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- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Timothée Hal Chalamet was born in Manhattan, to Nicole Flender, a real estate broker and dancer, and Marc Chalamet, a UNICEF editor. His mother, who is from New York, is Jewish, of Russian Jewish and Austrian Jewish descent. His father, who is from Nîmes, France, is of French and English ancestry. He is the brother of actress Pauline Chalamet, a nephew of director Rodman Flender, and a grandson of screenwriter Harold Flender.
He grew up in an artistic family, appearing in commercials and the New York theatre scene, and attending the LaGuardia High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts, where his classmate and friend was actor Ansel Elgort (the two later received their first Golden Globe nominations in the same year, 2017). For a time, Timothée also attended Columbia University.
He made his film debut in 2014, as a high school student in Jason Reitman's Men, Women & Children (2014) and Matthew McConaughey's character's teenage son in Interstellar (2014). He subsequently had sizable roles in several indie films, playing the younger version of writer Stephen Elliott in The Adderall Diaries (2015), the male lead, Zac, in the drama One and Two (2015), and Billy in the road trip drama Miss Stevens (2016). On stage, he has appeared in the plays The Talls, by Anna Kerrigan, and John Patrick Shanley's autobiographical Prodigal Son, while on television, he has had a minor role in the film Loving Leah (2009), a big part in Law & Order (1990), and meatier roles on the shows Royal Pains (2009) and Homeland (2011), among other work.
He broke out in 2017, appearing in notable supporting roles, as a soldier in the western Hostiles (2017) and a high school crush of the title character in Lady Bird (2017), and in a leading role as Elio, an Italian Jewish seventeen year-old who romances his father's older assistant, played by Armie Hammer, in the Luca Guadagnino drama Call Me by Your Name (2017). Timothée's role as Elio received significant critical acclaim, and he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Drama, and won many critics' groups' awards for Best Actor of the Year.
In 2018, he starred as Nic Sheff, who suffers from substance abuse problems, in the drama Beautiful Boy (2018). In 2019, he will headline the Woody Allen comedy A Rainy Day in New York (2019), with Selena Gomez, play Henry V of England, King from 1413 to 1422, in the historical drama The King (2019), and embody love interest Laurie in Greta Gerwig's take on Little Women (2019).- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Olivia Cooke was born and raised in Oldham, a former textile manufacturing town in Greater Manchester, North West England. She comes from a family of non-actors; her father, John, is a retired police officer, and her mother is a sales representative. Cooke attended Royton and Crompton Secondary School and studied drama at Oldham Sixth Form College, leaving before the end of her A-levels to star in Blackout.
At a young age, Cooke practiced ballet and gymnastics. She started acting when she was 8 years old at an after-school drama programme in her hometown, called the Oldham Theatre Workshop. For years, Cooke performed only as part of the ensemble, until she was 17, when she starred as Maria in Oldham Sixth Form College's production of West Side Story. Soon after, Cooke landed her first and last leading role for the Oldham Theatre, in Prom: The Musical, a remake of Cinderella.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Emilie was born on December 27 and grew up in Mount Eliza, Victoria, Australia. When she was 15, she was accepted at the highly selective Australian Ballet School in Melbourne. However, after only a year, she dropped out and undertook acting courses.
Her first starring role was on the fantasy drama BeastMaster (1999). When her agent told her of a role in the US as newcomer Tess in the hit series Roswell (1999), she flew out and auditioned. After landing the role, she was written out of BeastMaster and started work as "Tess", an alien. She relocated to California and was on Roswell before she even owned an apartment.
After 2 years on the show, she then made notable guest appearances in CSI: Miami (2002) and The Handler (2003).
She stayed in TV, playing the bad girl Chris in Carrie (2002), a movie made for TV. She also changed genres, starring in Santa's Slay (2005), a black comedy.
Emilie has shown her versatility by branching out into film, making her debut at Sundance 2005 with the the award-winning indie film Brick (2005). She starred in the remake The Hills Have Eyes (2006) in 2006, which debuted at No.1 in the UK box office.
She was on the Emmy award-winning ABC series Lost (2004), playing "Claire", a young Australian who gave birth on the mysterious island and has a close relationship with "Charlie", played by Dominic Monaghan.
Emilie wrapped as a series regular on ABC's hit series Once Upon a Time (2011), putting a new twist on classic fairy-tales. She starred as the warm and loving "Belle," with Robert Carlyle as her beast, "Mr. Gold/Rumpelstiltskin."
Emilie lives in California with her dogs Louise and her cat Stanley. Emilie is engaged to Eric Bilitch as of August 30, 2021 and they have a daughter Vera and son Theodore.- Actress
- Additional Crew
- Art Department
Hera Hilmar is an Icelandic actress. She is mostly known, outside of Iceland, for her role as Vanessa in the television series Da Vinci's Demons (2013) (2013-2015), as Varya in Anna Karenina (2012), as Eik in the Icelandic film Life in a Fishbowl (2014), and as Lillie in The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017). She was nominated for an Edda in 2007 for her role in The Quiet Storm (2007). She won the Edda Award for Actress of the Year in 2015 for Vonarstræti (2014) and in 2017 for Eiðurinn (2016). She is a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Art. She is the daughter of actress Þórey Sigþórsdóttir and film director Hilmar Oddsson.- Actor
- Producer
Award-winning Actor, Producer, Activist, "Actorvist," and Humanitarian Wilson Cruz currently stars as Dr. Hugh Culber on the Award-winning Paramount+ series STAR TREK: DISCOVERY. He appeared on the Netflix series THIRTEEN REASONS WHY and in Hulu's 2020 GLAAD Award- Winning original animated kids' series THE BRAVEST KNIGHT. He is also the Executive Producer of the critically acclaimed docuseries called VISIBLE:OUT ON TELEVISION airing on Apple TV+ that investigates the importance of TV as an intimate medium that has shaped the American conscience, and how the LGBTQ movement has shaped television. Receiving the Emery S. Hetrick Award from the Hetrick- Martin Institute for Outstanding Contributions to LGBTQ Youth, for his role as Rickie Vasquez on the ABC series MY SO CALLED LIFE, Wilson became the first openly Gay actor playing an openly Gay role on series television. Cruz also starred as Angel in the West Coast premiere of the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning musical RENT which earned him both The Ovation and Drama Logue awards before his reprisal of the role on Broadway. Cruz recently accepted GLAAD's 2022 Vito Russo Award and the Make A Difference Award from the Matthew Shepard Foundation. He has also received the Rand Schrader Distinguished Achievement Award from the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center, the Liberty Award from Lambda Legal, the Visibilidad Award from GLAAD, the Fusion Achievement Award from Outfest, the Latino Spirit Award for Achievement in Entertainment and Advocacy from the California Latino Legislative Caucus, the Harvey Milk Equality Award, the Lincoln Aston Public Service Award, Aston-Brooks Award, and the Advocate Award from AdColor. He served as the Director of Entertainment Industry Partnerships and National Spokesperson for GLAAD, currently serves on the board of GLSEN and devotes considerable time supporting other LBGTQ organizations as well. Wilson is a first generation American of Puerto Rican descent. He has helped raise money for political candidates supporting LBGTQ rights. As a speaker, Cruz is called on to rally the troops both internally at national corporations and externally with the world as evidenced of his inclusions on the cable talkers, such as Jonathan Capehart's show on MSNBC and 2022, Pride Stars of Stage and Screen, speaking at NYC Pride in 2018 (2020) and New York Pride (2021).- Actress
- Writer
Eva LaRue grew up in California. At the age of 6 she began her show-business career. She starred in television commercials and sang many "jingles" for them. She still often sings at sports events and any other opportunities that arise. Eva likes to ride horses and has shown horses for over a decade. She also enjoys Tae Kwon Do. She's the oldest of three children. She loves acting and is well into her craft.- Producer
- Actor
- Music Department
Abdul Rashid Salim Salman Khan was born on December 27, 1965, in Mumbai to legendary screenwriter Salim Khan, who penned many super-hits in the yesteryear's like Sholay (1975), Deewaar (1975), and Don (1978). Khan started his acting career by doing a supporting role in the movie Biwi Ho To Aisi (1988). The following year he had the leading role in the box office romantic hit Maine Pyar Kiya (1989). From there he became a heartthrob of Indian cinema.
Following with other box office hits he showed his terrific performance in Saajan (1991), Andaz Apna Apna (1994), Hum Aapke Hain Koun..! (1994), Karan Arjun (1995), Khamoshi the Musical (1996), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998). His transformations can be sensitive, vulnerable, funny, aggressive and charming as his role demands.
In 1998, he was arrested by the local police from the shooting location of the film Hum Saath-Saath Hain (1999), for killing protected wild animals and spent about a week behind the bars. The actor is facing trial in three cases of killing blackbucks and Chinkaras and another of illegal possession of arms. In September 2002, Khan had hit the headlines after he crashed his Land Cruiser near the American Express bakery in Bandra, killing one man and injuring others.
Being known for those roguish behaviors, he tried to balance his troubled life with his career. He gave his emotionally charged performance as playing an obsessed lover in In Your Name (2003) that translated into good reviews and a good run at the box office. He not only managed to revive his career but also to restore the confidence of his producers and distributors alike.
His work was noticed internationally in the moviePhir Milenge (2004) where he played the role of an AIDS patient. It was well appreciated by the World Health Organization (WHO) for presenting the problems of AIDS patients in today's world.
In 2007, he launched Being Human - Salman Khan Foundation. This charitable organization aids the underprivileged in areas such as education and health care.
More recently, he starred in the multiple record-breaking box office super-hits Dabangg (2010), Ready (2011) and Bodyguard (2011).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Gaspar Noé is an Argentinian filmmaker and screenwriter who lives in France. He is the son of Luis Felipe Noé, an Argentinian artist. He directed I Stand Alone, Irréversible, Enter the Void, Love, Climax, Carne, Lux Æterna, Sodomites and Vortex. His films are known for having a sensory overload style, most notably in Enter the Void. He is married to Lucile Hadzihalilovic.- Chloe Bridges (born December 27, 1991) is an American actress known for her roles as Zoey Moreno in the sitcom Freddie (2005) (2005-2006) and as Dana Turner in the Disney Channel original film Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010). She has starred in the films Forget Me Not (2009), Family Weekend (2013), Mantervention (2014), The Final Girls (2015), and Nightlight (2015). She has also portrayed Donna LaDonna in The Carrie Diaries (2013), Sydney in Pretty Little Liars (2010), and Kibby in Daytime Divas (2017). From 2005 until 2006, Bridges portrayed the role of Zoey Moreno in the ABC sitcom Freddie (2005), starring alongside Freddie Prinze Jr.. For this role, she was credited under her birth name, Chloe Suazo. In 2006, she guest-starred as the character in an episode of George Lopez (2002). Bridges originally auditioned for the role of Mitchie Torres in the first Camp Rock (2008) film, but it ultimately went to Demi Lovato. She also appeared in the 2009 films Legally Blondes (2009) and Forget Me Not (2009). She secured the role of Dana Turner in the sequel, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010), which aired on Disney Channel in 2010. In March 2012, Bridges was cast as Donna LaDonna in The CW's Sex and the City (1998) prequel, titled The Carrie Diaries (2013), which aired from 2013 to 2014 over two seasons. In April 2014, she landed a recurring role in the fifth season of the ABC Family teen drama series Pretty Little Liars (2010) as Sydney Driscoll.Bridges portrayed the supporting role of Paula in the horror comedy film The Final Girls (2015), and starred as Nia in the supernatural thriller film Nightlight (2015). The film, was released on March 27, 2015. In August 2016, Bridges was cast as Kibby, a former child star and recovering addict, in VH1's scripted drama series Daytime Divas (2017)which premiered on June 5, 2017.
- Actor
- Editorial Department
- Producer
Aaron Stanford grew up in Massachusetts. He studied acting at The Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers, and at the London Academy of Theater in the UK. After college, Aaron moved to NYC where he worked in off-Broadway theater and was cast in his breakout role opposite Sigourney Weaver in the independent film, Tadpole. Since then he's gone on to numerous and varied roles across the spectrum of film and television, over the course of his twenty-plus year career.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Elizabeth Rodriguez is a Manhattan born and raised native New Yorker and a graduate of Lehman College in the Bronx. After graduation from Lehman, Rodriguez studied for two years under acclaimed acting teacher Maggie Flanigan at William Esper Studios in NYC. While still at the studio she began working professionally with appearances in the feature films Fresh (1994), Dead Presidents (1995) and I Think I Do (1997), as well as in TV shows such as Law & Order (1990), and recurring roles on both Oz (1997) and New York Undercover (1994).
Rodriguez has since appeared in numerous shows, including a recent recurring role as Aleida Diaz on the upcoming Netflix Original Series Orange Is the New Black (2013). Other TV credits include roles as series regulars on both NBC's Prime Suspect (2011), opposite Maria Bello, and ABC's All My Children (1970), in addition to recurring roles on The Shield (2002) and ER (1994). Other credits include Six Feet Under (2001), Flashforward (2009), Cold Case (2003), Just Shoot Me! (1997), NYPD Blue (1993) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). Her made-for-TV movies include Inflammable (1995) and P.O.W.E.R.: The Eddie Matos Story (1994). Some of her feature films include Return to Paradise (1998), Four Lane Highway (2005), Acts of Worship (2001), Blow (2001), All Things Fall Apart (2011), Pound of Flesh (2010), Tonight at Noon, A Line in the Sand (2008), Jack Goes Boating (2010), directed by Philip Seymour Hoffman, and Michael Mann's Miami Vice (2006), opposite Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Other notable films include Tio Papi (2013), Glass Chin (2014) and The Drop (2014), with Tom Hardy and James Gandolfini.
In addition to her work on screen, Rodriguez remains extremely active in the theater. She has starred in "Beauty of the Father" (Manhattan Theatre Club), "The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" (NY's Public Theater), "Roger and Vanessa" (Actors' Gang), "Den of Thieves" (Black Dahlia), "Robbers" (American Place Theater), "A View From 151st Street" (NY's Public Theater) and "Unconditional" (NY's Public Theater). Rodriguez is a longtime member of NY's acclaimed Labyrinth Theater Company.- Actress
- Producer
- Executive
Barbara Crampton was born in Levittown, New York. Growing up in Vermont, she spent the majority of her childhood summers traveling the country with a roadside carnival that her father worked for. Crampton began acting in school plays in seventh grade and subsequently studied drama in high school. She earned a BA in Theater Arts from Castleton State College and, following graduation, portrayed "Cordelia" in an American Theater of Actors production of "King Lear" in New York.
The young actress then moved to Los Angeles and, in 1983, made her TV debut with a recurring role on the popular daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives (1965). The following year she had a brief, but memorable role in Brian De Palma's Body Double (1984), which was followed by the 1985 comedy Fraternity Vacation (1985). Barbara achieved enduring cult popularity as college coed Megan Halsey in Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator (1985) and, after making a splash in the horror genre, successively starred in From Beyond (1986), Chopping Mall (1986), Puppet Master (1989), and Castle Freak (1995), among others.
Outside of horror, Barbara had recurring roles on daytime television soap operas Guiding Light (1952); The Bold and the Beautiful (1987), and The Young and the Restless (1973), for which won a Soap Opera Digest Award.
Years after retiring from acting to raise a family, Crampton returned to film in 2011 with a role in Adam Wingard's You're Next (2011). She subsequently appeared in number of new films, the majority of which were horror. Highlights of her return include The Lords of Salem (2012), We Are Still Here (2015), and Beyond the Gates (2016).
Crampton's hobbies include skiing, yoga, horseback riding, running, working out with weights, and shopping for antiques at flea markets. She lives outside of San Francisco with her husband, Robert Bleckman, and their two children.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Gérard Depardieu was born in Châteauroux, Indre, France, to Anne Jeanne Josèphe (Marillier) and René Maxime Lionel Depardieu, who was a metal worker and fireman. Young delinquent and wanderer in the past, Depardieu started his acting career at the small traveling theatre "Café de la Gare", along with Patrick Dewaere and Miou-Miou. After minor roles in cinema, at last, he got his chance in Bertrand Blier's Going Places (1974). That film established a new type of hero in the French cinema and the actor's popularity grew enormously. Later, he diversified his screen image and became the leading French actor of the 80s and 90s. He was twice awarded a César as Best Actor for The Last Metro (1980) and Cyrano de Bergerac (1990), also received an Oscar nomination for "Cyrano" and a number of awards at international film festivals. In 1996, he was distinguished by the highest French title of "Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur". He married Elisabeth Depardieu in 1971, and they divorced in 1996; she appeared with him in Jean de Florette (1986) and Manon of the Spring (1986); their children Guillaume Depardieu and Julie Depardieu are both actors.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator then as a cabaret singer. In 1923, she married and, although she and Rudolf Sieber lived together only 5 years, they remained married until his death. She was in over a dozen silent films in increasingly important roles. In 1929, she was seen in a Berlin cabaret by Josef von Sternberg and, after a screen test, captured the role of the cabaret singer in The Blue Angel (1930) (and became von Sternberg's lover). With the success of this film, von Sternberg immediately took her to Hollywood, introducing her to the world in Morocco (1930), and signing an agreement to produce all her films. A series of successes followed, and Marlene became the highest paid actress of her time, but her later films in the mid-part of the decade were critical and popular failures. She returned to Europe at the end of the decade, with a series of affairs with former leading men (she had a reputation of romancing her co-stars), as well as other prominent artistic figures. In 1939, an offer came to star with James Stewart in a western and, after initial hesitation, she accepted. The film was Destry Rides Again (1939) - the siren of film could also be a comedienne and a remarkable comeback was reality. She toured extensively for the allied effort in WW II (she had become a United States citizen) and, after the war, limited her cinematic life. But a new career as a singer and performer appeared, with reviews and shows in Las Vegas, touring theatricals, and even Broadway. New success was accompanied by a too close acquaintance with alcohol, until falls in her performance eventually resulted in a compound fracture of the leg. Although the last 13 years of her life were spent in seclusion in her apartment in Paris, with the last 12 years in bed, she had withdrawn only from public life and maintained active telephone and correspondence contact with friends and associates.- Actor
- Producer
- Location Management
Born in the back seat of a car on a snowy night in Eastern Wyoming to his strong willed mother and a Texas born cowboy. He spent his first seven years on the family's 14,000-acre ranch, where he was the youngest of a close knit group of cousins and siblings. Those first years are what shaped him into who he was to become. He learned at an early year the value of family, hard work and the love of the land and nature. His mother, Margaret Mary West, raised him to challenge himself and be strong in the face of difficulty. Although being raised on his remote surrounding he was brought up with a great appreciation for art and culture. His grandmother loved to read and instilled that love into all her grandchildren. He would spend hours looking at books of paintings and photographs, imagining himself as the characters he saw in the exotic parts of the world.
At the age of seven his family moved to New Mexico where they once before had their ranch. His father, Byron Brown, continued to teach him to be a cowboy while his mother taught him to be an artist. He took dance classes from his aunt, where he enjoyed being the only boy on a stage of girls. He studied classical dance for many years and learned the value of his studies as he grew as an actor. When his father died of cancer four days after his ninth birthday, he turned inward and became angry about the loss. It was a difficult time for him and the family. He held on to his fathers cowboy culture and was happy at the idea of moving to Montana to be on another big ranch. Before they were able to sell their small horse ranch a film crew came to New Mexico to film Silverado. His mother took young Tom to a open casting call, where he got his big first break. His family decided to move to California, so he could pursue an acting career.
He continues to live between New Mexico, Montana and California. He and his wife raise their children with the same values they were brought up with.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
A native of New Jersey and son of a mechanic, African-American John Amos has relied on his imposing build, eruptive nature and strong, forceful looks to obtain acting jobs, and a serious desire for better roles to earn a satisfying place in the annals of film and TV. He has found it a constant uphill battle to further himself in an industry that tends to diminish an actor's talents with severe and/or demeaning stereotypes and easy pigeonholing. A tough, often hot-headed guy with a somewhat tender side, John would succeed far better on stage than on film and TV...with one extremely noteworthy exceptions.
Born on December 27, 1939, John was first employed as an advertising copywriter, a social worker at New York's Vera Institute of Justice, and an American and Canadian semi-professional football player before receiving his calling as an actor. A stand-up comic on the Greenwich Village circuit, the work eventually took him West and, ultimately, led to his hiring as a staff writer on Leslie Uggams' musical variety show in 1969. Making his legit stage debut in a 1971 L.A. production of the comedy "Norman, Is That You?", John went on to earn a Los Angeles Drama Critics nomination for "Best Actor". As such, he formed his own theater company and produced "Norman, Is That You?" on tour.
The following year he returned to New York to take his first Broadway bow in "Tough To Get Help". By this time he had secured secondary work on the classic The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) as Gordy the weatherman. His character remained on the periphery, however, and he left the show after three discouraging seasons. On the bright side, he won the recurring role of the sporadically-unemployed husband of maid Florida Evans (played by Esther Rolle) on Norman Lear's Maude (1972) starring Bea Arthur. The two characters were spun-off into their own popular series as the parental leads in Good Times (1974).
Good Times (1974), a family sitcom that took place in a Chicago ghetto high-rise, initially prided itself as being the first network series ever to be created by African-Americans. But subsequent episodes were taken over by others and John was increasingly disgruntled by the lack of quality of the scripts and the direction Lear was taking the show. Once focused on the importance of family values, it was shifting more and more toward the silly antics of Jimmie 'JJ' Walker, who was becoming a runaway hit on the show as the aimless, egotistical, jive-talking teenage son JJ. John began frequently clashing with the higher-ups and, by 1976, was released from the series, with his character being killed in an off-camera car accident while finding employment out of state.
Amos rebounded quickly when he won the Emmy-nominated role of the adult Kunte Kinte in the ground-breaking epic mini-series Roots (1977), one of the most powerful and reverential TV features ever to hit television. It was THE TV role of his career, but he found other quality roles for other black actors extremely difficult to come by. He tried his best to avoid the dim-headed lugs and crime-motivated characters that came his way. Along with a few parts (the mini-movie Willa (1979) and the films The Beastmaster (1982) and Coming to America (1988)), he had to endure the mediocre (guest spots on The Love Boat (1977), "The A-Team", "Murder, She Wrote" "One Life to Live"). John also toiled through a number of action-themed films that focused more on grit and testosterone than talent.
He found one answer to this acting dilemma on the proscenium stage. In 1985, the play "Split Second" earned him the NAACP Award as Best Actor. He also received fine reviews in a Berkshire Theater festival production of "The Boys Next Door", a tour of O'Neill's towering play "The Emperor Jones", and in a Detroit production of Athol Fugard's "Master Harold...and The Boys". In addition, John directed two well-received productions, "Miss Reardon Drinks a Little" and "Twelve Angry Men", in the Bahamas. He took on Shakespeare as Sir Toby Belch in "Twelfth Night" at Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare and earned strong notices in the late August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Fences" at the Capital Repertory Company in Albany, New York. Overseas he received plaudits for his appearance in a heralded production of "The Life and Death of a Buffalo Soldier" at the Bristol's Old Vic in England. Capping his theatrical career was the 1990 inaugural of his one-man show "Halley's Comet", an amusing and humanistic American journey into the life of an 87-year-old who recalls, among other things, World War II, the golden age of radio, the early civil rights movement, and the sighting of the Comet when he was 11. He wrote and has frequently directed the show, which continues to play into the 2007-2008 season.
In recent years, John has enjoyed recurring parts on "The West Wing" and "The District", and is more recently appearing in the offbeat series Men in Trees (2006) starring Anne Heche. John Amos has two children by his former wife Noel Amos and two children. Son K.C. Amos director, writer, producer, editor and daughter Shannon Amos a director, writer and producer. Amos has one grand child,a grand-daughter, Quiera Williams.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Born in Los Angeles in 1964, Theresa Randle began her performing career by studying dance (traditional, modern, jazz) and comedy. She entered Beverly Hills High School, with a special program for the exceptionally gifted. At the end of college she earned her first role at the Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center and was seen in commercials. Theresa was also involved in acting on the stage, with roles in such productions as "In Command of the Children", "Sonata", "6 Parts of Musical Broadway" and "Fight the Good Fight".
In 1987 she got her first big-screen break with Maid to Order (1987). For the next three years she appeared (in small roles) in such movies as Easy Wheels (1989) and Heart Condition (1990), with Denzel Washington). She continued in small roles by great directors such as Abel Ferrara (King of New York (1990)) and Spike Lee (Jungle Fever (1991) and Malcolm X (1992)). In 1995 she starred in Beverly Hills Cop III (1994) and Bad Boys (1995) (with Will Smith). In 1996 she earned her first starring role in Spike Lee's Girl 6 (1996), playing a young, out-of-work actress who gets caught up in the seductive, yet dark, world of phone sex.
She has also appeared in Space Jam (1996), with Michael Jordan (and a bevy of classic Warner Bros. cartoon characters) and recently in the film adaptation of the comic strip Spawn (1997), with Martin Sheen).- Actress
- Producer
Lisa Jakub was born on 27 December 1978 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress and producer, known for Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Independence Day (1996) and George Lucas in Love (1999). She has been married to Jeremy since June 2005.- Heather Michele O'Rourke was born on December 27, 1975 in Santee, San Diego, California, to Kathleen, a seamstress, and Michael O'Rourke, a construction worker. She had German, Danish, English, and Irish ancestry.
Heather entered American cinematic pop-culture before first grade. She was sitting alone in the MGM Commissary waiting for her mother when a stranger approached her asking her name. "My name is Heather O'Rourke," she said. "But you're a stranger, and I can't talk to you". When her mother returned, the stranger introduced himself as Steven Spielberg. She failed her first audition when she laughed at a stuffed animal Spielberg presented her with. He thought she was just too young (she had just turned five), and he was actually looking for a girl at least 6 years old, but he saw something in her and asked her to come in a second time with a scary story book. He asked her to scream a lot. She screamed until she broke down in tears. The next day at the commissary, Spielberg told her and her family, "I don't know what it is about her, but she's got the job." She instantly became a star overnight and was easily recognized at her favorite theme park, Disneyland, and everywhere in California. In the years that followed, Heather was a familiar face on TV in Happy Days (1974) (1982-1983), Webster (1983) (1983-1984), and The New Leave It to Beaver (1983) (1986-1987), three shows in which she had recurring roles. In 1986, the highly anticipated sequel to her first movie, Poltergeist (1982), Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) debuted in theaters; it was her riveting performance in this film that cemented her a place in Hollywood history. In January 1987, Heather began to have flu-like symptoms and her legs and feet swelled. She was taken to Kaiser Hospital, and they confirmed it was only the flu, but when symptoms continued, they diagnosed her as having Crohn's Disease, a chronic inflammation of the intestine. She was on medication throughout the filming of her next project, Poltergeist III (1988), and her cheeks were puffy in some scenes. She never complained during filming and did not appear sick to fellow cast members.
When filming was completed in June, Heather and her family went on a road trip from Chicago, to New Orleans, to Orlando and all the way back to Lakeside where they lived at the time. Heather was well until January 31, 1988, Super Bowl Sunday. She was unable to keep anything in her stomach and crawled into bed with her parents that night, saying that she didn't feel well. The next morning, February 1, sitting at the breakfast table, she couldn't swallow her toast or Gatorade. Her mother noticed her fingers were blue and her hands were cold. Kathleen called the doctor's and was getting ready to put her clothes on when Heather fainted on the kitchen floor. When the paramedics came in, Heather insisted that she was "really okay" and was worried about missing school that day. In the ambulance, Heather suffered cardiac arrest and died on the operating table at 2:43 p.m. at the tender age of 12. Of all her achievements, Heather was proudest of being elected student body president of her 5th grade class in 1985. - Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Terri Sue "Tovah" Feldshuh is an American actress, singer, and playwright. She has been a Broadway star for more than four decades, earning four Tony Award nominations. She has also received two Emmy Award nominations for Holocaust and Law & Order, and appeared in such films as A Walk on the Moon, She's Funny That Way, and Kissing Jessica Stein. In 2015-2016, she played the role of Deanna Monroe on AMC's television adaptation of The Walking Dead.- Actress
- Producer
Siobhán is an Irish actress. Her name in Irish is Siobhán Nic Suibhne. She grew up in Cork, which is situated in the south of Ireland. She attended a private girls school in Cork City Centre called Scoil Mhuire. The actress Fiona Shaw, who stars in Killing Eve also attended this school. She graduated from Scoil Mhuire (St. Mary's School) in 1996.- Sinéad Keenan was born on 27 December 1977 in Dublin, Ireland. She is an actress, known for Little Boy Blue (2017), Doctor Who (2005) and Being Human (2008).
- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Lily began working as an actress when she was 6 years old, then returned to film when she was 16 in Marilyn Manson's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. In 2009 she played the female lead in Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus. Since then she has made over fifteen films with esteemed directors including Sally Potter, Shekhar Kapur, Roland Joffe, Mary Harron and Rian Johnson; performed at the Globe theatre and The Old Vic theatre. Lily wrote and presented a six-part TV series on contemporary art for Sky Arts, shoots photography and directed her first short film Wild Rubber in 2012.
Lily has worked with notable photographers and artists from Steven Meisel to Gilliam Wearing. She was the youngest model to appear on the cover of British Vogue, and was listed by French Vogue as one of the top 30 models of the 2000s. As an advocate for sociopolitical and environmental issues, Lily has employed technology, writing, filmmaking and public speaking as means to build awareness and encourage dialogue. Lily was awarded a First Class BA in History of Art from Cambridge University in 2011. In 2013 she co-founded Impossible.com: a technology company that uses technology to solve social and environmental problems.
Lily has spoken at Davos, Google's Zeitgeist, Wired and Web Summit, was an affiliate at the Berkman Center at Harvard University, and holds an Honorary Doctor of Letters from GCU. Lily is a patron of the EJF and has worked significantly with WWF. She writes often for national and international press. 'Impossible Utopias', originally submitted as the thesis for her undergraduate degree, is Lily's first book.- Actor
- Visual Effects
- Producer
Masayori "Masi" Oka is a Japanese American actor, producer and digital effects artist. He became widely known for his role on NBC's Heroes as Hiro Nakamura and in CBS' Hawaii Five-0 as Doctor Max Bergman. Oka was born in Tokyo, Japan, to Setsuko Oka. His parents divorced when he was one month old; he was raised in a single parent family and has never met his father. He was six years old when his mother and he moved to Los Angeles from Japan. At age eight, he appeared on the CBS-TV game show Child's Play. In 1987, a twelve-year-old Oka was featured on the cover of Time titled "Those Asian-American Whiz Kids". Though he was not featured in the article itself, he was acquainted with the photographer who conducted the shoot. His IQ has been reported at over 180.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Charmian Carr was born Charmian Farnon on December 28, 1942. She got her name because, supposedly, her father liked the name after reading William Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra". Charmian was the name of one of Cleopatra's maids. She was the second of three daughters. Her mother, Rita Oehmen, had been a vaudeville actress with her brother Eddy, and her father, Brian Farnon, was a musician. She remembers her childhood as very nice, because her older sister Shannon Farnon was always there to watch out for her and their younger sister, Darleen Carr. She moved from Chicago to California when she was 13 and her father left her mother a few years after that. The girls hardly saw their father after that.
She wanted to travel and to visit Europe, little knowing that a movie she would make would be partially shot in Europe. She worked as a doctor's assistant for awhile until a friend of her mother's asked her to audition for the part of "Liesl Von Trapp" in the movie, The Sound of Music (1965). Her fictional family became part of her real family and she considers Nicholas Hammond (who played her brother "Freidrich Von Trapp") her real brother. After she made the movie, she spent much of the next several years promoting the movie around the world.
During a lull in the touring, she met and married Jay Brent and became the mother of two girls. She continued acting for a while, but decided that she wanted to stay home and raise her children. After her children were grown, she began a decorating company and met Michael Jackson, who became one of her clients. Other clients included members of her "Sound of Music" family, including Heather Menzies-Urich and her husband Robert Urich and Ernest Lehman.
She got divorced from Jay in 1991. In the late 1990s, she wrote a book about her life and her experiences being Liesl, called "Forever Liesl".- Actor
- Soundtrack
Ian Gomez was born on 27 December 1964 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002), The Drew Carey Show (1995) and Felicity (1998). He was previously married to Nia Vardalos.- Actor
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Taecyeon is the main rapper of South Korean boy band, 2PM. Taecyeon started his career as a musician, actor, MC, and CEO. He starred in Dream High, Who Are You, and Cinderella's Stepsister. Taecyeon was born in Busan, South Korea but moved to Bedford, Massachusetts at the age of ten. He originally auditioned to be a model at JYP Entertainment, but was chosen as a member of One Day which later split into 2AM and 2PM. Taecyeon speaks fluent Korean, English and Japanese.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Tom McKay was born on 27 December 1979 in Solihull, Warwickshire, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Imagine Me & You (2005), Kingdom Come: Deliverance (2018) and Kill Command (2016).- Gennie James was born on 27 December 1976 in Navasota, Texas, USA. She is an actress, known for Places in the Heart (1984), Broadcast News (1987) and The Secret Garden (1987). She is married to Justin Busse.
- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Born December 27, 1962 in Rockford, Illinois, US as Joseph Mantello, he is an American actor, director, and producer, best known for his work in Broadway theatre. His mother Judy was of half Italian descent and his father Richard Mantello, an accountant, was of Italian descent. He graduated the North Carolina School of the Arts and in 1984 moved to New York City. His first acting roles were in the plays "Walking the Dead" and "The Baltimore Waltz" and in 1993 he played Louis in the original Broadway production of Tony Kushner's "Angels in America". The production won both Tony and Drama Desk awards, and Mantello himself was nominated for both as well. He later switched from acting to directing, winning the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Play in 2003 for Richard Greenberg's "Take Me Out" and the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical a year later for Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins". He directs a wide variety of shows on Broadway, his directing credits include the hit musical "Wicked" and the play "The Boys in the Band", which was later made into the movie The Boys in the Band (2020). He also returns to acting from time to time, both on Broadway (as Ned in Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" and as Tom in Tennessee Williams's "The Glass Menagerie") and in television (in a smaller role of Mickey in The Normal Heart (2014) and as Dick Samuels in Hollywood (2020), both directed by Mantello's friend Ryan Murphy). In 2018 he was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame. He lives in New York City with his partner Paul Marlow.- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Born in London, England and raised in European cities such as Paris and Geneva, Maryam d'Abo has rewarded audiences with her beauty and presence for over twenty years. Maryam first appeared in Xtro (1982), a gory horror film that is considered a cult entry in the genre. She appeared consistently throughout the mid-1980s in a variety of films, including two mini-series based on novels of author Sidney Sheldon: Master of the Game (1984) and If Tomorrow Comes (1986). She accepted "Laughter in the Dark" based on the Vladimir Nabokov novel. Her co-stars were Maximilian Schell and Mick Jagger. She thought it would be her big break, since it was a very challenging role, and she was in every scene. But financing fell through, and the film was never completed. The stress made her lose weight, and she appeared more mature. Which turned out to be just the right look for a classical cellist in her next film. Thus, her real big break came in the form of the James Bond film, The Living Daylights (1987). Maryam played Bond girl "Kara Milovy", opposite Timothy Dalton's "James Bond". The film gave her career a real jolt, and she found herself in leading roles throughout the early 1990s, in a variety of films. She based herself in both England and the USA, appearing in Shootfighter: Fight to the Death (1993) and the European horror movie Immortal Sins (1991). She played her hand in the erotic thriller genre, appearing in Tomcat: Dangerous Desires (1993), Tropical Heat (1993) and an episode of Red Shoe Diaries (1992), featured on the video [error]. She starred in more films throughout the mid-1990s, opposite the late Margaux Hemingway in Double Obsession (1992), a remake: The Browning Version (1994), a romantic comedy called Solitaire for 2 (1994), and thrillers such as Timelock (1996) and An American Affair (1997).
In 2002, Maryam drew on her experiences as a Bond Girl to write, produce and host Bond Girls Are Forever (2002), examining the culture and connotations of being a Bond girl, and the subsequent effects on a film career. This interesting documentary shed new light on the topic of James Bond films, and appeared on British and American television, whilst gaining a DVD release. Maryam strayed away from commercial features, opting to appear in a variety of television dramas, including: a TV mini series of Doctor Zhivago (2002) and Helen of Troy (2003). More recently, she appeared in San Antonio (2004), Evil Remains (2004), a movie filmed in France L'enfer (2005) and a direct-to-video sequel, The Prince & Me II: The Royal Wedding (2006). Maryam has displayed talent in a variety of genres, she continues to make guest appearances for her fans, and is likely to appear in more films. She also works on films with her husband director Hugh Hudson, whom she married in 2003. This striking blonde actress, a former Bond girl, holds her own up with the best of them.- Actress
- Producer
Chyna had been called "The First Lady of Sports Entertainment". Her accomplishments went far beyond the wrestling ring and anyone's guess. Before exchanging body slams, modeling for top magazines and guest-starring on hundreds of shows,
Chyna was a shy girl who was born Joan Marie Laurer in Rochester, New York, to Janet Carol (Wahl) and Joseph "Joe" Von Laurer, Jr. She spent most of her childhood in a home filled with alcoholism and domestic problems. She found her escape through working out, and began doing aerobics and lifting weights at a gym near her home. This is where she found her true niche: the world of fitness.
As the only female in the gym, Chyna always stood out but developed bonds and friendships with the gym members, who gave her the encouragement to keep going. She broke all gender barriers everywhere she went, and continued her love of fitness throughout her college days. Chyna graduated from the University of Tampa with a 3.9 GPA, and a double major in Spanish Literature, in under two years. She also studied foreign languages, and could speak English, Spanish, German and French. Chyna was a true humanitarian, and served in the U.S. Army ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) and the Peace Corps, helping to teach illiterate third-world children to read. She was a strong supporter of the National Animal Rescue charity, which helps domesticated animals find good, loving homes.
Throughout her life, Chyna dreamed of being an entertainer. She began that career in the early 1990s, as a belly dancer, and soon moved on to fitness competitions, but the star found her real calling in the entertainment world: professional wrestling. She began training to be a professional under the guidance of the wrestling legend Walter 'Killer' Kowalski, in a professional wrestling school in which all other students were men. She soon took the world of women's wrestling by storm and began competing in the PGWA, where she was given the 1996 Rookie of the Year award for the Women's Championship.
After dominating the world of women's wrestling, Chyna was discovered by Paul Levesque (aka "Triple H") and Shawn Michaels (HBK), two WWF (World Wrestling Federation) superstars who helped Chyna break into the big-time. She made her worldwide television debut in February 1997 as a bodyguard for Triple H, but soon went on to break all gender stereotypes by competing with some of the toughest men in the WWF, under the name "Chyna". Years later, she was the only woman to qualify for the Royal Rumble and King of the Ring tournaments, and became the only female Intercontinental Champion and the only undefeated Women's Champion in WWF history.
Five years after she debuted as a professional wrestler in the WWF, Chyna parted ways with the company. She then toured Japan, taking the country by storm and battling in the ring with the likes of such champions as Keiji Mutô, The Great Kabuki, and most notably, Masahiro Chôno. Her 2002 Tokyo Dome match against Chono earned her the title of Nikkian Sport's 2002 Women's Wrestler of the Year.
Meanwhile, back in the US, Chyna appeared in several films, hosted a variety of shows, and showed that women can combine strength and beauty in two top-selling issues of "Playboy" magazine, which proved to the world that women can be beautiful without having the anorexic "Twiggy" look. She also appeared in the first-ever Playboy documentary, which conducted in-depth interviews with Chyna, her former manager Rich Minzer, her friend Joe Gold, and Hugh Hefner himself.
Her strong will to the best and "survival of the fittest" attitude made her one of the top wrestlers in history. She served as a role model to millions of men and women by proving anything is possible, through hard work and determination. In her best-selling autobiography "If They Only Knew", she discussed what it took to make it to the top, and showed the world what she had to overcome to make her one of the most well-known pop culture icons in the world. Shortly after her first appearance in "Playboy", she released her own fitness video, Chyna Fitness: More Than Meets the Eye (2000), which won awards from fitness and lifestyle magazines. The video is still popular with both Chyna's fans and fitness fans alike.
Unlike most former pro wrestlers, Chyna had success on her own two feet. She was on nearly every talk show, and was featured on hundreds of magazine covers, from "Playboy" and "Newsweek" to "TV Guide" and "People". She was featured on Reggie Benjamin's CD "2X-Centrix", performing drums and back up vocals. She was on the top of the "dance music" billboard charts for five weeks with the CD single "Ride", and also sang with her own rock band, "The Chynna Dolls", for a short time, playing venues like The Roxy, Elrey Theater, Hollywood Athletic Center, and two performances on Howard Stern (1994). She starred in the comedies Cougar Club (2007) and Illegal Aliens (2007), and also hosted a variety of shows, from Robot Wars: Extreme Warriors (2001) to FYE and AMC's "Tough Guys series. She had many guest-starring roles on TV series, such as Whose Line Is It Anyway? (1998), 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996), Pacific Blue (1996), The Nick Cannon Show (2002), Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996), Mad TV (1995), MTV's "Diary" and many others. She was also featured on season four of The Surreal Life (2003) and VH1's spin off, The Surreal Life: Fame Games (2007), as well as in films, including Alien Tracker (2003), Alien Fury: Countdown to Invasion (2000), Frank McKlusky, C.I. (2002), Hunter: Back in Force (2003). In 2008, she appeared on VH1's Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew (2008) TV series to conquer personal demons and depression caused from an abusive relationship and childhood trauma.
In 2009, she released a fashion book, "Paper Doll", which became a best-seller. In May 2011, she returned to the world of wrestling with TNA, debuting on the May 12 edition of TNA iMPACT! Wrestling (2004), and followed it up with one last match at the TNA TNA: Sacrifice (2011) Pay-per-view, where she and Kurt Angle took on Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett. The episode was one of the highest-rated for the company in many years. Although her match with TNA was a one-time-only deal, Chyna showed the world she had turned her life around - she had overcome depression, emotional trauma and was finally where she wanted to be in life.
In June 2011, Chyna released her first adult video with Vivid Entertainment, Backdoor to Chyna (2011), which sold over a million copies. She said the movie allowed her to regain control of her life, gave her a newfound confidence and got her back on her feet. She embarked on a huge media tour, appearing all over the US. She began feature dancing at high-end nightclubs, appeared on dozens of radio shows, including Howard Stern on Demand (2005) and ABC radio, and in November 2011 won a Fleshbot Award for her "Backdoor to Chyna" video. In 2012, she appeared in A Night at the Silent Movie Theater (2012) and appeared in the music video "Gonna Make You Love Me" for the band Lovechild. She also appeared in a tell-all interview with KayFabe Commentaries, in which she discussed everything from her childhood to drugs, porn and everything in between.
Chyna died on April 20, 2016, in Redondo Beach, California. She was 46.- Jae Head was born on 27 December 1996 in Hamlin, Texas, USA. He is an actor, known for The Blind Side (2009), Hancock (2008) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).
- Traci Wolfe was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, USA. She is an actress, known for Lethal Weapon (1987), Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) and Lethal Weapon 3 (1992).
- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Fetching, glossy-lipped, blue-eyed, white-hot blonde Jean Hale showed major promise playing superficial glamour girls, a la Carroll Baker and Virna Lisi, throughout the 1960s. Born on December 27, 1938, to Mormon parents in Salt Lake City, Utah, she was raised in Darien, Connecticut and expressed an early interest in acting. As a promise to her parents, however, she attended college first to test her ambitions.
After attending the University of Utah (for one semester, majoring in ballet) and then Skidmore College for Women (three additional semesters), Jean went directly to New York, where she was accepted as a student at the Neighbood Playhouse. There, she studied under Sydney Pollack and met (and later married) fellow acting student, Dabney Coleman. To supplement her income, Jean's incredible beauty served her well as a model for both the Conover and Huntington Hartford agencies. Upon her graduation from the Playhouse, she set out to find work -- her first professional job being a Hudnut commercial.
More TV work came her way as a dancer on the 1960 Sing Along with Mitch (1961) series and she also appeared, on stage, in the plays, "The Male Animal" and "Everybody Loves Opal". Agent Len Luskin (Sandra Dee's agent) took an interest and signed her up in 1960. Turning down a part in BUtterfield 8 (1960) in order to stay put in New York with Coleman, the couple eventually married on December 11, 1961, and Coleman wound up accompanying her to Puerto Rico to shoot what should have been her debut film Felicia (1964). The movie was never released.
Her second film, however, Violent Midnight (1963) [aka Psychomania], a gruesome low-budget horror film, was released. She plays the potential victim of a knifing stalker and she received decent reviews. It led to a Universal contract in 1963 and co-starring/featured parts in a modicum of films, including Taggart (1964) and McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force (1965). For the latter film as a man-hungry lieutenant, she dyed her hair platinum blonde and kept it). She also found TV guest parts in such shows as McHale's Navy (1962), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), The Wild Wild West (1965) and The Virginian (1962).
It was the role of a spoiled movie diva in the overly melodramatic, poorly-received flick, The Oscar (1966), that gave Jean an unexpected career boost. This led to her sexy villainous cohort role to "The Mad Hatter" (David Wayne) on TV's Batman (1966). She also capitalized on her sensuality, with a key role opposite James Coburn, in the James Bond spoof, In Like Flint (1967), a move that earned her a Fox contract -- one picture a year for seven years. Jean followed this immediately with her co-star role in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), directed by Roger Corman, in which she looked period perfect as George Segal's moll. And then, her career hit a major decline.
Soon after her third child was born, Jean and Dabney Coleman separated and the actress lost complete focus of her career. The studio was promoting Jean as a sex goddess but, much to its consternation, she was unwilling to fulfill the requirements of such an image -- wearing skimpy costumes; turning down film roles that required semi-nudity; turning down publicity tours in Europe for the sake of her family. Jean even refused a Playboy Magazine spread having her model men's pajama tops, while promoting the "In Like Flint" film. The frustrated heads at Fox released her.
Turning back to the small screen once again (Tarzan (1966), Perry Mason (1957), Hawaii Five-O (1968), Mod Squad (1968), Cannon (1971)), Jean then filmed Something Big (1971) with Dean Martin but all her scenes were excised from the final print. After guest appearances on such shows as "Bonanza," "The Virginian," "The Mod Squad" and "Cannon," she was little seen, but did return briefly to be featured in two TV movies -- Thanksgiving Day (1990) and Lies Before Kisses (1991).
Long separated, Jean's marriage to Coleman was finally dissolved on December 4, 1984. Her three children, daughters Kelly Johns and Mary (later aka singer-songwriter Quincy Coleman) and middle son Randy Coleman all pursued the music/acting careers at one time or another. In later years, Jean co-founded her own production company ("Coleman/Tanasescu Entertainment") with partner Gino Tanasescu and continues to reside in Southern California.- Asa Germann was born on 27 December 1997. He is an actor, known for Gen V (2023), Monster (2022) and Caviar (2021).
- Actress
- Producer
Melissa Moore was born on 27 December 1963 in Versailles, Kentucky, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Samurai Cop (1991), Sorority House Massacre II (1990) and Hard to Die (1990).- Actor
- Producer
Brandon Auret was born on 27 December 1972. He is an actor and producer, known for Elysium (2013), District 9 (2009) and Chappie (2015).- Actor
- Producer
William Scott Goldberg , better commonly known as Goldberg, is an American professional wrestler, actor, and former American football player. He is best-known for his time in WCW and WWE.
Goldberg is one of the most popular figures of the late 1990s/early 2000s professional wrestling boom. He is regarded as the inventor of the spear finishing move in wrestling and is credited with popularizing, and being the best at executing, that move. He rose to fame in WCW with a lengthy undefeated streak in 1997-1998 singles competition. During his time with the promotion, he became a one-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, two-time WCW United States Heavyweight Champion and one-time WCW World Tag Team Champion with Bret Hart. Along with Hart, he is the fifth WCW Triple Crown winner.
Following WCW's closure in 2001, Goldberg wrestled for All Japan Pro Wrestling (AJPW) between 2002 and 2003 and for WWE between 2003 and 2004, becoming a one-time World Heavyweight Champion in the latter. After 12 years away from the company, he returned to WWE in 2016, winning the WWE Universal Championship for the first time in March 2017 and a second time in February 2020. Goldberg has headlined multiple WCW and WWE pay-per-view events, including WCW's premier annual event, Starrcade (in 1998 and 1999). He headlined the WWE Hall of Fame in 2018 and is a four-time world champion in his professional wrestling career between WWE and WCW. He is also the only man in history to have been WCW World Heavyweight, World Heavyweight and WWE Universal Champion.- Actress
- Director
- Casting Department
Jessica Harmon was born on 27 December 1985 in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. She is an actress and director, known for The 100 (2014), iZombie (2015) and Battlestar Galactica: The Face of the Enemy (2008).- Born in North Carolina, grew up in Beaumont, Texas, Harry Goaz did not become interested in acting until after he graduated from the University of Texas. He then settled in Los Angeles and studied acting under Bill Traylor at The Loft while working as a driver. He first met David Lynch while driving him to a memorial tribute to Roy Orbison where Lynch decided to cast him for the role of the weak-willed, not-so-bright Deputy Andy Brennan in the TV series Twin Peaks. He then went on to work on the critically acclaimed Eerie Indiana. Harry is now a staple of independent films.
- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jay Ellis is a television and film actor, philanthropist, and entrepreneur. Born in Sumter, South Carolina, Ellis spent the majority of his childhood traveling with his military family. His father completed over 15 years of service in the Air Force while his mother was an accomplished finance executive and former board member of the Consumer Advisory Council for the Federal.
Jay graduated Suma Cum Laude at Concordia University in Portland, Oregon where he also played basketball and held the position of student body president. Ellis interned briefly with the Portland Trailblazers and also joined AmeriCorps to provide care and resources to disadvantaged students of Portland.
Ellis made the move to Los Angeles to pursue his passion for acting before landing his first role on the BET series The Game, which ran for 147 episodes. Over the years Ellis has been featured on critically acclaimed series Masters of Sex, Grace and Frankie, How I Met Your Mother, Grey's Anatomy, and NCIS.
Ellis lives in Los Angeles, CA and can be seen on the HBO comedy series Insecure.- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Oscar Levant's own versatility may have helped to cloud his memory as a sort of Hollywood utility man, perhaps in the worst sense; people tended to see him as one among many personalities, but he was so much more. It is unfortunately forgotten that he was first and foremost, a brilliant musician and very competent composer. He was from an Orthodox Jewish Russian family, growing up in the Hill District of Pittsburgh. Like his siblings, he started music lessons at an early age and on various instruments, first taking piano lessons from his older brother Benjamin. At seven he continued piano under Martin Miessler, originally of the Leipzig Conservatory. Levant was giving public recitals within a year. He attended music lessons at the Fifth Avenue High School, where he was exposed to classical performance by his instructor, Oscar Demmler. This included going to recitals of the great Polish pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski and concerts conducted by Leopold Stokowski. Demmler invited Levant to accompany him in violin and piano repertoire, which was Levant's first public playing - he was only twelve.
Levant dropped out of high school (Fifth Avenue) in 1922 when his mother decided to take him to New York to continue music instruction. There he studied with Zygmunt Stojowski, a compatriot and disciple of Paderewski and a student trained by Wladyslaw Zelenski, Louis-Joseph Diemer and Clement Philibert Léo Delibes. By early adulthood, Levant had evolved an engaging and opinionated personality that was attracted to the social life of the city. One great influence on him was the glamor and allure of Broadway, which he saw firsthand while hiring out as a pianist for the stage pit and the many nightclubs in the area. He was in the musical play "Burlesque" (1927) and had his first stint at Broadway composing as co-composer for "Ripples" (1930). Though he gave a private recital in early December 1922 for Paderewski and kept up a schedule of attending mainstream classical musical events, he was also becoming something of a bon vivant in popular music circles, and became attracted to the seamier side of New York society, developing acquaintanceships with a variety of the city's mobsters. His mobility in social circles was, to say the least, surprising. Later Levant became a member of the Algonquin Round Table, the exclusive circle of New York wits and writers that met regularly at the Algonquin Hotel and included such luminaries as Robert Benchley, Dorothy Parker and Alexander Woollcott.
It would seem natural that Levant would eventually be attracted to the glitter of Hollywood. He had a taste of "the movies" in 1923 when he appeared with popular orchestra leader Ben Bernie and his band, All the Lads, in a little-known experimental sound effort by DeForest Phonofilm in New York City. Touring in cabaret in London from 1926, Levant heard about New York composers and musicians going west to Hollywood, where music was coming into big demand. He left for the coast in 1928. He quickly secured employment as a composer, and from that year to 1929 his compositions appearing in 21 films. From 1929 to 1937 he composed regularly for films, and a bit more sporadically from 1939 to 1948, for a total of 19 films. His mingling with the musical elite in town resulted in his developing a close friendship with legendary composer George Gershwin. The association resulted in a profound musical relationship. He was still keeping a foot in the New York music scene, mainly in Broadway and on Tin Pan Alley (he co-wrote many pop songs). He also returned to some concertizing (1930 and 1931) at two large venues: the Hollywood Bowl and Lewisohn Stadium in New York.
By 1932 Levant was turning his attention to classical composing and limiting his concertizing. His "Sonatina for Piano" caught the ear of composer Aaron Copland, who persuaded him to premiere it in April 1932 at Copland's festival for contemporary American music. Gershwin asked him to play second piano in a duet version of the "Second Rhapsody" under conductor Arturo Toscanini. He also played - almost as his own - Gershwin's signature "Concerto in F" in 1932. Although Levant launched into a crowded schedule of radio performances of popular and easy listening classical music, he did no more public concerts for some five years. He did take Gershwin's advice and refreshed his theory skills with Joseph Schillinger, a Russian who was a resident Hollywood theorist/composer. Levant was not alone in using Schillinger's music school services; at that time some of the Big-Band era's most famous names appearing on the silver screen, including Tommy Dorsey, Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller, were also using the Russian. This was in 1934, the same year Levant's "Sinfonietta" (in three movements) premiered with Bernard Herrmann conducting in New York.
Levant was back in Hollywood in 1935 for more film composing, but part of the time was spent studying under one of the great musical minds to arrive in Southern California, Arnold Schönberg. Schoenberg's time was already crowded with local academia commitments and studying with some of Hollywood's brightest composers, including Alfred Newman and Franz Waxman. Levant's study ranged from 1935 to 1937. Part of the result was the inspiration for completing his "Piano Concerto", his first of several string quartets (among other pieces he composed, including a woodwind trio), and the "Nocturne for Orchestra" (premiered in L.A. in 1937). The latter was released by New Music Editions in 1936 - this was his only orchestral score to be published. In the meantime Levant was doing music for Hollywood. His "Crayon est sur la Table", ("The Pencil is on the Table") was a sort of parody of French opera in the style of Claude Debussy. It was a centerpiece (though transformed as "Carnaval" with an Italian libretto) for the 20th Century-Fox film Charlie Chan at the Opera (1936).
In July of 1937 Gershwin passed away. This opened a new period of recognition for Levant, for he was immediately crowned sole interpreter and virtuoso performer of Gershwin's music, the beginning of a quixotic 20-year reign. That same year Levant started his "Suite for Orchestra" and finished its orchestration by early 1938. In October of that year he returned to the east to debut as a Broadway conductor while replacing his brother Harry for 65 performances of George S. Kaufman and Lorenz Hart's "The Fabulous Invalid". He augmented that by seeing to the Broadway stage as composer and conductor a new Kaufman and Hart work, "The American Way" in January of 1939.
By the middle of that year Levant had returned to concertizing in all the big American cities, showcasing not only such Gershwin works as "Concerto in F" and the "Rhapsody in Blue", but also a whole repertoire including an occasional work of his own, including his two 1940 pieces "Caprice for Orchestra" and "A New Overture and Polka for 'Oscar Homolka'" (the actor). "Caprice" was particularly showcased by British conductor Thomas Beecham. But these were his last major concert works. Nevertheless, this marked a decade of concertizing, radio broadcasts and recording significantly with Columbia Records and great conductors such as Reiner, Eugene Ormandy, Andre Kostelanetz, Wallenstein, Efrem Kurtz and Morton Gould.
Occasionally Levant appeared on film in a showcase piano piece, but there are only a handful of film roles where he showed his substantial skill as an actor. He played himself in the highly fictionalized Gershwin bio Rhapsody in Blue (1945), highlighted by his playing of the piece. He was still himself but convincingly in character in one of his best dramatic roles as wisecracking (he often wrote his own lines for his film characters) concert pianist Sid Jeffers in Humoresque (1946) with John Garfield and Joan Crawford. He went into the studio to record a set of excerpts from Richard Wagner's "Tristan" arranged for piano, violin, and orchestra with violinist Isaac Stern, and conductor Franz Waxman as part of the sound track for the film. He was able to play two of his favorite pieces (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's "Piano Concerto No. 1" and Aram Khachaturyan's "Sabre Dance") when he got around to doing the sophisticated comedy The Barkleys of Broadway (1949). A few years later he did his last two films. In An American in Paris (1951) the focus is on Gene Kelly, but a close second was Gershwin's music, the title of the movie taken from his extraordinary montage of movements visualizing Paris. Levant was his usual carefree pianist character, but during a fantasy concerto sequence, he is spotlighted as playing the piano soloist, the conductor, and representative musicians for each orchestra instrument, a great sight gag tour de force of his musical know-how. In his final film Levant is a caricature of himself mixed with the film's co-screenwriter, Adolph Green. This was the comedy musical The Band Wagon (1953) in which friend Fred Astaire was also a caricature of himself as a legendary but essentially washed-up song and dance man who has a stellar comeback.
Levant seemed to have fun with this film and its bright script that poked fun at entertainment in general, but his dialog, obviously more of his own input, included hints at his progressive decline, including his accumulative neuroses and accompanying hypochondria. His extraordinarily glib and incisive tongue had evolved from earlier life-of-the-party witty repartee to increasingly self-critical and acerbic patter which showed up sometimes most inappropriately in his recitals from the late 1930s. His spontaneous remarks bordered, and often flowed over into, downright rudeness and sometimes only slightly veiled invective. He seemed unable to resist putting down his own musical efforts, a compulsion to parody himself, revealing his insecurities and a rather knee-jerk need to be funny and play the clown at his own expense. He had renamed his "Poeme for Piano", "Insult for the Piano" or "The Lone Ranger in Vienna." In answer to friend/musical promoter Robert Russell Bennett's radio interview with Levant (1940) asking what he thought about the reception of his first string quarter, he replied: "Violently. It not only brought me obscurity but many enemies." Such was typical of his sometimes inextricably extreme one-liners. During the height of his concertizing, Levant was the highest paid concert performer, but after 1951 he canceled many commitments, which finally brought a temporary banning by the American Federation of Musicians. There were still occasional concerts in the 1950s, one of the most memorable being Royce Hall at UCLA (1958) when he launched into the first movement of the second piano concerto of Dmitri Shostakovich only to forget his place and stop, turning to the audience and quipping,"I don't even know where I am. I'm going to start all over again". He did, and with great triumph. His final public effort that same year was the "Concerto in F" in which it took all the urging of conductor Andre Kostelanetz to keep Levant from simply stopping mid-course and walking off stage. Levant prefaced his encores with the quip that he was "playing under the auspices of Mt. Sinai" (the high-profile Los Angeles hospital often patronized by the stars).
That statement was rather pathetically true. Along with real and imagined illnesses, Levant's mental state, always fragile at best, developed into classic stage fright. By this time he was long-addicted to prescription drugs and was in and out of the hospital on a regular basis. His faithful second wife of 33 years, actress/singer June Gale, had to commit him to mental institutions on several occasions. Yet Levant continued onward. There was a series of album recordings in the late 1950s. He made the rounds of a few prime-time game shows and late-night TV talk shows, particularly that of friend Jack Parr. Between 1958 and 1960 he had his own prime-time local Los Angeles TV show called "The Oscar Levant Show", which sometimes offered a rather subdued and intimate look at the restive mind of Levant. As a talk show with guests and Levant, usually ringed in a cloud from his chain smoking, playing impromptu pieces on the piano, it was inevitably canceled because of Levant's controversial monologues and off-color, inflammatory remarks about personalities. He wrote three memoirs: "A Smattering of Ignorance" (1940), "Memoirs of an Amnesiac" (1965) and "The Unimportance of Being Oscar" (1968), each incisive as well as outlandish in the context of Levant's lifelong self-analysis and skewed view of humanity. He increasingly retired from any sort of public exposure over the last decade of his life. A composer of vital and original music and an extraordinary individual in whatever interpretation one might use, Oscar Levant was one of the most intriguing entertainment enigmas of the 20th century.- Actor
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Tommy Rall, dynamic actor/dancer of many 1950s musicals, was born in 1929 and began his dancing career at age 14 with American Ballet Theater. He appeared on Broadway in "Miss Liberty" (1949) and "Milk and Honey" (1960), as well as in several less successful shows. After a series of great dancing roles on screen (Kiss Me Kate (1953), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954), My Sister Eileen (1955)), he performed in a variety of character roles, and then returned to American Ballet Theater.- Actress
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Born in Oklahoma and raised in Montana, Sarah Vowell is best known for her bits on public radio's This American Life. A contributing editor for the program since 1996, she has been a staple of TAL's popular live shows around the country, for which The New York Times has commended her "funny querulous voice and shrewd comic delivery." As a critic and reporter, she has contributed to numerous newspapers and magazines, including Esquire, GQ, Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice, Spin, The New York Times Book Review and McSweeney's. She is a former columnist for Time, Salon.com and San Francisco Weekly. Hip, irreverent, and with a voice that NPR fans of This American Life instantly perk up to, Sarah makes both readers and listeners laugh out loud with her wry, comic observations on everything from politics to pop culture.- is an American professional wrestler, professional wrestling manager and actress currently signed to WWE, where she performs on SmackDown brand under the ring name Zelina Vega. She previously worked in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) as Rosita, and for various independent promotions under her real name. In TNA, she was a one-time Knockouts Tag Team Champion with Sarita. Thea Megan Trinidad was born on December 27, 1990, in Queens, New York. She is of Puerto Rican descent. She grew up watching professional wrestling with her father Michael and younger brother Timothy,and was inspired by Rey Mysterio. Her parents divorced when she and her brother were still young, while still remaining friends. She also practiced swimming and baseball. When Trinidad was ten years old, her father was killed in the September 11 attacks; he had worked as a telecom analyst for the firm Cantor Fitzgerald at the World Trade Center. He was on the 103rd floor of the North Tower when it collapsed. Trinidad's mother, Monique Ferrer, approached StoryCorps with the story of how she and her husband had met and what she experienced on the day of the attacks with his death, which StoryCorps used to create a short cartoon titled Always a Family, as a way of honoring his memory. Trinidad has said it was because of her father that made her enter the wrestling business. She was featured in an NBC special, titled Children of 9/11, on September 5, 2011. Growing up, Trinidad also worked as a counselor on a camp for children that had lost parents on 9/11 and also participated in charitable causes such as Habitat for Humanity after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans with Tuesday's Children
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Sydney Greenstreet's father was a leather merchant with eight children. Sydney left home at age 18 to make his fortune as a Ceylon tea planter, but drought forced him out of business and back to England. He managed a brewery and, to escape boredom, took acting lessons. His stage debut was as a murderer in a 1902 production of "Sherlock Holmes". From then on he appeared in numerous plays in England and the US, working through most of the 1930s with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne at the Theatre Guild. His parts ranged from musical comedy to Shakespeare. His film debut, occurring when he was 62 years old and weighing nearly 300 pounds, was as Kasper Guttman in the classic The Maltese Falcon (1941), with Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre. He teamed with Lorre in eight more movies after that. In eight years he made 24 films, all while beset by diabetes and Bright's disease. In 1949 he retired from films, and died four years later. He was 75.- Producer
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Charles Band is a writer, producer, director and publisher. He was born on December 27, 1951 in Los Angeles, California, as Charles Robert Band. His father was producer and director Albert Band and his brother is composer Richard Band.
Band has been writing, producing and directing films in the horror, science fiction, fantasy and comedy genres since the 1970s both for other company's and with his own studios, Empire Pictures and Full Moon Features. He was instrumental in ushering in the home video boom of the early 1980s with his companies Meda (later renamed Media Home Entertainment) and Wizard Video, the latter imprint which was responsible for being among the first entities to distribute European horror movies from such now celebrated filmmakers as Jess Franco and Lucio Fulci.
Band is perhaps best known for his work with Empire Pictures, making such pictures as Ghoulies, The Dungeonmaster, Terrorvision, Re-Animator and From Beyond and later, with Full Moon Features making films like Puppetmaster, Doctor Mordrid, Subspecies, Pit and the Pendulum, Castle Freak and many more.
Despite the changes in the home video and theatrical film marketplaces, Band has never stopped making and distributing movies. Many of his classic Full Moon pictures can be found on his Full Moon Streaming channel and now on the Full Moon Amazon channel. Band also distributes hundreds of his own and other filmmakers movies on DVD and Blu-ray via Full Moon Direct, along with a myriad toys and related Full Moon universe merchandise.
Recent Full Moon Features productions include Evil Bong High 5, Trophy Heads, Killjoy's Psycho Circus, Ravenwolf Towers and Puppetmaster: Axis Termination.- Actor
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Carlos Cuevas was born on 27 December 1995 in Montcada i Reixac, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He is an actor, known for Ventdelplà (2005), Stories to Stay Awake (2021) and The Ministry of Time (2015).- Actor
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Mark Humphrey is a Canadian actor who has appeared in a variety of television series throughout his career. Mark is probably best known for his role as Jake Antonelli in the Canadian TV series E.N.G. Mark's acting talents have also been featured in several movies. He made his film debut starring in the feature film Iron Eagle II (1988) as Captain Matt Cooper.
Mark was born in Vancouver, British Columbia to radio and television producer Jack Humphrey and his wife Sidney. After graduating from high school in Toronto, Ontario, Mark moved to New York to pursue his acting career and study at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute. Mark resides in Los Angeles, but his work frequently brings him to Vancouver and Toronto.