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Legendary Broadway writer/producer/director George Abbott was born in 1887 in Forestville, New York. His father was mayor of Salamanca, New York, for two terms. In 1898 his family moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Abbott attended Kearney Military Academy. The family returned to New York, where Abbott attended Hamburg High School, graduating in 1907, and the University of Rochester (BA degree in 1911). He wrote the play "Perfectly Harmless" for University Dramatic Club. He attended Harvard University from 1911-1912, studying play writing under George Pierce Baker, and wrote "The Head of the Family" for Harvard Dramatic Club. In 1912 he won $100 in a play contest sponsored by the Bijou Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts, for "The Man in the Manhole", and worked at the Bijou for a year as assistant stage manager. He made his Broadway debut as an actor in 1913 in "The Misleading Lady" (as Babe Merrill, a drunken student), followed by "The Yeoman of the Guard" (1915), "The Queen's Enemies" (1916), "Daddies" (1918), "The Broken Wing" (1920), "Dulcy" (on tour) (1921), "Zander the Great" (1923), "White Desert" (1923), "Hell-Bent for Heaven" (1924), "Lazybones" (1924), "Processional" (1925) and "Cowboy Crazy" (1926). From that point he concentrated on writing and directing, with "The Fall Guy" (his Broadway's debut, 1925), "Three Men on a Horse" (1935), "Jumbo" (1935), "On Your Toes" (1936), "The Boys from Syracuse" (1938), "Too Many Girls" (1939), "Pal Joey" (1940), "Best Foot Forward" (1941), "On the Town" (1944), "High Buttom Shoes" (1947), "Where's Charley?" (1948), "Call Me Madam" (1950), "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1951), "Wonderful Town" (1953), "The Pajama Game" (1954), "Damn Yankees" (1955), "New Girl Town" (1957), "Fiorello!" (1959), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Forum" (1962), "Flora, the Red Menace" (1965; Liza Minnelli's Broadway debut).
He won five Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize (for "Fiorello!"). He was nominated for an Oscar for writing All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). His daughter, Judith Abbott, is a stage actress/director and was married (1946-49) to Tom Ewell.- Actor
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This elegant actor of the golden age of German cinema appeared in several masterpieces, before the cameras of such inspired geniuses as Lang, Lubitsch and Murnau. Vocation had come rather late in his life, though. Abel was indeed already 33 when he made his first film. Beforehand, he had been a forester, a gardener and a shopkeeper. But one day, while watching a film with Asta Nielsen, he was struck by revelation. He decided at once to become an actor and with the help of Nielsen in person he started a fruitful screen career. He also wrote and directed a few films. He died too soon aged only 57, but having honored the German screen with his noble, dignified figure in more than a hundred pictures.- Actor
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Lasse Åberg was born on 5 May 1940 in Hofors, Gävleborgs län, Sweden. He is an actor and writer, known for Den ofrivillige golfaren (1991), Sällskapsresan eller Finns det svenskt kaffe på grisfesten (1980) and The Health Journey (1999). He has been married to Inger since 1965. They have two children.- Writer
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Jim Abrahams was born on 10 May 1944 in Shorewood, Wisconsin, USA. He is a writer and producer, known for Airplane! (1980), Top Secret! (1984) and Hot Shots! (1991). He is married to Nancy Cocuzzo.- Director
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'Tengiz Abuladze' studied theatrical direction af the Chota Rustaveli Theatre Institute in Tbilisi, Georgia, and film- making at the VGIK Cinematography Institute, graduating in 1953, when he joined Georgia Film Studios as a director. He made documentaries before making his feature debut in 1958. His best-known work in the West is the trilogy Vedreba (1967), The Wishing Tree (1976) and 0093754, the latter being one of the first films to be released in the post-glasnost era, and one of the most controversial, thanks to its allegorical portrait of a small town under Stalinist terror (Stalin, like Abuladze, hailing originally from Georgia). It was a huge success in the Soviet Union, and achieved reasonable distribution abroad, almost unheard of for a Georgian film.- Producer
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Lou Adler was born on 13 December 1933 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is a producer, known for Up in Smoke (1978), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) and Witness (1985). He has been married to Page Hannah since 28 March 1992. They have four children. He was previously married to Shelley Fabares.- Director
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Percy Adlon is best known for his film "Bagdad Cafe" aka "Out of Rosenheim." He was born on June 1, 1935 in Munich, the son of Paul Rudolf Laubenthal, a prominent opera singer, and Susanne Adlon, and grew up in Ammerland/Starnbergersee, in the Bavarian countryside. He studied art and theater history, and German literature at Munich's Ludwig-Maximilian University, took acting and singing classes, and was a member of the student theater group. He started his professional career as an actor, became interested in radio work, was a narrator and editor of literature series and a presenter and voice-over actor in television for 10 years.
In 1970 he made his first short film for the Bavarian Television, followed by more than 150 documentary films about art and the human condition. His first one-hour portrait "Tomi Ungerer's Landleben" started a very successful co-operation with Benigna von Keyserlingk who became the Adlon's television producer of documentaries and feature films.
Percy and Eleonore Adlon formed their film production company, pelemele FILM GmbH, in 1978. Their first project was the docu-drama "The Guardian and his Poet" about the Swiss poet Robert Walser for which they won 2 Adolf-Grimme Awards in Gold (best writer/director, best actor). Their first feature film "Celeste", drew international attention at Cannes in 1981. "Bagdad Cafe", 1987, started their co-operation with Dietrich v. Watzdorf (Bayerischer Rundfunk) The story of Jasmin Münchgstettner and the Cafe owner Brenda became a symbol of friendship and warmth, and is loved all over the globe. Marianne Sägebrecht whom Percy Adlon discovered in 1979 became a cult figure, and Bob Telson's song "Calling You" a classic.
Percy and Eleonore Adlon live in Pacific Palisades, California, working together with their son Felix whose first feature film "Eat Your Heart Out" (1997) they produced with their US company Leora Films. Felix was also the lead in the Adlons' docu-fantasy "The Glamorous World of the Adlon Hotel". (Bavarian TV award).
In 1997 Percy Adlon started working with a digital camera. He filmed a three hour special about the draftsman Tomi Ungerer for ARTE; Mozart's "Magic Flute" with images of today's Berlin; Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Phil; 22 short films based on unknown masterpieces by Johann Strauss, Jr.; a 90 minute film about his past and present relationship with his hometown Munich, "Mein Munchen", and he completed his tenth feature film "Hawaiian Gardens" and a documentary Koenig's Sphere - the story of the monumental world trade center sculpture that was damaged but not destroyed in the 9/11 attack.
Remembering his roots in theater, in 2002 Percy Adlon directed Donizetti's Elisir d'Amore at the State Opera unter den Linden, Berlin, followed in March 2004 by the world premiere of Wilfried Hiller's opera Wolkenstein at the State Opera Nuernberg, Germany.
Percy and Eleonore Adlon's recent work also includes their own adaptation of Bagdad Cafe for the stage as a musical. Music by Bob Telson. It premiered on July 6, 2004, at the Barcelona Teatre Musical. In 2007, the Adlons completed "Orbela's People", a documentary about a time with a Maasai family in Ngorongoro, Tanzania.
Percy Adlon is the recipient of the Officer's Cross of the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Bavarian Order of Merit. He is a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.- Director
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Entering films as an actor in 1910, John G. Adolfi soon switched careers and became a director. He turned out numerous, mostly low-budget films for minor companies, but every so often got a chance to work at a big studio like Fox. His big break came in the sound era, when he formed a partnership with actor George Arliss and directed several of Arliss' most successful films.- Actor
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Adolphson grew up in Norrköping, where his father was smith. To his father's disapproval, he began acting in small parts in the local theaters, particularly Arbis, the worker's theater. He started an education to become an engineer in Västerås, but the theater was the only thing he was interested in and eventually left school. In 1913 he joined a traveling theater company and traveled all around Sweden. He debuted in Stockholm in 1918 and during the the 1920s he played with the big names in the Swedish theatre: Harriet Bosse (whom he later married), Ernst Rolf, Katie Rolfsen, Tollie Zellman, Erik 'Bullen' Berglund and Gösta Ekman among others. In 1923 he got his first major role in a movie, Friaren från landsvägen (1923).
In 1929 he directed Säg det i toner (1929), one of the first Swedish sound pictures. This led to an offer from Paramount to direct movies in Paris, France which he accepted. During the 1930s and 1940s he worked very hard with movies and theater, not only because he loved his work, but also to support an increasing number of ex-wives and children. He directed Ingrid Bergman in her first movie, The Count of the Old Town (1935). Other memorable appearances are Kungliga patrasket (1945), När kärleken kom till byn (1950), One Summer of Happiness (1951), Vägen till Klockrike (1953) and Hemsöborna (1955). He ended his career with a marvelous performance in Markurells i Wadköping (1968). He was struck by blindness the last years of his life and had to quit acting.- Director
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Chantal Akerman was born on 6 June 1950 in Brussels, Belgium. She was a director and writer, known for The Meetings of Anna (1978), I, You, He, She (1974) and A Couch in New York (1996). She was married to Sonia Wieder-Atherton. She died on 5 October 2015 in Paris, France.- Producer
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Syrian-American Moustapha Akkad produced a series of "Halloween" movies but it was The Lion of the Desert (1980) and The Message (1976), on the history of Islam, into which he poured his heart. It was reportedly difficult for him to make it in Hollywood but no one could deny his talent as a director and producer. He was killed along with his daughter, Rima Al Akkad Monla, in a bombing in 2005 in Amman, Jordan.- Actor
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For French art film lovers, Giorgio Albertazzi appeared out of nowhere and literally fascinated them in Alain Resnais and Alain Robbe-Grillet's unidentified object known as Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Elegant, seductive, with a hypnotizing Italian accent, he tried to persuade an elegant, seductive woman speaking in a singsong voice that he had been her lover the year before in the same luxury hotel ... The lady, the marvelous 'Delphine Seyrig'did not seem to remember him. And life imitating art, it looked as if Giorgio Albertazzi, despite a haunting presence in a haunting film would also return to oblivion immediately after the release of this atypical movie; The man of one film? Of course not. He did make others in his native country, but mainly minor unpretentious works, nothing on a par with Last Year at Marienbad (1961). Obviously, cinema has helped the actor to keep body and soul together, nothing more. His contribution to Italian television is more ambitious, either as an actor, a scriptwriter or a director. His best role on the small screen may be Dostoievsky's moving Prince Miskin in Giacomo Vaccari's remarkable mini-series L'idiota (1959). He also interpreted Dante Alighieri and Don Giovanni in two interesting TV films or series directed by Vittorio Cottafavi. And wearing the three hats of actor (as Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde), writer (adapting Robert Louis Stevenson and director, he was very successful with Jekyll (1969). However, Albertazzi's main activity and great love has always been the stage. An actor since 1949 and still active after all these years, he debuted in William Shakespeare's "Troilus and Cressida" under the direction of Luchino Visconti. Since then he has performed in scores of plays by Luigi Pirandello, George Bernard Shaw, Lillian Hellman, Gabriele D'Annunzio, among others. Into the bargain, this great name of the Italian theatre has been running a dramatic school from the mid-nineties as well as the Teatro di Roma since 2003. All in all, Giorgio Albertazzi did not come out of nowhere when Alain Resnais, a director who has always loved actors, chose him for being X the stranger in Last Year at Marienbad (1961). And he did not return to oblivion either. Just ask Italian theatre lovers if they have forgotten him and you will see!- Director
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Jean-Gabriel Albicocco was born on 15 February 1936 in Cannes, Alpes-Maritimes, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Wanderer (1967), Rat Trap (1963) and The Girl with the Golden Eyes (1961). He was married to Marie Laforêt. He died on 9 April 2001 in Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.- Actor
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Alan Alda (born under the name Alphonso Joseph D'Abruzzo) is an American actor, comedian, film director, and screenwriter from New York City. His father was the Italian-American actor Robert Alda. Alda's best known role was playing chief surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the medical-themed sitcom M*A*S*H (1972-1983) for 11 seasons. He twice won the "Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series" for this role. Alda was later nominated for the "Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor", for his portrayal of career politician Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961) in the biographical film "The Aviator" (2004). The film depicted Brewster's opposition to the commercial interests of Howard Hughes, and the alleged political corruption which caused the end of Brewster's career.
In 1936, Alda was born in the Bronx, New York City. By that time, his father Robert Alda (1914-1986) had already started performing in vaudeville and burlesque theaters. Alda's mother was former beauty queen Joan Browne. Alda had Italian ancestry on his father's side of the family, and Irish ancestry on his mother's side of the family. Alda spend much of his childhood touring the United States with his father, as his father's acting job required frequent travel.
In 1943, Alda contracted polio. His parents chose to administer a painful treatment regimen, "consisting of applying hot woolen blankets to his limbs and stretching his muscles". This treatment had been developed by the Australian nurse Elizabeth Kenny (1880-1952), and was based on the principle of muscle rehabilitation. Though the treatment was considered controversial, it seemingly helped Alda to recover his mobility.
Alda received his secondary education at Archbishop Stepinac High School, an all-boys Roman Catholic high school located in White Plains, New York, United States. The school was named in honor of Aloysius Stepinac (1898 - 1960), the Archbishop of Zagreb who was hero-worshiped for his conviction for treason by communist Yugoslavia. Alda received his college education at Fordham University, a Jesuit research university located in New York City. He graduated In 1956 with a Bachelor of Arts degree.
During his college years, Alda worked for the radio station WFUV. The station was owned by Fordham University, and was operated by its students. Alda joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) , a training program intended for prospective commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces. He subsequently entered the United States Army Reserve. He served for a year at Fort Benning, a United States Army post straddling the Alabama-Georgia border . He then spend 6 months stationed in Korea. His official rank at that time was that of a gunnery officer, though Alda claims that he was placed in charge of a mess tent.
In 1956, Alda was introduced to Jewish-American musician Arlene Weiss (a clarinetist). They soon bonded due to their similar tastes in humor, and started dating each other. They were married on March 15, 1957. They had three daughters, born between 1958 and 1961.
Alda started his acting career in the mid-1950s, as a theatrical actor. He joined the Compass Players (1955-1958), a short-lived improvisational theatre revue which was based in Chicago. He subsequently joined the improvisational group Second City, and the regional theater company Cleveland Play House for its 1958-1959 season. In 1958, he had his first guest star role in television. He appeared in an episode of "The Phil Silvers Show", a military-themed sitcom about a swindler operating within the United States Army.
Alda made his film debut in the comedy-drama film "Gone Are the Days!" (1963). The film was a satire of segregation and bigotry, based on a play written by Ossie Davis (1917-2005). Alda was part of the recurring cast of "That Was the Week That Was" (1963-1965), a political satire series which targeted various political figures of the era. It was based on a British satire series of the same name. Most episodes of the American version are considered lost, though there are surviving audio recordings.
In 1968, Alda had his first starring role in a film. He portrayed sports journalist George Plimpton (1927-2003) in the sports comedy "Paper Lion". The film depicted Plimpton's brief term as a player of the Detroit Lions, and focused on his inexperience and ineptitude as a football player.
Alda played the accountant Morton Krim in the World War II-themed war comedy "The Extraordinary Seaman" (1969). The film depicts four sailors of the United States Navy who have been stranded on an island of the Philippines. They encounter the ghost of a British naval officer who was killed in World War I, and he encourages them to launch an attack on Japanese positions. Due to the ghost's perpetual bad luck, their attack is ill-fated.
Alda next played the male lead in the drama film "Jenny" (1970). In the film, main character Jenny Marsh (played by Marlo Thomas) was impregnated in a one-night-stand and has few options in life. Her acquaintance Delano (played by Alda) agrees to marry her and to claim the child's paternity, in an effort to avoid being drafted for war service. The film depicts the problems of a typical "marriage of convenience" (a marriage contracted for reasons other than that of love and commitment), and Delano's attempts to maintain both his marriage and his long-term relationship with another woman. The film earned 2,825,000 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
Alda also played the main character in the crime film "The Moonshine War" (1970), which was set in Prohibition-era Kentucky. He played John "Son" Martin, a man whose main source of income is the production of moonshine whiskey. An acquaintance in the Internal Revenue Service starts pressuring him for a cut on the profits. When Son refuses, the acquaintance reports his activities to a violent gang leader and his henchmen. Son has to outwit the gang in order to survive. The film was one of several films greenlit by Louis Polk and Herb Solow, the then-new co-leaders of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Alda had his first role in a horror film, when he played the main character in the occult-themed horror film "The Mephisto Waltz" (1971). He played music journalist Myles Clarkson, who unexpectedly befriends piano virtuoso Duncan Ely (played by Curd Jürgens). He does not realize that Ely is dying due to cancer, and that he intends to perform a body-swapping spell to take over Clarkson's body. Once the spell succeeds, Ely starts a new career in Clarkson's body and kills Clarkson's daughter. Ely fails to realize that his new "wife" Paula Clarkson (played by Jacqueline Bisset) intends to use the same spell to swap bodies with Ely's adult daughter. Bisset was praised for her "chillingly effective" performance, but film critics argued that Alda had been miscast in this role.
Alda had a scarier role in the psychological thriller "To Kill a Clown" (1972), playing disturbed Vietnam War veteran Evelyn Ritchie. Ritchie was once a military officer, but retired after having one of his legs amputated. He agrees to become the landlord of a young married couple, despite his intense dislike for the artistic lifestyle of his tenant Timothy Frischer (played by Heath Lamberts). He starts treating Frischer as a military subordinate, and insists on keeping both of his tenants as prisoners in their residence. The young couple soon learn that Ritchie has sadistic tendencies, and that he had a history of tormenting his subordinates throughout his military career.
Alda had the big break in his career when cast to play chief surgeon Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce in the medical-themed sitcom M*A*S*H (1972-1983). The series depicted life within a "Mobile Army Surgical Hospital" (MASH) during the Korean War (1950-1953). It was based on the novel "MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors" (1968) by military surgeon H. Richard Hornberger. The series often questioned the United States' role in the Cold War, and satirized authority figures. Its ratings placed it among the top 10 most viewed shows throughout most of its run, and it was critically acclaimed. Alda appeared in all 256 episodes of the series, which helped him become a household name in the United States. Alda eventually served as the series' producer, creative consultant, and co-writer.
Alda played the male lead in the romantic comedy "Same Time, Next Year" (1978), which was his first film role since the early 1970s. The film depicts an extramarital affair which lasts for 26 years (1951-1977), despite the two lovers only meeting once per year. The film also covers the effects time has on the couple's political ideologies, and how they react to the deaths of various family members. The film was partially shot at the Heritage House Inn in Little River, California. The inn became a popular romantic getaway due to the film's enduring popularity. Alda was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy", but the award was instead won by rival actor Warren Beatty.
Alda was part of the ensemble cast in the comedy film "California Suite" (1978). He played successful screenwriter Bill Warren, who is involved in a custody dispute with his ex-wife, the workaholic Hannah Warren (played by Jane Fonda). Both parents claim custody over their adolescent daughter Jenny Warren (played by Dana Plato), and have little regard for Jenny's plans about her own life. The film's cast was nominated for several awards, but Alda was overshadowed by his co-stars.
Alda received his first screenwriting credit for the political drama film "The Seduction of Joe Tynan" (1979). He also played the film's eponymous character. He portrayed an ambitious American senator, whose marriage seems to be deteriorating. He briefly has an extramarital affair with labor lawyer Karen Traynor (played by Meryl Streep), but decides against seeking a divorce. The film earned about 19.6 million dollars at the worldwide box office. Alda was praised more for his ability as a screenwriter than his acting in this film. Streep was nominated for several acting awards for her supporting role, having a breakthrough in her career.
Alda made his directorial debut with the romantic comedy film "The Four Seasons" (1981), depicting the relationships between three upper middle-class married couples. Alda kept for himself the role of Jack Burroughs, a lawyer who has a tendency towards expressing narrow moral attitudes. The film was an unexpected box office hit, earning about 50,4 million dollars at the box office. It was the ninth highest-grossing film of 1981, and won the "Bodil Award for Best Non-European Film". Alda was again nominated for the "Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy", but the award was instead won by rival actor Dudley Moore.
Alda had a hiatus in his acting and directing career during the early 1980s, as he had to take care of his terminally-ill parents. He attempted a comeback by directing the comedy film "Sweet Liberty" (1986), which parodies Hollywood filmmaking. Alda kept for himself the role of Michael Burgess, a college professor and historical novelist. Burgess wants to oversee the adaptation of his historically-accurate and realistic novel into a Hollywood film, but soon realizes that the film's screenwriter has turned the film into a historically inaccurate soap opera. He then sets out to sabotage the film. The film only earned 14.2 million dollars at the box office, despite the critical praise for its leading actors. The poor box office performance was attributed to its release time at movie theaters. It was directly competing with two more lucrative films, "Top Gun" and "Short Circuit".
Alda's next directing effort was the romantic comedy "A New Life" (1988), which depicted the problems faced by middle-aged divorced people. Alda played Steve Giardino, a workaholic businessman who received a divorce after more than 25 years of marriage. His attempts to pursue a new romance are complicated by his inexperience at dating and his unwillingness to father children again. Giardino soon suffers a heart attack due to his poor eating habits. He falls in love with the female physician attending to his problem, Dr. Kay Hutton (played by Veronica Hamel). The film was a box-office flop, only earning 7,7 million dollars at the box office. Critics found the film pleasant, but predictable.
Alda played pompous television producer Lester in the comedy-drama film "Crimes and Misdemeanors" (1989). In the film, Lester wants to finance a documentary celebrating his own life and work. He hires his brother-in-law to direct it, documentary filmmaker Clifford "Cliff" Stern (played by Woody Allen). He is unaware that Stern despises him. Stern uses the film to expose Lester's mistreatment of his employees, and Lester's sexual harassment towards actresses. The film earned 18,2 million dollars at the box office. For his role, Alda won the "National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor".
Alda had his final directing credit with the romantic comedy "Betsy's Wedding" (1990). Alda played the main role of Eddie Hopper, a construction contractor who insists on organizing a lavish wedding for his beloved daughter Betsy Hopper (played by Molly Ringwald). Since Eddie can not actually afford the wedding expenses, he requests financial assistance from loan sharks. The film earned 19.7 million dollars at the box office, but its leading actresses (Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy) were both nominated for Golden Raspberry Awards. Unlike Alda's previous directing efforts, critics were mostly hostile towards the film.
Alda played the evil mentor Leo Green in the erotic thriller "Whispers in the Dark" (1992). In the film, main character Ann Hecker (a psychiatrist, played by Annabella Sciorra) seeks help from her mentor Leo Green due to suffering from disturbing dreams. Hecker is soon implicated in the murder of her female patient Eve Abergray (played by Deborah Unger), and then in the murder of the police detective investigating the case. She eventually realizes that her mentor has been obsessed with her for years. He committed both murders in a misguided attempt to protect her. This was Alda's first villainous role in a film since the early 1970s. The film only earned 11.1 million dollars at the box office.
In 1993, Alda became the new host of the science-themed television program "Scientific American Frontiers" (1990-2005). The series was a spin-off of the popular science magazine "Scientific American" (1845-). The show typically focused on new technology, and on scientific and medical discoveries. Alda remained the host for 12 years, and was credited with inspiring youngsters to follow scientific careers.
Alda was reduced to the supporting role of the protagonist's confidant in the black comedy film "Manhattan Murder Mystery" (1993). The main plot involved amateur detectives who were investigating the mysterious death of a neighbor, who seemed to have died twice and on two entirely different locations. They eventually realize that they have stumbled on the deaths of two sisters with a close family resemblance, and that the motive for the murders was their family fortune. The film only earned 11.2 million dollars at the box office. Its perceived failure led to the termination of a long-term deal between director Woody Allen and the film studio TriStar Pictures.
Alda had a more comedic role in the political satire film "Canadian Bacon" (1995). The film satirized international relations between Canada and the United States. Alda played an unnamed President of the United States who wants to start a new war to boost his sagging poll numbers, but lacks a credible enemy to serve as an opponent. He finds that Russia is not interested in renewed hostilities, and a proposal to declare war on international terrorism is rejected as absurd. So he uses a flimsy excuse to declare war on Canada, and uses television channels to transmit anti-Canada propaganda to the gullible American population. The film was a box office flop, despite featuring a large cast of Canadian actors. It is mostly remembered as the final film appearance for actor John Candy.
Alda next had a supporting role in the black comedy "Flirting with Disaster" (1996). In the film, an adult, married man searches throughout the United States for the biological parents who gave him up for adoption. He eventually learns that his biological father is Richard Schlichting (played by Alda), a man who has devoted the last 30 years in producing and distributing "lysergic acid diethylamide" (LSD). The family reunion is less than happy, and the protagonist is introduced to a biological brother who despises him. The film earned 14,7 million dollars at the box office.
Alda had another villainous role in the action thriller film "Murder at 1600" (1997), playing national security adviser Alvin Jordan. In the film, Jordan has organized a conspiracy in order to blackmail the President of the United States into resigning, and to start a second Korean War. The conspiracy involved murdering a White House secretary (who had a brief affair with the president) and framing the President for murdering her. The film earned 41,1 million dollars at the worldwide box office, Alda's most profitable film in a decade.
Alda played news anchorman Kevin Hollander in the media-themed thriller "Mad City" (1997). In the film, a fired museum guard takes several people hostage at his former workplace. The news media decides to exploit the situation for profit, and several reporters compete in trying to get the lion's share of the publicity. The situation escalates until the museum guard becomes a suicide bomber. The film only earned 10.5 million dollars at the box office.
Alda's career had declined in the early 2000s, but this situation was only temporary. In 2004, Alda joined the recurring cast of the political television series "The West Wing" (1999-2006). The series depicted the administration of a fictional United States president and his staff. Alda played Republican senator Arnold Vinick for 28 episodes. His character was depicted as a fiscal conservative, who was opposed to corporate welfare and resented to Christian' right's influence on his political party. Vinick became the new Secretary of State in the finale of the series. For his role, Alda won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in 2006.
Alda's film career experienced a revival with his portrayal of career politician Ralph Owen Brewster (1888-1961) in the biographical film "The Aviator" (2004). He was nominated for the "Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor", the first Academy Award nomination in Alda's career. The award was instead won by rival actor Morgan Freeman. The critical acclaim for his role went against years of criticism for his acting abilities. Alda received several new offers for film roles.
Alda remained active as an actor throughout the 2000s and 2010s. He published three different memoirs between 2005 and 2017, covering different aspects of his life and career. In July 2018, he announced in an interview that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2015. While this has not ended his acting career, he feared that the effects could be distracting to viewers of his work.
From 2018 to 2020, Alda had a recurring role in the crime drama television series "Ray Donovan" (2013-2020). The series depicted the life and career of a professional "fixer" of the entertainment industry, in charge of bribes, payoffs, threats, crime-scene clean-up, and other illegal activities. Alda also appeared in the spin-off film "Ray Donovan: The Movie" (2022), which concluded remaining plot-lines from the series. By 2022, Alda was 86-years-old. He may no longer be in his prime, but the aging actor seems to have no plans to retire yet.- Director
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Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Radio Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early 1950s, and directed his first feature in 1953 (Big Leaguer (1953)). Soon thereafter he established his own production company and produced most of his own films, collaborating in the writing of many of them. Among his best-known pictures are Kiss Me Deadly (1955), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and the muscular WW II mega-hit The Dirty Dozen (1967).- Director
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Cuba's greatest and best-known director, Tomas Gutierrez Alea fell in love with cinema at an early age, began as a documentarian much influenced by Italian neorealism and came into his own as an artist during Fidel Castro's regime. Over the years he has evinced a fondness for both historical and contemporary fables, invariably politically pointed and satirical, their flights into absurdity showing the influence of Luis Buñuel. An ardent supporter of the revolution that rid the country of the despotic Fulgencio Batista and brought Castro to power, Alea has painted a more complex portrait of Cuba in his cinema than the rest of the world has generally been willing to conceive. The documentary impulse has remained, yet it is used to constantly scrutinize contemporary Cuba. Indeed, Alea has made some gutsy critiques of the socioeconomic and political realities of his land, as he ponders the persistence of a petty-bourgeois mentality in a society supposedly dedicated to the plight of the working poor.
Born to a fairly well-off family, Alea was sent to college in Havana to follow in his father's footsteps and become a lawyer. At about the same time he entered school, though, he acquired an 8mm camera and made two short films, El faquir (1947) and La caperucita roja (1947). Several years later he collaborated with fellow student (and future film great) Néstor Almendros on a short adaptation of a Franz Kafka story they named Una confusión cotidiana (1950). Upon graduation, Alea journeyed to Italy to study film directing for two years during the crest of neorealism at the famed Centro Sperimentale de Cinematografia. He returned to Cuba in 1953 and joined the radical "Nuestro Tiempo" cultural society, becoming active in the film section, working as a publicist and aligning himself with Castro's fight against the Batista regime. In 1955 Alea co-directed, with fellow society member 'Julio Garcia Espinosa', the 16mm short El mégano (1955), a semi-documentary about exploited workers, acted by nonprofessionals from the locales in which it was shot. The film was seized by Batista's secret police because of its political content.
Soon after the Cuban revolution in 1959, Alea co-founded (with Santiago Álvarez) the national revolutionary film institute ICAIC ("Instituto del Arte y Industria Cinematografica"). He promptly made a documentary, Esta tierra nuestra (1959), full of hope for the new government's plan to help the poor through agrarian reform, and has remained a pillar of the organization ever since. Alea's diverse creative personality has led him to experiment with a broad range of styles and themes. His first feature, Stories of the Revolution (1960), employs a neorealist style to present three dramatic sketches depicting the armed insurrection against Batista. Alea's relatively straightforward approach to film style, however, would change, altered not only through his appropriation of Hollywood and art cinema stylistics but also by his increasingly personal attempts at self-expression. A Cuban Fight Against Demons (1972), the film on which he first worked with regular cinematographer Mario García Joya, comes across as the prelude to a period Alea has described as full of personal and artistic instability as much as it does an aggressive allegorical portrait of church and state corruption. The director's later Cartas del parque (1988) is more of a twilight work, exploring the romantic period piece as a scribe meets a diverse cross-section of society via his talents at letter writing.
The finest of Alea's historical films, The Last Supper (1976), continued to highlight his versatility, drawing on Afro-Cuban musical motifs and the literary style of magic realism to recreate an 18th-century slave revolt. Alea has also made several satiric comedies that explore the legacy of bourgeois society in post-revolutionary Cuba. The madcap adventure The Twelve Chairs (1962), a tale also told by Russian filmmakers and by Mel Brooks, satirizes greed and bureaucracy as a lingering post-revolutionary bourgeois, his roguish manservant and a corrupt priest hunt for a chair concealing priceless diamonds. The Hollywoodian black comedy Death of a Bureaucrat (1966) cites not only Buñuel but also Mack Sennett and Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy as it criticizes, at an early point in the Castro regime, the administrative muck of the political system (Alea reused the gallows humor of the bureaucracy connected with burying a corpse for his road picture Guantanamera (1995), which began to appear at festivals in 1995 and 1996). In Los sobrevivientes (1979) an aristocratic family devolves from civilization to savagery; using a metaphor found in many films from poor countries, the family resorts to cannibalism in trying to remain isolated from the Revolution. The stresses and strains of a revolutionary society were explored in several dramatic works set in contemporary Cuba, among them Memories of Underdevelopment (1968) and Hasta cierto punto (1983). "Memories", Alea's masterpiece and arguably the best-known Cuban film ever made, brilliantly blends documentary and drama to create an extremely witty yet sensitive portrait of a restless, oversexed, politically uncommitted intellectual as he meanders through the early days of the Revolution. The latter film is, in some ways, a continuation of the former, as documentary filmmakers attempt to examine lingering machismo among dockworkers, eventually discovering that the Revolution's goals for changes in consciousness have succeeded only "up to a certain point."
Alea returned yet again to the nexus between the sexual and the political with the best-known Cuban film of the 1990s, Strawberry & Chocolate (1993). The story of the unusual friendship that develops between a naive believer in Castro's contemporary version of communism and a more experienced, gay critic of the regime was widely praised and just as widely attacked. Some found it atypically gentle for Alea and read its gay lead as a cover-up of Castro's horrifying treatment of homosexuals, while others thought it needlessly provocative in its characterizations; such divergent responses only testify to the complexity typical of Alea's tapestries. In 1994, "Strawberry and Chocolate" became the first Cuban film to receive an Oscar nomination as Best Foreign Film. Alea has written or co-scripted all his features and, in accordance with ICAIC's collective approach to filmmaking, has served as advisor on two of the institute's most stylistically innovative films: El otro Francisco (1974), directed by Sergio Giral, and One Way or Another (1977), directed by Sara Gomez.
Alea has been less active in filmmaking in the 1980s and 1990s, and Juan Carlos Tabío has co-directed several of the aging master's recent films. He has, though, written a book of film theory, "Dialectica del espectador (1982)", and continued to inspire a new generation of sophisticated and politically committed artists.- Director
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Grigori Aleksandrov was a Soviet-Russian filmmaker best known as director of Volga - Volga (1938), The Circus (1936), and October (Ten Days that Shook the World) (1927), as well as co-star in Battleship Potemkin (1925) by director Sergei Eisenstein.
He was born Grigori Vasilyevich Mormonenko on January 23, 1903 in Ekaterinburg, Russia. His father, Vasili Mormonenko, was a worker. Young Aleksandrov was obsessed with acting and movies. At the age of 9 he was hired as a delivery boy at the Ekaterinburg Opera; there he eventually worked as an assistant dresser, electrician, decorator, and assistant director. He studied violin and piano at the Ekaterinburg School of Music, graduating in 1917. During the Russian Civil War of 1917-1920, he was road manager with the Theatre of Eastern Front of the Red Army. After the Civil War he graduated from the Directors Courses for Proletariat Theatre in Ekaterinburg, and was appointed Inspector of Arts at the Ekaterinburg Regional Administration. His job was to supervise theaters and to select films in compliance with the new ideology.
Aleksandrov met Eisenstein in 1921. They worked together on several stage productions in 1921-24. In 1923 Aleksandrov appeared as Glumov in a stage production of A. Ostrovsky's play at the Moscow Proletkult Theatre, directed by Eisenstein. They worked together on the scenario of their first films: 'Stachka' (1924) and 'Bronenosets Potemkin' (1925). They wrote and directed 'Oktyabr' (1927), a historical film made to look like a documentary about the Russian revolution. In 1929-1933 both Aleksandrov and Eisenstein were sent to study and work in Hollywood. Back in the Soviet Union Aleksandrov made a short documentary film titled 'International' (1932).
In 1933 Aleksandrov had a meeting with Joseph Stalin and Maxim Gorky at the Gorky's State Dacha near Moscow. Stalin offered the oportunity to Aleksandrov to make a musical comedy for the Soviet people. 'Veselye Rebyata' (aka.. Jolly fellows) was completed in 1934, starring Leonid Utyosov and Lyubov Orlova. 'Veselye Rebyata' became the #1 box office hit in Russia and was awarded at the Venice Film Festival. Leonid Utyosov and Lyubov Orlova became instant celebrities, and songs by composer Isaak Dunaevskiy became popular hits in the Soviet Union.
Aleksandrov directed and edited the documentary of Stalin's speech about the Soviet constitution, titled 'Doklad tov. Stalina o proekte Konstitutsii SSSR na VIII Chresvychaynom S'ezde Sovetov' (1937). After that Aleksandrov returned to making comedies. Aleksandrov's wife, Lyubov Orlova, starred in almost all of his feature films, such as 'Tsirk' (1936), 'Volga-Volga' (1938), 'Svetly Put' (1940), 'Vesna' (1947) among his other films. His 1930s comedies remained rather popular among several generations of viewers in the Soviet Union, as well as internationally. In 1942 Joseph Stalin sent a copy of Volga - Volga (1938) to American president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
However, Aleksandrov's success came at a painful price, as he suffered from many attacks by some less fortunate and envious filmmakers, as well as from blackmailing by invisible and anonymous enemy. In 1938 Aleksandrov's colleagues, cinematographer Vladimir Nilsen, and producer Boris Shumyatskiy, were executed by the firing squad for anti-government activities. At the same time both Aleksandrov and Orlova were falsely accused of spying for the Nazi Germany, but were cleared of all charges.
During the 1950s he taught directing at State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK). His last films had little success, and some, like 'Skvorets i lira' (1973) were not even released in theaters. Aleksandrov also made a few documentaries, including one about Lenin, and one about his wife, star actress Lyubov Orlova.
Grigori Aleksandrov received the Stalin's Prize twice (1941, 1950), the Order of Lenin twice (1939, 1950), the Order of Red Star (1938), and the Order of the Red Banner twice (1963, 1967). He was designated People's Actor of the USSR. Grigori Aleksandrov died of kidney infection on December 16, 1983, at the Kremlin Hospital in Moscow, and was laid to rest next to his wife, Lyubov Orlova in Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow, Russia.- Director
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James Algar studied at Stanford where he developed his skills as a cartoonist by drawing for the university's satirical magazine, The Chaparral. He joined the Disney Organisation in 1934, initially as animator. He directed the classic "Sorcerer's Apprentice" segment of Fantasia (1940), as well as several sequences of Bambi (1942). Algar was one of several key personnel to whom Walt Disney delegated higher executive functions. During the 1950's, he assumed the mantle of chief writer/director for Disney's True Life Adventure series, turning out such Oscar-winning documentaries as The Living Desert (1953) and The Vanishing Prairie (1954).
Algar was named a Disney Legend in 1998 and has been recipient of the Look Magazine Movie Award for outstanding achievement in production.- Director
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Marc Allégret was born on 22 December 1900 in Basel, Switzerland. He was a director and writer, known for The Curtain Rises (1938), Avec André Gide (1951) and Julietta (1953). He was married to Nadine Vogel. He died on 3 November 1973 in Paris, France.- Director
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Yves Allégret was born on 13 October 1905 in Asnières-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a director and writer, known for The Proud and the Beautiful (1953), La meilleure part (1955) and Dédée d'Anvers (1948). He was married to Michèle Cordoue, Simone Signoret and Renée Naville. He died on 31 January 1987 in Jouars-Pontchartrain, Yvelines, France.- Director
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Corey Allen earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from UCLA in Theatre in 1954. While there, he received the department's Best Actor award and starred in the UCLA film, "A Time Out of War", which won the Academy Award & Cannes & Venice Film Festival for Best Short Film. Upon graduation, he appeared in approximately twenty plays in the Los Angeles area. Director Nicholas Ray spotted Allen and subsequently chose him for the role of "Buzz" in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). This led to featured roles in another dozen films such as Private Property (1960), Party Girl (1958), Darby's Rangers (1958) and The Chapman Report (1962). Allen also appeared in many leading television series including Perry Mason (1957) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955). Meanwhile, he created, directed for and co-produced the Freeway Circuit Theatre which toured the Southwest for six seasons. Allen also directed numerous Equity productions in Los Angeles theatres. This led to a thirty year directorial career in television and film during which he directed three movies including Avalanche; television movies including the Emmy winning The Ann Jillian Story (1988); created a dozen pilots for television series including Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), Murder, She Wrote (1984), Simon & Simon (1981), Code Name: Foxfire (1985), Stone (1979) and Capitol (1982). He has earned two Directors Guild nominations for Best Direction in a television series, the Award for Cable Excellence for Best Direction of The Paper Chase (1978) and received an Emmy for Best Direction of a Hill Street Blues (1981). Throughout this career, Allen instructed acting, including three years at the Actors Workshop, and for the last nine years, conducted cold reading workshops at the Margie Haber Studio. This year, Allen was presented with an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Columbia College-Holllywood for his work in helping to create their acting and directing curricula.- Visual Effects
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David Allen was born on 22 October 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is known for The Howling (1981), Willow (1988) and Ghostbusters II (1989). He was married to Donita Woodruff. He died on 16 August 1999 in Burbank, California, USA.- Producer
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Irving Allen started his film career in 1929 as an editor. He turned to directing in the 1940s, and two shorts he directed, Forty Boys and a Song (1941) and Climbing the Matterhorn (1947), won Academy Awards. His feature film output, however, was not particularly successful, and in the 1950s he and producer Albert R. Broccoli formed Warwick Films in Great Britain to produce films there.- Writer
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A graduate of New York's Columbia School of Journalism, Irwin Allen was a magazine editor, the producer/director of a radio show and the owner of an advertising agency before entering film production in the 1950s. His documentary, The Sea Around Us (1953), won an Academy Award. A successful TV series producer (The Time Tunnel (1966), Lost in Space (1965)), Allen was nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" in the 1970s due to the tremendous success of his two special effects-laden epics, The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and The Towering Inferno (1974).- Actor
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Timothy Allen Dick was born on June 13, 1953, in Denver, Colorado, to Martha Katherine (Fox) and Gerald M. Dick. His father, a real estate salesman, was killed in a collision with a drunk driver while driving his family home from a University of Colorado football game, when Tim was eleven years old. His mother, a community service worker, remarried her high school sweetheart, an Episcopalian deacon, two years after Tim's father's death. He was raised with his many siblings and step-siblings. When Tim was young, his family moved to Birmingham, Michigan.
In high school, his favorite subject was shop, of course, and after high school, he attended Western Michigan University and graduated with a degree in Television Production in 1975. In 1978, he was arrested on drug charges and spent two years in jail. Upon his release, he had a new outlook on life and on a dare from a friend, started his comedy career at the Comedy Castle in Detroit. Later, he went on to do several cable specials, including, Comedy's Dirtiest Dozen (1988) and Tim Allen: Men Are Pigs (1990). In 1991, he became the star of his own hit television series on ABC called Home Improvement (1991). While continuing to film his television series throughout most of the 1990s, he starred in a string of blockbuster movies, including The Santa Clause (1994), Toy Story (1995), Toy Story 2 (1999) and Galaxy Quest (1999). In August 1996, he developed and unveiled his own signature line of power tools, manufactured by Ryobi. On top of all that, he has his own racing team, Tim Allen/Saleen RRRRacing. In May 1999, he ended his series Home Improvement (1991) after eight seasons and in 2001, he filmed such movies as Big Trouble (2002) and Joe Somebody (2001).- Writer
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Woody Allen was born on November 30, 1935, as Allen Konigsberg, in The Bronx, NY, the son of Martin Konigsberg and Nettie Konigsberg. He has one younger sister, Letty Aronson. As a young boy, he became intrigued with magic tricks and playing the clarinet, two hobbies that he continues today.
Allen broke into show business at 15 years when he started writing jokes for a local paper, receiving $200 a week. He later moved on to write jokes for talk shows but felt that his jokes were being wasted. His agents, Charles Joffe and Jack Rollins, convinced him to start doing stand-up and telling his own jokes. Reluctantly he agreed and, although he initially performed with such fear of the audience that he would cover his ears when they applauded his jokes, he eventually became very successful at stand-up. After performing on stage for a few years, he was approached to write a script for Warren Beatty to star in: What's New Pussycat (1965) and would also have a moderate role as a character in the film. During production, Woody gave himself more and better lines and left Beatty with less compelling dialogue. Beatty inevitably quit the project and was replaced by Peter Sellers, who demanded all the best lines and more screen-time.
It was from this experience that Woody realized that he could not work on a film without complete control over its production. Woody's theoretical directorial debut was in What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966); a Japanese spy flick that he dubbed over with his own comedic dialogue about spies searching for the secret recipe for egg salad. His real directorial debut came the next year in the mockumentary Take the Money and Run (1969). He has written, directed and, more often than not, starred in about a film a year ever since, while simultaneously writing more than a dozen plays and several books of comedy.
While best known for his romantic comedies Annie Hall (1977) and Manhattan (1979), Woody has made many transitions in his films throughout the years, transitioning from his "early, funny ones" of Bananas (1971), Love and Death (1975) and Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972); to his more storied and romantic comedies of Annie Hall (1977), Manhattan (1979) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); to the Bergmanesque films of Stardust Memories (1980) and Interiors (1978); and then on to the more recent, but varied works of Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), Husbands and Wives (1992), Mighty Aphrodite (1995), Celebrity (1998) and Deconstructing Harry (1997); and finally to his films of the last decade, which vary from the light comedy of Scoop (2006), to the self-destructive darkness of Match Point (2005) and, most recently, to the cinematically beautiful tale of Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Although his stories and style have changed over the years, he is regarded as one of the best filmmakers of our time because of his views on art and his mastery of filmmaking.- Director
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Roger Allers is an American animated film director and writer who is known for co-directing the influential 1994 Disney musical film The Lion King. He also worked on Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. He was intended to direct the musical drama Kingdom of the Sun, which got retooled into the 2000 comedy The Emperor's New Groove.- Director
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Michael Almereyda was born on 7 April 1959 in Overland Park, Kansas, USA. He is a director and writer, known for Marjorie Prime (2017), Experimenter (2015) and Tesla (2020).- Writer
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The most internationally acclaimed Spanish filmmaker since Luis Buñuel was born in a small town (Calzada de Calatrava) in the impoverished Spanish region of La Mancha. He arrived in Madrid in 1968, and survived by selling used items in the flea-market called El Rastro. Almodóvar couldn't study filmmaking because he didn't have the money to afford it. Besides, the filmmaking schools were closed in early 70s by Franco's government. Instead, he found a job in the Spanish phone company and saved his salary to buy a Super 8 camera. From 1972 to 1978, he devoted himself to make short films with the help of of his friends. The "premieres" of those early films were famous in the rapidly growing world of the Spanish counter-culture. In few years, Almodóvar became a star of "La Movida", the pop cultural movement of late 70s Madrid. His first feature film, Pepi, Luci, Bom and Other Girls Like Mom (1980), was made in 16 mm and blown-up to 35 mm for public release. In 1987, he and his brother Agustín Almodóvar established their own production company: El Deseo, S. A. The "Almodóvar phenomenon" has reached all over the world, making his films very popular in many countries.- Director
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Robert Altman was born on February 20th, 1925 in Kansas City, Missouri, to B.C. (an insurance salesman) and Helen Altman. He entered St. Peters Catholic school at the age six, and spent a short time at a Catholic high school. From there, he went to Rockhurst High School. It was then that he started exploring the art of exploring sound with the cheap tape recorders available at the time. He was then sent to Wentworth Military Academy in Lexington, Missouri where he attended through Junior College. In 1945, he enlisted in the US Army Air Forces and became a copilot of a B-24. After his discharge from the military, he became fascinated by movies and he and his first wife, LaVonne Elmer, moved to Hollywood, where Altman tried acting (appearing in the film The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947)), songwriting (he wrote a musical intended for Broadway, "The Rumors are Flying"), and screen-writing (he co-wrote the screenplay for the film Bodyguard (1948) and wrote the story (uncredited) for Christmas Eve (1947)), but he could not get a foot hold in Tinseltown. After a brief fling as publicity director with a company in the business of tattooing dogs, Altman finally gave up and returned to his hometown of Kansas City, where he decided he wanted to do some serious work in filmmaking. An old friend of his recommended him to a film production company in Kansas City, the Calvin Co., who hired him in 1950. After a few months of work in writing scripts and editing films, Altman began directing films at Calvin. It was here (while working on documentaries, employee training films, industrial and educational films and advertisements) that he learned much about film making. All in all, Altman pieced together sixty to sixty-five short films for Calvin on every subject imaginable, from football to car crashes, but he kept grasping for more challenging projects. He wrote the screenplay for the Kansas City-produced feature film Corn's-A-Poppin' (1955), he produced and directed several television commercials including one with the Eileen Ford Agency, he co-created and directed the TV series The Pulse of the City (1953) which ran for one season on the independent Dumont network, and he even had a formative crack at directing local community theater. His big-screen directorial debut came while still at Calvin with The Delinquents (1957) and, by 1956, he left the Calvin Co., and went to Hollywood to direct Alfred Hitchcock's TV show. From here, he went on to direct a large number of television shows, until he was offered the script for M*A*S*H (1970) in 1969. He was hardly the producer's first choice - more than fifteen other directors had already turned it down. This wasn't his first movie, but it was his first success. After that, he had his share of hits and misses, but The Player (1992) and, more recently, Gosford Park (2001) were particularly well-received.- Director
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Santiago Álvarez was born on 18 March 1919 in Cuba. He was a director and writer, known for 79 primaveras (1969), Hanoi, martes 13 (1968) and El sueño del pongo (1970). He died on 20 May 1998 in Havana, Cuba.- Writer
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Luis César Amadori was born on 28 May 1903 in Pescara, Abruzzo, Italy. He was a writer and director, known for Honeysuckle (1938), La pasión desnuda (1953) and Almafuerte (1949). He was married to Zully Moreno. He died on 5 June 1977 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Actor
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Axel von Ambesser was born on 22 June 1910 in Hamburg, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Ihr erstes Rendezvous (1955), Tanz mit dem Kaiser (1941) and Traumschöne Nacht (1952). He was married to Inge von Ambesser. He died on 6 September 1988 in Munich, Bavaria, West Germany.- Writer
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Is the son of a Spanish mother and a Chilean father. His family moved back to Spain when he was 1 year old, and he grew up and studied in Madrid. He wrote, produced and directed his first short film La cabeza at the age of 19, and he was 23 when he directed his feature debut Thesis (1996). His film Open Your Eyes (1997) was a huge success in Spain and was distributed worldwide. It was remade in Hollywood by Cameron Crowe as Vanilla Sky (2001), starring Tom Cruise, Penelope Cruz (also the star of the original version) and Cameron Diaz. The Others (2001) is Amenábar's first English language film.- Director
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Franco Amurri was born on 12 September 1958 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is a director and writer, known for Da grande (1987), Flashback (1990) and Monkey Trouble (1994). He is married to Heide Amurri. They have two children.- Actor
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One of the most beloved, charismatic and accomplished actors as well as one of the most imaginative and pathbreaking directors in the history of Indian cinema, Dev Anand was a leading man for more than five decades in over 110 motion pictures and continues to bestride Indian film fraternity even after his passing. He gave a new dimension to that magical state known as Stardom. And for his exemplary work he was awarded the Padma Bhushan in 2001 by the President of India. From the time he embarked on his career as a Film Actor in the mid-forties till his demise, his movies had been a journey filled with enriching experiences for the 'Evergreen Living Legend' of Indian Cinema. And he had always remained eternally youthful by his remarkable ability to live always in the present and the future; never in the past.
Also, as head of his film production company Navketan International Films, which was founded in 1949, Anand introduced a multitude of talent to the Indian Film Industry by way of actors, directors, music composers and cinematographers. He introduced new talent to cinema and experimented with new ideas for movies. He also headed one of the finest Film Sound Post-Production facilities in India - Anand Recording Studios - which has to its credit more than 3,000 Indian feature films that have been mixed/ surround mixed for worldwide release.
Anand won two Filmfare Awards - India's equivalent of the Oscars - in 1958 for his performance in the film "Kala Paani" (Black Water) and in 1966 for his performance in Navketan International Films' "Guide". "Guide" went on to win Filmfare Awards in five other categories including 'Best Film' and 'Best Director' and was sent as India's entry for the Oscars in the foreign film category that year. He co-produced the English Version of "Guide" with the Nobel Laureate Pearl S. Buck ("The Good Earth"). Eventually, his creative sensibilities got the better of him and he started writing and directing his own movies.
In 1993, he received a Filmfare 'Lifetime Achievement Award' and in 1996 he received a Screen Videocon 'Lifetime Achievement Award'. Then in 1997 he was given the Mumbai Academy of Moving Images Award for his Outstanding Services to the Indian Film Industry. In 1998, he was given a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' by the Ujala Anandlok Film Awards Committee in Calcutta. In 1999, he received the Sansui 'Lifetime Achievement Award' for his 'Immense Contribution to Indian Cinema' in New Delhi. In the year 2000, he was awarded the Film Goers' 'Mega Movie Maestro of the Millenium' Award in Mumbai. And then in July 2000, in New York City, he was honored by an Award at the hands of the then First Lady of the United States of America - Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton - for his 'Outstanding Contribution to Indian Cinema'. And again Anand was awarded the Indo-American Association 'Star of the Millennium' Award in the Silicon Valley, California. The President of India honored Anand with the prestigious Padma Bhushan Award on India's Republic Day - January 26th, 2001. And yet again, Donna Ferrar, Member New York State Assembly, honored him with a New York State Assembly Citation for his 'Outstanding Contribution to the Cinematic Arts Worthy of the Esteem and Gratitude of the Great State of New York' on May 1st, 2001.
Most recently, in April 2003, Anand was given a 'Lifetime Achievement Award' by the F.I.F.A. Committee in Johannesburg, South Africa. For an Indian Movie Icon who has hobnobbed with royalty, heads of State and celebrities, he did it all.
Anand passed away on December 3rd, 2011 in London's Washington Hotel, aged 88.
There are some who might remember Anand for not hanging his boots at the right time like his rival Dilip Kumar. But for millions of his admirers, both India and overseas, he shall remain the embodiment of someone who just never learnt to give up and being one of the pivotal figures who shaped the destiny of Indian Cinema in its formative years post independence and with his peerless intellect combined with his killer good looks gave it a footing on the map of world.- Director
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Anders weathered a rough childhood and young adult life which not only encouraged an escapist penchant for making up characters but also an insider's sympathy for the strong but put-upon women who people her films. Growing up in rural Kentucky, Anders would always remember hanging onto her father's leg at age five as he abandoned her family. Traveling frequently with her mother and sisters, Anders would later be raped at age 12, endure abuse from a stepfather who once threatened her with a gun, and suffer a mental breakdown at age 15. Venturing back to Kentucky from Los Angeles at 17, she would soon move to London to live with the man who would father her first child. Upon her return to the US, Anders finally began to pick up the pieces of her life. She enrolled in junior college and later the UCLA film school and managed when a second daughter came along. Enchanted with _Wim Wenders_' films, she so deluged the filmmaker with correspondence that he gave her a job as a production assistant on his film Paris, Texas (1984). After graduating from UCLA, Anders made her feature writing and directing debut, Border Radio (1987), a study of the LA punk scene, in collaboration with two former classmates. Her first solo effort, Gas Food Lodging (1992), telling of a single mother and her two teenage daughters, and her followup, My Crazy Life (1993), looking at girl gangs in the Echo Park neighborhood of LA where Anders settled, have shown her to be a deeply personal filmmaker who has used her own experience to make grittily realistic, well-observed, gently ambling studies of women coming of age amid tough, sterile social conditions.- Writer
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Gerry Anderson was born on 14 April 1929 in West Hampstead, London, England, UK. He was a writer and producer, known for Joe 90 (1968), Invasion: UFO (1974) and UFO (1970). He was married to Mary Robins, Sylvia Anderson and Betty Wrightman. He died on 26 December 2012 in Henley-on-Thames, England, UK.- Director
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American actor-director-writer-producer Gilbert M. Anderson, father of the movie cowboy and the first Western star, was born Maxwell Henry Aronson in Little Rock, Arkansas. His parents, Esther (Ash) and Henry Aronson, were from New York. His father was from a German Jewish family, and his mother was the daughter of Russian Jewish parents. He had worked as a photographer's model and newspaper vendor before drifting into acting. He performed in vaudeville before joining forces with Edwin S. Porter as an actor and occasional script collaborator. In Porter's startling early film The Great Train Robbery (1903), Anderson played several roles (among them, the train passenger shot by bandits as he tries to escape). The success of that film prompted Anderson to begin writing, directing and starring in his own series of Westerns. In 1907 he and George K. Spoor founded Essanay Film Manufacturing Co., destined to be one of the predominant early film studios. Anderson gained enormous popularity in hundreds of Western shorts, playing the first real cowboy hero, "Broncho Billy." Writing and directing most of the films, Anderson also found time to direct a series of "Alkali Ike" comedy Westerns starring Augustus Carney. In 1916 Anderson sold his ownership in Essanay and retired from acting. He returned to New York and bought the Longacre Theatre and produced plays there, though not achieving the same kind of success he enjoyed in films. He made a brief comeback as a producer with a series of shorts starring Stan Laurel for Metro Pictures. However, a series of conflicts with the studio led him retire again after 1920. He continued to produce films as owner of Progressive Pictures into the 1950s. In his 70s, he came out of retirement for a cameo role in The Bounty Killer (1965). He had been presented with an honorary Oscar in 1957 as a "motion picture pioneer, for his contributions to the development of motion pictures as entertainment." Anderson died in 1971 at the age of 90.- Additional Crew
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Director, producer, songwriter and author, educated at Edinburgh Academy in Scotland and Lausanne University in Switzerland. He studied drama with Herbert Beerbohm Tree. In World War I he served in the American Bureau of Information. On Broadway, he directed and wrote the scores for "Greenwich Village Follies" (5 editions), and "Jack and Jill", and directed "What's In a Name?" (also librettist and producer), "The League of Notions" (London), "Music Box Revue of 1924", "Dearest Enemy", "John Murray Anderson's Almanac" (1929, also producer, 1953), "Bow Bells" (London), "Fanfare" (London), "Ziegfeld Follies" (1934, 1936, 1943), "Life Begins at 8:40", "Thumbs Up!", "Jumbo", "One for the Money", "Two for the Show", "Laffing Room Only", "Three to Make Ready", "New Faces of 1952", and "Two's Company". He was the director at Radio City Music Hall in 1933, at the Great Lakes Exposition in Cleveland in 1937, at Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe from 1938-1950, and for Ringling Brothers Circus from 1942-1951. He joined ASCAP in 1950 and his chief musical collaborators included Mitchell Parish, Walter and Jean Kerr, and Joan Ford. His popular-music compositions include: "The Girl in the Moon"; "Eileen Avourneen"; "That Reminiscent Melody"; "The Valley of Dreams"; "The Last Waltz"; "Come to Vienna"; "Some Day When Dreams Come True"; "A Young Man's Fancy"; "At the Krazy Kat's Ball" and "Annabell Lee".- Director
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Lindsay was born in Bangalore, India but educated in England at Cheltenham College and Wadham College, Oxford where he was a classical scholar. He then spent 3 years war time service in the Kings Royal Rifle Corps. His career in the theatre started at the Royal Court in the late 1950's where he was responsible for the premiere productions of The Long and the Short and the Tall, Sergeant Musgrave's Dance, Billy Liar and The Bed Before Yesterday. His collaboration with David Storey began with the film This Sporting Life followed by the plays In Celebration, Home, The Changing Room, Early Days and his last, in 1992, Stages He also contributed to the Times, Observer and New Statesman newspapers.- Director
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London-born Michael Anderson began his career in films as an office boy at Elstree studios. By 1938, he had progressed up the ladder to become assistant director for distinguished film makers Noël Coward, David Lean and Anthony Asquith. Shortly after, during wartime with the Royal Signals Corps (Army Kinematograph Service), Anderson made the acquaintance of Peter Ustinov. Upon demobilisation, the 24-year old up-and-coming director secured the release from the military of his 'favourite corporal' and mentor to work as first assistant on Secret Flight (1946) and Vice Versa (1948). For Ustinov's third venture, Private Angelo (1949), Anderson both co-directed and co-wrote the screenplay, but the picture that first put him on the map was to be the patriotic wartime drama The Dam Busters (1955), based on true events. Britain's most successful film of 1955, in turn, led to Anderson being hired by Mike Todd to direct the all-star blockbuster Around the World in 80 Days (1956). A hugely popular box-office hit and winner of five Academy Awards, it elevated Anderson into the realm of more ambitious international productions.
His strong visual style -- in no small way complemented by a fruitful and long-standing collaboration with the cinematographer Erwin Hillier -- became ideally suited for suspenseful thrillers and action subjects like Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958), the sub-Hitchcockian psychological whodunnit The Naked Edge (1961) or the underrated maritime drama The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) (based on a novel by Hammond Innes and originally intended for Alfred Hitchcock who went on to do North by Northwest (1959) instead). Another little gem is the intricately plotted spy thriller The Quiller Memorandum (1966), tautly directed and noteworthy for supremely well captured Berlin exteriors (a familiarity which stemmed from Anderson having spent some of his early childhood in Berlin and Hillier having worked at Ufa in the 20s before collaborating on Fritz Lang's classic thriller M (1931)). According to Hillier, Anderson also had a reputation for being "superb at handling actors". This is reflected in his films which have often featured big name stars like Gary Cooper, Charlton Heston, Laurence Olivier or Alec Guinness.
Moving into science fiction, Anderson made style triumph over content with his (for the time) expensively made dystopian thriller Logan's Run (1976). Though not a big success with critics, the picture won at the box office and helped MGM out of its financial doldrums. Also in this genre, but with less distinction, Anderson directed Millennium (1989) and a miniseries, The Martian Chronicles (1980). A foray into the world of comic strip heroes, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975), proved to be one of his rare failures. His more recent work of note has included the Gemini Award-winning TV movie Young Catherine (1991), based on the early life of Russia's Catherine the Great. Vanessa Redgrave, who played Empress Elizabeth, was also nominated for a Primetime Emmy in the Supporting Actress category.
In 1957, Anderson received the Silver Medallion for outstanding work from the Screen Director's Guild of America and was in 2012 also honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of Canada. A Canadian resident since the 1970s, Anderson passed away at his home on the Canadian Sunshine Coast in British Columbia on April 25 2018 at the age of 98.- Director
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Anderson was born in 1970. He was one of the first of the "video store" generation of film-makers. His father was the first man on his block to own a V.C.R., and from a very early age Anderson had an infinite number of titles available to him. While film-makers like Spielberg cut their teeth making 8 mm films, Anderson cut his teeth shooting films on video and editing them from V.C.R. to V.C.R.
Part of Anderson's artistic D.N.A. comes from his father, who hosted a late night horror show in Cleveland. His father knew a number of oddball celebrities such as Robert Ridgely, an actor who often appeared in Mel Brooks' films and would later play "The Colonel" in Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997). Anderson was also very much shaped by growing up in "The Valley", specifically the suburban San Fernando Valley of greater Los Angeles. The Valley may have been immortalized in the 1980s for its mall-hopping "Valley Girls", but for Anderson it was a slightly seedy part of suburban America. You were close to Hollywood, yet you weren't there. Would-bes and burn-outs populated the area. Anderson's experiences growing up in "The Valley" have no doubt shaped his artistic self, especially since three of his four theatrical features are set in the Valley.
Anderson got into film-making at a young age. His most significant amateur film was The Dirk Diggler Story (1988), a sort of mock-documentary a la This Is Spinal Tap (1984), about a once-great pornography star named Dirk Diggler. After enrolling in N.Y.U.'s film program for two days, Anderson got his tuition back and made his own short film, Cigarettes & Coffee (1993). He also worked as a production assistant on numerous commercials and music videos before he got the chance to make his first feature, something he liked to call Sydney, but would later become known to the public as Hard Eight (1996). The film was developed and financed through The Sundance Lab, not unlike Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992). Anderson cast three actors whom he would continue working with in the future: Altman veteran Philip Baker Hall, the husky and lovable John C. Reilly and, in a small part, Philip Seymour Hoffman, who so far has been featured in all four of Anderson's films. The film deals with a guardian angel type (played by Hall) who takes down-on-his-luck Reilly under his wing. The deliberately paced film featured a number of Anderson trademarks: wonderful use of source light, long takes and top-notch acting. Yet the film was reedited (and retitled) by Rysher Entertainment against Anderson's wishes. It was admired by critics, but didn't catch on at the box office. Still, it was enough for Anderson to eventually get his next movie financed. "Boogie Nights" was, in a sense, a remake of "The Dirk Diggler Story", but Anderson threw away the satirical approach and instead painted a broad canvas about a makeshift family of pornographers. The film was often joyous in its look at the 1970s and the days when pornography was still shot on film, still shown in theatres, and its actors could at least delude themselves into believing that they were movie stars. Yet "Boogie Nights" did not flinch at the dark side, showing a murder and suicide, literally in one (almost) uninterrupted shot, and also showing the lives of these people deteriorate, while also showing how their lives recovered.
Anderson not only worked with Hall, Reilly and Hoffman again, he also worked with Julianne Moore, Melora Walters, William H. Macy and Luis Guzmán. Collectively, Anderson had something that was rare in U.S. cinema: a stock company of top-notch actors. Aside from the above mentioned, Anderson also drew terrific performances from Burt Reynolds and Mark Wahlberg, two actors whose careers were not exactly going full-blast at the time of "Boogie Nights", but who found themselves to be that much more employable afterwards.
The success of "Boogie Nights" gave Anderson the chance to really go for broke in Magnolia (1999), a massive mosaic that could dwarf Altman's Nashville (1975) in its number of characters.
Anderson was awarded a "Best Director" award at Cannes for Punch-Drunk Love (2002).- Writer
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Paul W.S. Anderson gained a fair bit of notoriety in his native England when he directed the ultra-violent Shopping (1994) (which he also wrote), starring Jude Law and Sean Pertwee in a story about thieves who steal by ramming a car into storefronts. The film was banned in some cinemas in England, and became a direct-to-video slightly edited release in the United States.
Shopping (1994) allowed Anderson to get the chance to direct Mortal Kombat (1995), an adaptation of the hit video game, which showcased his directorial trademarks - visually stunning scenery and quick-cut editing. The film did well enough for him to choose his next project, which was Soldier (1998) with Warner Bros., with Kurt Russell in the lead. Unfortunately, Russell decided at the time to go on hiatus, pushing the release date of that film into 1998. In the meantime, Anderson directed Event Horizon (1997) from a script by Philip Eisner, which featured Anderson regulars Sean Pertwee and Jason Isaacs. The science fiction/horror film, a Gothic horror version of Solaris (1972), was stylish and scary, but was critically panned and did not do well in the box office, which Anderson blamed on studio-enforced cuts to the story. (Anderson has promised a Director's Cut, though none has been announced as of yet).
Soldier (1998) didn't fare well with critics and box office either, and Anderson's planned 2000 remake of Death Race 2000 (1975) was canceled. This forced him to think smaller, which led to The Sight (2000), a supernatural mystery movie that was a minor hit. He then resurfaced to direct another video game adaption, Resident Evil (2002). Long rumored among fans to be a choice comeback vehicle for zombie grandfather George A. Romero, the writing and directing credits eventually transferred to Anderson. He next was given the helm for the long-awaited film adaption of the popular Dark Horse comic book, Alien vs. Predator (2004).- Director
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Wesley Wales Anderson was born in Houston, Texas. His mother, Texas Ann (Burroughs), is an archaeologist turned real estate agent, and his father, Melver Leonard Anderson, worked in advertising and PR. He has two brothers, Eric and Mel. Anderson's parents divorced when he was a young child, an event that he described as the most crucial event of his brothers and his growing up. During childhood, Anderson also began writing plays and making super-8 movies. He was educated at Westchester High School and then St. John's, a private prep school in Houston, Texas, which was later to prove an inspiration for the film Rushmore (1998).
Anderson attended the University of Texas in Austin, where he majored in philosophy. It was there that he met Owen Wilson. They became friends and began making short films, some of which aired on a local cable-access station. One of their shorts was Bottle Rocket (1993), which starred Owen and his brother Luke Wilson. The short was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, where it was successfully received, so much so that they received funding to make a feature-length version. Bottle Rocket (1996) was not a commercial hit, but it gained a cult audience and high-profile fans, which included Martin Scorsese.
Success followed with films such as Rushmore (1998), The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and an animated feature, Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009). The latter two films earned Anderson Oscar nominations.- Director
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Roy Arne Lennart Andersson is a Swedish film director, best known for his distinctive style of absurdist humor and melancholic depictions of human life. His personal style is characterized by long takes, and stiff caricaturing of Swedish culture and grotesque. Over his career Andersson earned prizes from the Cannes Film Festival, Berlin International Film Festival and Venice International Film Festival.
Andersson spent much of his professional life working on advertisement spots, directing over 400 commercials and two short films; directing six feature-length films in six decades. He made his feature film debut with A Swedish Love Story (1970) followed by Giliap (1975). Anderson received the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize for Songs from the Second Floor (2000). His film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) won the Venice International Film Festival's Golden Lion. He other notable films include You, the Living (2007), and About Endlessness (2019).- Specializing in intense psychological dramas, Bulgarian filmmaker Metodi Andonov is best remembered for making one of his country's most popular films, The Goat Horn (1972). He also directed a pair of high-grossing detective dramas based on the novels and screenplays of Bogomil Rainov, There's Nothing Finer Than Bad Weather (1971) and The Great Boredom (1973). Andonov graduated from the Sofia Academy of Dramatic Art in 1955 after studying theater direction. Before entering the film industry, he directed productions at the Dramatic Theater in Burgas and at the Satirical Theater in Sofia. Andonov made his feature directorial debut in 1968 with The White Room, which was based on a Rainov novel. In addition to his work in theater and cinema, Andonov occasionally directed for television.
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Theo Angelopoulos began to study law in Athens but broke up his studies to go to the Sorbonne in Paris in order to study literature. When he had finished his studies, he wanted to attend the School of Cinema at Paris but decided instead to go back to Greece. There he worked as a journalist and critic for the newspaper "Demokratiki Allaghi" until it was banned by the military after a coup d'état. Now unemployed, he decided to make his first movie, Anaparastasi (1970). Internationally successful was his trilogy about the history of Greece from 1930 to 1970 consisting of Days of '36 (1972), The Travelling Players (1975), and Oi kynigoi (1977). After the end of the dictatorship in Greece, Angelopoulos went to Italy, where he worked with RAI (and more money). His movies then became less political.- Director
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Kenneth Anger grew up in Hollywood and started out as a child actor, but his interest in filmmaking was evident at an early age: he made his first film, Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat (1941) , at age 14.
Anger developed into one of the pioneers of the American underground film movement. His gritty, violent, often homosexual-themed films were too strong for American audiences of the time, and many of his productions were filmed in Europe, mainly France.
However, Anger is best known for authoring the landmark "Hollywood Babylon" book series, which detailed a far seamier side of the Hollywood film industry than most people were aware.- Director
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A former salesman and journalist, Ken Annakin got into the film industry making documentary shorts. His feature debut, Holiday Camp (1947), was a comedy about a Cockney family on vacation. It was made for the Rank Organization and was a modest success, spawning three sequels, all of which he directed. He worked steadily thereafter, mainly in light comedies. One of his more atypical films was the dark thriller Across the Bridge (1957), based on a Graham Greene story about a wealthy businessman who embezzles a million dollars from his company, kills a man who resembles him and steals his identity so he can escape to Mexico. It boasted an acclaimed performance by Rod Steiger as the villain and a distinct "noir" feel to it, unlike anything Annakin had done before (or, for that matter, since).
In the 1960s he was one of several British directors--e.g., Guy Green, John Guillermin--who specialized in turning out all-star, splashy, big-budget European/American co-productions, shot on the Continent. He was one of the directors of the epic World War II spectacle The Longest Day (1962) and went solo on Battle of the Bulge (1965), both of which were financial--if not exactly critical--successes. He also directed Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965), which was less successful. His final film was Genghis Khan: The Story of a Lifetime, a film that was started in 1992 under Annakin's direction but never completed. In 2009 it was restarted again and Annakin was hired to assemble the existing footage for release, but died before completing the job. Italian director Antonio Margheriti finished up and the film was released in 2010.- Director
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Jean-Jacques Annaud is a French film director, screenwriter and producer, best known for directing Quest for Fire (1981), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Lover (1992), Seven Years in Tibet (1997) and Wolf Totem (2015). Annaud has received numerous awards for his work, including four César Awards, one David di Donatello Award, and one National Academy of Cinema Award. Annaud's first film, Black and White in Color (1976), received an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.- Actor
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Nisar Ahmad Ansari was born on 29 August 1917 in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, British India [now India]. He was an actor and director, known for Wahan Ke Log (1967), Black Cat (1959) and Crime and Punishment (1974). He was married to Mubarak Nanji. He died on 11 January 1993 in Port Colborne, Ontario, Canada.- Producer
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Best known for the inspirational sports dramas Hoosiers (1986) and Rudy (1993), David Anspaugh has enjoyed a long career as a director and producer of film and television. Born in Decatur, Indiana in 1946 to Lawrence Anspaugh, a portrait photographer, and his wife, Marie, he was a member of his high school's football, basketball, and track teams. As a student majoring in secondary education at Indiana University, Anspaugh shot his own short movies and filmed concerts, football games, and Vietnam War protests using a 16mm camera. After graduation he moved to Aspen, Colorado, where he worked as a substitute teacher, waiter, and ski instructor before relocating to Los Angeles to attend film school at the University of Southern California. At the time he couldn't imagine ever working in Hollywood, although that would change in just a few years.
Anspaugh started his career as a producer and director of acclaimed TV shows Hill Street Blues (1981), St. Elsewhere (1982), and Miami Vice (1984). He made the transition to feature films when his best friend from IU, Angelo Pizzo, wrote "Hoosiers" and wanted Anspaugh to direct. The scene in "Hoosiers" in which the Hickory Huskers and their coach enter the enormous and empty Butler Fieldhouse was suggested by Anspaugh. Seven years later the two friends reteamed to make the college-football movie "Rudy." Anspaugh insisted on casting Sean Astin in the lead role, even though studio executives wanted someone tall and athletic. And it was Anspaugh's idea to hire NFL Films to shoot the movie's game footage. Anspaugh and Pizzo also collaborated on 1950s World Cup soccer film The Game of Their Lives (2005). Anspaugh has rounded out his career by directing motion pictures and TV movies on many topics other than sports.
In 2014 Anspaugh relocated from Santa Monica, California to Bloomington, Indiana, where he taught a class at IU, directed local theater productions, and served as an executive producer on films.- Producer
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Tony Anthony is largely credited with the revival of the 3-D concept in the early 1980s. Anthony did, however work for many years on Spaghetti Westerns (some with co-production company Lupo-Anthony-Quintano Productions). He produced and starred in two 3-Dimensional movies, both of which enjoyed a modest theatrical release. After making these two films, Anthony effectively retired from the movie industries (except for the occasional production work with friend Gene Quintano or Mark Damon).- Writer
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Manuel Antin was born on 27 February 1926 in Las Palmas, Chaco, Argentina. He is a writer and director, known for La cifra impar (1962), Don Segundo Sombra (1969) and Los venerables todos (1963).- Writer
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Together with Fellini, Bergman and Kurosawa, Michelangelo Antonioni is credited with defining the modern art film. And yet Antonioni's cinema is also recognized today for defying any easy categorization, with his films ultimately seeming to belong to their own distinctive genre. Indeed, the difficulty of precisely describing their category is itself the very quintessence of Antonioni's films. Among the most-cited contributions of Antonioni's cinema are their striking descriptions of that unique strain of post-boom ennui everywhere apparent in the transformed life and leisure habits of the Italian middle and upper classes. Detecting profound technological, political and psychological shifts at work in post-WWII Italy, Antonioni set out to explore the ambiguities of a suddenly alienated and dislocated Italy, not simply through his oblique style of narrative and characters, nor through any overt political messaging, but instead by tearing asunder the traditional boundaries of cinematic narrative in order to explore an ever shifting internal landscape expressed through architecture, urban space and the sculptural, shaping presence of objects, shapes and emotions invented by camera movement and depth of focus.
Antonioni deftly manipulates the quieter, indirect edges of cinematic structure, often so discretely that his existential puzzles are felt before they can be intellectualized. The negative space is as prominent as the positive, silence as loud as noise, absence as palpable as presence, and passivity as driving a force as direct action. Transgressing unspoken cinematic laws, Antonioni frequently focuses on female protagonists while refusing to sentimentalize or morally judge his characters and placing them on equal footing with the other elements within his total dynamic system, like sounds or set pieces. And he violates spoken rules with unconventional cutting techniques, fractured spatial and temporal continuity, and a camera that insistently lingers in melancholy pauses, long after the actors depart, as if drifting just behind an equally distracted, dissipating narrative. Leaving questions unanswered and plot points irresolute, dispensing with exposition, suspense, sentimentality and other cinematic security blankets, Antonioni releases the viewer into a gorgeous, densely layered fog to contemplate and wrestle with his characters' imprecise quandaries and endless possibilities. Culminating in tour de force endings that often reframe the narrative in a daring, parting act of deconstruction, Antonioni's rigorously formal, yet open compositions allow his great, unwieldy questions to spill over into the world outside the cinema and outside of time.
Born into a middle-class family in the northern Italian town of Ferrara, Antonioni studied economics at the University of Bologna where he also co-founded the university's theatrical troupe. While dedicating himself to painting, writing film reviews, working in financial positions and in different capacities on film productions, Antonioni suffered a few false starts before expressing his unique directorial vision and voice in his first realized short film, Gente del Po, a moving portrait of fisherman in the misty Po Valley where he was raised. Uncomfortable with the neo-realist thrust of Italian cinema, Antonioni directed a series of eccentric and oblique documentary shorts that, in retrospect, reveal his desire to investigate the psyche's mysterious interiors. In his first fictional feature, Story of a Love Affair, Antonioni immediately subtly challenged traditional plot and audience expectation in ways that anticipate the formal and emotional expressionist dynamic that would fully flower within the groundbreaking L'Avventura (1960).
Reversing its raucous 1960 premiere to an infuriated Cannes audience, L'Avventura was rapturously lauded by fellow artists and filmmakers and awarded a special Jury Prize "for its remarkable contribution toward the search for a new cinematic language." It also presented the controlled ambivalence of Monica Vitti, who would become his partner, muse and psychological constant throughout his famed trilogy of L'Avventura, La Notte (1961) and L'Eclisse (1962) in addition to the exquisite Red Desert (1964), a film that marked another significant shift toward expressive color, male leads and working with soft focus and faster cuts. After the phenomenal commercial success of the MGM-produced Blow-Up (1966), Antonioni was devastated by the anti-climactic box office disaster of Zabriskie Point (1970) and returned to documentary. Invited to make Chung Kuo China by the Chinese government, Antonioni delivered a mesmerizing yet unsentimental four-hour tour of China which was vehemently rejected by its solicitors. A few years later, Antonioni returned to fictional form in his last masterpiece, The Passenger (1975), an enigmatic fable of vaporous identity that offers a bold companion piece to L'Avventura. Aside from the thematically retrospective Identification of a Woman (1982) and a period film made for television, The Mystery of Oberwald (1980) in which he conducted unusual experiments with color and video, Antonioni closed out his career with mostly short films, many of which were made after he suffered a stroke in 1985.
Tremendously influential yet largely taken for granted, Antonioni made difficult, abstract cinema mainstream. Embracing an anarchic geometry, Antonioni turned the architecture of narrative filmmaking inside-out in the most eloquent way possible, with many of his iconic scenes eternally preserved in the depths of the cinema's psyche. Observing modern maladies without judgment - sexism, dissolution of family and tradition, ecological/technological quandaries and the eternal questions of our place in the cosmos - Antonioni's prescience continues to resonate deeply as we find our way in the quickly moving fog.- Director
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Michael Apted was born on 10 February 1941 in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, England, UK. He was a director and producer, known for Amazing Grace (2006), Gorillas in the Mist (1988) and Rome (2005). He was married to Paige Simpson, Dana Stevens and Jo Apted. He died on 7 January 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Director
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Vicente Aranda was born on 9 November 1926 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He was a director and writer, known for Lovers: A True Story (1991), El Lute: Run for Your Life (1987) and The Maidens' Conspiracy (2006). He was married to Teresa Font. He died on 26 May 2015 in Madrid, Spain.- Actor
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Alfonso Arau has had a long and fruitful career both in front of and behind the camera and is one of the most prominent Latino film-makers in Hollywood. He was a drama disciple of Seki Sano--a Japanese teacher, classmate of Lee Strasberg with Konstantin Stanislavski in Russia--and traveled the world from 1964 to 1968 with his one-man show, "Pantomime Happy Madness", after studying with Etienne Decroux and Jacques Lecoq in Paris.
A renowned writer-producer-director-actor in theater and film for more than twenty years, in 1969 he directed his first feature film, El águila descalza (1971), in which he also starred. He has directed many films in Mexico, among them Inspector Calzonzin (1974) and Mojado Power (1981). He has received six Arieles--the Mexican equivalent of the Oscar--and numerous international film awards.
Arau has acted in a number of Mexican and Hollywood films, including The Wild Bunch (1969), El Topo (1970), Mojado Power (1981), Used Cars (1980), Romancing the Stone (1984), Three Amigos! (1986) and Committed (2000). In addition to Like Water for Chocolate (1992), his directing credits include A Walk in the Clouds (1995) with Keanu Reeves and Picking Up the Pieces (2000) with Woody Allen. For television he has done The Magnificent Ambersons (2002), based on the script of Orson Welles' film version (The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)) and the novel by Booth Tarkington.- Actor
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Roscoe Arbuckle, the youngest of nine children, reportedly weighed 16 pounds at birth in Smith Center, Kansas on March 24, 1887. His family moved to California when he was one year old. At age 8 he first appeared on the stage. His first part was with the Webster-Brown stock company. From then until 1913, Roscoe was on the stage, performing as an acrobat, a clown, and a singer. His first real professional engagement was in 1904, singing illustrated songs for Sid Grauman at the Unique Theater in San Jose, California at $17.50 a week. He later worked in the Morosco Burbank stock company and traveled through China and Japan with Ferris Hartman. His last appearance on the stage was with Hartman in Yokahama, Japan in 1913, where he played the Mikado.
Back in Hollywood, Arbuckle went to work at Mack Sennett's Keystone film studio at $40 a week. For the next 3-1/2 years he never starred or even featured, but appeared in hundreds of one-reel comedies. He would play mostly policemen, usually with the Keystone Kops, but he also played different parts. He would work with Mabel Normand, Ford Sterling, Charles Chaplin, among others, and would learn about the process of making movies from Henry Lehrman, who directed all but two of his pictures. Roscoe was a gentle and genteel man off screen and always believed that Sennett never thought that he was funny.
Roscoe never used his weight to get a laugh. He would never be found stuck in a chair or doorway. He was remarkably agile for his size and used that agility to find humor in situations. By 1914 he had begun to direct some of his one-reels. The next year he moved up to two-reels, which meant that he would need to sustain the comedy to be successful; as it turned out, he was. Among his films were Fatty Again (1914), Mabel, Fatty and the Law (1915), Mabel and Fatty's Wash Day (1915), Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco (1915), Fatty's Reckless Fling (1915), and many more. For "Mabel and Fatty Viewing the World's Fair at San Francisco", Keystone took the actors to the real World's Fair to use as background; the studio's cost was negligible, while the San Francisco backgrounds made the picture look expensive.
By 1917 Roscoe formed a partnership with Joseph M. Schenck, a powerful producer who was also the husband of Norma Talmadge. The company they formed was called Comique and the films that Roscoe made were released through Famous Players on a percentage basis, and soon Arbuckle was making over $1,000 a week. With his own company Roscoe had complete creative control over his productions. He also hired a young performer he met in New York by the name of Buster Keaton. Keaton's film career would start with Roscoe in The Butcher Boy (1917). Roscoe wrote his own stories first, tried them out and then devised funny twists to generate the laughs. His comedy star was second only to Charles Chaplin. With the success of Comique, Paramount asked Roscoe to move from two-reel shorts to full-length features in 1919. Roscoe's first feature was The Round-up (1920) and it was successful. It was soon followed by other features, including Brewster's Millions (1921) and Gasoline Gus (1921).
Ufortunately, tragedy struck on Labor Day on September 5, 1921 with the arrest and trial of Roscoe Arbuckle on manslaughter charges. Roscoe with friends Lowell Sherman and Fred Fishback drove to San Francisco where they checked into the St Francis Hotel threw a party and which was crashed by a "starlet" named Virginia Rappe, who fell seriously ill and died three days later from a ruptured bladder. Rappe had accused Arbuckle of raping her prior to passing away, but Rappe had a history of accusing men of rape. The newspapers, led by William Randolph Hearst, used this incident to generate Hollywood's first major scandal. Roscoe was tried not once but three times for the criminal charges; the trials began in November 1921 and lasted until April 1922; the first two ended with hung juries (the mistrial decision in the second trial was reached on February 3, 1922, the day after Arbuckle's friend and fellow Paramount director William Desmond Taylor was found murdered, and Arbuckle was visibly affected by the news). At his third and final trial in April of 1922, the jury not only returned a "not guilty" verdict but excoriated the prosecution for pursuing a flimsy case with no evidence of Arbuckle having committed any crime; it was at this final trial that the jury went further, writing a personal letter of sympathy and apology to Arbuckle for putting him through this ordeal. He kept it as a treasured memento for the rest of his life.
However, Arbuckle's acquittal marked the end of his comedic acting career. Unable to return to the screen, he later found work as a comedy director for Al St. John, Buster Keaton and others under the pseudonym "William Goodrich" (he was inspired to use this pseudonym by Keaton, who suggested Arbuckle use the name "Will B. Good"). In 1932 producer Samuel Sax signed Roscoe to appear in his very first sound comic short films for Warner Brothers, starting with Hey, Pop! (1932). He completed six shorts and showed the magic and youthful spirit that he had a decade before. With the success of the shorts, Warner Brothers signed Roscoe to a feature film contract, but he died in his sleep on June 29, 1933 , at age 46, the night after he signed the contract.- Writer
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One of Québec's most politically aware filmmakers, Denys Arcand studied history at Université de Montréal, where he co-directed Seul ou avec d'autres (1962) with Denis Héroux and co-written with Stéphane Venne. He joined the National Film Board (NFB) in 1963, where his feature-length documentary on the textile industry, On est au coton (1970), was so controversial it was suppressed for 6 years. He made another fine documentary, Québec: Duplessis et après... (1972), before leaving the NFB for the private sector. La maudite galette (1972), Réjeanne Padovani (1973) and Gina (1975) were distinctive views of Québec society, original and provocative. All 3 used the gangster film as a source while distorting many of its conventions. He then moved to TV, scripting the Duplessis (1978) series for Radio-Canada and directing 3 episodes of Empire, Inc. (1983). He returned to the NFB to make a documentary on the 1980 referendum, Le confort et l'indifférence (1982), which revealed growing cynicism about the political process. It won the Québec Critics Prize.
He returned to commercial filmmaking after a hiatus of 10 years with The Crime of Ovide Plouffe (1984), before achieving major success with the scathing comedy about sexual mores, The Decline of the American Empire (1986) (The Decline of the American Empire), a film that won numerous prizes, including the prestigious Critic's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. The New York Film Critics voted it Best Foreign Film in 1986 and it won Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay at the 1987 Genies. It was also nominated as Best Foreign Film by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science. Jesus of Montreal (1989) confirmed Arcand's international reputation, winning the Jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It won 10 Genies, including Best Picture and Director, and was nominated in the Best Foreign Film category by the Academy. Arcand then moved into English-language production in an attempt to break into a larger international market. Love and Human Remains (1993), his first feature in English, was followed by Stardom (2000), a film that looked at the world of fashion. Neither achieved the subtlety and texture of his earlier work.
The overwhelming success of The Barbarian Invasions (2003), which marked both a return to the French language and to the characters who had peopled The Decline of the American Empire (1986), showed that Arcand had lost none of his powers of observation. The film won two awards at the Cannes Film Festival (best screenplay, and best actor for Marie-Josée Croze), Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival and the prestigious Oscar for Best Foreign Film. In 2005 Arcand was named Companion of the Order of Canada, which recognizes individuals for exceptional achievements of national or international significance.- Actress
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Jane Arden was born in Wales in 1927 and left for London in her teens.
She trained at RADA and quickly began working as an actress and playwright. It was there that she met her future husband, Philip Saville, who is now perhaps most known for his work Boys from the Blackstuff (1982) and The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986). They had 2 children, Sebastian Saville and Dominic Saville and one step- child, Elizabeth Saville.
Jane Arden's plays include The Thug (1959) which starred Alan Bates, The Party (1958) which was directed by Charles Laughton and gave Albert Finney his first role in the theatre, Post Mortem (1999), _The New Communion For Freaks, Prophets and Witches (1999)_, The Illusionist (1983) and Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven (1969).
Jane Arden began tracing female oppression in 1966 when she wrote a script for the film The Logic Game (1965). It was described as a "surrealist puzzle" attempting to locate the isolation of women in the context of bourgeois marriage.
Arden's film career includes her original script and her performance in Separation (1968), which featured the song "Salad Days" by Procol Harum and was directed by Jane Arden's collaborator Jack Bond. In this film, women's' exploitation was exposed as their personal dilemma began to take on a political context.
Arden formed the feminist theatre group "Holocaust" and then wrote a play with the same name. In 1972, she adapted and directed this for the cinema as The Other Side of Underneath (1972).
Before her involvement with the Women's Liberation Movement, she appeared on TV talk programmes like Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life (1964) as a speaker on women and politics. As an actress, she was best known for her performance as "Inez" in a BBC-TV production of Jean-Paul Sartre Huis clos (1965), opposite Harold Pinter as "Garcia".
Two more films, both co-directed with Jack Bond, followed in the later 1970s, the experimental Vibration (1974), made in the USA in 1974, and Anti-Clock (1979) which opened the 1979 London Film Festival. It was the fist film to use video techniques in an experimental way. Her poetry books include "You Don't Know What You Want, Do You?". Jane Arden committed suicide on Dec. 20, 1982 in North Yorkshire and is buried in Darlington West Cemetary. She was 55 years old.- Director
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Emile Ardolino was born on 9 May 1943 in Maspeth, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Dirty Dancing (1987), Great Performances: Dance in America (1976) and He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin' (1983). He died on 20 November 1993 in Bel Air, California, USA.- Writer
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Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940, in Rome, Italy, the first-born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for filmmaking from his close-knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other family members, including an aunt who told him frighting bedtime stories. Argento based most of his thriller movies on childhood trauma, yet his own--according to him--was a normal one. Along with tales spun by his aunt, Argento was impressed by stories from The Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen and Edgar Allan Poe. Argento started his career writing for various film journal magazines while still in his teens attending a Catholic high school. After graduation, instead of going to college, Argento took a job as a columnist for the Rome daily newspaper "Paese Sera". Inspired by the movies, he later found work as a screenwriter and wrote several screenplays for a number of films, but the most important were his western collaborations, which included Cemetery Without Crosses (1969) and the Sergio Leone masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). After its release Argento wrote and directed his first movie, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970), which starred Tony Musante and and British actress Suzy Kendall. It's a loose adoption on Fredric Brown's novel "The Screaming Mimi", which was made for his father's film company. Argento wanted to direct the movie himself because he did not want any other director messing up the production and his screenplay.
After "The Bird With the Crystal Plumage" became an international hit, Argento followed up with two more thrillers, The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971), starring 'Karl Madlen' (qv" and 'James Fransiscus', and Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971) ("Four Flies On Black Velvet"), both backed by his father Salvatore. Argento then directed the TV drama Testimone oculare (1973) and the historical TV drama The Five Days (1973). He then went back to directing so-called "giallo" thrillers, starting with Deep Red (1975), a violent mystery-thriller starring David Hemmings that inspired a number of international directors in the thriller-horror genre. His next work was Suspiria (1977), a surreal horror film about a witch's coven that was inspired by the Gothic fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers and Hans Christian Anderson, which he also wrote in collaboration with his girlfriend, screenwriter/actress Daria Nicolodi, who acted in "Profondo Rosso" ("Deep Red") and most of Argento's films from then to the late 1980s. Argento advanced the unfinished trilogy with Inferno (1980), before returning to the "giallo" genre with the gory Tenebrae (1982), and then with the haunting Phenomena (1985).
The lukewarm reviews for his films, however, caused Argento to slip away from directing to producing and co-writing two Lamberto Bava horror flicks, Demons (1985) and Demons 2 (1986). Argento returned to directing with the "giallo" thriller Opera (1987), which according to him was "a very unpleasant experience", and no wonder: a rash of technical problems delayed production, the lead actress Vanessa Redgrave dropped out before filming was to begin, Argento's father Salvatore died during filming and his long-term girlfriend Daria broke off their relationship. After the commercial box-office failure of "Opera", Argento temporarily settled in the US, where he collaborated with director George A. Romero on the two-part horror-thriller Two Evil Eyes (1990) (he had previously collaborated with Romero on the horror action thriller Dawn of the Dead (1978)). While still living in America, Argento appeared in small roles in several films and directed another violent mystery thriller, Trauma (1993), which starred his youngest daughter Asia Argento from his long-term relationship with Nicolodi.
Argento returned to Italy in 1995, where he made a comeback in the horror genre with The Stendhal Syndrome (1996) and then with another version of "The Phantom of the Opera", The Phantom of the Opera (1998), both of which starred Asia. Most recently, Argento directed a number of "giallo" mystery thrillers such as Sleepless (2001), The Card Player (2003) and Do You Like Hitchcock? (2005), as well as two gory, supernatural-themed episodes of the USA TV cable anthology series Masters of Horror (2005).
Having always wanted to make a third chapter to his "Three Mothers" horror films, Argento finally completed the trilogy in 2007 with the release of Mother of Tears (2007), which starred Asia Argento as a young woman trying to identify and stop the last surviving evil witch from taking over the world. In addition to his Gothic and violent style of storytelling, "La terza madre" has many references to two of his previous films, "Suspiria" (1997) and "Inferno" (1980), which is a must for fans of the trilogy.
His movies may be regarded by some critics and opponents as cheap and overly violent, but second or third viewings show him to be a talented writer/director with a penchant for original ideas and creative directing.- Actor
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Alan Arkin was an Academy Award-winning American actor who was also an acclaimed director, producer, author, singer and composer.
He was born Alan Wolf Arkin on March 26, 1934, in Brooklyn, New York. His family were Jewish emigrants from Russia and Germany. In 1946, the Arkins moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, California. His father, David I. Arkin, was an artist and writer, who worked as a teacher, and lost his job for merely refusing to answer questions about his political affiliation during the 1950s Red Scare. His father challenged the politically biased dismissal and eventually prevailed, but unfortunately it was after his death. His mother, Beatrice (Wortis) Arkin, a teacher, shared his father's views. Young Arkin was fond of music and acting, he was taking various acting classes from the age of 10. He attended Franklin High School, in Los Angeles, then Los Angeles City College from 1951 - 1953, and Bennington College in Vermont from 1953 - 1954. He sang in a college folk-band, and was involved in a drama class. He dropped out of college to form the folk music group The Tarriers, in which Arkin was the lead singer and played guitar. He co-wrote the 1956 hit "The Banana Boat Song" - a Jamaican calypso folk song, which became better known as Harry Belafonte's popular version, and reached #4 on the Billboard chart. At that time Arkin was a struggling young actor who played bit parts on television and on stage, and made a living as a delivery boy, repairman, pot washer and baby sitter. From 1958 - 1968 he performed and recorded with the children's folk group, The Babysitters. He has also recorded an entire album for the Elektra label titled "Folksongs - Once Over Lightly."
In 1957 Arkin made his first big screen appearance as a lead singer with The Tarriers in Calypso Heat Wave (1957). Then he made his Off-Broadway debut as a singer in "Heloise" (1958). Next year he joined the Compass Theatre in St. Louis, Missouri. There he caught the eye of stage director Bob Sills and became the original member of the "Second City" troupe in Chicago. In 1961 Arkin made his Broadway debut in musical "From the Second City", for which he wrote lyrics and sketches, then starred as David Kolowitz in the Broadway comedy "Enter Laughing" (1963), for which he won a Tony Award. He starred in a Broadway musical "From the Second City production, then returned to Broadway as Harry Berlin in "Luv" (1964). Arkin made his directorial debut with an Off-Broadway hit called "Eh?" (1966), which introduced the young actor, named Dustin Hoffman. He won a Drama Desk Award for his direction of the Off-Broadway production of "Little Murders" (1969), and another Drama Desk Award for "The White House Murder Case" (1970). He also directed the original version of Neil Simon's hilarious smash, "The Sunshine Boys" (1972), which ran over 500 performances.
Arkin earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor for his feature acting debut in a comedy The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966), by director Norman Jewison, co-starring as Lt. Rozanov, a Soviet submariner who is mistaken for a spy after his boat accidentally wrecks aground in New England. Arkin demonstrated his dramatic range as the psychopathic killer Roat in suspense film Wait Until Dark (1967), opposite Audrey Hepburn. He reinvented himself as the sensitive deaf-mute in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968), for which he received his second Academy Award Nomination as Best Actor in the Leading role. He followed with what remained his best known role as Captain Yossarian in Catch-22 (1970), directed by Mike Nichols and based on the eponymous anti-war novel by Joseph Heller. In it Arkin arguably gave his strongest performance, however, his career suffered because the film initially did not live up to expectations. After a few years of directorial work on television, Arkin made a comeback with an impressive portrayal of doctor Sigmund Freud in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976). In the early 1980s he acted in three movies that were family affairs, written by his wife, Barbara Dana, and co-starring his son, Adam Arkin.
During the 1990s he turned out several notable performances, such as a bitter former baseball player in TNT's Cooperstown (1993), and as a hilarious psychiatrist opposite John Cusack in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997). He won raves for his portrayal of a divorced father who struggles to keep his kids enrolled in the Beverly Hills school system in Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). Arkin gave a brilliant performance opposite Robin Williams in Jakob the Liar (1999), a film about the Nazi occupation of Poland. He also returned to the New York stage co-starring with his son, Tony Arkin and Elaine May in "Power Plays", which he also co-authored. His most recent comeback as a heroin-snorting, sex-crazed, foul-mouthed grandfather in Little Miss Sunshine (2006), earned him his third Academy Award nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and his first Academy Award.
Alan Arkin had been a modern Renaissance man. In addition to his achievements as an actor, director, and producer, he made his mark as a singer-songwriter with his popular-song compositions "Banana Boat Song", "Cuddle Bug," "That's Me," and "Best Time of the Year." Arkin also authored several books, including science-fiction and some children's stories, such as "The Clearing", "The Lemming Condition" and "Cassie Loves Beethoven" among his other publications. He was a father of three sons, Adam Arkin, Matthew Arkin, and Anthony Arkin, and a grandfather of Molly Arkin.
Alan Arkin was a strong supporter of an organic way of living and also a proponent for preservation of the environment and natural habitat. He avoided the show-biz-milieu and was known as an actor who does not really care about prestigious awards, but values having a good job and being acknowledged by his peers. In Arkin's own words he wanted to "Stay home for three months. Living as quietly as humanly possible." Arkin was given an Indian name, Grey Wolf, by his Native American friends in New Mexico.
Alan Arkin died in California on June 29, 2023 at the age of 89. He is survived by his three sons - Adam, Matthew, and Anthony Dana Arkin, and with Dana, Alan Arkin is survived by third wife, Suzanne Newlander Arkin, whom he married in 1999.- Producer
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George Armitage was born in 1942 in the USA. He is a producer and writer, known for Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), Gas! -Or- It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It. (1970) and Vigilante Force (1976).- Director
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Gillian Armstrong was born on 18 December 1950 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. She is a director and producer, known for My Brilliant Career (1979), Not Fourteen Again (1996) and Little Women (1994). She is married to John Pleffer. They have two children.- Writer
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Michael Armstrong was born on 24 July 1944 in Bolton, Lancashire, England, UK. He is a writer and director, known for House of the Long Shadows (1983), Mark of the Devil (1970) and Horror House (1969).- Producer
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Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was born in Santiago, Cuba on March 2, 1917. His father was the mayor of Santiago. The 1933 revolution led by Fulgencio Batista had landed his father in jail and stripped the family of its wealth, property and power. His father was released because of the intercession of U.S. officials who believed him to be neutral during the revolt. The family fled to Miami, Florida. One of Desi's first jobs in America consisted of cleaning canary cages. However, after forming his own small band of musicians, he was hired by Xavier Cugat, the "king" of Latin music.
Desi soon left Cugat, formed his own Latin band, and literally launched the conga craze in America. He was cast in the Broadway play "Too Many Girls" and then brought to Hollywood to make the film version of the play. It was on the set of Too Many Girls (1940) that he and Lucille Ball met. They soon married and approximately 10 years later formed Desilu Productions and began the I Love Lucy (1951) shows. Desi and Lucille had two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.. At the end of the I Love Lucy (1951) run, which included The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957), the two divorced. Desi later wrote an autobiography entitled "A Book." In 1986 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on December 2, 1986 at age 69.- Producer
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Darren Aronofsky was born February 12, 1969, in Brooklyn, New York. Growing up, Darren was always artistic: he loved classic movies and, as a teenager, he even spent time doing graffiti art. After high school, Darren went to Harvard University to study film (both live-action and animation). He won several film awards after completing his senior thesis film, "Supermarket Sweep", starring Sean Gullette, which went on to becoming a National Student Academy Award finalist. Aronofsky didn't make a feature film until five years later, in February 1996, where he began creating the concept for Pi (1998). After Darren's script for Pi (1998) received great reactions from friends, he began production. The film re-teamed Aronofsky with Gullette, who played the lead. This went on to further successes, such as Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Wrestler (2008) and Black Swan (2010). Most recently, he completed the films Noah (2014) and Mother! (2017).- Writer
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Fernando Arrabal was born on 11 August 1932 in Melilla, Spanish Protectorate of Morocco, Spain. He is a writer and actor, known for L'arbre de Guernica (1975), Long Live Death (1971) and Odyssey of the Pacific (1982). He has been married to Luce Moreau since 1 February 1958.- Director
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Dorothy Arzner, the only woman director during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood's studio system--from the 1920s to the early 1940s and the woman director with the largest oeuvre in Hollywood to this day--was born January 3, 1897 (some sources put the year as 1900), in San Francisco, California, to a German-American father and a Scottish mother. Raised in Los Angeles, her parents ran a café which featured German cuisine and which was frequented by silent film stars including: Charles Chaplin and William S. Hart, and director Erich von Stroheim. She worked as a waitress at the restaurant, and no one could have foreseen at the time that Arzner would be one of the few women to break the glass ceiling of directing and would be the only woman to work during the early sound era.
In her 15-year career as a director (1928-43), Arzner made three silent movies and 14 "talkies". Her path to the director's chair was different than that of women directors in the future (indeed, different than most male directors too). Directors nowadays are typically graduates of film schools or were working actors prior to directing. Like most of the directors of her generation, Arzner gained wide training in most aspects of filmmaking by working her way up from the bottom. It was the best way to become a filmmaker, she later said.
After graduating from high school in 1915, she entered the University of Southern California, where she was in the pre-med program for two years. When the US entered World War I in 1917, Arzner was unable to realize her ambition of serving her country in a military capacity, as there were no women's units in the armed forces at the time, so she served as an ambulance driver during the war.
After the cessation of hostilities, Azner got a job on a newspaper. The director of her ambulance unit introduced her to film director William C. de Mille (the brother of Cecil B. DeMille, one of the co-founders of Famous Players-Lasky, which eventually became known by the title of its distribution unit--Paramount Pictures). She decided to pursue a film career after visiting a movie set and being intrigued by the editing facilities. Arzner decided that she would like to become a director (there was no strict delineation between directors and editors in the immediate postwar period as the movie studios matured into a "factory" industrial production paradigm).
Though she was the sole member of her gender to direct Hollywood pictures during the first generation of sound film, in the silent era a woman behind the camera was not unknown. The first movie in history was directed by a Frenchwoman, and many women were employed in Hollywood during the silent era, most frequently as scenario writers (some research indicates that as many as three-quarters of the scenario writers during the silent era--when there was no requirement for a screenplay as such as there was no dialogue--were women). Indeed, there were women directors in the silent era, such as Frances Marion (though she was more famous as a screenwriter) and Lois Weber, but Arzner was fated to be the only female director to have made a successful transition to "talkies". It wasn't until the 1930s and the verticalization of the industry, as it matured and consolidated, that women were squeezed out of production jobs in Hollywood.
The introduction to William deMille paid off when he hired her for the sum of $20 a week to be a stenographer. Her first job for DeMille was typing up scripts at Famous Players-Lasky. She was reportedly a poor typist. Ambitious and possessed of a strong will, Arzner offered to write synopses of various literary properties, and eventually was hired as a writer. Impressing DeMille and other Paramount powers-that-be, Arzner was assigned to Paramount's subsidiary Realart Films, as a film cutter. She was promoted to script girl after one year, which required her presence on the set to ensure the continuity of the script as shot by the director. She then was given a job editing films. She excelled at cutting: as an editor (she was the first Hollywood editor professionally credited as such on-screen), she labored on 52 films, working her way up from cutting Bebe Daniels comedies to assignments on "A" pictures within a couple of years. She came into her own as a filmmaker editing the Rudolph Valentino headliner Blood and Sand (1922), about a toreador. Her editing of the bullfighting scenes was highly praised, and she later said that she actually helmed the second-unit crew shooting some of the bullfight sequences. Director James Cruze was so impressed by her work on the Valentino picture that he brought her on to his team to edit The Covered Wagon (1923). Arzner eventually edited three other Cruze films: Ruggles of Red Gap (1923), Merton of the Movies (1924) and Old Ironsides (1926). Her work was of such quality that she received official screen credit as an editor, a first for a cutter of either gender.
While collaborating with Cruze she also wrote scenarios, scripting her ideas both solo and in collaboration. She was credited as a screenwriter (as well as an editor) on "Old Ironsides", one of the more spectacular films of the late silent era, being partially shot in Magnascope, one of the earliest widescreen processes. She would always credit Cruze as her mentor and role model. "Old Ironsides" proved to be the last film on which she was credited as an editor, as her ambitions to become a director would finally come to fruition. To indulge her, Paramount gave her a job as an assistant director, for which she was happy--until she realized it was not a stepping stone to the director's chair, and she was determined to sit in that chair.
Arzner pressured Paramount to let her direct, threatening to leave the studio to work for Columbia Pictures on Poverty Row, which had offered her a job as a director. Unwilling to lose such a talented filmmaker, the Paramount brass relented, and she made her debut with Fashions for Women (1927). It was a hit. In the process of directing Paramount's first talkie, Manhattan Cocktail (1928), she made history by becoming the first woman to direct a sound picture. The success of her next sound picture, The Wild Party (1929), starring Paramount's top star, Clara Bow, helped establish Fredric March as a movie star.
Arzner proved adept at handling actresses. As Budd Schulberg related in his autobiography "Moving Pictures", Clara Bow--a favorite of his father, studio boss B.P. Schulberg--had a thick Brooklyn accent that the silence of the pre-talkie era hid nicely from the audience. She was terrified of the transition to sound, and developed a fear of the microphone. Working with her sound crew, Arzner devised and used the first boom mike, attaching the microphone to a fish pole to follow Bow as she moved around the set. Arzner even used Bow's less-than-dulcet speaking tones to underscore the vivaciousness of her character.
Though Arzner made several successful films for Paramount, the studio teetered on the edge of bankruptcy due to the Depression, eventually going into receivership (before being saved by the advent of another iconic woman, Mae West). When the studio mandated a pay cut for all employees, Arzner decided to go freelance. RKO Radio Pictures hired her to direct its new star, headstrong young Katharine Hepburn, in her second starring film, Christopher Strong (1933). It was not a happy collaboration, as both women were strong and unyielding, but Arzner eventually prevailed. She was, after all, the boss on the set: The director. The fiercely independent Hepburn complained to RKO, but the studio backed its director against its star. Eventually the two settled into a working relationship, respecting each other but remaining cold and distant from one another. Ironically, Arzner would display her directorial flair in elucidating the kind of competitive rivalries between women she experienced with Hepburn.
The Directors Guild of America was established in 1933, and Arzner became the first woman member. Indeed, she was the only female member of the DGA for many years.
Arzner's films featured well-developed female characters, and she was known at the time of her work, quite naturally, as a director of "women's pictures". Not only did her movies portray the lives of strong, interesting women, but her pictures are noted for showcasing the ambiguities of life. Since the rise of feminist scholarship in the 1960s, Arzner's movies have been seen as challenging the dominant, phallocentric mores of the times.
Arzner was a lesbian, who cultivated a masculine look in her clothes and appearance (some feel as camouflage to hide the boy's club that was Hollywood). Many gay critics discern a hidden gay subtext in her films, such as "Christopher Strong". Whereas feminist critics see a critique of gender inequality in "Christopher Strong", lesbian critics see a critique of heterosexuality itself as the source of a woman's troubles. The very private Azner, the woman who broke the glass ceiling and had to survive, and indeed thrived, in the all-male world of studio filmmaking, refused to be categorized as a woman or gay director, insisting she was simply a "director." She was right.
Arzner did have less troubled and more productive collaborations with other actresses after her experience with Hepburn. She developed a close friendship with one of her female stars, Joan Crawford, whom she directed in two 1937 MGM vehicles, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937) and The Bride Wore Red (1937). Arzner later directed Pepsi commercials as a favor to Crawford's husband, Pepsi-Cola Company's Chairman of the Board Alfred Steele.
In 1943 Arzner joined other top Hollywood directors such as John Ford and George Stevens in going to work for the war effort during World War Two. She made training films for the US Army's Women's Army Corps (WACs). That same year her health was compromised after she contracted pneumonia. After the war she did not return to feature film directing, but made documentaries and commercials for the new television industry. She also became a filmmaking teacher, first at the Pasadena Playhouse during the 1950s and 1960s and then at the University of California-Los Angeles campus during the 1960s and 1970s. At UCLA she taught directing and screenwriting, and one of her students was Francis Ford Coppola, the first film school grad to achieve major success as a director. She taught at UCLA until her death in 1979.
She was honored in her own lifetime, becoming a symbol and role model for women filmmakers who desired entry into mainstream cinema. The feminist movement in the 1960s championed her. In 1972 the First International Festival of Women's Films honored her by screening "The Wild Party", and her oeuvre was given a full retrospective at the Second Festival in 1976. In 1975 the DGA honored her with "A Tribute to Dorothy Arzner." During the tribute, a telegram from Katharine Hepburn was read: "Isn't it wonderful that you've had such a great career, when you had no right to have a career at all?"- Director
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Aleksandr Askoldov was born on 17 July 1932 in Kiev, Ukraine, USSR. He was a director and actor, known for The Commissar (1967), La chasse aux papillons (1992) and Tal cual (1988). He was married to Svetlana. He died on 21 May 2018 in Gothenburg, Sweden.- Director
- Editorial Department
- Actor
Hal Ashby was born the fourth and youngest child in a Mormon household, in Ogden, Utah, to Eileen Ireta (Hetzler) and James Thomas Ashby, on September 2, 1929. His father was a dairy farmer. After a rough childhood that included the divorce of his parents, his father's suicide, his dropping out of high school, getting married and divorced all before he was 19, he decided to leave Utah for California. A Californian employment office found him a printing press job at Universal Studios. Within a few years, he was an assistant film editor at various other studios. One of his pals while at MGM was a young messenger named Jack Nicholson. He moved up to being a full fledged editor on The Loved One (1965) and started editing the films of director Norman Jewison.
A highlight of his film editing career was winning an Oscar for the landmark In the Heat of the Night (1967). Itching to become a director, Jewison gave him a script he was too busy to work on called The Landlord (1970). It became Ashby's first film as a director. From there he delivered a series of well-acted, intelligent human scaled dramas that included The Last Detail (1973), Shampoo (1975), Bound for Glory (1976), Coming Home (1978) and Being There (1979). Great reviews and Oscar nominations became common on Ashby films.
Ashby was always a maverick and a contrary person and success proved difficult for Ashby to handle. He became unreliable due to his dependence on drugs and a reclusive lifestyle. He actually collapsed while making The Rolling Stones concert film Let's Spend the Night Together (1982) in Arizona. Although he recovered, he was never the same after that. He began taking too much time in post production on his films and actually had a couple of his later projects taken away from him to be edited by others. He tried to straighten himself out, but in the 1980s, he was considered by many to be unemployable. Just when he felt he was turning a corner in his life, he developed cancer that spread to his liver and colon. He died on December 27, 1988. Actor Sean Penn dedicated his first film as a director, The Indian Runner (1991) to Ashby and John Cassavetes, even though Penn was never directed by either one. Because he did not have a set visual style, many mistake this for no style at all. His career is not discussed as often as the careers of some of his contemporaries.- Director
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William Asher was born on 8 August 1921 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Bewitched (1964), Fireball 500 (1966) and Beach Blanket Bingo (1965). He was married to Meredith Coffin, Joyce Bulifant, Elizabeth Montgomery and Danni Sue Nolan. He died on 16 July 2012 in Palm Desert, California, USA.- Director
- Actor
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Aleksandr Askoldov was born on 17 July 1932 in Kiev, Ukraine, USSR. He was a director and actor, known for The Commissar (1967), La chasse aux papillons (1992) and Tal cual (1988). He was married to Svetlana. He died on 21 May 2018 in Gothenburg, Sweden.- Director
- Writer
- Actor
British film director Anthony Asquith was born on November 9, 1902, to H.H. Asquith, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his second wife. A former home secretary and the future leader of the Liberal Party, H.H. Asquith served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1908-1916 and was subsequently elevated to the hereditary peerage. His youngest child, Anthony, was called Puffin by his family, a nickname given him by his mother, who thought he resembled one. Puffin was also the name his friends called him throughout his life.
Asquith was active in the British film industry from the late silent period until the mid-1960s. As a director he was highly respected by his contemporaries and had a long and successful career; by the 1960s he was one of only three British directors (the others being David Lean and Carol Reed) who were directing major international motion picture productions. However, Asquith's proclivity for adapting plays for the screen caused an erosion in his critical reputation as a filmmaker after his death. He was faulted for what was perceived as his failure to focus, like his contemporary Alfred Hitchcock, on the cinematic. Asquith was known as an actor's director, and solicited some of the finest film performances from Britain's greatest actors, including Edith Evans and Michael Redgrave.
Although Asquith's first love was music, he lacked musical talent. He channeled his artistic ambitions toward the nascent motion picture, and was instrumental in the formation of the London Film Society to promote artistic appreciation of film. Asquith traveled to Hollywood in the 1920s to observe American film production techniques, and after returning to England, he became a director.
Among his best-known films is Pygmalion (1938), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's stage play, which he co-directed with its star, Leslie Howard. The film was a major critical success, even in the United States, winning multiple Academy Award nominations. Nobel Prize-winner Shaw, who had been a co-founder of the London Film Society along with Asquith, won an Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for the film. Asquith had a long professional association with playwright Terence Rattigan, and two of Asquith's most famous and successful pictures were based on Rattigan plays, The Winslow Boy (1948) and The Browning Version (1951). Asquith directed the screen version of Rattigan's first successful play, French Without Tears (1940), in 1940.
Asquith's most successful postwar film was, arguably, his adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest (1952). More than a half-century after it was made, Asquith's film remains the best adaptation of Wilde's work. Ironically, Asquith's father H.H., while serving as Home Secretary, ordered Wilde's arrest for his homosexual behavior. Wilde's arrest, for "indecent behavior", led to his incarceration in the Reading jail and destroyed the great playwright, personally. The Wilde incident stifled gay culture in Britain for the first two-thirds of the 20th century. Another irony of the situation is that H.H.'s youngest son, Anthony, himself was gay.
By the 1960s Asquith was directing Hollywood-style all-star productions, including the episodic The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964), once again from a screenplay by Rattigan, and the Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor potboiler The V.I.P.s (1963), also with a screenplay by Rattigan. It is based in an incident in the life of Laurence Olivier, a frequent Asquith collaborator. In 1967 Asquith was tipped to direct the big-screen adaptation of the best-selling novel The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) set to co-star Olivier and Anthony Quinn, but he had to drop out of the production due to ill heath. He died on February 20, 1968, at the age of 65.
The British Academy Award for best music is named the Anthony Asquith Award in his honor.- Actor
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Dark-haired, usually-mustachioed American actor with a cheeky grin, who achieved pop culture status through his portrayal of the kooky patriarch "Gomez Addams" in the hit TV series The Addams Family (1964), John Astin was born on March 30, 1930 in Baltimore, Maryland. He studied mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, but he discovered a passion for the theater and began to perform in minor plays and do voice-over work for commercials. He first got noticed thanks to a small role in West Side Story (1961), then appeared in several other films before being cast as "Gomez Addams". While "The Addams Family" was initially a huge hit, its popularity petered out after two years, and Astin moved on to other work including the offbeat Bunny O'Hare (1971), playing a grizzled but not- particularly-bright gunfighter in the Western spoof Evil Roy Slade (1972), an appearance in the Disney comedy Freaky Friday (1976) and dual roles in National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985).
He has since lent his comedic talents to numerous appearances as "Dr. Gangreen" in several corny "Killer Tomato" movies, and has contributed his voice to recreate "Gomez Addams" in the animated series The Addams Family (1992), then played "Grandpa Addams" in the successful TV series The New Addams Family (1998). In addition, Astin has contributed voices to several animated shows, and he still appears in films regularly.- Director
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- Actor
Born in Paris on July 13th 1923, Alexandre Astruc is the son of a couple of journalists. Very good at school, he attended a preparatory school for Polytechnique but finally became both a law and an arts graduate. First a literary critic, he soon specialized as a film critic and worked for various papers and magazines such as "Combat", "La Gazette du Cinéma", "L'Ecran français", "La Nef", "Ciné-Digest", "Les Cahiers du Cinéma". He was instrumental in the creation of the film club "Objectif 49" and of the "Festival du Film Maudit" in Biarritz (circa 1949/50). His first two works were sixteen millimeter films characteristic of the Saint Germain des Prés" era. In the fifties and early sixties he directed very personal, elegant, literary movies but found it harder and harder to find producers interested in his style. He turned to television and novel writing instead.- Actor
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Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough of Richmond-upon-Thames, was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a standard text on Anglo-Saxon law. The family later moved to Leicester where his father was appointed Principal of the university while Richard was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
His film career began with a role as a deserting sailor in In Which We Serve (1942), a part that contributed to his being typecast for many years as a coward in films like Dulcimer Street (1948), Operation Disaster (1950) and his breakthrough role as a psychopathic young gangster in the film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel, Brighton Rock (1948). During World War II, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force.
He worked prolifically in British films for the next 30 years, and in the 1950s appeared in several successful comedies for John Boulting and Roy Boulting, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959). Early in his stage career, Attenborough starred in the London West End production of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap", which went on to become one of the world's longest-running stage productions. Both he and his wife were among the original cast members of the production, which opened in 1952 and (as of 2007) is still running.
In the 1960s, he expanded his range of character roles in films such as Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and Guns at Batasi (1964), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the regimental Sergeant Major. He appeared in the ensemble cast of The Great Escape (1963), as Squadron Leader "Roger Bartlett" ("Big X"), the head of the escape committee.
In 1967 and 1968, he won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards in the category of Best Supporting Actor, the first time for The Sand Pebbles (1966), starring Steve McQueen, and the second time for Doctor Dolittle (1967), starring Rex Harrison. He would win another Golden Globe for Best Director, for Gandhi (1982), in 1983. Six years prior to "Gandhi", he played the ruthless "Gen. Outram" in Indian director Satyajit Ray's period piece, The Chess Players (1977). He has never been nominated for an Academy Award in an acting category.
He took no acting roles following his appearance in Otto Preminger's The Human Factor (1979), until his appearance as the eccentric developer "John Hammond" in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993). The following year, he starred as "Kris Kringle" in Miracle on 34th Street (1994), a remake of the 1947 classic. Since then, he has made occasional appearances in supporting roles, including the historical drama, Elizabeth (1998), as "Sir William Cecil".
In the late 1950s, Attenborough formed a production company, "Beaver Films", with Bryan Forbes and began to build a profile as a producer on projects, including The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Angry Silence (1960) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961), also appearing in the first two of these as an actor.
His feature film directorial debut was the all-star screen version of the hit musical, Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), and his acting appearances became more sporadic - the most notable being his portrayal of serial killer "John Christie" in 10 Rillington Place (1971). He later directed two epic period films: Young Winston (1972), based on the early life of Winston Churchill, and A Bridge Too Far (1977), an all-star account of Operation Market Garden in World War II. He won the 1982 Academy Award for Directing for his historical epic, Gandhi (1982), a project he had been attempting to get made for many years. As the film's producer, he also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. His most recent films, as director and producer, include Chaplin (1992), starring Robert Downey Jr. as Charles Chaplin, and Shadowlands (1993), based on the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham. Both films starred Anthony Hopkins, who also appeared in three other films for Attenborough: "Young Winston", "A Bridge Too Far" and the thriller, Magic (1978).
Attenborough also directed the screen version of the hit Broadway musical, "A Chorus Line" (A Chorus Line (1985)), and the apartheid drama, Cry Freedom (1987), based on the experiences of Donald Woods. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director for both films. His most recent film as director was another biographical film, Grey Owl (1999), starring Pierce Brosnan.
Attenborough is the President of RADA, Chairman of Capital Radio, President of BAFTA, President of the Gandhi Foundation, and President of the British National Film and Television School. He is also a vice patron of the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund.
He is also the patron of the UWC movement (United World Colleges), whereby he continually contributes greatly to the colleges that are part of the organization. He has frequented the United World College of Southern Africa(UWCSA) Waterford Kamhlaba. His wife and he founded the "Richard and Sheila Attenborough Visual Arts Center". He also founded the "Jane Holland Creative Center for Learning" at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland in memory of his daughter, who died in the Tsunami on Boxing Day, 2004. He passionately believes in education, primarily education that does not judge upon color, race, creed or religion. His attachment to Waterford is his passion for non-racial education, which were the grounds on which Waterford Kamhlaba was founded. Waterford was one of his inspirations for directing Cry Freedom (1987), based on the life of Steve Biko.
He was elected to the post of Chancellor of the University of Sussex on 20 March 1998, replacing the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. A lifelong supporter of Chelsea Football Club, Attenborough served as a director of the club from 1969-1982 and, since 1993, has held the honorary position of Life Vice President. He is also the head of the consortium, "Dragon International", which is constructing a film and television studio complex in Llanilid, Wales, often referred to as "Valleywood".
In 1967, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was knighted in 1976 and, in 1993, he was made a life peer as Baron Attenborough, of Richmond-upon-Thames in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
On 13 July 2006, Attenborough and his brother, David Attenborough, were awarded the titles of Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University of Leicester "in recognition of a record of continuing distinguished service to the University". Lord Attenborough is also listed as an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University for his continued efforts to film making.
Attenborough has been married to English actress Sheila Sim, since 1945. They had three children. In December 2004, his elder daughter, Jane Holland, as well as her daughter Lucy and her mother-in-law, also named Jane, were killed in the tsunami caused by the Indian Ocean earthquake. A memorial service was held on 8 March 2005, and Attenborough read a lesson at the national memorial service on 11 May 2005. His grandson, Samuel Holland, and granddaughter, Alice Holland, also read in the service.
Attenborough's father was principal of University College, Leicester, now the city's university. This has resulted in a long association with the university, with Lord Attenborough a patron. A commemorative plaque was placed on the floor of Richmond Parish Church. The university's "Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts", which opened in 1997, is named in his Honor.
His son, Michael Attenborough, is also a director. He has two younger brothers, the famous naturalist Sir David Attenborough and John Attenborough, who has made a career in the motor trade.
He has collected Pablo Picasso ceramics since the 1950s. More than 100 items went on display at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester in 2007; the exhibition is dedicated to his family members lost in the tsunami.- Writer
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Born in Paris, France, in 1952. Jacques Audiard's family has always been involved in movie business. His father, Michel, was a popular screenwriter and director and his uncle a producer. But in his teens he refused that world and wanted to be a teacher. He studied literature and philosophy at the Sorbonne but didn't finish his degree. By that time, his then girlfriend suggested he work as a trainee editor during his university holidays. He worked as an assistant editor on several movies like "Le locataire" (1976) directed by Roman Polanski.
He also joined a theater where he did all kinds of work. He specially enjoyed adapting works for stage. In the eighties he wrote the screenplays of some successful movies like "Mortelle Randonnee" (1983), "Reveillon Chez Bob" (1984), "Saxo" (1987), "Frequence meurtre" (1988) and "Grosse fatigue" (1994). Most of those films were thrillers directed by prestigious filmmakers like Claude Miller and Michel Blanc. He also directed some well received short movies.
Thanks to the success of those movies he was able, in 1994, to raise up the money to make his first movie "Regarde les hommes tomber" a somber road movie starred by two of the most important French actors: Mathieu Kassovitz and Jean Louis Trintignant. That movie won 3 Cesars of the French academy for best editing, best new director (Jacques Audiard) and best new actor (for Kassovitz).
Kassovitz also became the star of his second movie "Un heros tres discret" released in the Festival de Cannes in 1996 where it won the award for best screenplay. "Un heros tres discret" undermined the myth of the French resistance to the Nazis by telling the story of a young impostor who rises high in French society after World war by concocting a past for himself as a hero. It also won awards in the festivals of Stockholm and Valladolid and made his name internationally.
In 2001 he made his third movie "Sur mes levres". The love story between two outsiders (a deaf office worker and a hoodlum) who decide to con a group of gangsters also became a success. It also won three Cesars (best actress, sound and screenplay).
His last movie, "De battre mon Coeur sest arrête" (a remake of "Fingers" a James Toback's movie) was released in the Berlin festival of 2005.
With those movies, Audiard has become the new master of the "polar" (French thriller) and inheritor of others great French directors like Jean-Pierre Melville (1917-1973) and Henri Georges-Clouzot (1907-1977).- Director
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Bille August was born on 9 November 1948 in Brede, Denmark. He is a director and writer, known for The House of the Spirits (1993), Pelle the Conqueror (1987) and Les Misérables (1998). He is married to Sara-Marie Maltha. He was previously married to Pernilla August, Masja Dessau and Annie Munksgaard.- Director
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Prolific director of episodic television, born in London and educated at Brighton College. The athletic Austin began his career as a stunt man, his first screen credit being Martin Landau 's stunt double in the famous Mount Rushmore scene in North by Northwest (1959) (he was also said to have sidelined as Cary Grant's chauffeur). Having moved up to stunt coordinator, Austin began to direct action sequences from the early 60s. He also appeared sporadically on the screen as a small part supporting player. From 1968, he worked primarily as a full director with occasional forays into script writing and production. Due to his previous background in stunt work, Austin always maintained a predilection for action/fight scenes which featured prominently throughout much of his work on iconic series like The Avengers (1961), The Saint (1962), Department S (1969), Space: 1999 (1975) and The Professionals (1977).
Austin was the holder of a feudal hereditary Irish title as Baron DeVere-Austin of Delvin. His first two marriages having ended in divorce, Austin remarried again in 1984. His third wife was the English novelist Wendy DeVere-Knight-Wilton. In the 80s, the couple moved from Britain to settle on an estate in rural Virginia. Austin continued working as a TV director in the U.S. until 1999, in addition lecturing on film and television at UCLA, the London Film School and other institutions. He had latterly also published several mystery and espionage-themed novels.- Director
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Claude Autant-Lara was born on 5 August 1901 in Luzarches, Val-d'Oise, France. He was a director and writer, known for Devil in the Flesh (1947), The Crossing of Paris (1956) and The Red and the Black (1954). He was married to Ghislaine Autant-Lara. He died on 5 February 2000 in Antibes, Alpes-Maritimes, France.- Writer
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Pupi Avati was born on 3 November 1938 in Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. He is a writer and director, known for Gli amici del bar Margherita (2009), Giovanna's Father (2008) and The Story of Boys & Girls (1989). He has been married to Amelia Turri since 1964. They have three children.- Director
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John G. Avildsen was born on 21 December 1935 in Oak Park, Illinois, USA. He was a director and editor, known for Rocky (1976), The Karate Kid Part III (1989) and Rocky V (1990). He was married to Tracy Brooks Swope and Marie Olga Maturevich. He died on 16 June 2017 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Director
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Meiert Avis is known for Bob Dylan: Series of Dreams (1991), Audioslave: Like a Stone (2003) and Undiscovered (2005).- Director
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Jon Avnet has directed, written, and produced more than 80 motion pictures, television movies, series and Broadway plays. He directed the Oscar-nominated performance of Jessica Tandy and the three Emmy-winning performances of Margo Martindale, Colleen Dewhurst and Judy Davis. He received an honorary Doctorate in Communications from the American Film Institute in 2013 and the Creative Spirit Award from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016. Among the other awards Avnet has received are the ACLU's "Bill of Rights Award," The New York Board of Review's "Freedom of Expression Award," and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Feature Film. Avnet is currently directing and producing with Jennifer Garner a documentary about American Ballet Theater's principal ballerina, Isabella Boylston. His next film is based on a script by Washington Post journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner Eli Saslow. In 2022 he directed Justified City Primeval, continuing his collaboration with Graham Yost. Based on Elmore Leonard's writing, it will air in the summer of 2023 on FX for Hulu. He also is Chair of the Directors Guild Negotiating Committee. The DGA's contract expires June 30, 2023. He is best known for co-writing, directing and producing Fried Green Tomatoes, which garnered multiple Academy Award nominations (for writing and for Jessica Tandy, who co-starred with Kathy Bates, Cicely Tyson, Mary Stuart Masterson and Mary Louise Parker) and BAFTAs. Fried Green Tomatoes was nominated for Best Picture by the Golden Globes and was one of the top grossing films in the year of its release. He produced Paul Brickman's Risky Business for David Geffen and Warner Brothers, which launched the career of Tom Cruise and was a major box office success. He also produced Paul Brickman's Men Don't Leave, again for David Geffen and Warner Bros, starring Jessica Lange, Arliss Howard, Kathy Bates and Chris O'Donnell. Avnet was an executive producer of Black Swan, starring Natalie Portman (winner of the Oscar for Best Actress) and directed by Darren Aronofsky. Black Swan received five Oscar nominations in total (including Best Picture) as well as multiple nominations and wins from the PGA, WGA, SAG, BAFTA, AFI, and the Golden Globes. In television, Avnet produced The Burning Bed, starring Farrah Fawcett, which garnered eight Emmy nominations and is still today the highest-rated television movie ever aired on NBC. It told the true story of Francine Hughes, who was in a highly abusive relationship that ended when she burned her husband to death. She was exonerated in court. It received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture. This film is credited with creating the "battered woman syndrome" as a legal defense for victims of domestic violence. Avnet most recently directed and co-wrote the film Three Christs, starring Richard Gere, Peter Dinklage, Walton Goggins, Bradley Whitford, Julianna Margulies, Charlotte Hope and Jane Alexander. The script is based on the controversial 1959 study chronicled in Dr. Milton Rokeach's "The Three Christs of Ypsilanti." Three paranoid schizophrenic patients who each claimed to be Jesus Christ were put in a ward together to see if their delusions could be altered. The film premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and was released theatrically in January 2020 by IFC Films. In the summer of 2019, Avnet directed and executive-produced two episodes of the Manhunt: Deadly Games limited series about the 1996 Olympic Park Bomber. Avnet directed ten episodes of FX Network's Justified, starring Timothy Olyphant and Walton Goggins. Justified received a Peabody award and Margo Martindale won an Emmy for her performance. He reunited with frequent collaborator Graham Yost, directing an episode of Sneaky Pete Season 2 for Amazon, starring Giovanni Ribisi, Margo Martindale and Marin Ireland. In 2018, he became an executive producer of Sneaky Pete Season 3 and directed 4 additional episodes. He first collaborated with Graham Yost as Executive Producer of the critically acclaimed series Boomtown for NBC and Steven Spielberg's Amblin Television. Avnet directed the pilot and eight additional episodes. Boomtown won the Television Critics Association Award for Best Series and a Peabody Award. Avnet is CEO of Indigenous Media (IM), which he founded with Rodrigo Garcia and his son Jacob Avnet, who is the Chief Operating Officer. Indigenous Media produces 60 Second Docs, which has received over 9.4 billion views and has more than 12.3 million followers. 60 Second Docs has won all of the major digital awards. Avnet produced Rodrigo Garcia's film Four Good Days, starring Glenn Close and Mila Kunis, for Indigenous Media. Written by Garcia and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Eli Saslow, the film depicts the codependent relationship of a mother and daughter as they both battle opioid addiction. Four Good Days premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was released theatrically in April 2021 by Vertical. Avnet directed the music video for the film based on Diane Warren's song, "Somehow You Do," as sung by Reba McEntire. The song has been nominated for an Oscar in 2022. This was a reunion with Diane Warren, who wrote the Grammy winning song "Because You Loved Me," for Avnet's Up Close and Personal. Celine Dion recorded the Oscar nominated song which reached number one globally. Avnet was the credited Executive Producer of the song. IM has also produced, in association with Kerry Washington and Pilar Savone, two seasons of the series Five Points for Facebook Watch and other successful digital productions. Next up for IM is Lonely Doll, starring Jessica Lange and Naomi Watts, and directed by Gia Coppola. Merritt Johnson adapted Jean Nathan's book. Avnet will produce with Bruce Cohen and Jason Weinberg. In 2001, Avnet directed, co-wrote with Paul Brickman, and produced the critically praised Uprising, starring Leelee Sobieski, Hank Azaria, David Schwimmer, Stephen Moyer, Jon Voight, and Donald Sutherland. This film was meticulously researched by Brickman and Avnet over a five-year period to tell the true story of the armed resistance during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Avnet was nominated for a DGA Award for best directing and the film was released theatrically globally by Warner Bros.
Avnet directed Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Righteous Kill, released in September 2008. He also directed and produced Red Corner starring Richard Gere, and Up Close and Personal starring Robert Redford and Michelle Pfeiffer with a script by Joan Didion and John Dunne. His first directing outing (which he also co-wrote and produced) was the highly acclaimed TV movie Between Two Women, starring Colleen Dewhurst and Farrah Fawcett, which earned Dewhurst an Emmy for her performance.
He directed and executive-produced The Starter Wife, a six-hour limited series for the USA Network starring Debra Messing, Joe Mantegna, Stephen Moyer and Judy Davis (who won the Best Supporting Actress Emmy for her performance). Based on the novel by Gigi Levangie Grazer, it aired in May 2007 as the highest-rated limited cable series that year and received ten Emmy nominations as well as DGA and PGA nominations for Avnet.
Rodrigo Garcia's debut film Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her was produced by Avnet. It starred Glenn Close, Holly Hunter, Cameron Diaz, Calista Flockhart and Gregory Hines, premiered at Sundance and won "Un Certain Regard," at the Cannes film Festival. Avnet produced Kerry Conran's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow for Paramount starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie. Avnet produced (along with Jordan Kerner) Less Than Zero, When a Man Loves a Woman, Miami Rhapsody, The Mighty Ducks films (and in 2021, the new series of The Mighty Ducks on Disney+) and George of the Jungle, to name a few. For television, Avnet produced Alex Haley's Mama Flora's Family, starring Cicely Tyson, Queen Latifah and Blair Underwood. Ms. Tyson won the NAACP Image Award for best Actress and Mr. Underwood won the Best Actor Award. The film was nominated for Best Picture as well. He produced Heatwave, again starring Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones and Blair Underwood. Ms. Tyson and Mr. Jones both won Cable ACE best acting awards for their work on this film about the Watts Riots, based on articles written by the LA Times' first black journalist Bob Richardson. Mr. Jones won the Emmy as well. Mr. Avnet had the honor and pleasure of bestowing an Honorary Doctoral Degree for Ms. Tyson from the American Film Institute. On Broadway, his plays have received 35 Tony nominations and 12 Tony awards. He produced, all with Bill Haber, two Tony Award-winning shows, "Spamalot" and "The History Boys." He also produced "The Pillowman," "Inherit the Wind," starring Christopher Plummer and Bryan Dennehey, "The Seafarer" by Connor McPherson, and the Mike Nichols-directed "Country Girl," starring Morgan Freeman and Frances McDormand.
Avnet attended the University of Pennsylvania, received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and was awarded a fellowship in directing to the American Film Institute. Today, Avnet is Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors at the American Film Institute, where he has been a guiding force for over 30 years (and Chairman for eight years). In addition, he was co-chair of the Directors Guild of America 2020 Negotiations committee, serves on the Board of Directors, the Western Directors Council, and the Pension and Health Plan Committee of the DGA. Mr. Avnet has been chosen to chair the DGA Negotiations Committee once more for 2023.
Avnet has served on the Board of Advisors for the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania for 17 years. He has participated as a mentor at the Director's Lab at Sundance and its sister program Emergence in France. He lectures on film and Holocaust studies at numerous universities worldwide and has supported a diverse range of charitable organizations targeting scholarships for women and BIPOC students. His career has taken him literally all over the world. Some highlights include working with Nelson Mandela when he was in Pollsmoor prison and later when he was released. Avnet interviewed Mr. Mandela for a week at his home in Soweto about the history of Apartheid and his views on race. Avnet also had the privilege to interview many of the key figures of the ANC such as Walter Sisulu, Oliver Tambo, Thabo Mbeki, Cyril Ramaphosa, to name a few. Harry Belafonte collaborated with Avnet on this project as well as Taylor Branch's "Parting the Waters." In the process, Avnet interviewed virtually all of the living participants in the Civil Rights Movement and had the honor of marching over the Edmund Portis Bridge with Rep. John Lewis and Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. During the research for the film Uprising, Avnet had the humbling experience of interviewing more than 200 survivors of the Holocaust in Poland, Germany, Israel and the United States including Vladka Mead, Marek Edelman (then the last living leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising) and Simcha Rotem (Kazik.) Mr. Avnet had the honor of studying these historical events with Dr. Michael Berenbaum, then the leader of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., Israel Gutman of Yad Vashem, Simcha Stein of the Ghetto Fighters House and Marek Webb of Yivo. As a result of his five years or research, Avnet has lectured on resistance during the Holocaust at Universities around the world. He has been married to artist Barbara Brody Avnet for forty-five years. They have two daughters Alexandra and Lily, both of whom earned Master's degrees in social work, and a son Jacob, who also earned a Master's degree from USC. They also have five precious grandchildren, Isabella, Henry, Sage, Ruby and Ezra.- Director
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Gabriel Axel was born on 18 April 1918 in Århus, Denmark. He was a director and actor, known for Babette's Feast (1987), The Red Mantle (1967) and Christian (1989). He was married to Lucie Axel Moerch. He died on 9 February 2014 in Copenhagen, Denmark.- Writer
- Producer
- Director
George Axelrod was born on 9 June 1922 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Manchurian Candidate (1962), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and The Seven Year Itch (1955). He was married to Joan Axelrod and Gloria Washburn. He died on 21 June 2003 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
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.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Lew Ayres was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and raised in San Diego, California. A college dropout, he was found by a talent scout in the Coconut Grove nightclub in Los Angeles and entered Hollywood as a bit player. He was leading man to Greta Garbo in The Kiss (1929), but it was the role of Paul Baumer in All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) that was his big break. He was profoundly affected by the anti-war message of that film, and when, in 1942, the popular star of Young Dr. Kildare (1938) and subsequent Dr. Kildare films was drafted, he was a conscientious objector. America was outraged, and theaters vowed never to show his films again, but quietly he achieved the Medical Corps status he had requested, serving as a medic under fire in the South Pacific and as a chaplain's aid in New Guinea and the Phillipines. His return to film after the war was undistinguished until Johnny Belinda (1948) - his role as the sympathetic physician treating the deaf-mute Jane Wyman won him an Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Subsequent movie roles were scarce; an opportunity to play Dr. Kildare in television was aborted when the network refused to honor his request for no cigarette sponsorship. He continued to act, but in the 1970s put his long experience into a project to bring to the west the philosophy of the East - the resulting film, Altars of the World (1976), while not a box-office success, won critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award. Lew Ayres died in Los Angeles, California on December 30, 1996, just two days after his 88th birthday.- Director
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- Producer
Hector Babenco was born on 7 February 1946 in Mar del Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was a director and writer, known for Carandiru (2003), Pixote (1980) and Foolish Heart (1998). He was married to Bárbara Paz, Xuxa Lopes and Raquel Arnaud. He died on 13 July 2016 in São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.- Director
- Actor
- Writer
One of the workhorses in Warner Brothers' stable of directors in the 1930s, Lloyd Bacon didn't have a career as loaded with classic films as many of his more famous contemporaries. What few "classics" he had his hand in (42nd Street (1933), Footlight Parade (1933)) are so overshadowed by the dazzling surrealistic choreography of Busby Berkeley that casual film buffs today often forget they were actually directed by Bacon. While his resume lacks the drama of failed productions and tales of an unbridled ego, he consistently enriched the studio's coffers, directing a handful of its biggest hits of the late 1920s and 1930s. Bacon's career amounts to that of a competent--and at times brilliant--director who did the best with the material handed to him in assembly-line fashion.
Lloyd Bacon was born in San Jose, California, on January 16, 1890, into a theatrical family (his father was Frank Bacon, a playwright and stage actor). His parents enlisted all the Bacon children onto the stage. Despite having a strong interest in law as a student at Santa Clara College, Lloyd opted for an acting career after appearing in a student production of "The Passion Play." In 1911 he joined David Belasco's Los Angeles Stock Company (with Lewis Stone), touring the country and gaining good notices in a Broadway run of the hit "Cinderella Man", and gaining further experience during a season of vaudeville. He switched gears in 1915 and took a stab at silent Hollywood, playing the heavy in several of Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson's shorts and pulling double duty as a stunt man. With America's entry into World War I in 1917, Bacon enlisted in the Navy and was assigned to the Photo Department. This began a lifelong admiration for the service and might explain the Navy being a favorite recurring theme in many of his films.
After the war's end Bacon moved from Mutual (Charles Chaplin's studio at the time) to Triangle as a comedy actor. It was at this point that he got his first taste of directing-- he had let everyone at the studio know he had an interest in helming a picture, and when the director of a now forgotten Lloyd Hamilton comedy short fell ill, Bacon was given his chance. Constantly moving, he joined tightwad producer Mack Sennett as a gag writer. Sennett, sensing a bargain, happily accommodated Lloyd's desire to become a full-time director by early 1921. The Sennett studio was already in an irreversible decline during Bacon's tenure there but it allowed the novice director to gain a wealth of experience. He apprenticed for Sennett until joining Warner Brothers in 1925, an association that would last a remarkable 18 years and begin when the working-man's studio was building a strong stable of contract directors that included Michael Curtiz, Alan Crosland, John G. Adolfi and Mervyn LeRoy.
Although Lloyd never became known for a particular style other than a well-placed close up, his ability to bring in an entertaining film on time and within budget earned him such enormous respect from the five Warner Brothers that he was soon handed control over important projects, including The Singing Fool (1928), Al Jolson's follow-up to The Jazz Singer (1927), which grossed an unheard-of (for Warners, at least) $4,000,000 in domestic receipts alone-- the studio's #1 hit for 1928. Bacon was rewarded by becoming the highest paid director on the studio lot, earning over $200,000 a year throughout the Depression. He was called upon to direct the studio's big-budget production of Moby Dick (1930), which garnered good notices, but it's a version that's barely remembered today.
The 1930s saw Bacon assigned to the assembly line; aside from the Busby Berkeley-choreographed films, he directed many of James Cagney's crowd-pleasing two-week wonders, including Picture Snatcher (1933) (Cagney once remarked that the schedule on that picture was so tight that, one time after he and the cast had rehearsed a particular scene, Cagney said, "OK, Lloyd, are you ready to shoot?" Bacon grinned and said, "I just did!") and The Irish in Us (1935). As a reward, he was occasionally afforded more time and money on productions such as Here Comes the Navy (1934) and Devil Dogs of the Air (1935). He also directed Cagney's return effort after his ill-advised move to cheapjack Grand National Pictures after one of his periodic salary disputes with studio head Jack L. Warner-- the badly miscast if frenetic Boy Meets Girl (1938). This was one of Cagney's least critically acclaimed Warner Brothers films of the 1930s, but a smash hit for the studio.
During his years at Warners, Bacon gained a reputation as a clothes horse, the dapper director arriving on the set dressed to the nines, wearing expensive hats that he would hurl around the set when expressing his dissatisfaction (he ruined a lot of hats) at an actor's performance or missed cue. Bacon continued to turn out profitable films for the studio until moving to 20th Century-Fox in 1944 (a logical move, since the recently discharged Darryl F. Zanuck knew Bacon from his early days at Warners). He stayed at Fox until 1949, then bounced among Columbia, Fox, Universal and finally the chaotically-run RKO in 1954.
He worked virtually until his death from a cerebral hemorrhage at age 65.- Writer
- Director
- Script and Continuity Department
Péter Bacsó was born on 6 January 1928 in Kosice, Czechoslovakia [now Slovakia]. He was a writer and director, known for Forró vizet a kopaszra! (1972), Nyár a hegyen (1967) and Jelenidö (1972). He died on 11 March 2009 in Budapest, Hungary.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
A graduate of the Boston Polytechnic Institute, Clarence Badger had a varied early career as an artist, stage actor, editor and journalist with several newspapers and magazines (including "The Youth's Companion"), before entering the film business with Mack Sennett in 1915. At Sennett's Triangle-Keystone, his qualifications ensured rapid promotion to writer/director of numerous two-reel situation comedies. Badger's style was gentler, more subtle and based on character development, rather than on the prevalent visual slapstick. Several of his early shorts featured a young Gloria Swanson in the first stages of her climb to stardom.
Badger was lured away from Sennett by Samuel Goldwyn in 1917, to direct a series of comedies with Will Rogers, including the small town farce Jubilo (1919), Doubling for Romeo (1921) and Honest Hutch (1920). During the 1920's, he worked for Paramount and Metro, where his best films were the Civil War romp Hands Up! (1926), Potash and Perlmutter (1923), and the romantic comedy that made Clara Bow into a major star, It (1927). During the remainder of the decade, Badger directed some of the biggest names in the business, from Colleen Moore and Betty Compson, to Jack Buchanan and Bebe Daniels. Pick of the bunch among his last few directorial efforts (under contract to Warner Brothers/First National) was the high-spirited first-time screen adaptation of the Broadway hit musical No, No, Nanette (1930). There were also two back-to-back box office flops, the Herbert Fields musical The Hot Heiress (1931) and the woefully under-acted melodrama Woman Hungry (1931). These failures may have persuaded Badger to leave the industry.
In 1935, he moved out of his Spanish colonial-style mansion in the Hollywood Hills and emigrated to Australia a year later. Except for a couple of independently produced melodramas filmed in New South Wales, Clarence Badger spent the remainder of his life in happy retirement.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
English-born "Army brat" John Badham is the son of English actress Mary Hewitt and the stepson of an American Army general. Raised in Alabama and schooled at Yale, he cut his teeth producing and directing for TV before making his feature debut with The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976). Badham's breakthrough credit was the box office smash Saturday Night Fever (1977), made the following year; other hits on his resume include Blue Thunder (1983), WarGames (1983), and Short Circuit (1986).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
The son of former heavyweight boxing champion Max Baer, Max Baer Jr. is a classic (except probably to him) example of Hollywood typecasting. Known around the world as "Jethro Bodine" in the smash TV series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Baer did not find work as an actor in Hollywood for three years after the Hillbillies went off the air. Baer finally had to put himself to work as an actor in his movie Macon County Line (1974), which he also wrote and produced with a friend. Although it didn't let him escape his Jethro character, he did earn more than $35 million dollars in box office and (later) rental receipts. This after an initial investment of just over $100,000. Not bad for a boy with a "sixth grade education!"- Actor
- Director
- Writer
St. Louis-born King Baggot traveled to New York City with the express intent of crashing Broadway, but began his film career in nearby Fort Lee, NJ, in 1909. It didn't take long before he graduated from actor to writer and director--at times performing all three functions; in Shadows (1914) he not only directed but played ten different parts--and his efforts paid off, becoming a major star in the industry. Baggot was actually the first "star" to be given billing by his studio and his featured in its advertising. His most famous film as director would probably be the classic William S. Hart western Tumbleweeds (1925).
Baggot's career as a director faded with the coming of sound, but he continued his work as an actor, although often in bit parts. Still, he had an impressive career--more than 340 films as an actor and 45 as a director. He made his last film in 1947 and died of a stroke in 1948 in Los Angeles, CA.- Director
- Animation Department
- Writer
Ralph Bakshi worked his way up from Brooklyn and became an animation legend. He was born on October 29, 1938, in Haifa, Israel, the son of Mina (Zlotin) and Eliezar Bakshi, and is of Krymchak Jewish descent. He was raised in Brownsville, after his family came to New York to escape World War II. Bakshi attended the Thomas Jefferson High School and was later transferred to the High School of Industrial Arts and graduated with an award in cartooning in 1957.
At the Terrytoons studio, he started as a cel polisher then graduated to cel painting. Practicing nights and weekends, he quickly became an inker and then an animator. There, he worked on such shows as Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Deputy Dawg, Foofle and Lariat Sam. At 28 he created and directed a series of superhero spoof cartoons called The Mighty Heroes.
In 1967, Bakshi moved to Paramount Studios. Working with producer Steve Krantz, Bakshi worked on episodes of the Spider-Man TV series and several short films. In the 1970s, Bakshi set out to produce films using his innovative vision for how animated films should be. Krantz suggested Robert Crumb's "Fritz the Cat" comic book as Bakshi's first feature. The two set out to meet with Crumb and get the film rights. In 1972, the film premiered and was extremely successful, as the first feature-length animated film to receive an X rating by the American rating system (when it was distributed worldwide, it generally received lower ratings the equivalent of an R rating, and was released as being unrated on DVD).
The success of "Fritz the Cat" allowed Bakshi to produce films featuring his own characters and ideas, and so "Heavy Traffic" and "Coonskin" were produced, both of which were extremely controversial, but were praised by critics. During the same period, he shot and completed another feature titled "Hey Good Lookin'" for the Warner Brothers studio, who didn't think that a combination of live-action and animation would sell, and forced Bakshi to go back and animate the live action sequences.
During this period, Bakshi also produced two very successful fantasy films, "Wizards" and part one of an animated film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings." Although these films were financially successful, they were misunderstood by critics, and United Artists, the studio that produced "The Lord of the Rings" refused to fund the second part, or sequel to Bakshi's ambitious adaptation.
During the 1980s, animation went into a decline. "American Pop," done using the same style of realistic animation as "The Lord of the Rings" was not successful financially, and critics did not see the point of the film being animated. The finished version of "Hey Good Lookin'" was released during the same year as "American Pop," but was also unsuccessful financially. Bakshi's last film of the decade, "Fire & Ice," a collaboration with famed artist Frank Frazetta, was a flop.
Bakshi produced several television features with mixed results before returning to film with what would eventually become "Cool World" - the script was rewritten several times during production without Bakshi's knowledge until it came to the point where Bakshi did not recognize his own work. The film was critically scorned, and was a box office flop. Fans feel that the film is not a true Bakshi film.
Since then, the Internet and DVD releases of Bakshi's work have brought him a new generation of fans and increased interest, encouraging Bakshi to produce another film. "Last Days of Coney Island" is in production. Bakshi lives in New Mexico. A three-day retrospective was held at American Cinematheque at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California and the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California in April, 2005.