cast him as Joey LaMotta in the epic boxing film Raging Bull (1980), which really got him noticed in Hollywood. He played opposite Rodney Dangerfield in Easy Money (1983), was with buddy DeNiro again in Once Upon a Time in America (1984), nearly stole the show as con man Leo Getz in Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) and scored a Best Supporting Actor Oscar playing the psychotic Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas (1990).
His comedic talents shone again in the mega-popular Home Alone (1990), and he put in a terrific performance as co-conspirator David Ferrie in JFK (1991). Pesci was back again as Leo Getz for Lethal Weapon 3 (1992), and was still a bumbling crook in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992), and had a minor role in the Robert De Niro-directed A Bronx Tale (1993). He was lured back by Scorsese to play another deranged gangster named Nicky (based on real-life hood Tony Spilotro [aka "The Ant"]) in the violent Casino (1995), and starred in the comedies 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997) and Gone Fishin' (1997), although both failed to fire at the box office.
Pesci returned again as fast-talking con man Leo Getz in Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). In 1999, he announced his retirement from acting and since then, he appeared only occasionally in films, including a cameo appearance in The Good Shepherd (2006). He also appeared in the music documentary I Go Back Home: Jimmy Scott (2016).- Actor
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Tall, thin, wiry Sam Elliott is the classic picture of the American cowboy. Elliott began his acting career on the stage and his film debut was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Although his future wife, Katharine Ross co-starred in the film, the two did not meet until they filmed The Legacy (1978) together. Over the years there would be few opportunities to act in feature westerns, but it would be television that gave him that opportunity, in The Sacketts (1979), The Shadow Riders (1982) and The Yellow Rose (1983), among others. He would also work in non-westerns, usually as a tough guy, as in Lifeguard (1976) and Road House (1989). In 1985 he played Cher's love interest Gar in the drama Mask (1985), and he was in some cop movies such as Fatal Beauty (1987) and Shakedown (1988). In the 1990s, Elliott was back on the western trail, playing everyone from Brig. Gen. John Buford in the film Gettysburg (1993) to Wild Bill Hickok in the made-for-TV movie Buffalo Girls (1995). In 1991 he wrote the screenplay and co-starred with his wife in the made-for-TV western Conagher (1991), and two years later he played Wyatt Earp's brother Virgil in Tombstone (1993), with Kurt Russell as Wyatt. In 1995 the starred as John Pierce the tense thriller The Final Cut (1995), as a former head of a Bomb Squad who must to stop a dangerous bomber. In 1998 he was the narrator of the hilarious comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), playing him as The Stranger, and returned to the Western in the drama The Hi-Lo Country (1998), closing the 20th century with another western, the TV movie You Know My Name (1999).
Sam Elliott started the 21st century with the Stephen Frears' TV movie Fail Safe (2000) playing Congressman Raskob, and The Contender (2000) as Kermit Newman, at the side of Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Gary Oldman, and in We Were Soldiers (2002) as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, together Mel Gibson. In 2003 he played Gen. Thunderbolt Ross in the Ang Lee's pre-MCU Hulk (2003), repeating in another Marvel superhero movie as Caretaker in Ghost Rider (2007). After participating in the fantasy movie The Golden Compass (2007) and made a stellar cameo in Up in the Air (2009), Elliott played Clay Wheeler in the box office flop comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker, and in 2012 he was a supporting character as Mac Macleod in Robert Redford's The Company You Keep (2012). After the playing Coach Moore in the sport drama Draft Day (2014) In 2015 Elliott was hyperactive, appearing in seven different productions including cinema and TV: Digging for Fire (2015), I'll See You in My Dreams (2015), Sam Elliott, the sixth season of Justified (2010) as Avery Markham, and The Good Dinosaur (2015) voicing Butch. Two years later was absolute star in the drama The Hero (2017) as Lee Hayden, and in the sci-fi movie The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot (2018) as Calvin Barr, to shine again as supporting character playing Bradley Cooper's brother Bobby in the multi-nominated Cooper's directorial debut A Star Is Born (2018), sharing scenes with Lady Gaga, coming back again to the western in the TV series 1883 (2021) as Shea Brennan.- Actor
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Tommy Lee Jones was born in San Saba, Texas, the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school for boys in Dallas, on a scholarship, and went to Harvard on another scholarship. He roomed with future Vice President Al Gore and played offensive guard in the famous 29-29 Harvard-Yale football game of '68 known as "The Tie." He received a B.A. in English literature and graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1969.
Following college, he moved to New York and began his theatrical career on Broadway in "A Patriot for Me" (1969). In 1970, he made his film debut in Love Story (1970). While living in New York, he continued to appear in various plays, both on- and off-Broadway: "Fortune and Men's Eyes" (1969); "Four on a Garden" (1971); "Blue Boys" (1972); "Ulysses in Nighttown" (1974). During this time, he also appeared on a daytime soap opera, One Life to Live (1968) as Dr. Mark Toland from 1971-75. He moved with wife Kate Lardner, granddaughter of short-story writer/columnist Ring Lardner, and her two children from a previous marriage, to Los Angeles.
There he began to get some roles on television: Charlie's Angels (1976) (pilot episode); Smash-Up on Interstate 5 (1976); and The Amazing Howard Hughes (1977). While working on the movie Back Roads (1981), he met and fell in love with Kimberlea Cloughley, whom he later married. More roles in television--both on network and cable--stage and film garnered him a reputation as a strong, explosive, thoughtful actor who could handle supporting as well as leading roles. He made his directorial debut in The Good Old Boys (1995) on TNT. In addition to directing and starring in the film, he co-wrote the teleplay (with J.T. Allen). The film, based on Elmer Kelton's novel, is set in west Texas where Jones has strong family ties. Consequently, this story of a cowboy facing the end of an era has special meaning for him.- Actor
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James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and some English descent. Stewart was educated at a local prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he was a keen athlete (football and track), musician (singing and accordion playing), and sometime actor.
In 1929, he won a place at Princeton University, where he studied architecture with some success and became further involved with the performing arts as a musician and actor with the University Players. After graduation, engagements with the University Players took him around the northeastern United States, including a run on Broadway in 1932. But work dried up as the Great Depression deepened, and it was not until 1934, when he followed his friend Henry Fonda to Hollywood, that things began to pick up.
After his first screen appearance in Art Trouble (1934), Stewart worked for a time for MGM as a contract player and slowly began making a name for himself in increasingly high-profile roles throughout the rest of the 1930s. His famous collaborations with Frank Capra, in You Can't Take It with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and, after World War II, It's a Wonderful Life (1946) helped to launch his career as a star and to establish his screen persona as the likable everyman.
Having learned to fly in 1935, he was drafted into the United States Army in 1940 as a private (after twice failing the medical for being underweight). During the course of World War II, he rose to the rank of colonel, first as an instructor at home in the United States, and later on combat missions in Europe. He remained involved with the United States Air Force Reserve after the war and officially retired in 1968. In 1959, he was promoted to brigadier general, becoming the highest-ranking actor in U.S. military history.
Stewart's acting career took off properly after the war. During the course of his long professional life, he had roles in some of Hollywood's best-remembered films, starring in a string of Westerns, bringing his everyman qualities to movies like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)), biopics (The Stratton Story (1949), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), and The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), for instance, thrillers (most notably his frequent collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock), and even some screwball comedies.
On June 25, 1997, a thrombosis formed in his right leg, leading to a pulmonary embolism, and a week later on July 2, 1997, surrounded by his children, James Stewart died at age 89 at his home in Beverly Hills, California. His last words to his family were, "I'm going to be with Gloria now".- Actor
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One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained at the Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop. De Niro first gained fame for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), but he gained his reputation as a volatile actor in Mean Streets (1973), which was his first film with director Martin Scorsese. He received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Godfather Part II (1974) and received Academy Award nominations for best actor in Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Cape Fear (1991). He received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980).
De Niro has earned four Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in New York, New York (1977), opposite Liza Minnelli, Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). Other notable performances include Brazil (1985), The Untouchables (1987), Backdraft (1991), Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), Casino (1995) and Jackie Brown (1997). At the same time, he also directed and starred in such films as A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). De Niro has also received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010.
As of 2022, De Niro is 79-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to work regularly in mostly film.- Actor
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Don Knotts, the legendary television character actor, was born Jesse Donald Knotts on July 21, 1924 in Morgantown, West Virginia, to William Jesse Knotts and the former Elsie Luzetta Moore. He was the youngest of four sons in a family that had been in America since the 17th century.
His first stint as an entertainer was as a ventriloquist, performing paid gigs at parties and other events in Morgantown. He decided to make a stab at a career in show business, moving to New York City after graduating from high school, but he only lasted in the Big Apple for a few weeks. He decided to go to college, enrolling at West Virginia University but, when World War II engulfed America, he enlisted in the United States Army. The 19-year-old soldier was assigned to the Special Services Branch, where he entertained the troops. It was while in the Army that Don ditched ventriloquism for straight comedy.
Don returned to West Virginia University after being demobilized. After graduating with a degree in theater in 1948, he married and moved back to New York, where connections he had made while in the Special Services Branch helped him break into show business. In addition to doing stand-up comedy at clubs, he appeared on the radio, eventually playing the character "Windy Wales" on "The Bobby Benson Show". From 1953 to 1955, he was a regular on the soap opera Search for Tomorrow (1951). Destiny intervened when he was cast in the small role of the psychiatrist in the Broadway play "No Time for Sergeants", which starred Andy Griffith, who would play a large part in Don's future career. Don also appeared in the film adaption of the play with Griffith.
Don's big break before he hooked up again with Andy Griffith was a regular gig on the The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956) hosted by Steve Allen, starting in 1956. He became well-known for his "nervous man" shtick in the "Man-on-the-Street" segments that were a staple of Allen's show. His character in the segments was a very nervous man obviously uptight about being interviewed on camera. He developed this into the fidgety, high-strung persona that he used successfully for the rest of his career.
When "The Tonight Show" moved to Hollywood in 1959 with new host Jack Paar, Don also moved to California as a regular. However, he was soon cast in Andy Griffith's new television series about a small-town sheriff, The Andy Griffith Show (1960), in the role that would make him a legend. For playing "Deputy Barney Fife", Don was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor five times from 1961 to 1967, winning each time. He soon tasted big-screen success, starring in The Incredible Mr. Limpet (1964). Don cut back his appearances on The Andy Griffith Show (1960) to concentrate on making movies after signing a five-year contract with Universal Pictures. For Universal, Don appeared in The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), The Reluctant Astronaut (1967), The Shakiest Gun in the West (1968), The Love God? (1969) and How to Frame a Figg (1971). His mid-1960s popularity as a movie comedian began to wane towards the end of the decade, and the contract was not renewed. Don returned to television as the star of his own variety show, but it was quickly canceled.
During the 1970s, Don had a spotty career, appearing in regional theater and making guest appearances on other television series. He eventually made some slapstick movies with Tim Conway for the Walt Disney Company, but it wasn't until the end of the decade that he tasted real success again. He was cast as would-be-swinger landlord "Ralph Furley" on the popular sitcom Three's Company (1976) after the original landlords, "The Ropers", were spun off into their own series. Since the show was canceled in 1984, he appeared as "Barney Fife" for a 1986 reunion of The Andy Griffith Show (1960) and in television guest spots, including a recurring gig as the pesky neighbor "Les Calhoun" on Griffith's Matlock (1986) series until 1992.
He remained busy for the next ten years touring with plays and doing voice-over work for cartoons. In 2005, Don provided the voice of "Mayor Turkey Lurkey" in Disney's animated film Chicken Little (2005). It turned out to be one of his final films. He died at age 81 on February 24, 2006.- Actor
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Norman Reedus was born in Hollywood, Florida. He is of Italian, English, Scottish and Irish descent. He is an accomplished photographer with several books of his photography published and continues to do art shows in galleries all around the world every year. His first novel was published in 2022 and was on the New York Times best seller list as well as the Los Angeles Times best seller list titled "The Ravaged". Reedus has a production company named Bigbaldhead, Inc. With his producing partner Amanda Verdon as well as a first look deal with AMC studios.
Norman's first movie as an actor was Guillermo del Toro's horror thriller Mimic (1997), where he played the character Jeremy. He has also played roles in the movies Floating (1997), Six Ways to Sunday (1997), Gossip (2000), Blade II (2002) and Deuces Wild (2002). He also starred in the movies Red Canyon (2008), Robert Redford's The Conspirator (2010), and John Hillcoat's Triple 9 (2016). Norman played the role of Murphy MacManus in the movie The Boondock Saints (1999) opposite Sean Patrick Flanery and Willem Dafoe. He later reprised the role in the sequel The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day (2009).
His directorial debut happened in 2005 for the multi-awarded short film on Miles Davis I Thought of You (2006).
As of 2010, he stars as Daryl Dixon on the AMC television series The Walking Dead (2010). The character was not originally in the comic book series of the same name, but was created specifically for Reedus by Frank Darabont. The Walking Dead comic creator Robert Kirkman has stated he feels "absolutely blessed [Reedus] has honored the show with his presence, and the way he has come in and taken over that role and defined Daryl Dixon. A great deal of Norman's portrayal of the character in the first season inspired all the writers to do what we did with him in the second season. We love writing him and end up doing cool stuff with him."- Actor
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Christopher Nash Elliott is an American actor, comedian and writer. He appeared in comedic sketches on Late Night with David Letterman (1982-1988), created and starred in the comedy series Get a Life (1990-1992) on Fox, and wrote and starred in the film Cabin Boy (1994). His writing has won four consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards. His other television appearances include recurring roles on Everybody Loves Raymond (2003-2005) and How I Met Your Mother (2009-2014), starring as Chris Monsanto in Adult Swim's Eagleheart (2011-2014) and starring as Roland Schitt in Schitt's Creek (2015-2020). He also appeared in the films Groundhog Day (1993), There's Something About Mary (1998), Snow Day (2000) and Scary Movie 2 (2001).- Actor
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Tim Daly was born on 1 June 1956 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Basic (2003), The Fugitive (2000) and Wings (1990). He was previously married to Amy Van Nostrand.- Actor
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A social misfit, Belzer was kicked out of every school he ever attended, due to his uncontrollable wit. His mother (Frances) died of breast cancer when Richard was 18. Four years later, his father (Charles) committed suicide. A dedication is written to Charles Belzer in Richard Belzer's "UFOs, JFK, and Elvis: Conspiracies You Don't Have To Be Crazy To Believe" (Ballantine Books, 1999).- Music Artist
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Chris Isaak was born on 26 June 1956 in Stockton, California, USA. He is a music artist and actor, known for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), Wild at Heart (1990) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999).- Producer
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Willard Carroll "Will" Smith II (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, comedian, producer, rapper, and songwriter. He has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him "the most powerful actor in Hollywood". Smith has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy Awards.
In the late 1980s, Smith achieved modest fame as a rapper under the name The Fresh Prince. In 1990, his popularity increased dramatically when he starred in the popular television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show ran for six seasons (1990-96) on NBC and has been syndicated consistently on various networks since then. After the series ended, Smith moved from television to film, and ultimately starred in numerous blockbuster films. He is the only actor to have eight consecutive films gross over $100 million in the domestic box office, eleven consecutive films gross over $150 million internationally, and eight consecutive films in which he starred open at the number one spot in the domestic box office tally.
Smith is ranked as the most bankable star worldwide by Forbes. As of 2014, 17 of the 21 films in which he has had leading roles have accumulated worldwide gross earnings of over $100 million each, five taking in over $500 million each in global box office receipts. As of 2014, his films have grossed $6.6 billion at the global box office. He has received Best Actor Oscar nominations for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness.
Smith was born in West Philadelphia, the son of Caroline (Bright), a Philadelphia school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., a refrigeration engineer. He grew up in West Philadelphia's Wynnefield neighborhood, and was raised Baptist. He has three siblings, sister Pamela, who is four years older, and twins Harry and Ellen, who are three years younger. Smith attended Our Lady of Lourdes, a private Catholic elementary school in Philadelphia. His parents separated when he was 13, but did not actually divorce until around 2000.
Smith attended Overbrook High School. Though widely reported, it is untrue that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); he never applied to college because he "wanted to rap." Smith says he was admitted to a "pre-engineering [summer] program" at MIT for high school students, but he did not attend. According to Smith, "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college."
Smith started as the MC of the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, with his childhood friend Jeffrey "DJ Jazzy Jeff" Townes as producer, as well as Ready Rock C (Clarence Holmes) as the human beat box. The trio was known for performing humorous, radio-friendly songs, most notably "Parents Just Don't Understand" and "Summertime". They gained critical acclaim and won the first Grammy awarded in the Rap category (1988).
Smith spent money freely around 1988 and 1989 and underpaid his income taxes. The Internal Revenue Service eventually assessed a $2.8 million tax debt against Smith, took many of his possessions, and garnished his income. Smith was nearly bankrupt in 1990, when the NBC television network signed him to a contract and built a sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, around him.
The show was successful and began his acting career. Smith set for himself the goal of becoming "the biggest movie star in the world", studying box office successes' common characteristics.
Smith's first major roles were in the drama Six Degrees of Separation (1993) and the action film Bad Boys (1995) in which he starred opposite Martin Lawrence.
In 1996, Smith starred as part of an ensemble cast in Roland Emmerich's Independence Day. The film was a massive blockbuster, becoming the second highest grossing film in history at the time and establishing Smith as a prime box office draw. He later struck gold again in the summer of 1997 alongside Tommy Lee Jones in the summer hit Men in Black playing Agent J. In 1998, Smith starred with Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State.
He turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix in favor of Wild Wild West (1999). Despite the disappointment of Wild Wild West, Smith has said that he harbors no regrets about his decision, asserting that Keanu Reeves's performance as Neo was superior to what Smith himself would have achieved, although in interviews subsequent to the release of Wild Wild West he stated that he "made a mistake on Wild Wild West. That could have been better."
In 2005, Smith was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for attending three premieres in a 24-hour time span.
He has planned to star in a feature film remake of the television series It Takes a Thief.
On December 10, 2007, Smith was honored at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Smith left an imprint of his hands and feet outside the world-renowned theater in front of many fans. Later that month, Smith starred in the film I Am Legend, released December 14, 2007. Despite marginally positive reviews, its opening was the largest ever for a film released in the United States during December. Smith himself has said that he considers the film to be "aggressively unique". A reviewer said that the film's commercial success "cemented [Smith's] standing as the number one box office draw in Hollywood." On December 1, 2008, TV Guide reported that Smith was selected as one of America's top ten most fascinating people of 2008 for a Barbara Walters ABC special that aired on December 4, 2008.
In 2008 Smith was reported to be developing a film entitled The Last Pharaoh, in which he would be starring as Taharqa. It was in 2008 that Smith starred in the superhero movie Hancock.
Men in Black III opened on May 25, 2012 with Smith again reprising his role as Agent J. This was his first major starring role in four years.
On August 19, 2011, it was announced that Smith had returned to the studio with producer La Mar Edwards to work on his fifth studio album. Edwards has worked with artists such as T.I., Chris Brown, and Game. Smith's most recent studio album, Lost and Found, was released in 2005.
Smith and his son Jaden played father and son in two productions: the 2006 biographical drama The Pursuit of Happyness, and the science fiction film After Earth, which was released on May 31, 2013.
Smith starred opposite Margot Robbie in the romance drama Focus. He played Nicky Spurgeon, a veteran con artist who takes a young, attractive woman under his wing. Focus was released on February 27, 2015. Smith was set to star in the Sci-Fic thriller Brilliance, an adaptation of Marcus Sakey's novel of the same name scripted by Jurassic Park writer David Koepp. But he left the project.
Smith played Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute in the sports-drama Concussion, who became the first person to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a football player's brain. CTE is a degenerative disease caused by severe trauma to the head that can be discovered only after death. Smith's involvement is mostly due to his last-minute exit from the Sci-Fi thriller-drama Brilliance. Concussion was directed by Peter Landesman and-bead filmed in Pittsburgh, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It received $14.4 million in film tax credits from Pennsylvania. Principal photography started on October 27, 2014. Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw played his wife. Omalu served as a consultant.
As of November 2015, Smith is set to star in the independent drama Collateral Beauty, which will be directed by David Frankel. Smith will play a New York advertising executive who succumbs to an deep depression after a personal tragedy.
Nobel Peace Prize Concert December 11, 2009, in Oslo, Norway: Smith with wife Jada and children Jaden and Willow Smith married Sheree Zampino in 1992. They had one son, Trey Smith, born on November 11, 1992, and divorced in 1995. Trey appeared in his father's music video for the 1998 single "Just the Two of Us". He also acted in two episodes of the sitcom All of Us, and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and on the David Blaine: Real or Magic TV special.
Smith married actress Jada Koren Pinkett in 1997. Together they have two children: Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born 1998), his co-star in The Pursuit of Happyness and After Earth, and Willow Camille Reign Smith (born 2000), who appeared as his daughter in I Am Legend. Smith and his brother Harry own Treyball Development Inc., a Beverly Hills-based company named after Trey. Smith and his family reside in Los Angeles, California.
Smith was consistently listed in Fortune Magazine's "Richest 40" list of the forty wealthiest Americans under the age of 40.- Actor
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Neil Patrick Harris was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on June 15, 1973. His parents, Sheila Gail (Scott) and Ronald Gene Harris, were lawyers and ran a restaurant. He grew up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, a small town 120 miles south of Albuquerque, where he first took up acting in the fourth grade. While tagging along with his older brother of 3 years, Harris won the part of Toto in a school production of The Wizard of Oz (1939).
His parents moved the family to Albuquerque in 1988, the same year that Harris made his film debut in two movies: Purple People Eater (1988) and Clara's Heart (1988), which starred Whoopi Goldberg. A year later, when Neil was 16, he landed the lead role in Steven Bochco's television series about a teen prodigy doctor at a local hospital, Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989), which launched Harris into teen-heartthrob status. The series lasted1989-1993 and earned him a People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Series (1990) and a Golden Globe Nomination (1990). Harris attended the same high school as Freddie Prinze Jr., La Cueva High School in Albuquerque. Neil acted on stage in a few plays while there, one of which was his senior play, Fiddler on the Roof (1971), in which he portrayed Lazar Wolf the butcher (1991).
When "Doogie Howser, M.D." stopped production in 1993, Harris took up stage acting, which he had always wanted to do. After a string of made-for-television movies, Harris acted in his first big screen roles in nine years, Starship Troopers (1997) with Casper Van Dien and then The Proposition (1998). In July 1997, Harris accepted the role of Mark Cohen for the Los Angeles production of the beloved musical, Rent (2005). His performance in "Rent" garnered him a Drama-League Award in 1997. He continued in the musical, to rave reviews, until January 1998. He later reprised the role for six nights in his hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico, in December 1998.
In 1999, Harris returned to television in the short-lived sitcom Stark Raving Mad (1999), with Tony Shalhoub. He was also in the big-screen projects The Next Best Thing (2000) and Undercover Brother (2002), and he can be heard as the voice of Peter Parker/Spider-Man in the newest animated Spider-Man (2003) series. Harris has continued his stage work, making his Broadway debut in 2001 in "Proof." He has also appeared on stage in "Romeo and Juliet," "Cabaret," Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street in Concert (2001), and, most recently, "Assassins." In 2005, Harris returned to the small screen in a guest-starring role on Numb3rs (2005) and a starring role in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005). Neil played the title role in the web-exclusive musical comedy Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog (2008), widely downloaded via iTunes to become the #1 TV series for five straight weeks, despite not actually being on television.- Actor
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William Shatner has notched up an impressive 70-plus years in front of the camera, displaying heady comedic talent and being instantly recognizable to several generations of cult television fans as the square-jawed Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise.
Shatner was born in Côte Saint-Luc, Montréal, Québec, Canada, to Anne (Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. His father was a Jewish emigrant from Bukovina in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while his maternal grandparents were Lithuanian Jews. After graduating from university, he joined a local Summer theatre group as an assistant manager. He then performed with the National Repertory Theatre of Ottawa and at the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival as an understudy working with such as Alec Guinness, James Mason, and Anthony Quayle. He came to the attention of New York critics and was soon playing important roles in major shows on live television.
Shatner spent many years honing his craft before debuting alongside Yul Brynner in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). He was kept busy during the 1960s in films such as Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) and The Intruder (1962) and on television guest-starring in dozens of series such as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Defenders (1961), The Outer Limits (1963) and The Twilight Zone (1959). In 1966, Shatner boarded the USS Enterprise for three seasons of Star Trek (1966), co-starring alongside Leonard Nimoy, with the series eventually becoming a bona-fide cult classic with a worldwide legion of fans known variously as "Trekkies" or "Trekkers".
After "Star Trek" folded, Shatner spent the rest of the decade and the 1970s making the rounds, guest-starring on many prime-time television series, including Hawaii Five-O (1968), Marcus Welby, M.D. (1969) and Ironside (1967). He has also appeared in several feature films, but they were mainly B-grade (or lower) fare, such as the embarrassingly bad Euro western White Comanche (1968) and the campy Kingdom of the Spiders (1977). However, the 1980s saw a major resurgence in Shatner's career with the renewed interest in the original Star Trek (1966) series culminating in a series of big-budget "Star Trek" feature films, including Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). In addition, he starred in the lightweight police series T.J. Hooker (1982) from 1982 to 1986, alongside spunky Heather Locklear, and surprised many fans with his droll comedic talents in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Loaded Weapon 1 (1993) and Miss Congeniality (2000).
He has most recently been starring in the David E. Kelley television series The Practice (1997) and its spin-off Boston Legal (2004).
Outside of work, he jogs and follows other athletic pursuits. His interest in health and nutrition led to him becoming spokesman for the American Health Institute's 'Know Your Body' program to promote nutritional and physical health.- Actor
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Harry Morgan was a prolific character actor who starred in over 100 films and was a stage performer. Known to a younger generation of fans as "Col. Sherman T. Potter" on M*A*S*H (1972). Also known for his commanding personality throughout his career, he tackled movies and television in a way no other actor would do it.
Born Harry Bratsberg in Detroit, Michigan to Anna Olsen, a homemaker who immigrated from Sweden, and Henry Bratsberg, a mechanic who immigrated from Norway. After graduating from Muskegon High School in Muskegon, Michigan, he took on a salesman job before becoming a successful actor.
Several of his most memorable film roles were: The Omaha Trail (1942), in the next quarter-century, he would also appear in The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), Wing and a Prayer (1944), State Fair (1945), Dragonwyck (1946), All My Sons (1948), Red Light (1949), Outside the Wall (1950), Dark City (1950) where he met future Dragnet 1967 (1967) co-star Jack Webb, who would be best friends until Webb's death, late in 1982, along with Appointment with Danger (1950). His films credits also include: High Noon (1952), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), Strategic Air Command (1955), among many others. He also co-starred with James Garner in Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) and Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971).
On television, he is fondly remembered as Spring Byington's jokingly henpecked neighbor, "Pete Porter" on December Bride (1954), where he became the show's scene-stealer. It was also based on a popular radio show that transferred into television. The show was an immediate success to viewers, which led him into starring his own short-lived spin-off series, Pete and Gladys (1960), which co-starred Cara Williams, who met Morgan in the movie, The Saxon Charm (1948).
Morgan began his eight-year association with old friend, Jack Webb, and Universal, starting with Dragnet 1967 (1967), which he played Off. Bill Gannon. For the second time, like December Bride (1954) before this, it was an immediate hit, where it tackled a lot of topics. Dragnet was canceled in 1970, after a 4-season run, due to Morgan's best friend and co-star (Jack Webb) leaving the show to continue producing other shows, such as Adam-12 (1968) and Emergency! (1972). Morgan would later work with Webb in both short-lived series, The D.A. (1971), opposite Robert Conrad and Hec Ramsey (1972), opposite Richard Boone. After those roles, Morgan ended his contract with both Universal and Mark VII, to sign with 20th Century Fox.
Morgan's biggest role was that of a tough-talking, commanding, fun-loving, serious Army Officer, "Col. Sherman T. Potter" on M*A*S*H (1972), when he replaced McLean Stevenson, who left the show to unsuccessfully star in his own sitcom. For the third time, the show was still a hit with fans, and at 60, he was nominated for Emmies nine times and won his first and only Emmy in 1980, for Outstanding Supporting Actor. By 1983, M*A*S*H's series was getting very expensive, as well as with the cast, hence, CBS reduced it to 16 episodes. Despite M*A*S*H's finale in 1983, Morgan went on to star in a short-lived spin-off series AfterMASH (1983), co-starring Jamie Farr and William Christopher, from the original M*A*S*H (1972) series, without series' star Alan Alda.
He also co-starred in 2 more short-lived series, as he was over 70, beginning with Blacke's Magic (1986) with Hal Linden and his final role with You Can't Take It with You (1987). That same year, he reprised his role, for a second time as "Off. Bill Gannon" in the film, Dragnet (1987), which starred Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks. Then, he guest-starred in several shows such as: The Twilight Zone (1985), Renegade (1992), The Jeff Foxworthy Show (1995), for the third time, he also reprised his "Off. Bill Gannon" role, supplying his voice on The Simpsons (1989). Towards the end of his acting career, as he reached 80, he had a recurring role as the older college professor on 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996), opposite John Lithgow. Afterwards, he retired from show business and lived with his family. Harry Morgan died on December 7, 2011 at 96. On confirming his death, his son Charles said that he had been recently treated for pneumonia. Morgan was also one of the oldest living Hollywood male actors.- Actor
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Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928 in Walla Walla, Washington, to parents Otto West Anderson, a farmer, and his wife Audrey V. (Speer), an opera singer. At age 10, in 1938, West had a cache of comic books; and starting in 1939, Batman, who appeared in Detective Comics, made a big impression on him--the comic hero was part bat-man (a la Count Dracula) and part world's greatest detective (a la Charlie Chan and Sherlock Holmes). When his mother remarried to a Dr. Paul Flothow, she took West and his younger brother, John, to Seattle. At age 14, West attended Lakeside School, then went to Whitman College, where he got a degree in literature and psychology. During his last year of college, he married 17-year-old Billie Lou Yeager.
West got a job as a disc jockey at a local radio station, then enrolled at Stanford for post-grad courses. Drafted into the army, he spent the next two years starting military television stations, first at San Luis Obispo, California, then at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Afterwards, West and his wife toured Europe, visiting Germany, Switzerland and Italy's Isle of Capri. When the money ran out, he joined a childhood and college buddy, Carl Hebenstreit, who was starring in the kiddie program "The Kini Popo Show" in Hawaii. West would eventually replace Carl but not the other star, Peaches the Chimp. In 1956, he got a divorce and married a beautiful girl, originally from Tahiti, named Ngatokoruaimatauaia Frisbie Dawson (he called her "Nga" for short). They had a daughter, Jonelle (born 1957), and a son, Hunter (born 1958). In 1959, West came to Hollywood. He adopted the stage name "Adam West", which fit his roles, as he was in some westerns.
After seven years in Tinseltown, he achieved fame in his signature role as Bruce Wayne / Batman, on the wildly popular ABC-TV series Batman (1966) (though he has over 60 movie and over 80 television guest appearance credits, "Batman" is what the fans remember him for). The series, which lasted three seasons, made him not just nationally but internationally famous. The movie version, Batman: The Movie (1966), earned West the "Most Promising New Star" award in 1967. The downside was that the "Batman" fame was partly responsible for ruining his marriage, and he was typecast and almost unemployable for a while after the series ended (he did nothing but personal appearances for two years).
In 1970, he met and then married Marcelle Tagand Lear, and picked up two stepchildren, Moya and Jill. In addition, they had two children of their own: Nina West in 1976 and Perrin in 1979. You can't keep a good actor down--West's career took off again, and he appeared in 50 projects after that: movies, television movies and sometimes doing voices on television series. West wrote his autobiography, "Back to the Batcave" (1994). One of his most prized possessions was a drawing of Batman by Bob Kane with the inscription "To my buddy, Adam, who breathed life into my pen and ink creation". Beginning in 2000, West made guest appearances on the animated series Family Guy (1999), on which he played Mayor Adam West, the lunatic mayor of Quahog, Rhode Island.
On June 9, 2017, Adam West died at age 88 after a brief battle with leukemia in Los Angeles, California. On June 15, 2017, Los Angeles shone the bat-signal on City Hall, and Walla Walla shone the bat-signal on the Whitman Tower, both as a tribute to West.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Buddy Ebsen began his career as a dancer in the late 1920s in a Broadway chorus. He later formed a vaudeville act with his sister Vilma Ebsen, which also appeared on Broadway. In 1935 he and his sister went to Hollywood, where they were signed for the first of MGM's Eleanor Powell movies, Broadway Melody of 1936 (1935). While Vilma retired from stage and screen shortly after this, Buddy starred in two further MGM movies with Powell. Two of his dancing partners were Frances Langford in Born to Dance (1936) and Judy Garland in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937). They were a little bit taller than Shirley Temple, with whom he danced in Captain January (1936). MGM studio chief Louis B. Mayer offered him an exclusive contract in 1938, but Ebsen turned it down. In spite of Mayer's warning that he would never get a job in Hollywood again, he was offered the role of the scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz (1939). Ebsen agreed to change roles with Ray Bolger, who was cast as the Tin Man. Ebsen subsequently became ill from the aluminum make-up, however, and was replaced by Jack Haley. He returned to the stage, making only a few pictures before he got a role in the Disney production of Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1955). After this, he became a straight actor, and later won more fame in his own hit series, The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) and Barnaby Jones (1973).- He was born in Reykjavik, Iceland and moved to the United States at the age of 5. Gunnar lived in Maine till he was 11, his family then moving to Texas, where he went to high school before attending the University of Texas. At the university, he did some theater work and majored in English and mathematics before going on to graduate in English and Scandinavian Studies. Despite graduating in the aforementioned fields, his first job out of high school was as a computer operator.
In the summer of 1973, he heard that Tobe Hooper and others were in town to work on a movie and decided to try out for a part. After interviewing with Tobe Hooper and the writer of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), Kim Henkel, he was cast in the role of the disturbed, mentally handicapped killer, Leatherface.
After Chainsaw, Hansen went on to work as a freelance writer for magazines for several years before going on to write books, one later being set in Iceland about purported serial killer, Henry Lee Lucas. He has gone on to write multiple screenplays - one co-written with his partner Gary Jones, director of Mosquito (1994)).
Gunnar also directed a documentary on Greenland and had a stint designing web pages for GTE. - Actor
- Producer
- Director
Danny DeVito has amassed a formidable and versatile body of work as an actor, producer and director that spans the stage, television and film.
Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. was born on November 17, 1944, in Neptune, New Jersey, to Italian-American parents. His mother, Julia (Moccello), was a homemaker. His father, Daniel, Sr., was a small business owner whose ventures included a dry cleaning shop, a dairy outlet, a diner, and a pool hall.
While growing up in Asbury Park, his parents sent him to private schools. He attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel grammar school and Oratory Prep School. Following graduation in 1962, he took a job as a cosmetician at his sister's beauty salon. A year later, he enrolled at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts so he could learn more about cosmetology. While at the academy, he fell in love with acting and decided to further pursue an acting career. During this time, he met another aspiring actor Michael Douglas at the National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Connecticut. The two would later go on to collaborate on numerous projects. Soon after he also met an actress named Rhea Perlman. The two fell in love and moved in together. They were married in 1982 and had three children together.
In 1968, Danny landed his first part in a movie when he appeared as a thug in the obscure Dreams of Glass (1970). Despite this minor triumph, Danny became discouraged with the film industry and decided to focus on stage productions. He made his Off-Broadway debut in 1969 in "The Man With the Flower in His Mouth." He followed this up with stage roles in "The Shrinking Bride," and "Lady Liberty." In 1975, he was approached by director Milos Forman and Michael Douglas about appearing in the film version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), which would star Jack Nicholson in the leading role. With box office success almost guaranteed and a chance for national exposure, Danny agreed to the role. The movie became a huge hit, both critically and financially, and still ranks today as one the greatest movies of all time. Unfortunately, the movie did very little to help Danny's career. In the years following, he was relegated to small movie roles and guest appearances on television shows. His big break came in 1978 when he auditioned for a role on an ABC sitcom pilot called Taxi (1978), which centered around taxi cab drivers at a New York City garage. Danny auditioned for the role of dispatcher Louie DePalma. At the audition, the producers told Danny that he needed to show more attitude in order to get the part. He then slammed down the script and yelled, "Who wrote this sh**?" The producers, realizing he was perfect for the part, brought him on board. The show was a huge success, running from 1978 to 1983.
Louie DePalma, played flawlessly by Danny, became one of the most memorable (and reviled) characters in television history. While he was universally hated by TV viewers, he was well-praised by critics, winning an Emmy award and being nominated three other times. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Danny maintained his status as a great character actor with memorable roles in movies like Romancing the Stone (1984), Ruthless People (1986), Throw Momma from the Train (1987) and Twins (1988). He also had a great deal of success behind the camera, directing movies like The War of the Roses (1989) and Hoffa (1992). In 1992, Danny was introduced to a new generation of moviegoers when he was given the role of The Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot in Tim Burton's highly successful Batman Returns (1992). This earned him a nomination for Best Villain at the MTV Movie Awards. That same year, along with his wife Rhea Perlman, Danny co-founded Jersey Films, which has produced many popular films and TV shows, including Pulp Fiction (1994), Get Shorty (1995), Man on the Moon (1999) and Erin Brockovich (2000). DeVito has many directing credits to his name as well, including Throw Momma from the Train (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Hoffa (1992), Death to Smoochy (2002) and the upcoming St. Sebastian.
In 2006, he returned to series television in the FX comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005). With a prominent role in a hit series, Devito's comic talents were now on display for a new generation of television viewers. In 2012, he provided the title voice role in Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012).
These days, he continues to work with many of today's top talents as an actor, director and producer.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Christopher Lloyd is an American actor with a relatively long career. His better known roles include drug-using taxicab driver Jim Ignatowski in the sitcom Taxi (1978), Klingon Commander Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), inventor Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in the Back to the Future trilogy (1985-1990), the evil Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), and deranged Uncle Fester in The Addams Family (1991) and Addams Family Values (1993).
Lloyd was born on October 22, 1938 in Stamford, Connecticut. His parents were lawyer Samuel R. Lloyd and singer Ruth Lapham (1896-1984). His maternal uncle was politician Roger Lapham, Mayor of San Francisco (1883-1966, term 1944-1948). His maternal grandfather was businessman Lewis Henry Lapham (1858-1934), co-founder of Texaco Oil Company. Lloyd is a distant descendant of indentured servant John Howland (c. 1592-1673), one of the passengers of the ship Mayflower and signers of the Mayflower Compact.
Lloyd was raised in the town Westport, Connecticut, which changed from a community of farmers to a suburban development during the 20th century. Many artists and writers from New York City settled in the town. Lloyd was educated at Staples High School. He was a co-founder of the Staples Players, the school's theatre company. Lloyd was interested in an acting career, and served as an apprentice at summer theaters in Mount Kisco, New York and Hyannis, Massachusetts. In 1957, he started pursuing acting classes in New York City. He took lessons at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, a full-time professional conservatory for actors. His acting teacher was Sanford Meisner (1905-1997), eponymous creator of the Meisner technique.
Lloyd made his New York theatrical debut in a 1961 production of the play "And They Put Handcuffs on the Flowers" by Fernando Arrabal (1932-). He was reportedly a replacement for another actor. He made his Broadway debut in a 1969 performance of Red, White and Maddox (1969). Until the mid-1970s, Lloyd was primarily a theatrical actor. He performed both on Off-Broadway shows and in Broadway. Lloyd made his film debut in the role of psychiatric patient Max Taber in the drama One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975). His first major role in television was drug-using taxicab driver Jim Ignatowski in the sitcom Taxi (1978). His character was an aging hippie, son of an affluent Boston family , and former student of Harvard University. Ignatowski was one of the sitcom's most colorful characters and Lloyd won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Lloyd played most of his most notable film roles. Lloyd was first nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role as Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in Back to the Future (1985). The award was instead won by rival actor Roddy McDowall (1928-1998). He was nominated for the same award for his role as the evil Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). The award was instead won by rival actor Robert Loggia (1930-2015). Lloyd also performed as a voice actor, voicing the evil sorcerer Merlock in DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990) and historical figure Grigori Rasputin (1869-1916) in Anastasia (1997). Lloyd had another notable television role when cast in the role of villain Sebastian Jackal in the sci-fi series Deadly Games (1995). He also played the character Dr. Jordan Kenneth Lloyd, the despised father of the series' protagonist Dr. Gus Lloyd (played by James Calvert).
Lloyd's last notable film role in the 1990s was playing the Martian Uncle Martin in My Favorite Martian (1999). The film was an adaptation of the classic sitcom My Favorite Martian (1963), and the character was previously played by Ray Walston (1914-2001). The film under-performed at the box office. In the 2000s, Lloyd played the role of recurring character Cletus Poffenberger in the comic sci-fi series Tremors (2003), and recurring character Professor Harold March in the sitcom Stacked (2005). As March, Lloyd played a retired rocket scientist who was a regular customer of the bookstore which served as the series' setting. In the 2010s, Lloyd returned to the role of Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown in cameo appearances in A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014) and Donald Trump's The Art of the Deal: The Movie (2016), and as the protagonist of the short film Back to the Future: Doc Brown Saves the World (2015). By 2020, Lloyd has never retired from acting and continues to appear in various roles.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
As a film character actor, Klugman was the epitome of the everyman. He was one of the pioneers of television acting in the 1950s, and is best remembered for his 1970s TV work as Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple (1970) and as the medical examiner on Quincy M.E. (1976).- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Patrick Warburton is known to many for the role of "Puddy" in the hit NBC comedy "Seinfeld," the laconic, enigmatic, quirky Saab salesman and Elaine's boyfriend. Warburton starred for 7 seasons on the hit CBS comedy "Rules of Engagement" with David Spade, Oliver Hudson, and Megyn Price about two couples and their single friend, all at different stages in their relationships dealing with the complications of dating, commitment, and marriage. He is now set to star in NBC's newest sitcom series entitled "Crowded," premiering Sunday, March 20th, about an empty nest couple (Warburton & Carrie Preston) who find out their adult daughters want to move back home with them. Patrick also played "Guy" in the international blockbuster comedy Ted and recently completed shooting the highly anticipated sequel Ted 2 where he reprises his role. Warburton starred on the ABC hit comedy "Less than Perfect," as "Jeb Denton," an opinionated network anchorman; and on the hit show "NewsRadio" as "Johnny Johnson" the unscrupulous business rival who takes over the station. Warburton starred in Disney's major motion picture, live action comedy Underdog, as the archenemy "Cad," based on the 1964 cartoon television series. He is also perhaps the busiest voiceover artist in Hollywood for his many characters including the role of the paraplegic and over-zealous cop, "Joe Swanson," on the hit comedy "Family Guy."
Warburton was the lead in the independent film The Civilization of Maxwell Bright, in which he stared as a vicious and self-destructive anti-hero who desperately needs to save his soul. The film won numerous festival awards in which Warburton captured Best Actor at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, New York VisionFest, and the Boulder International Film Festival. The film's other honors include Viewer's Choice at the Beverly Hills Film Festival, the Special Jury Award at WorldFest Houston and at the Florida Film Festival, Grand Jury Prize at the Florida Film Festival, and the Vision Award for David Beaird at WorldFest Houston. This festival favorite is essentially a modern re-telling of "Beauty and the Beast" that explores what happens when a modern Neanderthal is locked in close proximity with a kind and loving woman. Written and directed by David Beaird, The Civilization of Maxwell Bright co-stars Jennifer Tilly, Marie Matiko, Simon Callow and Eric Roberts. In addition, Warburton starred in the independent feature film I'll Believe You alongside Fred Willard, Thomas Gibson, and Chris Elliott, a comedy for young adults/teens about a hunt for an alleged alien living in a small town after a mysterious phone call is received on a radio broadcast. The film was released in April of 2007 to 1,500 theaters nationwide, quite the accomplishment for a small independent film.
To complement his animated films, Warburton voiced the hit cartoon series "Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated" and the animated feature Bee Movie with Jerry Seinfeld, Renée Zellweger, Uma Thurman and Oprah Winfrey. He played the character "Rip Smashenburn" in the UPN animated series "Game Over," the voice of "Brock Samson" in the animated adult series "The Venture Brothers," and the voice of "Mr. Barkin" on the Disney Channel's "Disney's Kim Possible." He plays the character of Ian, "the ultimate alpha-male," in the Sony animated film Open Season opposite Ashton Kutcher and Martin Lawrence. Playing in both regular theaters and Imax 3-D, it was a box office smash on its opening week as #1 and held top spots following its debut. Warburton's voice can also be heard alongside that of Sarah Michelle Geller, Sigourney Weaver, George Carlin, Andy Dick, and Freddie Prinze Jr. in the animated feature film Happily N'ever After, from the producers of Shrek, where he plays the voice of "Prince Humperdink." As the voice of the "Savior of the Universe" in Disney's animated Saturday morning TV series "Buzz Lightyear," Warburton's voice graced the big screen in the Disney animated film The Emperor's New Groove, Kronks New Groove and "The Emperor's New School."
Warburton started his television career appearing regularly on the CBS sitcom "Dave's World," with Harry Anderson and Mesach Taylor and originally guest-starred on "Seinfeld" as the painted-faced New Jersey Devils' fan and Jerry's mechanic, only to become one of the show's funniest fixtures. He also did commercial spots for American Express (as the voice of "Superman" alongside Seinfeld), Cadillac, and M&Ms. Warburton starred in The Woman Chaser, which received critical acclaim at the prestigious New York Film Festival and The Sundance Film Festival, as well as opposite Sam Neill in The Dish, an Australian production about the first man on the moon. Barry Sonnenfeld directed Warburton in the Columbia Tri Star half-hour comedy "The Tick," which continues to have a huge cult following since its release on DVD. The show gained its popularity with audiences due to its relaxed, adult-friendly comedy. "The Tick", in addition to the DVD, has released action figures, t-shirts, and Quaker Oat Life cereal boxes with "The Tick" character adorning the cover. He also paired up with Tim Allen in Sonnenfeld's feature films Big Trouble and Joe Somebody, and also appeared in Scream 3 and Men in Black 2.
A native Californian, Patrick grew up in Huntington Beach and resides in Ventura County with his wife Cathy and four children Talon, Alexandra (Lexie), Shane, and Gabriel. When talking about his children, Patrick's face lights up as he describes them as the ultimate joy and love of his life. With what little spare time he has, Patrick gets in a game of golf or tennis, does activities with his children, and spends time in his cabin on the Rogue River in Oregon with his family. Warburton also hosts the annual charity golf tournament The Warburton a Celebrity Tournament to benefit St. Jude Children's Hospital each year in Palm Springs, CA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
James is a rugged, intense character player with leading man good looks. Having first gained recognition in 1979 as Ajax, in his second film, The Warriors (1979). That same year he garnered acclaim on Broadway with Richard Gere in the concentration camp drama "Bent".
In a career spanning nearly four decades, James has run the gamut of roles and solid career choices. Ranging from the psychopaths, Dutch Schultz in 'Francis Copolla''s The Cotton Club (1984) and 'Albert Ganz' in Walter Hill's 48 Hrs. (1982) to Samantha's lover, the billionaire playboy, Richard Wright, in the HBO series Sex and the City (1998)." James has also garnered roles which highlight a more vulnerable side, such as his guitarist who gets a break in the Oscar-winning short, Session Man (1991) or his artist who falls in love with a gargoyle come to life in the best segment of the horror anthology, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990) and as Mary Louise Parker's lover in Boys on the Side.
In the hit Showtime series Dexter (2006). James starred alongside Michael C. Hall where he played Dexter's wise, compassionate, adoptive father, Harry Morgan. Grey's Anatomy fans have recently enjoyed seeing James as Karev's long-lost Dad. While remaining active with top feature films James enjoys the distinction of being the only actor to die twice, as two different characters in Quentin Tarintino's smash hit Django Unchained.
James won the 8th annual SAG award as a member of the Outstanding Comedy Ensemble for his work in Sex and the City. As a member of the ensemble cast of Dexter, James has been nominated for the SAG award and the Emmy. In recognition for his work in Sci-Fi Fantasy and Horror James was honored with the Saturn Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.
In early 2019 James completed Season Two of CW's Black Lightning (2018) where he co-stars as Peter Gambi. Reunited with Quentin Tarantino James appears in the highly anticipated Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Burt Lancaster, one of five children, was born in Manhattan, to Elizabeth (Roberts) and James Henry Lancaster, a postal worker. All his grandparents were immigrants from the north of Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and worked there until he was injured. In the Army during WWII he was introduced to the USO and to acting. His first film was The Killers (1946), and that made him a star. He was a self-taught actor who learned the business as he went along. He set up his own production company in 1948 with Harold Hecht and James Hill to direct his career. He played many different roles in pictures as varied as The Crimson Pirate (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), Elmer Gantry (1960) and Atlantic City (1980).
His production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, produced such films as Paddy Chayefsky's Marty (1955) (Oscar winner 1955) and The Catered Affair (1956). In the 1980s he appeared as a supporting player in a number of movies, such as Local Hero (1983) and Field of Dreams (1989). However, it will be the sound of his voice, the way that he laughed, and the larger-than-life characters he played that will always be remembered.- Actor
- Make-Up Department
- Special Effects
Actor/SFX wizard/stuntman/director Tom Savini was born in Pittsburgh. Inspired by the film Man of a Thousand Faces (1957), a young Savini became fascinated with the magic and illusion of film. He spent his youth in his room creating characters by tirelessly practicing make-up. Later, as a combat photographer in Vietnam, Savini saw first-hand the gruesome carnage for which he later gained fame, simulating it on screen.
He has acquired a remarkable cult following among film fans, primarily due to his ground-breaking SFX in the "splatter movie" explosion of the early 1980s. Along with fellow special make-up legends Dick Smith and Rob Bottin, Savini was one of the key SFX people behind the startling make-up & EFX seen in the fantasy/horror genre films of the 1980s-'90s. Savini was heavily influenced by the remarkable silent-era actor Lon Chaney, and he sought to emulate the amazing theatrical make-up effects that were a hallmark of Chaney's career. In Savini's insightful book "Grande Illusions", he speaks of his early attempts at applying prosthetics to his face using "spearmint gum", having misinterpreted that he was meant to actually use "spirit gum"! His first work was in low-budget fare, providing SFX and make-up for independently made horror films such as Deranged (1974) and Martin (1977).
He really caught the attention of horror buffs with his grisly effects in the cult George A. Romero-directed zombie film Dawn of the Dead (1978), and then in the controversial slasher film Friday the 13th (1980), the movie generally identified as the kickstart for the aforementioned "splatter movie" genre. Savini also contributed the incredible EFX & make-up to other splatter thrillers such as Maniac (1980), The Burning (1981), Creepshow (1982) and Romero's third "Dead" film, Day of the Dead (1985) (for which he won a Saturn Award). In 1990, Savini directed his feature film debut Night of the Living Dead (1990), the remake of the original zombie-classic.
Not content with only being behind the lens, however, Savini has appeared in dozens of films, and can be seen demonstrating his capable acting skills as "Morgan, the Black Knight" in Knightriders (1981), as "Blades", one of the biker gang members in Dawn of the Dead (1978) and as "Sex Machine", another leather-clad biker--but this time with a groin-mounted gun--in the wild vampire film From Dusk Till Dawn (1996).- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Few actors in the world have had a career quite as diverse as Leonardo DiCaprio's. DiCaprio has gone from relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies, such as Critters 3 (1991), to a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s, as the hunky lead actor in movies such as Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997), to then become a leading man in Hollywood blockbusters, made by internationally renowned directors such as Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan.
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Irmelin DiCaprio (née Indenbirken) and former comic book artist George DiCaprio. His father is of Italian and German descent, and his mother, who is German-born, is of German, Ukrainian and Russian ancestry. His middle name, "Wilhelm", was his maternal grandfather's first name. Leonardo's father had achieved minor status as an artist and distributor of cult comic book titles, and was even depicted in several issues of American Splendor, the cult semi-autobiographical comic book series by the late 'Harvey Pekar', a friend of George's. Leonardo's performance skills became obvious to his parents early on, and after signing him up with a talent agent who wanted Leonardo to perform under the stage name "Lenny Williams", DiCaprio began appearing on a number of television commercials and educational programs.
DiCaprio began attracting the attention of producers, who cast him in small roles in a number of television series, such as Roseanne (1988) and The New Lassie (1989), but it wasn't until 1991 that DiCaprio made his film debut in Critters 3 (1991), a low-budget horror movie. While Critters 3 (1991) did little to help showcase DiCaprio's acting abilities, it did help him develop his show-reel, and attract the attention of the people behind the hit sitcom Growing Pains (1985), in which Leonardo was cast in the "Cousin Oliver" role of a young homeless boy who moves in with the Seavers. While DiCaprio's stint on Growing Pains (1985) was very short, as the sitcom was axed the year after he joined, it helped bring DiCaprio into the public's attention and, after the sitcom ended, DiCaprio began auditioning for roles in which he would get the chance to prove his acting chops.
Leonardo took up a diverse range of roles in the early 1990s, including a mentally challenged youth in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), a young gunslinger in The Quick and the Dead (1995) and a drug addict in one of his most challenging roles to date, Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries (1995), a role which the late River Phoenix originally expressed interest in. While these diverse roles helped establish Leonardo's reputation as an actor, it wasn't until his role as Romeo Montague in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) that Leonardo became a household name, a true movie star. The following year, DiCaprio starred in another movie about doomed lovers, Titanic (1997), which went on to beat all box office records held before then, as, at the time, Titanic (1997) became the highest grossing movie of all time, and cemented DiCaprio's reputation as a teen heartthrob. Following his work on Titanic (1997), DiCaprio kept a low profile for a number of years, with roles in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) and the low-budget The Beach (2000) being some of his few notable roles during this period.
In 2002, he burst back into screens throughout the world with leading roles in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002), his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. With a current salary of $20 million a movie, DiCaprio is now one of the biggest movie stars in the world. However, he has not limited his professional career to just acting in movies, as DiCaprio is a committed environmentalist, who is actively involved in many environmental causes, and his commitment to this issue led to his involvement in The 11th Hour, a documentary movie about the state of the natural environment. As someone who has gone from small roles in television commercials to one of the most respected actors in the world, DiCaprio has had one of the most diverse careers in cinema. DiCaprio continued to defy conventions about the types of roles he would accept, and with his career now seeing him leading all-star casts in action thrillers such as The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), DiCaprio continues to wow audiences by refusing to conform to any cliché about actors.
In 2012, he played a mustache twirling villain in Django Unchained (2012), and then tragic literary character Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby (2013) and Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
DiCaprio is passionate about environmental and humanitarian causes, having donated $1,000,000 to earthquake relief efforts in 2010, the same year he contributed $1,000,000 to the Wildlife Conservation Society.- Actor
- Composer
- Producer
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, he moved to London and joined the National Theatre, invited by Laurence Olivier, who could see the talent in Hopkins. In 1967, he made his first film for television, A Flea in Her Ear (1967).
From this moment on, he enjoyed a successful career in cinema and television. In 1968, he worked on The Lion in Winter (1968) with Timothy Dalton. Many successes came later, and Hopkins' remarkable acting style reached the four corners of the world. In 1977, he appeared in two major films: A Bridge Too Far (1977) with James Caan, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Elliott Gould and Laurence Olivier, and Maximilian Schell. In 1980, he worked on The Elephant Man (1980). Two good television literature adaptations followed: Othello (1981) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982). In 1987 he was awarded with the Commander of the order of the British Empire. This year was also important in his cinematic life, with 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), acclaimed by specialists. In 1993, he was knighted.
In the 1990s, Hopkins acted in movies like Desperate Hours (1990) and Howards End (1992), The Remains of the Day (1993) (nominee for the Oscar), Legends of the Fall (1994), Nixon (1995) (nominee for the Oscar), Surviving Picasso (1996), Amistad (1997) (nominee for the Oscar), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Meet Joe Black (1998) and Instinct (1999). His most remarkable film, however, was The Silence of the Lambs (1991), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. He also got a B.A.F.T.A. for this role.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
William Hall Macy Jr. is an American actor. His film career has been built on appearances in small, independent films, though he has also appeared in mainstream films. Macy has won two Emmy Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards, while his performance in Fargo earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. From 2011 to 2021, he played Frank Gallagher, a main character in Shameless, the Showtime adaptation of the British television series. Macy has been married to Felicity Huffman since 1997.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Joel Edward McHale was born in Rome, Italy, to a Canadian-born mother, Laurie (Jackson), and an American-born father, Jack McHale. His father, from Chicago, is of Irish descent, and his mother, from Vancouver, has Norwegian, Finnish, and English ancestry. Joel was raised in Seattle, Washington, and graduated from Mercer Island High School. He was a history major at the University of Washington, where he was a member of the championship football team. In addition, Joel received his master's of fine arts from UW's Actor's Training Program.
Joel was a cast member on KING-TV's Almost Live! (1984). He moved to LA after graduating college and quickly landed parts in Will & Grace (1998) and Oliver Beene (2003). 2004 was a big year for Joel, as he booked roles in Spider-Man 2 (2004), The Onion Movie (2008), and Lords of Dogtown (2005). In addition, that year he began writing, producing and starring in The Soup (2004) on E! in which he counted down the most absurd, hysterical, wacky, and surreal moments in the world of reality TV and celebrities each week. Joel's quick wit and sharp comedic timing made "The Soup" a pop-culture phenomenon.
Joel starred on the hit comedy series Community (2009). He also appeared opposite Matt Damon in Steven Soderbergh's comedic thriller The Informant! (2009). He hosted the 2011 Independent Spirit Awards, and co-starred in Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World (2011), opposite Jessica Alba, in which he played a spy-hunting reporter married to Alba's character, the stepmother of his children. In 2011, he also had a role in What's Your Number? (2011) with Anna Faris and The Big Year (2011) with Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson.
McHale appeared in Seth MacFarlane's Ted (2012), a live-action tale of a boy and his teddy bear. Co-starring with Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis, and Seth MacFarlane, he played a charming but sleazy boss of Mila Kunis' character.
In 2016, Joel was cast as the main character on the sitcom The Great Indoors (2016). He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their two sons. He performs stand-up comedy around the country to sold-out audiences.- Actor
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Cleft-chinned, steely-eyed and virile star of international cinema who rose from being "the ragman's son" (the name of his best-selling 1988 autobiography) to become a bona fide superstar, Kirk Douglas, also known as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, was born on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. His parents, Bryna (Sanglel) and Herschel Danielovitch, were Jewish immigrants from Chavusy, Mahilyow Voblast (now in Belarus). Although growing up in a poor ghetto, Douglas was a fine student and a keen athlete and wrestled competitively during his time at St. Lawrence University. Professional wrestling helped pay for his studies as did working on the side as a waiter and a bellboy. However, he soon identified an acting scholarship as a way out of his meager existence, and was sufficiently talented to gain entry into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his Broadway debut in "Spring Again" before his career was interrupted by World War II. He joining the United States Navy in 1941, and then after the end of hostilities in 1945, returned to the theater and some radio work. On the insistence of ex-classmate Lauren Bacall, movie producer Hal B. Wallis screen-tested Douglas and cast him in the lead role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). His performance received rave reviews and further work quickly followed, including an appearance in the low-key drama I Walk Alone (1947), the first time he worked alongside fellow future screen legend Burt Lancaster. Such was the strong chemistry between the two that they appeared in seven films together, including the dynamic western Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), the John Frankenheimer political thriller Seven Days in May (1964) and their final pairing in the gangster comedy Tough Guys (1986). Douglas once said about his good friend: "I've finally gotten away from Burt Lancaster. My luck has changed for the better. I've got nice-looking girls in my films now."
After appearing in "I Walk Alone," Douglas scored his first Oscar nomination playing the untrustworthy and opportunistic boxer Midge Kelly in the gripping Champion (1949). The quality of his work continued to garner the attention of critics and he was again nominated for Oscars for his role as a film producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and as tortured painter Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), both directed by Vincente Minnelli. In 1955, Douglas launched his own production company, Bryna Productions, the company behind two pivotal film roles in his career. The first was as French army officer Col. Dax in director Stanley Kubrick's brilliant anti-war epic Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas reunited with Kubrick for yet another epic, the magnificent Spartacus (1960). The film also marked a key turning point in the life of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy "Red Scare" hysteria in the 1950s. At Douglas' insistence, Trumbo was given on-screen credit for his contributions, which began the dissolution of the infamous blacklisting policies begun almost a decade previously that had destroyed so many careers and lives.
Douglas remained busy throughout the 1960s, starring in many films. He played a rebellious modern-day cowboy in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), acted alongside John Wayne in the World War II story In Harm's Way (1965), again with The Duke in a drama about the Israeli fight for independence, Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), and once more with Wayne in the tongue-in-cheek western The War Wagon (1967). Additionally in 1963, he starred in an onstage production of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but despite his keen interest, no Hollywood studio could be convinced to bring the story to the screen. However, the rights remained with the Douglas clan, and Kirk's talented son Michael Douglas finally filmed the tale in 1975, starring Jack Nicholson. Into the 1970s, Douglas wasn't as busy as previous years; however, he starred in some unusual vehicles, including alongside a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the loopy western comedy The Villain (1979), then with Farrah Fawcett in the sci-fi thriller Saturn 3 (1980) and then he traveled to Australia for the horse opera/drama The Man from Snowy River (1982).
Unknown to many, Kirk has long been involved in humanitarian causes and has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the US State Department since 1963. His efforts were rewarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1981), and with the Jefferson Award (1983). Furthermore, the French honored him with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. More recognition followed for his work with the American Cinema Award (1987), the German Golden Kamera Award (1987), The National Board of Reviews Career Achievement Award (1989), an honorary Academy Award (1995), Recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award (1999) and the UCLA Medal of Honor (2002). Despite a helicopter crash and a stroke suffered in the 1990s, he remained active and continued to appear in front of the camera. Until his passing on February 5 2020 at the age of 103, he and Olivia de Havilland were the last surviving major stars from the Golden Years of Hollywood.- Actor
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Benicio Del Toro emerged in the mid-1990s as one of the most watchable and charismatic character actors to come along in years. A favorite of film buffs, Del Toro gained mainstream public attention as the conflicted but basically honest Mexican policeman in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic (2000).
Benicio was born on February 19, 1967 in San Germán, Puerto Rico, the son of lawyer parents Fausta Genoveva Sanchez Rivera and Gustavo Adolfo Del Toro Bermudez. His mother died when he was young, and his father moved the family to a farm in Pennsylvania. A basketball player with an interest in acting, he decided to follow the family way and study business at the University of California in San Diego. A class in acting resulted in his being bitten by the acting bug, and he subsequently dropped out and began studying with legendary acting teacher Stella Adler in Los Angeles and at the Circle in the Square Acting School in New York City. Telling his parents that he was taking courses in business, Del Toro hid his new studies from his family for a little while.
During the late 1980s, he made several television appearances, most notably in an episode of Miami Vice (1984) and in the NBC miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story (1990). Del Toro's big-screen career got off to a slower start, however--his first role was Duke the Dog-Faced Boy in Big Top Pee-wee (1988). However, things looked better when he landed the role of Dario, the vicious henchman in the James Bond film Licence to Kill (1989). Surprising his co-stars at age 21, Del Toro was the youngest actor ever to portray a Bond villain. However, the potential break was spoiled as the picture turned out to be one of the most disappointing Bond films ever; this was lost amid bigger summer competition.
Benicio gave creditable performances in many overlooked films for the next several years, such as The Indian Runner (1991), Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) and Money for Nothing (1993). His roles in Fearless (1993) and China Moon (1994) gained him more critical notices, and 1995 proved to be the first "Year of Benicio" as he gave a memorable performance in Swimming with Sharks (1994) before taking critics and film buffs by storm as the mumbling, mysterious gangster in The Usual Suspects (1995), directed by Bryan Singer. Del Toro won an Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role in the Oscar-winning film.
Staying true to his independent roots, he next gave a charismatic turn as cold-blooded gangster Gaspare Spoglia in The Funeral (1996) directed by Abel Ferrara. He also appeared as Benny Dalmau in Basquiat (1996), directed by artist friend Julian Schnabel. That year also marked his first truly commercial film, as he played cocky Spanish baseball star Juan Primo in The Fan (1996), which starred Robert De Niro. Del Toro took his first leading man role in Excess Baggage (1997), starring and produced by Alicia Silverstone. Hand-picked by Silverstone, Del Toro's performance was pretty much the only thing critics praised about the film, and showed the level of consciousness he was beginning to have in the minds of film fans.
He took a leading role with his good friend Johnny Depp in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), co-written and directed by the legendary Terry Gilliam. Gaining 40 pounds for the role of Dr. Gonzo, the drug-addicted lawyer to sportswriter Raoul Duke, Benicio immersed himself totally in the role. Using his method acting training so far as to burn himself with cigarettes for a scene, this was a trying time for Del Toro. The harsh critical reviews proved tough on him, as he felt he had given his all for the role and been dismissed. Many saw the crazed, psychotic performance as a confirmation of the rumors and overall weirdness that people seemed to place on Del Toro.
Taking a short break after the ordeal, 2000 proved to be the second "Year of Benicio". He first appeared in The Way of the Gun (2000), directed by friend and writer Christopher McQuarrie. Then he went to work for actor's director Steven Soderbergh in Traffic (2000). A complex and graphic film, this nonetheless became a widespread success and Oscar winner. His role as conflicted Mexican policeman Javier Rodriguez functions as the movie's real heart amid an all-star ensemble cast, and many praised this as the year's best performance, a sentiment validated by a Screen Actor's Guild Award for "Best Actor". He also gave a notable performance in Snatch (2000) directed by Guy Ritchie, which was released several weeks later, and The Pledge (2001) directed by Sean Penn. Possessing sleepy good looks reminiscent of James Dean or Marlon Brando, Del Toro has often jokingly been referred to as the "Spanish Brad Pitt".
With his newfound celebrity, Del Toro has become a sort of heartthrob, being voted one of People magazine's "50 Most Beautiful People" as well as "Most Eligible Bachelors." A favorite of film fans for years for his diverse and "cool guy" gangster roles, he has become a mainstream favorite, respected for his acting skills and choices. So far very careful in his projects and who he works with, Del Toro can boast an impressive resume of films alongside some of the most influential and talented people in the film business.- Actor
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Enduring, strong-featured, and genial star of US cinema, Burt Reynolds started off in T.V. westerns in the 1960s and then carved his name into 1970s/1980s popular culture, as a sex symbol (posing nearly naked for "Cosmopolitan" magazine), and on-screen as both a rugged action figure and then as a wisecracking, Southern type of "good ol' boy."
Burton Leon Reynolds was born in Lansing, Michigan. He was the son of Harriette Fernette "Fern" (Miller) and Burton Milo Reynolds, who was in the army. After World War II, his family moved to Riviera Beach, Florida, where his father was chief of police, and where Burt excelled as an athlete and played with Florida State University. He became an All Star Southern Conference halfback (and was earmarked by the Baltimore Colts) before a knee injury and a car accident ended his football career. Midway through college he dropped out and headed to New York with aspirations of becoming an actor. There he worked in restaurants and clubs while pulling the odd TV spot or theatre role.
He was spotted in a New York City production of "Mister Roberts," signed to a TV contract, and eventually had recurring roles in such shows as Gunsmoke (1955), Riverboat (1959) and his own series, Hawk (1966).
Reynolds continued to appear in undemanding western roles, often playing a character of half Native American descent, in films such as Navajo Joe (1966), 100 Rifles (1969) and Sam Whiskey (1969). However, it was his tough-guy performance as macho Lewis Medlock in the John Boorman backwoods nightmare Deliverance (1972) that really stamped him as a bona-fide star. Reynolds' popularity continued to soar with his appearance as a no-nonsense private investigator in Shamus (1973) and in the Woody Allen comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972). Building further on his image as a Southern boy who outsmarts the local lawmen, Reynolds packed fans into theaters to see him in White Lightning (1973), The Longest Yard (1974), W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) and Gator (1976).
At this time, ex-stuntman and longtime Reynolds buddy Hal Needham came to him with a "road film" script. It turned out to be the incredibly popular Smokey and the Bandit (1977) with Sally Field and Jerry Reed, which took in over $100 million at the box office. That film's success was followed by Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983). Reynolds also appeared alongside Kris Kristofferson in the hit football film Semi-Tough (1977), with friend Dom DeLuise in the black comedy The End (1978) (which Reynolds directed), in the stunt-laden buddy film Hooper (1978) and then in the self-indulgent, star-packed road race flick The Cannonball Run (1981).
The early 1980s started off well with a strong performance in the violent police film Sharky's Machine (1981), which he also directed, and he starred with Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and with fellow macho superstar Clint Eastwood in the coolly received City Heat (1984). However, other projects such as Stroker Ace (1983), Stick (1985) and Paternity (1981) failed to catch fire with fans and Reynolds quickly found himself falling out of popularity with movie audiences. In the late 1980s he appeared in only a handful of films, mostly below average, before television came to the rescue and he shone again in two very popular TV shows, B.L. Stryker (1989) and Evening Shade (1990), for which he won an Emmy. In 1988, Burt and his then-wife, actress Loni Anderson, had a son, Quinton A. Reynolds (aka Quinton Anderson Reynolds), whom they adopted.
He was back on screen, but still the roles weren't grabbing the public's attention, until his terrific performance as a drunken politician in the otherwise woeful Striptease (1996) and then another tremendous showing as a charming, porn director in Boogie Nights (1997), which scored him a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Like the phoenix from the ashes, Reynolds resurrected his popularity and, in the process, gathered a new generation of young fans, many of whom had been unfamiliar with his 1970s film roles. He then put in entertaining work in Pups (1999), Mystery, Alaska (1999), Driven (2001) and Time of the Wolf (2002). Definitely one of Hollywood's most resilient stars, Reynolds continually surprised all with his ability to weather both personal and career hurdles and his almost 60 years in front of the cameras were testament to his staying ability, his acting talent and his appeal to film audiences.
Burt Reynolds died of cardiac arrest on September 6, 2018, in Jupiter, Florida, U.S. He was eighty two.- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
Charles Napier was born in the tiny community of Mt. Union, near Scottsville, Allen County, Kentucky, to Linus Pitts Napier, a tobacco farmer and postman, and his wife, Sara, on April 12, 1936. He attended public school in Scottsville. After graduating high school, he enlisted in the Army in 1954. He rose to the rank of E-5 (Sgt.) while serving as company clerk with Company A 511th Airborne Infantry, 11th Airborne Division. He was a lively character actor who usually played edgy military types and menacing bad guys. His film debut was in Russ Meyer's Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1969).
Napier went on appearing in other Meyer movies, including the homicidal Harry Sledge in Supervixens (1975) and also became a regular playing smaller roles for Jonathan Demme. His memorable portrayals of tough guys included the scheming intelligence officer in Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) and the short-tempered front man in The Blues Brothers (1980).- Actor
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Highly influential, and always controversial, African-American actor/comedian who was equally well known for his colorful language during his live comedy shows, as for his fast paced life, multiple marriages and battles with drug addiction. He has been acknowledged by many modern comic artist's as a key influence on their careers, and Pryor's observational humor on African-American life in the USA during the 1970s was razor sharp brilliance.
He was born Richard Franklin Lennox Pryor III on December 1, 1940, in Peoria, Illinois, the son of Gertrude L. (Thomas) and LeRoy "Buck Carter" Pryor. His mother, a prostitute, abandoned him when he was ten years of age, after which he was raised in his grandmother's brothel. Unfortunately, Pryor was molested at the age of six by a teenage neighbor, and later by a neighborhood preacher. To escape this troubled life, the young Pryor was an avid movie fan and a regular visitor to local movie theaters in Peoria. After numerous jobs, including truck driver and meat packer, the young Pryor did a stint in the US Army between 1958 & 1960 in which he performed in amateur theater shows. After he left the services in 1960, Pryor started singing in small clubs, but inadvertently found that humor was his real forte.
Pryor spent time in both New York & Las Vegas, honing his comic craft. However, his unconventional approach to humor sometimes made bookings difficult to come by and this eventually saw Pryor heading to Los Angeles. He first broke into films with minor roles in The Busy Body (1967) and Wild in the Streets (1968). However, his performance as a drug addicted piano player in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), really got the attention of fans and film critics alike.
He made his first appearance with Gene Wilder in the very popular action/comedy Silver Streak (1976), played three different characters in Which Way Is Up? (1977) and portrayed real-life stock-car driver "Wendell Scott" in Greased Lightning (1977). Proving he was more than just a comedian, Pryor wowed audiences as a disenchanted auto worker who is seduced into betraying his friends and easy money in the Paul Schrader working class drama Blue Collar (1978), also starring Yaphet Kotto and Harvey Keitel. Always a strong advocate of African-American talent, Pryor next took a key role in The Wiz (1978), starring an all African-American cast, including Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, retelling the story of The Wizard of Oz (1939). His next four screen roles were primarily cameos in California Suite (1978); The Muppet Movie (1979); Wholly Moses! (1980) and In God We Trust (or Gimme That Prime Time Religion) (1980). However, Pryor teamed up with Gene Wilder once more for the prison comedy Stir Crazy (1980), which did strong box office business.
His next few films were a mixed bag of material, often inhibiting Pryor's talent, with equally mixed returns at the box office. Pryor then scored second billing to Christopher Reeve in the big budget Superman III (1983), and starred alongside fellow funny man John Candy in Brewster's Millions (1985) before revealing his inner self in the autobiographical Jo Jo Dancer, Your Life Is Calling (1986). Again, Pryor was somewhat hampered by poor material in his following film ventures. However, he did turn up again in See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) with Gene Wilder, but the final product was not as sharp as their previous pairings. Pryor then partnered on-screen with two other very popular African-American comic's. The legendary Redd Foxx and 1980s comic newcomer Eddie Murphy starred with Pryor in the gangster film Harlem Nights (1989) which was also directed by Eddie Murphy. Having contracted multiple sclerosis in 1986, Pryor's remaining film appearances were primarily cameos apart from his fourth and final outing with Gene Wilder in the lukewarm Another You (1991), and his final appearance in a film production was a small role in the David Lynch road flick Lost Highway (1997).
Fans of this outrageous comic genius are encouraged to see his live specials Richard Pryor: Live and Smokin' (1971); the dynamic Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979); Richard Pryor: Live on the Sunset Strip (1982) and Richard Pryor... Here and Now (1983). In addition, The Richard Pryor Show (1977) is a must-have for any Richard Pryor fans' DVD collection.
Unknown to many, Pryor was a long time advocate against animal cruelty, and he campaigned against fast food chains and circus shows to address issues of animal welfare. He was married a total of seven times, and fathered eight children.
After long battles with ill health, Richard Pryor passed away on December 10th, 2005.- Actor
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Tim Matheson is an American actor, director and producer perhaps best known for his portrayal of the smooth talking 'Eric "Otter" Stratton' in the 1978 comedy, National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), but has had a variety of other well-known roles both before and since, including critical accolades for his playing "Vice President John Hoynes" on the television series, The West Wing (1999), which garnered him two Primetime Emmy award nominations for Best Guest Star in a Drama Series.
From 2011 to 2015, Matheson starred as 'Dr. Brick Breeland' in The CW series, Hart of Dixie (2011), opposite Rachel Bilson. He has and continues to direct several episodes each season throughout the series. Not limited to "Hart of Dixie", Matheson has made a career of directing an array of episodic projects on some of television's most prominent shows, including "The Last Ship," "Burn Notice," "Criminal Minds," "Without a Trace," "Cold Case," "Numbers," "Drop Dead Diva," "Suits," "Eureka" and "White Collar," as well as pilots for Fox's "The Good Guys" and the USA Network successful original series "Covert Affairs."
Beginning his career at the age of 13, Matheson appeared in Robert Young's CBS nostalgia comedy series, Window on Main Street (1961), during the 1961-1962 television season. In 1964, he provided the voice of the lead character in the cartoon program Jonny Quest (1964), as well as the voice of "Jace" in the original animated series, Space Ghost (1966). Additionally, he played the role of the oldest son, "Mike Beardsley", in the film Yours, Mine and Ours (1968), which starred Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda.
In 1969, Matheson joined the cast of NBC's western series, The Virginian (1962), in its eighth season, as "Jim Horn". During the final season of the television western Bonanza (1959) in 1972-1973, Matheson played "Griff King", a parolee who tries to reform his life as a worker at the Ponderosa Ranch under Ben Cartwright's watch. Following that, he portrayed young motorcycle cop "Phil Sweet", in the 1973 film, Magnum Force (1973).
In the fall of 1976, Matheson was seen opposite Kurt Russell in the NBC series, The Quest (1976), the story of two young men in the American West seeking the whereabouts of their sister, a captive of the Cheyenne. In 1978, he co-starred in the acclaimed National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), opposite John Belushi; the following year, he appeared alongside Belushi again in Steven Spielberg's 1941 (1979). Matheson and Catherine Hicks played "Rick Tucker" and "Amanda Tucker", who operate a detective agency in Laurel Canyon in CBS' Tucker's Witch (1982), which aired during the 1982-1983 season. He then appeared in the 1983 To Be or Not to Be (1983), starring Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft and went on to star in the 1984 comedy, Up the Creek (1984) and 1985's Fletch (1985).
Matheson, along with business partner 'Dan Grodnik', bought National Lampoon in 1989, when the magazine was facing financial decline. They took the stock from two dollars to over six dollars, and sold it in 1991. In 1996, Matheson took on the role of a con man who claims to be Carol Brady's thought-to-be-dead husband in A Very Brady Sequel (1996). Matheson was seen opposite Ryan Reynolds in the feature comedy National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002) in 2002, playing the father of the title character, who was inspired by his own character in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978), as a nod to the original film.
Tim was born Timothy Lewis Matthieson in Glendale, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, the son of Sally and Clifford Matthieson, a training pilot. He has three wonderful children with former wife Megan Murphy Matheson.- Actor
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- Music Department
Brian Doyle-Murray was born on 31 October 1945 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Caddyshack (1980), JFK (1991) and Groundhog Day (1993). He has been married to Christina Stauffer since 28 August 2000.- Actor
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- Producer
Character actor, dramatic leading man, or hilarious comic foil? With an astonishing range of roles already under his belt, John C. Reilly has played an eclectic host of rich characters to great effect over the years, from seedy ne'er-do-wells, to lovable, good-natured schlepps.
The fifth of six children, John Christopher Reilly was born in Chicago, to a father of mostly Irish descent, and a Lithuanian-American mother, and was brought up on Chicago's tough Southwest territory. His father, also named John, ran an industrial linen supply company business. On the amateur stage from age eight, Reilly trained at the Goodman School of Drama and eventually became a member of Chicago's renowned Steppenwolf Theatre.
His film break came with a small role in the Vietnam War drama Casualties of War (1989), wherein Brian De Palma liked his work so much during the early stages that he recast him in a major role by the start of shooting as a soldier bent on rape. Reilly gained momentum throughout the 1990s and showed his dazzling stretch of talent in such films as Days of Thunder (1990), Shadows and Fog (1991), What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) and The River Wild (1994). He became a major stock player in director Paul Thomas Anderson's films, while finding some of his best roles in Hard Eight (1996) as a compulsive gambler, Boogie Nights (1997) in which he played a narcissistic porn star, and in Magnolia (1999) as a compassionate policeman. He went on to earn further critical points for his role of the soldier sent to the front lines in Terrence Malick's war epic The Thin Red Line (1998).
On stage, Reilly has wowed audiences in "The Grapes of Wrath" on Broadway, "A Streetcar Named Desire" and "Othello" at Steppenwolf, and earned an Outer Critics Circle Award and Tony nomination for "True West" alongside another impeccable character player Philip Seymour Hoffman. Reilly finally received the film recognition he deserved in 2002 with a slew of choice, high-profile parts in The Hours (2002), The Good Girl (2002), Gangs of New York (2002), and especially Chicago (2002) as the put-upon husband, Amos Hart, who is played for a patsy by murderous wife Roxie (Renée Zellweger). For this last part, he received both Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor.
Since then his stock has risen considerably, and he has further widened his cinematic repertoire, appearing in everything from dramatic roles - We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), The Aviator (2004) and Carnage (2011) - to broader comic turns - Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (2007), Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006), Step Brothers (2008), Cyrus (2010) and Cedar Rapids (2011). Most recently, he has voiced the lead in Disney's animated smash Wreck-It Ralph (2012).
Reilly is married to producer Alison Dickey.- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Scott Glenn was born January 26, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Hope Elizabeth and Theodore Glenn, a salesman. As he grew up in Appalachia, his health was poor; he was bedridden for a year and doctors predicted he would limp for the rest of his life. During long periods of illness, Glenn was reading a lot and "dreaming of becoming Lord Byron". He challenged his illness by intense training programs and eventually got rid of his limp.
After graduating high school, Glenn entered William and Mary College where he majored in English. He spent three years in the Marines and then tried to combine his passion for storytelling with his passion for adventures by working for five months as a criminal reporter at the Kenosha Evening News. Glenn planned to become an author but found out he had "problems with dialogues", so he decided to overcome it by studying acting. In 1966, he headed to New York where he joined George Morrison acting class. He helped in directing student plays to pay for his studies and appeared onstage in La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club productions. Soon after arriving in New York, Glenn became a fan of martial arts. In 1968, he joined The Actors Studio and began working in professional theater and TV. In 1970, James Bridges offered him his first movie work in The Baby Maker (1970).
Glenn left for L.A., where he spent seven of the "most miserable years of [his] life". He couldn't find interesting film roles and, doing brief TV stints, he felt "like a person who had to paint the Sistine Chapel with a house-painter's brush". On a brighter side, he worked episodically with Jonathan Demme (Angels Hard as They Come (1971), Fighting Mad (1976)), Robert Altman (Nashville (1975)) and Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now (1979)). In 1978, Glenn got tired of Hollywood and moved his family to Ketchum, Idaho, where he worked as a barman, huntsman and mountain ranger for two years (occasionally acting in Seattle stage productions). James Bridges once more changed the course of Glenn's life in 1980 when he offered him the role of John Travolta's rival in Urban Cowboy (1980) and made him a star. Glenn's acting abilities and physical presence helped him to excel both in action (Silverado (1985), The Challenge (1982)) and drama (The Right Stuff (1983), Countdown to Looking Glass (1984), The River (1984)) as he alternately played good guys and bad guys.
In the beginning of the '90s, his career was at its peak - he appeared in such indisputable masterpieces as The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and The Hunt for Red October (1990). Established as one of Hollywood's most solid and respected character actors he has appeared in a wide variety of films, such as the black Freudian farce Reckless (1995), the tragicomedy Edie & Pen (1996) and Ken Loach's socio-political declaration Carla's Song (1996), alternating mainstream (Courage Under Fire (1996), Absolute Power (1997)) with independent projects (Lesser Prophets (1997) and Larga distancia (1997)), written by his daughter Dakota Glenn), and TV (Naked City: A Killer Christmas (1998)). Continuing into the 21st century, Glenn has also appeared in Training Day (2001), W. (2008) (as Donald Rumsfeld), Secretariat (2010), Sucker Punch (2011), The Paperboy (2012), and two of the Bourne films: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and The Bourne Legacy (2012).- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Kurtwood Smith was born on 3 July 1943 in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for RoboCop (1987), Broken Arrow (1996) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). He has been married to Joan Pirkle since 5 November 1988. He was previously married to Cecilia Souza.- Actor
- Soundtrack
A bold, blunt instrument of hatred and violence at the onset of his film career, Peter Boyle recoiled from that repugnant, politically incorrect "working class" image to eventually play gruff, gentler bears and even comedy monsters in a career that lasted four decades.
He was born on October 18, 1935, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to Alice (Lewis) and Francis Xavier Boyle. He eventually moved to Philadelphia, where his father was a sought-after local TV personality and children's show host. His paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants, and his mother was of mostly French and British Isles descent. Following a solid Catholic upbringing (he attended a Catholic high school), Peter was a sensitive youth and joined the Christian Brothers religious order at one point while attending La Salle University in Philadelphia. He left the monastery after only a few years when he "lost" his calling.
Bent on an acting career, Boyle initially studied with guru Uta Hagen in New York. The tall (6' 2"), hulking, prematurely bald actor wannabe struggled through a variety of odd jobs (postal worker, waiter, bouncer) while simultaneously building up his credits on stage and waiting for that first big break. Things started progressing for him after appearing in the national company of "The Odd Couple" in 1965 and landing TV commercials on the sly. In the late 60s he joined Chicago's Second City improv group and made his Broadway debut as a replacement for Peter Bonerz in Paul Sills' "Story Theatre" (1971) (Sills was the founder of Second City). Peter's breakout film role did not come without controversy as the hateful, hardhat-donning bigot-turned-murderer Joe (1970) in a tense, violence-prone film directed by John G. Avildsen. The role led to major notoriety, however, and some daunting supporting parts in T.R. Baskin (1971), Slither (1973) and as Robert Redford's calculating campaign manager in The Candidate (1972). During this time his political radicalism found a visible platform after joining Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland on anti-war crusades, which would include the anti-establishment picture Steelyard Blues (1973). This period also saw the forging of a strong friendship with former Beatle John Lennon.
Destined to be cast as monstrous undesirables throughout much of his career, he played a monster of another sort in his early film days, and thus avoided a complete stereotype as a film abhorrent. His hilarious, sexually potent Frankenstein's Monster in the cult Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) saw him in a sympathetic and certainly more humorous vein. His creature's first public viewing, in which Boyle shares an adroit tap-dancing scene with "creator" Gene Wilder in full Fred Astaire regalia, was a show-stopping audience pleaser. Late 70s filmgoers continued to witness Boyle in seamy, urban settings with brutish roles in Taxi Driver (1976) and Hardcore (1979). At the same time he addressed several TV mini-movie roles with the same brilliant darkness such as his Senator Joe McCarthy in Tail Gunner Joe (1977), for which he received an Emmy nomination, and his murderous, knife-wielding Fatso in the miniseries remake of From Here to Eternity (1979).
While the following decade found Peter in predominantly less noteworthy filming and a short-lived TV series lead as remote cop Joe Bash (1986), the 90s brought him Emmy glory (for a guest episode on The X-Files (1993)). Despite a blood clot-induced stroke in 1990 that impaired his speech for six months, he ventured on and capped his enviable career on TV wielding funny but crass one-liners in the "Archie Bunker" mold on the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). A major Emmy blunder had Boyle earning seven nominations for his Frank Barrone character without a win, the only prime player on the show unhonored. He survived a heart attack while on the set of "Everybody Loves Raymond" in 1999, but managed to return full time for the remainder of the series' run through 2005.
Following a superb turn as Billy Bob Thornton's unrepentantly racist father in the sobering Oscar-winner Monster's Ball (2001), the remainder of his films were primarily situated in frivolous comedy fare such as The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), The Santa Clause 2 (2002), Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), typically playing cranky curmudgeons. Boyle died of multiple myeloma (bone-marrow cancer) and heart disease at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 2006, and was survived by his wife Lorraine and two children. He was 71.- Actor
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Jason Bateman is an American film and television actor, known for his role as Michael Bluth on the television sitcom Arrested Development (2003), as well as his role on Valerie (1986).
He was born in Rye, New York. His father, Kent Bateman, from a Utah-based family, is a film and television director and producer, and founder of a Hollywood repertory stage company. His mother, Victoria Bateman, was born in Shropshire, England, and worked as a flight attendant. His sister is actress Justine Bateman. In 1981, at the age of 12, young Bateman made his debut on television as James Cooper Ingalls in Little House on the Prairie (1974): Uncle Jed, appearing in 18 more episodes in one season. Jason also appeared in the original Knight Rider with David Hasselhoff for the season three episode "Lost Knight" (aired Dec 1984) playing the character "Doug" who befriends Kitt when he loses his memory. In the mid-1980s, he became the DGA's youngest-ever director when he directed three episodes of Valerie (1986) at age 18. During the 2000s, Bateman's film career has been on soaring trajectory. In 2005, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Musical or Comedy, for Arrested Development (2003), and received other awards and nominations.
Bateman has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife, actress Amanda Anka (daughter of singer Paul Anka), with whom he has two children. The Batemans reside in Los Angeles, California.- Writer
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Daniel Richard McBride is an American actor, comedian, producer, and writer. He starred in the HBO television series Eastbound & Down, Vice Principals, and The Righteous Gemstones, also co-creating the former two with frequent collaborator Jody Hill while creating the latter himself. He has appeared in films such as The Foot Fist Way (2006), Hot Rod (2007), Pineapple Express (2008), Tropic Thunder (2008), Up in the Air (2009), Your Highness (2011), This Is the End (2013), and Alien: Covenant (2017). He has done voice acting for Despicable Me (2010), Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011), The Angry Birds Movie, Sausage Party (both 2016), The Angry Birds Movie 2 (2019), and The Mitchells vs. the Machines (2021).- Actor
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John C. McGinley's path to stardom is a story that reads like a classic Hollywood script. While an understudy in New York in the Circle-In-The-Square production of John Patrick Shanley's "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea," he was spotted by director Oliver Stone and soon after was cast in "Platoon," the first of a long list of collaborations between Stone and McGinley which includes "Wall Street," "Talk Radio," "Born on the Fourth of July," "Nixon" and "Any Given Sunday."
He stars as the title character in IFC's scripted comedy-horror series, "Stan Against Evil," on which he also serves as a producer. John C. stars as disgruntled former police sheriff 'Stanley Miller,' a sour, aging bulldog who has recently lost his position as head honcho due to an angry outburst at his wife's funeral. When the new sheriff opens his eyes to the plague of angry demons haunting their small New Hampshire town, 'Stan' begrudgingly joins an alliance with her to fight them off.
John C.'s deep commitment to independent films has driven him to star in and complete production on three upcoming motion pictures in 2016 alone! James Gunn's "The Belko Experiment," Paul Shoulberg's "The Good Catholic" and Richard Dresser's "Rounding Third."
He is an audience favorite for his hilarious portrayal of 'Dr. Perry Cox' in the Emmy-nominated medical comedy series, "Scrubs," which ended its successful nine season run in 2010. He starred for two seasons in TBS's workplace comedy series "Ground Floor," which reunited him with creator Bill Lawrence ("Scrubs"). John C. played 'Mr. Mansfield,' the critical boss to hot-shot young banker 'Brody' (Skylar Austin). He also made a memorable arc on season 6 of USA Networks' hit drama series "Burn Notice."
John C.'s impressive career in film spans a diverse range of characters in over seventy films to date, including such features as the recent "Get A Job," "Alex Cross," "Wild Hogs," "Identity," "The Animal," "The Rock," "Nothing to Lose," "Set It Off," "Seven," "Office Space," "Mother," "Wagons East," "Surviving the Game," "On Deadly Ground," "Point Break," "Highlander II," "A Midnight Clear" and "Fat Man and Little Boy." He also previously starred opposite Ice Cube in Sony/Revolution Studios' feature, "Are We Done Yet?," the sequel to the hit comedy "Are We There Yet?" He recently received critical acclaim for his role as Brooklyn Dodgers' radio broadcaster 'Red Barber' in Warner Bros.' "42," the life story of Jackie Robinson and his history-making signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
As a testament to his passion for the independent film community, John C. has appeared in director Eriq La Salle's "Crazy As Hell" and director Scott Silver's "Johns." He also worked on "Truth or Consequences, N.M.," Kiefer Sutherland's feature directorial debut and on "Colin Fitz," a film John C. co-produced which premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. He starred in director D.B. Sweeney's independent feature, "Two Tickets to Paradise," which received raves on the festival circuit. For his performance in the later film, John C. was awarded Method Fest's Festival Director's Award, which is awarded for special recognition/excellence in film.
John C. is a partner at McGinley Entertainment Inc., an independent film production company with several projects currently in development. John C. first worked both sides of the camera, serving double duty as actor and producer for the romantic comedy "Watch It!" (with Peter Gallagher and Lili Taylor).
He received stunning reviews for his starring role in Dean Koontz's gripping and highly rated suspense drama, "Intensity," a four-hour original film for FOX-TV. He executive-produced and starred opposite John Cusack in HBO Pictures' western, "The Jack Bull," directed by John Badham; and he appeared in HBO NYC's "The Pentagon Wars."
In addition to film and television, John C.'s background is heavily rooted in theater. He received stellar reviews for his starring performance as 'Dave Moss' in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Glengarry Glen Ross." According to Newsday, "John C. McGinley is especially dazzling as the hothead who plans the office crime." The play also starred Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale and ran through January 20, 2013.
He was previously featured on Broadway in "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and off-Broadway in "The Ballad of Soapy Smith" and the original cast production of Eric Bogosian's "Talk Radio," both at the renowned Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival. He often cites Papp as the most instrumental force behind his career.
In May 2005, John C. was invited and honored to deliver the keynote address at the commencement ceremony for the University of California San Francisco's (UCSF) School of Medicine, one of the top medical schools in the nation.
As the father of Max, his eighteen-year-old son with Down syndrome, John C. is committed to building awareness and acceptance of people with Down syndrome. He serves as an Ambassador for Special Olympics and is a board member of the Global Down Syndrome Foundation. John C. is also one of the original creators, in conjunction with Special Olympics, of the groundbreaking "Spread the Word to End the Word" national campaign to eradicate the "R" word (retard). He has blogged repeatedly on the Huffington Post, advocating acceptance and awareness of people with special needs as well as the importance of eliminating the "R" word.
He can be seen in high profile commercial campaigns for Speed Stick (as Coach Speedman), Halls Cough Drops (as Tough Love/menthol-lyptus and Soft Love/honey-lemon) and Carhartt (as the voice of founder Hamilton Carhartt).
John C. resides in Los Angeles and enjoys stand-up paddle surfing, weight lifting and golf. He married Nichole Kessler on April 7, 2007 at the couple's home in Malibu and they now have two young daughters Billie Grace and Kate Aleena, in addition to big brother Max.- Writer
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Daniel Edward Aykroyd was born on July 1, 1952 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Lorraine Hélène (Gougeon), a secretary from a French-Canadian family, and Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd, a civil engineer who advised prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Aykroyd attended Carleton University in 1969, where he majored in Criminology and Sociology, but he dropped out before completing his degree. He worked as a comedian in various Canadian nightclubs and managed an after-hours speakeasy, Club 505, in Toronto for several years. He worked with Second City Stage Troupe in Toronto and started his acting career at Carleton University with Sock'n'Buskin, the campus theater/drama club. Married to Donna Dixon since 1983, they have three daughters. His parents are named Peter and Lorraine and his brother Peter Aykroyd is a psychic researcher. Dan received an honorary Doctorate from Carleton University in 1994 and was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998.