Deaths: March 5
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- Music Department
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gary Rossington was born on 4 December 1951 in Jacksonville, Florida, USA. He was an actor, known for Crimson Tide (1995), Con Air (1997) and Forrest Gump (1994). He was married to Dale Krantz-Rossington and Martha Claire Millen. He died on 5 March 2023 in the USA.- Abraham Stavans was born on 1 January 1933 in Mexico City, Mexico. He was an actor, known for Original Sin (2001), Mi querida Isabel (1996) and Dear Enemy (2008). He died on 5 March 2019 in Mexico City, Mexico.
- Cinematographer
- Director
- Producer
Albert Maysles was born on 26 November 1926 in Dorchester, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He was a cinematographer and director, known for Grey Gardens (1975), Salesman (1969) and Gimme Shelter (1970). He was married to Gillian Walker. He died on 5 March 2015 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Writer
- Cinematographer
Alberto Granado was born on 8 August 1922 in Hernando, Córdoba Province, Argentina. He was a writer and cinematographer, known for The Motorcycle Diaries (2004), Un pedazo de mí (1989) and La huella del doctor Ernesto Guevara (2013). He was married to Delia Maria Duque Duque. He died on 5 March 2011 in Havana, Cuba.- Alberto Olmedo was born in Rosario, Santa Fe, Argentina, on August 24, 1933. He began to work from 6 years old (at a greengrocer's shop); he had a very hard childhood. Olmedo or "El negro" - this way his family and friends were saying to him, not have time to dream of being an actor. He had to study and help his single mother.
But at the age of 14, Olmedo began to work as tap dancing in the theatre (La Comedia de Rosario), as rented public; his mission was to initiate the plaudits when the people was indifferent. The "Negro" remained fascinated with this universe, and began to frequent clubs and to work as imitator (Lola Flores, Miguel de Molina, between others), small roles in comedies, and some steps of dance.
With twenty years old, Olmedo moved to Buenos Aires, and he obtained employment in Channel 7 as Camera Director. On TV, Olmedo created a very dear personage, the Capital Piluso, and from this moment his reputation grew, turning in a TV star.
Then came "No toca botón" and tons of extraordinary personages like "El Manosanta", "Rogelio Roldán", "Grotovsky and Stalisnavsky", "Chiquito Reyes", and many other, that led to theatre and cinema with equal success.
He died very young after falling from the ninth floor of a building, in Mar del Plata, one evening of March, 1988, leaving all the Argentinians sadder than never, and forever. - Writer
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Alejandro Sieveking was born on 5 September 1934 in Rengo, Región del Libertador General Bernardo O'Higgins, Chile. He was a writer and actor, known for The Club (2015), The Winter (2016) and Life Kills Me (2007). He was married to Bélgica Castro. He died on 5 March 2020 in Santiago, Chile.- André Chéret was born on 27 June 1937 in Paris, France. He was a writer, known for Rahan (2009), Rahan - Fils des âges farouches (1987) and L'invité (2000). He died on 5 March 2020 in Paris, France.
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
André S. Labarthe was born on 18 December 1931 in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. He was a writer and director, known for Vivre sa vie (1962), Vincent van Gogh à Paris: Repérages (1988) and Vive le cinéma! (1972). He died on 5 March 2018 in Paris, France.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Most certainly egged on by the dandified antics of an Edward Everett Horton, Eric Blore and/or Franklin Pangborn, burlesque clown Billy DeWolfe in turn gave obvious inspiration to such effeminate cutups as Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly. Billy's life was one hundred percent show business from start to finish in a career that lasted five decades, and it took everything, including the proverbial vaudeville hook, to get the delightful ham off the stage he craved and loved so well.
Christened William Andrew Jones, he was the son of a Welsh-born immigrant and bookbinder. Born in Massachusetts, the family returned to Wales almost immediately and did not come back to the States until Billy was nine years old. He began his career in the theater as an usher until he found work as a dancer with a band. He subsequently took his name from a theater manager, William De Wolfe, who actually offered him his name. Billy developed his own comedy-dance act and originally played the vaudeville circuit as part of a duo or trio. In London for five years, he eventually went solo and was given the chance to play the London Palladium at one point. He returned to America in 1939 and enjoyed notice as a prime radio and nightclub performer-impressionist, appearing in satirical revues, sometimes in drag, with great results.
Billy enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1942 shortly after completing his first movie role as a riverboat conman in Dixie (1943) for Paramount. In civilian clothes again by war's end, he returned to Paramount and brought hyper comedy relief to a number of films including Miss Susie Slagle's (1946), Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946), and The Perils of Pauline (1947). He then instigated what would become his suitor prototype. With trademark mustache and spiffy duds, he assumed the role of the highly ineffectual, fastidious, self-involved bore who loses the girl, in Dear Ruth (1947), one of his biggest film triumphs, which was followed by two "Dear..." movie sequels. Old-fashioned musicals were definitely his cup of tea and he was easily fit into such nostalgic fare as Tea for Two (1950) and Lullaby of Broadway (1951). One of his other film highlights includes getting snitty with bombastic Ethel Merman in Call Me Madam (1953).
Irrepressible and definitely hard to contain for film (not to mention difficult to cast due to his mincing mannerisms), Billy focused instead on the live stage. He won the 1954 Donaldson Award for the NY production of "John Murray Anderson's Almanac," returned to London in command performances, and revisited Broadway in the last edition of "The Ziegfeld Follies" in 1957. Better yet was his pompous performance in the musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" On TV he was a mildly popular raconteur on the talk show circuit. Fussy second-banana series roles took up his final decade of acting with such comedy series showcasing the likes of Imogene Coca, Phyllis Diller and Doris Day, who became a very close friend.
A lifelong hypochondriac, Billy was about to take on the role of Madam Lucy in a 1973 Broadway revival of "Irene" when the ravages of lung cancer forced him to leave the show before rehearsals even began. Character player George S. Irving replaced Billy and went on to win a supporting-actor Tony for his wild efforts. Billy lost his fight at age 67 in 1974.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Bob Goody was born on 16 April 1951 in Brighton, Sussex, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for Lifeforce (1985), Flash Gordon (1980) and The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989). He was married to Gina Donovan. He died on 5 March 2023 in the United Kingdom.- Actress
- Soundtrack
The daughter of a musical conductor, fair-haired, matronly Brenda de Banzie appeared in around 40 films. As the result of two outstanding performances she became an unexpected star when well into her middle age. Brenda first came to public notice as a sixteen year old chorus girl on the London stage in "Du Barry Was a Lady" in 1942. By that time, she had already been treading the boards in repertory for some seven years. The theatre was, first and foremost, her preferred medium. In the early 1950s, she had an excellent run of top-billed performances at the West End which included "Venus Observed" with Laurence Olivier, and "Murder Mistaken", in which she played a wealthy hotel owner whose husband is plotting to bump her off for her money. For this, she won the coveted Clarence Derwent Award as Best Supporting Actress.
Critical plaudits tempted her to try her luck on screen, so Brenda eventually made her celluloid debut in Anthony Bushell's murder mystery The Long Dark Hall (1951). Her performance -- as a rather vulgar and dowdy boarding house landlady -- drew good notices, including one from Bosley Crowther of The New York Times. In 1954, director David Lean cast Brenda in her defining role as Maggie Hobson, an ambitious spinster, opposite Charles Laughton and John Mills in Hobson's Choice (1954). As it turned out, she pretty much stole every scene from her illustrious co-stars. Rather surprisingly, a BAFTA eluded her. In 1958, Brenda landed the prize role of Phoebe Rice, the bitter, alcoholic wife of a second-rate music hall performer (played superbly by Olivier) in John Osborne's The Entertainer (1960). She recreated her performance for Broadway and for the film version in 1960 and received a Tony Award nomination. Sadly, despite such promise her stock did not improve thereafter and she was relegated for the remainder of her career to matronly character roles. Brenda passed away on the operating table during surgery for a non-malignant brain tumor in March 1981.- Brian Astbury is known for The Space - Theatre of Survival (2019).
- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Charles Bryant Pierce was an independent filmmaker from Arkansas whose movies have become cult classics. Films that he wrote, directed and/or produced were not only made in Arkansas with local actors but also drew their inspiration from Arkansas themes. He is believed to be the source of one of the most famous lines in American film history from the 1983 film 'Sudden Impact': "Go ahead, make my day."
Charles B. Pierce was born in Hammond, IN, on June 16, 1938, the son of Mack McKenny Pierce and Mayven Bryant Pierce. When he was a few months old the family moved to Hampton, Calhoun County, in the south-central part of Arkansas. Living in Hampton, Pierce grew up next door to Harry Thomason, who later became successful as a producer and director of such projects as TV's "Designing Women" (1986).
According to Pierce's family, one of his chores growing up was mowing the lawn. His father came home one day at lunchtime and asked if the boy planned to mow the yard anytime soon, adding, "When I come home tonight and the yard has not been mowed, you're gonna make my day." Later in life, Pierce would use the admonition to great advantage.
In the mid-1960s, Pierce was working as an art director at KTAL-TV in Shreveport, LA, and later became a weatherman and hosted a children's cartoon program at the small independent-owned TV station. Returning to Arkansas, he started an advertising business on State Line Avenue in Texarkana, Miller County, in addition to playing a character called Mayor Chuckles on a local television show.
In 1971, there were local headlines about a Sasquatch-like creature sighted in the wetlands vicinity around the nearby town of Fouke in Miller County. The "Fouke Monster" was reportedly seen in the Boggy Creek area and was suspected of attacking dogs and livestock as well as a local family. In mid 1972, while still working in advertising, Pierce created a semi-documentary film originally titled "Tracking the Fouke Monster"--later renamed 'The Legend of Boggy Creek.' Pierce shot the movie with a 16mm camera he assembled himself at home. Much of the movie was filmed in Fouke and Texarkana with local residents and students as actors and/or crew. Estimates place the cost of making the film at about $165,000. Becoming popular as a drive-in horror feature around the country, it became one of the top ten highest-grossing movies of the year, earning over $20 million.
Earning several hundred thousand dollars in residuals from the film, Pierce used his new found wealth to write and direct several other films, which included the crime comedy-drama Bootleggers (1974), the westerns Winterhawk (1975) and The Winds of Autumn (1976), the true-life horror flick The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1976), the western Grayeagle (1977), the viking adventure The Norseman (1978), another true-life thriller The Evictors (1979), the western Sacred Ground (1983), a sequel to "Boggy Creek" titled Boggy Creek II (1985), the violent western Hawken's Breed (1987), the family drama Renfroe's Christmas (1997) and Chasing the Wind (1998). His earlier films in particular were shot in Arkansas and/or featured Arkansas themes and local residents in their production.
After moving to California in the early 1980s to further his career, he became friends with actor/director Clint Eastwood while living in Carmel, where Eastwood was elected mayor in 1986. After sharing a story treatment that Eastwood liked, Pierce became a writer for the fourth in the Dirty Harry series, Sudden Impact (1983), which Eastwood directed. Its most famous line, "Go ahead, make my day," has been ranked in the top ten of the American Film Institute's top movie quotes of all time.
Returning to his own independent;y produced films, Pierce was the star, writer, director and co-producer of The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II, (1985), a sequel to "Boggy Creek" that was eventually re-titled Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues (1985). The movie also contains footage of a University of Arkansas (UA) Razorback football game in Fayetteville, Washington County), complete with hog-hatted fans.
Pierce acquired the nickname "Sparkplug" due to his energy; he was always thinking about his next project while completing another. Pierce was married to Florence Lyons, a Tennessee native, for ten years and they had three children, one of whom was Charles Pierce Jr. They eventually divorced. Pierce's second wife was Cindy Butler; they also later divorced. While filming "Hawken's Breed" in 1987 with Peter Fonda (I) in the area around Dover, TN, Pierce met his third wife Beth Pulley; they married the following year.
Along with starring and directing Boggy Creek II, Pierce acted in several of his films, in small roles; these included "Bootleggers," "The Winds of Autumn," and "The Town that Dreaded Sundown." Pierce directed a number of noted character actors, such as Slim Pickens (I), Jack Elam, Kathleen Freeman (I), Woody Strode and L.Q. Jones, along with lead actors including Jaclyn Smith (I), Dawn Wells (I), Andrew Prine, Lee Majors (I), Cornel Wilde, Mel Ferrer (I), Vic Morrow, Michael Parks (I) and Academy Award winner Ben Johnson (I).
Suffering from poor health later in life, Charles B. Pierce died on March 5, 2010, at the Signature Care nursing home in Dover, TN, at age 71, where he had been living for the past seven years. He is buried at Stewart Memorial Gardens near his home in Dover. Two years before his death, the frail-looking Pierce attended and was spotlighted by the Little Rock Film Festival in 2008 with a retrospective, received the Arkansas Arts Council's Judges Special Recognition award in 2009, honored annually by the Little Rock Film Festival through the Charles B. Pierce Award for Best Film Made in Arkansas. He was inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame in 2010.- Cyril Smith was born on 4 April 1892 in Peterhead, Scotland, UK. He was an actor, known for The Frog (1937), The Good Companions (1933) and Panic in the Parlor (1956). He was married to Edith Avern and Anne L. Rendall. He died on 5 March 1963 in London, England, UK.
- Darlene Lucht was born on 17 March 1938 in Franklin, Wisconsin, USA. She was an actress, known for Bikini Beach (1964), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) and Five Bloody Graves (1969). She was married to Robert Dix. She died on 5 March 2011 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
- David Bailie was born in 1937 in South Africa, going to boarding school in Swaziland and immigrating to Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) with his family in 1952. His first acting experience soon after school in 1955, was an amateur production of 'Doctor in the House' which persuaded him he wanted to be an actor. After leaving school he worked in a bank and then for Central African Airlines. In 1958, he made his first trip from Rhodesia to England to get a lie of the land.
In 1960 he moved to England and landed his first small role in the film Flame in the Streets (1960) and then played on of the bells boys in Arthur Koppits "Oh Dad Poor Dad Mama's hung you in the Closet and I'm Feeling so Sad" (1961) with Stella Adler playing Madame Rosepettle. He then bluffed his way into Weekly Repertory in Barrow-in-Furness as Juvenile lead - terrified the while that he would be exposed as totally inexperienced.
Recognising the need for training he auditioned three times for a bursary to RADA - each time only being accepted as a fee paying student which he couldn't afford - he finally sent for the last of his standby money (£200) he had left in Rhodesia and paid for the first term (1963) - at the end of term he approached John Fernald who relented and he was given free tuition from the next two years.
Terry Hands was also a student at the same time but had left a little earlier than Bailie and formed the Everyman Theatre with Peter James In Liverpool - On leaving RADA Bailie was invited to join the Everyman (1964). Amongst other roles he played Tolen in The Knack, Becket in Murder in the Cathedral, Dion in The Great God Brown, MacDuff in Macbeth and Lucky in Waiting for Godot. After a year there, he came back to London and auditioned for and was accepted by Laurence Olivier joining the National Theatre. He played minor roles and also understudied Sir Laurence Olivier in Love for Love.
Terry Hands, who had by now joined the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford-upon-Avon (and later became its artistic director), invited Bailie to join them as an associate artist (1965). There he portrayed i.a. Florizel opposite Dame Judi Dench's Perdita in 'A Winter's Tale' along with Valentine in Two Gentlemen of Verona, Kozanka in The Plebeians Rehearse the Uprising and Leslie in The Madness of Lady Bright.
During the early 1970s he worked with Stomu Yamashta at his Red Buddha Theatre. He was cast as the lead in a show called 'Raindog', requiring him to do everything from singing (writing his own songs) and dancing, to performing Martial Arts and gymnastics - which he frankly admits was a demand too far and when Yamashta offered him a paltry sum for performing the opportunity was there to depart which he did.
He was now cast by director Michael E. Briant for the part of the villain Dask in The Robots of Death: Part One (1977), which has remained a particularly popular serial of the long-running cult TV series of the 1960/70/80s. He also played in a number of other series prominent at the time.
For personal reasons Bailie now had a long recess in his acting career. Between 1980 and 1989 he ran a furniture-making business. In 1990 he closed that down and returned to acting, having in fact to virtually restart his career. It didn't help that at exactly this point he had to have a cancer removed from his lip which required learning to speak again.
Whilst awaiting work in the acting field he busied himself with Cad design, self-training and writing computer programs and also doing Health and Safety work in the building industry - in fact busking for a living.
In the mid 1990s after playing alongside Brian Glover in Canterbury Tales he made a comeback in the movie business as 'Skewer' in Cutthroat Island (1995), then played an English Judge in The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), and also the engineer in Gladiator (2000).
Bailie's best known work in film is the role of Cotton, a speechless pirate who has his tongue cut out, so he miraculously trained his parrot, also named Cotton, to read his mind and speak on his behalf. Bailie first appears as Cotton in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) as one of the pirates Jack Sparrow chooses in Tortuga. He is one of the Black Pearl crew-members to survive the Kracken attack in the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006). Bailie is also plays Cotton in the third installment of 'Pirates' Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End (2007).
David Bailie also emerged as a radio actor. He played the mad scientist Taren Capel, a re-incarnation of his earlier work from the 60s cult series 'Doctor Who'. He was involved in two audio DVDs playing the memorable character of the 'Celestial Toymaker' from Dr Who. He also worked as a Professional Photographer! Portraiture and Landscapes being his speciality. He travels nowhere unless his destination offers good Photo opportunities.
In addition he developed his skills as a video maker using his Canon 5d Mk2 to shoot a number of short HD videos.
David had two children from his first marriage. He lived in London England and married Egidija in 2002
He listed amongst his skills Acting, Furniture Making, Furniture & Interior Design, CAD Design, Computer Programming, Photography, Health and Safety Executive, Video Making, Property Developing, Restauranteur - virtually all of which afforded him a living at one or the same time or another - but principally acting is where he still felt the ambition. - Writer
- Director
- Actor
Born in Carbondale, Illinois, (but raised in Oklahoma), Dirk first came to public attention when he appeared at age 27, in a photo-spread in Playgirl Magazine's "Holiday 1990" issue. This handsome, hairy-chested blond proved unusually popular with readers and when given a chance to select 1992's "Man of the Year", these readers picked Dirk from among a field of twelve candidates. He subsequently posed for another photo-spread in Playgirl's February 1992 issue. This exposure led to a large number of personal appearances, press interviews, and guest spots on TV talk shows. Dirk used some of these experiences as the basis for a theatrical film titled Man of the Year (1995) which was released in 1995. Dirk played himself in this "mockumentray" which told, in generally light-hearted fashion, of the tribulations a gay man might face when he's presented as the female's ideal of a sex symbol. The movie received good reviews and played in all the major markets and proved popular at gay film festivals. Dirk followed this with another movie he wrote and directed in 2001 titled _Circuit (2001/I)_ which also dealt with a gay man's life. Circuit won several film festival awards, played world wide theatrically, and is one of the best selling gay DVD titles on record.
Shafer worked for many years as a fitness trainer and Pilates instructor, releasing Swapoutworkout, a fitness instructional video, in 2012. Also in 2012 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of his layout, Shafer returned to the pages of Playgirl for another spread.
Shafer was found dead in his car near his home in West Hollywood, California on March 5, 2015. The cause of death was not immediately apparent. An autopsy determined that death was the result of overdose on cocaine and methamphetamine, with hypertension being a possible contributing factor.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Donald Woods, a prolific cinema and television character actor whose career spanned 75 films and 150 TV programs over 40 years, was born Ralph L. Zink on December 2, 1906, in Brandon, Manitoba. (He legally changed his name to Donald Woods in 1945.) His family eventually departed Canada for California, and young Ralph was raised in Burbank. He became an actor after graduating from the University of California at Berkeley.
The self-described "King of the Bs" made his reputation playing in low-budget, B-unit westerns and mysteries, and later was a popular guest actor on TV programs, including western shows such as Wagon Train (1957). He also appeared in nearly 100 stage productions and was busy on the radio. In the 1950s, Woods hosted two TV series, The Orchid Award (1953) and Hotel Cosmopolitan (1957) and was a regular on the series Tammy (1965).
After his acting career was over, Donald Woods established himself as a successful real estate broker in Palm Springs, California. It was there that he died on March 5, 1998, at the age of 91.- Edith Blumhofer was born on 24 April 1950.
- Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Fred Weintraub was born on 27 April 1928 in Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for Enter the Dragon (1973), A Dirty Knight's Work (1976) and Hot Potato (1976). He was married to Jackie Weintraub. He died on 5 March 2017 in Pacific Palisades, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Gary Merrill was born August 2, 1915, in Hartford, Connecticut. He began his career acting in summer stock plays. He married Barbara Leeds, an actress, and then served a brief stint in the army. After the army, he landed in New York, where he was chosen to join the already popular play "Born Yesterday". In 1950 he was cast in the part of Bill Sampson in All About Eve (1950). It would be his first time meeting Bette Davis and they became an instant couple. After their respective divorces, they were married in Mexico. She was 42 and he was 35. During their marriage they adopted two children, Margot and Michael, and after ten years of fighting and financial problems they divorced. Merrill did not marry again, though he was involved with Rita Hayworth for a time. Later in his career Merrill made a lucrative living doing voice-overs for radio and television commercials. In 1988 he published his autobiography, "Bette, Rita, And The Rest Of My Life". He died of lung cancer at the age of 74.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Geoff Edwards was born on 13 February 1931 in Westfield, New Jersey, USA. He was an actor, known for Drive (1997), WUSA (1970) and Jackpot (1974). He was married to Michael Feffer and Suzanne Weaver Ford. He died on 5 March 2014 in Santa Monica, California, USA.- Gray Kunz was born on 24 February 1955 in Singapore. He was married to Nicole. He died on 5 March 2020 in Poughkeepsie, New York, USA.
- Hank Rieger was born on 20 September 1918 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. He was married to Deborah Hays. He died on 5 March 2014 in Oceanside, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Hans Christian Blech was born on 20 February 1915 in Darmstadt, Germany. He was an actor, known for The Longest Day (1962), Battle of the Bulge (1965) and Wer zu spät kommt - Das Politbüro erlebt die deutsche Revolution (1990). He was married to Erni Wilhelmi. He died on 5 March 1993 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Herbert Mundin was born on 21 August 1898 in St. Helens, Merseyside, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), David Copperfield (1935) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). He was married to Ann Shaw and Hilda Frances Hoyes. He died on 5 March 1939 in Van Nuys, California, USA.- Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (28 July 1954 - 5 March 2013) was a Venezuelan politician who was president of Venezuela from 1999 until his death in 2013, except for a brief period in 2002. Chávez was also leader of the Fifth Republic Movement political party from its foundation in 1997 until 2007, when it merged with several other parties to form the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), which he led until 2012.
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Jacques Loussier was born on 26 October 1934 in Angers, Maine-et-Loire, France. He was a composer and actor, known for Inglourious Basterds (2009), Dark of the Sun (1968) and The Informer (1962). He was married to Elizabeth Note and Sylvie de Tournemire. He died on 5 March 2019 in Blois, Loir-et-Cher, France.- James Douglas was born on 20 May 1929 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Peyton Place (1964), G.I. Blues (1960) and Peyton Place: The Next Generation (1985). He was married to Dawn Busby. He died on 5 March 2016 in Bethlehem, Connecticut, USA.
- Jay Silverheels was born on Canada's Six Nation's Reserve and was one of 10 children. He was a star lacrosse player and a boxer before he entered films as a stuntman in 1938. He worked in a number of films through the 1940s before gaining notice as the Osceola brother in a Humphrey Bogart film Key Largo (1948). Most of Silverheels' roles consisted of bit parts as an Indian character. In 1949, he worked in the movie The Cowboy and the Indians (1949) with another "B movie" actor Clayton Moore. Later that year, Silverheels was hired to play the faithful Indian companion, Tonto, in the TV series The Lone Ranger (1949) series, which brought him the fame that his motion picture career never did.
Silverheels recreated the role of Tonto in two big-screen color movies with Moore,The Lone Ranger (1956) and The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold (1958). After the TV series ended in 1957, Silverheels could not escape the typecasting of Tonto. He would continue to appear in an occasional film and television show but became a spokesperson to improve the portrayal of Indians in the media. - Jean-Luc Seigle was born on 26 April 1955 in Clermont-Ferrand, France. He was a writer, known for Les convoyeurs attendent (1999), Chasse gardée (1992) and Sous les pieds des femmes (1997). He died on 5 March 2020 in Caen, Calvados, France.
- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
John Belushi was born in Chicago, Illinois, USA, on January 24, 1949, to Agnes Demetri (Samaras) and Adam Anastos Belushi, a restaurant owner. His father was an Albanian immigrant, from Qytezë, and his mother was also of Albanian descent. He grew up in Wheaton, where the family moved when he was six. Though a young hellion in grade school, John became the perfect all-American boy during his high school years where he was co-captain of the Wheaton Central High School football team and was elected homecoming king his senior year. He also developed an interest in acting and appeared in the high school variety show. Encouraged by his drama teacher, John decided to put aside his plans to become a football coach to pursue a career in acting.
After graduation in 1967, John performed in summer stock in rural Indiana in a variety of roles from "Cardinal Wolsey" in "Anne of a Thousand Days" to a comic detective in "Ten Little Indians". In the fall of his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater, John changed his image into a bad-boy appearance by growing his hair long and began to have problems with discipline and structure of attending classes.
Dropping out of Wisconsin, John spent the next two years at the College of DuPage, a junior college a few miles from his parents' Wheaton home, where his father began persuading him to become a partner in his restaurant, but John still preferred acting. While attending DuPage, John helped found the "West Compass Players", an improv comedy troupe patterned after Chicago's famous "Second City" ensemble.
In 1971, John made the leap to "Second City" itself where he performed in various on-stage comic performances with others, who included Harold Ramis and Joe Flaherty. John loved his life at "Second City" where he performed six nights a week, perfecting the physical "gonzo" style of comedy he later made famous.
A year later, John and his live-in girlfriend from his high school years, Judith Belushi-Pisano, moved to New York because John had joined the cast of National Lampoon's Lemmings, an off-Broadway rock musical revue that was originally booked for a six-week run but played to full crowds for nearly 10 months.
In 1973, John was hired as a writer for the syndicated National Lampoon's Radio Hour which became the National Lampoon Show in 1975. John's big break came that same year when he joined the ground-breaking TV variety series Saturday Night Live (1975) which made him a star. The unpredictable, aggressively physical style of humor that he began on "Second City" flowered on SNL.
In 1978, while still working on Saturday Night Live (1975), John appeared in the movie Goin' South (1978) which starred and was directed by Jack Nicholson. It was here that director John Landis noticed John and decided to cast him in his movie National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). John's minor role as the notorious, beer-swilling "Bluto" made it a box-office smash and the year's top grossing comedy. Despite appearing in only a dozen scenes, John's performance stole the movie, which portrays college fraternity shenanigans at a small college set in the year 1962.
In 1979, John along with fellow SNL regular Dan Aykroyd quit the series to pursue movie projects. John and Dan Aykroyd appeared in minor roles in Steven Spielberg's financially unsuccessful 1941 (1979) and, the following year, in John Landis' The Blues Brothers (1980). Around this time, John's drug use began escalating. Cocaine, which was ubiquitous in show-business circles in the 1970's, became his drug of choice. After he first experimented with cocaine in the mid 1970s, John almost immediately became addicted to it. His frequent cocaine sniffing binges became a source of friction between him and Judy, whom he married in 1976.
John's love for blues and soul music inspired the "Blues Brothers". He and Aykroyd first appeared as Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues, a pair of white soul men dressed in black suits, skinny ties, fedora hats and Rayban sunglasses, as a warm-up act before the telecasts of Saturday Night Live (1975). Building on the success of their acts and the release of their album "A Briefcase Full of Blues", John and Dan Aykroyd starred in the movie, which gave John a chance to act with his favorite musical heroes including Ray Charles, James Brown and Aretha Franklin.
Although John's reputation for being an off-screen party animal is legendary, his generous side is less well known. Using some of his money, he bought his father a ranch outside San Diego for him to live. John helped set up some of his Chicago friends with their own businesses and even financially helped his younger brother, Jim Belushi, who followed his older brother's path to both "Second City" and Saturday Night Live (1975).
In 1981, John appeared in the movie Continental Divide (1981), playing a hard-nosed Chicago newspaperman who finds romance in Colorado with eagle expert Blair Brown. That same year, John and Dan Aykroyd appeared again in the movie Neighbors (1981), which gave them a chance to reverse roles, with John playing a straight-arrow family man whose life is turned upside down when a wild family man (Aykroyd) moves in next door.
In January 1982, John began work on the screenplay for another movie to be titled "Noble Rot". Also, John had checked into a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont, a popular celebrity hotel in Los Angeles. John's drug use had been steadily increasing for over a year now, which alarmed his wife and friends, but he continued to promise Judy that he would quit someday. On March 5, 1982, John Belushi was found dead in his hotel room at the age of 33. The local coroner gave the cause of death as a lethal injection of cocaine and heroin. Several years later, John's drug dealing/drug user companion during his final weeks, Cathy Evelyn Smith, was tried and sentenced to three years in prison for supplying John with the drugs. Close friend James Taylor sang "That Lonesome Road" at a memorial service at Martha's Vineyard cemetery where John was buried.- John Harkins was born on 7 September 1932 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor, known for Absence of Malice (1981), Being There (1979) and Birdy (1984). He died on 5 March 1999 in Portola Valley, California, USA.
- Additional Crew
Joseph Stalin (a code name meaning "Man of Steel") was born Iosif (Joseph) Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in 1878 in Gori, Georgia, the Transcaucasian part of the Russian Empire. His father was a cobbler named Vissarion Dzhugashvili, a drunkard who beat him badly and frequently and left the family when Joseph was young. His mother, Ekaterina Gheladze, supported herself and her son (her other three children died young and Jopseph was effectively an only child) by taking in washing. She managed, despite great hardship, to send Joseph to school and then on to Tiflis Orthodox Theological Seminary in Tbilisi, hoping he would become a priest. However, after three years of studies he was expelled in 1899, for not attending an exam and for propagating communist ideas and the books of Karl Marx.
Since 1898, Stalin became active in the Communist underground as the organizer of a powerful gang involved in a series of armed robberies. After robbing several banks in southern Russia, Stalin delivered the stolen money to Vladimir Lenin to finance the Communist Party. Stalin's gang was also involved in the murders of its political opponents; Stalin himself was arrested seven times, repeatedly imprisoned, and twice exiled to Siberia between 1902 and 1913. During those years he changed his name twice and became more closely identified with revolutionary Marxism. He escaped many times from prison and was shuttling money between Lenin and other communists in hiding, where his intimacy with Lenin and Bukharin grew, as did his dissatisfaction with fellow Communist leader Lev Trotskiy. In 1912 he was co-opted on to the illegal Communist Central Committee. At that time he wrote propaganda articles, and later edited the Communist paper, "Pravda" (Truth). As Lenin's apprentice he joined the Communist majority (Bolsheviks), and was responsible for the consolidation of several secret communist cells into a larger ring. Stalin's Communist ring in St. Petersburg and across Russia played the leading role in the Russian Revolution of 1917. After the revolution the Bolsheviks Communists grabbed the power, then Communists murdered the Tsar and the Russian royal family. Stalin and Lenin took over the Tsar's palaces and used the main one in Kremlin as their private residence.
Lenin appointed Stalin the People's Commissar for Nationalities in the first Soviet government and a member of the Communist Politburo, thus giving him unlimited power. Stalin led the "Reds" against anti-Communist forces known as the "Whites" and also in the war with Poland. He also organized "Red Terror" in Tsaritsin (later renamed Stalingrad). With his appointment as General Secretary to the Party Central Committee in 1922, a post he held for the next 30 years, until his death, he consolidated the power that would ensure his control of the country after Lenin's death in 1924. He also took, or gave himself, other key positions that enabled him to amass total power in the Party and Soviet government.
Stalin was known for his piercing eyes and terrifying stare, which he used to cow his opponents into submission during private discussions. In 1927 Stalin requested medical help for his insomnia, anger and severe anxiety disorder. His doctors diagnosed him as having "typical clinical paranoia" and recommended medical treatment. Instead, Stalin became angry and summoned his secret service agents. The next day the chief psychiatrist, Dr. Bekhterev, and his assistants died of poisoning. In addition, before the doctors' diagnosis about Stalin's mental condition could become known, he ordered the executions of intellectuals, resulting in the murders of hundreds of thousands of doctors, professors, writers, and others.
Stalin's policy of amassing dictatorial power under the guise of building "socialism in the country" resulted in brutal extermination of all real and perceived anti-Communist opposition. His purges of the Soviet military brought about the execution of tens of thousands of army officers, many of them experienced combat veterans of the Revolution, the Civil War, the Polish campaigns and other military operations (this decimation of the Russian officer corps would result in the Soviet Union's initial defeats at the hands of Nazi invaders at the beginning of World War II). He also isolated and disgraced his political rivals, notably Trotsky. Stalin's economic policies of strict centralized planning (i.e., the "five-year plans") resulted in the near ruination of the Soviet economy and mass famines in many areas of the Soviet Union, notably in Central Russia and the Ukraine. Popular resistance to Stalin's policies, such as nationalization of private lands and collective farming, by independent farmers ("kulaks"), brought about brutal retaliation, in which millions of kulaks were either forced off their land or executed outright. Altogether Stalin's economic and political policies resulted in the deaths of up to 10 million peasants during 1926-1934. Between 1934 and 1939 he organized and led massive purge (known as "The Great Terror") of the party, government, armed forces and intelligentsia, in which millions of so-called "enemies of the Soviet people" were imprisoned, exiled or executed. In the late 1930s, Stalin sent some Red Army forces and material to support the Spanish Republican government in its fight against the rebels led by Gen. Francisco Franco and aided by troops and material from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
Stalin made the Non-Aggression Pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939, which bought the Soviet Union two years' respite from involvement in World War 2. After the German invasion in 1941, the USSR became a member of the Grand Alliance and Stalin, as war leader, assumed the title of Generalissimus. He had no formal military training and scorned the advice of his senior officers, due to suspicion and his rising paranoia, actions that resulted in horrific losses to the Russian military in both men and material (not to mention civilian losses). He rejected military plans made by such experienced officers as Marshal Georgi Zhukov, and insisted they be replaced by his own plans, which led to even more horrific losses. Towards the end of WWII he took part in the conferences of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman and Clement Attlee. The agreements reached in those conferences resulted in Soviet military and political control over the liberated countries of postwar Castern and Central Europe.
From 1945 until his death Stalin resumed his repressive measures at home, resulting in censorship of the arts, literature and cinema, forced exiles of hundreds of thousands and the executions of intellectuals and other potential "enemies of the state". At that time he conducted foreign policies that contributed to the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West. Stalin had little interest in family life, although he was married twice and had several mistresses. His first wife (Ekaterina Svanidze, married c. 1904) died three years after their marriage and left a son, Jacob (also known as Yacov), an officer in the Russian army during World War II who was captured by the Nazis and died in a POW camp (his father refused German offers to exchange him for captured German officers). His second wife (Nadezhda Alliluyeva, married 1919) attempted to moderate his politics, but she died by suicide, leaving a daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, and an alcoholic son, Vasili Stalin, who later died in exile. Increasingly paranoid, Stalin launched attacks on such intellectuals as Osip Mandelstam, Vsevolod Meyerhold, Anna Akhmatova, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and many other cultural luminaries. Stalin personally intervened in the fate of "counterrevolutionary" Yiddish writers and changed their sentences from exile to execution. Thirteen of them were executed by the Soviet secret police; their leader, Perets Markish, was executed in the typical KGB manner by a single gunshot to the head on August 12, 1952, in Moscow.
Stalin died suddenly on March 5, 1953, under somewhat mysterious circumstances, after announcing his intention to arrest Jewish doctors, whom he believed were plotting to kill him. The "official" cause of death was announced as brain hemorrhage. Stalin's apprentice, Georgi Malenkov, took the power, but was soon ousted by Nikita Khrushchev. Three years after death, Stalin was posthumously denounced by Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Party Congress in 1956 for crimes against the Party and for building a "cult of personality." In 1961 Stalin's body was removed from Lenin's Mausoleum, where it had been displayed since his death, and buried near the Kremlin wall. In 1964 Leonid Brezhnev dismissed Khrushchev and brought back some of Stalin's hard-line policies. After 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev initiated a series of liberal political reforms known as "glasnost" and "perstroika", and many of Stalin's victims were posthumously rehabilitated, and the whole phenomenon of "Stalinism" was officially condemned by the Russian authorities.Joseph Stalin- Juan Castro was born on 27 September 1970 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina. He was an actor, known for Confianza ciega (2001), Kaos en la ciudad (2002) and Televisión registrada (1999). He died on 5 March 2004 in Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina.
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Kay Stewart was born on 17 April 1919 in Cleburne, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for Front Row Center (1955), The Best of the Post (1960) and Life with Henry (1940). She was married to William Russell Dickens, James Russell Halford and Langdon William Proctor. She died on 5 March 2002 in San Ramon, California, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kjerstin Dellert was born on 4 November 1925 in Stockholm, Sweden. She was an actress, known for Nisse och Greta (1975), Läderlappen (1958) and Möte med livet (1952). She was married to Nils Åke Häggbom and Carl-Olof Bergh. She died on 5 March 2018 in Solna, Stockholms län, Sweden.- Lolo Ferrari, born Eve Valois, was famous for having undergone more plastic surgery than any other porn star. She had her face lifted, her eyes reshaped, her lips thickened and, most famously, a series of silicone injections ballooned her breasts out to 71 inches, and a record-setting (according to the Guinness Book of World Records) weight of 26 pounds. She was on record as saying that the main reason she had so much transforming surgery was that her mother had continually told her, from childhood, that she was ugly, repulsive and stupid and that no man would ever want her. She proved her mother wrong, to a degree, as she became one of the hottest porn stars in Europe, renowned for her willingness to do just about anything with just about anybody (or just about any number of bodies). In addition to her fame as a porn star in Europe, she also made numerous appearances in nightclubs and on late-night TV and even released a single called "Air Bag Generation". While she hadn't had much exposure in the US, plans were underway for her entry into that market when she was found dead on March 5, 2000, by her husband in their French Riviera home. It was known that she suffered from chronic depression, and her husband stated that not long before her death she had visited a funeral home inquiring about arrangements.
An autopsy showed that she had died of an overdose of prescribed anti-depressant drugs, but further investigation by police scientists revealed that she died of suffocation. Shortly afterwards her husband was arrested on charges of failing to prevent her death. A second medical analysis was conducted in 2007,and he was finally cleared of the charges leveled against him. - Actor
- Writer
Luis Villoro was born on 3 November 1922 in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He was an actor and writer, known for En el pais de Alicia (1985), Amor amor amor (1965) and La sunamita (1965). He died on 5 March 2014 in Mexico City, Mexico.- Actress
- Music Department
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Lilian Ridgway, known professionally as Lynda Baron, was an English actress, best known for playing Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in the BBC comedy series Open All Hours (1976-1985) and its sequel, Still Open All Hours (2013-2016).
From 1993 to 1997, she played Auntie Mabel in BBC children's programme Come Outside and in 2006, she starred as Linda Clarke in EastEnders, before returning from 2008 to 2009 and again in 2016.
Baron was born in Urmston, Lancashire. She was originally trained as a dancer at the Royal Academy of Dance. Early in her career, she appeared in repertory theatre and several West End venues.
Baron's early television roles included small parts in Crossroads (1964), Up Pompeii (1970), Z-Cars (1971) and the British horror film Hands of the Ripper (1971). Baron appeared on television in BBC-3 (1965), a series in the vein of That Was The Week That Was, involving some of the same performers. She also alternated with Annie Ross as the resident singer on Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life (1965). Baron has taken part in the BBC science fiction series Doctor Who three times. She was heard as a singer in the 1966 serial The Gunfighters. She appeared in front of the cameras as Captain Wrack in the 1983 serial Enlightenment, and again in 2011 in Closing Time as Val.
Baron is best known for playing Nurse Gladys Emmanuel in the popular BBC comedy series Open All Hours with Ronnie Barker and David Jason which ran for four series in 1976, 1981 to 1982 and in 1985, and was subsequently voted eighth in Britain's Best Sitcom in 2004.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Baron co-starred in the ITV sitcom Oh No, It's Selwyn Froggitt! and the forgotten BBC sitcom A Roof Over My Head. She had small parts in Minder and Last of the Summer Wine. In 1986, she acted in a party political broadcast for the SDP-Liberal Alliance.
Baron also appeared in the 1987 Christmas special of The Two Ronnies. Baron then went on to appear in the BBC Two comedy series KYTV.
In the 1990s, Baron played Auntie Pat in five episodes of the ITV sitcom The Upper Hand (1992-93). Baron then went on to star in the children's television series Come Outside (1993-97) playing Auntie Mabel, an everyday woman living in a bungalow, set in Denham flying round on various adventures in her spotted aeroplane with her dog Pippin.
In 1997, Baron played Renee Turnbull in Coronation Street and took guest roles in Dinnerladies (1998), The Mrs Bradley Mysteries (1998), Sunburn (1999), Nancherrow (1999) and Goodnight Sweetheart (1999).
Baron continued to work regularly on television and the stage in the 2000s, with credits including Fat Friends (2000-2005), The Bill (2000), Doctors (2000, 2006, 2010, 2011 and 2014), Peak Practice (2001), Holby City (2002 and 2006), Down to Earth (2005), Rome (2005) and Casualty (2009).
Baron briefly appeared in the BBC One soap opera EastEnders in 2006 as Linda Clarke, the mother of Jane Beale. In September 2008, it was announced that Baron would be returning to EastEnders.
She appeared regularly in the series from November 2008 to February 2009. On 8 April 2016, it was announced that Baron would return to the soap once again alongside John Partridge. She appeared on screen in May and June 2016.
In August 2010, Baron appeared in an episode of Agatha Christie's Marple on ITV. In September 2010, Baron appeared in a one-off television drama The Road to Coronation Street on BBC Four, a programme looking back at the early days of the British television soap opera Coronation Street. Baron portrayed actress Violet Carson who played Ena Sharples in the soap.
Baron was nominated for the 2011 British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress for this role.
On 26 December 2013, Baron reprised her role in a special one-off episode of Open All Hours on BBC One, entitled Still Open All Hours.
In December 2016 Baron made a guest appearance in a Christmas special of Citizen Khan and in January 2017 she appeared in an episode of Father Brown.
In 1966, Baron married her husband, John M. Lee. They had two children, Sarah and Morgan.- Manuel Vilanova was born in 1944 in Barbantes, Punxín, Ourense, Galicia, Spain. He died on 5 March 2019 in Vigo, Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain.
- Maurice Jouvet was born on 3 February 1923 in Hendaye, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, France. He was an actor, known for Destino para dos (1968), Nueve lunas (1994) and El tinglado de la risa (1970). He was married to Nelly Beltrán. He died on 5 March 1999 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
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Michael Stanley was born on 25 March 1948 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for My Friend Dahmer (2017), Hraefn (1992) and Masters of the Gridiron (1986). He was married to Denise, Ilsa Glanzberg, Ilsa and Denise Skinner. He died on 5 March 2021 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA.- Miroljub Leso was born on 27 July 1946 in Belgrade, Serbia, Yugoslavia. He was an actor, known for Unterwegs nach Atlantis (1977), Salas u Malom Ritu (1976) and Wintering in Jakobsfeld (1975). He was married to Giza Moldava. He died on 5 March 2019 in Belgrade, Serbia.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Mischa Auer, the American screen's supreme exponent of the "Mad Russian" stereotype so dear to Yankee hearts before and after World War II, was born Mischa Ounskowsky on November 17, 1905, in St. Petersburg, Russia, the grandson of violinist Leopold Auer, whose surname he took when he became a professional actor in the U.S. during the 1920s. Mischa's father, an officer in the Imperial Russian Navy, died in the Russo-Japanese War while was he was still a baby, which wiped the family out financially. After the November 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, the Ounskowsky family disintegrated and Mischa became a "street Arab", living with homeless youths and barely scraping by in appalling poverty. He eventually was reunited with his mother, who had nursing experience and became a caregiver in the nascent Soviet Union. But Vladimir Lenin's socialist dream wasn't for her, and she fled to Turkey with Mischa.
In Constantinople Mischa's mother contracted typhus from the patients she was tending and died. The young boy had to dig a grave with his own hands to bury her. He then began wandering, and was in Italy when Leopold Auer, his mother's father, discovered his whereabouts. Subsequently, young Ounskowsky emigrated to the United States to join Auer, who lived in New York.
Leopold encouraged his grandson to become a musician, and Mischa matriculated at New York City's Ethical Culture School to please his grandfather. He became an accomplished musician, able to play multiple instruments, including the violin and piano. However, young Mischa soon became smitten with acting and, through his grandfather's contacts, was able to turn professional in the 1920s. Mischa Auer made his Broadway debut on February 24, 1925, in a walk-on role as an elderly guest in the Actors Theatre production of Henrik Ibsen's "The Wild Duck", which starred Helen Chandler as Hedvig. He also appeared in the Actors Theatre's Broadway production of the play "Morals" in 1925 before continuing his his apprenticeship in small roles, including an appearance with the great Walter Hampden in "Cyrano de Bergerac".
While acting, Mischa also performed as a musician. As an actor, he eventually caught on with Eva Le Gallienne's touring theatrical company before joining Bertha Kalich's company, which toured the provinces after Kalich -- a stalwart of the Yiddish theater -- made her last appearance as the eponymous "Magda" on Broadway in January and February 1926. Kalich cast Auer as Max in the touring production of "Magda".
Director Frank Tuttle hired Auer for a role in the comedy Something Always Happens (1928) after he saw the Russian perform with the Bertha Kalich Company in Los Angeles. This led to a decade of screen work in many films, in which the tall, unusual-looking actor was typecast as a foreigner, often of a villainous bent as befitted the prejudices of the time, which were actively catered to by the movies. The films he appeared in, usually in small, uncredited parts, included Rasputin and the Empress (1932) with John Barrymore, Lionel Barrymore and Ethel Barrymore; Viva Villa! (1934) with superstar Wallace Beery; and The Lives of a Bengal Lancer (1935), one of Gary Cooper's best early films.
One year after signing a long-term contract with Universal, Auer broke through into the realm of featured character actors with his Academy Award-nominated turn as the fake nobleman/freeloader/gigolo Carlo in the classic screwball comedy My Man Godfrey (1936) over at Universal in 1936. That was the first year that Oscars were awarded to supporting players, and although he lost to eventual three-time Best Supporting Actor Academy Award winner Walter Brennan, it made him as a popular character actor. Auer -- the Mad Russian -- became a fixture in comedies of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Of the role of Carlo, he said: "That one role made a comedian out of me. I haven't been anything else since. It's paid off very well. Do you wonder that I am flattered when people say I am mad?"
He turned in a memorable appearance as the Russian ballet-master Boris Kolenkhov in Frank Capra's Oscar-winning classic You Can't Take It with You (1938) opposite Jean Arthur and Ann Miller. Other memorable parts in the "Golden Years of Hollywood" phase of his career came in the musical One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937) in support of Deanna Durbin and as Boris Callahan, who touches off a cantina catfight between Marlene Dietrich and Una Merkel, in the classic Destry Rides Again (1939).
After appearing in the musical comedy "The Lady Comes Across" in early 1942, a flop which lasted three performances, he toured with vaudeville before acting in the summer radio series "Mischa the Magnificent". In the radio show, he played a man writing his memoirs, but after the summer run he returned to the movies. The last play he appeared in on Broadway, "Lovely Me", opened on Christmas Day 1946 and closed 37 performances later, on January 25, 1947. Between movies, he appeared in touring shows and in vaudeville.
During the 1950s, after the Paramount decision, when Hollywood first experienced runaway production as American producers turned to the cheaper European film studios to save money, Auer decamped for Europe. He and his family settled in Salzburg, Austria, where he made broadcasts for Radio Free Europe between appearances in European-made films, mostly in France. He achieved acclaim in Paris for his appearance in the title role of the 1953 revival of the comedy "Tovarich".
On the Continent he was typecast as an elderly eccentric, most notably in Orson Welles's Confidential Report (1955). He also appeared frequently on American television during the 1950s. He was praised for his appearance in a 1953 Omnibus (1952) presentation of George Bernard Shaw's play "Arms and the Man". He suffered a heart attack in 1957 but continued to make movies in Europe and appear on television in the U.S.
In 1964 he appeared as Baron Popoff in the New York Lincoln Center Music Theater's revival of "The Merry Widow". It was not a success, but the New York Times review praised him: "Mischa Auer is, after all, one of the great comics. With his head down a little, jowls flapping, his ripe Marsovian accent rolling through the house, his eyes popping--he dominates the performance."
Suffering from cardiovascular disease, Auer suffered a second heart attack and died in Rome on March 5, 1967, at the age of 61. He will long be remembered as one of the inimitable character actors who graced the classic films of the Golden Age of Hollywood.- Music Artist
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- Music Department
Patsy Cline was born Virginia Patterson Hensley on September 8, 1932 in Winchester, Virginia. Her brush with show business came at age four when she won a prize in an amateur tap dancing contest. By the time she entered grade school, her family was fully aware of her musical talent. On her eighth birthday, her mother presented her with a piano, on which Patsy learned more music patterns. On Sundays, she sang with the local church choir, and at age 14, was singing regularly on local radio station WINC (she got the job by walking fearlessly into the station and asking for an audition). When Patsy was 15, her parents divorced, reportedly due to her father's heavy drinking. Without her father around to pay the bills, Patsy helped her mother earn money by singing in local clubs in the evenings, and by day, was working at the local drug store, which led to her dropping out of high school a year later. In 1948, Patsy maneuvered herself backstage when 'Wally Fowler' brought his music show to her hometown. Patsy impressed Fowler with her singing, and he gave her the opportunity to audition to be a member of the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville. However, to her disappointment, the Opry reps said that she would not be ready for big-time country radio.
Patsy returned to Winchester and continued to sing in local clubs. She met and married Gerald Cline in 1952. That same year, she was featured in Bill Peer's Melody Playboys of Brunswick, Maryland. Peer got Patsy her first recording contract with Four Star Records in 1954. In late 1955, Patsy became a regular on the radio show "Town and Country Jamboree", a country-western program that broadcast in Washington, D.C. In 1957, Patsy finally got her big break when she appeared as a contestant on the television variety show Talent Scouts (1948), hosted by Arthur Godfrey. For her first television appearance, she selected a torch song she sang a year earlier, "Walkin' After Midnight". She won first place and became a regular on the show for the next two weeks. "Walkin' After Midnight" was released as a single and put Patsy on the top ten charts of country and pop music. However, her determined drive and ambition put a large strain her marriage and kept her away from her husband; as a result, Patsy and Gerald divorced soon after her television debut. In the late 1950s, Patsy put a hold on her career and married a second time, to Charlie Dick, and together they had two children. However, when she returned to singing, the long hours that kept her away put another strain on the marriage.
In 1960, Patsy was finally invited to join the Grand Old Opry and the following year she scored with her second single, "I Fall to Pieces". Producer Owen Bradley took advantage of Patsy's rich voice and backed her with lush string arrangements rather than the twangy sound of steel guitar, which was typical for country-western singers at the time. Anxious to be true to her roots, Patsy often expressed a desire to yodel and growl on her records, but she understood that this smoother sound was giving her career a major boost and used it during the next two years of album recordings. In March 1963, Patsy traveled from Nashville to Kansas City, where on March 5, 1963, she appeared at a benefit concert for the family of disc jockey Jack McCall, who had been killed in a traffic accident earlier that year. Immediately after her performance, she boarded a small plane back to Nashville along with country-western performers Cowboy Copas, Harold Hawkshaw Hawkins and pilot Randy Hughes. Approximately 85 miles west of Nashville, the plane ran into turbulence and crashed. There were no survivors. Shortly before her death, Patsy recorded the single "Sweet Dreams", which became #5 on the country charts after her untimely death at age 30 (her best-known song, "Crazy", was written by future country-western legend Willie Nelson). Ten years after her death, Patsy Cline was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the first female soloist chosen for the honor.- Actor
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Philip Madoc was born in Merthyr Tydfil, Wales, and attended Twyn School. He became interested in acting when he was a teenager. He studied at the University of Vienna and pursued a theatrical career by attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. During the 1960s, he became a familiar face on British television, often cast in sinister roles due to his dark looks and deep voice. He became particularly familiar to fans of fantasy television, playing five different roles on The Avengers (1961) and four different roles on Doctor Who (1963). Into the 1970s and the guest appearances kept coming, including comedies such as Dad's Army (1968) (as a U-Boat captain in one of the most famous scenes on British TV) and The Good Life (1975). Although widely respected as a versatile actor adept at accents, Madoc never really became a star until 1981, when he portrayed former British prime minister David Lloyd George on an acclaimed television series, The Life and Times of David Lloyd George (1981). Madoc has not been short of work for the last 40 years, a rare accomplishment for an actor, and has worked on films, radio and on the stage as well as his prolific television career. Madoc died of cancer in 2012.- Actor
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Qavi Khan was born on 15 November 1942 in Peshawar, North West Frontier Province, Pakistan. He was an actor and director, known for Roshni (1975), Aangan (2018) and Kommissar X jagt die roten Tiger (1971). He died on 5 March 2023 in Canada.- Script and Continuity Department
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Ranka Velimirovic was born on 20 June 1940 in Podgorica, Montenegro, Kingdom of Yugoslavia. She was a writer, known for The Dervish and Death (1974), Battle for the Railway (1978) and Dorotej (1981). She was married to Zdravko Velimirovic. She died on 5 March 2020 in Belgrade, Serbia.- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
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Although Richard Kiley's rich baritone and strong vocal talent was much in evidence and received due respect with his award of a Tony for "Man of La Mancha", it was little used in his television and movie appearances. Won two Tony Awards as Best Actor (Musical): in 1959 for "Redhead" and in 1966 for his signature role, "Man of La Mancha". He was also nominated in the same category in 1962 for "No Strings" and, in 1987, as as Best Actor (Play) for a revival of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons".- Actor
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Richard Stapley, aka Richard Wyler, not only enjoyed great success as an actor and writer on both sides of the Atlantic, but managed to do it under two names as well.
A descendant of Sir Richard Stapley, noted in history for signing the death warrant of King Charles I, Stapley was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England on June 20, 1923 and made his first stage appearance at the age of 15 at Theatre Royal, Brighton. He played juvenile leads at several regional theaters until an audition for Laurence Olivier led to a contract to appear in two leading roles at London's famous Old Vic. With the heightening of World War II, however, he enlisted in the Royal Air Force and learned to fly solo.
In 1946, he wrote his first novel, I'll Wear It On My Head," which was published in England, and sailed for America, armed with letters of introduction to Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne from his friends John Gielgud and Cathleen Nesbitt.
Through the Lunts, he landed a lead in a Broadway play, "Darling, Darling, Darling," in which he was spotted by a talent scout and signed to star in "The Challenge" for the small Eagle Lion studio. MGM bought his contract and he quickly co-starred with Lana Turner and Gene Kelly in "The Three Musketeers" and in "Little Women" with June Allyson, Janet Leigh, Margaret O'Brien and Elizabeth Taylor.
He was menaced by Boris Karloff in the cult classic "The Strange Door," and made a dashing action hero in such films as "Charge of the Lancers" with Paulette Goddard and Jean-Pierre Aumont, "King of the Khyber Rifles" with Tyrone Power, "The Iron Glove" with Robert Stack, "Jungle Man-Eaters" with Johnny Weissmuller, "Target Zero" with Charles Bronson and "D-Day The Sixth of June" with Robert Taylor.
Between movies, he was a frequent guest on TV dramatic shows and returned to Broadway in two plays, "Second Threshold" at the Morosco and the Theatre Guild's production of "Jane" with Edna Best and John Loder.
Stapley also teamed up with composer Dickson Hughes to write a musical revue, "About Time," and three songs for the film "The Restless Breed," starring Anne Bancroft. They were then commissioned by Gloria Swanson to write a musical version of "Sunset Boulevard," in which she hoped to make a stage comeback. Production plans fell through, but Swanson did perform one of the songs, "Those Wonderful People Out There in the Dark," in a major production number on the Steve Allen TV show.
Disheartened by the whole Swanson incident and ready for a change, he returned to England, where he was offered the starring role in a new TV series, "The Man From Interpol," with the new screen name of "Richard Wyler". The show was a tremendous success throughout the world, but he also found himself type-cast in that one role. He took two years off and bought three racing motorbikes and was soon competing with such champions as Mike Hailwood, Phil Read, Jim Redman and Luigi Tavieri.
He returned to films in "The Barbarians" with Jack Palance and continued to star in a series of European action films including "Identity Unknown," "The Rattler Kid," "The Exterminators," "The Bounty Killer," "Two Pistols and a Coward," "The Girl From Rio" with George Sanders and Shirley Eaton and the popular spy picture "Dick Smart."
While shooting "Connecting Rooms" with Bette Davis and Michael Redgrave, he showed the producer, Dimitri de Grunwald, a short story he'd written that was published in a collection that included stories by John Lennon and Romain Gary. Grunwald, who'd formed a new production company with Sir Peter Hall and Robert Bolt (writer of "Dr. Zhivago" and "Lawrence of Arabia"), optioned the story as their first movie project.
Since then, Stapley, reverting back to his birth name, combined acting with his new love of writing and for 10 years was even featured in three long-running commercials for Imperial Leather soap, which was chosen as one of the best-ever British TV ads and also shown in selected U.S. cities.
A chance meeting with Monte Cook at an acting audition led to their collaborating on the novel "Naked Legacy," which Stapley wrote based on Cook's life story. Stapley also completed an additional novel, "Tomorrow Has Been Canceled," as well as his memoirs, "To Slip and Fall in L.A." A new musical, "Swanson On Sunset," was also written with former partner Dickson Hughes, based on their adventures while writing the ill-fated musical version of "Sunset Boulevard." A private demo recording of the complete score, featuring Swanson in her original role of "Norma Desmond" was recently released on CD by Stage Door Records.- Rip Oliver was born on 6 October 1952 in Homosassa, Florida, USA. He was an actor, known for Saturday Night's Main Event (1985), World Class Championship Wrestling (1972) and Mid South Wrestling (1981). He died on 5 March 2020 in the USA.
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Scott Kalvert was born on 15 August 1964 in New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for The Basketball Diaries (1995), DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince: Parents Just Don't Understand (1988) and Deuces Wild (2002). He was married to Sonia Kalvert. He died on 5 March 2014 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Prokofiev was a multi-talented man and an innovative composer. He learned piano from his mother and chess from his father. He always had a chess set on his piano, and was able to play against the chess champions of his time. He studied music with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, graduated with highest marks from the St. Petersburg Conservatory (1914), and was rewarded with a grand piano. He emigrated from Russia after the revolution, and made successful concert tours in Europe and the U.S. In 1918 in New York he met Spanish singer Carolina Codina (Lina Llubera), they married in Paris, in 1923, and had two sons.
Prokofiev's radiant optimism and his childlike personality shines in his popular orchestral suite "Peter and the Wolf" and in the "Classical Symphony". His humorous irony and wit is popping up in piano pieces named "Sarcasms", also in his five piano concertos, ballets and film scores, all written in his instantly identifiable musical language. He wrote film scores for The Czar Wants to Sleep (1934), Alexander Nevsky (1938), Cinderella (1961), and the two-part Ivan the Terrible, Part I (1944), directed by Sergei Eisenstein.
All of his music, that he created while outside of the Soviet Union, was sometimes criticized as cosmopolitan and anti-Soviet. Prokofiev divorced his wife in 1948. His ninth sonata, dedicated to Svyatoslav Richter, was welcomed warmly, but another official critic on his music and life started in 1948. He died in 1953, the same day of Joseph Stalin.- Susan Harrison was born on 26 August 1938 in Leesburg, Florida, USA. She was an actress, known for Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Key Witness (1960) and The Twilight Zone (1959). She was married to Cassius Marcus Conger and Joël Colin. She died on 5 March 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Art Department
Susanna Majuri was born on 24 November 1978 in Järvenpää, Finland. She is known for Joitain tapoja hävittää ruumis (2018). She died on 5 March 2020 in Finland.- Character actor Walt Gorney was born on April 12, 1912 in Vienna, Austria. He came to the United States when he was ten years old and lived with his family in Massachusetts. He had at least three younger sisters. In 1946, Gorney moved to an apartment in Greenwich Village in New York City. Walt appeared in a handful of movies in minor roles; he was usually cast as bums or average working class types. With his lean, stringy build, gaunt face, croaky voice, and intense off-center screen presence, Gorney was perfectly cast as local town eccentric and grim prophet of gloom 'n' doom Crazy Ralph in the horror classic Friday the 13th (1980). He returned as Crazy Ralph in Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981) and did the opening narration for Friday the 13th: The New Blood (1988). Outside of his regrettably sparse movie credits, Walt had a long and respectable career acting on stage. Gorney was a member of the theatrical group the Provincetown Players in the early 1950s. He portrayed the role of Juan in the world premiere of "If Five Years Pass" and the part of Allen in "The Male Animal". Gorney appeared in the Broadway plays "Scratch" and "Trelawny of the Wells". Moreover, he also acted in the Off-Broadway stage productions "The Misanthrope", "Measure for Measure" and "Crystal and the Fox". Walt Gorney died at age 91 after a long illness at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City on March 5, 2004.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Whit Bissell came to Hollywood in the 1940s, and by the time he retired he had appeared in more than 200 movies and scores of TV series. He is best known for playing the evil scientist who turned Michael Landon into a half beast in the 1957 cult classic film I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957). Bissell specialized in playing doctors, military officers and other authority figures. On television he was a regular on Bachelor Father (1957) and The Time Tunnel (1966). He also served on the Screen Actors Guild board of directors for 18 years and represented the actors branch in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences board of governors.- William Moody went to Mobile's Catholic School, and later graduated from the McGill Institute. After enlisting in the U.S. Air Force and completing basic training, he received his honorable discharge and went straight into a Funeral Director service job.
Moody was a regular at Gulf Coast Wrestling events in Mobile, Alabama while growing up. He got to know many of the wrestlers, as well as the front office personnel and later became a ringside photographer.
Though known through most of his career as a manager, Moody started out as a wrestler. In June 1974, he made his wrestling debut, wrestling as "Mr. X" (under a mask) in Greenville, AL. He continued to wrestle later known as "The Embalmer".
In April 1977, he began his managerial career as Percy Pringle III. Moody married and he and his wife Dianna, welcomed their son Michael in 1979. He left the wrestling business and went back to school and earned his Funeral Director/Embalmer's Certification from San Antonio College.
In 1984, Moody returned to wrestling again as Percy Pringle and worked for Fritz von Erich's World Class Wrestling Association. During this time he managed the likes of Rick Rude, Blackjack Mulligan, The Great Kabuki, Lex Luger and even Steve Austin.
On December 22, 1990, he joined the World Wrestling Federation and would be known as "Paul Bearer". His charge this time was the Undertaker. Moody worked for the company for ten years, most of the time managing the Undertaker, but also managing Kane and Mankind (Mick Foley). He also worked as a road agent for the time he was not on television.
In 2001, William's wife Dianna was striken with breast cancer and he cut his time with the WWE back to care for her. He left the company in late 2002 when his contract came up. After this, he made several appearances with NWA Total Nonstop Action again as Percy Pringle.
When the Undertaker returned to his old "deadman" gimmick at Wrestlemania 20, Moody returned with him as Paul Bearer once again. However after a few months, the storyline involving Paul Bearer had ran its course and he has left the WWE again, at least as far as television is concerned.
Moody and his wife also have another son, Daniel. - Actor
- Soundtrack
William Powell was on the New York stage by 1912, but it would be ten years before his film career would begin. In 1924 he went to Paramount Pictures, where he was employed for the next seven years. During that time, he played in a number of interesting films, but stardom was elusive. He did finally attract attention with The Last Command (1928) as Leo, the arrogant film director. Stardom finally came via his role as Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929), in which he investigates the death of Louise Brooks, "the Canary." Unlike many silent actors, sound boosted Powell's career. He had a fine, urbane voice and his stage training and comic timing greatly aided his introduction to sound pictures. However, he was not happy with the type of roles he was playing at Paramount, so in 1931 he switched to Warner Bros. There, he again became disappointed with his roles, and his last appearance for Warners was as Philo Vance in The Kennel Murder Case (1933). In 1934 Powell went to MGM, where he was teamed with Myrna Loy in Manhattan Melodrama (1934). While Philo made Powell a star, another detective, Nick Charles, made him famous. Powell received an Academy Award nomination for The Thin Man (1934) and later starred in the Best Picture winner for 1936, The Great Ziegfeld (1936). Powell could play any role with authority, whether in a comedy, thriller, or drama. He received his second Academy Award nomination for My Man Godfrey (1936) and was on top of the world until 1937, when he made his first picture with Jean Harlow, Reckless (1935). The two clicked, off-screen as well as on-screen, and shortly became engaged. One day, while Powell was filming Double Wedding (1937) on one MGM sound stage, Harlow became ill on another. She was finally taken to the hospital, where she died. Her death greatly upset both Powell and Myrna Loy, and he took six weeks off from making the movie to deal with his sorrow. After that he traveled, not making another MGM film for a year. He eventually did five sequels to "The Thin Man," the last one in 1947. He also received his third Academy Award nomination for his work in Life with Father (1947). His screen appearances became less frequent after that, and his last role was in 1955. He had come a long way from playing the villain in 1922.