The Actors I Would've Cast (R.I.P)
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- Actress
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Brittany Murphy was born Brittany Anne Bertolotti on November 10, 1977 in Atlanta, Georgia, to Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti. Her father's ancestry is Italian, and her mother is of Irish and Slovak descent. Her father moved the family back to Edison, New Jersey as a native New Yorker and to be closer to other siblings from previous marriages. While dining out one night in the presence of Hollywood royalty, Brittany at the age of 5 approached an adjoining table when Academy Award nominee Burt Reynolds and George Segal were seated. Brittany introduced herself to the Hollywood legends and confidently told them that someday she too would be a star.
She comes from a long line of international musicians and performers with three half-brothers and a sister. Angelo Bertolotti was torn from their tight-knit family as a made-man with the Italian Mafia. The Senior Bertolotti, who coined the nickname of "Britt" for his daughter, was also an entrepreneur and diplomat for organized crime families and one of the first to be subjected to a RICO prosecution. Brittany's interests and well-being were always her father's first goal and objective. To distance his talented daughter from his infamous past, Angelo allowed Sharon to use her maiden name for Brittany's, so that her shining star would not be overshadowed by a father's past, with the couple divorcing thereafter.
Brittany began receiving accolades and applause in regional theater at the early age of 9. At the age of 13, she landed several national commercials. She appeared on television and caught the attention of a personal manager and an agent. Soon, Brittany's mother Sharon turned full-time to being a "Stage Mom" where Angelo provided financial support throughout and their relationship is memorialized with a long and close history in pictures. The hopeful daughter and mother moved to Burbank, CA, where Brittany landed her first television role on Blossom (1990). Hearts and doors opened up for a starring role on Drexell's Class (1991), a short lived TV series.
Brittany's big screen movie debut started with Clueless (1995), where she was co-starring with Alicia Silverstone. Britt soared, demonstrating her musical and artistic talents with dramatic and comedic roles landing a nomination for best leading female performance in the Young Artist Awards for her role in the television film David and Lisa (1998). She garnered tremendous attention for her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999) with Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie. Brittany's band, "Blessed Soul" was growing with her as lead singer and Britt lent her vocal talents to the TV hit, cartoon sensation, King of the Hill (1997) as the voice of Luanne.
She is alleged to have been a witness in the case of the former Department of Homeland Security employee and persecuted whistleblower Julia Davis. According to Davis, Brittany and her fiancée Simon Monjack were then targeted for retaliation that included land and aerial surveillance and a threatened prosecution. Monjack was arrested and detained by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Brittany and Simon confided in Alex Ben Block of the Hollywood Reporter, telling him in an interview that they were under surveillance by helicopters and their telephones have been wiretapped. This information was published by THR posthumously, in an article entitled "The Last Difficult Days of Brittany Murphy."
On December 20, 2009, Brittany Murphy died an untimely death. The LAPD and Los Angeles County Coroner closed the case within one hour, attributing her death to pneumonia and anemia. Five months after Brittany's unexpected demise, her husband Simon Monjack was found dead in the house he shared with Brittany. The chief/spokesperson at the Los Angeles County Dept of Coroner, Craig Harvey, stated that Simon also died from the same exact causes as his wife, namely pneumonia and anemia. Neither Brittany, nor Simon, were given a thorough and complete forensic autopsy for poisons. Brittany's father, Angelo "AJ" Bertolotti, is pursuing the investigation of the true reasons behind Brittany's and Simon's sudden demise, as he believes that the two were murdered. Abnormally high levels of heavy metals and poisons were discovered in Brittany's hair, tested by two other independent forensic labs with famed Pathologist, attorney Cyril Wecht concluded from the appearances, Brittany could have been murdered and should be exhumed. Her father Angelo is preparing court actions to ensure she obtains justice.- Vincent Schiavelli, selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of the best character actors in America, had made over 120 film and television appearances. He studied acting at NYU's Theatre Program. Aside from his acting career, Vincent was the author of three cookbooks, and has written numerous articles on food for magazines and newspapers. In 2001, he received the James Beard Journalism Award.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
River Phoenix was born River Jude Bottom in Madras, Oregon. His mother, Arlyn (Dunetz), a Bronx-born secretary, and his father, John Bottom, a carpenter, met in California in 1968. They worked as itinerant fruit pickers, and later joined the Children of God religious group (John was originally Catholic, while Arlyn was born Jewish). By the time River was two, they were living in South America, where John was the sect's Archbishop of Venezuela. They later left the group and, in 1977, moved back to the United States, changing their last name to "Phoenix". They lived with River's maternal grandparents in Florida, and later moved to Los Angeles. His parents encouraged all of their children to get into movies and, by age ten, River was acting professionally on TV. His film debut was in Explorers (1985), followed rapidly by box-office successes with Stand by Me (1986) and The Mosquito Coast (1986), and as young Indiana in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). His role as Danny Pope in Running on Empty (1988) earned him an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. His best role was probably Mike, the hustler in My Own Private Idaho (1991).
A dedicated animal-rights activist and environmentalist, River was a strict vegetarian and a member of PeTA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). River was a talented musician as well as an actor, and he played guitar, sang, and wrote songs for his band, Aleka's Attic, which also included his sister Rain Phoenix, while living in Gainsville, Florida. Although the band never released its own album, their song "Across the Way" can be found on PeTA's "Tame Yourself" album, used to fight animal abuse. River was in the middle of filming Dark Blood (2012), playing the character Boy when he died. The film couldn't be finished due to too many unfilmed crucial scenes. His mother was later sued.
River died of acute multiple drug intoxication involving lethal levels of cocaine and morphine at age 23 outside the Viper Room, Johnny Depp's Los Angeles club.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Michael Jeter was an American actor from Tennessee. His best known roles were that of math teacher and assistant football coach Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade" (1990-1994) and "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", a role he played from 2000 to 2003. He specialized in playing "eccentric, pretentious, or wimpy characters".
In 1952, Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, located between Chattanooga and Memphis. The town is mostly associated with local hero Davy Crockett (1786-1836), who owned a powder mill there in the early 19th century. The area is home to the David Crockett State Park.
Jeter's father was dentist William Claud Jeter (1922-2010), and his mother was housewife Virginia Raines (1927-2019). The Jeters were a large family, and Jeter had one brother and four sisters. Jeter enrolled at the Memphis State University (later renamed to the University of Memphis) with the intention to follow a medical career. His interests changed, and he pursued an acting education instead.
Jeter started his career as a theatrical actor, regularly performing at the Circuit Theatre and Playhouse on the Square, both located in Memphis. He made his film debut in the anti-war film "Hair" (1979), playing Woodrow Sheldon. The film depicted the hippie counterculture and the Vietnam War.
Jeter's early film roles included appearing in the historical drama "Ragtime" (1981), the sex comedy "Soup for One" (1982), the mockumentary "Zelig" (1983), the comedy film "The Money Pit" (1986), the action thriller "Dead Bang" (1989), and the action comedy "Tango & Cash" (1989). Meanwhile he appeared in guest-star roles in then-popular television series, such as "Night Court" and "Designing Women". His first recurring role in television was that of Dr. Art Makter in the short-lived medical drama "Hothouse". He appeared in all 7 episodes of the series.
Jeter found fame and critical success when playing the nerdy Herman Stiles in the sitcom "Evening Shade". He won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and the Viewers for Quality Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Quality Comedy Series. The series lasted for 4 seasons, and a total of 98 episodes
Jeter guest starred as Peter Lebeck in three episodes of "Picket Fences". For this role he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 1993, but the award was won by rival actor Laurence Fishburne (1961-). Jeter had another notable television role as Bob Ryan in an episode of "Chicago Hope". He was again nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series in 1996 for this role, but the award was instead won by rival actor Peter Boyle (1935-2006).
Jeter played mostly supporting roles in 1990s film. He played (amon others_ a homeless cabaret singer in "The Fisher King" (1991), Father Ignatius in the Catholic nun-themed comedy "Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit" (1993), the inventor Old Gregor in the post-apocalyptic film "Waterworld" (1995), alcoholic clown Norm Snively in the sports comedy "Air Bud" (1997), and sympathetic prisoner Eduard 'Del' Delacroix in "The Green Mile" (1999).
Jeter next earned the recurring role of "Mr. Noodle's brother, Mister Noodle" in "Sesame Street", His character replaced Mr. Noodle (played by Bill Irwin) in the "Elmo's World" segments of the series. Both character were silent mimes who made mistakes, but were able to correct them with the help of "enthusiastic kid voice overs". Jeter was enthusiastic about his role, and called it a career favorite. He played the role until his death.
The openly gay Jeter was HIV positive, but had been in good health for many years. In March 2003, Jeter was found dead at his home in Los Angeles. According to his life partner Sean Blue, the death was caused by an epileptic seizure. Jeter was 50-years-old at the time of death.- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
Candy was one of Canada's greatest and funniest character actors. His well-known role as the big hearted buffoon earned him classics in Uncle Buck (1989) and Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). His career has handed him some dry spells but Candy always rebounded.
Born in Newmarket, Ontario, in the year 1950, Candy was the son of Evangeline (Aker) and Sidney James Candy. His mother was of Ukrainian and Polish ancestry. Candy found his passion for drama while attending a community college. In 1971 Candy made his TV debut in an episode of Police Surgeon (1971) co-starring Sharon Farrell, John Hamelin, and Nick Mancuso. Candy then found a number of bit parts in other Canadian television shows and also in such small films as Tunnel Vision (1976) and Find the Lady (1976). However, his big success came at the age of twenty-seven, when he became part of the comedy group "Second City" in Toronto. Alongside such soon-to-be Canadian stars as Catherine O'Hara (one of Candy's lifelong friends), Eugene Levy, Rick Moranis, and Harold Ramis, Candy was also part of the television show the group inspired. SCTV (1976) earned Candy a reputation for his quirky humor and his uncanny imitations of others.
After the television series, Candy appeared alongside fellow Canadian Dan Aykroyd in the Steven Spielberg flop 1941 (1979). However, other jobs followed and Candy landed a role, once again with Aykroyd, in the successful classic The Blues Brothers (1980). Candy played a parole officer who is part of the chase after Jake and Elwood Blues. The film was a hit and Candy followed up accordingly.
Candy acted in the smash hit Stripes (1981) where he played a dopey, overweight recruit affectionately nicknamed 'Ox'. After the success of Stripes (1981), Candy returned to the Second City with the other former stars, in SCTV Network (1981). Candy also hosted "Saturday Night Live" before landing himself a role in the Ron Howard film Splash (1983), a romantic comedy about a mermaid who washes ashore and learns to live like a human. Candy played a sleazy womanizing brother to the character played by Tom Hanks. The film was a bigger success than even Stripes (1981) and a number of people have said that Splash (1983) was his breakout role.
He took a second billing in the comedic film Brewster's Millions (1985) where a man must spend thirty million in order to inherit three hundred million from his deceased relative. Candy played the man's best friend, who accidentally gets in the way as much as helping out. Candy continued making films tirelessly, including the film Armed and Dangerous (1986) where he and Eugene Levy play characters who become security guards.
1987 was an especially good year to Candy, giving him two classic roles: Barf the Mawg in the Mel Brooks comedy Spaceballs (1987) and the bumbling salesman Del Griffith alongside Steve Martin's uptight character in the John Hughes film Planes, Trains & Automobiles (1987). The latter film is a golden classic and is one of Candy's greatest films. He followed up immediately with The Great Outdoors (1988), once again alongside Dan Aykroyd. Candy landed another classic role in the film Uncle Buck (1989) which was about a bumbling uncle who must look after his brother's three children.
Although he was in the smash hit Home Alone (1990), Candy's career fell into a slump, turning out unsuccessful films in the early nineties. This caused him to change his strategy by taking more serious roles. The first of these serious roles was the corrupt lawyer Dean Andrews in the 'Oliver Stone' film JFK (1991). The film was a big success, and Candy moved on from this victory to make the film Cool Runnings (1993) about the first Jamaican bobsled team.
Candy was well known for his size, six feet two and weighing around 300 pounds. However, he was very sensitive about the subject and in the nineties tried to lose weight and quit smoking. He was aware that heart attacks were in his family: both his father and his grandfather died of heart attacks and Candy wanted to prevent that happening to him as best he could.
In the mid-nineties Candy filmed the Michael Moore comedy Canadian Bacon (1995) then went to Mexico to film the western spoof Wagons East (1994). It was in Mexico that Candy had a heart attack and passed away in March 1994. Canadian Bacon (1995) was released a year after his death and is his last film.
Candy was loved by thousands of people who loved his classic antics in Splash (1983) and The Great Outdoors (1988). He was well-known for his roles in Stripes (1981) and Uncle Buck (1989) and he himself never forgot his Canadian background.- Lee Thompson Young was born as the son of Velma Love and Tommy Scott Young. When he was in second grade his parents split up and he went to live with his mother. At age ten, he portrayed Dr. Martin Luther King in a play called "A Night of Stars and Dreams". That's when Lee decided he wanted to be an actor. After doing community theater for a while, he traveled to New York during the spring break of 1996 and got himself an agent. He moved to NY in June but it wasn't until next year that he got to audition for the part of Jett Jackson. Lee filmed the pilot. He found out in June 1998 from Disney that the show had been picked up.
- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Phil Hartman was born Philip Edward Hartmann on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. His surname was originally "Hartmann", but he later dropped the second "n". He was one of eight children of Doris Marguerite (Wardell) and Rupert Loebig Hartmann, a salesman. He was of German, Irish, and English descent. The family moved to the United States when Phil was around ten, and he spent the majority of his childhood in Connecticut and Southern California. He later obtained his American citizenship in the early 1990s. He often would visit his homeland of Canada throughout his career, and the City of Brantford even erected a plaque on the Walk of Fame in the town in honor of Phil's career and memory. The Humber College Comedy: Writing & Performance program in Toronto, Ontario, also has an award in Phil's memory that is given out to their Post-Graduate comedy students.
Phil originally studied Graphic Design at California State University. He began to work part time as a graphic artist, designing album covers for such bands as Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young (see Crosby Stills Nash & Young) and Poco. In 1975, alongside doing album work, Phil joined the California comedy troupe, The Groundlings. While in The Groundlings, Phil worked with Paul Reubens and Jon Lovitz, who became good friends of his until his death. Phil and Paul created the character Pee Wee Herman together, and Phil even had a role on Pee-wee's Playhouse (1986) as pirate Captin' Carl.
In 1986, Phil joined the cast of Saturday Night Live (1975) and was on the show for a record of 8 seasons (which was later broken by Tim Meadows). Phil played a wide range of characters including: Frank Sinatra, Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, Ed McMahon, Barbara Bush, and many others. He was known to help out other writers who wanted to get their sketches read and onto the show. He held Saturday Night Live (1975) together during his 8-year reign, thus the nickname he garnered while on the show, "The Glue." Phil was also known for his voice work on commercials and cartoons. He was probably most well known for the voices of Troy McClure and Lionel Hutz on the animated comedy The Simpsons (1989). He also provided other minor voices for The Simpsons (1989). Phil left Saturday Night Live (1975) in 1994, and in 1995, was cast in the critically acclaimed NBC show NewsRadio (1995) as arrogant radio show host Bill McNeal.
After Phil's death, Phil's good friend Jon Lovitz attempted to fill the void as Max Lewis on NewsRadio (1995), but the struggling show's ratings dropped, and the show later fizzled out and ended in 1999. Phil had an interesting career in movies, mostly playing supporting characters. He was the lead in Houseguest (1995) and was also in Greedy (1994), Jingle All the Way (1996), Sgt. Bilko (1996), and his last live action film, Small Soldiers (1998). His last role was the English language dub of Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), as the quick-witted cat Jiji, which featured Small Soldiers co-star Kirsten Dunst in the lead voice role.
On May 28th, 1998, Phil was shot to death while sleeping in his Encino, California home by his wife, Brynn Hartman. Brynn left the house and later came back with a friend to show him Phil's body. When her friend went to call 911, Brynn locked herself in the bedroom with Phil's lifeless body and shot herself. It was later discovered by the coroner that Brynn had alcohol, cocaine, and the antidepressant, Zoloft, in her system. They left behind two children, Sean Edward (b. 1988) and Birgen (b. 1992). Phil and Brynn's bodies were cremated and spread upon Catalina Island, just off the coast of California, on June 4, 1998. Phil had specifically stated in his will that he wanted the ashes spread on Catalina Island because it was his favorite holiday getaway as he was an avid boater, surfer and general lover of the sea.
Phil was a very caring and sensitive person and was described as "very sweet and kind of quiet."- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Although known as the uncle/patriarch and judge "Philip Banks" on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990), James Avery was a classically trained actor and scholar. A native of Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA, he joined the US Navy after graduating high school and served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969. Upon leaving the military, he moved to San Diego, California and began writing TV scripts and poetry for PBS. He won an Emmy for production during his tenure there and deservedly won a scholarship to the University of California at San Diego, from which he earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Drama and Literature. (Sidenote: His wife Barbara is the Dean of Student Life at California's Loyola Marymount University.) In addition to his sitcom popularity, he lent his voice to over a dozen animated television series and features. He was also the primary host of the popular PBS travel and adventure series Going Places (1997). Armed with a diverse resume of credits, James Avery remained a unique creative force as convincing a comedian as he was a Shakespearean character.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Christopher Shannon Penn was born on October 10, 1965 in Los Angeles, California, the third son of actress Eileen Ryan (née Annucci) and director, actor, and writer Leo Penn. His siblings are musician Michael Penn and actor Sean Penn. His father was from a Lithuanian Jewish/Russian Jewish family, and his mother is of half-Italian and half-Irish descent.
Penn set out to follow in his parents' footsteps and started acting at age twelve in the Loft Studio. While in high school he and his brother Sean made several shorts with their classmates, which included such would-be stars as Emilio Estevez and Rob Lowe. Penn made his onscreen debut in the Christopher Cain movie, Charlie and the Talking Buzzard (1979). After a few years Penn caught the eye of acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him in a supporting role in the teen drama Rumble Fish (1983). Although the film was a flop critically and commercially, Penn's career was well under way.
That same year he acted in All the Right Moves (1983), a high school drama film starring a young Tom Cruise. The next year Penn gave a performance in Footloose (1984), starring Kevin Bacon and dealing with a small town which bans rock & roll music. The movie was a smash hit, and remains a classic to this day. Penn followed this up with a villainous role in Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider (1985), and the crime movie At Close Range (1986), starring Christopher Walken.
Penn acted in a few smaller productions until he was cast as Travis Brickley in the sports drama Best of the Best (1989). Penn's character is a martial arts fighter who joins the other main characters when they enter a taekwondo tournament against the Korean team. The movie spawned several sequels, though Penn only appeared in the first and second films. A few more jobs followed until Penn landed what is known as his most famous movie: Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs (1992). The indie crime film concerned a heist gone wrong, as the criminals search for a rat in their midst. Penn played the role of Nice Guy Eddie, the son of the old gangster that arranges the heist. The film continues to receive acclaim as a classic movie and as the start of Tarantino's directing career. Penn also acted in the Tarantino-scripted Tony Scott crime movie True Romance (1993), albeit in a much smaller role. Penn also took a supporting role in the ensemble film Short Cuts (1993) by Robert Altman.
After participating in these acclaimed films, Penn took on several smaller projects, including a role as the villain in the second "Beethoven" movie. In this period of time, Penn acted in such films as the crime film Mulholland Falls (1996), set in the 1950s. Penn then gave one of his greatest performances in the Abel Ferrara crime drama The Funeral (1996). The movie starred Christopher Walken, Penn, and Vincent Gallo as three brothers who are involved in the world of crime, even as it threatens to take them all down. Penn plays Chez, the middle brother, who has a very short temper. Penn also sang a song in the film as his character. While the film was well received critically and Penn received an award for Best Supporting Actor at the Venice Film Festival for his excellent performance, The Funeral (1996) went largely unseen. Penn followed up with the Canadian film The Boys Club (1996), the crime thriller One Tough Cop (1998), and a supporting role in the hit comedy Rush Hour (1998).
Following his latest success, Penn acted in the drama-comedy The Florentine (1999), the English comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2001), and the crime thriller Murder by Numbers (2002). Penn was also one of the many stars that acted in the box office failure Masked and Anonymous (2003), starring Bob Dylan. The last few years of his career mainly featured supporting roles in such movies as After the Sunset (2004), Starsky & Hutch (2004), and the Canadian crime film King of Sorrow (2007), his last film appearance. Throughout his life Penn had had battles with heart disease and multiple drug use. He was found dead in his home on January 24, 2006. He was only forty years old.
Penn left behind a career that featured many roles in small, independent productions as well as several very well-known films. Penn worked with several esteemed directors and fellow actors, lending his talent to both television and film. Although he never received nearly as much attention or as many awards as his brother Sean, Chris Penn will always be remembered by those who watch movies and appreciate his work.- James Robert Rebhorn (September 1, 1948 - March 21, 2014) was an American actor who appeared in over 100 films, television series, and plays. At the time of his death, he had recurring roles in the current series White Collar and Homeland.
An early performance was in Butterflies are Free at the Peterborough Players in New Hampshire in 1974. Rebhorn played Peter Latham in Forty Carats at the GasLight Dinner Theatre in Salt Lake City in the 1970s. He was known both for portraying WASP stereotypes, lawyers, politicians, doctors, and military men, as well as portraying individuals with criminal behavior. He has delivered equally notable performances in a variety of other roles, including that of a brutal serial killer on NBC's Law & Order (he would later return to the show in the recurring role of defense attorney Charles Garnett), Ellard Muscatine in Lorenzo's Oil (1992), Fred Waters in Blank Check (1994), Clyde Frost, the father of famed bull rider Lane Frost, in 8 Seconds (1994), Lt. Tyler in White Squall (1996), and a shipping magnate in The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). One of his best known performances came in the popular 1996 film Independence Day, where he played Secretary of Defense Albert Nimzicki. He acted in Scent of a Woman (1992), and also played an expert witness in My Cousin Vinny (1992). He appeared in Carlito's Way the following year. Rebhorn also played an FBI Agent in the 1994 film Guarding Tess.
Rebhorn played several roles on television, including an abusive stepfather, Bradley Raines, on the soap opera Guiding Light from 1983 to 1985, and an abusive father, Henry Lange, on sister soap As The World Turns from 1988 to 1991. An earlier daytime role was as John Brady in Texas from 1981 to 1982. In 1994 he played the role of super villain John McFlemp in the episode "Farewell, My Little Viking" of the Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Pete & Pete. In 1998, he played the District Attorney in the two-part series finale of Seinfeld. He also appeared in a supporting roles in The Game, Meet the Parents, and Regarding Henry. In 2004, he appeared in the TV miniseries Reversible Errors. His role in the short-lived and controversial NBC drama The Book of Daniel cast him as the father of the title character. More recently, he appeared in the Showtime series Homeland as Carrie's bipolar father.
Rebhorn also appeared as a judge in Baby Mama. In the 2009 movie The Box, Rebhorn portrayed a NASA scientist. He had recurring roles on the USA series White Collar as Special Agent Reese Hughes, and also as Frank Mathison, the father of the protagonist Carrie Mathison, on Homeland. Rebhorn recently co-starred in the Comedy Central sitcom Big Lake. He played Max Kenton's uncle in the 2011 movie Real Steel. He starred as Oren in the miniseries Coma. Rebhorn starred as Gary Pandamiglio in the 2012 Mike Birbiglia comedy Sleepwalk with Me. He co-starred in the 2013 romantic comedy The Perfect Wedding. His stage career included seven Broadway productions, as well as numerous appearances with New York City's Roundabout Theatre Company. - Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Born in Danbury, Connecticut, USA, to Greg and Mary, Jonathan Brandis began his career at age 5, acting in several television commercials. He also appeared in small parts in several films and TV shows before his first starring role in the 1990 film The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter (1990). He starred in popular films such as Ladybugs (1992) and starred as Lucas Wolenczak in Steven Spielberg's television series SeaQuest 2032 (1993). He doubled up his high school courses so he could finish a year early for his role on SeaQuest. After his career stalled for a bit, he was hoping his role in serious drama film Hart's War (2002) would relaunch it. However, most of his scenes ended up being cut from the finished film. This caused him to fall into a deep depression in which he would drink heavily and tragically end his own life on November 12th, 2003.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Michael Clarke Duncan was born on December 10, 1957 in Chicago, Illinois. Raised on Chicago's South Side by his single mother, Jean, a house cleaner, Duncan grew up resisting drugs and alcohol, instead concentrating on school. He wanted to play football in high school, but his mother wouldn't let him, afraid that he would get hurt. He then turned to acting and dreamed of becoming a famous actor.
After graduating from high school and attending community college, he worked digging ditches at People's Gas Company in Chicago. When he quit his job and headed to Hollywood, he landed small roles while working as a bodyguard. Duncan's role in the movie Armageddon (1998) led to his breakthrough performance in The Green Mile (1999), when his Armageddon co-star Bruce Willis called director Frank Darabont, suggesting Duncan for the part of convict John Coffey. He landed the role and won critical acclaim as well as many other Awards and Nominations, including an Academy Award Nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
After suffering a heart attack on July 13, 2012, he was taken to a Los Angeles hospital, in which his girlfriend Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth tried to save his life with CPR. Unfortunately, on September 3, 2012, Michael Clarke Duncan died at age 54 from respiratory failure.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Natasha Jane Richardson was born in Marylebone, London, England, to director and producer Tony Richardson and actress Vanessa Redgrave. She was the sister of actress Joely Richardson, the niece of actors Corin Redgrave and Lynn Redgrave, and the granddaughter of actors Michael Redgrave and Rachel Kempson.
Trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama, Richardson performed extensively on stage in roles, including "Helena" in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and Ophelia in "Hamlet" at the Young Vic. In 1986, she garnered the London Drama Critics' Most Promising Newcomer Award for her performance as "Nina" in "The Seagull", with Vanessa Redgrave and Jonathan Pryce. In 1987, she played "Tracey Lord" in Richard Eyre's musical, "High Society".
Natasha made her feature film debut as Mary Shelley in Ken Russell's Gothic (1986). Her performance caught the attention of director Paul Schrader, who cast her in the title role in Patty Hearst (1988). Natasha achieved notable success in such films as Pat O'Connor's A Month in the Country (1987), Roland Joffé's Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) and The Favour, the Watch and the Very Big Fish (1991), featuring Bob Hoskins and Jeff Goldblum. For her performance in Volker Schlöndorff's The Handmaid's Tale (1990) and Schrader's The Comfort of Strangers (1990), Richardson earned The London Evening Standard Award for Best Actress of 1990; and for Widows' Peak (1994), also starring Mia Farrow and Joan Plowright, she received the Best Actress Award at the 1994 Karlovy Vary Festival.
Also in 1994, she co-starred with Jodie Foster and Liam Neeson in Nell (1994) and, in 1998, in The Parent Trap (1998) with Dennis Quaid. Her early 2000s films include Blow Dry (2001) released in 2001, and Ethan Hawke's Chelsea Walls (2001).
Natasha performed the title role of "Anna Christie", first in London, where she was voted London Drama Critics' Best Actress Award in 1992, then on Broadway at the Roundabout in 1993, where she was nominated for a Tony for Best Actress in a Play, a Theatre World Award for Outstanding Debut, the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Debut of an Actress, and a Drama Desk nomination for Best Actress. For her performance as Sally Bowles in Sam Mendes' production of "Cabaret", she won the 1998 Tony, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Drama Desk Awards for Best Actress in a Musical. She then appeared on Broadway in Patrick Marber's Tony-nominated play "Closer". In December 2009 she had been intended to play "Miss Julie" on Broadway with Philip Seymour Hoffman, directed by David Leveaux for Roundabout Theatre.
Richardson's television credits included Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts" for the BBC, also starring Judi Dench, Michael Gambon and Kenneth Branagh; the HBO cable feature Hostages (1992); the BBC film Suddenly, Last Summer (1993), based on the play by Tennessee Williams, and also starring Maggie Smith and Rob Lowe. In 1993 she starred as Zelda Fitzgerald in the TNT movie Zelda (1993), co-starring Timothy Hutton and directed by Pat O'Connor (cable Ace nomination for Best Actress). She played Ruth Gruber in the 2001 CBS mini-series Haven (2001) based on Ms. Gruber's autobiography.
In March 2009, Natasha died in a New York City hospital, after falling and receiving a head injury whilst skiing in Mont Tremblant, Quebec, Canada. Natasha was married to actor Liam Neeson from 1994 until her death, and the couple have two children.- Quinn was born in Dublin, Ireland, and moved to the United States with his mother and two sisters in 1988. His first role was as a pool shark in the Richard Marx video Satisfied. He later landed a major role in the John Travolta film Shout (1991), where he shared a screen kiss with Gwyneth Paltrow. He went on to have roles in a number of other movies and television series. His most notable roles were as Becky's husband, Mark, on Roseanne (1988) and half-demon Doyle on the WB's Angel (1999). He died of a heroin overdose in 2002.
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
- Soundtrack
Anton Yelchin was an American actor, known for playing Bobby in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), Chekov in the Star Trek (2009) reboot, Charlie Brewster in the Fright Night (2011) remake, and Jacob in Like Crazy (2011).
He was born in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, USSR, to a Jewish family. His parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were a successful pair of professional figure skaters in Leningrad, and his grandfather was also a professional sportsman, a soccer player. Anton was a six-month-old baby when he immigrated to the United States, where his parents settled in California and eventually developed coaching careers. He demonstrated his strong personality from the early age of four, and declined his parents' tutelage in figure skating because he was fond of acting and knew exactly what he wanted to do in his life.
Yelchin attended acting classes in Los Angeles, and eventually was noticed by casting agents. In 2000, at the age of 10, he made his debut on television, appearing as Robbie Edelstein in the medical drama ER (1994). At the age of 11, he shot to fame as Bobby Garfield, co-starring opposite Anthony Hopkins in Hearts in Atlantis (2001), and earning himself the 2002 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film as Leading Young Actor. Over the course of his acting career, Yelchin has already played roles in more than 20 feature films and television productions, including Pavel Chekov in the hugely successful reboot Star Trek (2009), and its sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).
Outside of his acting profession, Anton loved reading, and was also fond of playing chess. He wrote music and performed with a band, where he also played piano and guitar.
Anton lived in Los Angeles, California, until his death on the evening of June 19, 2016, outside his LA home, when his parked Jeep Grand Cherokee rolled backward on his steep driveway, pinning him against a brick pillar and security fence. This was due to badly designed shifter that indicated park when it was in neutral. This death, along with reports of other near-misses, resulted in a recall of that model.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
David Carradine was born in Hollywood, California, the eldest son of legendary character actor John Carradine, and his wife, Ardanelle Abigail (McCool). He was a member of an acting family that included brothers Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine as well as his daughters Calista Carradine and Kansas Carradine, and nieces Ever Carradine and Martha Plimpton.
He was born in Hollywood and educated at San Francisco State College, where he studied music theory and composition. It was while writing music for the Drama Department's annual revues that he discovered his own passion for the stage, joining a Shakespearean repertory company and learning his craft on his feet. After a two-year stint in the army, he found work in New York as a commercial artist and later found fame on Broadway in "The Deputy" and "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" opposite Christopher Plummer. With that experience he returned to Hollywood, landing the lead in the short-lived TV series Shane (1966) before being tapped to star opposite Barbara Hershey in Martin Scorsese's first Hollywood film, Boxcar Bertha (1972). The iconic Kung Fu (1972) followed, catapulting Carradine to super-stardom for the next three years, until he left the series to pursue his film career.
That career included more than 100 feature films, a couple of dozen television movies, a whole range of theater on and off Broadway and another hit series, Kung Fu: A Legend Reborn (1992).
Carradine received the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Film Review as well as a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory (1976), and he won critical acclaim for his work as Cole Younger in The Long Riders (1980). "Kung Fu" also received seven Emmy nominations in its first season, including one for Carradine as Best Actor. In addition, he won the People's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival's "Director's Fortnight" for his work on Americana (1981), and a second Golden Globe nomination for his supporting role in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985). Among his other notable film credits were Gray Lady Down (1978), Mean Streets (1973), Bird on a Wire (1990), The Long Goodbye (1973), The Serpent's Egg (1977) and Circle of Iron (1978). He returned to the screen in what could be his greatest performance, playing the title role in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), for which he received his fourth Golden Globe nomination. He also continued his devotion to music, and recorded some 60 tracks in various musical genres and sang in several movies. He made his home in Los Angeles with his fifth wife Annie, her four children and their two dogs.
Found dead in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 3, 2009, aged 72.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
When he was 11, he wanted to be a comedian like Sid Caesar. Then, when he was 15 and saw Lee J. Cobb in 'Death of a Salesman,' he decided he would be a comedy actor and found that Mel Brooks was a great influence on his screen writing. He combined both talents with directing in The World's Greatest Lover (1977), followed by The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975).- Actress
- Director
As she inherited her love for the arts by her father, well-known playwright, actor, director and novelist Mario Peña, it is not hard to understand that actress Elizabeth Pena already had designs to become an actress by the time she was eight years old.
Born in Elizabeth, New Jersey on September 23, 1959, the petite (5' 2") actress was raised in New York City. Elizabeth's (and sister Tania's) parents, Cuban immigrants Mario and Estella Margarita Peña, would achieve a strong Latino reputation as the founders of the off-Broadway Latin-American Theatre Ensemble. They also encouraged Elizabeth's talent. In 1975, the young teenager became a founding member of the Hispanic Organization of Latin Actors, and two years later graduated from New York's High School of Performing Arts, now the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts.
Elizabeth found occasional work in repertory theater and in television commercials. Making her film debut in the independent Spanish-speaking feature El Super (1979), about Cuban refugees, she continued with playing a long line of independent and rebellious characters, which showed plenty of attitude and independence. Playing offbeat roles -- from a knife-threatening waitress to a disco queen -- she appeared in such early films as They All Laughed (1981) and Crossover Dreams (1985). Elizabeth's big break came in the form a support role in the hugely popular and entertaining comedy Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986), co-starring Bette Midler, Richard Dreyfuss and Nick Nolte, in which she stole several scenes as the sultry, smoky-voiced, politically-minded maid Carmen.
Two consecutive short-lived television series came about around this time. Her first, the ensemble comedy Tough Cookies (1986), had her playing a police officer, and the second was the title housekeeper role in the sitcom I Married Dora (1987). High in demand now, Elizabeth continued to spice up both the big and small screen in such roles as Ritchie Valens' stepsister-in-law in the well-received biopic La Bamba (1987); a drug enforcement agent in the miniseries Drug Wars: The Camarena Story (1990); PTSD-suffering Tim Robbins' live-in girlfriend in the complex drama Jacob's Ladder (1990); and a dedicated legal secretary on the corporate drama series Shannon's Deal (1990) starring Jamey Sheridan.
Honors also came Elizabeth's way when she received the Independent Spirit and Bravo awards for the film Lone Star (1996), and four ALMA Awards for her performances in the television movie Contagious (1997), the films Tortilla Soup (2001) and Rush Hour (1998), and her regular role on the Latino drama series Resurrection Blvd. (2000).
Into the millennium, Elizabeth found steady employment on television with guest roles on Boston Public (2000), CSI: Miami (2002), Without a Trace (2002), Numb3rs (2005), Ghost Whisperer (2005), Charlie's Angels (2011), Prime Suspect (2011), Common Law (2012), and Modern Family (2009). One of her last roles was on the television series Matador (2014). She also found herself further down the credits in films such as On the Borderline (2001), Transamerica (2005), The Lost City (2005), Mother and Child (2009), The Perfect Family (2011), Plush (2013), and Grandma (2015). Three other films -- Girl on the Edge (2015), Ana Maria in Novela Land (2015), and The Song of Sway Lake (2018) -- were released posthumously. She also provided a voice in the popular Disney/Pixar animated film The Incredibles (2004).
A chronic alcohol problem severely hampered Elizabeth's life and she died suddenly from cirrhosis of the liver in Los Angeles, California on October 14, 2014, at age 55. She was survived by her second husband (from 1994), Hans Rolla, and their two children, son Kælan and daughter Fiona.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Alan Rickman was born on a council estate in Acton, West London, to Margaret Doreen Rose (Bartlett), of English and Welsh descent, and Bernard Rickman, of Irish descent, who worked at a factory. Alan Rickman had an older brother (David), a younger brother (Michael), and a younger sister (Sheila). When Alan was 8 years old, his father died. He attended Latymer Upper School on a scholarship. He studied Graphic Design at Chelsea College of Art and Design, where he met Rima Horton, who would later become his longtime partner.
After three years at Chelsea College, Rickman did graduate studies at the Royal College of Art. He opened a successful graphic design business, Graphiti, with friends and managed it for several years before his love of theatre led him to seek an audition with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). At the relatively late age of 26, Rickman received a scholarship to RADA, which started a professional acting career that has lasted nearly 40 years, a career which has spanned stage, screen and television, and overlapped into directing, as well. In 1987, he first came to the attention of American audiences as the Vicomte de Valmont in "Les Liaisons Dangereuses" on Broadway (he was nominated for a Tony Award for his performance in the role). Denied the role in the film version of the show, Rickman instead made his first film appearance opposite Bruce Willis in Die Hard (1988) as the villainous Hans Gruber. His take on the urbane villain set the standard for screen villains for decades to come.
Although often cited as being a master of playing villains, Rickman actually played a wide variety of characters, such as the romantic cello-playing ghost Jamie in Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply (1990) and the noble Colonel Brandon of Sense and Sensibility (1995). He treated audiences to his comedic abilities in such films as Dogma (1999), Galaxy Quest (1999) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), and roles like Dr. Alfred Blalock in Something the Lord Made (2004), and as Alex Hughes in Snow Cake (2006), showcased his ability to play ordinary men in extraordinary situations. Rickman even conquered the daunting task of singing a role in a Stephen Sondheim musical as he took on the role of Judge Turpin in the movie adaptation of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). In 2001, Rickman introduced himself to a whole new, younger generation of fans by taking on the role of Severus Snape in the film versions of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). He continued to play the role through the eighth and last movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011).
Alan Rickman died of pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016. He was 69 years old.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Actress-comedienne Bea Arthur was born Bernice Frankel on May 13, 1922 in New York City to a Jewish family. She grew up in Maryland, where her parents ran a dress shop. At 12 years old, she was the tallest girl in her school at 5'9".
She earned the title of "Wittiest Girl" in her school, and her dream was to be in show business, but she didn't think her family would support her. She then worked as a laboratory technician, and in the Marine Corps; she drove a truck, and worked as a typist. Her brief first marriage ended in divorce. Afterwards, she told her parents that she wanted to pursue a career in show business, and they supported her decision to join the New York's Dramatic Workshop for the New School for Social Research.
Arthur (her acting name based on a variation of her first husband's surname) played classical and dramatic roles, but it would be years before she found her niche in comedy. Her breakthrough came on stage while appearing in the musical play "The Threepenny Opera," with Lotte Lenya. For one season in the 1950's, she was a regular on Sid Caesar's television show,Caesar's Hour (1954). In 1964, she became truly famous as Yente the Matchmaker, in the original Broadway production of "Fiddler on the Roof". Despite this being a small supporting role, Arthur stole the show night after night.
In 1966, she went to work on a new Broadway musical, "Mame", directed by her second husband, Gene Saks, winning a Tony Award for the featured role of Vera Charles. The show's star, Angela Lansbury, also won a Tony Award, and she and Bea became lifelong friends. In 1971, Arthur appeared on the hit sitcom All in the Family (1971) as Maude Findlay, Edith Bunker's cousin, who was forever driving Archie Bunker crazy with her liberal politics. The guest appearance led to Arthur's own series, Maude (1972). The show was a hit, running for six years, during which many controversial topics of the time, including abortion, were tackled, and Bea won her first Emmy Award. While doing Maude (1972), Arthur repeated the role of Vera Charles in the film version of Mame (1974), again directed by Gene Saks, but it was a dismal flop. She also appeared on The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978). While appearing in Maude (1972), she raised her two sons, whom she had adopted with husband Gene Saks. After the show ended, so did her marriage to Saks. She never remarried. She became a lifelong animal rights' activist.
In 1983, she started working on a new sitcom, Amanda's (1983), patterned after Britain's Fawlty Towers (1975) but it was short-lived. In 1985, The Golden Girls (1985) made its debut. Co-starring Betty White, Rue McClanahan and Estelle Getty, the show was about the lives of three middle-aged women, and one elderly mother, (played by Getty, who was actually younger than White and Arthur), living in Miami. It was an immediate hit, running for seven seasons. All of the cast members, including Arthur, won Emmy Awards during the show's run. She left when she thought each show was at its peak. The producers realized the shows wouldn't be the same without her. In 1992, The Golden Girls (1985) was canceled. Arthur kept a low profile, appearing in only two movies: For Better or Worse (1995) and Enemies of Laughter (2000).
In 1999, Arthur made an appearance at The N.Y. Friars Club Roast of Jerry Stiller (1999). She did a one-woman stage show in 2001, for which she received a Tony Award nomination. In 2003, she reunited with Betty White and Rue McClanahan for The Golden Girls (1985) reunion special on the Lifetime Channel. Noticeably absent was supporting actress Estelle Getty, who was ill. The three lead actresses made appearances together for the rest of the decade to promote DVD releases of The Golden Girls (1985). They appeared together for the last time in 1998, at the TV Land Awards, receiving a standing ovation as they accepted the Pop Culture Award. She attended her induction into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, with Angela Lansbury.
On April 25, 2009, at home with her family, Arthur died of cancer. She was 86. She was survived by her two sons, Matthew and Daniel, and her grandchildren, Kyra and Violet. In her will, she left $300,000 to New York's Ali Forney Center, an organization supporting homeless LGBT youths.- Actor
- Producer
An oddly fascinating bloke with prominent bony cheeks and rawboned figure, Peter William (Pete) Postlethwaite was born on February 16, 1946 and was a distinguished character actor on stage, TV and film. Growing up the youngest of four siblings in a Catholic family in Warrington, Lancashire (near Liverpool) in middle-class surroundings to working-class parents, he attended St Mary's University (London). However, while completing his studies, he developed an interest in theatre, to the chagrin of his father, who wanted his children to find secure positions in life.
A drama teacher initially at a Catholic girls convent school, he decided to follow his acting instincts full-time and gradually built up an impressive array of classical stage credits via repertory, including the Bristol Old Vic Drama School, and in stints with Liverpool Everyman, Manchester Royal Exchange and the Royal Shakespeare Company. By the 1980s he was ready to branch out into film and TV, giving a startling performance as a wife abuser in the Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988).
By 1993 he had crossed over into Hollywood parts and earned his first Oscar nomination for his superb role as Daniel Day-Lewis' father in In the Name of the Father (1993). Other quality roles came his way with The Usual Suspects (1995), Brassed Off (1996), and Amistad (1997). He did fine work on television in Sharpe's Company (1994), Lost for Words (1999), and The Sins (2000). Postlethwaite worked equally both in the UK and abroad, and avoided the public limelight for the most part, except for occasional displays of political activism.
Postlethwaite lived quietly out of the spotlight in England and continued on in films with roles in The Shipping News (2001), The Limit (2004), Dark Water (2005), The Omen (2006), Ghost Son (2007) and Solomon Kane (2009). In 2010, he was seen in Clash of the Titans (2010), Inception (2010) and The Town (2010).
Postlewaite died on January 2, 2011, at age 64, of pancreatic cancer. He was surrounded by his wife and son, and by his daughter from a prior relationship.- Actor
- Soundtrack
A bold, blunt instrument of hatred and violence at the onset of his film career, Peter Boyle recoiled from that repugnant, politically incorrect "working class" image to eventually play gruff, gentler bears and even comedy monsters in a career that lasted four decades.
He was born on October 18, 1935, in Norristown, Pennsylvania, to Alice (Lewis) and Francis Xavier Boyle. He eventually moved to Philadelphia, where his father was a sought-after local TV personality and children's show host. His paternal grandparents were Irish immigrants, and his mother was of mostly French and British Isles descent. Following a solid Catholic upbringing (he attended a Catholic high school), Peter was a sensitive youth and joined the Christian Brothers religious order at one point while attending La Salle University in Philadelphia. He left the monastery after only a few years when he "lost" his calling.
Bent on an acting career, Boyle initially studied with guru Uta Hagen in New York. The tall (6' 2"), hulking, prematurely bald actor wannabe struggled through a variety of odd jobs (postal worker, waiter, bouncer) while simultaneously building up his credits on stage and waiting for that first big break. Things started progressing for him after appearing in the national company of "The Odd Couple" in 1965 and landing TV commercials on the sly. In the late 60s he joined Chicago's Second City improv group and made his Broadway debut as a replacement for Peter Bonerz in Paul Sills' "Story Theatre" (1971) (Sills was the founder of Second City). Peter's breakout film role did not come without controversy as the hateful, hardhat-donning bigot-turned-murderer Joe (1970) in a tense, violence-prone film directed by John G. Avildsen. The role led to major notoriety, however, and some daunting supporting parts in T.R. Baskin (1971), Slither (1973) and as Robert Redford's calculating campaign manager in The Candidate (1972). During this time his political radicalism found a visible platform after joining Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland on anti-war crusades, which would include the anti-establishment picture Steelyard Blues (1973). This period also saw the forging of a strong friendship with former Beatle John Lennon.
Destined to be cast as monstrous undesirables throughout much of his career, he played a monster of another sort in his early film days, and thus avoided a complete stereotype as a film abhorrent. His hilarious, sexually potent Frankenstein's Monster in the cult Mel Brooks spoof Young Frankenstein (1974) saw him in a sympathetic and certainly more humorous vein. His creature's first public viewing, in which Boyle shares an adroit tap-dancing scene with "creator" Gene Wilder in full Fred Astaire regalia, was a show-stopping audience pleaser. Late 70s filmgoers continued to witness Boyle in seamy, urban settings with brutish roles in Taxi Driver (1976) and Hardcore (1979). At the same time he addressed several TV mini-movie roles with the same brilliant darkness such as his Senator Joe McCarthy in Tail Gunner Joe (1977), for which he received an Emmy nomination, and his murderous, knife-wielding Fatso in the miniseries remake of From Here to Eternity (1979).
While the following decade found Peter in predominantly less noteworthy filming and a short-lived TV series lead as remote cop Joe Bash (1986), the 90s brought him Emmy glory (for a guest episode on The X-Files (1993)). Despite a blood clot-induced stroke in 1990 that impaired his speech for six months, he ventured on and capped his enviable career on TV wielding funny but crass one-liners in the "Archie Bunker" mold on the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). A major Emmy blunder had Boyle earning seven nominations for his Frank Barrone character without a win, the only prime player on the show unhonored. He survived a heart attack while on the set of "Everybody Loves Raymond" in 1999, but managed to return full time for the remainder of the series' run through 2005.
Following a superb turn as Billy Bob Thornton's unrepentantly racist father in the sobering Oscar-winner Monster's Ball (2001), the remainder of his films were primarily situated in frivolous comedy fare such as The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002), The Santa Clause 2 (2002), Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004), and The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), typically playing cranky curmudgeons. Boyle died of multiple myeloma (bone-marrow cancer) and heart disease at New York Presbyterian Hospital in 2006, and was survived by his wife Lorraine and two children. He was 71.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
James Gandolfini was born in Westwood, New Jersey, to Santa (Penna), a high school lunchlady, and James Joseph Gandolfini, Sr., a bricklayer and head school janitor. His parents were both of Italian origin. Gandolfini began acting in the New York theater. His Broadway debut was in the 1992 revival of "A Streetcar Named Desire" with Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin. James' breakthrough role was his portrayal of Virgil the hitman in Tony Scott's True Romance (1993), but the role that brought him worldwide fame and accolades was as complex Mafia boss Tony Soprano in HBO's smash hit series The Sopranos (1999). He died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2013 while vacationing in Italy.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Patrick Wayne Swayze was born on August 18, 1952 in Houston, Texas, to Patsy Swayze (née Yvonne Helen Karnes), a choreographer, and Jesse Wayne Swayze, a chemical plant engineer draftsman. His mother owned a dance school in Houston, where Patrick was also a student. His father passed away in 1982. He graduated from Waltrip High School in Houston, and attended San Jacinto College in Pasadena, Texas. He married actress/dancer Lisa Niemi on June 12, 1975, whom he had known when she was 15 and a student at his mother's dance school. His New York City dance training included the Harkness Ballet School and Joffrey Ballet School. He first danced professionally as "Prince Charming" in "Disney on Parade". After a stint as "Danny Zuko" in the original Broadway production of "Grease", he made his film debut with a small role in Skatetown U.S.A. (1979). He made his television debut in 1981 on M*A*S*H (1972), as a soldier diagnosed with leukemia.
After many supporting roles in films and a lead role in the TV mini-series North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985), he landed his breakthrough role as dance instructor "Johnny Castle" in the hit film Dirty Dancing (1987), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination. He received a second nomination for his portrayal of "Sam Wheat" in the blockbuster Ghost (1990). Ghost (1990) was the highest-grossing film of 1990, and at one point, the fourth highest-grossing film of all time. Unfortunately, he did not capitalize on its success. His subsequent films like City of Joy (1992), Tall Tale (1995), Black Dog (1998), and Waking Up in Reno (2002) did not fare well with critics or audiences. In December 2003, he returned to Broadway as a replacement for the lead role of "Billy Flynn" in the acclaimed revival of John Kander & Fred Ebb's musical, "Chicago". The production also went on tour in several cities of the United States, including Los Angeles. In January 2008, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He fought the illness for well over a year and was able to continue working, but died on September 14, 2009.- Actor
- Writer
- Composer
Referred to by some as a dadaistic comedian, Andy Kaufman took comedy and performance art to the edges of irrationality and blurred the dividing line between reality and imagination. Born in New York City on January 17, 1949, the first son of Stanley and Janice Kaufman, Andy grew up on New York in the town of Great Neck. He began performing for family and friends at the age of 7, and by the time he was 9 was being hired to entertain at children's parties. After a year at a Boston junior college, Andy began performing his unique brand of stand-up comedy at coffee shops and nightclubs on the east coast. Discovered by Improvisation comedy club owner Bud Friedman, Andy quickly earned a reputation as a talented, yet eccentric performer. Impressed by his abilities, Lorne Michaels asked Kaufman to appear on the inaugural broadcast of Saturday Night Live (October 11, 1975). Best known for his work as Latka Gravas on the TV sitcom Taxi, Andy appeared in several TV shows and movies, on Broadway, did a one man show at Carnegie Hall, enjoyed a brief professional wrestling career and performed in concerts nation-wide.- Actor
- Director
- Cinematographer
When hunky, twenty-year-old heart-throb Heath Ledger first came to the attention of the public in 1999, it was all too easy to tag him as a "pretty boy" and an actor of little depth. He spent several years trying desperately to sway this image, but this was a double-edged sword. His work comprised nineteen films, including 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), The Patriot (2000), A Knight's Tale (2001), Monster's Ball (2001), Ned Kelly (2003), The Brothers Grimm (2005), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Casanova (2005), Candy (2006), I'm Not There (2007), The Dark Knight (2008) and The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009). He also produced and directed music videos and aspired to be a film director.
Heath Ledger was born on the fourth of April 1979, in Perth, Western Australia, to Sally (Ramshaw), a teacher of French, and Kim Ledger, a mining engineer who also raced cars. His ancestry was Scottish, English, Irish, and Sephardi Jewish. As the story goes, in junior high school it was compulsory to take one of two electives, either cooking or drama. As Heath could not see himself in a cooking class he tried his hand at drama. Heath was talented, however the rest of the class did not acknowledge his talent. When he was seventeen he and a friend decided to pack up, leave school, take a car and rough it to Sydney. Heath believed Sydney to be the place where dreams were made or, at least, where actors could possibly get their big break. Upon arriving in Sydney with a purported sixty-nine cents to his name, Heath tried everything to get a break.
His first real acting job came in a low-budget movie called Blackrock (1997), a largely unimpressive cliché; an adolescent angst film about one boy's struggle when he learns his best mate raped a girl. He only had a very small role in the film. After that small role Heath auditioned for a role in a T.V. show called Sweat (1996) about a group of young Olympic hopefuls. He was offered one of two roles, one as a swimmer, another as a gay cyclist. Heath accepted the latter because he felt to really stand out as an actor one had to accept unique roles that stood out from the bunch. It got him small notice, but unfortunately the show was quickly axed, forcing him to look for other roles. He was in Home and Away (1988) for a very short period, in which he played a surfer who falls in love with one of the girls of Summer Bay. Then came his very brief role in Paws (1997), a film which existed solely to cash in on guitar prodigy Nathan Cavaleri's brief moment of fame, where he was the hottest thing in Australia. Heath played a student in the film, involved in a stage production of a Shakespeare play, in which he played "Oberon". A very brief role, this offered him a small paycheck but did nothing to advance his career. Then came Two Hands (1999). He went to the U.S. trying to audition for film roles, showcasing his brief role in Roar (1997) opposite then unknown Vera Farmiga.
Then Australian director Gregor Jordan auditioned him for the lead in Two Hands (1999), which he got. An in your face Aussie crime thriller, Two Hands (1999) was outstanding and helped him secure a role in 10 Things I Hate About You (1999). After that, it seemed Heath was being typecast as a young hunk, which he did not like, so he accepted a role in a very serious war drama The Patriot (2000).
What followed was a stark inconsistency of roles, Ledger accepting virtually every single character role, anything to avoid being typecast. Some met with praise, like his short role in Monster's Ball (2001), but his version of Ned Kelly (2003) was an absolute flop, which led distributors hesitant to even release it outside Australia. Heath finally had deserved success with his role in Brokeback Mountain (2005). For his portrayal of Ennis Del Mar in in the film, Ledger won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and Best International Actor from the Australian Film Institute, and was nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role and for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Ledger was found dead on January 22, 2008 in his apartment in the Manhattan neighborhood of SoHo, with a bottle of prescription sleeping pills near-by. It was concluded weeks later that he died of an accidental overdose of prescription drugs that included pain-killers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medication. His death occurred during editing of The Dark Knight (2008) and in the midst of filming his last role as Tony in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009).
Posthumously, he shared the 2007 Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award with the rest of the ensemble cast, the director, and the casting director for the film I'm Not There (2007), which was inspired by the life and songs of American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan. In the film, Ledger portrayed a fictional actor named Robbie Clark, one of six characters embodying aspects of Dylan's life and persona.
A few months before his death, Ledger had finished filming his performance as the Joker in 'The Dark Knight (2008). His untimely death cast a somber shadow over the subsequent promotion of the $185 million Batman production. Ledger received more than thirty posthumous accolades for his critically acclaimed performance as the Joker, the psychopathic clown prince of crime, in the film, including the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, a Best Actor International Award at the 2008 Australian Film Institute Awards (for which he is the second actor to win an acting award posthumously after Peter Finch who won an Oscar for Network (Best Actor 1977)), the 2008 Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor, the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture, and the 2009 BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Jerry Orbach was born in the Bronx, New York, the only child of Leon Orbach, a former vaudevillian actor, was a German Jewish immigrant, who was born in Hamburg, Germany, and Emily (nee Olexy), a radio singer, was born in Pennsylvania to immigrant Polish-Lithuanian Roman Catholic parents, Alexander Olexy and Susanna (nee Klauba). The family moved frequently. He spent part of his childhood in Nanticoke, Pennsylvania and eventually settled in Waukegan, Illinois, where he went to high school.
The constant moving made him the new kid on the block and forced him to become "a chameleon" to blend in his new settings. He studied drama at the University of Illinois and at Northwestern University. He then went to study acting in New York and got constant work in musicals. He slowly pushed to get acting roles in television and films after being overlooked due to his musical roots.
Orbach died at age 69 on December 28, 2004, after a decade-long battle with prostate cancer. His widow, Elaine Cancilla Orbach died on April 1, 2009, from pneumonia. Orbach and Cancilla both predeceased Orbach's mother, Emily Orbach, who died on July 28, 2012, at the age of 101.- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
Garry Shandling was born on 29 November 1949 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for The Larry Sanders Show (1992), It's Garry Shandling's Show. (1986) and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). He died on 24 March 2016 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of stage, screen and TV's finest transatlantic talents, slight, gravel-voiced, pasty-looking John Vincent Hurt was born on January 22, 1940, in Shirebrook, a coal mining village, in Derbyshire, England. The youngest child of Phyllis (Massey), an engineer and one-time actress, and Reverend Arnould Herbert Hurt, an Anglican clergyman and mathematician, his quiet shyness betrayed an early passion for acting. First enrolled at the Grimsby Art School and St. Martin's School of Art, his focus invariably turned from painting to acting.
Accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1960, John made his stage debut in "Infanticide in the House of Fred Ginger" followed by "The Dwarfs." Elsewhere, he continued to build upon his 60's theatrical career with theatre roles in "Chips with Everything" at the Vaudeville, the title role in "Hamp" at the Edinburgh Festival, "Inadmissible Evidence" at Wyndham's and "Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs" at the Garrick. His movie debut occurred that same year with a supporting role in the "angry young man" British drama Young and Willing (1962), followed by small roles in Appuntamento in Riviera (1962), A Man for All Seasons (1966) and The Sailor from Gibraltar (1967).
A somber, freckled, ravaged-looking gent, Hurt found his more compelling early work in offbeat theatrical characterizations with notable roles such as Malcolm in "Macbeth" (1967), Octavius in "Man and Superman" (1969), Peter in "Ride a Cock Horse" (1972), Mike in '"The Caretaker" (1972) and Ben in "The Dumb Waiter" (1973). At the same time he gained more prominence in a spray of film and support roles such as a junior officer in Before Winter Comes (1968), the title highwayman in Sinful Davey (1969), a morose little brother in In Search of Gregory (1969), a dim, murderous truck driver in 10 Rillington Place (1971), a skirt-chasing, penguin-studying biologist in Cry of the Penguins (1971), the unappetizing son of a baron in The Pied Piper (1972) and a repeat of his title stage role as Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Eunuchs (1974).
Hurt shot to international stardom, however, on TV where he was allowed to display his true, fearless range. He reaped widespread acclaim for his embodiment of the tormented gay writer and raconteur Quentin Crisp in the landmark television play The Naked Civil Servant (1975), adapted from Crisp's autobiography. Hurt's bold, unabashed approach on the flamboyant and controversial gent who dared to be different was rewarded with the BAFTA (British TV Award). This triumph led to the equally fascinating success as the cruel and crazed Roman emperor Caligula in the epic television masterpiece I, Claudius (1976), followed by another compelling interpretation as murderous student Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (1979).
A resurgence occurred on film as a result. Among other unsurpassed portraits on his unique pallet, the chameleon in him displayed a polar side as the gentle, pathetically disfigured title role in The Elephant Man (1980), and as a tortured Turkish prison inmate who befriends Brad Davis in the intense drama Midnight Express (1978) earning Oscar nominations for both. Mainstream box-office films were offered as well as art films. He made the most of his role as a crew member whose body becomes host to an unearthly predator in Alien (1979). With this new rush of fame came a few misguided ventures as well that were generally unworthy of his talent. Such brilliant work as his steeple chase jockey in Champions (1984) or kidnapper in The Hit (1984) was occasionally offset by such drivel as the comedy misfire Partners (1982) with Ryan O'Neal in which Hurt looked enervated and embarrassed. For the most part, the craggy-faced actor continued to draw extraordinary notices. Tops on the list includes his prurient governmental gadfly who triggers the Christine Keeler political sex scandal in the aptly-titled Scandal (1989); the cultivated gay writer aroused and obsessed with struggling "pretty-boy" actor Jason Priestley in Love and Death on Long Island (1997); and the Catholic priest embroiled in the Rwanda atrocities in Shooting Dogs (2005).
Latter parts of memorable interpretations included Dr. Iannis in Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001), the recurring role of the benign wand-maker Mr. Ollivander in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), the tyrannical dictator Adam Sutler in V for Vendetta (2005) and the voice of The Dragon in Merlin (2008). Among Hurt's final film appearances were as a terminally ill screenwriter in That Good Night (2017) and a lesser role in the mystery thriller Damascus Cover (2017). Hurt's voice was also tapped into animated features and documentaries, often serving as narrator. He also returned to the theatre performing in such shows as "The Seagull", "A Month in the Country" (1994), "Afterplay" (2002) and "Krapp's Last Tape", the latter for which he received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award.
A recovered alcoholic who married four times, Hurt was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by the Queen in 2004, and Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in 2015. That same year (2015) he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. In July of 2016, he was forced to bow out of the father role of Billy Rice in a then-upcoming London stage production of "The Entertainer" opposite Kenneth Branagh due to ill health that he described as an "intestinal ailment". Hurt died several months later at his home in Cromer, Norfolk, England on January 15, 2017, three days after his 77th birthday.- Actor
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Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the Broadway stage adieu in 1949, a decision for which he was severely criticized when his star began to dim in the 1960s and he was excoriated for squandering his talents. No actor ever exerted such a profound influence on succeeding generations of actors as did Brando. More than 50 years after he first scorched the screen as Stanley Kowalski in the movie version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and a quarter-century after his last great performance as Col. Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), all American actors are still being measured by the yardstick that was Brando. It was if the shadow of John Barrymore, the great American actor closest to Brando in terms of talent and stardom, dominated the acting field up until the 1970s. He did not, nor did any other actor so dominate the public's consciousness of what WAS an actor before or since Brando's 1951 on-screen portrayal of Stanley made him a cultural icon. Brando eclipsed the reputation of other great actors circa 1950, such as Paul Muni and Fredric March. Only the luster of Spencer Tracy's reputation hasn't dimmed when seen in the starlight thrown off by Brando. However, neither Tracy nor Olivier created an entire school of acting just by the force of his personality. Brando did.
Marlon Brando, Jr. was born on April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Marlon Brando, Sr., a calcium carbonate salesman, and his artistically inclined wife, the former Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. "Bud" Brando was one of three children. His ancestry included English, Irish, German, Dutch, French Huguenot, Welsh, and Scottish; his surname originated with a distant German immigrant ancestor named "Brandau." His oldest sister Jocelyn Brando was also an actress, taking after their mother, who engaged in amateur theatricals and mentored a then-unknown Henry Fonda, another Nebraska native, in her role as director of the Omaha Community Playhouse. Frannie, Brando's other sibling, was a visual artist. Both Brando sisters contrived to leave the Midwest for New York City, Jocelyn to study acting and Frannie to study art. Marlon managed to escape the vocational doldrums forecast for him by his cold, distant father and his disapproving schoolteachers by striking out for The Big Apple in 1943, following Jocelyn into the acting profession. Acting was the only thing he was good at, for which he received praise, so he was determined to make it his career - a high-school dropout, he had nothing else to fall back on, having been rejected by the military due to a knee injury he incurred playing football at Shattuck Military Academy, Brando Sr.'s alma mater. The school booted Marlon out as incorrigible before graduation.
Acting was a skill he honed as a child, the lonely son of alcoholic parents. With his father away on the road, and his mother frequently intoxicated to the point of stupefaction, the young Bud would play-act for her to draw her out of her stupor and to attract her attention and love. His mother was exceedingly neglectful, but he loved her, particularly for instilling in him a love of nature, a feeling which informed his character Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972) ("Last Tango in Paris") when he is recalling his childhood for his young lover Jeanne. "I don't have many good memories," Paul confesses, and neither did Brando of his childhood. Sometimes he had to go down to the town jail to pick up his mother after she had spent the night in the drunk tank and bring her home, events that traumatized the young boy but may have been the grain that irritated the oyster of his talent, producing the pearls of his performances. Anthony Quinn, his Oscar-winning co-star in Viva Zapata! (1952) told Brando's first wife Anna Kashfi, "I admire Marlon's talent, but I don't envy the pain that created it."
Brando enrolled in Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at New York's New School, and was mentored by Stella Adler, a member of a famous Yiddish Theatre acting family. Adler helped introduce to the New York stage the "emotional memory" technique of Russian theatrical actor, director and impresario Konstantin Stanislavski, whose motto was "Think of your own experiences and use them truthfully." The results of this meeting between an actor and the teacher preparing him for a life in the theater would mark a watershed in American acting and culture.
Brando made his debut on the boards of Broadway on October 19, 1944, in "I Remember Mama," a great success. As a young Broadway actor, Brando was invited by talent scouts from several different studios to screen-test for them, but he turned them down because he would not let himself be bound by the then-standard seven-year contract. Brando would make his film debut quite some time later in Fred Zinnemann's The Men (1950) for producer Stanley Kramer. Playing a paraplegic soldier, Brando brought new levels of realism to the screen, expanding on the verisimilitude brought to movies by Group Theatre alumni John Garfield, the predecessor closest to him in the raw power he projected on-screen. Ironically, it was Garfield whom producer Irene Mayer Selznick had chosen to play the lead in a new Tennessee Williams play she was about to produce, but negotiations broke down when Garfield demanded an ownership stake in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Burt Lancaster was next approached, but couldn't get out of a prior film commitment. Then director Elia Kazan suggested Brando, whom he had directed to great effect in Maxwell Anderson's play "Truckline Café," in which Brando co-starred with Karl Malden, who was to remain a close friend for the next 60 years.
During the production of "Truckline Café," Kazan had found that Brando's presence was so magnetic, he had to re-block the play to keep Marlon near other major characters' stage business, as the audience could not take its eyes off of him. For the scene where Brando's character re-enters the stage after killing his wife, Kazan placed him upstage-center, partially obscured by scenery, but where the audience could still see him as Karl Malden and others played out their scene within the café set. When he eventually entered the scene, crying, the effect was electric. A young Pauline Kael, arriving late to the play, had to avert her eyes when Brando made this entrance as she believed the young actor on stage was having a real-life conniption. She did not look back until her escort commented that the young man was a great actor.
The problem with casting Brando as Stanley was that he was much younger than the character as written by Williams. However, after a meeting between Brando and Williams, the playwright eagerly agreed that Brando would make an ideal Stanley. Williams believed that by casting a younger actor, the Neanderthalish Kowalski would evolve from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to his youthful ignorance. Brando ultimately was dissatisfied with his performance, though, saying he never was able to bring out the humor of the character, which was ironic as his characterization often drew laughs from the audience at the expense of Jessica Tandy's Blanche Dubois. During the out-of-town tryouts, Kazan realized that Brando's magnetism was attracting attention and audience sympathy away from Blanche to Stanley, which was not what the playwright intended. The audience's sympathy should be solely with Blanche, but many spectators were identifying with Stanley. Kazan queried Williams on the matter, broaching the idea of a slight rewrite to tip the scales back to more of a balance between Stanley and Blanche, but Williams demurred, smitten as he was by Brando, just like the preview audiences.
For his part, Brando believed that the audience sided with his Stanley because Jessica Tandy was too shrill. He thought Vivien Leigh, who played the part in the movie, was ideal, as she was not only a great beauty but she WAS Blanche Dubois, troubled as she was in her real life by mental illness and nymphomania. Brando's appearance as Stanley on stage and on screen revolutionized American acting by introducing "The Method" into American consciousness and culture. Method acting, rooted in Adler's study at the Moscow Art Theatre of Stanislavsky's theories that she subsequently introduced to the Group Theatre, was a more naturalistic style of performing, as it engendered a close identification of the actor with the character's emotions. Adler took first place among Brando's acting teachers, and socially she helped turn him from an unsophisticated Midwestern farm boy into a knowledgeable and cosmopolitan artist who one day would socialize with presidents.
Brando didn't like the term "The Method," which quickly became the prominent paradigm taught by such acting gurus as Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Brando denounced Strasberg in his autobiography "Songs My Mother Taught Me" (1994), saying that he was a talentless exploiter who claimed he had been Brando's mentor. The Actors Studio had been founded by Strasberg along with Kazan and Stella Adler's husband, Harold Clurman, all Group Theatre alumni, all political progressives deeply committed to the didactic function of the stage. Brando credits his knowledge of the craft to Adler and Kazan, while Kazan in his autobiography "A Life" claimed that Brando's genius thrived due to the thorough training Adler had given him. Adler's method emphasized that authenticity in acting is achieved by drawing on inner reality to expose deep emotional experience
Interestingly, Elia Kazan believed that Brando had ruined two generations of actors, his contemporaries and those who came after him, all wanting to emulate the great Brando by employing The Method. Kazan felt that Brando was never a Method actor, that he had been highly trained by Adler and did not rely on gut instincts for his performances, as was commonly believed. Many a young actor, mistaken about the true roots of Brando's genius, thought that all it took was to find a character's motivation, empathize with the character through sense and memory association, and regurgitate it all on stage to become the character. That's not how the superbly trained Brando did it; he could, for example, play accents, whereas your average American Method actor could not. There was a method to Brando's art, Kazan felt, but it was not The Method.
After A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), for which he received the first of his eight Academy Award nominations, Brando appeared in a string of Academy Award-nominated performances - in Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953) and the summit of his early career, Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954). For his "Waterfront" portrayal of meat-headed longshoreman Terry Malloy, the washed-up pug who "coulda been a contender," Brando won his first Oscar. Along with his iconic performance as the rebel-without-a-cause Johnny in The Wild One (1953) ("What are you rebelling against?" Johnny is asked. "What have ya got?" is his reply), the first wave of his career was, according to Jon Voight, unprecedented in its audacious presentation of such a wide range of great acting. Director John Huston said his performance of Marc Antony was like seeing the door of a furnace opened in a dark room, and co-star John Gielgud, the premier Shakespearean actor of the 20th century, invited Brando to join his repertory company.
It was this period of 1951-54 that revolutionized American acting, spawning such imitators as James Dean - who modeled his acting and even his lifestyle on his hero Brando - the young Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. After Brando, every up-and-coming star with true acting talent and a brooding, alienated quality would be hailed as the "New Brando," such as Warren Beatty in Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961). "We are all Brando's children," Jack Nicholson pointed out in 1972. "He gave us our freedom." He was truly "The Godfather" of American acting - and he was just 30 years old. Though he had a couple of failures, like Désirée (1954) and The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), he was clearly miscast in them and hadn't sought out the parts so largely escaped blame.
In the second period of his career, 1955-62, Brando managed to uniquely establish himself as a great actor who also was a Top 10 movie star, although that star began to dim after the box-office high point of his early career, Sayonara (1957) (for which he received his fifth Best Actor Oscar nomination). Brando tried his hand at directing a film, the well-reviewed One-Eyed Jacks (1961) that he made for his own production company, Pennebaker Productions (after his mother's maiden name). Stanley Kubrick had been hired to direct the film, but after months of script rewrites in which Brando participated, Kubrick and Brando had a falling out and Kubrick was sacked. According to his widow Christiane Kubrick, Stanley believed that Brando had wanted to direct the film himself all along.
Tales proliferated about the profligacy of Brando the director, burning up a million and a half feet of expensive VistaVision film at 50 cents a foot, fully ten times the normal amount of raw stock expended during production of an equivalent motion picture. Brando took so long editing the film that he was never able to present the studio with a cut. Paramount took it away from him and tacked on a re-shot ending that Brando was dissatisfied with, as it made the Oedipal figure of Dad Longworth into a villain. In any normal film Dad would have been the heavy, but Brando believed that no one was innately evil, that it was a matter of an individual responding to, and being molded by, one's environment. It was not a black-and-white world, Brando felt, but a gray world in which once-decent people could do horrible things. This attitude explains his sympathetic portrayal of Nazi officer Christian Diestl in the film he made before shooting One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Edward Dmytryk's filming of Irwin Shaw's novel The Young Lions (1958). Shaw denounced Brando's performance, but audiences obviously disagreed, as the film was a major hit. It would be the last hit movie Brando would have for more than a decade.
One-Eyed Jacks (1961) generated respectable numbers at the box office, but the production costs were exorbitant - a then-staggering $6 million - which made it run a deficit. A film essentially is "made" in the editing room, and Brando found cutting to be a terribly boring process, which was why the studio eventually took the film away from him. Despite his proved talent in handling actors and a large production, Brando never again directed another film, though he would claim that all actors essentially direct themselves during the shooting of a picture.
Between the production and release of One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Brando appeared in Sidney Lumet's film version of Tennessee Williams' play "Orpheus Descending," The Fugitive Kind (1960) which teamed him with fellow Oscar winners Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward. Following in Elizabeth Taylor's trailblazing footsteps, Brando became the second performer to receive a $1-million salary for a motion picture, so high were the expectations for this re-teaming of Kowalski and his creator (in 1961 critic Hollis Alpert had published a book "Brando and the Shadow of Stanley Kowalski"). Critics and audiences waiting for another incendiary display from Brando in a Williams work were disappointed when the renamed The Fugitive Kind (1960) finally released. Though Tennessee was hot, with movie versions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) burning up the box office and receiving kudos from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, The Fugitive Kind (1960) was a failure. This was followed by the so-so box-office reception of One-Eyed Jacks (1961) in 1961 and then by a failure of a more monumental kind: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), a remake of the famed 1935 film.
Brando signed on to Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) after turning down the lead in the David Lean classic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) because he didn't want to spend a year in the desert riding around on a camel. He received another $1-million salary, plus $200,000 in overages as the shoot went overtime and over budget. During principal photography, highly respected director Carol Reed (an eventual Academy Award winner) was fired, and his replacement, two-time Oscar winner Lewis Milestone, was shunted aside by Brando as Marlon basically took over the direction of the film himself. The long shoot became so notorious that President John F. Kennedy asked director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party not "when" but "if" the "Bounty" shoot would ever be over. The MGM remake of one of its classic Golden Age films garnered a Best Picture Oscar nomination and was one of the top grossing films of 1962, yet failed to go into the black due to its Brobdingnagian budget estimated at $20 million, which is equivalent to $120 million when adjusted for inflation.
Brando and Taylor, whose Cleopatra (1963) nearly bankrupted 20th Century-Fox due to its huge cost overruns (its final budget was more than twice that of Brando's Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)), were pilloried by the show business press for being the epitome of the pampered, self-indulgent stars who were ruining the industry. Seeking scapegoats, the Hollywood press conveniently ignored the financial pressures on the studios. The studios had been hurt by television and by the antitrust-mandated divestiture of their movie theater chains, causing a large outflow of production to Italy and other countries in the 1950s and 1960s in order to lower costs. The studio bosses, seeking to replicate such blockbuster hits as the remakes of The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959), were the real culprits behind the losses generated by large-budgeted films that found it impossible to recoup their costs despite long lines at the box office.
While Elizabeth Taylor, receiving the unwanted gift of reams of publicity from her adulterous romance with Cleopatra (1963) co-star Richard Burton, remained hot until the tanking of her own Tennessee Williams-renamed debacle Boom! (1968), Brando from 1963 until the end of the decade appeared in one box-office failure after another as he worked out a contract he had signed with Universal Pictures. The industry had grown tired of Brando and his idiosyncrasies, though he continued to be offered prestige projects up through 1968.
Some of the films Brando made in the 1960s were noble failures, such as The Ugly American (1963), The Appaloosa (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). For every "Reflections," though, there seemed to be two or three outright debacles, such as Bedtime Story (1964), Morituri (1965), The Chase (1966), A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), Candy (1968), The Night of the Following Day (1969). By the time Brando began making the anti-colonialist picture Burn! (1969) in Colombia with Gillo Pontecorvo in the director's chair, he was box-office poison, despite having worked in the previous five years with such top directors as Arthur Penn, John Huston and the legendary Charles Chaplin, and with such top-drawer co-stars as David Niven, Yul Brynner, Sophia Loren and Taylor.
The rap on Brando in the 1960s was that a great talent had ruined his potential to be America's answer to Laurence Olivier, as his friend William Redfield limned the dilemma in his book "Letters from an Actor" (1967), a memoir about Redfield's appearance in Burton's 1964 theatrical production of "Hamlet." By failing to go back on stage and recharge his artistic batteries, something British actors such as Burton were not afraid to do, Brando had stifled his great talent, by refusing to tackle the classical repertoire and contemporary drama. Actors and critics had yearned for an American response to the high-acting style of the Brits, and while Method actors such as Rod Steiger tried to create an American style, they were hampered in their quest, as their king was lost in a wasteland of Hollywood movies that were beneath his talent. Many of his early supporters now turned on him, claiming he was a crass sellout.
Despite evidence in such films as The Appaloosa (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) that Brando was in fact doing some of the best acting of his life, critics, perhaps with an eye on the box office, slammed him for failing to live up to, and nurture, his great gift. Brando's political activism, starting in the early 1960s with his championing of Native Americans' rights, followed by his participation in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's March on Washington in 1963, and followed by his appearance at a Black Panther rally in 1968, did not win him many admirers in the establishment. In fact, there was a de facto embargo on Brando films in the recently segregated (officially, at least) southeastern US in the 1960s. Southern exhibitors simply would not book his films, and producers took notice. After 1968, Brando would not work for three years.
Pauline Kael wrote of Brando that he was Fortune's fool. She drew a parallel with the latter career of John Barrymore, a similarly gifted thespian with talents as prodigious, who seemingly threw them away. Brando, like the late-career Barrymore, had become a great ham, evidenced by his turn as the faux Indian guru in the egregious Candy (1968), seemingly because the material was so beneath his talent. Most observers of Brando in the 1960s believed that he needed to be reunited with his old mentor Elia Kazan, a relationship that had soured due to Kazan's friendly testimony naming names before the notorious House un-American Activities Committee. Perhaps Brando believed this, too, as he originally accepted an offer to appear as the star of Kazan's film adaptation of his own novel, The Arrangement (1969). However, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Brando backed out of the film, telling Kazan that he could not appear in a Hollywood film after this tragedy. Also reportedly turning down a role opposite box-office king Paul Newman in a surefire script, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Brando decided to make Burn! (1969) with Pontecorvo. The film, a searing indictment of racism and colonialism, flopped at the box office but won the esteem of progressive critics and cultural arbiters such as Howard Zinn. He subsequently appeared in the British film The Nightcomers (1971), a prequel to "Turn of the Screw" and another critical and box office failure.
Kazan, after a life in film and the theater, said that, aside from Orson Welles, whose greatness lay in film making, he only met one actor who was a genius: Brando. Richard Burton, an intellectual with a keen eye for observation if not for his own film projects, said that he found Brando to be very bright, unlike the public perception of him as a Terry Malloy-type character that he himself inadvertently promoted through his boorish behavior. Brando's problem, Burton felt, was that he was unique, and that he had gotten too much fame too soon at too early an age. Cut off from being nurtured by normal contact with society, fame had distorted Brando's personality and his ability to cope with the world, as he had not had time to grow up outside the limelight.
Truman Capote, who eviscerated Brando in print in the mid-'50s and had as much to do with the public perception of the dyslexic Brando as a dumbbell, always said that the best actors were ignorant, and that an intelligent person could not be a good actor. However, Brando was highly intelligent, and possessed of a rare genius in a then-deprecated art, acting. The problem that an intelligent performer has in movies is that it is the director, and not the actor, who has the power in his chosen field. Greatness in the other arts is defined by how much control the artist is able to exert over his chosen medium, but in movie acting, the medium is controlled by a person outside the individual artist. It is an axiom of the cinema that a performance, as is a film, is "created" in the cutting room, thus further removing the actor from control over his art. Brando had tried his hand at directing, in controlling the whole artistic enterprise, but he could not abide the cutting room, where a film and the film's performances are made. This lack of control over his art was the root of Brando's discontent with acting, with movies, and, eventually, with the whole wide world that invested so much cachet in movie actors, as long as "they" were at the top of the box-office charts. Hollywood was a matter of "they" and not the work, and Brando became disgusted.
Charlton Heston, who participated in Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington with Brando, believes that Marlon was the great actor of his generation. However, noting a story that Brando had once refused a role in the early 1960s with the excuse "How can I act when people are starving in India?," Heston believes that it was this attitude, the inability to separate one's idealism from one's work, that prevented Brando from reaching his potential. As Rod Steiger once said, Brando had it all, great stardom and a great talent. He could have taken his audience on a trip to the stars, but he simply would not. Steiger, one of Brando's children even though a contemporary, could not understand it. When James Mason' was asked in 1971 who was the best American actor, he had replied that since Brando had let his career go belly-up, it had to be George C. Scott, by default.
Paramount thought that only Laurence Olivier would suffice, but Lord Olivier was ill. The young director believed there was only one actor who could play godfather to the group of Young Turk actors he had assembled for his film, The Godfather of method acting himself - Marlon Brando. Francis Ford Coppola won the fight for Brando, Brando won - and refused - his second Oscar, and Paramount won a pot of gold by producing the then top-grossing film of all-time, The Godfather (1972), a gangster movie most critics now judge one of the greatest American films of all time. Brando followed his iconic portrayal of Don Corleone with his Oscar-nominated turn in the high-grossing and highly scandalous Last Tango in Paris (1972) ("Last Tango in Paris"), the first film dealing explicitly with sexuality in which an actor of Brando's stature had participated. He was now again a top ten box office star and once again heralded as the greatest actor of his generation, an unprecedented comeback that put him on the cover of "Time" magazine and would make him the highest-paid actor in the history of motion pictures by the end of the decade. Little did the world know that Brando, who had struggled through many projects in good faith during the 1960s, delivering some of his best acting, only to be excoriated and ignored as the films did not do well at the box office, essentially was through with the movies.
After reaching the summit of his career, a rarefied atmosphere never reached before or since by any actor, Brando essentially walked away. He would give no more of himself after giving everything as he had done in Last Tango in Paris (1972)," a performance that embarrassed him, according to his autobiography. Brando had come as close to any actor to being the "auteur," or author, of a film, as the English-language scenes of "Tango" were created by encouraging Brando to improvise. The improvisations were written down and turned into a shooting script, and the scripted improvisations were shot the next day. Pauline Kael, the Brando of movie critics in that she was the most influential arbiter of cinematic quality of her generation and spawned a whole legion of Kael wannabes, said Brando's performance in Last Tango in Paris (1972) had revolutionized the art of film. Brando, who had to act to gain his mother's attention; Brando, who believed acting at best was nothing special as everyone in the world engaged in it every day of their lives to get what they wanted from other people; Brando, who believed acting at its worst was a childish charade and that movie stardom was a whorish fraud, would have agreed with Sam Peckinpah's summation of Pauline Kael: "Pauline's a brilliant critic but sometimes she's just cracking walnuts with her ass." He probably would have done so in a simulacrum of those words, too.
After another three-year hiatus, Brando took on just one more major role for the next 20 years, as the bounty hunter after Jack Nicholson in Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks (1976), a western that succeeded neither with the critics or at the box office. Following The Godfather and Tango, Brando's performance was disappointing for some reviewers, who accused him of giving an erratic and inconsistent performance. In 1977, Brando made a rare appearance on television in the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979), portraying George Lincoln Rockwell; he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his performance. In 1978, he narrated the English version of Raoni (1978), a French-Belgian documentary film directed by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux and Luiz Carlos Saldanha that focused on the life of Raoni Metuktire and issues surrounding the survival of the indigenous Indian tribes of north central Brazil.
Later in his career, Brando concentrated on extracting the maximum amount of capital for the least amount of work from producers, as when he got the Salkind brothers to pony up a then-record $3.7 million against 10% of the gross for 13 days work on Superman (1978). Factoring in inflation, the straight salary for "Superman" equals or exceeds the new record of $1 million a day Harrison Ford set with K-19: The Widowmaker (2002). He agreed to the role only on assurance that he would be paid a large sum for what amounted to a small part, that he would not have to read the script beforehand, and his lines would be displayed somewhere off-camera. Brando also filmed scenes for the movie's sequel, Superman II, but after producers refused to pay him the same percentage he received for the first movie, he denied them permission to use the footage.
Before cashing his first paycheck for Superman (1978), Brando had picked up $2 million for his extended cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) in a role, that of Col. Kurtz, that he authored on-camera through improvisation while Coppola shot take after take. It was Brando's last bravura star performance. He co-starred with George C. Scott and John Gielgud in The Formula (1980), but the film was another critical and financial failure. Years later though, he did receive an eighth and final Oscar nomination for his supporting role in A Dry White Season (1989) after coming out of a near-decade-long retirement. Contrary to those who claimed he now only was in it for the money, Brando donated his entire seven-figure salary to an anti-apartheid charity. He then did an amusing performance in the comedy The Freshman (1990), winning rave reviews. He portrayed Tomas de Torquemada in the historical drama 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), but his performance was denounced and the film was another box office failure. He made another comeback in the Johnny Depp romantic drama Don Juan DeMarco (1994), which co-starred Faye Dunaway as his wife. He then appeared in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), co-starring Val Kilmer, who he didn't get along with. The filming was an unpleasant experience for Brando, as well as another critical and box office failure.
Brando had first attracted media attention at the age of 24, when "Life" magazine ran a photo of himself and his sister Jocelyn, who were both then appearing on Broadway. The curiosity continued, and snowballed. Playing the paraplegic soldier of The Men (1950), Brando had gone to live at a Veterans Administration hospital with actual disabled veterans, and confined himself to a wheelchair for weeks. It was an acting method, research, that no one in Hollywood had ever heard of before, and that willingness to experience life.- Actor
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Bill Paxton was born on May 17, 1955 in Fort Worth, Texas. He was the son of Mary Lou (Gray) and John Lane Paxton, a businessman and actor (as John Paxton). Bill moved to Los Angeles, California at age eighteen, where he found work in the film industry as a set dresser for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. He made his film debut in the Corman film Crazy Mama (1975), directed by Jonathan Demme. Moving to New York, Paxton studied acting under Stella Adler at New York University. After landing a small role in Stripes (1981), he found steady work in low-budget films and television. He also directed, wrote and produced award-winning short films including Barnes & Barnes: Fish Heads (1980), which aired on Saturday Night Live (1975). His first appearance in a James Cameron film was a small role in The Terminator (1984), followed by his very memorable performance as Private Hudson in Aliens (1986) and as the nomadic vampire Severen in Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark (1987). Bill also appeared in John Hughes' Weird Science (1985), as Wyatt Donnelly's sadistic older brother Chet. Although he continued to work steadily in film and television, his big break did not come until his lead role in the critically acclaimed film-noir One False Move (1991). This quickly led to strong supporting roles as Wyatt Earp's naive younger brother Morgan in Tombstone (1993) and as Fred Haise, one of the three astronauts, in Apollo 13 (1995), as well as in James Cameron's offering True Lies (1994).
Bill died on February 25, 2017, in Los Angeles, from complications following heart surgery. He was 61.- Actor
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Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in high school theatrics, he attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a B.F.A. degree in Drama in 1989.
He made his feature film debut in the indie production Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole (1991) as Phil Hoffman, and his first role in a major release came the next year in My New Gun (1992). While he had supporting roles in some other major productions like Scent of a Woman (1992) and Twister (1996), his breakthrough role came in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997).
He quickly became an icon of indie cinema, establishing a reputation as one of the screen's finest actors, in a variety of supporting and second leads in indie and major features, including Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998), Flawless (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and State and Main (2000). He also appeared in supporting roles in such mainstream, big-budget features as Red Dragon (2002), Cold Mountain (2003) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
Hoffman was also quite active on the stage. On Broadway, he has earned two Tony nominations, as Best Actor (Play) in 2000 for a revival of Sam Shepard's "True West" and as Best Actor (Featured Role - Play) in 2003 for a revival of Eugene O'Neill (I)'s "Long Day's Journey into Night". His other acting credits in the New York theater include "The Seagull" (directed by Mike Nichols for The New York Shakespeare Festival), "Defying Gravity", "The Merchant of Venice" (directed by Peter Sellars), "Shopping and F*@%ing" and "The Author's Voice" (Drama Desk nomination).
He was the Co-Artistic Director of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York, for which he directed "Our Lady of 121st Street" by Stephen Adly Guirgis. He also directed "In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings" and "Jesus Hopped the A Train" by Guirgis for LAByrinth, and "The Glory of Living" by Rebecca Gilman at the Manhattan Class Company.
Hoffman consolidated his reputation as one of the finest actors under the age of 40 with his turn in the title role of Capote (2005), for which he won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award as Best Actor. In 2006, he was awarded the Best Actor Oscar for the same role.
On February 2, 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in an apartment in Greenwich village, New York. Investigators found Hoffman with a syringe in his arm and two open envelopes of heroin next to him. Mr. Hoffman was long known to struggle with addiction. In 2006, he said in an interview with "60 Minutes" that he had given up drugs and alcohol many years earlier, when he was age 22. In 2013, he checked into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days after a reliance on prescription pills resulted in his briefly turning again to heroin.- Actor
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Bernard Jeffrey McCollough was born in 1957 in Chicago, the son of Mary McCullough and Jeffery Harrison. He grew up in the city, in a rougher neighborhood than most others, with a large family living under one roof. This situation provided him with a great insight into his comedy, as his family, and the situations surrounding them would be what dominated his comedy. Mac worked in the Regal Theater, and performed in Chicago parks in his younger days. He became a professional comedian in 1977, at the age of 19. He refused to change his image for television and films, and therefore was not very well known for most of the eighties. In 1992 he made his film debut with a small part with Mo' Money (1992). This started a plethora of small parts in a string of movies, mostly comedies, including Who's the Man? (1993), House Party 3 (1994) and The Walking Dead (1995). 1995 proved to be a turning point in his career. He did an HBO Special called Midnight Mac (1995), and took a part as Pastor Clever in the Chris Tucker comedy Friday (1995). Bernie Mac developed a cult following due to the film. In 1996. he starred in the memorable Spike Lee movie Get on the Bus (1996), and was very funny in Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996). About this time he had a recurring role in the TV series Moesha (1996). Bernie Mac's star was slowly rising from this point. His next couple of movie parts were more substantial, including How to Be a Player (1997) and The Players Club (1998). In 1999 Bernie Mac got his most high profile part up to that point in the film Life (1999) starring Eddie Murphy.
The new century started a new era for the brash Chicago comedian. He was a featured comedian in The Original Kings of Comedy (2000). This performance made him more of a household name, and led to many more major parts. In 2001 he played Martin Lawrence's uncle in What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001) and later that year, was in the star studded remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001). However his biggest success was The Bernie Mac Show (2001), which debuted in 2001 to instant acclaim. However, soon after the series ended, Mac's health took a turn for the worse. He developed sarcoidosis, an autoimmune disease which causes inflammation in the lungs. On August 9, 2008, after weeks of unsuccessful treatments, Bernie Mac died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. He was 50.
Bernie Mac was a comedian who refused to change his image for Hollywood and said that his life in Chicago was who he was, and there was nothing that could change that. He was a mature comedian who was very intelligent and engaging in his television, film and stand-up appearances.- Actor
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Multi-talented and unconventional actor/director regarded by many as one of the true "enfant terribles" of Hollywood who led an amazing cinematic career for more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas. The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a young age and first appeared in a slew of 1950s television shows, including Medic (1954), Cheyenne (1955) and Sugarfoot (1957). His first film role was in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), quickly followed by Giant (1956) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Hopper actually became good friends with James Dean and was shattered when Dean was killed in a car crash in September 1955.
Hopper portrayed a young Napoléon Bonaparte (!) in the star-spangled The Story of Mankind (1957) and regularly appeared on screen throughout the 1960s, often in rather undemanding parts, usually as a villain in westerns such as True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). However, in early 1969, Hopper, fellow actor Peter Fonda and writer Terry Southern, wrote a counterculture road movie script and managed to scrape together $400,000 in financial backing. Hopper directed the low-budget film, titled Easy Rider (1969), starring Fonda, Hopper and a young Jack Nicholson. The film was a phenomenal box-office success, appealing to the anti-establishment youth culture of the times. It changed the Hollywood landscape almost overnight and major studios all jumped onto the anti-establishment bandwagon, pumping out low-budget films about rebellious hippies, bikers, draft dodgers and pot smokers. However, Hopper's next directorial effort, The Last Movie (1971), was a critical and financial failure, and he has admitted that during the 1970s he was seriously abusing various substances, both legal and illegal, which led to a downturn in the quality of his work. He appeared in a sparse collection of European-produced films over the next eight years, before cropping up in a memorable performance as a pot-smoking photographer alongside Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen in Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979). He also received acclaim for his work in both acting and direction for Out of the Blue (1980).
With these two notable efforts, the beginning of the 1980s saw a renaissance of interest by Hollywood in the talents of Dennis Hopper and exorcising the demons of drugs and alcohol via a rehabilitation program meant a return to invigorating and provoking performances. He was superb in Rumble Fish (1983), co-starred in the tepid spy thriller The Osterman Weekend (1983), played a groovy school teacher in My Science Project (1985), was a despicable and deranged drug dealer in River's Edge (1986) and, most memorably, electrified audiences as foul-mouthed Frank Booth in the eerie and erotic David Lynch film Blue Velvet (1986). Interestingly, the offbeat Hopper was selected in the early 1980s to provide the voice of "The StoryTeller" in the animated series of "Rabbit Ears" children's films based upon the works of Hans Christian Andersen!
Hopper returned to film direction in the late 1980s and was at the helm of the controversial gang film Colors (1988), which was well received by both critics and audiences. He was back in front of the cameras for roles in Super Mario Bros. (1993), got on the wrong side of gangster Christopher Walken in True Romance (1993), led police officer Keanu Reeves and bus passenger Sandra Bullock on a deadly ride in Speed (1994) and challenged gill-man Kevin Costner for world supremacy in Waterworld (1995). The enigmatic Hopper continued to remain busy through the 1990s and into the new century with performances in All the Way (2003), The Keeper (2004) and Land of the Dead (2005).
As well as his acting/directing talents, Hopper was a skilled photographer and painter, having had his works displayed in galleries in both the United States and overseas. He was additionally a dedicated and knowledgeable collector of modern art and had one of the most extensive collections in the United States. Dennis died of prostate cancer on May 29, 2010, less than two weeks after his 74th birthday.- Actor
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Donald Jay Rickles was born May 8, 1926 in New York. Following the Golden Era of Hollywood, he remained active until early 2017. He got his start in night clubs, toiling for over 20 years, until 1958, when he made his film debut in Run Silent Run Deep (1958). The movie was a big hit. Afterward, Rickles continued acting, starring in films like X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963), Bikini Beach (1964), Enter Laughing (1967), and Kelly's Heroes (1970). In 1973, Don became a regular on Dean Martin's Celebrity Roasts.
From 1973-84, he appeared frequently on Dean's show, paying tribute to some of his friends, like Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, and was even the roast master on the roast for Dean Martin himself. In 1976, he had his own TV series CPO Sharkey (1976), which enjoyed a two year run. After 1984, he slowed down, appearing in a few minor film roles. In 1995, he made a comeback, appearing with Tom Hanks and Tim Allen in Toy Story (1995) in the role of the grouchy Mr. Potato Head. In 1999, he returned as Mr. Potato Head in Toy Story 2 (1999). He died on April 6, 2017, in Los Angeles, California, aged 90. He is interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California, in the Courts of Tanach.- Actor
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Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928 in Walla Walla, Washington, to parents Otto West Anderson, a farmer, and his wife Audrey V. (Speer), an opera singer. At age 10, in 1938, West had a cache of comic books; and starting in 1939, Batman, who appeared in Detective Comics, made a big impression on him--the comic hero was part bat-man (a la Count Dracula) and part world's greatest detective (a la Charlie Chan and Sherlock Holmes). When his mother remarried to a Dr. Paul Flothow, she took West and his younger brother, John, to Seattle. At age 14, West attended Lakeside School, then went to Whitman College, where he got a degree in literature and psychology. During his last year of college, he married 17-year-old Billie Lou Yeager.
West got a job as a disc jockey at a local radio station, then enrolled at Stanford for post-grad courses. Drafted into the army, he spent the next two years starting military television stations, first at San Luis Obispo, California, then at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Afterwards, West and his wife toured Europe, visiting Germany, Switzerland and Italy's Isle of Capri. When the money ran out, he joined a childhood and college buddy, Carl Hebenstreit, who was starring in the kiddie program "The Kini Popo Show" in Hawaii. West would eventually replace Carl but not the other star, Peaches the Chimp. In 1956, he got a divorce and married a beautiful girl, originally from Tahiti, named Ngatokoruaimatauaia Frisbie Dawson (he called her "Nga" for short). They had a daughter, Jonelle (born 1957), and a son, Hunter (born 1958). In 1959, West came to Hollywood. He adopted the stage name "Adam West", which fit his roles, as he was in some westerns.
After seven years in Tinseltown, he achieved fame in his signature role as Bruce Wayne / Batman, on the wildly popular ABC-TV series Batman (1966) (though he has over 60 movie and over 80 television guest appearance credits, "Batman" is what the fans remember him for). The series, which lasted three seasons, made him not just nationally but internationally famous. The movie version, Batman: The Movie (1966), earned West the "Most Promising New Star" award in 1967. The downside was that the "Batman" fame was partly responsible for ruining his marriage, and he was typecast and almost unemployable for a while after the series ended (he did nothing but personal appearances for two years).
In 1970, he met and then married Marcelle Tagand Lear, and picked up two stepchildren, Moya and Jill. In addition, they had two children of their own: Nina West in 1976 and Perrin in 1979. You can't keep a good actor down--West's career took off again, and he appeared in 50 projects after that: movies, television movies and sometimes doing voices on television series. West wrote his autobiography, "Back to the Batcave" (1994). One of his most prized possessions was a drawing of Batman by Bob Kane with the inscription "To my buddy, Adam, who breathed life into my pen and ink creation". Beginning in 2000, West made guest appearances on the animated series Family Guy (1999), on which he played Mayor Adam West, the lunatic mayor of Quahog, Rhode Island.
On June 9, 2017, Adam West died at age 88 after a brief battle with leukemia in Los Angeles, California. On June 15, 2017, Los Angeles shone the bat-signal on City Hall, and Walla Walla shone the bat-signal on the Whitman Tower, both as a tribute to West.- Actor
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Oscar-winning character actor Martin Landau was born on June 20, 1928, in Brooklyn, New York. At age 17, he was hired by the New York Daily News to work in the promotions department before he became a staff cartoonist and illustrator. In his five years on the paper, he served as the illustrator for Billy Rose's "Pitching Horseshoes" column. He also worked for cartoonist Gus Edson on "The Gumps" comic strip. Landau's major ambition was to act and, in 1951, he made his stage debut in "Detective Story" at the Peaks Island Playhouse in Peaks Island, Maine. He made his off-Broadway debut that year in "First Love".
Landau was one of 2,000 applicants who auditioned for Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio in 1955; only he and Steve McQueen were accepted. Landau was a friend of James Dean and McQueen, in a conversation with Landau, mentioned that he knew Dean and had met Landau. When Landau asked where they had met, McQueen informed him he had seen Landau riding on the back of Dean's motorcycle into the New York City garage where he worked as a mechanic.
Landau acted during the mid-1950s in the television anthologies Playhouse 90 (1956), Studio One (1948), The Philco Television Playhouse (1948), Kraft Theatre (1947), Goodyear Playhouse (1951), and Omnibus (1952). He began making a name for himself after replacing star Franchot Tone in the 1956 off-Broadway revival of Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya," a famous production that helped put off-Broadway on the New York theatrical map.
In 1957, he made a well-received Broadway debut in the play "Middle of the Night." As part of the touring company with star Edward G. Robinson, he made it to the West Coast. He made his movie debut in Pork Chop Hill (1959), but scored on film as the heavy in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller North by Northwest (1959), in which he was shot on top of Mount Rushmore while sadistically stepping on the fingers of Cary Grant, who was holding on for dear life to the cliff face. He also appeared in the blockbuster Cleopatra (1963), the most expensive film ever made up to that time, which nearly scuttled 20th Century-Fox and engendered one of the great public scandals, the Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton love affair that overshadowed the film itself. Despite the difficulties with the film, Landau's memorable portrayal in the key role of Rufio was highly favored by the audience and instantly catapulted his popularity.
In 1963, Landau played memorable roles in two episodes of the science-fiction anthology series The Outer Limits (1963), The Bellero Shield (1964), and The Man Who Was Never Born (1963). He was Gene Roddenberry's first choice to play Mr. Spock on Star Trek (1966), but the role went to Leonard Nimoy, who later replaced Landau on Mission: Impossible (1966), the show that really made Landau famous. Landau originally was not meant to be a regular on the series, which co-starred his wife Barbara Bain, whom he had married in 1957. His character, Rollin Hand, was supposed to make occasional, recurring appearances, on Mission: Impossible (1966), but when the producers had problems with star Steven Hill, Landau was used to take up the slack. Landau's characterization was so well-received and so popular with the audience, he was made a regular. Landau received Emmy nominations as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for each of the three seasons he appeared. In 1968, he won the Golden Globe award as Best Male TV Star.
Eventually, he quit the series in 1969 after a salary dispute when the new star, Peter Graves, was given a contract that paid him more than Landau, whose own contract stated he would have parity with any other actor on the show who made more than he did. The producers refused to budge and he and Bain, who had become the first actress in the history of television to be awarded three consecutive Emmy Awards (1967-69) while on the show, left the series, ostensibly to pursue careers in the movies. The move actually held back their careers, and Mission: Impossible (1966) went on for another four years with other actors.
Landau appeared in support of Sidney Poitier in They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970), the less-successful sequel to the Oscar-winning In the Heat of the Night (1967), but it did not generate more work of a similar caliber. He starred in the television movie Welcome Home, Johnny Bristol (1972) on CBS, playing a prisoner of war returning to the United States from Vietnam. The following year, he shot a pilot for NBC for a proposed show, "Savage." Though it was directed by emerging wunderkind Steven Spielberg, NBC did not pick up the show. Needing work, Landau and Bain moved to England to play the leading roles in the syndicated science-fiction series Space: 1999 (1975).
Landau's and Bain's careers stalled after Space: 1999 (1975) went out of production, and they were reduced to taking parts in the television movie The Harlem Globetrotters on Gilligan's Island (1981). It was the nadir of both their careers, and Bain's acting days and their marriage were soon over. Landau, one of the most talented character actors in Hollywood, and one not without recognition, had bottomed out career-wise. In 1983, he was stuck in low-budget sci-fi and horror movies such as The Being (1981), a role far beneath his talent.
His career renaissance got off to a slow start with a recurring role in the NBC sitcom Buffalo Bill (1983), starring Dabney Coleman. On Broadway, he took over the title role in the revival of "Dracula" and went on the road with the national touring company. Finally, his career renaissance began to gather momentum when Francis Ford Coppola cast him in a critical supporting role in his Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), for which Landau was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor. He won his second Golden Globe for the role. The next year, he received his second consecutive Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his superb turn as the adulterous husband in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989). He followed this up by playing famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal in the TNT movie Max and Helen (1990). However, the summit of his post-Mission: Impossible (1966) career was about to be scaled. He portrayed Bela Lugosi in Tim Burton's biopic Ed Wood (1994) and won glowing reviews. For his performance, he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Martin Landau, the superb character actor, finally had been recognized with his profession's ultimate award. His performance, which also won him his third Golden Globe, garnered numerous awards in addition to the Oscar and Golden Globe, including top honors from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics. Landau continued to play a wide variety of roles in motion pictures and on television, turning in a superb performance in a supporting role in The Majestic (2001). He received his fourth Emmy nomination in 2004 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for Without a Trace (2002).
Martin Landau was honored with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 6801 Hollywood Boulevard.
Martin Landau died in Los Angeles, California on July 15, 2017.- Actor
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Charlie Murphy was born on 12 July 1959 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Norbit (2007), Night at the Museum (2006) and Chappelle's Show (2003). He was married to Tisha Taylor Murphy. He died on 12 April 2017 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
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Stanton was born in West Irvine, Kentucky, to Ersel (Moberly), a cook, and Sheridan Harry Stanton, a barber and tobacco farmer. He lived in Lexington, Kentucky and graduated from Lafayette Senior High School with the class of 1944. Drafted into the Navy, he served as a cook in the U.S. Navy during World War II, and was on board an LST during the Battle of Okinawa. He then returned to the University of Kentucky to appear in a production of "Pygmalion", before heading out to California and honing his craft at the prestigious Pasadena Playhouse. Stanton then toured around the United States with a male choir, worked in children's theater, and then headed back to California.
His first role on screen was in the tepid movie Tomahawk Trail (1957), but he was quickly noticed and appeared regularly in minor roles as cowboys and soldiers through the late 1950s and early 1960s. His star continued to rise and he received better roles in which he could showcase his laid-back style, such as in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), and in Alien (1979). It was around this time that Stanton came to the attention of director Wim Wenders, who cast him in his finest role yet as Travis in the moving Paris, Texas (1984). Next indie director Alex Cox gave Stanton a role that brought him to the forefront, in the quirky cult film Repo Man (1984).
Stanton was now heavily in demand, and his unique look got him cast as everything from a suburban father in the mainstream Pretty in Pink (1986) to a soft-hearted, but ill-fated, private investigator in Wild at Heart (1990) and a crazy yet cunning scientist in Escape from New York (1981). Apart from his film performances, he was also an accomplished musician, and "The Harry Dean Stanton Band" and their unique spin on mariachi music played together for well over a decade. They toured internationally. He became a cult figure of cinema and music and when Debbie Harry sang the lyric, "I want to dance with Harry Dean..." in her 1990s hit "I Want That Man", she was talking about him. Stanton remained consistently active on screen, lastly appearing in films including Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), The Green Mile (1999) and The Man Who Cried (2000).- Actress
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Della began singing in her hometown of Detroit when she was 6 years old. As a teenager, she toured with gospel great Mahalia Jackson and, at the age of 18, she formed the Meditation Singers and became the first performer to take gospel music to the casinos of Las Vegas. She was a vocalist with the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra and began making her own records. She was nominated for a Grammy Award as Best Female Soloist in Gospel music in 1987. She lived in Los Angeles with her husband, producer Franklin Lett.- Actor
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Born into a military family in Huntsville, Alabama -- his father was an army vet who had served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, while his mother held a somewhat mysterious job in the Department of Defence -- Reg E. Cathey spent much of his early childhood living on a rural farmhouse in Germany. There, he watched American TV shows dubbed into German and first became theatre-struck at the age of nine after attending a USO performance of "Guys and Dolls". That same year, he also took up playing the saxophone. That he became an actor and not a jazz musician was happenstance, but, as he once admitted "he was no Lester Young". An incisive and eloquent personality with a uniquely expressive baritone voice, Cathey was to bring a soulful dignity and often unexpected sense of humour to a wide variety of roles on both stage and screen.
Cathey attended the University of Michigan and later studied acting at the Yale School of Drama. The theatre remained his lifelong passion and New York his preferred place of residence. As he later explained: "I learned how to act at Yale but learned how to be an actor in NYC. I escaped wandering lost in the desert that is Los Angeles after a decade (which I'll never get back) and being psychically traumatized, I didn't audition for film and television, immersing myself in the 'Classics.'" And so, Cathey went on to tackle diverse (non-stereotypical) roles, ranging from Prospero in a musical version of Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' to 'Red' Redding in a British production of 'The Shawshank Redemption' (a part made famous by Morgan Freeman in the film version).
Though performing more often than not in New York, Cathey did ultimately return to Hollywood. His formidable screen characters have often been marked by a uniquely erudite fierceness. They have included powerful authority figures, scientists and occasional villains in films (The Mask (1994), Tank Girl (1995), Se7en (1995), Fantastic Four (2015)) and shows like The Wire (2002), Outcast (2016) and House of Cards (2013) (his recurring role as Freddy Hayes, owner of Frank Underwood's favourite BBQ joint and secret hangout, which won him an Emmy Award in 2015 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series). In keeping with his credo that "the dark stuff is fun", he also proved excellent value as a shadowy keeper of secrets ('The Caretaker') in an episode of The Blacklist (2013) and as the top-hatted zombie master Baron Samedi, in an episode of Grimm (2011). One of his most poignant roles came near the end as the estranged father of Luke Cage (2016). Not long after, Reg E. Cathey passed away as a result of lung cancer in February 2018 at the untimely age of just 59, never having had the chance of fulfilling his longstanding ambition to play a baritone saxophonist.- Actor
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A talented character actor known for his military roles, Ronald Lee Ermey was in the United States Marine Corps for 11 years. He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant, and later was bestowed the honorary rank of Gunnery Sergeant by the Marine Corps, after he served 14 months in Vietnam and later did two tours in Okinawa, Japan. After injuries forced him to retire from the Corps, he moved to the Phillipines, enrolling in the University of Manila, where he studied Criminology and Drama. He appeared in several Filipino films before being cast as a helicopter pilot in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). Due to his Vietnam experiences, Coppola also utilized him as a technical adviser. He got a featured role in Sidney J. Furie's The Boys in Company C (1978), playing a drill instructor. Ermey worked with Furie again in Purple Hearts (1984).
However, his most famous (or infamous) role came as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987), for which he was nominated for a Golden Globe. He did win the best supporting actor award from The Boston Society of Film Critics. Since then, he has appeared in numerous character roles in such films as Leaving Las Vegas (1995), Se7en (1995) and Dead Man Walking (1995). However, Ermey prefers comedy to drama, and has a comedic role in Saving Silverman (2001).- Music Artist
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An out-of-wedlock child, Eartha Kitt was born in the cotton fields of South Carolina. Kitt's mother was a sharecropper of African-American and Cherokee Native American descent. Her father's identity is unknown. Given away by her mother, she arrived in Harlem at age nine. At 15, she quit high school to work in a Brooklyn factory. As a teenager, Kitt lived in friends' homes and in the subways. However, by the 1950s, she had sung and danced her way out of poverty and into the spotlight: performing with the Katherine Dunham Dance Troupe on a European tour, soloing at a Paris nightclub and becoming the toast of the Continent. Orson Welles called her "the most exciting girl in the world". She also spoke out on hard issues. She took over the role of Catwoman for the third and final season of the television series Batman (1966), replacing Julie Newmar. Eartha Kitt died of colon cancer in her home in Weston, Connecticut, on Christmas Day 2008.- Actor
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Enduring, strong-featured, and genial star of US cinema, Burt Reynolds started off in T.V. westerns in the 1960s and then carved his name into 1970s/1980s popular culture, as a sex symbol (posing nearly naked for "Cosmopolitan" magazine), and on-screen as both a rugged action figure and then as a wisecracking, Southern type of "good ol' boy."
Burton Leon Reynolds was born in Lansing, Michigan. He was the son of Harriette Fernette "Fern" (Miller) and Burton Milo Reynolds, who was in the army. After World War II, his family moved to Riviera Beach, Florida, where his father was chief of police, and where Burt excelled as an athlete and played with Florida State University. He became an All Star Southern Conference halfback (and was earmarked by the Baltimore Colts) before a knee injury and a car accident ended his football career. Midway through college he dropped out and headed to New York with aspirations of becoming an actor. There he worked in restaurants and clubs while pulling the odd TV spot or theatre role.
He was spotted in a New York City production of "Mister Roberts," signed to a TV contract, and eventually had recurring roles in such shows as Gunsmoke (1955), Riverboat (1959) and his own series, Hawk (1966).
Reynolds continued to appear in undemanding western roles, often playing a character of half Native American descent, in films such as Navajo Joe (1966), 100 Rifles (1969) and Sam Whiskey (1969). However, it was his tough-guy performance as macho Lewis Medlock in the John Boorman backwoods nightmare Deliverance (1972) that really stamped him as a bona-fide star. Reynolds' popularity continued to soar with his appearance as a no-nonsense private investigator in Shamus (1973) and in the Woody Allen comedy Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask (1972). Building further on his image as a Southern boy who outsmarts the local lawmen, Reynolds packed fans into theaters to see him in White Lightning (1973), The Longest Yard (1974), W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975) and Gator (1976).
At this time, ex-stuntman and longtime Reynolds buddy Hal Needham came to him with a "road film" script. It turned out to be the incredibly popular Smokey and the Bandit (1977) with Sally Field and Jerry Reed, which took in over $100 million at the box office. That film's success was followed by Smokey and the Bandit II (1980) and Smokey and the Bandit Part 3 (1983). Reynolds also appeared alongside Kris Kristofferson in the hit football film Semi-Tough (1977), with friend Dom DeLuise in the black comedy The End (1978) (which Reynolds directed), in the stunt-laden buddy film Hooper (1978) and then in the self-indulgent, star-packed road race flick The Cannonball Run (1981).
The early 1980s started off well with a strong performance in the violent police film Sharky's Machine (1981), which he also directed, and he starred with Dolly Parton in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) and with fellow macho superstar Clint Eastwood in the coolly received City Heat (1984). However, other projects such as Stroker Ace (1983), Stick (1985) and Paternity (1981) failed to catch fire with fans and Reynolds quickly found himself falling out of popularity with movie audiences. In the late 1980s he appeared in only a handful of films, mostly below average, before television came to the rescue and he shone again in two very popular TV shows, B.L. Stryker (1989) and Evening Shade (1990), for which he won an Emmy. In 1988, Burt and his then-wife, actress Loni Anderson, had a son, Quinton A. Reynolds (aka Quinton Anderson Reynolds), whom they adopted.
He was back on screen, but still the roles weren't grabbing the public's attention, until his terrific performance as a drunken politician in the otherwise woeful Striptease (1996) and then another tremendous showing as a charming, porn director in Boogie Nights (1997), which scored him a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Like the phoenix from the ashes, Reynolds resurrected his popularity and, in the process, gathered a new generation of young fans, many of whom had been unfamiliar with his 1970s film roles. He then put in entertaining work in Pups (1999), Mystery, Alaska (1999), Driven (2001) and Time of the Wolf (2002). Definitely one of Hollywood's most resilient stars, Reynolds continually surprised all with his ability to weather both personal and career hurdles and his almost 60 years in front of the cameras were testament to his staying ability, his acting talent and his appeal to film audiences.
Burt Reynolds died of cardiac arrest on September 6, 2018, in Jupiter, Florida, U.S. He was eighty two.- One chillingly infamous screen role for Scott Wilson in 1967 set the tone for an actor who went on to prove himself an invaluable character player for five decades. Born on March 29, 1942, the Atlanta native was awarded a basketball scholarship following high school at Georgia's Southern Tech University to study architecture. Instead, Wilson hitchhiked to Los Angeles on a whim and hooked up one day with an actor he met in a bar who took him to one of his auditions. Allowed to audition himself by chance, Wilson lost the part but was absolutely hooked. Working an assortment of menial jobs, he studied for nearly five years while gaining experience in such local theater productions as "The Importance of Being Earnest."
Scott's fledgling career took off big time after being discovered by director Norman Jewison who cast him as a murder suspect in In the Heat of the Night (1967) starring Sidney Poitier and Best Actor Oscar winner Rod Steiger. If that weren't a sufficient beginning, Wilson immediately followed this with the co-lead role of murderer Richard Hickok in the stark and disturbing In Cold Blood (1967), a superlative adaptation of the Truman Capote best-selling docu-novel. It didn't hurt that Scott himself had a startling resemblance to the real-life killer. Partnering up with Robert Blake as two ex-cons who are eventually executed for the senseless, brutal slaughter of an entire Kansas farm family, the critically acclaimed film put both men squarely on the movie map.
Although a serious contender, out-and-out stardom did not come about for the quietly handsome, slightly forlorn-looking actor. Major roles in major pictures, however, did. Among Scott's early film work were Castle Keep (1969) and The Gypsy Moths (1969), both starring Burt Lancaster; The Grissom Gang (1971); Lolly-Madonna XXX (1973) (again with Steiger); The New Centurions (1972); The Great Gatsby (1974), in which he earned raves as the garage owner who shoots Robert Redford's title character to death in Gatsby's backyard swimming pool; The Ninth Configuration (1980), for which he received a Golden Globe nomination; The Right Stuff (1983); the Venice Film Festival winner A Year of the Quiet Sun (1984); Malone (1987); and Johnny Handsome (1989). TV also showed off Scott's dark, controlled intensity and wide range in later years, appearing in guest spots on such popular dramas as "The X-Files" and "The Twilight Zone," and in a recurring role as Marg Helgenberger's unscrupulous mobster father in "CSI." In mini-movies Scott played everything from Elvis's father in Elvis and the Colonel: The Untold Story (1993) to a Wyoming governor in The Jack Bull (1999).
Hardly one of Hollywood's flashiest good ol' boys, the taciturn, unassuming actor preferred to remain discrete and let his performances do the talking. His output was minimal compared with other character stars, but he remained in the quality ranks nevertheless, mixing his standard penchant for darker movies with such family-oriented films as Shiloh (1996) and its sequels.
Supporting the newer "young guns" these days, he appeared with Vince Vaughn in Clay Pigeons (1998) and Ryan Phillippe in The Way of the Gun (2000), and ended up one of serial killer Charlize Theron's victims in Monster (2003). Other strong showings on the big screen have included a lead part as a rockabilly star in Don't Let Go (2002) and his down-home patriarch in the superb ensemble art film Junebug (2005), a breakout hit with Academy voters.
Into the millennium, Scott maintained a strong film output with gritty roles in Come Early Morning (2006), Saving Shiloh (2006), Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006), The Heartbreak Kid (2007), Saving Grace B. Jones (2009), Radio Free Albemuth (2010), Dorfman in Love (2011) and Hostiles (2017). He ended his career strongly on TV with regular/recurring roles on Damien (2016), as adoptive father Abel Johnson in the mystery series The OA (2016), and gained a notable following sporting a full gray beard and ponytail as grizzled farm owner Hershel Greene on the popular horror series The Walking Dead (2010).
Wilson lived in Los Angeles with his attorney/wife of four decades, Heavenly, who also was an accomplished artist and writer. Diagnosed with leukemia, Scott died on October 6, 2018, aged 76. - Actress
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Charlotte Rae was born Charlotte Rae Lubotsky in 1926, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the middle daughter of three sisters, between Beverly and Mimi. Her parents, Esther (nee Ottenstein) and Meyer Lubotsky, were Russian Jewish immigrants. Her father owned an automobile tire business. Her mother had been a childhood friend of Milwaukee-reared Golda Meir, future Prime Minister of Israel.
Rae wanted to be a dramatic actress, but eventually wound up being a comedienne, all because of her stand-up comedy routines. Her family moved to the village of Shorewood, Wisconsin (Milwaukee County) in 1936. After graduating from Shorewood High School, she attended Northwestern University, where she met future actress Cloris Leachman; the two would be lifelong friends. She dropped out of college and moved to New York City, and began a career as a stage actress, performing in such plays as "Pickwick", for which she was nominated in 1966 for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and, in 1969, for Best Actress in a Play for "Morning, Noon and Night". She co-starred with Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis in Car 54, Where Are You? (1961). She would live there until 1974 when she moved to Southern California.
She was nominated for an Emmy Award for her supporting role in Queen of the Stardust Ballroom (1975). After guest-starring on numerous shows, including Norman Lear's All in the Family (1971) and Good Times (1974), Lear hired her old friend to co-star on Diff'rent Strokes (1978) as Gary Coleman's housekeeper, "Edna Garrett". Within a year, she gained popularity with her character, which eventually led her to having her own series, The Facts of Life (1979). Between Norman Lear and NBC, they gave her the green-light to star in her own show, which focused primarily on the housekeeper of an all-girls school. The spinoff series featured newcomers including Kim Fields as "Tootie" and Lisa Whelchel as rich spoiled brat "Blair Warner".
Before then, she approached young Mindy Cohn at Westlake School in Los Angeles, and suggested that she take the role of smart "Natalie Green", a character Rae created for her and named after one of her best friends from high school. Cohn stayed on the show for eight seasons. Rae left the show in 1986 reportedly owing to a health issue. She reportedly created the role of "Beverly" for her old friend, Cloris Leachman, to play on The Facts of Life (1979) after she left the show.
She returned to the stage. In 1992, she was the voice of "Aunt Christine Figg" in Tom and Jerry: The Movie (1992) and appeared in "The Vagina Monologues" in New York. In 2000, she starred as "Berthe" in the Paper Mill Playhouse production of "Pippin". In 2007, she appeared in a cabaret show at the Plush Room in San Francisco for several performances. In the 2008 movie, You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008), she played a mature woman who has a fling with Adam Sandler's character. On February 18, 2009, she appeared in a small role as "Mrs. Ford" on the "I Heart Mom" episode.
Rae's older sister, Beverly, died from pancreatic cancer in 1998, while Rae's ex-husband of 35 years, John Strauss, died in 2011, following a long battle with Parkinson's disease. A pancreatic cancer survivor, Rae continued to act while making guest appearances everywhere, especially TV Land, where her show, The Facts of Life (1979), won the 2011 award for Pop Culture Icon.
Charlotte Rae died on August 5, 2018 at her home in Los Angeles, aged 92, from bone cancer, which had been diagnosed a year earlier. She also suffered from asthma and scoliosis, and had been fitted with a pacemaker.- Actress
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Doris Roberts was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Ann (Meltzer) and Larry Green. She was raised in New York, and took her stepfather's surname. Roberts was a 20-year veteran of the Broadway stage before she began appearing steadily in character roles in film and on television during the 1970s. A versatile player with an inescapably "mom-like" presence, she was adept at playing sympathetic roles but made her most memorable mark as hard-boiled dames, gossips, and nags who were often too savvy of the ways of the world to be fooled by anyone. Roberts built up some face recognition with regular appearances in the sitcoms Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) (syndicated) and Angie (1979) (ABC), but truly came into her own as a widely known comedienne when she was cast as the meddling, strong-willed family matriarch on Everybody Loves Raymond (1996) (CBS). The show became of the best-loved sitcoms in history, and Roberts earned seven Emmy nominations and four wins for her colorful characterization. Well past the common age of retirement and well past the show's celebrated end, Roberts maintained a reputation as one of the big and small screen's most iconic mothers, and she continued to be a welcome sight as a television guest star and film player.- Actor
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With a decades-long career as an actor and stuntman, Verne Troyer was best known for playing "Mini-Me," Dr. Evil's smaller and more concentrated pure evil protégé, in the hit comedies Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) and Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), and for his role in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001). Troyer, born in Sturgis, Michigan, had always dreamed of getting into showbiz. Shortly after his high school graduation in 1987, he moved with some friends to Arlington, Texas, where, in 1993, he got his first break as a stunt double for a 9-month-old baby on the film Baby's Day Out (1994). In his early years of film and television work, he often portrayed animals or small children.- Producer
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Stan Lee was an American comic-book writer, editor, and publisher, who was executive vice president and publisher of Marvel Comics.
Stan was born in New York City, to Celia (Solomon) and Jack Lieber, a dress cutter. His parents were Romanian Jewish immigrants. Lee co-created Spider-Man, the Hulk, Doctor Strange, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Daredevil, Thor, the X-Men, and many other fictional characters, introducing a thoroughly shared universe into superhero comic books. In addition, he challenged the comics' industry's censorship organization, the Comics Code Authority, indirectly leading to it updating its policies. Lee subsequently led the expansion of Marvel Comics from a small division of a publishing house to a large multimedia corporation.
He had cameo appearances in many Marvel film and television projects, with many yet to come, posthumously. A few of these appearances are self-aware and sometimes reference Lee's involvement in the creation of certain characters.
On 16 July 2017, Lee was named a Disney Legend, a hall of fame program that recognizes individuals who have made an extraordinary and integral contribution to The Walt Disney Company.
Stan was married to Joan Lee for almost 70 years, until her death. The couple had two children. Joan died on July 6, 2017. Stan died on November 12, 2018, in LA.- Actor
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Luke Perry was an American actor, primarily remembered as a teen idol throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. Perry was born in Mansfield, Ohio in 1966. Mansfield was known at the time as a center for the home appliances and stove manufacturing industries. The city's largest employer used to be the Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
Perry's parents were the steelworker Coy Luther Perry Jr. (1944-1980) and his wife Ann. Perry's parents divorced in 1972, when he was 6-years-old. Ann gained custody over her children, and later married construction worker Steve Bennett. Luke was mostly raised by his mother and stepfather, and did not have a close relationship with his biological father. Coy Perry suffered a heart attack in 1980 and died, when Luke was 14-years-old. Luke attended his funeral.
Perry was mostly raised in the village of Fredericktown, Ohio, and attended the Fredericktown High School. In his high school years, Perry served in the role of the school mascot, the "Freddie Bird".
In 1984, the 18-year-old Perry moved to Los Angeles, with the intention of becoming a professional actor. For several years, Perry kept auditioning for various roles without ever being hired. He supported himself financially by working at odd jobs, and serving as an extra for music videos. His most notable role in this period was in the 1986 music video for the song "Be Chrool to Your Scuel" (1985) by the heavy metal band "Twisted Sister".
Perry's first successful audition landed him the role of a recurring character in the soap opera Loving (1983) (1983-1995). From 1987 to 1988, he played the character of Ned Bates. In Perry's own words: "Ned was a dirt-poor mechanic from Tennessee who always got taken advantage of".
Perry next received a recurring role in another soap opera, Another World (1964) (1964-1999). From 1988 to 1989, he played the character of Kenny, the manager of aspiring model and actress Josie Watt (played by Alexandra Wilson).
In 1990, Perry landed the most significant role of his career, depicting the character of Dylan McKay in the teen drama Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) (1990-2000). He played the character for a total of 199 episodes. Dylan was the teenage rebel son of business tycoon Jack McKay and hippie ex-wife Iris McKay. He started the series as a loner, but he offered help to nerdy schoolmate Scott Scanlon (played by Douglas Emerson) against the local bullies. This act of bravery gained him new friends and the romantic attention of Brenda Walsh (played by Shannen Doherty).
Perry's success in his new role gained him a huge following among teenage girls, and guaranteed that he would receive more job offers. His first starring role in a film was the drama Terminal Bliss (1990) (1992), where he played the self-destructive rich kid John Hunter. The film was a box-office flop.
Perry had a more memorable role in the horror comedy film Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), as the character Oliver Pike. Pike was a hard-drinking slacker youth in Los Angeles, and had a hostile relationship with high school girl Buffy Summers (played by Kristy Swanson). After Pike's best friend gets turned into a vampire, Pike assists Buffy in her battles with the vampire lord Lothos (played by Rutger Hauer) and his subordinate vampires. Pike is Buffy's sidekick and main love interest in the film, and has appeared in various adaptations, though not in the spin-off television series.
Perry had his first voice acting role in the episode, Krusty Gets Kancelled (1993) of the animated sitcom The Simpsons (1989). He played a parody version of himself as a sidekick of the character Krusty the Clown in a show-within-the-show. Perry had more voice acting roles in other animated television series of this era. He played the Detroit-based crime lord Napoleon Brie in Biker Mice from Mars (1993) (1993-1996), the master ninja Sub-Zero in Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm (1995) (1996), Bruce Banner's best friend and sidekick Rick Jones in The Incredible Hulk (1996) (1996-1997), and Nicky Little's boyfriend Stewart Waldinger in Pepper Ann (1997) (1997-2000).
In live-action films, Perry played the starring role of professional bull-rider Lane Frost (1963-1989) in the biographical drama 8 Seconds (1994). He played a version of himself in the Italian comedy film Vacanze di Natale '95 (1995) ("Christmas Vacation '95", 1995), where he is the love interest of infatuated teenager Marta Colombo (played by Cristiana Capotondi). Perry played the police officer and bank robber Chris Anderson in the crime drama Normal Life (1996), while his wife and partner-in-crime Pam Anderson was played by Ashley Judd. He played the suicidal character Johnny in the comedy-drama American Strays (1996), which features the character hiring a professional hit-man to provide him with an assisted suicide.
In 1997, Perry played a small role in the science fiction film The Fifth Element (1997). In a scene set in 1914, Perry plays the assistant archaeologist Billy Masterson. Masterson sees his mentor being knocked out by Mondoshawan aliens, and reacts by shooting one of the aliens. Masterson's fate is left uncertain in the film, though the novelization features him as the victim of a poisoning plot.
In the late 1990s, Perry appeared frequently in television films and various direct-to-video films. He had guest roles in several television series, but mostly playing one-shot characters. Following the end of Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) in 2000, his first major role was the recurring character Jeremiah Cloutier in the crime-drama Oz (1997) (1997-2003). Introduced in 2001 episodes of the series, Jeremiah was an Evangelical preacher who was imprisoned for embezzling funds from his church. He used his charisma and preaching skills to convert fellow prisoners to Evangelical Christianity, He was eventually assassinated by his own convert Timmy Kirk (Sean Dugan) and several of Kirk's friends, after Jeremiah denounced Kirk using Christianity as an excuse to murder people.
Perry next gained a starring role in the post-apocalyptic series Jeremiah (2002) (2002-2004). The series is set c. 2021, 15 years after a plague killed nearly everyone over the age of thirteen. Most of the adult characters of the show were children at that time, and survived the event. Now they are troubled adults, trying to survive in a harsh world. Perry's character Jeremiah is a wanderer who finds himself recruited into a Colorado-based secretive organization. He fights a war against a West Virginia-based organization which seeks to either conquer or wipe out all remaining outposts of humanity. The series lasted two seasons. A third season was planned, but plans for it were aborted due to disagreements between the production companies co-financing the series.
Perry returned to playing mostly guest star roles in television. In 2006, he was cast as one of the main characters in the short-lived drama series Windfall (2006). Only 13 episodes were produced, as the series failed to find an audience and one of the show's co-creators had left before the season's completion.
In 2007, Perry played businessman Linc Stark in the surf-themed series John from Cincinnati (2007). Despite relatively high ratings, the series only lasted for one season.
In the late 2000s, Perry played guest roles in police procedural a series: the rapist Noah Sibert in Trials (2008) and the cult leader Benjamin Cyrus in Minimal Loss (2008).
For much of the 2010s, Perry continued mostly appearing in guest roles and relatively obscure films. In 2015, a colonoscopy test revealed pre-cancerous growths in Perry's body, that could have developed into colorectal cancer. Perry received medical treatment, and became a spokesperson for campaigns requiring early testing for cancer.
In 2017, Perry returned to prominence in a live-action adaptation of a comic book series, Riverdale (2017) (2017-2019). It was an adaptation of Archie Comics' characters, but in a mystery series instead of their traditional comedy setting. Perry played Frederick "Fred" Andrews, Archie Andrews's father, depicted here as the owner of a successful construction company. Fred is depicted as a single father, as his wife Mary Andrews abandoned him and moved to Chicago. The series also depicts Fred as the ex-boyfriend of Hermione Gomez-Lodge (Veronica Lodge's mother).
On February 27, 2019, Perry suffered a massive ischemic stroke within his home in Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles. He was hospitalized, but suffered a second stroke days later. He died on March 4, 2019, having never recovered from the two strokes. He was only 52 years old. His body was buried near his home in Vanleer, Tennessee, where he had bought a farm and the associated house in 1995, and spent time living there when not working on film or television projects.
Perry's will reportedly left his son Jack Perry (b. 1997) and daughter Sophie Perry (b. 2000) as the only heirs to his estate. The press noted that the will excludes Perry's mother, his stepfather, his siblings, his ex-wife, and his last fiancée from having inheritance claims, and there was some speculation on Perry's motivation for this decision. His net worth was estimated at over $10 million.- Actor
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Cameron Boyce was an American actor, with Afro-Caribbean and African-American descent. His paternal grandmother Jo Ann Allen was one of the "Clinton Twelve", the first African-Americans to attend an integrated high school in the Southern United States (specifically in Clinton, Tennessee).
In 1999, Boyce was born in Los Angeles, California. He was trained as a dancer from an early age. In 2008, he made his debut in the music video "That Green Gentleman (Things Have Changed)" by the band "Panic! at the Disco". He was playing a child version of guitarist Ryan Ross. Also in 2008, Boyce gained a recurring role in the short-lived soap opera "General Hospital: Night Shift" (2007-2008).
Boyce's first appearance in a feature film was in the horror film "Mirrors" (2008), playing the role of Michael "Mikey" Carson (the son of the film 's protagonist). His second film appearance was in the spy film "Eagle Eye" (2008), playing the role of Sam Holloman. His next prominent film role was in the comedy film "Grown Ups" (2010), again playing the son of the film's protagonist.
Boyce showcased his dancing skills in the web series "The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers" (2010-2011). In 2011, Boyce appeared as a featured dancer in a "Dancing with the Stars" special and in the television sitcom "Shake It Up" (2010-2013). He made a guest appearance in the sitcom "Good Luck Charlie" (2010-2014), playing an impostor version of regular character Gabe Duncan.
Boyce next gained the co-starring role of Luke Ross in the sitcom "Jessie" (2011-2015). The premise of the series was that celebrity couple Morgan and Christina Ross had no free time to spend with their four children, so they hired aspiring actress Jessie Prescott (played by Debby Ryan) as a full-time nanny and surrogate mother to the kids. Luke was the second oldest child, who viewed Jessie as a love interest. The series was a ratings hit for Disney Channel. It lasted for 4 seasons, and a total of 98 episodes.- Actor
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Rip Torn was born Elmore Rual Torn Jr. on February 6, 1931 in Temple, Texas, the son of Thelma Mary (Spacek) and Elmore Rudolph Torn, who was an agriculturalist and economist, credited with popularizing the custom of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. "Rip" is a family name, taken by generations of Torn men and bestowed on Elmore by his father, who was also called "Rip." He was of German, Austrian, Bohemian, and Moravian descent. His mother was an elder sister of actress Sissy Spacek's father, Edwin Spacek.
Torn attended Texas A&M and the University of Texas, where he joined Sigma Chi Fraternity. He majored in animal husbandry. Extremely naïve when he was young, Torn hitchhiked to Hollywood with the idea of becoming a movie star; he wanted to make enough money in order to buy a ranch. Success did not come overnight, as he had hoped, and Torn had to work many odd jobs while occasionally being cast in television roles. He made his feature film debut in Elia Kazan's Baby Doll (1956) in a small part.
Serious about learning his craft, he moved to New York City where he studied under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Torn also studied dance with Martha Graham. His serious acting career began on the small screen, where he made a name for himself in the Golden Age of Television; between 1957 and 1960, he appeared regularly on such prestigious live shows as Omnibus (1952) and Playhouse 90 (1956).
Torn made his Broadway debut in Kazan's staging of Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" on March 10, 1959, in support of Paul Newman, Sidney Blackmer and Geraldine Page, who would become his second wife. The play was a hit, closing on January 30, 1960 after 375 performances. He won a 1960 Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Play and a Theater World award for his role as "Tom, Jr.", a role he recreated in the 1962 film. (Torn also starred as "Boss Finley" in a later television adaptation of the play).
Torn earned a reputation as an actor's actor on stage, both Broadway and off-Broadway, as well as on screen. He continued to work in the New York theater despite his demanding TV and movie schedule as both an actor and director. He won two Obie awards for his work off-Broadway, for Distinguished Performance in Norman Mailer's "The Deer Park" (for the 1966-67 season), and for Distinguished Direction for "The Beard" (1967-68). He had his own stage company, and directed his daughter Angelica Page (by Geraldine Page) in John Paul Alexander's "Strangers in the Land of Canaan" at the Actors Studio. Torn made his feature film directorial debut with The Telephone (1988).
He was constantly in demand as a character actor, in supporting, second lead and occasional lead roles. Arguably his best performance on film came in Payday (1973), and he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Cross Creek (1983). Most of Torn's roles were in drama, though he was adept at comedy. His role in Albert Brooks' comedy Defending Your Life (1991) led to his being cast in The Larry Sanders Show (1992), on which he played talk show producer "Artie." Torn won six consecutive Emmy nominations for the role, winning once for Best Supporting Actor in a comedy series in 1996.
Torn was married to actress Ann Wedgeworth from 1956-61, whom he divorced to marry Geraldine Page. They remained married until her death in 1987. He was married to Amy Wright until his death. Torn helped his first cousin, Oscar-winner Sissy Spacek, to make her way as an actress, seeing to it that she was accepted by the Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and then the Lee Strasberg Institute.
Rip Torn died in on July 9, 2019 in Lakeville, Connecticut, aged 88.- Actress
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Carrie Frances Fisher was born on October 21, 1956 in Burbank, California, to singers/actors Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds. She was an actress and writer known for Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). Fisher is also known for her book, "Postcards from the Edge", and she wrote the screenplay for the movie based on her novel. Carrie Fisher and talent agent Bryan Lourd have a daughter, Billie Lourd (Billie Catherine Lourd), born on July 17, 1992.- Actor
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Jonathan Southworth Ritter was born in Burbank, California, on September 17, 1948. He was the son of legendary country singer/actor Tex Ritter (born Woodward Maurice Ritter) and his wife, actress Dorothy Fay (née Dorothy Fay Southworth). The couple married in 1941 and had their first child, Tom Ritter, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. John was destined to follow in his parents footsteps. He was enrolled at Hollywood High School where he was student body president.
After graduation from high school, he attended the University of Southern California where he majored in Psychology and minored in Architecture. His first appearance on TV was in 1966 as a contestant on The Dating Game (1965) where he won a vacation to Lake Havasu, Arizona. After making his very first cameo appearance, he was induced to join an acting class taught by Nina Foch. He changed his major to Theater Arts, graduating in 1971 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Drama. He also studied acting with Stella Adler at the Harvey Lembeck Comedy Workshop. Between 1968 and 1969, he appeared in a series of stage plays in England, Scotland, Holland and in Germany.
His TV debut came playing a campus revolutionary on Dan August (1970) which starred Burt Reynolds and Norman Fell, who later starred with him on Three's Company (1976). Then he appeared as "Reverend Matthew Fordwick" on The Waltons (1972). He continued making more guest appearances on Medical Center (1969), M*A*S*H (1972), The Bob Newhart Show (1972), The Streets of San Francisco (1972), Kojak (1973), Rhoda (1974) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970). While working on The Waltons (1972), he received word that his legendary father had passed away, just a day after New Year's Day in 1974. The following year, in late 1975, ABC picked up the rights for a new series based on a British sitcom, Man About the House (1973). Ritter beat out 50 people, including a young Billy Crystal, to get a major role. The first pilot was trashed, and in order for it to be improved, Joyce DeWitt, an unknown actress, played the role of "Janet Wood", along with Susan Lanier as the dumb blonde, "Chrissy Snow". It did better than the first pilot, but the producers still needed a change and Suzanne Somers came to the show at the very last minute to play "Chrissy". The series, Three's Company (1976), was born. When it debuted as a mid-season replacement, it became a ratings hit. It focused mainly on his character, "Jack Tripper", a chef who pretended to be gay in order to share an apartment with two attractive ladies.
Before playing "Jack Tripper" on the small screen, he also made his box office debut in the movie Nickelodeon (1976). Two years later, he worked with his close friend, Jenny Sullivan, in Breakfast in Bed (1977), and the following year, played "Pres. Chet Roosevelt" in the movie Americathon (1979). Also in 1977, he and his brother emceed the Annual United Cerebral Palsy Telethon which he continued to support for over 15 years. He also became more popular with movies such as Hero at Large (1980) and They All Laughed (1981). In 1980, when Three's Company (1976) was sold into syndication, the show became a ratings phenomenon. At the height of Ritter's popularity, he won a Golden Globe in 1983 for Best Performance by an Actor after being nominated twice for Best TV Actor in a Musical-Comedy Series and, one year later, he won an Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor In a Comedy Series after being nominated twice. By its eighth season, the show began to drop in the ratings and was canceled in 1984. After cancellation, he starred in its spin-off, called Three's a Crowd (1984), also starring Mary Cadorette, but it lasted for only one season.
His first animated movie was that of a man turning into a dragon, whose job was to defeat "Ommendon" in The Flight of Dragons (1982). The following year, he came back to series television as "Detective Harry Hooperman" in the comedy/drama, Hooperman (1987) for which he was nominated for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe in 1988 for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. He also won a People's Choice Award for this role. He continued doing more box-office films such as Skin Deep (1989), in which he played a womanizing, alcoholic writer whose life seemed to be falling apart at the seams. In the movies, Problem Child (1990), and Problem Child 2 (1991), he played the surrogate father of a rebellious little boy who wrought havoc on the family. He also worked on Noises Off... (1992) and Stay Tuned (1992) before returning to another TV sitcom called Hearts Afire (1992) that also starred Billy Bob Thornton. The show had well-written scripts but failed to reach a massive audience which led to its cancellation in 1995. While he was working on Hearts Afire (1992), he played "Ward Nelson" on North (1994). Then, he had the opportunity to work with Billy Bob Thornton, in the movie Sling Blade (1996), in which Ritter played the gay manager of a department store. He also provided the voice of "Clifford" in Clifford the Big Red Dog (2000). He was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award 4 times in a row, totaling seven Emmy nominations in his 35-year career. In 1999, he was also nominated for an Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series playing the role of "George Madison" on an episode of Ally McBeal (1997).
Soon afterwards, he landed his last television role in 8 Simple Rules (2002), based on the popular book. On this sitcom he played "Paul Hennessey", a loving, yet rational dad, who laid down the ground rules for his three children and dealt with such topics as curfews, sex, drugs, getting arrested, etc. The show was a ratings winner in its first season and won a People's Choice Award for Best New Comedy and also won for Favorite Comedy Series by the Family Awards. While working on "8 Simple Rules," he also starred in his second-to-last film, Manhood (2003). That same year, he felt ill while rehearsing on set, and was taken across the street to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, California, where he was mistakenly treated for a heart attack. He died from an undiagnosed aortic dissection which is a tear in the wall of the aorta. He underwent surgery and died on September 11, 2003, just six days shy of his 55th birthday. In the years that he worked, John Ritter was a brilliant comedian and a passionate actor, who wanted to make everybody laugh. Shortly before his death, his eldest son, Jason Ritter, was cast in the role of "Kevin" in the highly-rated drama Joan of Arcadia (2003).- Actress
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Debbie Reynolds was born Mary Frances Reynolds in El Paso, Texas, the second child of Maxine N. (Harmon) and Raymond Francis Reynolds, a carpenter for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Her film career began at MGM after she won a beauty contest at age 16 impersonating Betty Hutton. Reynolds wasn't a dancer until she was selected to be Gene Kelly's partner in Singin' in the Rain (1952). Not yet twenty, she was a quick study. Twelve years later, it seemed like she had been around forever. Most of her early film work was in MGM musicals, as perky, wholesome young women. She continued to use her dancing skills with stage work.
She was 31 when she gave an Academy Award-nominated performance in The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). She survived losing first husband Eddie Fisher to Elizabeth Taylor following the tragic death of Mike Todd. Her second husband, shoe magnate Harry Karl, gambled away his fortune as well as hers. With her children as well as Karl's, she had to keep working and turned to the stage. She had her own casino in Las Vegas with a home for her collection of Hollywood memorabilia until its closure in 1997. She took the time to personally write a long letter that is on display in the Judy Garland museum in Grand Rapids, Minnesota and to provide that museum with replicas of Garland's costumes. The originals are in her newly-opened museum in Hollywood.
Nearly all the money she makes is spent toward her goal of creating a Hollywood museum. Her collection numbers more than 3000 costumes and 46,000 square-feet worth of props and equipment.
With musician/actor Eddie Fisher, she was the mother of filmmaker Todd Fisher and actress Carrie Fisher. Debbie died of a stroke on December 28, 2016, one day after the death of her daughter Carrie. She was survived by her son and granddaughter, up-and-coming actress Billie Lourd.- Actor
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Paul William Walker IV was born in Glendale, California. He grew up together with his brothers, Caleb and Cody, and sisters, Ashlie and Amie. Their parents, Paul William Walker III, a sewer contractor, and Cheryl (Crabtree) Walker, a model, separated around September 2004. His grandfather, William Walker, was a Pearl Harbor survivor and a Navy middleweight boxing champion, while his maternal grandfather commanded a tank battalion in Italy under General Patton during World War II. Paul grew up active in sports like soccer and surfing. He had English and German ancestry.
Paul was cast for the first season of the family sitcom, Throb (1986) and began modeling until he received a script for the 1994 movie, Tammy and the T-Rex (1994). He attended high school at Village Christian High School in Sun Valley, California, graduating in 1991. With encouragement from friends and an old casting agent who remembered him as a child, he decided to try his luck again with acting shortly after returning from College.
He starred in Meet the Deedles (1998), a campy, silly but surprisingly fun film which failed to garner much attention. However, lack of attention would not be a problem for Paul Walker for long. With Pleasantville (1998), he appeared in his first hit. As the town stud (a la 1950s) who more than meets his match in modern day Reese Witherspoon, he was one of the most memorable characters of the film. That same year, Paul and his then-girlfriend Rebecca had a baby girl named Meadow Walker (Meadow Rain Walker). Even though Paul publicly admitted that Meadow was not planned, he said that she is his number one priority. Paul and Rebecca separated and Meadow lives with her mother in Hawaii. She often visited with Paul as his homes in Santa Barbara and Huntington Beach, California.
Roles in the teen hits Varsity Blues (1999), She's All That (1999) and The Skulls (2000) cemented Walker's continued rise to celebrity. He was chosen to be one of the young stars featured on the cover of Vanity Fair's annual Hollywood issue in April 2000. While the other stars on the cover, brooded and tried their best to look sexy and serious, Paul smiled brightly and showed why he is not part of the norm. This is one young actor who certainly stood apart from the rest of the crowd, not only with his talent but with his attitude. The Dallas Morning News commented in March of 2000 that, "Paul is one of the rarest birds in Hollywood- a pretension free movie star." The latest blockbuster hit, The Fast and the Furious (2001), had raised his stardom to an even higher level.
His fighting scenes in movies lead to a passion for martial arts. He has studied various forms of Jujitsu, Taekwondo, Jeet Kune Do and Eskrima. Paul mentioned in a magazine interview that he had hoped enroll in the Keysi Fighting Method when it comes to the United States. Other than practicing martial arts, Paul enjoyed relaxing at home with his daughter, Meadow Rain, surfing near his Huntington Beach abode, walking his dogs and just driving.
When Paul seriously did get a break from the entertainment business, he said he loved traveling. Paul had traveled to India, Fiji, Costa Rica, Sarawak, Brunei, Borneo and other parts of the Asian continent. Tragically, Paul Walker died in a car crash on Saturday November 30, 2013, after attending a charity event for "Reach Out Worldwide".
Several of Paul's films were released after his death, include Hours (2013), Brick Mansions (2014), and his final starring role in The Fast and the Furious series, Furious 7 (2015), part of which was completed after his death. The film's closing scenes paid tribute to Walker, whose character met with a happy ending, and rode off into the sunset. He appeared archival footage in Fast X (2023).- Actress
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Katherine Marie Helmond was born on July 5, 1929, in Galveston, Texas. After her parents divorced, she was raised by her mother, Thelma (nee Malone) Helmond, and her maternal grandmother, both of Irish Catholic descent. She attended Catholic school, and appeared in numerous school plays and pageants. She took a job at a local theater while still in high school, hammering and sawing the scenery, cleaning the bathrooms and pulling the curtain.
After her stage debut in "As You Like It", she worked in New York theatres during the 1950s and 1960s. She operated a summer theatre in the Catskills for three seasons and also taught acting in university theatre programs. She made her TV debut in 1962 but had to wait another 10 years until her breakthrough came in the 1970s. She stayed busy on TV as well as on stage and earned a Tony nomination for "The Great God Brown" (1973) on Broadway. She honed her acting abilities with Alfred Hitchcock in Family Plot (1976) and in numerous TV series, notably in ABC's cult sitcom Soap (1977), for which she had four Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe. On the big screen she starred in Brazil (1985) as Jonathan Pryce's mother who is addicted to plastic surgery and snooping in her son's messed-up life.
In 1983 she studied at the Directing Workshop of the American Film Institute and then directed four episodes of the series Benson (1979) as well as episodes of Who's the Boss? (1984). She also picked up Emmy nominations for her role as Mona Robinson, a liberated grandmother in "Who's the Boss?", and as Lois in Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). Although Helmond was a bona-fide TV star since her "Soap" days, she continued working on stage in the 2000s and was acclaimed for her performances in "The Vagina Monologues".
Katherine Helmond was married twice. She had no children. She turned to Buddhism in later years. She shared her time between her home in Los Angeles and homes in New York and London.- Actor
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Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow on April 10, 1929 in Lund, Skåne, Sweden, to a middle-class family. He was the son of Baroness Maria Margareta (Rappe), a teacher, and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and folklore professor. His surname traces back to his partial German ancestry.
When he was in high school, he and a few fellow students, including Yvonne Lombard, started a theatre club which encouraged his interest in acting. After conscription, he began to study at the Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school (1948-1951), together with Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook and Ingrid Thulin. His first role was as Nils the crofter in Alf Sjöberg's Only a Mother (1949). After graduation, he worked at the city theatres in Norrköping and Malmö.
His work in the movies by Ingmar Bergman (especially The Seventh Seal (1957), including the iconic scenes in which he plays chess with Death) made him well-known internationally, and he started to get offers from abroad. His career abroad began with him playing Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965); Hawaii (1966) and The Quiller Memorandum (1966). Since then, his career includes very different kind of characters, like Karl Oskar Nilsson in The Emigrants (1971); Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist (1973); Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor (1975), Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon (1980); the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Never Say Never Again (1983); Liet-Kynes in Dune (1984) the artist Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Lassefar in Pelle the Conqueror (1987), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination; Dr. Peter Ingham in Awakenings (1990); Lamar Burgess in Minority Report (2002) and The Renter in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011), which earned him his second Academy Award nomination.
He became one of Sweden's most admired and professional actors, and is the only male Swedish actor to receive an Oscar nomination. He was nominated twice: for Pelle the Conqueror (1987) in 1988 and for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) in 2012. He received the Guldbagge Award for Best Director in his directing debut, the drama film Ved vejen (1988). In 2016, he joined the sixth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) as the Three-eyed Raven, which earned him his Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Max von Sydow died on March 8, 2020, in Provence, France, and was survived by his wife Catherine Brelet and four children. He was 90.- Actor
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Christopher Crosby Farley was born on February 15, 1964, in Madison, Wisconsin, to Mary Anne (Crosby) and Thomas Farley, who owned an oil company. Among his siblings are actors Kevin P. Farley and John Farley. He was of Irish heritage. Farley studied theatre and communications on Marquette University. After finishing university he was in the cast of the Second City Theatre, where he was discovered by the producer of the great comedy show Saturday Night Live (1975), Lorne Michaels. Farley worked on Saturday Night Live (1975) for five years during which he appeared in movies like Wayne's World (1992), Coneheads (1993), Billy Madison (1995) and finally Tommy Boy (1995), with his comic partner and SNL cast member David Spade. The duo later made one more movie called Black Sheep (1996). From that time on, Farley was one of the big comedy stars, and his fame was growing and growing.
After some more time, he made another "lone" movie, Beverly Hills Ninja (1997), which featured former SNL member Chris Rock. Farley was made even more famous, but with his growing fame, his problems grew bigger as well; he didn't want to be the "fat guy who falls down" any longer. Farley had several other problems, too, with alcohol and drug dependency. On December 18th, 1997, he died from a heroin (opiate) and cocaine overdose in his apartment in Chicago, where his body was found by his brother John the next day. Farley's weight of 296 pounds was a contributing factor in his death, but according to his autopsy the alcohol, marijuana and Prozac that was also found in his body, were not. Less than two months prior to his death, he had appeared alongside Chevy Chase on what would be Farley's only SNL show as host. Not unlike his idol John Belushi, he was credited for one more appearance after having left SNL and died at age 33. His death cause was also the same. In the year after Farley's departing, the movie Almost Heroes (1998), where he plays the leading role alongside Matthew Perry was released. He also makes cameo appearances in Dirty Work (1998)- Actor
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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.- Actor
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John Witherspoon was an African-American actor from Detroit, Michigan known for playing Granddad from The Boondocks and Willie Jones from the Friday trilogy. He also acted in Boomerang, Little Nicky, Soul Plane, Vampire in Brooklyn, Black Jesus and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. He passed away in October 29, 2019 due to a heart attack.- Actor
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Fred Willard radiated a unique charm that established him as one of the industry's most gifted comic actors, first coming to prominence as ambitious but dimwitted sidekick Jerry Hubbard to Martin Mull's smarmy talk-show host Barth Gimble in the devastating satirical series Fernwood Tonight (1977). A master of sketch comedy, he was most heralded for his quick wit and improvisational expertise. His 50 appearances in sketches on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) were indicative of his ability to transform any character into a unique comic portrayal. Fred starred in an oft sold-out one-man show, "Fred Willard: Alone At Last!" (actually with a cast of 12) that received two Los Angeles Artistic Director Awards, for Best Comedy and Best Production. He was also an alumnus of The Second City and headed a sketch comedy workshop, The MoHo Group.- Actor
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Sam Lloyd was born on 12 November 1963 in Springfield, Vermont, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Scrubs (2001), Galaxy Quest (1999) and Flubber (1997). He was married to Vanessa Villalovos. He died on 30 April 2020 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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As the short, straight-man counterpart of the stellar husband-and-wife comedy team "Stiller & Meara", Jerry Stiller and wife Anne Meara were on top of the comedy game in the 1960s, a steady and hilarious presence on television variety, notably The Ed Sullivan Show (1948), on which they appeared 36 times. Decades later, Jerry's career was revitalized in the role of the raucous, gasket-blowing Frank Costanza on the sitcom classic Seinfeld (1989).
Jerry Stiller was born Gerald Isaac Stiller in the Unity Hospital in Brooklyn, New York, to Bella (Citron) and William Stiller, a bus driver. His paternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Galicia, and his mother was a Polish Jewish emigrant, from Frampol. In the beginning, Stiller was a drama major at the Syracuse University. Though he had played rather uneducated, blue-collar sorts for most of his career, he received his Bachelor of Science in Speech and Drama before making his acting debut on stage with Burgess Meredith in "The Silver Whistle" in 1951. While a member of the improvisational team The Compass Players (the company later evolved into the well-known Second City troupe), he met Anne.
They married in 1954 and began touring together on the national club circuit while giving new and inventive meaning to the term spousal comedy. This led to television prominence on "The Ed Sullivan Show", "The Tonight Show", "The Steve Allen Comedy Hour", "The Merv Griffin Show", as well as game shows "He Said, She Said", "You're Putting Me On" and "What's My Line?" as well as other talk/comedy venues.
After well over a decade of fame together, they decided to pursue individual successes and both found it. A Broadway favorite in such shows as "Hurlyburly", "The Ritz" (he later recreated his hilarious mobster family member role in the film The Ritz (1976)), "The Golden Apple", "Three Men on a Horse", "What's Wrong with This Picture" and "The Three Sisters", Stiller even appeared with Kevin Kline and Blythe Danner as Dogberry in William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1988. Musicals were not out of his range, either, as he created the role of Launce in "Two Gentlemen of Verona" and co-starred as Nathan Detroit in a production of "Guys and Dolls". Although he kept afloat on television as a 1970s regular on The Paul Lynde Show (1972) and Joe and Sons (1975), he had some rocky years and Anne's pilot fizzled when they reunited for a possible "Stiller & Meara" sitcom.
Then came eight seasons as hypertensive Frank Costanza and his character star was reborn. Nominated for a 1997 Emmy Award and the recipient of the 1998 American Comedy Award, Stiller found back-to-back sitcom hits with The King of Queens (1998) as the irascible Arthur Spooner. He also appeared in a number of his successful son Ben Stiller's comedy pictures including Heavyweights (1995), Zoolander (2001), The Heartbreak Kid (2007) and Zoolander 2 (2016)
Into the millennium, Jerry has appeared in a number of independent films, including a starring role as a low-level director seeking a comeback in the comedy The Independent (2000); had a cameo in the off-color Rodney Dangerfield slapstick farce My 5 Wives (2000); played the slick Mr. Pinky in the film version of the Broadway musical hit Hairspray (2007); and featured roles in the romantic comedies Swinging with the Finkels (2011) and Excuse Me for Living (2012).
Daughter Amy Stiller is also a thriving actress. He and Anne wrote, performed and produced award-winning radio commercials together for such products as Blue Nun Wine, United Van Lines and Amalgamated Bank, among others. His autobiography "Married to Laughter" came out in 2000. Stiller's wife Anne passed away on May 23, 2015, and he passed away nearly five years later, on May 11, 2020, at age 92.- Actress
Lynn Cohen was born on 10 August 1933 in Kansas City, Missouri, USA. She was an actress, known for Munich (2005), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993) and The Cobbler (2014). She was married to Ronald Theodore Cohen and Gilbert Laman Frazen. She died on 14 February 2020 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
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Born Sahabzade Irfan Ali Khan, in Jaipur, Rajasthan (NW India) January 7, 1967 to a Pashto-speaking Muslim family. Khan's mother, Begum Khan, was from the Tonk Hakim family and his father, Jagirdar Khan, from the Khajuriya village near the Tonk district, ran a tire business.
The Khan family name comes from Turkish and Mongol languages and mean "king" or great leader. Descendants of Genghis Khan (13th century) in central Asia adopted Islam and became the Moghuls, who conquered India for several centuries until British rule.
Irfan was a skilled cricket player. In his early 20's he was selected for the CK Nayudu Tournament (a stepping stone to First Class cricket). He did not turn up for the tournament owing to lack of funds and as a result he focused on acting.
In 1984 he earned a scholarship to the National School of Acting in New Delhi.
He was awarded the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honor for his contribution to the field of arts.
His portrayal of Paan Singh Tomar in the acclaimed biographical sports drama Paan Singh Tomar (2011) won him the National Film Award for Best Actor and a Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. His performance in the BAFTA Award nominated romance The Lunchbox (2013) earned him universal acclaim by the critics and audiences.
Globally, Khan was in The Warrior (2001), The Namesake (2006), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), the Academy Award-winning film Slumdog Millionaire (2008), New York, I Love You (2009), The Amazing Spider-Man (2012), Life of Pi (2012), Jurassic World (2015) and Inferno (2016). As of 2017, his films have grossed $3.643 billion at the worldwide box office. In 2018, Khan was diagnosed with a neuroendocrine tumor.
Khan got married to his wife Sutapa Sikdar, in 1995. She is a Hindu of the Brahmin caste. She is a movie producer, dialogue writer and screenwriter. Among her famous movies are Khamoshi: The Musical (Dialogue Writer, 1996), Supari (Dialogue Writer, 2003), Kahaani (Dialogue Writer, 2003), Madaari (Producer, 2016), Qarib Qarib Singlle (Producer, 2017)
They have two kids: Ayaan Khan, Babil Khan
Unlike most Indian film stars, Irrfan has been outspoken on religion. On Arnab Goswami's talk show, he took on Muslim fundamentalists, including India's Grand Imam. Irrfan Khan argued against "transactional religious interaction" and for "personal religious discovery"..."to discover yourself, to find God". Though he admits he is "not an authority" on the Koran and Islamic Holy scriptures he has bravely stood by his comments despite heavy criticism and even threats of violence. He's aware of the dangers that his frank comments pose to him and his family. His wife commented, "We are very proud of him."- Actor
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Sir Ian Holm was one of the world's greatest actors, a Laurence Olivier Award-winning, Tony Award-winning, BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated British star of films and the stage. He was a member of the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company and has played more than 100 roles in films and on television.
He was born Ian Holm Cuthbert on September 12, 1931, in Goodmayes, Essex, to Scottish parents who worked at the Essex mental asylum. His mother, Jean Wilson (née Holm), was a nurse, and his father, Doctor James Harvey Cuthbert, was a psychiatrist. Young Holm was brought up in London. At the age of seven he was inspired by the seeing 'Les Miserables' and became fond of acting. Holm studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, graduating in 1950 to the Royal Shakespeare Company. There he emerged as an actor whose range and effortless style allowed him to play almost entire Shakespeare's repertoire. In 1959 his stage partner Laurence Olivier scored a hit on Ian Holm in a sword fight in a production of 'Coriolanus'. Holm still had a scar on his finger.
In 1965 Holm made his debut on television as Richard III on the BBC's The Wars of the Roses (1965), which was a filmed theatrical production of four of Shakespeare's plays condensed down into a trilogy. In 1969 Holm won his first BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actor for The Bofors Gun (1968), then followed a flow of awards and nominations for his numerous works in film and on television. In 1981, he played one of his best known roles, Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire (1981), for which he was nominated for Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In the late 1990s, he gave a highly-acclaimed turn as the lawyer, Mitchell, in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter (1997), and was subsequently cast in a number of high-profile Hollywood films of the next decade, playing Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element (1997), Bilbo in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), and Professor Fitz in The Aviator (2004), as well as Zach Braff's character's father Gideon in Garden State (2004). His last non-Hobbit film role was a voice part as Skinner in Ratatouille (2007).
Ian Holm had five children, three daughters and two sons from the first two of his four wives and from an additional relationship. In 1989 Holm was created a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), and in 1998 he was knighted for his services to drama. He died in London in June 2020.- Writer
- Producer
- Music Department
James Lipton was an actor, academic, author, choreographer, interviewer, scriptwriter, and producer for stage and television projects. He was known for creating and hosting the noted and popular TV series Inside the Actors Studio (1994), where successful and prominent actors discussed their craft for the benefit of acting students.
James Lipton was born Louis James Lipton in Detroit, Michigan, to Betty (Weinberg), a teacher and librarian, and Lawrence Lipton (originally Israel Lipschitz), a writer and beatnik poet. His father was a Polish Jewish emigrant, from Lodz, and his maternal grandparents were Russian Jews. Lipton's parents divorced when he was quite young. As a reaction against his beatnik father's anarchic and chaotic lifestyle, Lipton at first chose to pursue a stable and staid career as a lawyer. He originally took up acting as a sideline to finance his law studies but eventually he shifted the focus of his career to acting.
Lipton moved to New York City and undertook twelve years of intensive studies in the performing arts. He studied acting and directing under Stella Adler, widely regarded as the most respected acting teacher in the history of American dramatic arts. Adler's other students at various times have included Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro and Harvey Keitel. Lipton also studied with Harold Clurman and Robert Lewis. He studied movie/TV production and directing at New York University and at The New School. He also studied voice, modern dance, classical ballet, and jazz technique.
Lipton performed in the play "The Autumn Garden" on Broadway in 1951. He became active in several TV soap operas, joining the cast of Guiding Light (1952) where he acted and wrote scripts for several years and later became head writer, all while undertaking his formal acting studies. He was a scriptwriter for The Edge of Night (1956) and he became head writer for Another World (1964), The Best of Everything (1970), Return to Peyton Place (1972) and Capitol (1982).
Lipton wrote the book and the lyrics for the Broadway flop "Nowhere to Go But Up" (1962), and he did the same for "Sherry!" which was produced on stage in 1967 and released as an audio CD in 2004. Also for Broadway, he produced "The Mighty Gents" (1978), "Monteith & Rand" (1979) and co-produced the Tony award-winning "Ain't Misbehavin'" (1978). He choreographed "Charlot" for ballet theater, and for Moliere's play "The Doctor In Spite of Himself" he translated from the original French, adapted it as a musical version, wrote the lyrics, directed and choreographed.
A lover of words, Lipton has made a study of group terms, sometimes called nouns of multitude (examples: a gaggle of geese, a host of angels, etc.). He has published the definitive work on the subject in a best-selling book titled "An Exaltation of Larks". It has been in print continuously since its first edition in 1968. The latest edition, now expanded, contains over 1,100 such phrases. In the book Lipton himself jumps into the lexical fray by offering many new terms of his own invention, including: a score of bachelors, an unction of undertakers, a shrivel of critics, and a queue of actors. Other writings of his have appeared in Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine and The Paris Review.
In 1983 Lipton published his novel "Mirrors" which is about the lives of dancers. He later wrote and produced it as a TV movie. In television, Lipton has produced some two dozen specials including: twelve Bob Hope Birthday Specials; Bob Hope on the Road to China (1979) , an NBC entertainment special produced in China; and the first time ever televised presidential inaugural gala, for Jimmy Carter.
In the mid-1990s Lipton sought to create a three year educational program for actors that would be a distillation of what he had learned in the twelve years of his own intensive studies. In 1994 he arranged for the Actors Studio -- the home base of "method acting" in the USA for some sixty years now -- to join with New York City's New School University, to form the Actors Studio Drama School, a formal degree-granting program at the graduate level.
At the same time, Lipton created a sub-project within the drama school: a non-credit class called Inside the Actors Studio (1994) where successful and accomplished actors, directors and writers would be interviewed and would answer questions from acting students. These sessions were also taped and broadcast on television for the general public to see. Lipton himself hosts the show and conducts the main interview.
The TV show Inside the Actors Studio (1994) has become a substantial success. In the more than 12 years that it has been on the air, the craft of acting has been discussed by the show's over 200 guests who have included Paul Newman, Barbra Streisand, Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep, Angelina Jolie, Robert De Niro, Francis Ford Coppola, Kate Winslet, Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Charlize Theron, Robin Williams, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anthony Hopkins, Samuel L. Jackson, Johnny Depp, Morgan Freeman, Al Pacino, Cate Blanchett, Martin Scorsese and Dustin Hoffman. The show is viewed in 80 million homes in the USA on the Bravo cable channel and is seen in 125 countries. It has been nominated for 12 Emmy awards. The Actors Studio Drama School performed very well also. During Lipton's term as dean, the school became the largest graduate-level drama school in the United States.
Important changes began in 2004 for both the TV show and the drama school. The New School underwent a major reorganization and seriously cut back its support for drama education. The Actors Studio's collaboration with the New School came to an end and a new drama school as well as a new venue for the TV show were both set up at Pace University, also in New York City.
Lipton's TV show made him so famous that he was frequently parodied on Saturday Night Live (1975) by comic Will Ferrell. Lipton continued to host and produce Inside the Actors Studio (1994), and served as a vice president of the Actors Studio. He held the lifelong title of Dean Emeritus of the Actors Studio Drama Program. In 2007, he wrote a book about the TV show and his life, which was titled "Inside Inside."
The last episode of Inside he hosted aired on January 11, 2018, with Ted Danson as guest. The show began rotating hosts in its 2019 season. James Lipton died on March 2, 2020, in Manhattan. He was survived by wife Kedaki Turner.- Writer
- Producer
- Actor
Carl Reiner is a legend of American comedy, who achieved great success as a comic actor, a director, producer and recording artist. He won nine Emmy Awards, three as an actor, four as a writer and two as a producer. He also won a Grammy Award for his album "The 2,000 Year Old Man", based on his comedy routine with Mel Brooks.
Reiner was born in The Bronx, to Bessie (Mathias) and Irving Reiner, a watchmaker. His father was an Austrian Jewish immigrant and his mother was a Romanian Jewish immigrant. At the age of sixteen, while working as a sewing machine repairman, he attended a dramatic workshop sponsored by the Works Progress Administration. The direction of his life was set.
In the 1970s, some sources claimed that Reiner made his movie debut in New Faces of 1937 (1937), but that is unlikely as he would have only been fifteen years old at the time. (the movie shares the same plot as his erstwhile partner Mel Brooks' classic The Producers (1967), with a crooked producer planning to fleece his "angels" by producing a flop and absconding with the money). He didn't appear on screen, silver or small, until he made his television debut in 1948 in the short-lived television series, The Fashion Story (1948), then became a regular, the following year, on The Fifty-Fourth Street Revue (1949), another television series with a brief life.
Reiner made his Broadway debut in 1949 in the musical "Inside U.S.A.", a hit that ran for 399 performances. His next Broadway show, the musical revue "Alive and Kicking" (1950) was a flop, lasting just 43 performances. Max Liebman, the producer/director/writer/composer, had been called in to provide additional material after the show's troubled six week out-of-town preview in Boston. It didn't help -- the show closed after six weeks on Broadway -- but an important contact had been made.
Leibman was a producer-director on Your Show of Shows (1950), one of the great television series, and he hired Reiner to appear on the show in the middle of its first season. Reiner's first gig on the revue-like show was interviewing The Professor, a character played by Sid Caesar. He became central to the comedy portions of the show and, in 1953, he racked up the first of six Emmy Award nominations for acting. (In all, he was nominated for an Emmy Award a total of 13 times). When, in 1954, "Your Show of Shows" was split up by the network into its constituent parts, Reiner continued on with Sid in Caesar's Hour (1954). (Imogene Coca was given her own show, which lasted one season, and Leibman was allowed to produce specials).
"Your Show or Shows" had been a Broadway-style revue, featuring skits such as dancing (including a young Bob Fosse) whereas "Caesar's Hour" was pure comedy. "Your Show of Shows" had had a great cast, another other than Coca, most of the cast, including Reiner, Howard Morris, and Nanette Fabray (who went on to win an Emmy Award) moved over to "Caesar's Hour". In his three seasons on the show, he was nominated three more times for an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor, winning twice in 1957 and 1958. But it was its stable of comedy writers that was essential to the great success of both "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". In addition to Mel Brooks, the writing staff included Neil Simon, his brother Danny Simon, Larry Gelbart and Mel Tolkin. (There are rumors that the young Woody Allen served as the writing staff's typist).
Reiner had sat in informally with the writers during "Your Show of Shows", but he began writing formally for "Caesar's Hour", having learned his craft from all of the other writers. As a self-described uncredited "writer without portfolio", he was able to leave writers' meetings at 6 P.M., if he wanted to. This gave him the time to work on a semi-autobiographical novel. Published in 1958, Enter Laughing (1967) is about a young man in 1930s New York trying to make it in show business. It was transformed into a play and, eventually, adapted into a movie in 1967, and a musical, many years later.
In 1959, he created the pilot for a television series, "Man of the House", in which he would play a writer, Rob Petrie, who balanced his family life with the demands of working as a writer for a comedy show headlined by an egotistical comedic genius modeled after Sid Caesar (a "benign despot" who lacked social skills, according to Reiner). The series was rooted in his experience on "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour". The network didn't pick up the pilot at first, as CBS executives claimed the main character, which was clearly autobiographical on Reiner's part, was too New York, too Jewish and too intellectual. In 1960, Reiner teamed up with Mel Brooks on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956), and their routine "The 2000 Year Old Man" was a huge success. Reiner played the straight man to Brooks in the routine, which was spun-off into five comedy albums, bringing them a Grammy Award. They also made an animated television special based on their shtick in 1975.
Though CBS turned down "Man of the House", with the two-time Emmy Award-winning comedian Reiner as the lead, it was still interested in the series. However, they wanted a different actor in the lead role, and the casting of the protagonist came down to Johnny Carson and Dick Van Dyke. Carson was a game show host of no great note at the time, but Van Dyke was in the smash Broadway musical Bye Bye Birdie (1963), for which he won a Tony Award. He got the role and another chapter of television history was made, when Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam all were cast in leading roles. Reiner, himself, would eventually play the role of Alan Brady, the abrasive Sid Caesar-like comic convinced of his own genius, in the last few seasons of the series' five-year run.
Another milestone in television comedy, The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961), brought Reiner five more Emmy Awards, three for writing and two as the producer of the series. In 1966, Reiner and the other principals, including executive producer Sheldon Leonard and Dick Van Dyke, decided to end the series at the height of its popularity and critical acclaim. (The show won Emmy Awards as best show and best comedy in 1965 and 1966, respectively). Twenty-nine years after the show was ended, Reiner reprised the role of Alan Brady on Mad About You (1992), winning his eighth (and so far, last) Emmy Award, this time as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
It was on "The Dick Van Dyke Show" that Reiner first became a director. His feature film debut, as a director, was with the film adaptation of the play Joseph Stein had adapted from his 1958 novel, Enter Laughing (1967). His work as a writer-director, with Dick Van Dyke, in creating a Stan Laurel-type character in The Comic (1969) was not a success, but Where's Poppa? (1970) became a cult classic and Oh, God! (1977), with George Burns, and The Jerk (1979), with Steve Martin, were smash hits. The last film he directed was the romantic comedy That Old Feeling (1997).
Reiner's career continued into the 21st century, when most of his contemporaries had retired or passed. He was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 2000 and acted in the remake of Ocean's Eleven (2001) and its two sequels. He also appeared as a voice artist in the film Good Boy (2003), and the animated series The Cleveland Show (2009) (he even wrote an episode for the series rooted in his "Your Show of Shows" experience). He was also a regular on the series Hot in Cleveland (2010) (with fellow nonagenarian Betty White), and appeared on an episode of Parks and Recreation (2009) in 2012. His last film role was as the voice of Carl Reineroceros in Toy Story 4 (2019), opposite his old compatriot Mel Brooks.
Carl Reiner died at age 98 of natural causes on June 29, 2020, in Beverly Hills, California.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kelly Preston was born on October 13, 1962 in Honolulu, Hawaii. A talented and captivating performer, she first garnered international attention with her role as "Marnie Mason" in Ivan Reitman's Twins (1988), starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito. With her diverse character portrayals in films, such as director Cameron Crowe's Jerry Maguire (1996); Citizen Ruth (1996) for Alexander Payne; and For Love of the Game (1999), directed by Sam Raimi, she continued to capture audience attention.
In the early part of her career, Kelly worked with notable director John Frankenheimer in the Elmore Leonard film, 52 Pick-Up (1986), alongside Roy Scheider and Ann-Margret. Her career saw her cast her beside some of Hollywood's most notable names, including Kevin Spacey in Casino Jack (2010); Quentin Tarantino, George Clooney, and Harvey Keitel in Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996); Kevin Bacon in Death Sentence (2007); Meg Ryan and Matthew Broderick in Addicted to Love (1997); Debra Winger, Zooey Deschanel, and Hank Azaria in Eulogy (2004); Mike Myers in The Cat in the Hat (2003); and Rod Steiger and Julie Harris in the Academy Award-nominated short, Little Surprises (1996).
Kelly was actively involved in education, drug reform and many charitable organizations. She was acknowledged with numerous awards as a result of her work. She married John Travolta on September 12, 1991, and they had three children.
Kelly died on July 12, 2020, in Ocala, Florida, after a two-year battle with breast cancer. She was 57.