Pete’s Dragon (1957)
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Jerry Mathers was born on 2 June 1948 in Sioux City, Iowa, USA. He is an actor and director, known for The Trouble with Harry (1955), Leave It to Beaver (1957) and The Love Boat (1977). He has been married to Teresa Modnick since 30 January 2011. He was previously married to Diana Platt and Rhonda Gehring.Elliot- Actress
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Deborah Jane Trimmer was born on 30 September 1921 in Glasgow, Scotland, the daughter of Captain Arthur Kerr Trimmer. She was educated at Northumberland House, Clifton, Bristol. She first performed at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park, London. She subsequently performed with the Oxford Repertory Company 1939-40. Her first appearance on the West End stage was as Ellie Dunn in "Heartbreak House" at the Cambridge Theatre in 1943. She performed in France, Belgium and Holland with ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association, or Every Night Something Awful) - The British Army entertainment service. She has appeared in many films from her first appearance in Major Barbara (1941).Nora- Actor
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Spencer Tracy was the second son born on April 5, 1900, to truck salesman John Edward and Caroline Brown Tracy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While attending Marquette Academy, he and classmate Pat O'Brien quit school to enlist in the Navy at the start of World War I. Tracy was still at Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia at the end of the war. After playing the lead in the play "The Truth" at Ripon College he decided that acting might be his career.
Moving to New York, Tracy and O'Brien, who'd also settled on a career on the stage, roomed together while attending the Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1923 both got nonspeaking parts as robots in "R.U.R.", a dramatization of the groundbreaking science fiction novel by Czech author Karel Capek. Making very little money in stock, Tracy supported himself with jobs as bellhop, janitor and salesman until John Ford saw his critically acclaimed performance in the lead role in the play "The Last Mile" (later played on film by Clark Gable) and signed him for The William Fox Film Company's production of Up the River (1930). Despite appearing in sixteen films at that studio over the next five years, Tracy was never able to rise to full film star status there, in large part because the studio was unable to match his talents to suitable story material.
During that period the studio itself floundered, eventually merging with Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck and William Goetz's William 20th Century Pictures to become 20th Century-Fox). In 1935 Tracy signed with MGM under the aegis of Irving Thalberg and his career flourished. He became the first actor to win back-to-back Best Actor Oscars for Captains Courageous (1937) and, in a project he initially didn't want to star in, Boys Town (1938).
During Tracy's nearly forty-year film career, he was nominated for his performances in San Francisco (1936), Father of the Bride (1950), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).
Tracy had a brief romantic relationship with Loretta Young in the mid-1930s, and a lifelong one with Katharine Hepburn beginning in 1942 after they were first paired in Woman of the Year by director George Stevens. Tracy's strong Roman Catholic beliefs precluded his divorcing wife Louise, though they mostly lived apart. Tracy suffered from severe alcoholism and diabetes (from the late 1940s), which led to his declining several tailor-made roles in films that would become big hits with other actors in those roles. Although his drinking problems were well known, he was considered peerless among his colleagues (Tracy had a well-deserved reputation for keeping co-stars on their toes for his oddly endearing scene-stealing tricks), and remained in demand as a senior statesman who nevertheless retained box office clout. Two weeks after completion of Stanley Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), during which he suffered from lung congestion, Spencer Tracy died of a heart attack.Lampie- Actor
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John Carradine, the son of a reporter/artist and a surgeon, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He attended Christ Church School and Graphic Art School, studying sculpture, and afterward roamed the South selling sketches. He made his acting debut in "Camille" in a New Orleans theatre in 1925. Arriving in Los Angeles in 1927, he worked in local theatre. He applied for a job as as scenic designer to Cecil B. DeMille, who rejected his designs but gave him voice work in several films. His on-screen debut was in Tol'able David (1930), billed as Peter Richmond. A protégé and close friend of John Barrymore, Carradine was an extremely prolific film character actor while simultaneously maintaining a stage career in classic leading roles such as Hamlet and Malvolio. In his later years he was typed as a horror star, putting in appearances in many low- and ultra-low-budget horror films. He was a member of the group of actors often used by director John Ford that became known as "The John Ford Stock Company". John Carradine died at age 82 of natural causes on November 27, 1988.Dr Terminus- Actor
- Music Department
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Born in 1914, raised in Norfolk, Nebraska, Thurl Ravenscroft served as a navigator in the US Army Air Transport Command in World War II before settling in Hollywood. An accomplished singer, he performed with The Sportsmen Quartet, The Mellowmen Quartet, The Johnny Mann Singers, The Norman Luboff Choir, and many major stars, including Jim Nabors and Elvis Presley. He was best known, however, for his mellifluous voice-overs, and he voiced Tony the Tiger in countless advertisements for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes in both English and Spanish. In 1996 he and his wife June retired to southern California, although he still did occasional work as Tony. He died in 2005 of prostate cancer.Elliot- Actress
- Soundtrack
Verna Felton had extensive experience on the stage and in radio before she broke into film and television. Her trademarks was her distinctive husky voice and her no-nonsense attitude. She was quite in demand for voiceover work, as evidenced by her roles in Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951) and Lady and the Tramp (1955). She appeared in many films, but is best remembered as Hilda Crocker in the TV series December Bride (1954), a character she carried over into its spinoff, Pete and Gladys (1960). Verna died in 1966 at 76 years of age of a stroke.Lena Gogan- Producer
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Sheldon Leonard was born in New York City's lower Manhattan, the son of Jewish parents. He studied acting at Syracuse University and, after graduating, landed a job on Wall Street. Following the Wall Street crash of 1929, he found himself unemployed and resolved to become a professional actor on the stage. The road was hard, since it took him five years to first appear on Broadway in "Hotel Alimony" (1934). While this production was universally slammed by the critics, the next plays he appeared in, "Having Wonderful Time" (1937) and "Kiss the Boys Goodbye" (1938), were unqualified successes, the former running for 372 performances.
Movie offers followed, and from 1939 he became one of Hollywood's most recognizable screen tough guys, the names of his characters evocative of the roles he played: Pretty Willie in Tall, Dark and Handsome (1941), Slip Moran in Lucky Jordan (1942), Lippy Harris in Jinx Money (1948), Jumbo Schneider in Money from Home (1953) and, famously, Harry the Horse in Guys and Dolls (1955). There was also an assortment of minor henchmen and western heavies named Blackie or Lefty, and he was Nick, the sneering, humorless barkeeper who tosses James Stewart into the snow in It's a Wonderful Life (1946).
Having had his fill of acting in those kinds of parts, Leonard began a new career as a television producer in the 1950s and went on to become one of the most successful TV producer/directors of the 1950s and 1960s. Four of his productions (all on CBS)--The Danny Thomas Show (1953), Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964), The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) (which won 21 Emmy Awards) and The Andy Griffith Show (1960)--were rated in the Top Ten. He had a further success with I Spy (1965), championing the cause of racial equality over the (initial) objections of the network by being the first series to have an African-American (Bill Cosby) in an equal co-starring dramatic role with a white actor. Leonard is also regarded as having invented the television spin-off.Merle Gogan- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
Tall, spade-jawed, hopelessly genial balladeer/actor Jim Nabors was born in James Thurston Nabors on June 12, 1930 in Sylacauga, Alabama and raised there, graduating from the University of Alabama. A typing clerk at the United Nations in his salad days, he eventually moved to Los Angeles, California on account of his asthmatic condition and became a film cutter for NBC.
Jim was discovered on stage doing a cabaret act at "The Horn," a now defunct but then highly popular Santa Monica nightclub. Combining his gifts for classical singing and gawky hick characterizations, his highly unique schtick was either ridiculously insane or totally brilliant. Either way this garnered him notice.
Comic Bill Dana caught Jim's act and opted for the latter assessment, inviting him to audition for Steve Allen's TV variety show. Jim went on to appear on Allen's show a number of times. TV star Andy Griffith caught his silly singing "down home" gimmick as well and offered him the part of dim but lovable gas station attendant Gomer Pyle on his popular 1960s sitcom. Jim's career took off like a skyrocket. His sheepish "gawwwleee" and bug-eyed "shazzayam" expressions became part of the American vernacular and it wasn't long before the beloved character would spin off into his own sitcom. Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964) was a solid hit as the bungling, painfully naive, gentle do-gooder found himself hilariously at odds with the Marine Corps and a particularly tough Sergeant Vince Carter (played terrifically by the late Frank Sutton). The sitcom ran a respectable five seasons and Jim solidified himself as a household name.
On the downside of this TV success, Jim found himself inextricably pigeon-holed as a gullible, squeaky-clean hick. As a result, he found work elsewhere, particularly in children-oriented series for Sid and Marty Krofft and Jim Henson. He also decided to refocus on his beautiful baritone voice. Recording a number of romantic, easy listening albums, five of them went gold and one went platinum. He earned a gold record for his rendition of "The Lord's Prayer."
On TV, Jim became a frequent singing/comedy guest performer on all the top prime-time variety and late night shows, including "Sonny & Cher," "The Tonight Show," "The Dean Martin Show," "The David Frost Show," and "The Joey Bishop Show." He also became the annual "good luck charm" opening season guest on close friend Carol Burnett's TV variety series during her twelve-year run. It was enough for CBS to entrust Jim with own TV variety series The Jim Nabors Hour (1968), which ran for two seasons, featured his "Gomer Pyle" co-stars Frank Sutton and Ronnie Schell, and earned him a Golden Globe nomination. A decade later, he returned to the format hosting The Jim Nabors Show (1978), which was short-lived but earned him a daytime Emmy nomination.
Another good friend, Burt Reynolds, was responsible for Jim's theater debut as Harold Hill in "The Music Man" at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre with Florence Henderson as his Marian the Librarian. Jim also appeared in comic support in a couple of Reynolds' films -- The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and Stroker Ace (1983).
Nabors was seen on a limited basis in the early 1990s and his life took a serious hit in 1994 when, after years of declining health, he was forced to have a liver transplant. He has returned to the limelight very infrequently (talks shows and reunion shows), preferring the quiet, relaxing life he has in Hawaii and running a macadamia nut plantation.
On January 15, 2013, the 82-year-old Nabors came out as gay news by marrying his life partner of 38 years, Stan Cadwallader, a retired Honolulu firefighter, at a Seattle hotel after Washington became a "same sex" marriage state a month earlier. The 87-year-old died of an immune disorder on November 30, 2017.Willie Gogan- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.Grover Gogan- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Jack Haley was a movie and vaudeville actor who is always remembered as the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (1939). The Tin Man role was originally was going to Buddy Ebsen, but due to allergic reaction from the aluminum powder makeup, Ebsen was taken out of the casting and Haley replaced him. To avoid the same problem arising, they used aluminum paste for Haley instead of the powder. Haley starred in over thirty other movies.Hoagie- Actor
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Emanuel Goldenberg arrived in the United States from Romania at age ten, and his family moved into New York's Lower East Side. He took up acting while attending City College, abandoning plans to become a rabbi or lawyer. The American Academy of Dramatic Arts awarded him a scholarship, and he began work in stock, with his new name, Edward G. Robinson (the "G" stood for his birth surname), in 1913. Broadway was two years later; he worked steadily there for 15 years. His work included "The Kibitzer", a comedy he co-wrote with Jo Swerling. His film debut was a small supporting part in the silent The Bright Shawl (1923), but it was with the coming of sound that he hit his stride. His stellar performance as snarling, murderous thug Rico Bandello in Little Caesar (1931)--all the more impressive since in real life Robinson was a sophisticated, cultured man with a passion for fine art--set the standard for movie gangsters, both for himself in many later films and for the industry. He portrayed the title character in several biographical works, such as Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940) and A Dispatch from Reuters (1940). Psychological dramas included Flesh and Fantasy (1943), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944)and Scarlet Street (1945). Another notable gangster role was in Key Largo (1948). He was "absolved" of allegations of Communist affiliation after testifying as a friendly witness for the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy hysteria of the early 1950s. In 1956 he had to sell off his extensive art collection in a divorce settlement and also had to deal with a psychologically troubled son. In 1956 he returned to Broadway in "Middle of the Night". In 1973 he was awarded a special, posthumous Oscar for lifetime achievement.Mayor- Actress
- Soundtrack
Character actress Beulah Bondi was a favorite of directors and audiences and is one of the reasons so many films from the 1930s and 1940s remain so enjoyable, as she was an integral part of many of the ensemble casts (a hallmark of the studio system) of major and/or great films, including The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Our Town (1940) and Penny Serenade (1941). Highly respected as a first-tier character actress, Bondi won two Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominations, for The Gorgeous Hussy (1936) and Of Human Hearts (1938), and an Emmy Award in 1976 for her turn in the television program The Waltons (1972).
She was born Beulah Bondy on May 3, 1888, in Chicago, and established herself as a stage actress in the first phase of her career. She made her Broadway debut in Kenneth S. Webb's "One of the Family" at the 49th Street Theatre on December 21, 1925. The show was a modest hit, racking up 238 performances. She next appeared in another hit, Maxwell Anderson's "Saturday's Children," which ran for 326 performances, before appearing in her first flop, Clemence Dane's "Mariners" in 1927. Philip Barry's and Elmer Rice's "Cock Robin" was an extremely modest hit in 1928, reaching the century mark (100 performances), but it was Bondi's performance in Rice's "Street Scene," which opened at the Playhouse Theatre on Jamuary 10, 1929, that made her career. This famous play won Rice the 1929 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and was a big hit, playing for 601 performances. Most importantly, though, it brought Bondi to the movies at the advanced age of 43. She made her motion picture debut in 1931 in the movie adaptation (Street Scene (1931)), recreating the role she had originated on the Broadway stage. The talkies were still new, and she had the talent and the voice to thrive in Hollywood.
Bondi appeared in four more Broadway plays from 1931 to 1934, only one of which, "The Late Christopher Bean", a comedy by Sidney Howard, was a hit. Her last appearance on Broadway for a generation was in a flop staged by Melvyn Douglas, "Mother Lode" (she made two more appearances on the Great White Way, in "Hilda Crane" (1950) and "On Borrowed Time" in 1953; neither was a success). For the rest of her professional life, her career lay primarily in film and television.
She was typecast as mothers and, later, grandmothers, and played James Stewart's mother four times, most famously as "Ma Bailey" in It's a Wonderful Life (1946). Her greatest role is considered her turn in Leo McCarey's Depression-era melodrama Make Way for Tomorrow (1937), in which she played a mother abandoned by her children.
Beulah Bondi died on January 1, 1981, from complications from an accident, when she broke her ribs after falling over her cat. She was 92 years old.Ms Taylor- Actor
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Billy Wilder proclaimed William Holden to be "the ideal motion picture actor". For almost four decades, the handsome, affable 'Golden Holden' was among Hollywood's most durable and engaging stars. He was born William Franklin Beedle Jr., one of three sons to a high school English teacher, Mary Blanche (Ball), and a chemical and fertilizer analyst, William Franklin Beedle, head of the George W. Gooch Laboratories in Pasadena. His father, a keen physical fitness enthusiast, taught young Bill the art of tumbling and boxing. During his days as a student at South Pasadena High, he also became adept at team sports (football and baseball), learned to ride and shoot and to be proficient on piano, clarinet and drums.
To his father's chagrin, Bill had no inclination of following in dad's footsteps, though he did major in chemistry at Pasadena Junior College. A trip to New York and Broadway had set Bill's path firmly on an acting career. He had already performed in school plays and lent his voice to several radio plays in Los Angeles by the time he was spotted by a Paramount talent scout (playing the part of octogenarian Eugene Curie) at the Pasadena Workshop Theatre. In early 1938, he was offered a six-month studio contract for a weekly salary of $50. Naturally, the name Beedle had to go. Several alternatives were bandied around -- including Randolph Carey and Taylor Randolph - until the head of Paramount's publicity department settled on the name Holden (based on a personal friend who was an associate editor at the L.A. Times, also named Bill).
Having joined Paramount's Golden Circle Club of promising young actors, Bill was now groomed for stardom. However, it was a loan-out to Columbia that secured him his breakthrough role. He was the sixty-sixth actor to audition for the part of an Italian violinist forced to become a boxer in Golden Boy (1939). His earlier training as a junior pugilist proved somewhat beneficial but it was self-effacing co-star Barbara Stanwyck who turned out to be most instrumental in helping him rehearse and overcoming his nerves to act alongside her and thespians Lee J. Cobb and Adolphe Menjou. The picture was a minor hit and Columbia consequently acquired half his contract. For the next few years, Bill continued playing wholesome, guy-next-door types and rookie servicemen in pictures like Our Town (1940), I Wanted Wings (1941) (which was the making of 'peek-a-boo' star Veronica Lake) and The Fleet's In (1942). His salary had been enhanced and he now earned $150 a week. In July 1941, he married 25-year old actress Brenda Marshall, who commanded five times his income.
In 1942, he enlisted in the Officers Candidate School in Florida, graduating as an Air Force second lieutenant. He spent the next three years on P.R. duties and making training films for the Office of Public Information. One of his brothers, a naval pilot, was shot down and killed over the Pacific in 1943. After war's end, he was demobbed and returned to Hollywood to resume playing similar characters in similar movies. He later commented that he found "no interest or enjoyment" in portraying the same type of "nice-guy meaningless roles in meaningless movies". That was to change - along with his image - when he was invited to play the part of caddish, down-on-his-luck scriptwriter Joe Gillis in Sunset Blvd. (1950). The brilliantly acidulous screenplay was by Charles Brackett and director Billy Wilder (from their story A Can of Beans) and the story was narrated in flashback by Bill's character, opening with Gillis floating face-down in the swimming pool of a decrepit mansion "of the kind crazy people bought in the 20s".
With Sunset Blvd. (1950), Holden had effectively graduated from leading man to leading actor. No longer typecast, he was now allowed more hard-edged or even morally ambiguous roles: a self-serving, cynical prisoner-of-war in Stalag 17 (1953) (for which he won an Academy Award); an unemployed drifter who disrupts and changes the lives (particularly of womenfolk) in a small Kansas town, in Picnic (1955); a happy-go-lucky gigolo (who, as Billy Wilder explained the part to Bill, gets the sports car while Bogey -- Humphrey Bogart -- gets the girl), in the delightful Sabrina (1954); and an ill-fated U.S. Navy pilot in The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), set during the Korean War. Clever dialogue and the Holden likability factor also improved what potentially could have turned out dull or maudlin in pictures like Forever Female (1953) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955).
Already one of the highest paid stars of the 1950s, Holden received 10% of the gross for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), making him an instant multi-millionaire. He invested much of his earnings in various enterprises, even a radio station in Hong Kong. At the end of the decade, he relocated his family to Geneva, Switzerland, but spent more and more of his own time globetrotting. In the 1960s, Holden founded the exclusive Mount Kenya Safari Club with oil billionaire Ray Ryan and Swiss financier Carl Hirschmann. His fervent advocacy of wildlife conservation now consumed more of his time than his acting. His films, consequently, dropped in quality.
Drinking ever more heavily, he also started to show his age. By the time he appeared as the leader of an outlaw gang on their last roundup in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), his face was so heavily lined that someone likened it to 'a map of the United States.' He still had a couple more good performances in him, in The Towering Inferno (1974) and Network (1976), until his shock death from blood loss due to a fall at his apartment while intoxicated. In 1982, actress Stefanie Powers, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1972, helped set up the William Holden Wildlife Foundation and the William Holden Wildlife Education Center in Kenya. Bill also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His wanderlust has left traces of him all over the world.Paul- Originally named Shalom Jaffe, he became known to the world as Sam Jaffe. He was born in New York City, to Heida (Ada) and Barnett Jaffe, who were Russian Jewish immigrants. As a child, he appeared in Yiddish theatre productions with his mother, a prominent regional stage actress. He graduated from the City College of New York and then studied engineering at Columbia University graduate school. He began his career as a mathematics teacher in the Bronx. Around 1915 Jaffe joined the Washington Square Players. By 1918 he was no stranger to Broadway, having debuted in the original play Youth, and he appeared regularly through the 1920s, though less in the 1930s and only sporadically in the 1940s. He appeared in 21 plays on Broadway during his acting career, his final appearance in 1979.
Jaffe was a method actor before it was defined and early on sported his signature shock of curly hair that some people would later misinterpret as part of some Harpo Marx characterization. Jaffe was anything but. His acting talents were considerable, and Hollywood noticed him first for the unusual role of the mad Grand Duke Peter in Josef von Sternberg 's The Scarlet Empress (1934). Frightening in his rendition of Peter, he was dispatched by the always magnificent Marlene Dietrich.
Jaffe was no matinee idol but his homely features were made for unusual character roles. He did not disappoint in providing unforgettable performances. Frank Capra cast him as the mysterious High Lama in Lost Horizon (1937) (as last minute replacement; the actor originally cast had died). It would be another two years before Jaffe was once more called to Hollywood - he was back quite busy on Broadway. He appeared in George Stevens Gunga Din (1939) which sported big star names as well. Stevens gave Jaffe the lead, Gunga Din, native regimental bhisti (Hindi for water-carrier). It was probably Jaffe's most familiar film role. It was a standout part which Jaffe handled with great humanity, and the film was a huge hit.
Jaffe would not appear in another film for eight years. His second of two movies in 1947 was Elia Kazan 's powerful expose of anti-Semitism Gentleman's Agreement (1947) in which Jaffe played an Albert Einstein-like professor. Jaffe would play doctors of one sort or another in the handful of movies for the next few years. Then in 1950 he played a very different doctor - Doc Erwin Riedenschneider, criminal mastermind -- in John Huston's taut The Asphalt Jungle (1950). Jaffe would receive a nomination for a supporting actor Oscar for this effort. Of the three films he did in 1951, Jaffe also appeared in an another Einstein-like role in the Robert Wise sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951).
Jaffe experienced the destructive anti-communist furor when his name was included on a listing of performers sympathetic to communism in the Red Channels pamphlet and like many, was blacklisted by the big Hollywood studios. He was considered essential by producer Julian Blaustein and Robert Wise to play Professor Jacob Barnhardt, and 20th Century Fox boss Darryl Zanuck (who had resisted much heat for Gentleman's Agreement (1947)) agreed. It was ironic that Einstein, veiled as the character Barnhardt, was a pacifist and being watched by the U.S. government at that time. There was some credence for rumors that Jaffe provided the calculus equations (mainly the gravitational force between bodies) on Barnhardt's blackboard - solved so easily by alien Michael Rennie.
Jaffe didn't appear on-screen for seven years due to the punitive effects of the blacklisting. In 1958, John Huston wanted him for his very original The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958) with John Wayne, and director William Wyler also came forward later to cast him as faithful servant Simonides in the blockbuster Ben-Hur (1959). From then on Jaffe was very busy, especially with episodic TV through the 1960s which included his own recurring role as Dr. Zorba in the very popular Ben Casey (1961) series. Jaffe also appeared with his lifelong best friend, screen icon Edward G. Robinson in the made-for-TV film The Old Man Who Cried Wolf (1970) . Jaffe remained active into the year of his passing, a thoroughly engaging and unique actor and human being who never pushed his views on anyone.Sea Captain