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- Actor
- Producer
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Samuel L. Jackson is an American producer and highly prolific actor, having appeared in over 100 films, including Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Unbreakable (2000), Shaft (2000), Formula 51 (2001), Black Snake Moan (2006), Snakes on a Plane (2006), and the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999-2005), as well as the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Samuel Leroy Jackson was born in Washington, D.C., to Elizabeth (Montgomery) and Roy Henry Jackson. He was raised by his mother, a factory worker, and his grandparents. At Morehouse College, Jackson was active in the black student movement. In the seventies, he joined the Negro Ensemble Company (together with Morgan Freeman). In the eighties, he became well-known after three movies made by Spike Lee: Do the Right Thing (1989), Mo' Better Blues (1990) and Jungle Fever (1991). He achieved prominence and critical acclaim in the early 1990s with films such as Patriot Games (1992), Amos & Andrew (1993), True Romance (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), and his collaborations with director Quentin Tarantino, including Pulp Fiction (1994), Jackie Brown (1997), and later Django Unchained (2012). Going from supporting player to leading man, his performance in Pulp Fiction (1994) gave him an Oscar nomination for his character Jules Winnfield, and he received a Silver Berlin Bear for his part as Ordell Robbi in Jackie Brown (1997). Jackson usually played bad guys and drug addicts before becoming an action hero, co-starring with Bruce Willis in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) and Geena Davis in The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996).
With Jackson's permission, his likeness was used for the Ultimate version of the Marvel Comics character, Nick Fury. He later did a cameo as the character in a post-credits scene from Iron Man (2008), and went on to sign a nine-film commitment to reprise this role in future films, including major roles in Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and minor roles in Thor (2011) and Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). He has also portrayed the character in the second and final episodes of the first season of the TV show, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013). He has provided his voice to several animated films, television series and video games, including the roles of Lucius Best / Frozone in Pixar's film The Incredibles (2004), Mace Windu in Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008), Afro Samurai in the anime television series Afro Samurai (2007), and Frank Tenpenny in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (2004).- Camera and Electrical Department
- Cinematographer
- Soundtrack
- Music Department
- Composer
Norman Gimbel was a native New Yorker who put his teaching degree from Columbia University into his safe and went downtown to pursue a career in songwriting instead. His first job in the music world was as an office boy for a music publisher in the famed Brill Building. There he met composer Larry Coleman and lyricist Joe Darion and with them wrote his first hit, "Ricochet Romance." Shortly after that, with composer-pianist Eddie Heywood, he wrote "Canadian Sunset."
His work caught the attention of Frank Loesser, who signed Gimbel as a contract writer. Under Loesser's guidance, he met composer Moose Charlap, with whom he wrote two Broadway musicals, Whoop-Up and The Conquering Hero.
In 1963, publisher Lou Levy introduced Gimbel to a young composer named Antonio Carlos Jobim. Gimbel would go on to write English versions of many of Jobim's songs, most notably the lyrics for "Meditation," "How Insensitive," "Agua de Beber (Water to Drink)," "Song of the Sabia," and "The Girl From Ipanema." Gimbel also wrote English lyrics for "Watch What Happens," and the Academy Award-nominated song "I Will Wait for You," both by Michel Legrand. For Jean "Toots" Thielemans he wrote the lyrics for his jazz waltz, "Bluesette."
In the spring of 1968, Gimbel moved to Hollywood where he became active in film and television. Among the composers he worked with there were Lalo Schifrin, Maurice Jarre, Quincy Jones, Jack Elliot, Bill Conti, Michel Colombier, Henry Mancini, Peter Matz, Pat Williams, Robert Folk, David Shire, Fred Karlin, and his daughter, Nelly Gimbel. His principal collaborator was Charles Fox.
Gimbel had some of his biggest successes with Fox, with whom he wrote TV title songs to "Happy Days," "Laverne and Shirley," "Wonder Woman," "Angie," and "The Paper Chase." Their collaboration also included "I Got A Name" for the 1973 film The Last American Hero. This became a Top 10 hit for Jim Croce. Fox and Gimbel also gave us "Killing Me Softly With His Song," which won the Grammy Award for Song of the Year in 1973 and was ranked No. 11 on BMI's 1999 list of "Top 100 Songs of the Century." Also with Fox he wrote "Richard's Window" for the film The Jill Kinmont story. This received an Academy Award Nomination in 1975. They received another Academy Award nomination in 1978 for "Ready to Take a Chance Again," from the film Foul Play. In collaboration with composer David Shire, for the 1979 film Norma Rae, he wrote "It Goes Like It Goes," the song that won Gimbel an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Norman Gimbel's songs have appeared in over four hundred motion picture and television shows. Gimbel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.