Favorite actor and actress from the 50's and 60's
These are my favorite stars who's careers started in the 50' and my favorite movies they starred in
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- Albert David Hedison Jr. was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the elder son of Albert and Rose Hedison, naturalized United States citizens from Armenia. His father owned a jewelry enameling business and his son was expected to follow in his footsteps. Young Al had other ideas, having put his sights on an acting career after seeing Tyrone Power on the screen in Blood and Sand (1941).
Following the completion of military service in the navy (as a Seaman 2nd Class, working on mothballing decommissioned warships), he enrolled at Brown University. Three years later, he joined the Neighborhood Playhouse School in Manhattan and studied acting under Sanford Meisner. He then underwent further training at the Actor's Studio with the legendary Lee Strasberg.
When he finally made his theatrical debut he was billed as 'Al Hedison'. Voted most promising newcomer for his performance in the off-Broadway play "A Month in the Country", he received a Theatre World Award. More importantly, this opened the doors to work in the film business, albeit slowly. One of a myriad of struggling actors, Hedison had taken a temporary job as a radio announcer for a local station in North Carolina to make ends meet. Upon his return to New York, the offers began to come in and he made his screen bow in 1954.
His first significant role was as the unfortunate scientist André Delambre whose matter transmitter experiments end up with him being turned into The Fly (1958). It did not end well for the poor man. For the actor, however, it set the tone for other forays into the genres of fantasy and science fiction, notably as Ed Malone in The Lost World (1960) and as Captain Lee Crane in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) (arguably his most famous role), both Irwin Allen productions. He later recalled really 'hitting it off' with co-star Richard Basehart, saying "Richard and I had real chemistry. He taught me so much about being camera ready when I needed to be. Television filming is so very fast, we always had to keep moving on."
Under contract to 20th Century Fox from 1958, Hedison next starred in the Cold War spy series Five Fingers (1959) portraying the part of an American counterintelligence officer (the accompanying change of his stage moniker to 'David Hedison' came about at the insistence of NBC and Fox). By the early 60s, Hedison had become a much sought-after, robust lead for made-for-TV films and TV series. He had befriended the actor Roger Moore while filming an episode of The Saint (1962) and this paved the way for him to appear in two James Bond films -- Live and Let Die (1973) and Licence to Kill (1989) -- on both occasions as CIA operative Felix Leiter. Over the years followed numerous guest spots on crime dramas like The F.B.I. (1965), Cannon (1971), Ellery Queen (1975), Barnaby Jones (1973) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). In 2004, he joined the regular cast of the TV soap The Young and the Restless (1973) for some fifty episodes. Ultimately, however, he came to regard the stage as his favorite medium, saying "When I go back to the theater, I feel good about myself. When I do films or TV, it's to make a little bread to pay my mortgage..."The Enemy Below - Actor
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Jeffrey Hunter was born Henry Herman McKinnies Jr. on November 25, 1926 in New Orleans, Louisiana, an only child. His parents met at the University of Arkansas, and when he was almost four his family moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In his teens, he acted in productions of the North Shore Children's Theater and, from 1942 to 1944, performed in summer stock with the local Port Players, along with Eileen Heckart, Charlotte Rae and Morton DaCosta. Hunter was also a radio actor at WTMJ, getting his first professional paycheck in 1945 for the wartime series "Those Who Serve." After graduation from Whitefish Bay High School, where he was co-captain of the football team, he enlisted in the United States Navy and underwent training at Great Lakes Naval Station, Illinois, in 1945-1946, but on the eve of his shipping out for active duty in Japan he took ill and received a medical discharge from the service.
Hunter attended and graduated from Northwestern University with a bachelor's degree in 1949, where he acquired more stage experience in Sheridan's "The Rivals" and Ruth Gordon's "Years Ago". He also did summer stock with Northwestern students at Eagles Mere, Pennsylvania in 1948, worked on two Northwestern Radio Playshop broadcasts, was president of Phi Delta Theta Fraternity, and was active in the campus film society with David Bradley, later acting in director David Bradley's production of Julius Caesar (1950) in 1949. He then attended graduate school at the University of California at Los Angeles, where he studied radio and drama. He was in the cast of a UCLA production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" in May, 1950; on opening night, the good-looking Hunter drew the attention of talent scouts from Paramount and 20th Century-Fox Studios.
Hunter made a screen test with Ed Begley in a scene from "All My Sons" at Paramount (where he met Barbara Rush, his future wife), but after an executive shake-up at that studio derailed his hiring, he was signed by 20th Century Fox (where he remained under contract until 1959) and within a month was sent on location in New York for Fourteen Hours (1951). Hunter was kept fairly busy in pictures, working his way from featured roles to starring roles to first-billing within two years in Sailor of the King (1953). His big break came with John Ford's classic, The Searchers (1956), where he played the young cowboy who accompanies John Wayne on his epic search for a child kidnapped by Comanches. Hunter got excellent reviews for his performance in this film and justifiably so, as he held his own well with the veteran Wayne.
Starring roles in two more John Ford movies followed, and in 1960, Hunter had one of his best roles in Hell to Eternity (1960), the true story of World War II hero Guy Gabaldon. That same year, Hunter landed the role for which he is probably best known (although it's far from his best work), when he played Jesus in producer Samuel Bronston's King of Kings (1961), which due to Hunter's still youthful looks at 33, was dubbed by irreverent Hollywood wags "I Was a Teenage Jesus." After the cancellation of his Western series Temple Houston (1963), and his decision not to continue in the lead role of the current series Star Trek (1966), his career took a downturn, and Hunter eventually wound up in Europe working on cheap Westerns, at the time a sure sign of a career in trouble.
While in Spain in November 1968 to film Cry Chicago (¡Viva América!), a story about the Chicago Mafia, Hunter was injured in an on-set explosion when a car window near him, which had been rigged to explode outward, accidentally exploded inward. Hunter sustained a serious concussion. According to Hunter's wife Emily, he "went into shock" on the flight back to the United States after filming and "couldn't speak. He could hardly move." After landing, Hunter was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles, but doctors could not find any serious injuries except for a displaced vertebra and a concussion.
On the afternoon of May 26, 1969, Hunter suffered an intracranial hemorrhage while walking down a three-stair set of steps at his home in Van Nuys, California. He fell, knocked over a planter, and struck his head on the banister, fracturing his skull. He was found unconscious by Frank Bellow, an actor and a friend of Hunter's, who came for a visit, and taken to Valley Presbyterian Hospital, where he underwent brain surgery. He died at about 9:30 the following morning at the age of 42.- Actor
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Tall, slim, remote and boyishly handsome, one of Keir Dullea's most arresting features is his pale blue eyes, which featured in a number of watershed films of the 1960s. His major breakthrough (providing him legendary status) was the starring role as astronaut Dave Bowman in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. After that, he persevered quite well on T.V. and (especially) the stage in a career now surpassing five decades.
Dullea, who was born in Cleveland, Ohio, is the son of two book-store owners, and he was raised in New York's Greenwich Village section. He graduated from George School in Pennsylvania and attended both Rutgers and San Francisco State before deciding to pursue summer stock and regional theatre. Attending the Neighborhood Playhouse, he made his New York City acting debut in a production of "Sticks and Bones" in 1956. His first big break came with the pilot program of the Route 66 (1960) series, and he proceeded to find other TV roles in Naked City (1958), Checkmate (1960) and various dramatic programs.
Following stage work in "Season of Choice" (1959) and "A Short Happy Life" (1961), Dullea made an auspicious film debut in a leading role with The Hoodlum Priest (1961), playing a troubled street gang member who crosses paths with Don Murray's determined minister. The young actor's characters from then on seemed to walk a dangerous tight-rope of emotions, and his apparent versatility at such a young age led him to a number of other psychologically scarred portrayals. Tending to play men younger than he really was, none were more disturbed than his haphephobic adolescent David (Dullea was twenty-six at the time) in the deeply felt love story David and Lisa (1962). Paired beautifully with Janet Margolin's schizophrenic Lisa, Dullea won the Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Male Newcomer."
In the World War II military drama The Thin Red Line (1964)he played an edgy, nervous-eyed private who is pushed to his murderous brink by a brutal sergeant on Guadacanal. In Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) Dullea portrayed the incestuous brother of Carol Lynley, who may or may not figure into the disappearance of Lynley's child. Keir also costarred as the mysterious intruder who inserts an emotional wedge between gay lovers Anne Heywood and Sandy Dennis in the ground-breaking film about homosexuals, The Fox (1967).
Topping that off, Dullea played the salacious Marquis De Sade himself in a relatively tame, internationally flavored production of De Sade (1969). The apex of his film career, however, came with his lead role in Stanley Kubrick's epic science-fiction film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), as the astronaut Dr. David Bowman.
In the realm of stage acting, Keir made his debut on Broadway in 1967 with "Dr. Cook's Garden" costarring Burl Ives, and Dullea won some "flower power" stardom two years later as a sensitive young blind man who attempted to wriggle free of his protective, overbearing mother. His character also pursues love with a free-spirited girl, played by Blythe Danner, in the play "Butterflies Are Free." By the time the movie of this story was released in 1972 both stars had been replaced by Goldie Hawn and Edward Albert.
Dullea next went abroad to seek film work in England and in Canada, but with lukewarm results. He continued to show his odd-man-out appeal on the Broadway stage as "Brick" in 1970, and in the Broadway revival of "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" in 1974, acting along with Elizabeth Ashley as "Maggie," and in the black comedy "P.S. Your Cat Is Dead!" one year later.
In the years since then, Dullea has acted steadily on the stage in New York City, and in U.S. regional theatres, in productions of "Sweet Prince," "The Seagull" and "The Little Foxes,"among others. His cinematic roles since 1970 have included another "mysterious stranger" in The Next One (1984), and he also reprised his "David Bowman" role in 2010 (1984), the sequel to "2001: A Space Odyssey." Dullea has had four wives: his first was actress Margot Bennett, and he and his third wife, Susie Fuller (whom he met during the British performances of "Butterflies are Free" in London), cofounded the Theater Artists Workshop of Westport in 1983. Dullea, Fuller and her two children resided in London for quite a while. After Fuller's death in 1998, Dullea married for the fourth time in 1999 to actress Mia Dillon, who is best known for portraying the character "Babe" in in the play, "Crimes of the Heart" in New York City. Just a few weeks later they appeared together in the play "Deathtrap."
Into the millennium, Keir has been featured on film, including the sci-fi adventure Alien Hunter (2003); the senator in The Good Shepherd (2006), along with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie, which was directed by Robert De Niro; the romantic comedy The Accidental Husband (2008) starring Uma Thurman; the touching Mark Ruffalo social drama Infinitely Polar Bear (2014); and a prime role in the romantic mystery April Flowers (2017). On TV he was seen in such popular programs as "Law & Order," "Castle" and "Damages." and was seen in the recurring role of a religious cult leader in the fascinating series The Path (2016).- Actor
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Gary Lockwood was born John Gary Yurosek in Van Nuys, California to John and Margaret Emma (Kiel) Yurosek . He attended UCLA on a football scholarship.
He began his career as a movie stuntman, and a stand-in for Anthony Perkins, prior to his acting debut in 1959 in an uncredited bit role in Warlock (1959). He also appeared as a police officer in The Case of the Romantic Rogue (1959). Two series came early in his career, ABC's Hawaii-set Follow the Sun (1961) (1961-62) as an adventurous magazine writer in Honolulu. In 1961, he appeared as a rodeo cowboy in love with an 18-year-old singer (played by Tuesday Weld) in ABC's Cherie (1961). He then starred with Lloyd Bridges in My Daddy Can Lick Your Daddy (1963). In 1964, he starred as a young U.S. Marine lieutenant in the NBC series, The Lieutenant (1963). He then starred in another NBC television series, Kraft Mystery Theater (1961), opposite Sally Kellerman (with whom he would later appear in the second Star Trek (1966) pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966)) as "Lt. Cmdr. Gary Mitchell", and Kellerman as the ship's psychiatrist, "Dr. Elizabeth Dehner", who both develop destructive super powers.
In 1966, he guest-starred in the episode, Reunion (1966), of ABC's The Legend of Jesse James (1965). That same year, he appeared on Day of Thunder (1966) of the NBC's drama The Long, Hot Summer (1965), as well as appearing as "Jim Stark" in the two-part episode "The Raid" of CBS's Gunsmoke (1955).
He co-starred with Stefanie Powers (his wife at the time) in the episode, Love and the Phone Booth/Love and the Doorknob (1969), of ABC's Love, American Style (1969). In 1968, he was cast as the co-star in director Stanley Kubrick's legendary 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), starring as "Dr. Frank Poole". In 1983, he made a guest appearance as "Alex Carmen" in the Hart to Hart (1979) episode, Emily by Hart (1983).
Between 1959 and 2004, he had roles in some forty theatrical and made-for-TV features and made almost eighty TV guest appearances, including several as a villain on CBS-TV's Barnaby Jones (1973).- Actor
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R.J. Wagner was born 1930 in Detroit, the son of a steel executive. His family moved to L.A. when he was six. Always wanting to be an actor, he held a variety of jobs (including one as a golf caddy for Clark Gable) while pursuing his goal, but it was while dining with his parents at a Beverly Hills restaurant that he was discovered by a talent scout. After making his uncredited screen debut in The Happy Years (1950), Wagner was signed by 20th Century Fox, which carefully built him up toward stardom. He played romantic leads with ease, but it was not until he essayed the two-scene role of a shell-shocked war veteran in With a Song in My Heart (1952) that studio executives recognized his potential as a dramatic actor. He went on to play the title roles in Prince Valiant (1954) and The True Story of Jesse James (1957), and portrayed a cold-blooded murderer in A Kiss Before Dying (1956). In the mid-'60s, however, his film career skidded to a stop after The Pink Panther (1963). Several years of unemployment followed before Wagner made a respectable transition to television as star of the lighthearted espionage series It Takes a Thief (1968). He also starred on the police series Switch (1975), but Wagner's greatest success was opposite Stefanie Powers on the internationally popular Hart to Hart (1979), which ran from 1979 through 1984 and has since been sporadically revived in TV-movie form (another series, Lime Street (1985), was quickly canceled due to the tragic death of Wagner's young co-star, Samantha Smith). Considered one of Hollywood's nicest citizens, Robert Wagner has continued to successfully pursue a leading man career; he has also launched a latter-day stage career, touring with Stefanie Powers in the readers' theater presentation "Love Letters". He found success playing Number Two, a henchman to Dr. Evil in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and its sequels, and in 2007, he began playing Teddy Leopold, a recurring role on the CBS sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003). Wagner is married to Jill St. John and lives in Aspen.- Actor
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Rock Hudson was born Roy Harold Scherer, Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois, to Katherine (Wood), a telephone operator, and Roy Harold Scherer, an auto mechanic. He was of German, Swiss-German, English, and Irish descent. His parents divorced when he was eight years old. He failed to obtain parts in school plays because he couldn't remember lines. After high school he was a postal employee and during WW II served as a Navy airplane mechanic. After the war he was a truck driver. His size and good looks got him into movies. His name was changed to Rock Hudson, his teeth were capped, he took lessons in acting, singing, fencing and riding. One line in his first picture, Fighter Squadron (1948), needed 38 takes. In 1956 he received an Oscar nomination for Giant (1956) and two years later Look magazine named him Star of the Year. He starred in a number of bedroom comedies, many with Doris Day, and had his own popular TV series McMillan & Wife (1971). He had a recurring role in TV's Dynasty (1981) (1984-5). He was the first major public figure to announce he had AIDS, and his worldwide search for a cure drew international attention. After his death his long-time lover Marc Christian successfully sued his estate, again calling attention to the homosexuality Rock had hidden from most throughout his career.- Actress
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Jenny Agutter was born on December 20, 1952, in Taunton, Somerset, England, UK. The daughter of an army officer, she spent her childhood traveling and living in different countries. Her film career began at the age of 12 in East of Sudan (1964), which was quickly followed by Ballerina: Part 1 (1966) and Ballerina: Part 2 (1966), and A Man Could Get Killed (1966). Other films and television appearances in her early career include Gates to Paradise (1968), Long After Summer (1967), Star! (1968), I Start Counting (1970), The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens (1970), and The Wild Duck (1971).
In 1970, she appeared in what was her real big break as a child star: The Railway Children (1970), as "Bobbie". The next year, Hollywood called and she spent several years there, appearing in such works as The Cherry Orchard (1971), Walkabout (1971), and The Snow Goose (1971) with Richard Harris, for which she received an Emmy Award. She also appeared in the critically acclaimed A War of Children (1972) and Shelley (1972).
In 1976, Jenny really came to the attention of US film audiences with her starring role in the science-fiction classic Logan's Run (1976) with Michael York. Though not a critical favorite, it was a huge box-office success and spawned a television series. She also starred alongside Richard Chamberlain in a well-received made-for-TV version of the famous Dumas tale The Man in the Iron Mask (1977) and turned in a solid performance in the WW II thriller The Eagle Has Landed (1976) with Michael Caine and Donald Sutherland. The next year, she starred in Peter Shaffer's weighty Equus (1977) as "Jill Mason", alongside Richard Burton. Among her other TV and film work during the 1970s were Dominique (1979), School Play (1979), and The Riddle of the Sands (1979).
In 1981, she played "Desdemona" opposite William Marshall in The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice (1981). Other Shakespeare performances include "King Lear", Love's Labour's Lost (1985) as "Rosaline" for the BBC and Romeo & Juliet (1993) as "Lady Capulet". During this time, she was in numerous films and television series, including Sweet William (1980), Beulah Land (1980), The Survivor (1981), Amy (1981), and one of the films for which she is most fondly remembered, An American Werewolf in London (1981). She also appeared in This Office Life (1984), Secret Places (1984), Silas Marner (1985), Dark Tower (1987), Miss Right (1982), and King of the Wind (1990).
In the 1990s, she concentrated mainly on television, with roles in TECX (1990); Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1990); Red Dwarf (1988); The All New Alexei Sayle Show (1994); The Buccaneers (1995); And the Beat Goes On (1996); September (1996) with Edward Fox, Michael York, Virginia McKenna, and Jacqueline Bisset; A Respectable Trade (1998) with Warren Clarke, Anna Massey, and Richard Briers. Her theatrical films during this period included Darkman (1990) with Liam Neeson; and Blue Juice (1995) with Sean Pertwee, Ewan McGregor, and Catherine Zeta-Jones. She also appeared as "Mrs. Bruce" in two feature-length episodes of the popular ITV series Bramwell (1995) in which she starred with Jemma Redgrave. She has also made several guest appearances in TV shows such as The Red Dwarf (1998); Boon (1986); The Equalizer (1985) with Edward Woodward; The Twilight Zone (1985); Magnum, P.I. (1980) and The Six Million Dollar Man (1974).
Jenny married to Johan Tham in August 1990. They have one son Jonathan, born in December 1990 and live in Cornwall, England, UK. Her particular love is charity work for The Diabetic Association and NCH Action for Children - a charity which provides home and other help for homeless children - with which she has been involved for many years.- Actress
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One of the world's most famous and distinguished actresses, Dame Maggie Smith was born Margaret Natalie Smith in Essex. Her Scottish mother, Margaret (Hutton), worked as a secretary, and her English father, Nathaniel Smith, was a teacher at Oxford University. Smith has been married twice: to actor Robert Stephens and to playwright Beverley Cross. Her marriage to Stephens ended in divorce in 1974. She was married to Cross until his death in 1999. She had two sons with Stephens, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens who are also actors.
Maggie Smith's career began at the Oxford Playhouse in the 1950s. She made her film debut in 1956 as one of the party guests in Child in the House (1956). She has since performed in over sixty films and television series with some of the most prominent actors and actresses in the world. These include: Othello (1965) with Laurence Olivier, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), California Suite (1978) with Michael Caine and Jane Fonda, A Room with a View (1985), Richard III (1995) with Ian McKellen and Jim Broadbent, Franco Zeffirelli's Tea with Mussolini (1999) with Judi Dench, Joan Plowright and Cher and Gosford Park (2001) with Kristin Scott Thomas and Clive Owen, directed by Robert Altman. Maggie Smith has also been nominated for an Oscar six times and won twice, for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969) and California Suite (1978).
Smith later appeared in the very successful 'Harry Potter' franchise as the formidable Professor McGonagall as well as in Julian Fellowes' ITV drama series, Downton Abbey (2010) (2010-2011) as the Dowager Countess of Grantham.- Actor
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Suave and handsome Australian actor arrived in Hollywood in the 1950s, and built himself up from a supporting actor into taking the lead in several well-remembered movies. Arguably his most fondly remembered role was that as George (Herbert George Wells), the inventor, in George Pal's spectacular The Time Machine (1960). As the movie finished with George, and his best friend Filby Alan Young seemingly parting forever, both actors were brought back together in 1993 to film a 30-minute epilogue to the original movie! Taylor's virile, matinée idol looks also assisted him in scoring the lead of Mitch Brenner in Alfred Hitchcock's creepy thriller The Birds (1963), the role of Jane Fonda's love interest in Sunday in New York (1963), the title role in John Ford's biopic of Irish playwright Sean O'Casey in Young Cassidy (1965), and a co-starring role in The Train Robbers (1973) with John Wayne. Taylor also appeared as Bette Davis future son-in-law in the well-received film The Catered Affair (1956). He also gave a sterling performance as the German-American Nazi Major trying to fool James Garner in 36 Hours (1964). Later, Taylor made many westerns and action movies during the 1960s and 1970s; however, none of these were much better than "B" pictures and failed to push his star to the next level. Additionally, Taylor was cast as the lead in several TV series including Bearcats! (1971), Masquerade (1983), and Outlaws (1986); however, none of them truly ignited viewer interest, and they were cancelled after only one or two seasons. Most fans would agree that Rod Taylor's last great role was in the wonderful Australian film The Picture Show Man (1977), about a travelling sideshow bringing "moving pictures" to remote towns in the Australian outback.- Actor
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Since David McCallum's father, David McCallum Sr., was first violinist for the London Philharmonic Orchestra and his mother, Dorothy Dorman, was a cellist, it's not surprising that David was originally headed for a career in music, playing oboe. He studied briefly at the Royal Academy of Music. He left that, however, for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and joined Actor's Equity in 1946, his first acting work being for BBC Radio. He made nearly a dozen movies in the United Kingdom before his critically acclaimed work as Lt. Wyatt in Billy Budd (1962).
To the older generation, he is perhaps best known for his portrayal of U.N.C.L.E. agent Illya Kuryakin in the hit TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964). To younger audience, he is best known for his superlative portrayal of Dr. Donald "Duckie" Mallard on NCIS (2003).
McCallum was first married to actress Jill Ireland, whom he met while filming Hell Drivers (1957). In 1962 he introduced Ireland to Charles Bronson when both were filming The Great Escape (1963). She eventually left McCallum and married Bronson in 1968. McCallum and Ireland had three sons: Paul, Jason (an adopted son who died from an accidental drug overdose in 1989), and Val (short for Valentine).
He met fashion model Katherine Carpenter during a photo shoot for Glamour in 1965 and married her two years later. The couple had a son, Peter, and a daughter, Sophie. They were together for 58 years and were active with charitable organizations that support the The United States Marine Corps: Katherine's father was a Marine who served in the Battle of Iwo Jima, and her brother lost his life in the Vietnam War. McCallum had eight grandchildren.
David McCallum died on September 25 2023 in New York City from natural causes at the age of 90.- Actor
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Roger Moore will perhaps always be remembered as the man who replaced Sean Connery in the James Bond series, arguably something he never lived down.
Roger George Moore was born on October 14, 1927 in Stockwell, London, England, the son of Lillian (Pope) and George Alfred Moore, a policeman. His mother was born in Calcutta, India, to a British family. Roger first wanted to be an artist, but got into films full time after becoming an extra in the late 1940s. He came to the United States in 1953. Suave, extremely handsome, and an excellent actor, he received a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. His initial foray met with mixed success, with movies like Diane (1956) and Interrupted Melody (1955), as well as The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954).
Moore went into television in the 1950s on series such as Ivanhoe (1958) and The Alaskans (1959), but probably received the most recognition from Maverick (1957), as cousin Beau. He received his big breakthrough, at least internationally, as The Saint (1962). The series made him a superstar and he became very successful thereafter. Moore ended his run as the Saint, and was one of the premier stars of the world, but he was not catching on in America. In an attempt to change this, he agreed to star with Tony Curtis on ITC's The Persuaders! (1971), but although hugely popular in Europe, it did not catch on in the United States and was canceled. Just prior to making the series, he starred in The Man Who Haunted Himself (1970), which proved there was far more to Moore than the light-hearted roles he had previously accepted.
He was next offered and accepted the role of James Bond, and once audiences got used to the change of style from Connery's portrayal, they also accepted him. Live and Let Die (1973), his first Bond movie, grossed more outside of America than Diamonds Are Forever (1971); Connery's last outing as James Bond. He went on to star in another six Bond films, before bowing out after A View to a Kill (1985). He was age 57 at the time the film was made and was looking a little too old for Bond - it was possibly one film too many. In between times, there had been more success with appearances in films such as That Lucky Touch (1975), Shout at the Devil (1976), The Wild Geese (1978), Escape to Athena (1979) and North Sea Hijack (1980).
Despite his fame from the Bond films and many others, the United States never completely took to him until he starred in The Cannonball Run (1981) alongside Burt Reynolds, a success there. After relinquishing his role as Bond, his work load tended to diminish a little, though he did star in the American box office flop Feuer, Eis & Dynamit (1990), as well as the comedy Bullseye! (1990), with Michael Caine. He did the overlooked comedy Bed & Breakfast (1991), as well as the television movie The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1994), and then the major Jean-Claude Van Damme flop The Quest (1996). Moore then took second rate roles such as Spice World (1997), and the American television series The Dream Team (1999). Although his film work slowed down, he was still in the public eye, be it appearing on television chat shows or hosting documentaries.
Roger Moore was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire on December 31, 1998 in the New Years Honours for services to UNICEF, and was promoted to Knight Commander of the same order on June 14, 2003 in the Queen's Birthday Honours for services to the charities UNICEF and Kiwanis International.
Roger Moore died of cancer on 23 May, 2017, in Switzerland. He was 89.- Actress
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Dame Judi Dench was born Judith Olivia Dench in York, England, to Eleanora Olive (Jones), who was from Dublin, Ireland, and Reginald Arthur Dench, a doctor from Dorset, England. She attended Mount School in York, and studied at the Central School of Speech and Drama. She has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre, and at Old Vic Theatre. She is a ten-time BAFTA winner including Best Actress in a Comedy Series for A Fine Romance (1981) in which she appeared with her husband, Michael Williams, and Best Supporting Actress in A Handful of Dust (1988) and A Room with a View (1985). She received an ACE award for her performance in the television series Mr. and Mrs. Edgehill (1985). She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1970, a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1988 and a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in 2005.- Actress
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Dame Helen Mirren was born in Queen Charlotte's Hospital in West London. Her mother, Kathleen Alexandrina Eva Matilda (Rogers), was from a working-class English family, and her father, Vasiliy Petrovich Mironov, was a Russian-born civil servant, from Kuryanovo, whose own father was a diplomat. Mirren attended St. Bernards High School for girls, where she would act in school productions. After high school, she began her acting career in theatre working in many productions including in the West End and Broadway.- Actor
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Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor best known for playing Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and the title role in Doctor Zhivago (1965), was born Michel Demitri Shalhoub on April 10, 1932 in Alexandria, Egypt to Joseph Shalhoub, a lumber merchant, and his wife, Claire (Saada). Of Lebanese and Syrian extraction, the young Michel was raised Catholic. He was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria and took a degree in mathematics and physics from Cairo University with a major. Afterward graduating from university, he entered the family lumber business.
Before making his English-language film debut with "Lawrence of Arabia", for which he earned a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination and international fame, Sharif became a star in Egyptian cinema. His first movie was the Egyptian film The Blazing Sun (1954) ("The Blazing Sun") in 1953, opposite the renowned Egyptian actress Faten Hamamah whom he married in 1955. He converted to Islam to marry Hamama and took the name Omar al-Sharif. The couple had one child (Tarek Sharif, who was born in 1957 and portrayed the young Zhivago in the eponymous picture) and divorced in 1974. Sharif never remarried.
Beginning in the 1960s, Sharif earned a reputation as one of the world's best known contract bridge players. In the 1970s and 1980s, he co-wrote a syndicated newspaper bridge column for the Chicago Tribune. Sharif also wrote several books on bridge and has licensed his name to a bridge computer game, "Omar Sharif Bridge", which has been marketed since 1992. Sharif told the press in 2006 that he no longer played bridge, explaining, "I decided I didn't want to be a slave to any passion any more except for my work. I had too many passions, bridge, horses, gambling. I want to live a different kind of life, be with my family more because I didn't give them enough time.".
As an actor, Sharif had made a comeback in 2003 playing the title role of an elderly Muslim shopkeeper in the French film Monsieur Ibrahim (2003). For his performance, he won the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Actor César, France's equivalent of the Oscar, from the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma.
Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2012, Sharif died of a heart attack on July 10, 2015, in Cairo, Egypt.- Tom Tyron was born in Hartford, Connecticut, USA, After graduating from Yale he served in the American navy during the war, Later he studied for the stage with the Art Student League before joining the Cape Playhouse in Dennis, Massachusetts. Hethen became a tv and film actor and appeared in the film The Cardinal.