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- Frederick Tyrone Power was born in London, England, the son of concert pianist Harold Littledale Power and stage actress Ethel Lavenu, and the grandson of famed Irish actor Tyrone Power (1795-1841). He was educated at Dulwich College. His family emigrated to the U.S. and he was sent to Florida to work as a citrus farmer. However, he hated farming, having always wanted to be an actor, so he abandoned the citrus ranch and made his stage debut in 'The Private Secretary' in 1886. He toured the U.S., Britain, and Australia in theatrical tours, becoming a famed matinee idol and calling himself Tyrone Power II and Tyrone Power the Younger. In 1912, he was acclaimed for his Brutus in 'Julius Caesar'. In 1914, he entered films and played leading roles until age moved him into often villainous character roles. At home one night after shooting on the film 'The Miracle Man' in 1931, Power suffered a massive heart attack and died literally in the arms of his 17-year-old son, Tyrone Power (Tyrone Edmund Power Jr., as he was legally named).
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Tyrone Power was one of the great romantic swashbuckling stars of the mid-twentieth century, and the third Tyrone Power of four in a famed acting dynasty reaching back to the eighteenth century. His great-grandfather was the first Tyrone Power (1795-1841), a famed Irish comedian. His father, known to historians as Tyrone Power Sr., but to his contemporaries as either Tyrone Power or Tyrone Power the Younger, was a huge star in the theater (and later in films) in both classical and modern roles. His mother, Helen Emma "Patia" (née Reaume), (Mrs. Tyrone Power), was also a Shakespearean actress as well as a respected dramatic coach.
Tyrone Edmund Power, Jr., (also called Tyrone Power III) was born at his mother's home of Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1914. His ancestry included English, Irish, German, French Huguenot, and French-Canadian. A frail, sickly child, he was taken by his parents to the warmer climate of southern California. After his parents' divorce, he and his sister Anne Power returned to Cincinnati with their mother. There he attended school while developing an obsession with acting. Although raised by his mother, he corresponded with his father, who encouraged his acting dreams. He was a supernumerary in his father's stage production of 'The Merchant of Venice' in Chicago and held him as he died suddenly of a heart attack later that year.
Startlingly handsome, young Tyrone nevertheless struggled to find work in Hollywood. He appeared in a few small roles, then went east to do stage work. A screen test led to a contract at 20th Century Fox in 1936, and he quickly progressed to leading roles. Within a year or so, he was one of Fox's leading stars, playing in contemporary and period pieces with ease. Most of his roles were colorful without being deep, and his swordplay was more praised than his wordplay. He served in the Marine Corps in World War II as a transport pilot, and he saw action in the Pacific Theater of operations.
After the war, he got his best reviews for an atypical part as a downward-spiraling con-man in Nightmare Alley (1947). Although he remained a huge star, much of his postwar work was unremarkable. He continued to do notable stage work and also began producing films. Following a fine performance in Billy Wilder's Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Power began production on Solomon and Sheba (1959). Halfway through shooting, he suffered a heart attack during a dueling scene with George Sanders and died before reaching a hospital.
His three children, including his namesake, Tyrone William Power IV (known professionally as Tyrone Power Jr.), have all followed him in the family acting tradition.- Actor
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Great-great grandson of the original theatrical great 'Tyrone Power'. Grandson of the American matinee idol and silent film star known today as Tyrone Power Sr.. Son of the famed leading man of sound pictures Tyrone Power. Born two months after the death of his father to Deborah Minardos Power. Educated at Pomona College in California. Extremely handsome like his father, he has appeared to good effect in small roles in big pictures and more sizable parts in lesser films. Despite actually being Tyrone Power IV, he acts under the name Tyrone Power Jr., the same name his father began his career under.- Actor
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Born in New York City to a Judge of Special Sessions who was also president of a sewing machine company. Grew up on City Island, New York. Attended Hamilton Military Academy and turned down an appointment to West Point to attend New York Law School, where his law school classmates included future New York City mayor James J. Walker. After a boating accident which led to pneumonia, Carey wrote a play while recuperating and toured the country in it for three years, earning a great deal of money, all of which evaporated after his next play was a failure. In 1911, his friend Henry B. Walthall introduced him to director D.W. Griffith, for whom Carey was to make many films. Carey married twice, the second time to actress Olive Fuller Golden (aka Olive Carey, who introduced him to future director John Ford. Carey influenced Universal Studios head Carl Laemmle to use Ford as a director, and a partnership was born that lasted until a rift in the friendship in 1921. During this time, Carey grew into one of the most popular Western stars of the early motion picture, occasionally writing and directing films as well. In the '30s he moved slowly into character roles and was nominated for an Oscar for one of them, the President of the Senate in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). He worked once more with Ford, in The Prisoner of Shark Island (1936), and appeared once with his son, Harry Carey Jr., in Howard Hawks's Red River (1948). He died after a protracted bout with emphysema and cancer. Ford dedicated his remake of 3 Godfathers (1948) "To Harry Carey--Bright Star Of The Early Western Sky."- Actor
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Harry Carey, Jr., had been reliable character actor for decades, mostly in Westerns, before he retired. He is the son of the actor Harry Carey and the actress Olive Carey. He was born on his parents' 1000-acre ranch near Saugus, in the northwestern part of Los Angeles County, which is now next door to Santa Clarita, a large town that certainly did not exist in 1947 or for decades longer. Thus, the young Harry Carey, Jr., grew up among cattle and horses at the ranch. Because of a large group of Navajo Indians who worked on his parents' ranch, he learned to speak the Navajo language at the same time that he was learning to speak English.
During World War II, Carey enlisted in the U.S. Navy, and he served in the Pacific Theater first as a Navy medical corpsman. However, he was transferred back to the United States (against his wishes) to serve under his father's good friend, the director John Ford, in making movies for the Navy (training films)and the O.S.S. (propaganda films).
After World War II ended, Carey tried to make a career in singing, but he was not successful at this. Hence, he moved into acting, and after a couple of small acting parts, he was given a chance to work in a motion picture with his father, the John Wayne film Red River (1948). (However, the father and the son did not have any scenes with one another). After the death of Harry Carey, Sr., in 1946, Mr. Ford gave the younger Carey a leading role in the movie that Ford dedicated to the memory of Harry Carey, Sr., in 1948, 3 Godfathers (1948).
As a full-fledged member of the noted John Ford Stock Company, Carey, Jr., appeared in many of Mr. Ford's epic Westerns during the following two decades. Carey also starred in a series-within-a-series on TV, The Adventures of Spin and Marty (1955), which was shown as a part of The Mickey Mouse Club (1955). Very boyish looks characterized Carey's early years, but he matured into a strong and familiar character actor over the following four decades, and he acted in scores of films and TV programs in his long career. Carey, Jr., is married to Marilyn Fix Carey, the daughter of the actor Paul Fix.- Actor
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Respected character actor of the silent and early sound period, specializing in cruel villains. The son of Kansas City policeman Noah Webster Beery and Frances Margaret Fitzgerald Beery, Noah Nicholas Beery and his younger brother Wallace Beery both left home in their teens, each seeking a career as a performer. Noah made his stage debut at the age of 16 and worked steadily in the theatre until his early 30s. Following his brother into films, he quickly established himself as a competent player and a familiar heavy in all sorts of films, particularly westerns. He never achieved the great fame of his younger brother, but succeeded in carving a memorable niche for himself in the history of film. His son Noah Beery Jr. became equally familiar as a character actor, though usually in more genial roles.- Actor
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Familiar and well-liked character actor of very different persona than either his father, Noah Beery, or his uncle, Wallace Beery. He attended Harvard Military Academy but managed to make a number of appearances on film and on stage with his father before adulthood. At age 19, he began playing amiable second leads and occasional leading roles, primarily in westerns, before settling into what would be the pattern for much of his career: good-natured supporting roles, usually as a pal of the hero. He kept going in such parts into his late 70s, transforming slowly into warm (or, rarely, curmudgeonly) rustic sages. In later years, he achieved great renown as the father of the James Garner character on TV's The Rockford Files (1974). He married the daughter of cowboy star Buck Jones. Their son Bucklind Beery is an actor. They also had two daughters, Muffett and Melissa. Beery died in 1994 at the age of 81.- Actor
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Although his parents were deaf, Leonidas Chaney became an actor and also owner of a theatre company (together with his brother John). He made his debut at the movies in 1912, and his filmography is vast. Lon Chaney was especially famous for his horror parts in movies like e.g. Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923). Due to his special make-up effects he carried the characterization to be "the man with the thousand faces." He only filmed one movie with sound: The remake of one of his earlier films The Unholy Three (1930). His son, Lon Chaney Jr., became a famous actor of the horror genre.- Actor
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American character actor whose career was influenced (and often overshadowed) by that of his father, silent film star Lon Chaney. The younger Chaney was born while his parents were on a theatrical tour, and he joined them onstage for the first time at the age of six months. However, as a young man, even during the time of his father's growing fame, Creighton Chaney worked menial jobs to support himself without calling upon his father. He was at various times a plumber, a meatcutter's apprentice, a metal worker, and a farm worker. Always, however, there was the desire to follow in his father's footsteps. He studied makeup at his father's side, learning many of the techniques that had made his father famous. And he took stage roles in stock companies. It was not until after his father's death in 1930 that Chaney went to work in films. His first appearances were under his real name (he had been named for his mother, singer Frances Chaney). He played number of supporting parts before a producer in 1935 insisted on changing his name to Lon Chaney Jr. as a marketing ploy. Chaney was uncomfortable with the ploy and always hated the "Jr". addendum. But he was also aware that the famous name could help his career, and so he kept it. Most of the parts he played were unmemorable, often bits, until 1939 when he was given the role of the simple-minded Lennie in the film adaptation of John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men (1939). Chaney's performance was spectacularly touching; indeed, it became one of the two roles for which he would always be best remembered. The other came within the next year, when Universal, in hopes of reviving their horror film franchise as well as memories of their great silent star, Chaney Sr., cast Chaney as the tortured Lawrence Talbot in The Wolf Man (1941). With this film and the slew of horror films that followed it, Chaney achieved a kind of stardom, though he was never able to achieve his goal of surpassing his father. By the 1950s, he was established as a star in low-budget horror films and as a reliable character actor in more prestigious, big-budget films such as High Noon (1952). Never as versatile as his father, he fell more and more into cheap and mundane productions which traded primarily on his name and those of other fading horror stars. His later years were bedeviled by illness and problems with alcohol. When he died from a variety of causes in 1973, it was as an actor who had spent his life chasing the fame of his father, but who was much beloved by a generation of filmgoers who had never seen his father.- Actor
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Douglas Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colorado, to Ella Adelaide (nee Marsh) and Hezekiah Charles Ullman, an attorney and native of Pennsylvania, who was a captain for the Union forces during the Civil War. Fairbanks' paternal grandparents were German Jewish immigrants, while his mother, a Southerner with roots in Louisiana and Georgia, was of British Isles descent. From the age of five he was raised by his mother due to her husband's abandonment. She changed her sons' surnames to Fairbanks (her former husband's surname) and covered up their paternal Jewish ancestry.
He began amateur theater at age 12 and continued while attending the Colorado School of Mines. In 1900 they moved to New York. He attended Harvard, traveled to Europe, worked on a cattle freighter, in a hardware store and as a clerk on Wall Street. He made his Broadway debut in 1902 and five years later left theater to marry an industrialist's daughter.
He returned when his father-in-law went broke the next year. In 1915, he went to Hollywood and worked under a reluctant D.W. Griffith. The following year he formed his own production company. During a Liberty Bond tour with Charles Chaplin he fell in love with Mary Pickford with whom he, Chaplin and Griffith had formed United Artists in 1919. He made very successful early social comedies, then highly popular swashbucklers during the 'twenties. The owners of Hollywood's Pickfair Mansion separated in 1933 and divorced in 1936. In March 1936, he married and retired from acting.- Actor
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Although he appeared in approximately 100 movies or TV shows, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. never really intended to take up acting as a career. However, the environment he was born into and the circumstances naturally led him to be a thespian. Noblesse oblige.
He was born Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. in New York City, New York, to Anna Beth (Sully), daughter of a very wealthy cotton mogul, and actor Douglas Fairbanks (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman), then not yet established as the swashbuckling idol he would become. Fairbanks, Jr. had German Jewish (from his paternal grandfather), English, and Scottish ancestry.
He proved a gifted boy early in life. To the end of his life he remained a multi-talented, hyperactive man, not content to appear in the 100 films mentioned above. Handsome, distinguished and extremely bright, he excelled at sports (much like his father), notably during his stay at the Military Academy in 1919 (his role in Claude Autant-Lara's "L'athlète incomplete" illustrated these abilities). He also excelled academically, and attended the Lycéee Janson de Sailly in Paris, where he had followed his divorced mother. Very early in his life he developed a taste for the arts as well and became a painter and sculptor. Not content to limiting himself to just one field, he became involved in business, in fields as varied as mining, hotel management, owning a chain of bowling alleys and a firm that manufactured popcorn. During World War II he headed London's Douglas Voluntary Hospital (an establishment taking care of war refugees), was President Franklin D. Roosevelt's special envoy for the Special Mission to South America in 1940 before becoming a lieutenant in the Navy (he was promoted to the rank of captain in 1954) and taking part in the Allies' landing in Sicily and Elba in 1943. A fervent Anglophile, was knighted in 1949 and often entertained Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip in his London mansion, "The Boltons".
His film career began at the age of 13 when he was signed by Paramount Pictures. He debuted in Stephen Steps Out (1923) but the film flopped and his career stagnated despite a critically acclaimed role in Stella Dallas (1925). Things really picked up when he married Lucille Le Sueur, a young starlet who was soon to become better known as Joan Crawford. The young couple became the toast of the town (one "Screen Snapshots" episode echoes this sudden glory) and good parts and success followed, such as the hapless partner of Edward G. Robinson in Little Caesar (1931) a favorably reviewed turn as the villain in The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) or more debonair characters in slapstick comedies or adventure yarns. The 1930s were a fruitful period for Fairbanks, his most memorable role probably being that of the British soldier in Gunga Din (1939); although it was somewhat of a "swashbuckling" role, Fairbanks made a point of never imitating his father. After the World War II, his star waned and, despite a moving part in Ghost Story (1981), he did not appear in a major movie. Now a legend himself, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. left this world with the satisfaction of having lived up to the Fairbanks name at the end of a life nobody could call "wasted".- Actor
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Alan Hale decided on a film career after his attempt at becoming an opera singer didn't pan out. He quickly became much in demand as a supporting actor, starred in several films for Cecil B. DeMille and directed others for him. With the advent of sound, Hale played leads in a few films but soon settled down into a career as one of the busiest character actors in the business. He was one of the featured members of what became known as the "Warner Brothers Stock Co.", a corps of character actors and actresses who appeared in scores of Warner Bros. films of the 1930s and 1940s. Hale's best-known role is probably in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), one of several films he made with his friend Errol Flynn, in which he played Little John, a role he played in two other films: Robin Hood (1922) and Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950).- Actor
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The son of the great character actor (and Errol Flynn sidekick) Alan Hale, Alan Hale Jr. (he dropped the Jr. after his father passed away) was literally born into the movies. Hale did his first movie as a baby and continued to act until his death. Unlike other child actors, Hale made a smooth transition in the movies and starred in several classics like Up Periscope (1959), The Lady Takes a Flyer (1958) and The West Point Story (1950), as well as many westerns. He did many television guest appearances as well before getting his role as Skipper Jonas Grumby on the cult comedy Gilligan's Island (1964). After the sitcom went off the air, Hale continued to act and even teamed up with Gilligan co-star Bob Denver in The Good Guys (1968), a CBS-TV comedy that lasted only two years. After that ended, Hale keep busy acting in guest appearances and maintained his business interests which included a restaurant and travel agency. On January 2, 1990, Alan Hale Jr. died at age 68 of thymus cancer at St. Vincent Medical Center (SVMC) in Los Angeles, California. Upon his death, his remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.- Actor
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Charismatic character star Edward James Begley was born in Hartford, Connecticut of Irish parents and educated at St.Patrick's school. His interest in acting first surfaced at the age of nine, when he performed amateur theatricals at the Hartford Globe Theatre. Determined to make his own way, he left home aged eleven and drifted from job to job, had a four-year stint in the U.S. Navy, then worked in a bowling alley replacing pins, joined carnivals and circuses. In 1931, he appeared in vaudeville and was also hired as a radio announcer, his voice broadcast to nationwide audiences. It took him several years to establish himself on the legitimate stage, but in 1943, he had a role in the short-running play 'Land of Fame'.
His first success was the 1947 Arthur Miller play 'All My Sons' and this was followed by the 1925 Scopes Trial fictionalization 'Inherit the Wind' (1955-57), which ran for 806 performances at the National Theatre. Ed, co-starring with Paul Muni, played the part of Matthew Harrison Brady (played in the 1960 motion picture by Fredric March) and won the 1956 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. Upon Paul Muni's departure from the cast, Ed used the opportunity to play the part of Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy's role in the film) with equal vigor. In 1960, he starred as Senator Orrin Knox in the political drama 'Advise and Consent'. Ed's movie career began with Boomerang! (1947), a murder mystery set in his native Connecticut, directed by Elia Kazan. Heavy-set with bushy eyebrows, the archetypal image of Ed Begley on screen is as a gruff, blustery, often heavily sweating (and sometimes corrupt) politician or industrialist. He proved his mettle in a number of classic films, including Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) and On Dangerous Ground (1951). Whether as the sympathetic executive in Patterns (1956), a bigoted ex-cop turned bank robber in Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), or the crazed billionaire bent on world domination of Billion Dollar Brain (1967), he tackled every part that came his way with conviction. The culmination of his work was a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role of Boss Finley in Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).
In addition to countless radio broadcasts, Ed was also busy in television in the 1950s and '60s. Among frequent guest-starring appearances, his dynamic characterizations in two episodes of The Invaders (1967) ('The Betrayed' and 'Labyrinth') in particular stand out. Ed Begley died of a heart attack in April 1970 in Hollywood at the age of 69.- Actor
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Ed Begley Jr. was born on 16 September 1949 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for A Mighty Wind (2003), Pineapple Express (2008) and Whatever Works (2009). He has been married to Rachelle Carson-Begley since 23 August 2000. They have one child. He was previously married to Ingrid Taylor.- Actor
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Max Baer is arguably best known today for siring Max Baer Jr., the actor who played Jethro Bodine on the classic TV series The Beverly Hillbillies (1962). However, old-timers, followers of the sweet science and viewers of the film Cinderella Man (2005) all know that Max Sr. was boxing's heavyweight champion of the world for all of 364 days, from the time he knocked out Primo Carnera on June 14, 1934, to the day he lost his title to Jimmy Braddock on June 13, 1935. Cinephiles also will remember the colorful Max from his numerous bit roles in films, including Bud Abbott and Lou Costello's Africa Screams (1949) to his near-autobiographical turn in the Budd Schulberg boxing expose The Harder They Fall (1956) starring Humphrey Bogart. Ironically, it was his acting in the latter film that likely led to his misrepresentation in "Cinderella Man" as being something akin to a monster, when actually, according to his family and those who knew him, he was an amiable man. Some fight fans thought that it was his good nature, which they attributed to his clowning, that eventually did him in, as he would not bear down on his opponents in the latter part of his career. Max Jr. says that his father wanted to be an actor, an insight that explains the flashy persona he displayed in and outside the ring as he wisecracked and clowned his way through careers as a boxer and performer in movies and nightclubs. Blessed with what "The Boxing Register: International Boxing Hall of Fame Official Record Book" terms the most powerful right hand in heavyweight history, Baer used that right to gain a fearsome reputation as a California prizefighter before moving to New York and taking on the top ranks of the heavyweight division.
Max Baer was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on February 11, 1909, to a Jewish father, Jacob Baer, and a mother of Scots-Irish descent, Dora (Bales). The family moved first to Colorado and then to California, where he dropped out of school after the eighth grade to work with his father on a cattle ranch. Baer developed tremendous physical strength as a ranch hand, and when he turned to boxing, he trained in a most dedicated fashion, a regimen he did not keep to when he reached the zenith of his craft. In 1929 he turned professional and racked up 22 wins in his first 24 fights, nine via first-round knockouts. He was a very dangerous fighter, and in 1930 he was suspended from the ring in California for a year after the death of one of his opponents, Frankie Campbell (the brother of pro baseball player Dolph Camilli). Campbell had died after being KO'ed by Baer, and criminal charges were filed against him. Though the manslaughter charges ultimately were dropped, Baer had to deal with the psychological burden of having taken another man's life. He quit the ring for several months after Campbell's death, and Max Jr. claims that this is when the Max the Clown (one of his nicknames was "Madcap Maxie") emerged, as a way of dealing with his torment. Plagued by nightmares for many years, he also took up smoking, which was not very wise for a fighter who depended on his wind in the ring. When Baer returned to boxing after the layoff, he was a different fighter, shy to go on the offense against his opponents. He lost four of his next six fights; according to one opponent who had beaten him in that period, Tommy Loughran, Baer was telegraphing his punches with a looping attack. Baer's career was revitalized when former heavyweight champ Jack Dempsey took a financial interest in the boxer and taught him to shorten his punches. The "monster" of the ring was back. Baer knocked out Ernie Schaaf, rendering him unconscious, in the tenth round of their August 31, 1932, fight. When Schaaf died after fighting future heavyweight champ Primo Carnera in a Februry 14, 1933, bout, many attributed his death to the beating he had taken at the hands of Baer.
This chain of events has long been considered part of boxing lore, which Baer helped perpetuate. In the 1956 movie "The Harder They Fall," the fictionalized story of Carnera's rise and fall through the heavyweight ranks, the Max Baer character, who was played by none other than Baer himself, says: "You know I'm the guy who nailed Gus [Ernie Schaaf], murdered him for 15 rounds. Don't know what held him up, but when Gus left the ring that night he was a dead man. All your joker did was tap him. I did all the work and they gave your guy all the glory." The "your guy" being referred to was the fictionalized Carnera (in actuality, it is most unlikely that Baer caused Schaaf's death. Schaaf likely was suffering from a form of meningitis caused by influenza when he fought Carnera six months after the Baer beating). Baer moved to New York to be near Dempsey and the boxing powers-that-be. In 1933 Baer publicly identified himself as a Jew and began wearing a Star of David on his trunks. This was when he was scheduled to meet the German Max Schmeling in the ring, just at the beginning of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Baer also wore a Star of David on his trunks during his title defense against Jim "Cinderella Man" Braddock, which was the centerpiece of Howard's film. In the movie, the Star of David is significantly less prominent than the real one Baer wore in the 1935 fight. Boxing in America has always capitalized at the box office on racial and ethnic conflicts, real and imagined, since at least the days of Jack Johnson and "The Great White Hope." Some thought Baer's self-identification as a Jew was opportunistic, as it appealed to the very large contingent of Jewish fight fans in the New York City metropolitan area. Baer's father was a non-practicing Jew, and his parents raised their son a Catholic, which fueled the charges of opportunism. However, writer Jeremy Schaap, whose book "Cinderella Man: James J. Braddock, Max Baer, and the Greatest Upset in Boxing History" served as the basis of Ron Howard's film, believes that Baer's manager, Ancil Hoffman, used Baer's ethnic consciousness to motivate him against Schmeling in the ring. Hitler had already launched his anti-Semitic campaign in Germany, and a Jew against a "Nazi" (though Schmeling would always be reluctant about his manipulation as a showpiece of the Nazi state) made good economic sense at the gate--and if it motivated Baer and his fans, so much the better. As it turned out, Baer beat Schmeling so badly at Yankee Stadium before 60,000 fans that the fight had to be stopped in the tenth round due to the ferocity of Baer's attack and the amount of punishment absorbed by Schmeling, himself a future heavyweight champ. Baer won the lead in the 1933 flick The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) in which he starred with Myrna Loy and future opponent Primo Carnera, then the world's heavyweight boxing champ.
In a foreshadowing of what was to come in his career (his first title shot and first defense, though it would be Jimmy Braddock who was the underdog then), Baer was cast as an all-American underdog who challenges Carnera -- playing himself -- for the championship (Carnera only agreed to adhere to the script and retain his crown through a draw with Baer in the final reel for an additional fee of $10,000). The thespian Baer garnered good reviews and the film was a success at the box office, though Joseph Goebbels banned it in Germany, as the "Jew" Baer was in the cast. By defeating Schmeling, Baer had earned a title shot against the Italian Carnera, who at 6'6" and 263 pounds was two inches taller than Baer and outweighed him by 53 pounds. As was fictionalized in "The Harder They Fall" a generation later, there was a certain dubious quality about Carnera's career. Many thought that his career had been manipulated by the Mafia, and that he had been unfairly steered into the heavyweight title through a series of unworthy opponents and via outright corruption. As in the film, where the fictionalized Carnera got his comeuppance at the hands of Max Baer, the real Carnera was about to face his own Götterdämmerung in the ring.
At the Madison Square Garden Bowl, 50,000 fans of the fistic arts witnessed a ferocious Baer knock down Carnera (who along with Baer later would unsuccessfully take on the eponymous giant ape in Mighty Joe Young (1949) in a New York nightery) ten to 12 times during the 11-round bout (records differ as to the number of times Carnera went down). During the fight Baer constantly taunted and grimaced at Carnera, who kept his dignity despite Baer's shenanigans, which included playing to the ladies in the crowd and non-stop merciless mugging. After the last knockdown in the 11th, the referee stopped the fight, giving Baer the decision on a technical knockout. Max Baer was now the heavyweight champion of the world. He would hold the title for exactly 364 days. That his first order of business after the title fight was repairing to a nightclub where he served as master-of-ceremonies at a fee of $10,000 did not bode well for the length of his future reign as Heavyweight Champ. Baer's nemesis turned out to be New Jersey longshoreman James "Plain Jim" Braddock, a former top contender who had dropped out of the ranks after an injury. He was soon renamed "Cinderella Man" by Damon Runyon. According to Max Baer Jr., his father didn't prepare for the fight with a boxer many considered a "has been" or a "never will be," whose best days in the ring already were eclipsed. Bradock was a 20:1 underdog before the fight, but he wore the heavyweight championship belt after their match-up at the Madison Square Bowl. Lacking motivation, Baer's disdain for training left him at the losing end of one of the greatest upsets in sports history. Braddock won a unanimous decision after 15 rounds in the ring with Baer, the monster tamed through his own malfeasance. Baer had all the talent and the hardest right in the world, enough to make him a longer-reigning champ than just shy of one year, but he squandered. During his fight with Braddock, Baer clowned around while Braddock built up points. Baer thought he could knock out Braddock at will, but he could not find it in himself to do so. The emergence of the potentially great boxer that lurked inside him essentially was denied by Baer's overt persona, the good-natured clown. How much of this is rooted in his desire not to kill again in the ring is pure speculation. Something seemingly went out of Baer after losing the title. Future heavyweight champ Joe Louis, one of the all-time greats, administered a terrible beating to the former champ during Baer's next fight, in which he was counted out on one knee in the fourth round. Many aficionados of the sweet scene thought that Baer was through, and to keep his dignity, he should retire. Baer did quit the ring for a spell, but came back, knocking out "Two-Ton" Tony Galento, a top-ranked contender.
He retired for good in 1941 after being whipped soundly by a young Lou Nova, departing professional pugilism with a career record of 72 wins (52 KOs) and 12 losses. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1995. Max Baer died of a massive heart attack on November 21, 1959, in a Hollywood hotel. He was 50 years old. While he lay dying in his room, the hotel operator asked him if he needed the "house doctor." "No," he replied. "I need a people doctor!" A clown to the end.- Actor
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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
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Born in Mexican revolution times, Pedro Armendáriz was the first child of Mexican Pedro Armendáriz García-Conde and American Adele Hastings. He was raised in Churubusco, then a suburb of Mexico City, before the family traveled to Laredo, Texas. They lived there until 1921, the year Armendáriz' parents died. His uncle Francisco took charge of his education, and young Pedro went to the Polytechnic Institute of San Luis Obispo, California. There, he studied business and journalism. He graduated in 1931 and returned to Mexico City where he found work as a railroad employee, insurance salesman and tourist guide. He was discovered by director Miguel Zacarías when Armendáriz was reciting Hamlet's monologue (to be or not to be) to an American tourist in a cafeteria.
After that, Armendáriz began a brilliant career in Mexico, the United States and Europe. Together with Dolores Del Río and Emilio Fernández, Armendáriz made many of the greatest films in the so-called Mexican Cinema Golden Era: Wild Flower (1943), Bugambilia (1945), Maria Candelaria (1944), among others. He was considered a prototype of masculinity and male beauty. His green eyes and almost perfect features made him perfectly cast in any role he made. But it was his passion, force and acting abilities, combined with his quality of a gentleman what made him an instant favorite of great directors like John Ford, international costars like María Félix, Sean Connery or Susan Hayward, and his fans in Mexico and other countries.- Actor
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Pedro Armendáriz Jr. was born on 6 April 1940 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor and producer, known for Licence to Kill (1989), Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) and The Mask of Zorro (1998). He was married to Lucía Gómez de Parada. He died on 26 December 2011 in New York City, New York, USA.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).
Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's Eleven (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.
After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980), in 1987, as a retired police detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter, in an episode entitled Laura (1987).- Actor
- Music Department
- Writer
Frank Sinatra Jr. was born on 10 January 1944 in Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Hollywood Homicide (2003), Aru heishi no kake (1970) and Dream for an Insomniac (1996). He was married to Cynthia Sinatra. He died on 16 March 2016 in Daytona Beach, Florida, USA.- Producer
- Actor
- Production Manager
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.- Actor
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Desi Arnaz Jr. has lived in Boulder City, Nevada, since 1986, where he owns the Historic Boulder Theatre and helps direct non-profit Boulder City Ballet Company (BCBC) with his wife, Amy Arnaz. Boulder Theatre was built in 1932 during the construction of Hoover Dam and operated as a movie theatre until it could no longer compete with the new, modern movie theaters in Las Vegas. When it closed, Desi purchased the theatre and converted it into a live theatre where BCBC performs and where Desi has produced many shows including: "Ricci, Desi & Billy" (a new version of Dino, Desi & Billy), "An Evening with Linda Purl", Torme' Sings Torme', "The Legacy of Laughter", "An Evening with Lucille Ball" (starring Suzanne LaRusch as Lucille Ball), Michael Johnson, "A Tribute to Dean Martin" (by Ricci Martin), "Dam Short Film Festival", "Chautauqua", "The Nutcracker", "Sleeping Beauty", "Swan Lake", annual children's dance recitals from Dance Etc. and many more shows. Haley Arnaz is his wife's child from her first marriage and Desi adopted her when they married in 1987. Desi also has an older daughter, Julia, who lives on the east coast. Recently, Desi has performed "Babalu" (a show dedicated to the music of his father) with his sister Lucie Arnaz in NYC, Miami and in Washington D.C. at the Library of Congress. Most recently, Desi & Lucie appeared at the Paley Center in Beverly Hills, discussing the music of I Love Lucy (1951) and performed two of their father's songs - "Old Straw Hat" & "Cuban Pete" - with the accompaniment of Ron Abel on the piano.- Actor
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He possessed the same special brand of rebel/misfit sensitivity and charm that made superstars out of John Garfield and (later) James Dean and Montgomery Clift. In the war-torn 1940s, Robert Walker represented MGM's fresh, instinctive breed of up-and-coming talent. His boyish good looks combined with an attractive vulnerability came across the screen with such beauty, power and naturalness. He went quite far in his short life; however, the many tortured souls he played so brilliantly closely mirrored the actor himself and the demons that haunted his own being wasted no time in taking him down a self-destructive path for which there was no return.
Walker was born Robert Hudson Walker in 1918 in Salt Lake City, Utah, the youngest of four sons of Zella (McQuarrie) and Horace Hudson Walker, a news editor for the local paper. He was of English and Scottish descent. His maternal aunt, Hortense (McQuarrie) Odlum, was the first female president of Bonwit Teller. His parents separated while he was quite young and the anxiety and depression built up over this loss marred his early school years, which were marked by acts of belligerent aggression and temper tantrums, resulting in his being expelled from school several times. To control his behavioral problems, a positive activity was sought that could help him develop confidence and on which he could focus his energies. It came in the form of acting. Following a lead in a school play at the San Diego Army and Navy Academy at Carlsbad-by-the-Sea, California, Walker entered an acting contest at the Pasadena Playhouse and won a top performance prize. A well-to-do aunt paid for his tuition at the American Academy of Dramatic Art (AADA) in 1938, and he was on his way.
Things started off quite promisingly. While there he met fellow student Phyllis Isley who went on to play Elizabeth Barrett Browning to his Robert Browning in a production of "The Barretts of Wimpole Street" (Phyllis was later renamed Jennifer Jones). The couple fell in love and both quit the academy in order to save money and marry, but they found little work other than some small parts at a Greenwich Village theater. They eventually found a radio job together in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and married on January 2, 1939, honeymooning in Hollywood in order to secure more acting parts. Other than some radio jobs and bit parts in films, the move didn't pan out. The couple returned to New York and started a family. Sons Robert Walker Jr. (born 1940) and Michael Walker (born 1941) would both become actors in their own right. Following their births Jennifer returned to auditioning and caught the eye of producer David O. Selznick, who took an immediate interest in her and signed her to a contract. Selznick was also instrumental in securing a contract for Robert over at MGM. Stardom would be theirs as a result of this Selznick association, but at quite a cost to Robert.
Robert gained immediate attention in his first important MGM role as a shy, ill-fated sailor in Bataan (1943), but was miscast as a scientist in the Greer Garson biopic Madame Curie (1943). Hollywood notice would come in the form of his sweet, sad-sack title role in the service comedy See Here, Private Hargrove (1944), the story of a cub reporter who is drafted into the army. The role brought out all the touching, fascinating qualities of Robert. In the meantime, Jennifer became so caught up in her obsessive relationship with mentor Selznick that she broke off with Robert. The actor was devastated and abruptly turned to heavy drinking. He would never completely recover from this loss. The first of many skirmishes with the law came about when he was arrested on a hit-and-run charge. In another self-destructive act, he agreed to appear with his estranged wife in the Selznick film Since You Went Away (1944). Although he suffered great anguish during the filming, the movie was praised by critics. He played a young soldier who dies before the end of the last reel, and audiences identified with him in both his troubled on- and off-screen roles. Another vivid part that showed off Walker's star quality came opposite the equally troubled Judy Garland in The Clock (1945), a simple romantic story of two lost souls, a soldier and a girl, who accidentally meet while he is on furlough.
The tumultuous state of Walker's not-so-private life began to seriously affect his screen career in the late 1940s. In the musical Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) he played composer Jerome Kern but was eclipsed by the musical numbers and flurry of special guests. He was third billed behind Katharine Hepburn and Paul Henreid, who portrayed pianist Clara Schumann and mentally unstable composer Robert Schumann, in Song of Love (1947). Robert played famed composer and friend Johannes Brahms. Following a lead part as a love-struck window dresser in One Touch of Venus (1948), which focused more on Ava Gardner's creative vision of loveliness, he impulsively married Barbara Ford, the daughter of famed director John Ford. The marriage ended in divorce after just five months, following more erratic outbursts, including arrests for drunkenness. By this time Jennifer had married Selznick, and this pushed Robert over the brink. He was committed to a sanatorium and not released until the middle of 1949.
After his recovery and release, he was back to work with top roles in the comedy Please Believe Me (1950) opposite Deborah Kerr and the western Vengeance Valley (1951) starring Burt Lancaster. Robert happened to be loaned out to Warner Bros. when he was handed the most memorable film role of his career, that of the charming psychopath who attempts to trade murder favors with Farley Granger in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Strangers on a Train (1951). Hailed by the critics, Robert was mesmerizing in the part and part of the Hollywood elite once again. He had begun filming Paramount's My Son John (1952), which included Helen Hayes, Van Heflin and Dean Jagger in the cast, when tragedy occurred.
Robert had just finished principal photography and was making himself available for re-shoots for director Leo McCarey when, on the night of August 28, 1951, his housekeeper found him in an extremely agitated state. Failing to calm him down, she panicked and called his psychiatrist, who, upon arrival, administered a dose of sodium amytal, a sedative, which Walker had taken in the past. Unfortunately, he had been drinking as well and suffered an acute allergic reaction to the drug. Robert stopped breathing, and all efforts to resuscitate him failed. His death cut short the career of a man destined to become one of the most charismatic actors in film. As for life imitating art, perhaps Robert's agonies are what brought out the magnificence of his acting.- Born in Jamaica Hospital Medical Center (Queens, New York City) on April 15, 1940, the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker Jr. certainly had the right pedigree to make the grade in Hollywood. His parents separated when Robert was only three. Six years later, his mother married powerful film mogul David O. Selznick who by this time had already taken firm control of Jones's career.
Walker Jr. began training at the Actors' Studio in the early 1960s. He also married wife Ellie Wood in the early 1960s and they had three children. Walker Jr. preferred to find his own place in the entertainment field and tried to avoid the obvious comparisons, but his startling resemblance to his late father made it extremely difficult for film audiences to separate the two. He started his film career in good company and with two strong roles in The Hook (1963), a morality story set during the Korean war starring Kirk Douglas and Nick Adams, and The Ceremony (1963) in which he received a Golden Globe Award for "promising newcomer" as Laurence Harvey's brother. Walker Jr. also worked on TV and earned a Theatre World Award for his two 1964 off-Broadway roles in "I Knock at the Door" and "Pictures in the Hallway."
Of slight build and boyishly handsome, Robert Walker Jr. seemed on his way when he was handed the biggest challenge of his film career taking over Jack Lemmon's Oscar-winning role as Ensign Pulver (1964) in the sequel to the popular service comedy Mister Roberts (1955). Unfortunately, his comparison to Lemmon paled significantly and the script had neither the charm nor wit of its predecessor. The film and Walker were torpedoed by the reviewers and Walker lost major ground in Hollywood. Despite his obvious talent, his subsequent films lacked the quality and promise of his first two, which included The Happening (1967), The Savage Seven (1968), Killers Three (1968) and the title role in Young Billy Young (1969) starring Robert Mitchum. He and his wife Ellie appeared in roles in the hit cult film Easy Rider (1969).
Walker Jr. had guest roles in many popular television series from the 1960s through the early 1990s. In The Big Valley (1965) episode, "My Son, My Son" (aired November 3, 1965), Walker portrayed Evan Miles, an emotionally disturbed college dropout who becomes obsessed with childhood friend Audra Barkley. He played the title role and another emotionally disturbed character, a troubled actor who lived and performed on the streets and in circuses, in Naked City (1958) episode "Dust Devil on a Quiet Street" (aired November 28, 1962). He had a memorable role in Star Trek (1966) as "Charles 'Charlie' Evans" in the episode "Charlie X" (aired September 15, 1966). In addition, he played Billy the Kid in episode 22 of The Time Tunnel (1966), which originally aired on February 10, 1967. He portrayed Nick Baxter, an ill alien who caused the deaths of humans by touch, in the episode "Panic" in the television series The Invaders (1967) (aired April 11, 1967). He played Mark Cole in the October 29, 1967 episode of Bonanza (1959), titled "The Gentle Ones". He appeared in a pivotal role on the Columbo (1971) episode "Mind Over Mayhem" (1974) and in the 5th season of Combat! (1962) in the episode "Ollie Joe". His final television appearances were in the 1990s, in L.A. Law (1986), FBI: The Untold Stories (1991), Santa Barbara (1984), The New Lassie (1989), The New Adam-12 (1990), and In the Heat of the Night (1988). - Actor
- Soundtrack
Born on October 1, 1921, in White Plains, New York, gruff veteran character actor James Whitmore earned early and widespread respect with his award-winning dramatic capabilities on Broadway and in films. He would later conquer TV with the same trophy-winning results.
The son of James Allen Whitmore and Florence Crane, he was educated at Connecticut's Choate School after receiving a football scholarship. He later earned his BA from Yale University in 1944 before serving with the Marines in World War II. Following his honorable discharge he prepared for the stage under the G.I. bill at the American Theatre Wing, where he met first wife Nancy Mygatt. They married in 1947 and went on to have three sons together -- Steve, Dan and actor/director James Whitmore Jr..
Applause and kudos came swiftly for Whitmore while under both the Broadway and film banners. After appearing with the Peterborough, New Hampshire, Players in the summer of 1947 in "The Milky Way," Whitmore made a celebrated Broadway debut as Tech Sergeant Evans in "Command Decision" later that year. His gritty performance swept the stage acting trifecta -- Tony, Donaldson and Theatre World awards. In later years Whitmore would often comment that most of his satisfaction came from performing on the live stage.
Hollywood soon took notice of Whitmore. Clark Gable happened to be starring in the film version of Command Decision (1948), and it was hoped that Whitmore would get to recreate his award-winning role. But it was not to be. Song-and-dance star Van Johnson, who was looking for straight, serious roles after a vastly successful musical career, was given the coveted part. The disappointment didn't last long, however, and Whitmore made an auspicious film bow the following year with a prime role in the documentary-styled crime thriller The Undercover Man (1949) starring Glenn Ford and Nina Foch. Whitmore scored brilliantly with his second film as well. Battleground (1949), another war picture, was highly praised and the actor became the talk of the town upon its initial release, grabbing both the Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for "supporting actor" for his efforts.
Hardly the handsome, matinée lead type, Whitmore nevertheless primed himself up for leading roles in a character vein and found a fine range of material come his way. He showed off his soft inner core as a religious, moral-minded family man opposite Nancy Reagan [Reagan] in the inspirational drama The Next Voice You Hear... (1950); featured his usual saltier side alongside Marjorie Main in Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone (1950); ably portrayed a hunchbacked crook in The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and displayed customary authority as a security chief in the stoic military drama Above and Beyond (1952) starring Robert Taylor. Elsewhere, he played it strictly for laughs as a Runyonesque gangster partnered with Keenan Wynn in the classic MGM musical Kiss Me Kate (1953); portrayed a valiant cop fighting off gigantic mutant ants in the intelligent sci-fi thriller Them! (1954); a hard-hitting social worker in Crime in the Streets (1956) and even made the most of his small role as Tyrone Power's manager in The Eddy Duchin Story (1956).
By 1959, the craggy-faced actor known for his trademark caterpillar eyebrows, turned more and more toward the small screen, with memorable roles in The Twilight Zone (1959), The Detectives (1959) (working again with Robert Taylor), Ben Casey (1961) and a host of live theater dramas. He also starred in his own series as attorney Abraham Lincoln Jones in The Law and Mr. Jones (1960), which lasted two seasons.
Every so often a marvelous character would rear its pretty head and interest him back to the big screen. Notable of these were his white man passing for black in the controversial social drama Black Like Me (1964); his weary veteran cop in Madigan (1968); and his brash, authoritative simian in the classic sci-fi Planet of the Apes (1968).
Divorced from wife Nancy after more than two decades, Whitmore married actress Audra Lindley, best known on TV as Mrs. Roper of Three's Company (1976) fame, in 1972. The couple forged a strong acting partnership as well, particularly on stage, and maintained a professional relationship long after their 1979 divorce. Whitmore and Lindley were lauded for their appearances together in such plays as "The Magnificent Yankee," "On Golden Pond," "The Visit," "Foxfire" and "Love Letters," among others.
In the 1970s the actor transformed into a magnificent one-man-show machine playing such celebrated and inspiring historical/entertainment icons as Will Rogers, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt. He disappeared into these historical legends so efficiently that even the powers-that-be had the good sense to preserve them on film and TV in the form of Will Rogers' USA (1972); Give 'em Hell, Harry! (1975), which earned him his second Oscar nomination; and Bully: An Adventure with Teddy Roosevelt (1978).
In his twilight years, Whitmore showed he still had what it took to touch movie audiences, most notably as the fragile prisoner-turned-parolee who cannot adapt to his late-life freedom in the classic film The Shawshank Redemption (1994). On TV he continued to win awards, copping a TV Emmy for a recurring part on The Practice (1997) in the late 1990s. A household face in commercials as well, one of his passions was gardening and he eventually became the spokesman for Miracle-Gro plant food.
Whitmore remarried (and re-divorced, 1979-1981) his first wife Nancy briefly before finding a lasting union with his fourth wife, actress-turned-author Noreen Nash, whom he married broaching age 80 in 2001. Whitmore died of lung cancer on February 6, 2009, after having been diagnosed in mid-November 2008.- Director
- Actor
- Producer
James Whitmore Jr. was born on 24 October 1948 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a director and actor, known for Black Sheep Squadron (1976), Hunter (1984) and Tequila and Bonetti (1992). He has been married to Salesha Ali since 28 March 1972. They have four children.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Robert Downey Sr. served in the army, played minor-league baseball, was a Golden Gloves champion and off-off Broadway playwright, all before he was 22 years old.
Downey was born in New York City, New York, the son of Elizabeth (McLoughlin), a model, and Robert Elias, who worked in hotel/restaurant management. He took the surname of his stepfather, James Downey, when enlisting in the army. His father was of Lithuanian Jewish descent, while his mother was of half-Irish and half-Hungarian Jewish ancestry. In 1960, he began writing and directing basement-budgeted, absurdist films that gained an underground following: Balls Bluff (1961), Babo 73 (1964), Chafed Elbows (1966) and No More Excuses (1968). Putney Swope (1969) was the first Downey-directed film to earn a mainstream release. A devastating satire of Madison Avenue, it explored what happens when an African-American activist is given carte blanche at an advertising agency. The film was among the year's Top 10 Films in New York Magazine.
Downey thrived in the laissez-faire film world of the 1970s with such irreverent films as Pound (1970), where humans play dogs waiting to be adopted. Around this time he worked on projects for Joseph Papp and the New York Public Theatre, directing David Rabe's play "Sticks and Bones" for CBS (Sticks and Bones (1973)). The strong anti-war sentiments expressed in this live broadcast resulted in a major controversy when its sponsors pulled out at the last minute, and the network had to air the film uninterrupted because it couldn't find a sponsor. His Greaser's Palace (1972) is an outrageous restaging of the life of Christ in "spaghetti western" terms. Time Magazine put this film on its list of the year's Top 10 movies. Downey's take-no-prisoners sense of humor is also apparent in Two Tons of Turquoise to Taos Tonight (1975) and Hugo Pool (1997) (world premiere at the Sundance festival in 1997), a film that examines a day in the life of a female pool cleaner in Hollywood. Rittenhouse Square (2005) was the feature presentation of the Galway Film Festival and his second teaming with Max L. Raab, having been a consultant on Raab's award-winning Strut! (2001).
From time to time, Downey acted (badly, according to him) and he can be seen in films such as Boogie Nights (1997), Magnolia (1999) and The Family Man (2000). He appeared twice on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), The Dick Cavett Show (1968), IFC's At the IFC Center (1997), Sundance Channel and countless other TV and radio shows. In addition, Downey was a guest speaker at film festivals and universities throughout the country. He developed an update of "Putney Swope." He lived in New York City with his wife, Rosemary Rogers.
Robert was the father of actors Robert Downey Jr. and Allyson Downey.- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Robert Downey Jr. has evolved into one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. With an amazing list of credits to his name, he has managed to stay new and fresh even after over four decades in the business.
Downey was born April 4, 1965 in Manhattan, New York, the son of writer, director and filmographer Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey (née Elsie Ann Ford). Robert's father is of half Lithuanian Jewish, one quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one quarter Irish, descent, while Robert's mother was of English, Scottish, German, and Swiss-German ancestry. Robert and his sister, Allyson Downey, were immersed in film and the performing arts from a very young age, leading Downey Jr. to study at the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York, before moving to California with his father following his parents' 1978 divorce. In 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School to pursue acting full time. Downey Sr., himself a drug addict, exposed his son to drugs at a very early age, and Downey Jr. would go on to struggle with abuse for decades.
Downey Jr. made his debut as an actor at the age of five in the film Pound (1970), written and directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr.. He built his film repertoire throughout the 1980s and 1990s with roles in Tuff Turf (1985), Weird Science (1985), True Believer (1989), and Wonder Boys (2000) among many others. In 1992, Downey received an Academy Award nomination and won the BAFTA (British Academy Award) for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Chaplin (1992).
In Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), he appeared as an aspiring film make-up artist whose best friend commits murder. In Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, Downey starred as a tabloid TV journalist who exploits a murderous couple's killing spree to boost his ratings. For the comedy Heart and Souls (1993), Downey starred as a young man with a special relationship with four ghosts. In 1995, Downey starred in Restoration (1995), with Hugh Grant, Meg Ryan and Ian McKellen, directed by Michael Hoffman. Also that year, he starred in Richard III (1995), in which he appears opposite his Restoration (1995) co-star McKellen.
In 1997, Downey was seen in Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man (1998), alongside Kenneth Branagh, Daryl Hannah and Embeth Davidtz; in One Night Stand (1997), directed by Mike Figgis and starring Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski; and in Hugo Pool (1997), directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr. and starring Sean Penn and Patrick Dempsey. In September of 1999, Downey appeared in Black & White (1999), written and directed by James Toback, along with Ben Stiller, Elijah Wood, Gaby Hoffmann, Brooke Shields and Claudia Schiffer. In January of 1999, he starred with Annette Bening and Aidan Quinn in In Dreams (1999), directed by Neil Jordan.
In 2000, Downey co-starred with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys (2000), directed by Curtis Hanson. In this dramatic comedy, Downey played the role of a bisexual literary agent. In 2001, Downey made his prime-time television debut when he joined the cast of the Fox-TV series Ally McBeal (1997) as attorney "Larry Paul". For this role, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
The actor's drug-related problems escalated from 1996 to 2001, leading to arrests, rehab visits and incarcerations, and he was eventually fired from Ally McBeal (1997). Emerging clean and sober in 2003, Downey Jr. began to rebuild his career.
He marked his debut into music with his debut album, titled "The Futurist", on the Sony Classics Label on November 23rd, 2004. The album's eight original songs, that Downey wrote, and his two musical numbers debuting as cover songs revealed his sultry singing voice and his musical talents. Downey displayed his versatility in two different films in October 2003: the musical/drama The Singing Detective (2003), a remake of the BBC hit of the same name, and the thriller Gothika (2003) starring Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz. Downey starred in powerful yet humbling roles inspired by real-life accounts of some of history's most precious kept secrets, including Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly (2006) in 2006 co-starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) co-starring Nicole Kidman, a film inspired by the life of Diane Arbus, the revered photographer whose images captured attention in the early 1960s. These roles exhibited Downey's momentum from the previous year of 2005, in which he starred in the Academy Award®-nominated feature film Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), directed by George Clooney and in Shane Black's action comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) co-starring Val Kilmer. In 2007, he co-starred in David Fincher's suspenseful Zodiac (2007), alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, about the notorious serial killer who haunted San Francisco during the 1970s.
In May 2008, Downey achieved critical acclaim and worldwide box office success for his starring role in Iron Man (2008), Jon Favreau's big-screen rendering of the Marvel comic book superhero. The film co-starred Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard. In August of 2008, Downey starred with Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008), and went on to receive an Academy Award®-nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his, Kirk Lazarus.
In December 2009, Downey starred in the action-adventure Sherlock Holmes (2009). The film, directed by Guy Ritchie, co-starred Jude Law and Rachel McAdams and earned Downey a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical in January of 2010. In early Summer 2010, Downey re-teamed with director Jon Favreau and reprised his role as "Tony Stark/Iron Man" in the hugely successful sequel to the original film, Iron Man 2 (2010), starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Mickey Rourke.
Downey next starred in Due Date (2010), a comedy directed by Todd Phillips, in which he plays the role of an expectant father on a road trip racing to get back in time for the birth of his first child. Due Date (2010), starring The Hangover (2009)'s Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010.
Downey was honored by Time Magazine's "Time 100" in 2008, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His laurels include two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe wins, numerous other award nominations and wins, and tremendous popular and commercial success, particularly in his roles as Sherlock Holmes and Tony Stark (the latter of which he has so far played in Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). For three consecutive years, from 2012 to 2015, Downey has topped the Forbes list of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, making an estimated $80 million in earnings between June 2014 and June 2015.
In 2005, Downey Jr. married Susan Downey, with whom he has two children. Downey also has another son, Indio Falconer Downey, born 1993, from his first marriage to Deborah Falconer, from whom he was officially divorced in 2004.
Robert has jump-started the Team Downey Production Company with wife Susan Downey.- Actor
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Rugged Sicilian-born actor who came to international notice after playing Ferrari racing ace Nino Barlini in John Frankenheimer's high octane blockbuster Grand Prix (1966). His charismatic performance saw Sabato nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Most Promising Newcomer. During the 1970s, he starred in a slew of low-budget Italian language productions, predominantly spaghetti westerns and crime thrillers, essaying villains (Crime Boss (1972)), heroes (Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972)) and anti-heroes (Thunder Over El Paso (1972)) with equal verve. By the mid-80s, Sabato and his family had relocated to California where he devoted more time to painting and family life while continuing to star in international co-productions, typically action films like the futuristic Escape from the Bronx (1983), The Wild Team (1985) and High Voltage (1998). His last work on screen consisted of several appearances in the soap The Bold and the Beautiful (1987) , which also featured his son Antonio Sabato Jr...- Actor
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Antonio Sabato Jr. was born on 29 February 1972 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. He is an actor and producer, known for The Big Hit (1998), The Three Stooges (2012) and Drifter: Henry Lee Lucas (2009). He was previously married to Cheryl Moana Marie Nunes and Tully Jensen.- Actor
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An internationally famous and well respected bodybuilder / actor, Lou Ferrigno first appeared on TV screens in 1977 as the musclebound title character of The Incredible Hulk (1978), the alter ego of meek scientist David Banner. Ferrigno was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1951 and as a child suffered from an ear infection that resulted in permanent partial hearing loss. Undeterred by what some may have perceived as a disadvantage, Lou threw himself into athletics (predominantly weightlifting and body building) and at the age of 21 won his first Mr. Universe title. For good measure, he came back and won it again the following year!
He also played professional football in the Canadian Football League, before coming to the attention of producer Kenneth Johnson, who was seeking just the right person to portray on screen the comic book superhero, The Incredible Hulk. With his 6'5", 285 lbs. frame, Lou was the biggest professional bodybuilder of the time, and had recently starred in the documentary Pumping Iron (1977), about the 1975 Mr. Olympia contest in South Africa. He successfully auditioned for the part of the green-skinned Goliath, and that is the role with which he is most closely identified.
"The Hulk" was a huge ratings success and spawned several telemovies after the initial TV series completed its run. Lou continued to remain busy in films and TV with appearances often centered around his remarkable physique. His films included Hercules (1983), Sinbad of the Seven Seas (1989) and Frogtown II (1992). Lou has additionally guest-starred on several TV shows including The Fall Guy (1981) and The New Mike Hammer (1984) and had a recurring role on The King of Queens (1998). In 1997 he was featured in the dynamic documentary about his sensational return to professional bodybuilding at age 43, Stand Tall (1997). The film detailed how he returned to compete in the Masters category of the Mr. Olympia contest against several familiar bodybuilding foes. In more recent years, he has appeared in several films, including The Misery Brothers (1995), Ping! (2000), From Heaven to Hell (2002) and a cameo as a security guard in the big-budget remake of Hulk (2003).
Big Lou is also a successful author with two books detailing his bodybuilding knowledge, and his life behind the scenes playing the Incredible Hulk on TV in the 1970s, plus he has a popular website frequented by his many fans worldwide.- Actor
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Lou Ferrigno Jr. is an American dramatic and comedic actor. Beginning his career in entertainment as a fitness model, Ferrigno Jr. quickly transitioned to roles in commercials, Tv, and films. He's best known for his work on S.W.A.T. (2019), 9-1-1 (2018), How I Met Your Mother (2013), and Outer Banks (2023). Upon graduation from The Annenberg School for Communication (USC), he began studying improvisational comedy at LA's finest schools: Improv Olympic (iO), Upright Citizens Brigade (UCB), and the West Side Comedy Theatre (WCT). Before long he would land national commercial spots for Subway, Dr. Pepper, Comcast, Carl's Jr., Mopar, Honda, Oscar Mayer, Miller Light, FIAT, Home Depot, and Navy Federal Credit Union, Fox Sports to name a few. As the eldest son of actor/bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, he spent much of his youth with his parents on Tv and film sets across the globe. Exposure to acting at a young age manifested to become his passion for film and Tv. Ferrigno Jr.'s first dramatic break was on the longtime daytime soap, Days of Our Lives (2012), and thereafter booking recurring roles on hit Tv programs How I Met Your Mother (2013) and Teen Wolf (2014).- Freddie Prinze was born Frederick Karl Pruetzel in New York City, New York, to a Puerto Rican mother, Aurea Elena Ruiz, and a German immigrant father, Edward Karl Pruetzel. Freddie grew up in the Washington Heights section of New York City. As a chubby child, he was often bullied, but was quite creative and bright in his extracurricular activities (he was known to have handmade a ham radio, which he used regularly). Early on, he aspired to become famous, and, after enrolling at Fiorella LaGuardia High School of the Performing Arts, he obtained a job at the Improv Club, in New York, where people started to take notice of his comedic talent (but the long hours he worked at night, balanced by increasing absences in school, caused him to drop out of high school to pursue comedy full-time). He changed his name to Freddie Prinze (to indicate that he was "The Prince of Comedy"). In December 1973, he was invited to perform on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson", which proved to be a breakthrough performance, as he was invited to chat with Johnny after his performance (only two other comedians have enjoyed that privilege). Soon afterwards, he won the role of "Chico Rodriquez" in an NBC-produced TV series called Chico and the Man (1974)(he and co-star Jack Albertson forged a great friendship while working on the show). In 1975, he released a comedy album, titled "Looking Good", and further boosted his popularity with appearances on various TV shows (such as the "Tony Orlando & Dawn" show). In Las Vegas in August 1975, he married Katherine Cochran, with whom he had a son, Freddie Prinze, Jr. (born on March 8, 1976 in Albuquerque, New Mexico). He loved his role as a father, and his growing popularity. But all the fame had a downside to it: Freddie developed an addiction to drugs (namely Quaaludes and cocaine), and was subsequently arrested in Nov. 1976 for DUI. His marriage was dissolving, and he separated from his wife. He started to mention thoughts of suicide to many of his close friends and family including his friends singer Tony Orlando and comedian David Brenner. In January 1977, following his final public appearance at the Inaugural Ball for President Jimmy Carter, 22-year-old Freddie called his mother, friends and manager and announced that he was committing suicide. While his manager tried to stop him, he placed a .32 caliber pistol against his temple and pulled the trigger.He was rushed to UCLA Medical Center with a massive head wound. He was kept on life support until January 29, 1977, when his family decided to turn off the life support.
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Freddie Prinze, Jr. was born on March 8, 1976, in Los Angeles, California, to Kathy Prinze (née Kathy Elaine Barber) and comedian/actor Freddie Prinze. He is of Puerto Rican, German, English, and Irish descent. Freddie lived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, in his early life. He attended three different schools during his childhood: Eldorado, Sandia, and La Cueva. After graduating in 1994, Freddie moved to L.A. to focus on an acting career. He immediately garnered featured roles on several episodic series, one of which was an episode of The Gun (1995), in which Freddie had a four-line part playing a punk kid who brought a gun to school. "That was my big break, and I thought it was huge," says Freddie. He then went on to appear in a few after-school specials, including Too Soon for Jeff (1996) and Detention: The Siege at Johnson High (1997) co-starring Ricky Schroder and Henry Winkler.
Freddie is married to actress Sarah Michelle Gellar, with whom he has two children.- Writer
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A tall (6'2"), sly, cueball-domed comedian of film and television satire, Damon Wayans hit outrageous 90's TV stardom playing various wise guys and streetwise slick characters on older brother Keenen Ivory Wayans' landmark, black-oriented TV sketch comedy In Living Color (1990). The show was pretty much a family act and it made Damon a breakout comedy star. This, in turn, would lead to many of his own popular film comedy vehicles.
Born on September 4, 1960, in New York City, Wayans was the third of ten children of Elvira Alethia (Green), a social worker and singer, and Howell Wayans, a supermarket manager. The children grew up humbly in the Fulton Housing Projects and Damon began zeroing in on his innate comedic skills while still a child by conjuring up weird characters. Ostracized by other children due to a severe physical disability (club foot), humor played a strong part in helping Damon handle a severely painful and debilitating childhood. He wore leg braces, orthopedic shoes and endured numerous surgeries before the affliction could be corrected.
Dropping out of high school in the ninth grade, he worked various jobs (mail clerk, etc.) until following older brother Keenen out to Hollywood to seek comedy fame and fortune. Doing the typical L.A. stand-up scene starting in 1982, he toured on the national comedy club circuits until earning a regular featured slot on Saturday Night Live (1975) for one season (1985-1986). On the big screen, he nabbed a few bit parts in films that showcased Hollywood's top comedians, including Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop (1984), his movie debut, and Steve Martin in Roxanne (1987). He also appeared briefly in brother Keenen's film spoofs Hollywood Shuffle (1987) and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988).
Damon gained major notice as an alien alongside Jeff Goldblum and future co-star Jim Carrey in the wild and woolly film Earth Girls Are Easy (1988), as well as in various supporting roles that included Punchline (1988) with Tom Hanks and the grim police drama Colors (1988) with Sean Penn. Stardom came with TV, however, and his participation in brother Keenan's fast-paced groundbreaking show that truly pushed the limits. It gave Damon a brilliant showcase as both actor and special material writer and he broke out early among the talented ensemble players with his eclectic gallery of characters that often bordered on raunch: Homey the Clown, the disabled Handiman and the outrageously gay film critic Blaine Edwards from the "Men on Film" skits. The talented ensemble would include siblings Kim Wayans, Shawn Wayans and Marlon Wayans. Creative control and financial issues, especially content censoring, led to Keenan abruptly leaving the show in 1992, followed by Damon and his kin within a year.
From there Damon pursued film and TV solo stardom. For the next decade and a half, Damon became his own "Man on Film." He was Bruce Willis' partner in the noticeably violent crime thriller The Last Boy Scout (1991); wrote, executive-produced and starred as a former conman trying to mend his ways in Mo' Money (1992), which also featured younger brother Marlon Wayans; expanded his "In Living Color" handicapped superhero character Handiman into feature-length form with Blankman (1994); played an in-your-face drill sergeant in the aptly titled Major Payne (1995); co-starred with Adam Sandler as a policeman bringing in a petty crook (Adam Sandler) in the action comedy Bulletproof (1996); joined in the basketball-themed Celtic Pride (1996); and stretched his acting muscles in Spike Lee's comedy-drama Bamboozled (2000). He was also executive producer on Waynehead (1996), a Saturday morning animated show based on his childhood that featured the voices of younger siblings Kim Wayans, Marlon Wayans and Shawn Wayans.
Although his strongest suit is still in stand-up (he has starred in several HBO comedy specials), Damon went back to steady television employment as star and executive producer of the sitcom My Wife and Kids (2000). Following the demise of that series, he also wrote, produced, directed and starred in the dramatic film Behind the Smile (2006) in which he played a green Cleveland stand-up comic hoping to make it big in Los Angeles. He also attempted to follow brother Keenan by creating, writing and appearing in a TV sketch comedy show entitled The Underground (2006), which involved second-generation Wayans family. It failed to catch on, however, and was cancelled after 11 episodes.
In recent years he has refocused on TV guest work, returning to the series format, however, with a starring role as Detective Roger Murtaugh on the offbeat comedy-drama Lethal Weapon (2016), based on the film series of the same name. Divorced from his wife Lisa (1984-2000), he is the father of four, including actor Damon Wayans Jr..- Actor
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Damon Wayans Jr. was born at his grandmother's home in Vermont, in November 1982, and was raised in Los Angeles. He is the son of Lisa Thorner and actor Damon Wayans.
He made his film debut at age 11 in the 1994 film "Blank Man" playing the role of young Kevin. Later, Damon pursued his early passion for fine arts and animation in High School before admittance to the Otis School for Art and Design. He performed in a few bit roles on "My Wife and Kids" and landed a job as staff writer on the series becoming at 20, the youngest staff writer on television.
In 2005, Damon followed his father's comedic foot steps and braved the world of stand up comedy under the pseudonym Kyle Green. Damon Jr. has appeared performing alongside his father in the Showtime television series, "The Underground" (2006) and also served as a writer on that sketch comedy series. Damon also wrote, directed and starred in a series of innovative internet-based comedy sketches for "Way-Out TV" a website launched in 2007 by his father. In January 2008, Damon Jr. was featured on HBO's "Def Comedy Jam".
Wayans's first major film was Dance Flick (2009), a Paramount dance movie spoof, and he later starred on the series New Girl (2011) and in the film Let's Be Cops (2014).
This young and talented multi-hyphenate continues honing his stand-up skills, performing in comedy clubs across the country, while further pursuing his crafts of acting and writing.- Music Artist
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Ice Cube was born in South Central Los Angeles, to Doris (Benjamin), a custodian and hospital clerk, and Hosea Jackson, a UCLA groundskeeper. He first came to public notice as a singer and songwriter with the controversial and influential band N.W.A. His compositions with that group included many of the classic cuts from their debut LP "Straight Outta Compton" (Ruthless/Priority, 1989), including the title track, "Gangsta Gangsta" and "Express Yourself". He quit the band over business differences in 1990 and began a still-growing series of commercially and critically acclaimed solo albums, starting with "AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted" (Priority, 1990). His second solo album, "Death Certificate" (Priority, 1991), a concept album about the fall and rise of the Black man, sold two million copies, and his subsequent solo output (six albums to date total) has sold over ten million copies. He has also discovered Yoyo, Del the Funky Homosapien, K-Dee and Mack 10. He has also produced, written, toured and recorded with Public Enemy, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, George Clinton, The D.O.C., Michel'e, Big Daddy Kane, WC & The Madd Circle (which spawned the solo career of Coolio), former N.W.A. bandmate Dr. Dre and Cypress Hill. He has also recorded with two post-N.W.A. side-project bands, Da Lench Mob ("Guerillas In Tha Mist", Street Knowledge/East-West, 1991) and Westside Connection ("Bow Down", Priority, 1996). His movie career has been no less stellar. Ice Cube's debut in Boyz n the Hood (1991) led to more roles in such films as Trespass (1992), Dangerous Ground (1997) and Anaconda (1997). He also appeared as himself in the comedy CB4 (1993). He is also no stranger to the other side of the camera, directing videos for himself as well as Prince and Color Me Badd, as well as co-writing his screenwriting debut, Friday (1995).- O'Shea Jackson Jr. is an American actor and musician. O'Shea is the son of rapper Ice Cube and he portrayed his father in the 2015 biopic Straight Outta Compton (2015), which was his feature film debut.
His older brother Darrell is also a rapper under the name Doughboy, which is the nickname of the character his father portrayed, Darin "Doughboy" Baker, in his first film Boyz n the Hood (1991). - Actor
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The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he proved the doubters wrong, becoming one of the most notable film actors of his generation, with a host of great movies to his name. This arguably culminated in his greatest acclaim in 1988, when Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an Irish cop in The Untouchables (1987), stealing the thunder from the movie's principal star Kevin Costner. Connery was polled as "The Greatest Living Scot" and "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". In 1989, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine, and in 1999, at age 69, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man of the Century."
Thomas "Sean" Connery was born on August 25, 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His mother, Euphemia Maclean, was a cleaning lady, and his father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and truck driver. He also had a, Neil Connery, a plasterer in Edinburgh, who was eight years younger. Before going into acting, Sean had many different jobs, such as a milkman, lorry driver, a laborer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, coffin polisher and bodybuilder. He also joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged because of medical problems. At the age of 23, he had a choice between becoming a professional soccer player or an actor, and even though he showed much promise in the sport, he chose acting and said it was one of his more intelligent decisions.
No Road Back (1957) was Sean's first major movie role, and it was followed by several made-for-TV movies such as Anna Christie (1957), Macbeth (1961) and Anna Karenina (1961) as well as guest appearances on TV series, and also films such as Hell Drivers (1957), Another Time, Another Place (1958), Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and The Frightened City (1961). In 1962 he appeared in The Longest Day (1962) with a host of other stars.
His big breakthrough came in 1962 when he landed the role of secret agent James Bond in Dr. No (1962). He played James Bond in six more films: From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983).
After and during the success of the Bond films, he maintained a successful career as an actor and has appeared in films, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Time Bandits (1981), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Rising Sun (1993), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
Sean married actress Diane Cilento in 1962 and they had Sean's only child, Jason Connery, born on January 11, 1963. The couple announced their separation in February 1971 and filed for divorce 2½ years later. Sean then dated Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Magda Konopka and Carole Mallory. In 1975 he married Micheline Roquebrune and they stayed married, despite Sean's well-documented love affair with Lynsey de Paul in the late '80s. Sean had three stepchildren through his marriage to Micheline, who was one year his senior. He is also a grandfather. His son, Jason and Jason's ex-wife, actress Mia Sara had a son, Dashiell Connery, in 1997.
Sean Connery died at the age of 90 on October 31, 2020, in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he resided for many years.Henry Jones- Actor
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Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (Nidelman), a radio actress, and Christopher Ford (born John William Ford), an actor turned advertising executive. His father was of Irish and German ancestry, while his maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Minsk, Belarus. Harrison was a lackluster student at Maine Township High School East in Park Ridge Illinois (no athletic star, never above a C average). After dropping out of Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he did some acting and later summer stock, he signed a Hollywood contract with Columbia and later Universal. His roles in movies and television (Ironside (1967), The Virginian (1962)) remained secondary and, discouraged, he turned to a career in professional carpentry. He came back big four years later, however, as Bob Falfa in American Graffiti (1973). Four years after that, he hit colossal with the role of Han Solo in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Another four years and Ford was Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
Four years later and he received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role as John Book in Witness (1985). All he managed four years after that was his third starring success as Indiana Jones; in fact, many of his earlier successful roles led to sequels as did his more recent portrayal of Jack Ryan in Patriot Games (1992). Another Golden Globe nomination came his way for the part of Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive (1993). He is clearly a well-established Hollywood superstar. He also maintains an 800-acre ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Ford is a private pilot of both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and owns an 800-acre (3.2 km2) ranch in Jackson, Wyoming, approximately half of which he has donated as a nature reserve. On several occasions, Ford has personally provided emergency helicopter services at the request of local authorities, in one instance rescuing a hiker overcome by dehydration. Ford began flight training in the 1960s at Wild Rose Idlewild Airport in Wild Rose, Wisconsin, flying in a Piper PA-22 Tri-Pacer, but at $15 an hour, he could not afford to continue the training. In the mid-1990s, he bought a used Gulfstream II and asked one of his pilots, Terry Bender, to give him flying lessons. They started flying a Cessna 182 out of Jackson, Wyoming, later switching to Teterboro, New Jersey, flying a Cessna 206, the aircraft he soloed in. Ford is an honorary board member of the humanitarian aviation organization Wings of Hope.
On March 5, 2015, Ford's plane, believed to be a Ryan PT-22 Recruit, made an emergency landing on the Penmar Golf Course in Venice, California. Ford had radioed in to report that the plane had suffered engine failure. He was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he was reported to be in fair to moderate condition. Ford suffered a broken pelvis and broken ankle during the accident, as well as other injuries.Henry Jones, Jr.- Actor
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Although this pint-sized actor started out in films often in innocuous college-student roles in mid-30s rah-rahs, playing alongside the likes of a pretty Gloria Stuart or a young, pre-"Oz" Judy Garland, casting directors would soon enough discover his flair for portraying intense neurotics or spineless double-dealers. Thus was he graduated from the innocuous to the noxious. In Warners' They Won't Forget (1937), for example, he plays the role of a student whose social engagement with a young Lana Turner, debuting here in a featured role, seems to have been broken by her whereas, possibly unbeknownst to him, she has quite mysteriously been murdered. Cook becomes so enraged, venting such venom, that the movie audience can only look upon him as a prime suspect in Lana's demise. In Universal's Phantom Lady (1944), he portrays a nightclub-orchestra drummer who, under the intoxicating influence of some substance or other, encounters Ella Raines during an afternoon's band practice. Thoroughly taken with her slinky allure, he enacts a drum-solo piece that is of such crescendo, and played with such innuendo, as to suggest - glaringly - nothing except his own fantasized sexual journey from cymbal foreplay through bass-drum climax.- Actor
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It's hardly surprising that the son of renowned Russian-born concert violinist Efrem Zimbalist Sr. (1889-1985) and Romanian-born opera singer Alma Gluck (1884-1938) would desire a performing career of some kind. Born in New York City on November 30, 1918, surrounded by people of wealth and privilege throughout his childhood, Efrem Zimbalist Jr. received a boarding school education. Acting in school plays, he later trained briefly at the Yale School of Drama but didn't apply himself enough and quit. As an NBC network radio page, he auditioned when he could and found minor TV and stock theatre parts while joining up with the Neighborhood Playhouse.
Following WWII war service with the Army infantry in which he was awarded the Purple Heart after being wounded, a director and friend of the family, Garson Kanin, gave the aspiring actor his first professional role in his Broadway production of "The Rugged Path" (1945) which starred Spencer Tracy. With his dark, friendly, clean-scrubbed good looks and a deep, rich voice that could cut butter, Zimbalist found little trouble finding work. He continued with the American Repertory Theatre performing in such classics as "Henry VIII" and "Androcles and the Lion" while appearing opposite the legendary Eva Le Gallienne in "Hedda Gabler".
Zimbalist then tried his hand as a stage producer, successfully bringing opera to Broadway audiences for the first time with memorable presentations of "The Medium" and "The Telephone". As producer of Gian Carlo Menotti's "The Consul", he won the New York Drama Critic's Award and the Pulitzer Prize for best musical in 1950. An auspicious film debut opposite Edward G. Robinson in House of Strangers (1949) brought little career momentum due to the untimely death of his wife Emily (a onetime actress who appeared with him in "Hedda Gabler" and bore him two children, Nancy and Efrem III) to cancer in 1950. Making an abrupt decision to abandon acting, he served as assistant director/researcher at the Curtis School of Music for his father and buried himself with studies and music composition.
In 1954, Efrem returned to acting and copped a daytime television soap lead (Concerning Miss Marlowe (1954)). It was famed director Joshua Logan who proved instrumental in helping Zimbalist secure a Warner Bros. contract. Despite forthright second leads in decent films such as Band of Angels (1957) with Clark Gable and Yvonne De Carlo; Too Much, Too Soon (1958) starring Dorothy Malone and Errol Flynn; Home Before Dark (1958) with Jean Simmons and Rhonda Fleming; The Crowded Sky (1960) with Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, Troy Donahue and Anne Francis; A Fever in the Blood (1961) opposite Angie Dickinson and (his best) Wait Until Dark (1967) with Audrey Hepburn, it was television that made the better use of his refined, unshowy acting style. His roles as smooth private investigator Stu Bailey on 77 Sunset Strip (1958) and dogged inspector Lewis Erskine on The F.B.I. (1965) would be his ultimate claims to fame.
A perfect gentleman on and off camera, Zimbalist's severest critics tend to deem his performances bland and undernourished. Managing to override such criticisms, he maintained a sturdy career for nearly six decades. In 1991, he made fun of his all-serious reputation and pulled off a Leslie Nielsen-like role in the comedy parody Hot Shots! (1991). In addition to theater projects over the years, he has made fine use of his mellifluous baritone performing narrations and cartoon voiceovers, including that of Alfred the butler on a "Batman" animated series.
In 2003, he completed his memoirs, entitled "My Dinner of Herbs". The father of three, grandfather of four and great-grandfather of three, he settled in Santa Barbara and later in Solvang, California with longtime second wife Stephanie until her death in 2007 of cancer. Their daughter, also named Stephanie (Stephanie Zimbalist), is the well-known actress who appeared with Pierce Brosnan in the Remington Steele (1982) television series, in which Zimbalist had a recurring role. He and his daughter also appeared on stage together in his later years, their first being "The Night of the Iguana". His eldest daughter Nancy died in 2012.
Zimbalist died peacefully at his Solvang home of natural causes at the age of 95 on May 2, 2014; he had been outside watering his lawn at his Solvang, Calif., ranch when a handyman found him lying dead in the grass. "He was healthy, playing golf three days a week, and always in his garden," Zimbalist's son said.- Actor
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Sammy Davis Jr. was often billed as the "greatest living entertainer in the world".
He was born in Harlem, Manhattan, the son of dancer Elvera Davis (née Sanchez) and vaudeville star Sammy Davis Sr.. His father was African-American and his mother was of Cuban and African-American ancestry. Davis Jr. was known as someone who could do it all, sing, dance, play instruments, act, do stand-up and he was known for his self-deprecating humor; he once heard someone complaining about discrimination, and he said, "You got it easy. I'm a short, ugly, one-eyed, black Jew. What do you think it's like for me?" (he had converted to Judaism).
A short stint in the army opened his eyes to the evils of racism. A slight man, he was often beaten up by bigger white soldiers and given the dirtiest and most dangerous assignments by white officers simply because he was black. He helped break down racial barriers in show business in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in Las Vegas, where he often performed; when he started there in the early 1950s, he was not allowed to stay in the hotels he played in, as they refused to take blacks as customers. He also stirred up a large amount of controversy in the 1960s by openly dating, and ultimately marrying, blonde, blue-eyed, Swedish-born actress May Britt.
He starred in the Broadway musical "Golden Boy" in the 1960s. Initially a success, internal tensions, production problems and bad reviews--many of them directed at Davis for playing a role originally written for a white man resulted in its closing fairly quickly. His film and nightclub career were in full swing, however, and he became even more famous as one of the "Rat Pack", a group of free-wheeling entertainers that included Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.
A chain smoker, Davis died from throat cancer at the age of 64. When he died, he was in debt. To pay for Davis' funeral, most of his memorabilia was sold off.- Actor
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Pat Harrington Jr. was born on 13 August 1929 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for One Day at a Time (1975), The President's Analyst (1967) and Move Over, Darling (1963). He was married to Sally Cleaver and Marjorie Ann Gortner. He died on 6 January 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Producer
Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Claude was the son of a railroad accountant. With no intentions of becoming a screen actor at the time, 12-year-old Claude Jarman, Jr. was discovered during an MGM nationwide talent search for their upcoming film, The Yearling (1946), and won the coveted role of Jody Baxter in Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' classic story. The critics raved over Claude's tremendously moving debut, and the boy was awarded a miniature Oscar on Academy Awards night.
His family moved to California permanently, and Claude studied at the MGM studio school while being built up as a child star. Sad to say, his film success would not last all that long. He seemed to lack the requisite good looks and natural boyish appeal necessary to forge on ahead. His follow-up films were mediocre, however, including High Barbaree (1947) with Van Johnson, The Sun Comes Up (1949) with Jeanette MacDonald, and Roughshod (1949) starring Robert Sterling. His next best role would be in Intruder in the Dust (1949) with David Brian and Juano Hernandez, but it wasn't enough to sustain his career.
By the early 1950s, MGM was loaning him out to Republic Studios in minor programmers and the now-awkward teen lost ground rapidly. Discouraged, Claude returned to Nashville to complete high school and then attended Vanderbilt University where he took a pre-law course. Following his studies, he served three years in the Navy. By the time he returned to Hollywood in 1959, he found no film work at all but did manage to guest on a few TV shows. He later moved to behind-the-scenes work and made minor strides as a producer and film-festival executive director. He once served as director of Cultural Affairs for the City of San Francisco.- Actor
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Louis Gossett Jr. was one of the most respected and beloved actors on stage, screen and television and was also an accomplished writer, producer and director. Off-screen, he was a social activist, educator, and author dedicated to enriching the lives of others. He was the first African-American to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his unforgettable performance as drill Sergeant Emil Foley in "An Officer and a Gentleman".
Among his other awards were an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor for his portrayal of Fiddler in the groundbreaking ABC series "Roots", a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role for "The Josephine Baker Story" and a Golden Globe for "An Officer and a Gentleman". He was nominated for seven Primetime Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, one Academy Award, five Images Awards, two Daytime Emmy Awards and in 1992 received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He received numerous other honors throughout his illustrious career.
His film debut was in the 1961 classic movie "A Raisin in the Sun" with Sidney Poitier. Other film credits include "The Deep," "Blue Chips," "Daddy's Little Girls," Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married Too?," "Firewalker," "Jaws-3D," "Enemy Mine" and "Iron Eagle" 1-4, among many others. Television credits include "Extant," "Madam Secretary," "Boardwalk Empire," "Family Guy", and "ER", among dozens of others.
Gossett authored the bestselling autobiography "An Actor and a Gentleman", recounting the challenges and triumphs of his 50+ year career. Gossett was recognized as much for his humanitarian efforts as for his accomplishments as an actor. In 2006, he founded The Eracism Foundation which is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to eradicating racism. The foundation provides young adults with tools to live a racially diverse and culturally inclusive life. Programs focus on fostering cultural diversity, historical enrichment, education and anti-violence initiatives.
Gossett was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and made his stage debut when he was 17 years old in "Take a Giant Step", which was selected as one of the 10 best Broadway shows of 1953 by the New York Times. He had two sons and resided in Malibu until his death in Santa Monica, California, in 2024, aged 87.- Actor
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Michael Anderson Jr. was born on 6 August 1943 in Hillingdon, Middlesex, England, UK. He is an actor, known for Logan's Run (1976), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).- Howard E. Rollins Jr. was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1950. He was the youngest of four children born to Howard E. Rollins Sr. (steelworker) and Ruth R. Rollins (domestic worker). Rollins graduated from Towson State College, where he studied theater. His first break into acting came when a friend convinced him to try out for a role in "Of Mice and Men" at a local Baltimore theater. He surprised himself with his acting talent.
He left for New York City in 1974 to further his acting career. Rollins earned an Oscar nomination for the role of Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime (1981) and an Emmy nomination for Best Supporting Actor on the NBC daytime drama Another World (1964). He is also known for his brilliant portrayal of Virgil Tibbs on the long running hit TV series In the Heat of the Night (1988), based on the 1967 movie of the same name. In 1995, he made his final feature film appearance in Drunks (1995).
Rollins was diagnosed with lymphoma in late 1996. Six weeks later, he died of complications from the disease at the age of 46. - Actor
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Isiah Whitlock Jr. was born on 13 September 1954 in South Bend, Indiana, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Da 5 Bloods (2020), Cedar Rapids (2011) and BlacKkKlansman (2018).- Actor
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James Pickens Jr. was born October 26, 1954 in Cleveland, Ohio. While attending college at Bowling Green State University, Pickens began pursuing an interest in acting. He graduated from BGSU with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1976. Afterwards, Pickens began work on the stage at the Roundabout Theatre in New York City. During his time on the stage, he starred in the Negro Ensemble Company's production of "A Soldier's Play" with famous Black American actors Denzel Washington and Samuel L. Jackson. Ten years since graduating and beginning his career in acting, Pickens first came to the screen as an ambulance driver in F/X (1986). In that same year, he appeared on the soap opera Another World (1964) from 1986-1990. Pickens also made several appearances on the popular romance drama Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990), and the comedy series Roseanne (1988) among a steady line-up of work during the 1990s.
Throughout his extensive work on television, Pickens is best known to audiences as Dr. Richard Webber, on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy (2005). It is also the same role in which he would reprise on the spin-off series Private Practice (2007) two years later. In later years, namely beginning in the 2010s, Pickens could also be seen in the sports drama 42 (2013) starring Harrison Ford and Chadwick Boseman. Outside of acting, Pickens spends much of his time around horses and often indulges in horseback riding roping cattle. As a competitive roper, Pickens is part of the United States Championship Roping team and often travels across country to various events. He is married to Gina Pickens (nee Taylor) and is father of two sons Carl and Gavyn who both are into the entertainment business.- Actor
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Clarence Gilyard Jr. was born on 24 December 1955 in Moses Lake, Washington, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Die Hard (1988), Walker, Texas Ranger (1993) and Top Gun (1986). He was married to Elena Castillo and Catherine Dutko. He died on 28 November 2022 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.- Actor
- Music Department
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Joseph Harry Fowler Connick, Jr. was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the son of Anita Frances (Levy), a lawyer and judge, and Harry Connick, Sr. (Joseph Harry Fowler Connick), who served as District Attorney of New Orleans from 1973 to 2003. His father is of Irish, English, and German ancestry, and his maternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Vienna, Austria and Minsk, Belarus. Harry, Jr.'s mother died of ovarian cancer when he was 13.
His parents owned a record store and encouraged their son's interest in music - piano at age three, with a New Orleans jazz band aged ten. He won piano competitions while playing French Quarter clubs and attending the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts. At eighteen, he studied at New York's Hunter College and later on at the Manhatan School of Music. At nineteen, he released his first album for Columbia Records and began an extended run performing at the Algonquin's Oak Room, followed a year later by his second album. He wrote the score and sang several songs for Rob Reiner's When Harry Met Sally... (1989), the soundtrack for which went multi-platinum. So far, while bringing back swing and big band music, he has earned one gold, four platinum and three multi-platinum albums, plus two Grammies. His film acting debut was as B-17 tail-gunner Clay Busby in Memphis Belle (1990). He played mass-murderer Daryll Lee Cullum in the Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter film Copycat (1995) and Captain Jimmy Wilder ("Let's kick the tires and light the fires, big daddy!") in Independence Day (1996).
Harry lives in Connecticut, is married to the former model Jill Goodacre, and has three daughters, Georgia Tatom, Sara Kate and Charlotte.- Actor
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Cuba Gooding Jr. was born on January 2, 1968, in The Bronx, New York. His mother, Shirley (Sullivan), was a backup singer for The Sweethearts. His father, Cuba Gooding, was the lead vocalist for the R&B group The Main Ingredient, which had a hit with the song "Everybody Plays The Fool". His paternal grandfather was from Barbados.
Cuba's father moved the family to Los Angeles in 1972, only to leave them a few years later. Despite this setback, Cuba was able to maintain a positive outlook and overachieved throughout school. He attended four different high schools and was elected class president in three of them. While at high school, Cuba met and fell in love with Sara Kapfer, whom he later lived with for seven years before tying the knot in March 1994.
Following high school, Cuba studied Japanese martial arts for three years before turning his focus toward acting. Early on, he landed guest starring roles on shows like Hill Street Blues (1981) and MacGyver (1985). His first major role was in the 1991 box office surprise Boyz n the Hood (1991). He followed this success with supporting roles in major films like A Few Good Men (1992), Lightning Jack (1994) and Outbreak (1995).
In 1996, Cuba was cast as an arrogant but loyal football player in the Tom Cruise-Cameron Crowe film Jerry Maguire (1996). The film became a huge box office smash and earned Cuba an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His "Show Me The Money" line in the movie became a nationwide catchphrase. The role elevated him to superstar status, as many of Hollywood's top producers began to "show him the money" to appear in their films.
Since Jerry Maguire (1996), Cuba has managed to keep busy with a wide range of roles alongside many of Hollywood's biggest stars. Most recently, he won critical support for his portrayal of a mentally handicapped man in the heartwarming film Radio (2003), another movie about football. In 2002, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He resides in Studio City, California.- Actor
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American actor Richard Speight, Jr. was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee. He later graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California. In addition to acting in TV and film, Speight also directs. Those credits include commercials for major brands like Pepsi & Buffalo Wild Wings, numerous episodes of the hit CW series "Supernatural," "Lucifer" for Netflix, and all 10 episodes of "Kings of Con" for Lionsgate, a comedy series he co-created and starred in with fellow "Supernatural" alumnus Rob Benedict.
He received a Hugo Award nomination for his directing debut on "Supernatural" (episode 1108 - "Just My Imagination"). His fifth "Supernatural" directing effort (ep 1320 - "Unfinished Business") also features Speight himself acting in two different roles. In one scene, those two characters fight each other, which means that in a rare television moment, it was Speight vs. Speight directed by Speight.- Actor
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Lawrence Gilliard Jr. was born on 22 September 1971 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for The Waterboy (1998), Walk of Shame (2014) and One Night in Miami... (2020). He is married to Michelle Paress.- Actor
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Leslie Odom Jr. was born on 6 August 1981 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Hamilton (2020), One Night in Miami... (2020) and Murder on the Orient Express (2017). He has been married to Nicolette Robinson since 1 December 2012. They have two children.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Harry Shum Jr. (born April 28, 1982) is a Costa Rican-born Chinese American actor, dancer, and choreographer. He is best known for his roles as Mike Chang on the Fox television series Glee (2009-15) and as Magnus Bane on the Freeform television series Shadowhunters (2016-19). He was nominated for four Screen Actors Guild Awards for his performance in Glee, winning once. He won the award for The Male TV Star of 2018 in the E! People's Choice Awards for Shadowhunters.- Actor
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Among his best-known roles, Johnson portrays the mutant cab driver Benny in the 1990 hit science fiction film, Total Recall. He also starred in the Broadway musical, On the Twentieth Century and appeared in the Public Theater's "Shakespeare in the Park" 2005 revival of Two Gentlemen of Verona. He was also in the musical The Rink.
Johnson is also well known to Star Trek fans for playing Broca, the Cardassian who becomes leader of the Cardassian Union in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's final two episodes, "The Dogs of War" and "What You Leave Behind". Johnson has also guest-starred in The Munsters Today, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and The Practice. His other motion picture credits include Off the Mark, American Blue Note, Murder By Numbers, Hideous!, Archibald the Rainbow Painter and In the Shadow of the Cobra.
Johnson's credits as producer include Ragdoll, The Horrible Dr. Bones and The Vault.Total Recall (1990)- Actor
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Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the Broadway stage adieu in 1949, a decision for which he was severely criticized when his star began to dim in the 1960s and he was excoriated for squandering his talents. No actor ever exerted such a profound influence on succeeding generations of actors as did Brando. More than 50 years after he first scorched the screen as Stanley Kowalski in the movie version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and a quarter-century after his last great performance as Col. Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), all American actors are still being measured by the yardstick that was Brando. It was if the shadow of John Barrymore, the great American actor closest to Brando in terms of talent and stardom, dominated the acting field up until the 1970s. He did not, nor did any other actor so dominate the public's consciousness of what WAS an actor before or since Brando's 1951 on-screen portrayal of Stanley made him a cultural icon. Brando eclipsed the reputation of other great actors circa 1950, such as Paul Muni and Fredric March. Only the luster of Spencer Tracy's reputation hasn't dimmed when seen in the starlight thrown off by Brando. However, neither Tracy nor Olivier created an entire school of acting just by the force of his personality. Brando did.
Marlon Brando, Jr. was born on April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Marlon Brando, Sr., a calcium carbonate salesman, and his artistically inclined wife, the former Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. "Bud" Brando was one of three children. His ancestry included English, Irish, German, Dutch, French Huguenot, Welsh, and Scottish; his surname originated with a distant German immigrant ancestor named "Brandau." His oldest sister Jocelyn Brando was also an actress, taking after their mother, who engaged in amateur theatricals and mentored a then-unknown Henry Fonda, another Nebraska native, in her role as director of the Omaha Community Playhouse. Frannie, Brando's other sibling, was a visual artist. Both Brando sisters contrived to leave the Midwest for New York City, Jocelyn to study acting and Frannie to study art. Marlon managed to escape the vocational doldrums forecast for him by his cold, distant father and his disapproving schoolteachers by striking out for The Big Apple in 1943, following Jocelyn into the acting profession. Acting was the only thing he was good at, for which he received praise, so he was determined to make it his career - a high-school dropout, he had nothing else to fall back on, having been rejected by the military due to a knee injury he incurred playing football at Shattuck Military Academy, Brando Sr.'s alma mater. The school booted Marlon out as incorrigible before graduation.
Acting was a skill he honed as a child, the lonely son of alcoholic parents. With his father away on the road, and his mother frequently intoxicated to the point of stupefaction, the young Bud would play-act for her to draw her out of her stupor and to attract her attention and love. His mother was exceedingly neglectful, but he loved her, particularly for instilling in him a love of nature, a feeling which informed his character Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972) ("Last Tango in Paris") when he is recalling his childhood for his young lover Jeanne. "I don't have many good memories," Paul confesses, and neither did Brando of his childhood. Sometimes he had to go down to the town jail to pick up his mother after she had spent the night in the drunk tank and bring her home, events that traumatized the young boy but may have been the grain that irritated the oyster of his talent, producing the pearls of his performances. Anthony Quinn, his Oscar-winning co-star in Viva Zapata! (1952) told Brando's first wife Anna Kashfi, "I admire Marlon's talent, but I don't envy the pain that created it."
Brando enrolled in Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at New York's New School, and was mentored by Stella Adler, a member of a famous Yiddish Theatre acting family. Adler helped introduce to the New York stage the "emotional memory" technique of Russian theatrical actor, director and impresario Konstantin Stanislavski, whose motto was "Think of your own experiences and use them truthfully." The results of this meeting between an actor and the teacher preparing him for a life in the theater would mark a watershed in American acting and culture.
Brando made his debut on the boards of Broadway on October 19, 1944, in "I Remember Mama," a great success. As a young Broadway actor, Brando was invited by talent scouts from several different studios to screen-test for them, but he turned them down because he would not let himself be bound by the then-standard seven-year contract. Brando would make his film debut quite some time later in Fred Zinnemann's The Men (1950) for producer Stanley Kramer. Playing a paraplegic soldier, Brando brought new levels of realism to the screen, expanding on the verisimilitude brought to movies by Group Theatre alumni John Garfield, the predecessor closest to him in the raw power he projected on-screen. Ironically, it was Garfield whom producer Irene Mayer Selznick had chosen to play the lead in a new Tennessee Williams play she was about to produce, but negotiations broke down when Garfield demanded an ownership stake in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Burt Lancaster was next approached, but couldn't get out of a prior film commitment. Then director Elia Kazan suggested Brando, whom he had directed to great effect in Maxwell Anderson's play "Truckline Café," in which Brando co-starred with Karl Malden, who was to remain a close friend for the next 60 years.
During the production of "Truckline Café," Kazan had found that Brando's presence was so magnetic, he had to re-block the play to keep Marlon near other major characters' stage business, as the audience could not take its eyes off of him. For the scene where Brando's character re-enters the stage after killing his wife, Kazan placed him upstage-center, partially obscured by scenery, but where the audience could still see him as Karl Malden and others played out their scene within the café set. When he eventually entered the scene, crying, the effect was electric. A young Pauline Kael, arriving late to the play, had to avert her eyes when Brando made this entrance as she believed the young actor on stage was having a real-life conniption. She did not look back until her escort commented that the young man was a great actor.
The problem with casting Brando as Stanley was that he was much younger than the character as written by Williams. However, after a meeting between Brando and Williams, the playwright eagerly agreed that Brando would make an ideal Stanley. Williams believed that by casting a younger actor, the Neanderthalish Kowalski would evolve from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to his youthful ignorance. Brando ultimately was dissatisfied with his performance, though, saying he never was able to bring out the humor of the character, which was ironic as his characterization often drew laughs from the audience at the expense of Jessica Tandy's Blanche Dubois. During the out-of-town tryouts, Kazan realized that Brando's magnetism was attracting attention and audience sympathy away from Blanche to Stanley, which was not what the playwright intended. The audience's sympathy should be solely with Blanche, but many spectators were identifying with Stanley. Kazan queried Williams on the matter, broaching the idea of a slight rewrite to tip the scales back to more of a balance between Stanley and Blanche, but Williams demurred, smitten as he was by Brando, just like the preview audiences.
For his part, Brando believed that the audience sided with his Stanley because Jessica Tandy was too shrill. He thought Vivien Leigh, who played the part in the movie, was ideal, as she was not only a great beauty but she WAS Blanche Dubois, troubled as she was in her real life by mental illness and nymphomania. Brando's appearance as Stanley on stage and on screen revolutionized American acting by introducing "The Method" into American consciousness and culture. Method acting, rooted in Adler's study at the Moscow Art Theatre of Stanislavsky's theories that she subsequently introduced to the Group Theatre, was a more naturalistic style of performing, as it engendered a close identification of the actor with the character's emotions. Adler took first place among Brando's acting teachers, and socially she helped turn him from an unsophisticated Midwestern farm boy into a knowledgeable and cosmopolitan artist who one day would socialize with presidents.
Brando didn't like the term "The Method," which quickly became the prominent paradigm taught by such acting gurus as Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Brando denounced Strasberg in his autobiography "Songs My Mother Taught Me" (1994), saying that he was a talentless exploiter who claimed he had been Brando's mentor. The Actors Studio had been founded by Strasberg along with Kazan and Stella Adler's husband, Harold Clurman, all Group Theatre alumni, all political progressives deeply committed to the didactic function of the stage. Brando credits his knowledge of the craft to Adler and Kazan, while Kazan in his autobiography "A Life" claimed that Brando's genius thrived due to the thorough training Adler had given him. Adler's method emphasized that authenticity in acting is achieved by drawing on inner reality to expose deep emotional experience
Interestingly, Elia Kazan believed that Brando had ruined two generations of actors, his contemporaries and those who came after him, all wanting to emulate the great Brando by employing The Method. Kazan felt that Brando was never a Method actor, that he had been highly trained by Adler and did not rely on gut instincts for his performances, as was commonly believed. Many a young actor, mistaken about the true roots of Brando's genius, thought that all it took was to find a character's motivation, empathize with the character through sense and memory association, and regurgitate it all on stage to become the character. That's not how the superbly trained Brando did it; he could, for example, play accents, whereas your average American Method actor could not. There was a method to Brando's art, Kazan felt, but it was not The Method.
After A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), for which he received the first of his eight Academy Award nominations, Brando appeared in a string of Academy Award-nominated performances - in Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953) and the summit of his early career, Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954). For his "Waterfront" portrayal of meat-headed longshoreman Terry Malloy, the washed-up pug who "coulda been a contender," Brando won his first Oscar. Along with his iconic performance as the rebel-without-a-cause Johnny in The Wild One (1953) ("What are you rebelling against?" Johnny is asked. "What have ya got?" is his reply), the first wave of his career was, according to Jon Voight, unprecedented in its audacious presentation of such a wide range of great acting. Director John Huston said his performance of Marc Antony was like seeing the door of a furnace opened in a dark room, and co-star John Gielgud, the premier Shakespearean actor of the 20th century, invited Brando to join his repertory company.
It was this period of 1951-54 that revolutionized American acting, spawning such imitators as James Dean - who modeled his acting and even his lifestyle on his hero Brando - the young Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. After Brando, every up-and-coming star with true acting talent and a brooding, alienated quality would be hailed as the "New Brando," such as Warren Beatty in Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961). "We are all Brando's children," Jack Nicholson pointed out in 1972. "He gave us our freedom." He was truly "The Godfather" of American acting - and he was just 30 years old. Though he had a couple of failures, like Désirée (1954) and The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), he was clearly miscast in them and hadn't sought out the parts so largely escaped blame.
In the second period of his career, 1955-62, Brando managed to uniquely establish himself as a great actor who also was a Top 10 movie star, although that star began to dim after the box-office high point of his early career, Sayonara (1957) (for which he received his fifth Best Actor Oscar nomination). Brando tried his hand at directing a film, the well-reviewed One-Eyed Jacks (1961) that he made for his own production company, Pennebaker Productions (after his mother's maiden name). Stanley Kubrick had been hired to direct the film, but after months of script rewrites in which Brando participated, Kubrick and Brando had a falling out and Kubrick was sacked. According to his widow Christiane Kubrick, Stanley believed that Brando had wanted to direct the film himself all along.
Tales proliferated about the profligacy of Brando the director, burning up a million and a half feet of expensive VistaVision film at 50 cents a foot, fully ten times the normal amount of raw stock expended during production of an equivalent motion picture. Brando took so long editing the film that he was never able to present the studio with a cut. Paramount took it away from him and tacked on a re-shot ending that Brando was dissatisfied with, as it made the Oedipal figure of Dad Longworth into a villain. In any normal film Dad would have been the heavy, but Brando believed that no one was innately evil, that it was a matter of an individual responding to, and being molded by, one's environment. It was not a black-and-white world, Brando felt, but a gray world in which once-decent people could do horrible things. This attitude explains his sympathetic portrayal of Nazi officer Christian Diestl in the film he made before shooting One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Edward Dmytryk's filming of Irwin Shaw's novel The Young Lions (1958). Shaw denounced Brando's performance, but audiences obviously disagreed, as the film was a major hit. It would be the last hit movie Brando would have for more than a decade.
One-Eyed Jacks (1961) generated respectable numbers at the box office, but the production costs were exorbitant - a then-staggering $6 million - which made it run a deficit. A film essentially is "made" in the editing room, and Brando found cutting to be a terribly boring process, which was why the studio eventually took the film away from him. Despite his proved talent in handling actors and a large production, Brando never again directed another film, though he would claim that all actors essentially direct themselves during the shooting of a picture.
Between the production and release of One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Brando appeared in Sidney Lumet's film version of Tennessee Williams' play "Orpheus Descending," The Fugitive Kind (1960) which teamed him with fellow Oscar winners Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward. Following in Elizabeth Taylor's trailblazing footsteps, Brando became the second performer to receive a $1-million salary for a motion picture, so high were the expectations for this re-teaming of Kowalski and his creator (in 1961 critic Hollis Alpert had published a book "Brando and the Shadow of Stanley Kowalski"). Critics and audiences waiting for another incendiary display from Brando in a Williams work were disappointed when the renamed The Fugitive Kind (1960) finally released. Though Tennessee was hot, with movie versions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) burning up the box office and receiving kudos from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, The Fugitive Kind (1960) was a failure. This was followed by the so-so box-office reception of One-Eyed Jacks (1961) in 1961 and then by a failure of a more monumental kind: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), a remake of the famed 1935 film.
Brando signed on to Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) after turning down the lead in the David Lean classic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) because he didn't want to spend a year in the desert riding around on a camel. He received another $1-million salary, plus $200,000 in overages as the shoot went overtime and over budget. During principal photography, highly respected director Carol Reed (an eventual Academy Award winner) was fired, and his replacement, two-time Oscar winner Lewis Milestone, was shunted aside by Brando as Marlon basically took over the direction of the film himself. The long shoot became so notorious that President John F. Kennedy asked director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party not "when" but "if" the "Bounty" shoot would ever be over. The MGM remake of one of its classic Golden Age films garnered a Best Picture Oscar nomination and was one of the top grossing films of 1962, yet failed to go into the black due to its Brobdingnagian budget estimated at $20 million, which is equivalent to $120 million when adjusted for inflation.
Brando and Taylor, whose Cleopatra (1963) nearly bankrupted 20th Century-Fox due to its huge cost overruns (its final budget was more than twice that of Brando's Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)), were pilloried by the show business press for being the epitome of the pampered, self-indulgent stars who were ruining the industry. Seeking scapegoats, the Hollywood press conveniently ignored the financial pressures on the studios. The studios had been hurt by television and by the antitrust-mandated divestiture of their movie theater chains, causing a large outflow of production to Italy and other countries in the 1950s and 1960s in order to lower costs. The studio bosses, seeking to replicate such blockbuster hits as the remakes of The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959), were the real culprits behind the losses generated by large-budgeted films that found it impossible to recoup their costs despite long lines at the box office.
While Elizabeth Taylor, receiving the unwanted gift of reams of publicity from her adulterous romance with Cleopatra (1963) co-star Richard Burton, remained hot until the tanking of her own Tennessee Williams-renamed debacle Boom! (1968), Brando from 1963 until the end of the decade appeared in one box-office failure after another as he worked out a contract he had signed with Universal Pictures. The industry had grown tired of Brando and his idiosyncrasies, though he continued to be offered prestige projects up through 1968.
Some of the films Brando made in the 1960s were noble failures, such as The Ugly American (1963), The Appaloosa (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). For every "Reflections," though, there seemed to be two or three outright debacles, such as Bedtime Story (1964), Morituri (1965), The Chase (1966), A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), Candy (1968), The Night of the Following Day (1969). By the time Brando began making the anti-colonialist picture Burn! (1969) in Colombia with Gillo Pontecorvo in the director's chair, he was box-office poison, despite having worked in the previous five years with such top directors as Arthur Penn, John Huston and the legendary Charles Chaplin, and with such top-drawer co-stars as David Niven, Yul Brynner, Sophia Loren and Taylor.
The rap on Brando in the 1960s was that a great talent had ruined his potential to be America's answer to Laurence Olivier, as his friend William Redfield limned the dilemma in his book "Letters from an Actor" (1967), a memoir about Redfield's appearance in Burton's 1964 theatrical production of "Hamlet." By failing to go back on stage and recharge his artistic batteries, something British actors such as Burton were not afraid to do, Brando had stifled his great talent, by refusing to tackle the classical repertoire and contemporary drama. Actors and critics had yearned for an American response to the high-acting style of the Brits, and while Method actors such as Rod Steiger tried to create an American style, they were hampered in their quest, as their king was lost in a wasteland of Hollywood movies that were beneath his talent. Many of his early supporters now turned on him, claiming he was a crass sellout.
Despite evidence in such films as The Appaloosa (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) that Brando was in fact doing some of the best acting of his life, critics, perhaps with an eye on the box office, slammed him for failing to live up to, and nurture, his great gift. Brando's political activism, starting in the early 1960s with his championing of Native Americans' rights, followed by his participation in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's March on Washington in 1963, and followed by his appearance at a Black Panther rally in 1968, did not win him many admirers in the establishment. In fact, there was a de facto embargo on Brando films in the recently segregated (officially, at least) southeastern US in the 1960s. Southern exhibitors simply would not book his films, and producers took notice. After 1968, Brando would not work for three years.
Pauline Kael wrote of Brando that he was Fortune's fool. She drew a parallel with the latter career of John Barrymore, a similarly gifted thespian with talents as prodigious, who seemingly threw them away. Brando, like the late-career Barrymore, had become a great ham, evidenced by his turn as the faux Indian guru in the egregious Candy (1968), seemingly because the material was so beneath his talent. Most observers of Brando in the 1960s believed that he needed to be reunited with his old mentor Elia Kazan, a relationship that had soured due to Kazan's friendly testimony naming names before the notorious House un-American Activities Committee. Perhaps Brando believed this, too, as he originally accepted an offer to appear as the star of Kazan's film adaptation of his own novel, The Arrangement (1969). However, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Brando backed out of the film, telling Kazan that he could not appear in a Hollywood film after this tragedy. Also reportedly turning down a role opposite box-office king Paul Newman in a surefire script, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Brando decided to make Burn! (1969) with Pontecorvo. The film, a searing indictment of racism and colonialism, flopped at the box office but won the esteem of progressive critics and cultural arbiters such as Howard Zinn. He subsequently appeared in the British film The Nightcomers (1971), a prequel to "Turn of the Screw" and another critical and box office failure.
Kazan, after a life in film and the theater, said that, aside from Orson Welles, whose greatness lay in film making, he only met one actor who was a genius: Brando. Richard Burton, an intellectual with a keen eye for observation if not for his own film projects, said that he found Brando to be very bright, unlike the public perception of him as a Terry Malloy-type character that he himself inadvertently promoted through his boorish behavior. Brando's problem, Burton felt, was that he was unique, and that he had gotten too much fame too soon at too early an age. Cut off from being nurtured by normal contact with society, fame had distorted Brando's personality and his ability to cope with the world, as he had not had time to grow up outside the limelight.
Truman Capote, who eviscerated Brando in print in the mid-'50s and had as much to do with the public perception of the dyslexic Brando as a dumbbell, always said that the best actors were ignorant, and that an intelligent person could not be a good actor. However, Brando was highly intelligent, and possessed of a rare genius in a then-deprecated art, acting. The problem that an intelligent performer has in movies is that it is the director, and not the actor, who has the power in his chosen field. Greatness in the other arts is defined by how much control the artist is able to exert over his chosen medium, but in movie acting, the medium is controlled by a person outside the individual artist. It is an axiom of the cinema that a performance, as is a film, is "created" in the cutting room, thus further removing the actor from control over his art. Brando had tried his hand at directing, in controlling the whole artistic enterprise, but he could not abide the cutting room, where a film and the film's performances are made. This lack of control over his art was the root of Brando's discontent with acting, with movies, and, eventually, with the whole wide world that invested so much cachet in movie actors, as long as "they" were at the top of the box-office charts. Hollywood was a matter of "they" and not the work, and Brando became disgusted.
Charlton Heston, who participated in Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington with Brando, believes that Marlon was the great actor of his generation. However, noting a story that Brando had once refused a role in the early 1960s with the excuse "How can I act when people are starving in India?," Heston believes that it was this attitude, the inability to separate one's idealism from one's work, that prevented Brando from reaching his potential. As Rod Steiger once said, Brando had it all, great stardom and a great talent. He could have taken his audience on a trip to the stars, but he simply would not. Steiger, one of Brando's children even though a contemporary, could not understand it. When James Mason' was asked in 1971 who was the best American actor, he had replied that since Brando had let his career go belly-up, it had to be George C. Scott, by default.
Paramount thought that only Laurence Olivier would suffice, but Lord Olivier was ill. The young director believed there was only one actor who could play godfather to the group of Young Turk actors he had assembled for his film, The Godfather of method acting himself - Marlon Brando. Francis Ford Coppola won the fight for Brando, Brando won - and refused - his second Oscar, and Paramount won a pot of gold by producing the then top-grossing film of all-time, The Godfather (1972), a gangster movie most critics now judge one of the greatest American films of all time. Brando followed his iconic portrayal of Don Corleone with his Oscar-nominated turn in the high-grossing and highly scandalous Last Tango in Paris (1972) ("Last Tango in Paris"), the first film dealing explicitly with sexuality in which an actor of Brando's stature had participated. He was now again a top ten box office star and once again heralded as the greatest actor of his generation, an unprecedented comeback that put him on the cover of "Time" magazine and would make him the highest-paid actor in the history of motion pictures by the end of the decade. Little did the world know that Brando, who had struggled through many projects in good faith during the 1960s, delivering some of his best acting, only to be excoriated and ignored as the films did not do well at the box office, essentially was through with the movies.
After reaching the summit of his career, a rarefied atmosphere never reached before or since by any actor, Brando essentially walked away. He would give no more of himself after giving everything as he had done in Last Tango in Paris (1972)," a performance that embarrassed him, according to his autobiography. Brando had come as close to any actor to being the "auteur," or author, of a film, as the English-language scenes of "Tango" were created by encouraging Brando to improvise. The improvisations were written down and turned into a shooting script, and the scripted improvisations were shot the next day. Pauline Kael, the Brando of movie critics in that she was the most influential arbiter of cinematic quality of her generation and spawned a whole legion of Kael wannabes, said Brando's performance in Last Tango in Paris (1972) had revolutionized the art of film. Brando, who had to act to gain his mother's attention; Brando, who believed acting at best was nothing special as everyone in the world engaged in it every day of their lives to get what they wanted from other people; Brando, who believed acting at its worst was a childish charade and that movie stardom was a whorish fraud, would have agreed with Sam Peckinpah's summation of Pauline Kael: "Pauline's a brilliant critic but sometimes she's just cracking walnuts with her ass." He probably would have done so in a simulacrum of those words, too.
After another three-year hiatus, Brando took on just one more major role for the next 20 years, as the bounty hunter after Jack Nicholson in Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks (1976), a western that succeeded neither with the critics or at the box office. Following The Godfather and Tango, Brando's performance was disappointing for some reviewers, who accused him of giving an erratic and inconsistent performance. In 1977, Brando made a rare appearance on television in the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979), portraying George Lincoln Rockwell; he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his performance. In 1978, he narrated the English version of Raoni (1978), a French-Belgian documentary film directed by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux and Luiz Carlos Saldanha that focused on the life of Raoni Metuktire and issues surrounding the survival of the indigenous Indian tribes of north central Brazil.
Later in his career, Brando concentrated on extracting the maximum amount of capital for the least amount of work from producers, as when he got the Salkind brothers to pony up a then-record $3.7 million against 10% of the gross for 13 days work on Superman (1978). Factoring in inflation, the straight salary for "Superman" equals or exceeds the new record of $1 million a day Harrison Ford set with K-19: The Widowmaker (2002). He agreed to the role only on assurance that he would be paid a large sum for what amounted to a small part, that he would not have to read the script beforehand, and his lines would be displayed somewhere off-camera. Brando also filmed scenes for the movie's sequel, Superman II, but after producers refused to pay him the same percentage he received for the first movie, he denied them permission to use the footage.
Before cashing his first paycheck for Superman (1978), Brando had picked up $2 million for his extended cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) in a role, that of Col. Kurtz, that he authored on-camera through improvisation while Coppola shot take after take. It was Brando's last bravura star performance. He co-starred with George C. Scott and John Gielgud in The Formula (1980), but the film was another critical and financial failure. Years later though, he did receive an eighth and final Oscar nomination for his supporting role in A Dry White Season (1989) after coming out of a near-decade-long retirement. Contrary to those who claimed he now only was in it for the money, Brando donated his entire seven-figure salary to an anti-apartheid charity. He then did an amusing performance in the comedy The Freshman (1990), winning rave reviews. He portrayed Tomas de Torquemada in the historical drama 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), but his performance was denounced and the film was another box office failure. He made another comeback in the Johnny Depp romantic drama Don Juan DeMarco (1994), which co-starred Faye Dunaway as his wife. He then appeared in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), co-starring Val Kilmer, who he didn't get along with. The filming was an unpleasant experience for Brando, as well as another critical and box office failure.
Brando had first attracted media attention at the age of 24, when "Life" magazine ran a photo of himself and his sister Jocelyn, who were both then appearing on Broadway. The curiosity continued, and snowballed. Playing the paraplegic soldier of The Men (1950), Brando had gone to live at a Veterans Administration hospital with actual disabled veterans, and confined himself to a wheelchair for weeks. It was an acting method, research, that no one in Hollywood had ever heard of before, and that willingness to experience life.- Actor
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One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained at the Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop. De Niro first gained fame for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), but he gained his reputation as a volatile actor in Mean Streets (1973), which was his first film with director Martin Scorsese. He received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Godfather Part II (1974) and received Academy Award nominations for best actor in Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Cape Fear (1991). He received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980).
De Niro has earned four Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in New York, New York (1977), opposite Liza Minnelli, Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). Other notable performances include Brazil (1985), The Untouchables (1987), Backdraft (1991), Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), Casino (1995) and Jackie Brown (1997). At the same time, he also directed and starred in such films as A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). De Niro has also received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010.
As of 2022, De Niro is 79-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to work regularly in mostly film.