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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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Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi) and Sal Pacino. They divorced when he was young. His mother moved them into his grandparents' home in the South Bronx. Pacino found himself often repeating the plots and voices of characters he had seen in the movies. Bored and unmotivated in school, he found a haven in school plays, and his interest soon blossomed into a full-time career. Starting onstage, he went through a period of depression and poverty, sometimes having to borrow bus fare to succeed to auditions. He made it into the prestigious Actors Studio in 1966, studying under Lee Strasberg, creator of the Method Approach that would become the trademark of many 1970s-era actors.
After appearing in a string of plays in supporting roles, Pacino finally attained success off-Broadway with Israel Horovitz's "The Indian Wants the Bronx", winning an Obie Award for the 1966-67 season. That was followed by a Tony Award for "Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?" His first feature films made little departure from the gritty realistic stage performances that earned him respect: he played a drug addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971) after his film debut in Me, Natalie (1969). The role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) was one of the most sought-after of the time: Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, Robert De Niro and a host of other actors either wanted it or were mentioned, but director Francis Ford Coppola wanted Pacino for the role.
Coppola was successful but Pacino was reportedly in constant fear of being fired during the very difficult shoot. The film was a monster hit that earned Pacino his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. However, instead of taking on easier projects for the big money he could now command, Pacino threw his support behind what he considered tough but important films, such as the true-life crime drama Serpico (1973) and the tragic real-life bank robbery film Dog Day Afternoon (1975). He was nominated three consecutive years for the "Best Actor" Academy Award. He faltered slightly with Bobby Deerfield (1977), but regained his stride with And Justice for All (1979), for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Unfortunately, this would signal the beginning of a decline in his career, which produced flops like Cruising (1980) and Author! Author! (1982).
Pacino took on another vicious gangster role and cemented his legendary status in the ultra-violent cult film Scarface (1983), but a monumental mistake was about to follow. Revolution (1985) endured an endless and seemingly cursed shoot in which equipment was destroyed, weather was terrible, and Pacino fell ill with pneumonia. Constant changes in the script further derailed the project. The Revolutionary War-themed film, considered among the worst films ever made, resulted in awful reviews and kept him off the screen for the next four years. Returning to the stage, Pacino did much to give back and contribute to the theatre, which he considers his first love. He directed a film, The Local Stigmatic (1990), but it remains unreleased. He lifted his self-imposed exile with the striking Sea of Love (1989) as a hard-drinking policeman. This marked the second phase of Pacino's career, being the first to feature his now famous dark, owl eyes and hoarse, gravelly voice.
Returning to the Corleones, Pacino made The Godfather Part III (1990) and earned raves for his first comedic role in the colorful adaptation Dick Tracy (1990). This earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and two years later he was nominated for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He went into romantic mode for Frankie and Johnny (1991). In 1992, he finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his amazing performance in Scent of a Woman (1992). A mixture of technical perfection (he plays a blind man) and charisma, the role was tailor-made for him, and remains a classic.
The next few years would see Pacino becoming more comfortable with acting and movies as a business, turning out great roles in great films with more frequency and less of the demanding personal involvement of his wilder days. Carlito's Way (1993) proved another gangster classic, as did the epic crime drama Heat (1995) directed by Michael Mann and co-starring Robert De Niro. He directed the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Looking for Richard (1996). During this period, City Hall (1996), Donnie Brasco (1997) and The Devil's Advocate (1997) all came out. Reteaming with Mann and then Oliver Stone, he gave commanding performances in The Insider (1999) and Any Given Sunday (1999).
In the 2000s, Pacino starred in a number of theatrical blockbusters, including Ocean's Thirteen (2007), but his choice in television roles (the vicious, closeted Roy Cohn in the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003) and his sensitive portrayal of Jack Kevorkian, in the television movie You Don't Know Jack (2010)) are reminiscent of the bolder choices of his early career. Each television project garnered him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Never wed, Pacino has a daughter, Julie Marie, with acting teacher Jan Tarrant, and a set of twins with former longtime girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo. His romantic history includes Jill Clayburgh, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Carole Mallory, Debra Winger, Tuesday Weld, Marthe Keller, Carmen Cervera, Kathleen Quinlan, Lyndall Hobbs, Penelope Ann Miller, and a two-decade intermittent relationship with "Godfather" co-star Diane Keaton. He currently lives with Argentinian actress Lucila Solá, who is 36 years his junior.
As of 2022, Pacino is 82-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to appear regularly in film.- Actor
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A masculine and enigmatic actor whose life and movie career have had more ups and downs than the average rollercoaster and whose selection of roles has arguably derailed him from achieving true superstar status, James Caan is New York-born and bred.
He was born in the Bronx, to Sophie (Falkenstein) and Arthur Caan, Jewish immigrants from Germany. His father was a meat dealer and butcher. The athletically gifted Caan played football at Michigan State University while studying economics, holds a black belt in karate and for several years was even a regular on the rodeo circuit, where he was nicknamed "The Jewish Cowboy". However, while studying at Hofstra University, he became intrigued by acting and was interviewed and accepted at Sanford Meisner's Neighborhood Playhouse. He then won a scholarship to study under acting coach Wynn Handman and began to appear in several off-Broadway productions, including "I Roam" and "Mandingo".
He made his screen debut as a sailor in Irma la Douce (1963) and began to impress audiences with his work in Red Line 7000 (1965) and the western El Dorado (1966) alongside John Wayne and Robert Mitchum. Further work followed in Journey to Shiloh (1968) and in the sensitive The Rain People (1969). However, audiences were moved to tears as he put in a heart-rending performance as cancer-stricken Chicago Bears running back Brian Piccolo in the highly rated made-for-TV film Brian's Song (1971).
With these strong performances under his belt, Francis Ford Coppola then cast him as hot-tempered gangster Santino "Sonny" Corleone in the Mafia epic The Godfather (1972). The film was an enormous success, Caan scored a Best Supporting Actor nomination and, in the years since, the role has proven to be the one most fondly remembered by his legion of fans. He reprised the role for several flashback scenes in the sequel The Godfather Part II (1974) and then moved on to several very diverse projects. These included a cop-buddy crime partnership with Alan Arkin in the uneven Freebie and the Bean (1974), a superb performance as a man playing for his life in The Gambler (1974) alongside Lauren Hutton, and pairing with Barbra Streisand in Funny Lady (1975). Two further strong lead roles came up for him in 1975, first as futuristic sports star "Jonathon E" questioning the moral fiber of a sterile society in Rollerball (1975) and teaming up with Robert Duvall in the Sam Peckinpah spy thriller The Killer Elite (1975).
Unfortunately, Caan's rising star sputtered badly at this stage of his career, and several film projects failed to find fire with either critics or audiences. These included such failures as the hokey Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), the quasi-western Comes a Horseman (1978) and the saccharine Chapter Two (1979). However, he did score again with the stylish Michael Mann-directed heist movie Thief (1981). He followed this with a supernatural romantic comedy titled Kiss Me Goodbye (1982) and then, due to personal conflicts, dropped out of the spotlight for several years before returning with a stellar performance under old friend Francis Ford Coppola in the moving Gardens of Stone (1987).
Caan appeared back in favor with fans and critics alike and raised his visibility with the sci-fi hit Alien Nation (1988) and Dick Tracy (1990), then surprised everyone by playing a meek romance novelist held captive after a car accident by a deranged fan in the dynamic Misery (1990). The 1990s were kind to him and he notched up roles as a band leader in For the Boys (1991), another gangster in Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), appeared in the indie hit Bottle Rocket (1996) and pursued Arnold Schwarzenegger in Eraser (1996).
The demand on Caan's talents seems to have increased steadily over the past few years as he is making himself known to a new generation of fans. Recent hot onscreen roles have included The Yards (2000), City of Ghosts (2002) and Dogville (2003). In addition, he finds himself at the helm of the hit TV series Las Vegas (2003) as casino security chief "Big Ed" Deline. An actor of undeniably manly appeal, James Caan continued to surprise and delight audiences with his invigorating performances up until his death in July 2022 at the age of 82.- Actress
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Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California, to Dorothy Deanne (Keaton), an amateur photographer, and John Newton Ignatius "Jack" Hall, a civil engineer and real estate broker. She studied Drama at Santa Ana College, before dropping out in favor of the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York. After appearing in summer stock for several months, she got her first major stage role in the Broadway rock musical "Hair". As understudy to the lead, she gained attention by not removing any of her clothing. In 1968, Woody Allen cast her in his Broadway play "Play It Again, Sam," which had a successful run. It was during this time that she became involved with Allen and appeared in a number of his films. The first one was Play It Again, Sam (1972), the screen adaptation of the stage play. That same year Francis Ford Coppola cast her as Kay in the Oscar-winning The Godfather (1972), and she was on her way to stardom. She reprized that role in the film's first sequel, The Godfather Part II (1974). She then appeared with Allen again in Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975).
In 1977, she broke away from her comedy image to appear in the chilling Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), which won her a Golden Globe nomination. It was the same year that she appeared in what many regard as her best performance, in the title role of Annie Hall (1977), which Allen wrote specifically for her (her real last name is Hall, and her nickname is Annie), and what an impact she made. She won the Oscar and the British Award for Best Actress, and Allen won the Directors Award from the DGA. She started a fashion trend with her unisex clothes and was the poster girl for a lot of young males. Her mannerisms and awkward speech became almost a national craze. The question being asked, though, was, "Is she just a lightweight playing herself, or is there more depth to her personality?" For whatever reason, she appeared in but one film a year for the next two years and those films were by Allen. When they broke up she was next involved with Warren Beatty and appeared in his film Reds (1981), as the bohemian female journalist Louise Bryant. For her performance, she received nominations for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe. For the rest of the 1980s she appeared infrequently in films but won nominations in three of them. Attempting to break the typecasting she had fallen into, she took on the role of a confused, somewhat naive woman who becomes involved with Middle Eastern terrorists in The Little Drummer Girl (1984). To offset her lack of movie work, Diane began directing. She directed the documentary Heaven (1987), as well as some music videos. For television she directed an episode of the popular, but strange, Twin Peaks (1990).
In the 1990s, she began to get more mature roles, though she reprized the role of Kay Corleone in the third "Godfather" epic, The Godfather Part III (1990). She appeared as the wife of Steve Martin in the hit Father of the Bride (1991) and again in Father of the Bride Part II (1995). In 1993 she once again teamed with Woody Allen in Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), which was well received. In 1995 she received high marks for Unstrung Heroes (1995), her first major feature as a director.- Actor
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Veteran actor and director Robert Selden Duvall was born on January 5, 1931, in San Diego, CA, to Mildred Virginia (Hart), an amateur actress, and William Howard Duvall, a career military officer who later became an admiral. Duvall majored in drama at Principia College (Elsah, IL), then served a two-year hitch in the army after graduating in 1953. He began attending The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre In New York City on the G.I. Bill in 1955, studying under Sanford Meisner along with Dustin Hoffman, with whom Duvall shared an apartment. Both were close to another struggling young actor named Gene Hackman. Meisner cast Duvall in the play "The Midnight Caller" by Horton Foote, a link that would prove critical to his career, as it was Foote who recommended Duvall to play the mentally disabled "Boo Radley" in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). This was his first "major" role since his 1956 motion picture debut as an MP in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), starring Paul Newman.
Duvall began making a name for himself as a stage actor in New York, winning an Obie Award in 1965 playing incest-minded longshoreman "Eddie Carbone" in the off-Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge", a production for which his old roommate Hoffman was assistant director. He found steady work in episodic TV and appeared as a modestly billed character actor in films, such as Arthur Penn's The Chase (1966) with Marlon Brando and in Robert Altman's Countdown (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People (1969), in both of which he co-starred with James Caan.
He was also memorable as the heavy who is shot by John Wayne at the climax of True Grit (1969) and was the first "Maj. Frank Burns", creating the character in Altman's Korean War comedy M*A*S*H (1970). He also appeared as the eponymous lead in George Lucas' directorial debut, THX 1138 (1971). It was Francis Ford Coppola, casting The Godfather (1972), who reunited Duvall with Brando and Caan and provided him with his career breakthrough as mob lawyer "Tom Hagen". He received the first of his six Academy Award nominations for the role.
Thereafter, Duvall had steady work in featured roles in such films as The Godfather Part II (1974), The Killer Elite (1975), Network (1976), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976). Occasionally this actor's actor got the chance to assay a lead role, most notably in Tomorrow (1972), in which he was brilliant as William Faulkner's inarticulate backwoods farmer. He was less impressive as the lead in Badge 373 (1973), in which he played a character based on real-life NYPD detective Eddie Egan, the same man his old friend Gene Hackman had won an Oscar for playing, in fictionalized form as "Popeye Doyle" in The French Connection (1971).
It was his appearance as "Lt. Col. Kilgore" in another Coppola picture, Apocalypse Now (1979), that solidified Duvall's reputation as a great actor. He got his second Academy Award nomination for the role, and was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most versatile actor in the world. Duvall created one of the most memorable characters ever assayed on film, and gave the world the memorable phrase, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"
Subsequently, Duvall proved one of the few established character actors to move from supporting to leading roles, with his Oscar-nominated turns in The Great Santini (1979) and Tender Mercies (1983), the latter of which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Now at the summit of his career, Duvall seemed to be afflicted with the fabled "Oscar curse" that had overwhelmed the careers of fellow Academy Award winners Luise Rainer, Rod Steiger and Cliff Robertson. He could not find work equal to his talents, either due to his post-Oscar salary demands or a lack of perception in the industry that he truly was leading man material. He did not appear in The Godfather Part III (1990), as the studio would not give in to his demands for a salary commensurate with that of Al Pacino, who was receiving $5 million to reprise Michael Corleone.
His greatest achievement in his immediate post-Oscar period was his triumphant characterization of grizzled Texas Ranger Gus McCrae in the TV mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989), for which he received an Emmy nomination. He received a second Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Stalin (1992), and a third Emmy nomination playing Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996).
The shakeout of his career doldrums was that Duvall eventually settled back into his status as one of the premier character actors in the industry, rivaled only by his old friend Gene Hackman. Duvall, unlike Hackman, also has directed pictures, including the documentary We're Not the Jet Set (1974), Angelo My Love (1983) and Assassination Tango (2002). As a writer-director, Duvall gave himself one of his most memorable roles, that of the preacher on the run from the law in The Apostle (1997), a brilliant performance for which he received his third Best Actor nomination and fifth Oscar nomination overall. The film brought Duvall back to the front ranks of great actors, and was followed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod for A Civil Action (1998).
Robert Duvall will long be remembered as one of the great naturalistic American screen actors in the mode of Spencer Tracy and his frequent co-star Marlon Brando. His performances as "Boo Radley" in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), "Jackson Fentry" in Tomorrow (1972), "Tom Hagen" in the first two "Godfather" movies, "Frank Hackett" in Network (1976), "Lt. Col. Kilgore" in Apocalypse Now (1979), "Bull Meechum" in The Great Santini (1979), "Mac Sledge" in Tender Mercies (1983), "Gus McCrae" in Lonesome Dove (1989) and "Sonny Dewey" in The Apostle (1997) rank as some of the finest acting ever put on film. It's a body of work that few actors can equal, let alone surpass.- Actor
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Menacing looking Italian American actor who developed into the quintessential on-screen hoodlum via several strong roles in key crime films of the early 1970s. Lettieri played the villain against some of Hollywood's biggest screen names including chasing Steve McQueen in The Getaway (1972), intimidating Charles Bronson in Mr. Majestyk (1974), threatening 'John Wayne' in McQ (1974) and, arguably in his most well known role, as Virgil "The Turk" Sollozo trying to eliminate Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972).
He was already 36 years old when he made his on screen debut in The Hanged Man (1964), and remarkably several years later was associate producer on the disturbing kidnapping drama The Night of the Following Day (1969) starring Marlon Brando. He really hit his strides in the early 1970s starring in many high profile films, before unfortunately succumbing to a heart attack at just 47 years of age. One of the most convincing "heavies" of modern cinema.- Actress
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Talia Rose Shire is an American actress who played roles as Connie Corleone in The Godfather films and Adrian Balboa in the Rocky series. For her work in The Godfather Part II and Rocky, Shire was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress, respectively, and for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Drama for her role in Rocky.- Actor
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John Cazale was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to an Irish-American mother, Cecilia (Holland), and an Italian-American father, John Cazale. Cazale made only five feature films in his career, which fans and critics alike call classics. But before his film debut, in the short The American Way (1962), he won Obie Awards for his off-Broadway performances in "The Indian Wants the Bronx" and "The Line".
Cazale scored the role of Fredo Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), after his long-time friend, Al Pacino, invited him to audition. He reprised his role as the troubled Fredo in The Godfather Part II (1974), where his character endures one of the most infamous movie moments in the history of cinema.
Cazale also starred with Gene Hackman and Harrison Ford in the thriller, The Conversation (1974), as Hackman's assistant, Stan. The Godfather's director, Francis Ford Coppola, also directed the movie.
Cazale's fourth feature film, Dog Day Afternoon (1975), earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Sal, a bank robber. His long-time friend and Godfather costar, Al Pacino, played his partner, Sonny.
His final film, The Deer Hunter (1978), was filmed whilst he was ill with cancer. He was in a relationship with his costar, Meryl Streep, whilst filming The Deer Hunter (1978), whom he met when they both appeared in the New York Public Theater's 1976 production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.
Controversy occurred during the filming. While the studio was unaware of his condition, the director, Michael Cimino, knew about it. As Cazale was evidently weak, he was forced to film his scenes first. When the studio discovered he was suffering from cancer, they wanted him removed from the film. His costar and girlfriend, Meryl Streep, threatened to quit if he was fired. He died shortly after filming was completed.- Actor
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In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history.
Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences.
With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986); The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996), for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise.
In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever.- Actress
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Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 10, 1963, Jeanne Marie Tripplehorn developed an interest in performing through her father, guitarist Tom Tripplehorn, who at one time recorded with the pop group Gary Lewis & The Playboys on such hits as "This Diamond Ring". (Note: many references list Jeanne's father's birth date as February 2, 1949, but this seems unlikely as he would have been only 14 years old when she was born). Graduating from Edison High School, Jeanne began her career as a local radio and TV host.
Educated at both the University of Tulsa and the drama division of The Juilliard School in New York City, she made her major TV debut in a supporting role in The Perfect Tribute (1991), a fictional story that centered around President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. The next year she made a big splash with her second lead, in Paul Verhoeven's thriller Basic Instinct (1992), in support of Michael Douglas. In this movie, which made a sex star out of Sharon Stone, Jeanne's weird psychiatrist role established her as a talent to be reckoned with, although a torrid sex scene with Douglas certainly helped. She earned a huge break when she replaced a pregnant Robin Wright in the role of Tom Cruise's wife in the box-office smash The Firm (1993). Her smart work in this film afforded her the opportunity to work opposite other "top guns" in the industry, including Kevin Costner in the futuristic Waterworld (1995), Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors (1998) and Hugh Grant in Mickey Blue Eyes (1999). While none of these roles impressed to a great degree, they nevertheless put her in good standing. Reaching into her versatile bag of tricks, she went on to play everything from a lesbian gangster in Mike Figgis' experimental film, Timecode (2000), to a love interest of left-wing activist Abbie Hoffman in Steal This Movie (2000).
On stage, the lady with the strikingly open face and penetrating glare made her Broadway bow in the role of "Masha" in Anton Chekhov's "The Three Sisters", opposite Amy Irving and Lili Taylor. Prior to this, she appeared off-Broadway in John Patrick Shanley's "The Big Funk" in 1990, then co-starred with Val Kilmer in a 1993 production of John Ford's 1630s play, "'Tis Pity She's a Whore". In 2002, Jeanne was one of a revolving door of guest stars to appear in the Actor's Alley play "The Guys", a tribute to the valiant firefighters of the 9/11 attack. On television, Jeanne appeared less frequently but did star, opposite Arliss Howard, in a superlative TV-movie adaptation of William Faulkner's Old Man (1997).
Back in the 1990s, she maintained a roller coaster relationship with actor/writer Ben Stiller. Engaged at one point in 1993, she even appeared on his early '90s TV show, The Ben Stiller Show (1992), on occasion. But the union broke up after six years. In 2000, Jeanne married actor Leland Orser of TV's ER (1994) fame. They appeared together in the TV movie Brother's Keeper (2002) and the films Very Bad Things (1998) and Morning (2010), the latter one written and directed by Orser. The couple has one son, August Tripplehorn Orser, born in 2002.
Jeanne's career on TV has deservedly been on an upswing of late as the senior wife of polygamist Bill Paxton's three live-ins in the HBO, drama, Big Love (2006); as Jackie Kennedy Onassis in the TV movie Grey Gardens (2009); after joining the cast as Alex Blake in the series Criminal Minds (2005); and as Eleanor Schlafly in the political mini-series Mrs. America (2020) starring Cate Blanchett.
Into the millennium, Jeanne has also graced such films as Relative Values (2000), the Madonna misfire Swept Away (2002), The Amateurs (2005), Winged Creatures (2008), Crazy on the Outside (2010) and Ana (2020), as well as co-starring roles in Little Pink House (2017) with Catherine Keener and We Only Know So Much (2018) with Damian Young.- Actor
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Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Ann Lydia Elizabeth (Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman, who operated a newspaper printing press. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, and Scottish ancestry, partly by way of Canada, where his mother was born. After several moves, his family settled in Danville, Illinois. Gene grew up in a broken home, which he left at the age of sixteen for a hitch with the US Marines.
Moving to New York after being discharged, he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and television production on the G.I. Bill at the University of Illinois. Hackman would be over 30 years old when he finally decided to take his chance at acting by enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse. Legend says that Hackman and friend Dustin Hoffman were voted "least likely to succeed."
Hackman next moved back to New York, where he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway. In 1964 he was cast as the young suitor in the Broadway play "Any Wednesday." This role would lead to him being cast in the small role of Norman in Lilith (1964), starring Warren Beatty. When Beatty was casting for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), he cast Hackman as Buck Barrow, Clyde Barrow's brother. That role earned Hackman a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, an award for which he would again be nominated in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). In 1972 he won the Oscar for his role as Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection (1971). At 40 years old Hackman was a Hollywood star whose work would rise to new heights with Night Moves (1975) and Bite the Bullet (1975), or fall to new depths with The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Eureka (1983). Hackman is a versatile actor who can play comedy (the blind man in Young Frankenstein (1974)) or villainy (the evil Lex Luthor in Superman (1978)). He is the doctor who puts his work above people in Extreme Measures (1996) and the captain on the edge of nuclear destruction in Crimson Tide (1995). After initially turning down the role of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992), Hackman finally accepted it, as its different slant on the western interested him. For his performance he won the Oscar and Golden Globe and decided that he wasn't tired of westerns after all. He has since appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), and The Quick and the Dead (1995).- Actor
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Hal Holbrook was an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor who was one of the great craftsmen of stage and screen. He was best known for his performance as Mark Twain, for which he won a Tony and the first of his ten Emmy Award nominations. Aside from the stage, Holbrook made his reputation primarily on television, and was memorable as Abraham Lincoln, as Senator Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator (1970) and as Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo (1973). All of these roles brought him Emmy Awards, with Pueblo (1973) bringing him two, as Best Lead Actor in a Drama and Actor of the Year - Special. On January 22, 2008, he became the oldest male performer ever nominated for an Academy Award, for his supporting turn in Into the Wild (2007).
He was born Harold Rowe Holbrook, Jr. on February 17, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Eileen (Davenport), a vaudeville dancer, and Harold Rowe Holbrook, Sr. Raised primarily in South Weymouth, Massachusetts by his paternal grandparents, Holbrook attended the Culver Academies. During World War II, Holbrook served in the Army in Newfoundland. After the war, he attended Denison University, graduating in 1948. While at Denison, Holbrook's senior honors project concerned Mark Twain.
He later developed "Mark Twain Tonight!," the one-man show in which he impersonates the great American writer Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens. Holbrook learned his craft on the boards and by appearing in the TV soap opera The Brighter Day (1954). He first played Mark Twain as a solo act in 1954, at Lock Haven State Teachers College in Pennsylvania. The show was a success that created a buzz. After seeing the performance, Ed Sullivan, the host of TV's premier variety show, featured him on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) on February 12, 1956. This lead to an international tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, which included appearances in Iron Curtain countries. Holbrook brought the show to Off-Broadway in 1959. He even played Mark Twain for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 1966 "Mark Twain Tonight" Broadway production brought Holbrook even more acclaim, and the Tony Award. The show was taped and Holbrook won an Emmy nomination. He reprised the show on Broadway in 1977 and in 2005. By that time, he had played Samuel Clemens on stage over 2,000 times.
Among Holbrook's more famous roles was "The Major" in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's "Incident at Vichy", as Martin Sheen's significant other in the controversial and acclaimed TV movie That Certain Summer (1972), the first TV movie to sympathetically portray homosexuality, and as Abraham Lincoln in Carl Sandburg's acclaimed TV biography of the 16th President Lincoln (1974), a role he also portrayed in excellent performances too in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986). He also is known for his portrayal of the enigmatic "Deep Throat" in All the President's Men (1976), one of the major cinema events of the mid-'70s. In the 1990s, he had a regular supporting role in the TV series Evening Shade (1990), playing Burt Reynolds' character's father-in-law.
Hal Holbrook died on January 23, 2021, at 95 years, in Beverly Hills. He was buried in McLemoresville Cemetery in Tennessee with his wife Dixie Carter.- Actress
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Holly Hunter was born in Conyers, Georgia, to Opal Marguerite (Catledge), a homemaker, and Charles Edwin Hunter, a part-time sporting goods company representative and farmer with a 250 acre farm. She is the youngest of seven children. Her parents encouraged her talent at an early age, and her first acting part was as Helen Keller in a fifth-grade play. In 1976 she went to Pittsburgh to pursue a degree in drama from Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating in 1980, she went to New York City, where she met playwright Beth Henley in a stalled elevator. Hunter went on to get roles in a number of Henley's southern Gothic plays, including Crimes of the Heart and The Miss Firecracker Contest. In 1982 the actress went to Los Angeles. She landed her first starring role in the movies in the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona (1987), a part that is said to have been written with her in mind. She gained stardom in 1987 when she played the driven TV news producer Jane Craig in James L. Brooks' Broadcast News (1987). In 1993 she earned an Academy Award and worldwide acclaim with her performance as a mute bride to a New Zealand planter in The Piano (1993).- Actor
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By transforming into his characters and pulling the audience in, Ed Harris has earned a reputation as one of the most talented actors of our time.
Ed Harris was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, to Margaret (Sholl), a travel agent, and Robert Lee Harris, a bookstore worker who also sang professionally. Both of his parents were originally from Oklahoma. Harris grew up as the middle child. After graduating high school, he attended New York's Columbia University, where he played football. After viewing local theater productions, Harris took a sudden interest in acting. He left Columbia, headed to Oklahoma, where his parents were living, and enrolled in the University of Oklahoma's theater department. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to find work. He started acting in theater and television guest spots. Harris landed his first leading role in a film in cult-favorite George A. Romero's Knightriders (1981). Two years later, he got his first taste of critical acclaim, playing astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff (1983). Also that year, he made his New York stage debut in Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love", a performance that earned him an Obie for Outstanding Actor. Harris' career gathered momentum after that. In 2000, he made his debut as a director in the Oscar-winning film Pollock (2000).- Actor
- Producer
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Charlie Sheen was born Carlos Irwin Estévez on September 3, 1965, in New York City. His father, actor Martin Sheen (born Ramon Antonio Gerard Estevez), was at the time just breaking into the business, with performances on Broadway. His mother, Janet Sheen (née Templeton), was a former New York art student who had met Charlie's father right after he had moved to Manhattan. Martin and Janet had three other children, Emilio Estevez, Renée Estevez, and Ramon Estevez, all of whom became actors. His father is of half Spanish and half Irish descent, and his mother, whose family is from Kentucky, has English and Scottish ancestry.
At a young age, Charlie took an interest in his father's acting career. When he was nine, he was given a small part in his dad's movie The Execution of Private Slovik (1974). In 1977, he was in the Philippines where his dad suffered a near-fatal heart attack on the set of Apocalypse Now (1979).
While at Santa Monica High School, Charlie had two major interests: acting and baseball. Along with his friends, which included Rob Lowe and Sean Penn, he produced and starred in several amateur Super-8 films. On the Vikings baseball team, he was a star shortstop and pitcher. His lifetime record as a pitcher was 40-15. His interest and skill in baseball would later influence some of his movie roles. Unfortunately, his success on the baseball field did not translate to success in the classroom, as he struggled to keep his grades up. Just a few weeks before his scheduled graduation date, Charlie was expelled due to poor attendance and bad grades.
After high school, Charlie aggressively pursued many acting roles. His first major role was as a high school student in the teen war film Red Dawn (1984). He followed this up with relatively small roles in TV movies and low-profile releases. His big break came in 1986 when he starred in Oliver Stone's Oscar winning epic Platoon (1986). He drew rave reviews for his portrayal of a young soldier who is caught in the center of a moral crisis in Vietnam.
The success of Platoon (1986) prompted Oliver Stone to cast Charlie in his next movie Wall Street (1987) alongside his father and veteran actor Martin Sheen. The movie with its "Greed is Good" theme became an instant hit with viewers.
Shortly after, Stone approached Charlie about the starring role in his next movie, Born on the Fourth of July (1989). When Tom Cruise eventually got the part, Sheen ended up hearing the news from his brother Emilio Estevez and not even getting as much as a call from Stone. This led to a fallout, and the two have not worked together since.
The fallout with Stone, however, did nothing to hurt Charlie's career in the late 1980s and early '90s, as he continued to establish himself as one of the top box office draws with a string of hits that included Young Guns (1988), Major League (1989), and Hot Shots! (1991). However, as the mid-'90s neared, his good fortune both personally and professionally, soon came to an end.
Around this time, Charlie, who had already been to drug rehab, was beginning to develop a reputation as a hard-partying, womanizer. In 1995, the same year he was briefly married to model Donna Peele, he was called to testify at the trial of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss. At the trial, while under oath he admitted to spending nearly $50,000 on 27 of Fleiss' $2,500-a-night prostitutes.
His downward spiral continued the following year when his ex-girlfriend Brittany Ashland filed charges claiming that he physically abused her. He was later charged with misdemeanor battery to which he pleaded no contest and was given a year's suspended sentence, two years' probation and a $2,800 fine. He finally hit rock bottom in May 1998 when he was hospitalized in Thousand Oaks, California, following a near-fatal drug overdose. Later that month, he was ordered back to the drug rehab center, which he had previously left after one day.
During this stretch, Charlie's film career began to suffer as well. He starred in a series of box office flops that included The Arrival (1996) and Shadow Conspiracy (1997). However as the 1990s came to end, so did Charlie's string of bad luck.
In 2000, Charlie, now clean and sober, was chosen to replace Michael J. Fox on the ABC hit sitcom Spin City (1996). Though his stint lasted only two seasons, Charlie's performance caught the eye of CBS executives who in 2003 were looking for an established star to help carry their Monday night lineup of sitcoms that included Everybody Loves Raymond (1996). The sitcom Two and a Half Men (2003) starred Charlie as a swinging, irresponsible womanizer whose life changes when his nephew suddenly appears on his doorstep. The show became a huge hit, breathing much needed life into Charlie's fading career.
Charlie's personal life also appeared to be improving. In 2002, he married actress Denise Richards, whom he first met while shooting the movie Good Advice (2001). In March 2004, they had a daughter, Sam, and it was announced shortly after that Denise was pregnant with the couple's second child. By all reports, the couple seemed to be very happy together. However, like all of Charlie's previous relationships, the stability did not last long. In March of 2005, Denise, who was six-months pregnant, filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. She gave birth to a second daughter, Lola, in June of that same year. Their divorce became final in late 2006.- Actor
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A legendary actor with 50 celebrated years of film, television and producing experience, Michael Douglas is known for his era-defining roles and enduring cultural impact.
In addition to his career accomplishments, Douglas has remained a steadfast public servant, activist and philanthropist dedicated to peace and human welfare, democracy, gun control advocacy, support of the arts and support of nuclear disarmament. In 1998, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Douglas as a Messenger of Peace for his commitment on disarmament issues, including nuclear non-proliferation and halting the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.
Since his earliest acting work on Hail, Hero! (1969) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972) Douglas has played some of the most memorable and enigmatic American anti-heroes of the last half century. He is most known for his iconic screen roles, like his Academy Award-winning turn as Gordon Gekko Wall Street (1987) as well as the critically and commercially acclaimed films Fatal Attraction (1987), The American President (1995), Basic Instinct (1992), Traffic (2000) and Romancing the Stone (1984). He is also a prolific producer with credits on politically relevant and socially influential motion pictures like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The China Syndrome (1979), Traffic (2000) the television series: The Kominsky Method (2018) and an upcoming limited series where Douglas portrays Benjamin Franklin (2024) during his nine years in France lobbying for French aid for the American Revolution.
With a passion for complex protagonists and darkly humorous undercurrents, Douglas has received numerous accolades for his work, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, AFI Life Achievement Award, two French César Awards for Career Achievement and, most recently, the Palme d'or d'honneur for lifetime achievement at the 76th Annual Festival de Cannes as well as the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Cinema at the Goa Film Festival in India.
Michael Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to actors Diana Douglas (Diana Love Dill) and Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch). His paternal grandparents were Belarusian Jewish immigrants, while his mother was born in Bermuda, the daughter of a local Attorney General, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill; Diana's family had long been established in both Bermuda and the United States. Douglas's parents divorced when he was six, and he went to live with his mother and her new husband. Only seeing Kirk on holidays, Michael attended Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he was about a year younger than all of his classmates.
Douglas attended the elite preparatory Choate School and spent his summers with his father on movie sets. Although accepted at Yale, Douglas attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. Deciding he wanted to be an actor in his teenage years, Michael often asked his father about getting a "foot in the door" Kirk was strongly opposed to Michael pursuing an acting career, saying that it was an industry with many downs and few ups, and that he wanted all four of his sons to stay out of it. Michael, however, was persistent, and made his film debut in his father's film Cast a Giant Shadow (1966).
After receiving his B.A. degree in 1968, Douglas moved to New York City to continue his dramatic training, studying at the American Place Theatre with Wynn Handman, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he appeared in workshop productions of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1976) and Thornton Wilder's Happy Journey (1963). A few months after he arrived in New York, Douglas got his first big break, when he was cast in the pivotal role of the free-spirited scientist who compromises his liberal views to accept a lucrative job with a high-tech chemical corporation in the CBS Playhouse production of Ellen M. Violett's drama, The Experiment, which was televised nationwide on February 25, 1969.
Douglas' convincing portrayal won him the leading role in the adaptation of John Weston's controversial novel, Hail, Hero! (1969), which was the initial project of CBS's newly organized theatrical film production company, Cinema Center Films. Douglas starred as a well-meaning, almost saintly young pacifist determined not only to justify his beliefs to his conservative parents but also to test them under fire in the jungles of Indochina. His second feature, Adam at Six A.M. (1970) concerned a young man's search for his roots. Douglas next appeared in the film version of Ron Cowen's play Summertree (1971), produced by 'Kirk Douglas'' Bryna Company, and then Napoleon and Samantha (1972), a sentimental children's melodrama from the Walt Disney studio.
In between film assignments, he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway productions, among them "City Scenes," Frank Gagliano's surrealistic vignettes of contemporary life in New York, John Patrick Shanley's short-lived romance "Love is a Time of Day" and George Tabori's "Pinkville," in which he played a young innocent brutalized by his military training. He also appeared in the made-for-television thriller, "When Michael Calls," broadcast by ABC-TV on February 5, 1972 and in episodes of the popular series "Medical Center" and "The F.B.I."
Impressed by Douglas' performance in a segment of The F.B.I. (1965), producer 'Quinn Martin' signed the actor for the part of Karl Malden's sidekick in the police series "The Streets of San Francisco", which premiered in September 1972 and became one of ABC's highest-rated prime-time programs in the mid-1970s. Douglas earned three successive Emmy Award nominations for his performance and he directed two episodes of the series.
During the annual breaks in the shooting schedule for The Streets of San Francisco (1972), Douglas devoted most of his time to his film production company, Big Stick Productions, Ltd., which produced several short subjects in the early 1970s. Long interested in producing a film version of Ken Kesey's grimly humorous novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Douglas purchased the movie rights from his father and began looking for financial backing. After a number of major motion picture studios turned him down, Douglas formed a partnership with Saul Zaentz, a record industry executive, and the two set about recruiting the cast and crew. Douglas still had a year to go on his contract for "The Streets of San Francisco," but the producers agreed to write his character out of the story so that he could concentrate on filming "Cuckoo's Nest."
A critical and commercial success, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress, and went on to gross more than $180 million at the box office. Douglas suddenly found himself in demand as an independent producer. One of the many scripts submitted to him for consideration was Mike Gray's chilling account of the attempted cover-up of an accident at a nuclear power plant. Attracted by the combination of social relevance and suspense, Douglas immediately bought the property. Deemed not commercial by most investors, Douglas teamed up with Jane Fonda and her own motion picture production company, IPC Films.
A Michael Douglas-IPC Films co-production, The China Syndrome (1979) starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, and Michael Douglas and received Academy Award nominations for Lemmon and Fonda, as well as for Best Screenplay. The National Board of Review named the film one of the best films of the year.
Despite his success as a producer, Douglas resumed his acting career in the late 1970s, starring in Michael Crichton's medical thriller Coma (1978) with Genevieve Bujold, Claudia Weill's feminist comedy It's My Turn (1980) starring Jill Clayburgh, and Peter Hyams' gripping tale of modern-day vigilante justice, "The Star Chamber" (1983). Douglas also starred in Running (1979), as a compulsive quitter who sacrifices everything to take one last shot at the Olympics, and as Zach the dictatorial director/choreographer in Richard Attenborough's screen version of the Broadway's longest running musical A Chorus Line (1985).
Douglas' career as an actor/producer came together again in 1984 with the release of the tongue-in-cheek romantic fantasy "Romancing the Stone." Douglas had begun developing the project several years earlier, and with Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, the dowdy writer of gothic romances, Danny DeVito as the feisty comic foil Ralphie and Douglas as Jack Colton, the reluctant soldier of fortune. "Romancing the Stone" was a resounding hit and grossed more than $100 million at the box office. Douglas was named Producer of the Year in 1984 by the National Association of Theater Owners. Douglas, Turner and DeVito teamed up in 1985 for the successful sequel The Jewel of the Nile (1985).
It took Douglas nearly two years to convince Columbia Pictures executives to approve the production of Starman (1984), an unlikely tale of romance between an extraterrestrial, played by Jeff Bridges, and a young widow, played by Karen Allen. Starman (1984) was the sleeper hit of the 1984 Christmas season and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Jeff Bridges. In 1986 Douglas created a television series based on the film for ABC which starred Robert Hays.
After a lengthy break from acting, Douglas returned to the screen in 1987 appearing in two of the year's biggest hits. He starred opposite Glenn Close in the phenomenally successful psychological thriller, "Fatal Attraction," which was followed by his performance as ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987), earning him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Douglas next starred in Ridley Scott's thriller Black Rain (1989) and then teamed up again with Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito in the black comedy The War of the Roses (1989).
In 1988, Douglas formed Stonebridge Entertainment, Inc., which produced Flatliners (1990), directed by Joel Schumacher and starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin and Radio Flyer (1992) starring Lorraine Bracco and directed by Richard Donner. Douglas followed with David Seltzer's adaptation of Susan Isaacs' best-selling novel, "Shining Through," opposite Melanie Griffith. In 1992 he starred with Sharon Stone in the erotic thriller from Paul Verhoeven Basic Instinct (1992), one of the year's top grossing films.
Douglas gave one of his most powerful performances opposite Robert Duvall in Joel Schumacher's controversial drama Falling Down (1993). That year he also produced the hit comedy "Made in America" starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Danson and Will Smith. In 1994-95 he starred with Demi Moore in Barry Levinson's "Disclosure," based on the best seller by Michael Crichton. In 1995, Douglas portrayed the title role in Rob Reiner's romantic comedy The American President (1995) opposite Annette Bening, and in 1997, starred in The Game (1997) directed by David Fincher and co-starring Sean Penn.
Douglas formed Douglas/Reuther Productions with partner Steven Reuther in May 1994. The company, under the banner of Constellation Films, produced The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), starring Douglas and Val Kilmer, and John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997), based on John Grisham's best selling novel, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Matt Damon,Claire Danes, Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Mary Kay Place, Virginia Madsen, Andrew Shue, Teresa Wright, Johnny Whitworth and Randy Travis.
Michael Douglas and Steve Reuther also produced John Woo's action thriller Face/Off (1997) starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, which proved to be one of '97's major hits.
In 1998, Michael Douglas starred with Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen in the mystery thriller A Perfect Murder (1998), and formed a new production company, Furthur Films. 2000 was a milestone year for Douglas. "Wonder Boys" opened in February 2000 to much critical acclaim. Directed by Curtis Hanson and co-starring Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes, Douglas starred in the film as troubled college professor Grady Tripp. Michael was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Film Award for his performance.
"Traffic" was released by USA Films on December 22, 2000 in New York and Los Angeles and went nationwide in January 2001. Douglas played the role of Robert Wakefield, a newly appointed drug czar confronted by the drug war both at home and abroad. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and co-starring Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Amy Irving, Dennis Quaid and Catherine Zeta-Jones, "Traffic" was named Best Picture by New York Film Critics, won Best Ensemble Cast at the SAG Awards, won four Academy Awards (Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro) and has been recognized on more than 175 top ten lists.
In 2001, Douglas produced and played a small role in USA Films' outrageous comedy "One Night at McCool's" starring Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser and directed by Harald Zwart. "McCool's" was the first film by Douglas' company Furthur Films. Also in 2001, Douglas starred in "Don't Say A Word" for 20th Century Fox. The psychological thriller, directed by Gary Fleder, also starred Sean Bean, Famke Janseen and Brittany Murphy.
In 2002, Douglas appeared in a guest role on the hit NBC comedy "Will & Grace," and received an Emmy Nomination for his performance.
Douglas starred in two films in 2003. MGM/BVI released the family drama "It Runs in the Family," which Douglas produced and starred with his father Kirk Douglas, his mother Diana Douglas his son Cameron Douglas, Rory Culkin and Bernadette Peters. He also starred in the Warner Bros. comedy "The-In Laws," with Albert Brooks, Candice Bergen and Ryan Reynolds.
In 2004, Douglas, along with his father Kirk, filmed the intimate HBO documentary "A Father, A Son... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". Directed by award-winning filmmaker Lee Grant, the documentary examines the professional and personal lives of both men, and the impacts they each made on the motion picture industry.
In 2005, Douglas produced and starred in "The Sentinel", which was released by 20th Century Fox in April 2006. Based on the Gerald Petievich novel and directed by Clark Johnson, "The Sentinel" is a political thriller set in the intriguing world of the Secret Service. Douglas stars with Keifer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Bassinger. Douglas then filmed "You, Me & Dupree," starring with Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon. The comedy, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, was released by Universal Pictures during the summer of 2006. In 2007 Douglas made "King of California," co-starring Evan Rachel Wood and is written and directed by Michael Cahill, and produced by Alexander Payne and Michael London.
Michael had two films released in early 2009, "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" directed by Peter Hyams and "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner and directed by Mark Waters. He followed with the drama "Solitary Man" directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, co-starring Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary Louise-Parker, and Jenna Fischer, produced by Paul Schiff and Steven Soderbergh. In 2010, Douglas reprised his Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," earning a Golden Globe for his performance. Again directed by Oliver Stone, he co-starred with Shia Labeouf, Cary Mulligan, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon.
In 2011, Douglas had a cameo role in Steven Soderbergh's action thriller "Haywire."
"Behind the Candelabra," based on the life of '70's/80's musical icon Liberace and his partner Scott Thorson, directed by Steven Soderbergh and costarring Matt Damon, premiered on HBO in May 2013. Douglas won an Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor in a television movie or mini series for his performance as the famed entertainer. He followed with the buddy comedy "Last Vegas," directed by John Turtletaub co-starring Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline and the romantic comedy "And So It Goes," co-starring Diane Keaton directed by Rob Reiner.
Douglas recently starred in and produced the thriller "Beyond The Reach," directed by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti and costarring Jeremy Irvine. He and portrayed Dr. Hank Pym in Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) opposite Paul Rudd. The franchise was his first venture into the realm of comic book action adventure.
In 2017, he starred in the spy thriller "Unlocked" starring with Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich and directed by Michael Apted.
In 1998 Douglas was made a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Kofi Annan. His main concentrations are nuclear non-proliferation and the control of small arms. He is on the Board of Ploughshares Foundation and The Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Michael Douglas was recipient of the 2009 AFI Lifetime Achievement as well as the Producers Guild Award that year. In Spring '10 he received the New York Film Society's Charlie Chaplin Award.
Douglas has hosted 11 years of "Michael Douglas and Friends" Celebrity Golf Event which has raised over $6 million for the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Douglas is very passionate about the organization, and each year he asks his fellow actors and to come out and show that "we are an industry that takes care of own".
Douglas is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones. The couple has one son, Dylan, and one daughter, Carys. Douglas also has one son, Cameron, from a previous marriage.- Actor
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John C. McGinley's path to stardom is a story that reads like a classic Hollywood script. While an understudy in New York in the Circle-In-The-Square production of John Patrick Shanley's "Danny and the Deep Blue Sea," he was spotted by director Oliver Stone and soon after was cast in "Platoon," the first of a long list of collaborations between Stone and McGinley which includes "Wall Street," "Talk Radio," "Born on the Fourth of July," "Nixon" and "Any Given Sunday."
He stars as the title character in IFC's scripted comedy-horror series, "Stan Against Evil," on which he also serves as a producer. John C. stars as disgruntled former police sheriff 'Stanley Miller,' a sour, aging bulldog who has recently lost his position as head honcho due to an angry outburst at his wife's funeral. When the new sheriff opens his eyes to the plague of angry demons haunting their small New Hampshire town, 'Stan' begrudgingly joins an alliance with her to fight them off.
John C.'s deep commitment to independent films has driven him to star in and complete production on three upcoming motion pictures in 2016 alone! James Gunn's "The Belko Experiment," Paul Shoulberg's "The Good Catholic" and Richard Dresser's "Rounding Third."
He is an audience favorite for his hilarious portrayal of 'Dr. Perry Cox' in the Emmy-nominated medical comedy series, "Scrubs," which ended its successful nine season run in 2010. He starred for two seasons in TBS's workplace comedy series "Ground Floor," which reunited him with creator Bill Lawrence ("Scrubs"). John C. played 'Mr. Mansfield,' the critical boss to hot-shot young banker 'Brody' (Skylar Austin). He also made a memorable arc on season 6 of USA Networks' hit drama series "Burn Notice."
John C.'s impressive career in film spans a diverse range of characters in over seventy films to date, including such features as the recent "Get A Job," "Alex Cross," "Wild Hogs," "Identity," "The Animal," "The Rock," "Nothing to Lose," "Set It Off," "Seven," "Office Space," "Mother," "Wagons East," "Surviving the Game," "On Deadly Ground," "Point Break," "Highlander II," "A Midnight Clear" and "Fat Man and Little Boy." He also previously starred opposite Ice Cube in Sony/Revolution Studios' feature, "Are We Done Yet?," the sequel to the hit comedy "Are We There Yet?" He recently received critical acclaim for his role as Brooklyn Dodgers' radio broadcaster 'Red Barber' in Warner Bros.' "42," the life story of Jackie Robinson and his history-making signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
As a testament to his passion for the independent film community, John C. has appeared in director Eriq La Salle's "Crazy As Hell" and director Scott Silver's "Johns." He also worked on "Truth or Consequences, N.M.," Kiefer Sutherland's feature directorial debut and on "Colin Fitz," a film John C. co-produced which premiered in competition at the Sundance Film Festival. He starred in director D.B. Sweeney's independent feature, "Two Tickets to Paradise," which received raves on the festival circuit. For his performance in the later film, John C. was awarded Method Fest's Festival Director's Award, which is awarded for special recognition/excellence in film.
John C. is a partner at McGinley Entertainment Inc., an independent film production company with several projects currently in development. John C. first worked both sides of the camera, serving double duty as actor and producer for the romantic comedy "Watch It!" (with Peter Gallagher and Lili Taylor).
He received stunning reviews for his starring role in Dean Koontz's gripping and highly rated suspense drama, "Intensity," a four-hour original film for FOX-TV. He executive-produced and starred opposite John Cusack in HBO Pictures' western, "The Jack Bull," directed by John Badham; and he appeared in HBO NYC's "The Pentagon Wars."
In addition to film and television, John C.'s background is heavily rooted in theater. He received stellar reviews for his starring performance as 'Dave Moss' in the Broadway revival of David Mamet's acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Glengarry Glen Ross." According to Newsday, "John C. McGinley is especially dazzling as the hothead who plans the office crime." The play also starred Al Pacino and Bobby Cannavale and ran through January 20, 2013.
He was previously featured on Broadway in "Requiem for a Heavyweight" and off-Broadway in "The Ballad of Soapy Smith" and the original cast production of Eric Bogosian's "Talk Radio," both at the renowned Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival. He often cites Papp as the most instrumental force behind his career.
In May 2005, John C. was invited and honored to deliver the keynote address at the commencement ceremony for the University of California San Francisco's (UCSF) School of Medicine, one of the top medical schools in the nation.
As the father of Max, his eighteen-year-old son with Down syndrome, John C. is committed to building awareness and acceptance of people with Down syndrome. He serves as an Ambassador for Special Olympics and is a board member of the Global Down Syndrome Foundation. John C. is also one of the original creators, in conjunction with Special Olympics, of the groundbreaking "Spread the Word to End the Word" national campaign to eradicate the "R" word (retard). He has blogged repeatedly on the Huffington Post, advocating acceptance and awareness of people with special needs as well as the importance of eliminating the "R" word.
He can be seen in high profile commercial campaigns for Speed Stick (as Coach Speedman), Halls Cough Drops (as Tough Love/menthol-lyptus and Soft Love/honey-lemon) and Carhartt (as the voice of founder Hamilton Carhartt).
John C. resides in Los Angeles and enjoys stand-up paddle surfing, weight lifting and golf. He married Nichole Kessler on April 7, 2007 at the couple's home in Malibu and they now have two young daughters Billie Grace and Kate Aleena, in addition to big brother Max.- Actor
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Multiple Emmy- and Golden Globe-winner Martin Sheen is one of America's most celebrated, colorful, and accomplished actors. Moving flawlessly between artistic mediums, Sheen's acting range is striking.
Sheen was born Ramón Antonio Gerard Estevez in Dayton, Ohio, to Mary-Ann (Phelan), an Irish immigrant (from Borrisokane, County Tipperary), and Francisco Estevez, a Spanish-born factory worker and machinery inspector (from Parderrubias, Galicia). On the big screen, Sheen has appeared in more than 65 feature films including a star turn as Army Captain Benjamin L. Willard in Francis Ford Coppola's landmark film Apocalypse Now (1979), which brought Sheen worldwide recognition. The film also starred Marlon Brando, Dennis Hopper and Robert Duvall. Other notable credits include Wall Street (1987) (with son Charlie Sheen and Michael Douglas), Academy Award-winning film Gandhi (1982) (with Sir Ben Kingsley), Catch Me If You Can (2002) (with Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks), The American President (1995) (with Michael Douglas and Annette Bening) and a Golden Globe nominated breakthrough performance as Timmy Cleary in The Subject Was Roses (1968), a role he originated on Broadway and for which he received a Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor.
In 2006, the actor played ill-fated cop Oliver Queenan in Martin Scorsese's Academy Award-winning film The Departed (2006) opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg and Alec Baldwin.
The same year, Sheen joined another all-star ensemble cast for the highly acclaimed feature Bobby (2006), written and directed by his son, Emilio Estevez. Bobby was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and a SAG Award; and starred Anthony Hopkins, Harry Belafonte, Laurence Fishburne, Sharon Stone, William H. Macy, Elijah Wood, Demi Moore and Heather Graham.
For television audiences, Sheen is best recognized for his six-time Emmy nominated performance as President Josiah Bartlet in The West Wing (1999). Sheen won six of his eight Golden Globe nominations as well as an ALMA Award; and two individual SAG Awards; for the White House series. He won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor TV Series Drama in 2001.
Of his ten Primetime Emmy nominations, Sheen won for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series on the long-running sitcom Murphy Brown (1988) (starring Candice Bergen) in 1994. In addition, he has garnered a Daytime Emmy Award for directing and another for performance.
In 2006, Sheen was again nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series; this time for the CBS hit comedy Two and a Half Men (2003), starring his son Charlie Sheen.
In addition to series television, Sheen has appeared in several important made-for-television movies and mini-series including playing President John F. Kennedy in the television mini-series Kennedy (1983) for which he received a Golden Globe nomination.- Actress
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Daryl Christine Hannah was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. She is the daughter of Susan Jeanne (Metzger), a schoolteacher and later a producer, and Donald Christian Hannah, who owned a tugboat/barge company. Her stepfather was music journalist/promoter Jerrold Wexler. Her siblings are Page Hannah, Don Hannah and Tanya Wexler. She has Scottish, Norwegian, Danish, Irish, English, and German ancestry.
Daryl graduated from the University of Southern California School of Theatre. She practiced ballet with Maria Tallchief and studied drama at Chicago's Goodman Theatre. In her twenties, she played keyboard and sang backup for Jackson Browne. Hannah, a tall (5' 10") blond beauty, with haunting blue-green eyes, was a natural for show biz.
She started with small roles, such as a student in The Fury (1978) and as Kim Basinger's kid sister in Hard Country (1981). Daryl's breakout role was as the acrobatic, beautiful replicant punk android Pris in Blade Runner (1982); Pris was the vixen who wanted to live beyond her allotted years and risked the wrath of the title character. Showing her versatility, from there she portrayed a mermaid, Madison, who falls in love with Tom Hanks's character in Ron Howard's zany comedy Splash (1983), and a Cro-Magnon in The Clan of the Cave Bear (1986). Hannah played Roxanne in the eponymous Steve Martins contemporary take on the Cyrano de Bergerac story, and co-starred as Elle Driver in Quintin Tarantino's box office hit Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004).
Hannah has been a consistent, strong supporter of independent cinema, both acting in and producing many films, starring in such indie films as John Sayles's Casa de los babys (2003) as well as his political satire Silver City (2004). She worked on several films with the revered Robert Altman, including The Gingerbread Man (1998), as well as several films with the Polish Brothers including Northfork (2003) and Jackpot (2001). Daryl starred in the experimental improvised Michael Radford film Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000) and made As a filmmaker, Hannah wrote, directed, and produced an award winning short film, entitled The Last Supper (1995). Hannah also directed, produced and shot the documentary Strip Notes (2002) which was inspired while researching her role for Dancing at the Blue Iguana (2000) that was shown on HBO and UK's Channel 4.
Daryl is in the process of shooting a documentary on Human Trafficking and has traveled undercover to South East Asia to document this atrocity and has become and advocates raising awareness and ending slavery. She has made over 40 video blogs for various websites including her popular dhlovelife.com. She designed dhlovelife.com (online since 2005) her website dedicated to sharing solutions on how to live more harmoniously with the planet and all other living things. Daryl has been passionate, committed and effective advocate for a more ethical relationship with each other and all life on the Planet. She has produced, hosted and shot numerous environmental awareness/ health documentaries, TV appearances and is a frequent speaker on both the conservative and progressive news.
Hannah has been a greening consultant for events such as the Virgin Music Festival, attended by over 150,000 people. Her many speaking engagements include keynote speeches at the UN Climate Change Summit, UN Global Business Conference on the environment, Natural and Organic Products Expo, LOHAS and numerous national and international universities, conferences and events. She has written articles on self sufficiency and sustainability for many magazines and has done a plethora of interviews on the topic in thousands of publications. The site features weekly five-minute inspirational video blogs which Daryl produces and films. There are daily news updates, alerts, community and access to goods and services. She is a member of the World Future Council, sits on the boards of the Sylvia Earle Alliance, Mission Blue, Eco America, Environmental Media Association (EMA), The Somaly Mam Foundation, and the Action Sports Environmental Coalition, She is the founder of the Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance (SBA).- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
James Todd Spader was born on February 7, 1960 in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of teachers Jean (Fraser) and Stoddard Greenwood "Todd" Spader. He attended Phillips Academy in Andover with director Peter Sellars; he dropped out in eleventh grade. He bused tables, shoveled manure, and taught yoga before landing his first roles. Spader's first major film role was as Brooke Shields' brother in the romance drama Endless Love (1981). Spader graduated from television movies to Brat Pack films, playing the scoundrel. In Sex, Lies, and Videotape (1989), he played a sexual voyeur who complicates the lives of three Baton Rouge residents. This performance earned him the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival and led to bigger and more varied roles. His best known role is the colorful attorney Alan Shore on the David E. Kelley television series The Practice (1997) and its spin-off Boston Legal (2004).
He won 3 prime time Emmy Awards in the Best Actor, Drama category for playing the same character Alan Shore in two different television series 'The Practice' and 'Boston Legal' out of the 4 nominations he received for the same between the years 2004-2008. He also received a Golden Globe and several Screen Actor Guild Award Best Actor nominations for reprising this role.- Actor
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Terence was born in London and spent his early years watching American films and dreamed of being like the stars on the screen, He was awarded a scholarship for the Webber Douglas School of Dramatic Art. In his second year, during an audition, Peter Ustinov signed him for the title role in Billy Budd (1962). This was not only his remarkable film debut but his performance earned him his first and only Oscar nomination too in 1962 and marked the start of his international stardom. He consolidated his career by working with some of the top directors such as William Wyler (The Collector (1965)), Joseph Losey (Modesty Blaise (1966)), John Schlesinger (Far from the Madding Crowd (1967)), Ken Loach (Poor Cow (1967)) and Pier Paolo Pasolini (Teorema (1968)). He then took a break from films and traveled around the world returning to cinema in a variety of films including, among others, Superman (1978), Meetings with Remarkable Men (1979), Superman II (1980), The Hit (1984) (for which he was awarded the Grand Medaille de Vermeil in Paris), Legal Eagles (1986), The Sicilian (1987), Wall Street (1987), Young Guns (1988), Alien Nation (1988), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), Valkyrie (2008) and Unfinished Song (2012). He has also published the first two instalments of his autobiography, Stamp Album, which became a best seller.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Veteran Broadway, TV and film actor James Karen was encouraged as a young man to take up an acting career by U.S. Congressman Daniel J. Flood, who was an amateur actor himself. In 1947 Karen made his Broadway debut in "A Streetcar Named Desire", which led to appearances in over 20 Broadway productions. His television work began in 1948 with the telecast of "A Christmas Carol", directed by pioneer television producer / director Fred Coe. Since then he has acted in over 100 television shows, including a stint as as Chief Justice Michael Bancroft on First Monday (2002) for CBS. In 1965 he began his film work in the low-budget sci-fi "epic" Frankenstein Meets the Spacemonster (1965) and now has an impressive resume of over 80 movies to his credit. He has also filmed a record-breaking 5,000+ television commercials, most while a spokesperson for the Pathmark Supermarket chain in the northeast US. He has been honored with the "Saturn Award" for Lifetime Achievement given by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. He has also been presented "The Buster Award", by The International Buster Keaton Society. This award is given to the person who has demonstrated professional excellence in the tradition of Buster Keaton.- Actor
- Producer
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Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three children of a beautician mother, Lennis, from Georgia, and a Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham University, intent on a career in journalism. However, he caught the acting bug while appearing in student drama productions and, upon graduation, he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater. He left A.C.T. after only one year to seek work as an actor. His first paid acting role was in a summer stock theater stage production in St. Mary's City, Maryland. The play was "Wings of the Morning", which is about the founding of the colony of Maryland (now the state of Maryland) and the early days of the Maryland colonial assembly (a legislative body). He played the part of a real historical character, Mathias Da Sousa, although much of the dialogue was created. Afterwards he began to pursue screen roles in earnest. With his acting versatility and powerful presence, he had no difficulty finding work in numerous television productions.
He made his first big screen appearance in Carbon Copy (1981) with George Segal. Through the 1980s, he worked in both movies and television and was chosen for the plum role of Dr. Philip Chandler in NBC's hit medical series St. Elsewhere (1982), a role that he would play for six years. In 1989, his film career began to take precedence when he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Tripp, the runaway slave in Edward Zwick's powerful historical masterpiece Glory (1989).
Washington has received much critical acclaim for his film work since the 1990s, including his portrayals of real-life figures such as South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Cry Freedom (1987), Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X in Malcolm X (1992), boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in The Hurricane (1999), football coach Herman Boone in Remember the Titans (2000), poet and educator Melvin B. Tolson in The Great Debaters (2007), and drug kingpin Frank Lucas in American Gangster (2007). Malcolm X and The Hurricane garnered him Oscar nominations for Best Actor, before he finally won that statuette in 2002 for his lead role in Training Day (2001).
Through the 1990s, Denzel also co-starred in such big budget productions as The Pelican Brief (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), The Preacher's Wife (1996), and Courage Under Fire (1996), a role for which he was paid $10 million. He continued to define his onscreen persona as the tough, no-nonsense hero through the 2000s in films like Out of Time (2003), Man on Fire (2004), Inside Man (2006), and The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009). Cerebral and meticulous in his film work, he made his debut as a director with Antwone Fisher (2002); he also directed The Great Debaters (2007) and Fences (2016).
In 2010, Washington headlined The Book of Eli (2010), a post-Apocalyptic drama. Later that year, he starred as a veteran railroad engineer in the action film Unstoppable (2010), about an unmanned, half-mile-long runaway freight train carrying dangerous cargo. The film was his fifth and final collaboration with director Tony Scott, following Crimson Tide (1995), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006) and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. He has also been a featured actor in the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and has been a frequent collaborator of director Spike Lee.
In 2012, Washington starred in Flight (2012), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He co-starred with Ryan Reynolds in Safe House (2012), and prepared for his role by subjecting himself to a torture session that included waterboarding. In 2013, Washington starred in 2 Guns (2013), alongside Mark Wahlberg. In 2014, he starred in The Equalizer (2014), an action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Richard Wenk, based on the television series of same name starring Edward Woodward. During this time period, he also took on the role of producer for some of his films, including The Book of Eli and Safe House.
In 2016, he was selected as the recipient for the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.
He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Pauletta Washington, and their four children.- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Soundtrack
George Dzundza was born on 19 July 1945 in Rosenheim, Bavaria, Germany. He is an actor and assistant director, known for Crimson Tide (1995), Basic Instinct (1992) and The Deer Hunter (1978). He has been married to Mary Jo Vermeulen since 1982. They have three children.- Actor
- Producer
Canadian-born actor Matt Craven is among the most sought after character actors of film and television today, starring in such blockbuster critically acclaimed films as the Academy-Award-nominated "Crimson Tide" and "A Few Good Men" and SAG Award nominated "X-Men: First Class." Craven has starred opposite great Hollywood actors such as Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, Helen Mirren, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Ethan Hawke, James Gandolfini, and Michael Caine, to name a few, and was recently seen starring in the hit ABC science fiction drama series "Resurrection" as Fred Langston, sheriff of Arcadia, Missouri, a town that's turned upside down as deceased loved ones return after death. Craven can also be seen starring in Roland Emmerich's film "Stonewall," which chronicles a young man's political awakening and coming of age leading up to the Stonewall Riots (set for 2015 release) and "Unless," based on the novel of the same name, opposite Academy-Award-nominated Catherine Keener, also set for a 2015 release.
Originally from Ontario, Canada, Craven did not catch the acting bug until later in his years. Craven's father died six weeks after his birth, and he ultimately dropped out of high school to help support his mother and family. He found himself working odd jobs such as driving trucks and working maintenance for electrical companies. It wasn't until Craven was about 20 years old that his love for acting sparked when he found an ad in the local newspaper announcing auditions for a local production of Dracula. Craven auditioned, landed the role of Jonathan Harker, and from then on, never looked back. He found his true passion.
Craven's first feature film was opposite Bill Murray in "Meatballs" as Hardware, one of Tripper Harrison's (Murray) counselors-in-training at Camp North Star, a cut-rate summer camp. This hilarious comedy was the start of Craven's career, especially in the comedy world. During this time, Murray took Craven under his wing and immediately started teaching him the fundamentals of improve and how to create and mold a character. Craven's second major project, the live action short "Bravery in the Field" was nominated for an Academy Award.
In the following years, Craven moved on to star in three different sitcom pilots opposite the likes of Alan Arkin, Richard Lewis, Annie Potts and Holland Taylor. Moving away from the comedy scene, Craven's first major dramatic break came when he was cast in the drama/horror/mystery cult favorite, "Jacob's Ladder," which follows a haunted Vietnam war veteran as he attempts to discover his past while suffering from a severe case of dissociation. Craven starred as Michael, a chemist in the Army's chemical warfare division where he worked on a drug that was secretly given to the veteran's unit. This critically acclaimed film raised Craven's career to a whole new level, proving his versatility as an actor, and truly gave him a taste of Hollywood stardom.
Craven has since starred in massively popular feature films including "Public Enemies," "Disturbia," "Déjà vu," "The Life of David Gale," "The Statement," "Indian Summer," "K2" and "Tin Men." On the small screen, Craven has worked exclusively with Graham Yost on HBO's acclaimed award winning series, "From the Earth to the Moon", "The Pacific", and "Boomtown." Most recently on "Justified", he also starred on TNT's "Nuremberg" and "Kingfish: A Story of Huey P. Long", Steven Spielberg's "High Incident" and opposite Jeff Goldblum on NBC's "Raines".
Truly a man of many talents, Craven has also made a successful impact in theater as well, as his first off-Broadway play was the award winning "Blue Window," which was ultimately picked up and filmed for American Playhouse. He also successfully brought one of his favorite Canadian plays, "The Crackwalker" to be produced at The Hudson Guild Theater in New York City, starring himself, a young Joe Mantello ("Wicked") and Frances Fisher ("Titanic"). Additionally, Craven starred in the critically acclaimed American premiere of the German playwright, Franz Xaver Kroetz's "The Nest."
Off the screen, Craven is a strong supporter of "One Heart Source," an organization designed to empower at risk children through education in Africa. He is also an avid golfer and is ranked third by Golf Digest in Hollywood's Top 100 Golfers. He also enjoys gardening, cooking and woodworking, and, most of all, spending time with his wife of over 25 years, Emmy-Award-winning Make Up Artist Sally Sutton, and their two children, Nicholas and Josephine.- 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
- Director
Since his screen debut as a young Amish farmer in Peter Weir's Witness (1985), Viggo Mortensen's career has been marked by a steady string of well-rounded performances.
Mortensen was born in New York City, to Grace Gamble (Atkinson) and Viggo Peter Mortensen, Sr. His father was Danish, his mother was American, and his maternal grandfather was Canadian. His parents met in Norway. They wed and moved to New York, where Viggo, Jr. was born, before moving to South America, where Viggo, Sr. managed chicken farms and ranches in Venezuela and Argentina. Two more sons were born, Charles and Walter, before the marriage grew increasingly unhappy. When Viggo was seven, his parents sent him to the St. Paul's boarding school, in the Córdoba Sierras, in Argentina. Then, at age eleven, his parents divorced. His mother moved herself and the children back to her home state of New York.
Viggo attended Watertown High School, and became a very good student and athlete. He graduated in 1976 and went on to St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. After graduation, he moved to Denmark - driven by the need for a defining purpose in life. He began writing poetry and short stories while working many odd jobs, from dock worker to flower seller. In 1982, he fell in love and followed his girlfriend back to New York City, hoping for a long romance and a writing career. He got neither. In New York, Viggo found work waiting tables and tending bar and began taking acting classes, studying with Warren Robertson. He appeared in several plays and movies, and eventually moved to Los Angeles, where his performance in "Bent" at the Coast Playhouse earned him a Drama-logue Critic's Award.
He made his film debut with a small part in Witness (1985). He appeared in Salvation! (1987) and married his co-star, Exene Cervenka. The two had a son, Henry Mortensen. But after nearly eleven years of marriage, the couple divorced.
In 1999, Viggo got a phone call about a movie he did not know anything about: "The Lord of the Rings." At first, he didn't want to do it, because it would mean time away from his son. But Henry, a big fan of the books, told his father he shouldn't turn down the role. Viggo accepted the part and immediately began work on the project, which was already underway. Eventually, the success of "The Lord of the Rings" made him a household name - a difficult consequence for the ever private and introspective Viggo.
Critics have continually recognized his work in over thirty movies, including such diverse projects as Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady (1996), Sean Penn's The Indian Runner (1991), Brian De Palma's Carlito's Way (1993), Ridley Scott's G.I. Jane (1997), Tony Scott's Crimson Tide (1995), Andrew Davis's A Perfect Murder (1998), Ray Loriga's My Brother's Gun (1997), Tony Goldwyn's A Walk on the Moon (1999), and Peter Farrelly's Green Book (2018).
Mortensen is also an accomplished poet, photographer and painter.- Actor
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- Soundtrack
A classically-trained actor with a deeply-rooted seed in theatre, Rocky Carroll has solidified his career in cinema, stage and television with varied and impressive performances. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, as Roscoe Carroll, he attended the prestigious School for Creative and Performing Arts, graduating in 1981 at age 18. Pursuing an interest to expand his knowledge in acting, he went on to attend The Conservatory of Theatre Arts at Webster University in St. Louis. For his efforts he earned a BFA. Finally he decided to move to New York to test his acting mettle and started out doing Shakespeare. He graduated to television work after proving himself on the stage, appearing in such series as Chicago Hope (1994), Law & Order (1990), The Game (2006), Boston Legal (2004) and The West Wing (1999). It could be said that his most notable and perhaps breakthrough role, however, came when he was cast as Assisant Director Leon Vance on NCIS (2003). It was a role that reunited him with his "Chicago Hope" cast mate Mark Harmon. His character Vance would later be promoted to Director of NCIS after the death of Director Jenny Shepard, played by Lauren Holly. In 2009, he appeared in a spin-off of the series, NCIS: Los Angeles (2009), joining the process of establishing the Los Angeles-based NCIS office.- Actor
- Producer
Lillo Brancato was born on 30 March 1976 in Bogotá, Colombia. He is an actor and producer, known for A Bronx Tale (1993), Crimson Tide (1995) and Renaissance Man (1994).- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Danny Nucci was born on 15 September 1968 in Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria. He is an actor and director, known for Titanic (1997), Crimson Tide (1995) and Alive (1993). He has been married to Paula Marshall since 12 October 2003. They have one child. He was previously married to Terre Bridgham.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother), English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the movies every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play "The Morning Star" (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (1944).
Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles. He appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (1946), he was again nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (1948) and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II.
With a string of hits to his credit, Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) and Moby Dick (1956). He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (1953). Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In the early 1960s, he appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (1962) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), which dealt with the way people live. He also gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961), one of the biggest box-office hits of that year.
In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1972) and The Dove (1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (1976). After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (1977) and the monstrous Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (1978). In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (1982) and The Scarlet and the Black (1983). In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (1991).
In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights and civil rights. In 2003, his Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute. Gregory Peck died at age 87 on June 12, 2003 in Los Angeles, California.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Demure British beauty Jean Simmons was born January 31, 1929, in Crouch End, London. As a 14-year-old dance student, she was plucked from her school to play Margaret Lockwood's precocious sister in Give Us the Moon (1944). She had a small part as a harpist in the high-profile Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), produced by Gabriel Pascal, starring Vivien Leigh, and co-starring her future husband Stewart Granger. Pascal saw potential in Simmons, and in 1945 he signed her to a seven-year contract to the J. Arthur Rank Organization, and she went on to make a name for herself in such major British productions as Great Expectations (1946) (as the spoiled, selfish Estella), Black Narcissus (1947) (as a sultry native beauty), Hamlet (1948) (playing Ophelia to Laurence Olivier's great Dane and earning a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination), The Blue Lagoon (1949) and So Long at the Fair (1950), among others.
In 1950, she married Stewart Granger, and that same year, she moved to Hollywood. While Granger was signed to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Rank sold her contract to Howard Hughes, who then owned RKO Pictures. Hughes was eager to start a sexual relationship with Simmons, but Granger put a stop to his advances. Her first Hollywood film was Androcles and the Lion (1952), produced by Pascal and co-starring Victor Mature. It was followed by Angel Face (1952), directed by Otto Preminger with Robert Mitchum. To further punish Simmons and Granger, Hughes refused to lend her to Paramount, where William Wyler wanted to cast her in the female lead for his film Roman Holiday (1953); the role made a star of Audrey Hepburn. A court case freed Simmons from the contract with Hughes in 1952. They settled out of court; part of the arrangement was that Simmons would do one more film for no additional money. Simmons also agreed to make three more movies under the auspices of RKO, but not actually at that studio - she would be lent out. MGM cast her in the lead of Young Bess (1953) playing a young Queen Elizabeth I with Granger. She went back to RKO to do the extra film under the settlement with Hughes, titled Affair with a Stranger (1953) with Mature; it flopped.
Simmons went over to 20th Century Fox to play the female lead in The Robe (1953), the first CinemaScope movie and an enormous financial success. Less popular was The Actress (1953) at MGM alongside Spencer Tracy, despite superb reviews; it was one of her personal favorites. Fox asked Simmons back for The Egyptian (1954), another epic, but it was not especially popular. She had the lead in Columbia's A Bullet Is Waiting (1954). More popular with moviegoers was Désirée (1954), where Simmons played Désirée Clary to Marlon Brando's Napoleon Bonaparte. Simmons and Granger returned to England to make the thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955). She then starred in the musical Guys and Dolls (1955) with Brando and Frank Sinatra; she used her own singing voice and earned her first Golden Globe Award. Simmons played the title role in Hilda Crane (1956) at Fox, a commercial failure. So, too, were This Could Be the Night (1957) and Until They Sail (1957), both at MGM. Simmons had a big success, though, in The Big Country (1958), directed by Wyler. She starred in Home Before Dark (1958) at Warner Bros. and This Earth Is Mine (1959) with Rock Hudson at Universal.
Simmons divorced Granger in 1960 and almost immediately married writer-director Richard Brooks, who cast her as Sister Sharon opposite Burt Lancaster in Elmer Gantry (1960), a memorable adaptation of the Sinclair Lewis novel. That same year, she co-starred with Kirk Douglas in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960) and played a would-be homewrecker opposite Cary Grant in The Grass Is Greener (1960).
Off the screen for a few years, Jean captivated moviegoers with a brilliant performance as the mother in All the Way Home (1963), a literate, tasteful adaptation of James Agee's "A Death in the Family". However, after that, she found quality projects somewhat harder to come by, and took work in Life at the Top (1965), Mister Buddwing (1966), Divorce American Style (1967), Rough Night in Jericho (1967), The Happy Ending (1969) (a Richard Brooks film for which she was again Oscar-nominated, this time as Best Actress).
Jean continued making films well into the 1970s. In the 1980s, she appeared mainly in television miniseries, such as North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and The Thorn Birds (1983). She made a comeback to films in 1995 in How to Make an American Quilt (1995) co-starring Winona Ryder and Anne Bancroft, and most recently voiced the elderly Sophie in the English version of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004). She now resided in Santa Monica, California, with her dog, Mr. Gates, and her two cats, Adisson and Megan. Jean Simmons died of lung cancer on January 22, 2010, nine days before her 81st birthday.- Carroll Baker was born on May 28, 1931 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the daughter of a traveling salesman, William W. Baker. She attended community college for a year and then worked as a dancer and magician's assistant. After a brief marriage, she had a small part in Easy to Love (1953), did TV commercials, and had a bit part on Broadway. She studied at the Actors Studio and was married to director Jack Garfein (one daughter, Blanche Baker). Warner Brothers, sensing a future Marilyn Monroe, cast her in Giant (1956), Baby Doll (1956) (Oscar nomination for her thumb-sucking role), The Carpetbaggers (1964) and Harlow (1965) (title role). Moving to Italy, she made films there and in England, Germany, Mexico and Spain . After returning to American films, she married Donald Burton in 1982 and resided in Hampstead, London in the 1980s. They remained together until Burton's death from emphysema in their home in Cathedral City, California in 2007.
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With features chiseled in stone, and renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's top leading men of his prime and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty years. As a Hollywood star, he appeared in 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film, The Ten Commandments (1956) , for which he received his first Golden Globe Award nomination. He also starred in Touch of Evil (1958) with Orson Welles; Ben-Hur, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor (1959); El Cid (1961); and Planet of the Apes (1968). He also starred in the films The Greatest Show on Earth (1952); Secret of the Incas (1954); The Big Country (1958); and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). A supporter of Democratic politicians and civil rights in the 1960s, Heston later became a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston's most famous role in politics came as the five-term president of the National Rifle Association, from 1998 to 2003.
Heston was born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1923, in No Man's Land, Illinois, to Lila (Charlton) and Russell Whitford Carter, who operated a sawmill. He had English and Scottish ancestry, with recent Canadianforebears.
Heston made his feature film debut as the lead character in a 16mm production of Peer Gynt (1941), based on the Henrik Ibsen play. In 1944, Heston enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He served for two years as a radio operator and aerial gunner aboard a B-25 Mitchell stationed in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands with the 77th Bombardment Squadron of the Eleventh Air Force. He reached the rank of Staff Sergeant. Heston married Northwestern University student Lydia Marie Clarke, who was six months his senior. That same year he joined the military.
Heston played 'Marc Antony' in Julius Caesar (1950), and firmly stamped himself as genuine leading man material with his performance as circus manager 'Brad Braden' in the Cecil B. DeMille spectacular The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), also starring James Stewart and Cornel Wilde. The now very popular actor remained perpetually busy during the 1950s, both on TV and on the silver screen with audience pleasing performances in the steamy thriller The Naked Jungle (1954), as a treasure hunter in Secret of the Incas (1954) and another barn storming performance for Cecil B. DeMille as "Moses" in the blockbuster The Ten Commandments (1956).
Heston delivered further dynamic performances in the oily film noir thriller Touch of Evil (1958), and then alongside Gregory Peck in the western The Big Country (1958) before scoring the role for which he is arguably best known, that of the wronged Jewish prince who seeks his freedom and revenge in the William Wyler directed Ben-Hur (1959). This mammoth Biblical epic running in excess of three and a half hours became the standard by which other large scale productions would be judged, and its superb cast also including Stephen Boyd as the villainous "Massala", English actor Jack Hawkins as the Roman officer "Quintus Arrius", and Australian actor Frank Thring as "Pontius Pilate", all contributed wonderful performances. Never one to rest on his laurels, steely Heston remained the preferred choice of directors to lead the cast in major historical productions and during the 1960s he starred as Spanish legend "Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar" in El Cid (1961), as a US soldier battling hostile Chinese boxers during 55 Days at Peking (1963),played the ill-fated "John the Baptist" in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), the masterful painter "Michelangelo" battling Pope Julius II in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), and an English general in Khartoum (1966). In 1968, Heston filmed the unusual western Will Penny (1967) about an aging and lonely cowboy befriending a lost woman and her son, which Heston has often referred to as his favorite piece of work on screen. Interestingly, Heston was on the verge of acquiring an entirely new league of fans due to his appearance in four very topical science fiction films (all based on popular novels) painting bleak futures for mankind.
In 1968, Heston starred as time-traveling astronaut "George Taylor", in the terrific Planet of the Apes (1968) with its now legendary conclusion as Heston realizes the true horror of his destination. He returned to reprise the role, albeit primarily as a cameo, alongside fellow astronaut James Franciscus in the slightly inferior sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Next up, Heston again found himself facing the apocalypse in The Omega Man (1971) as the survivor of a germ plague that has wiped out humanity leaving only bands of psychotic lunatics roaming the cities who seek to kill the uninfected Heston. And fourthly, taking its inspiration from the Harry Harrison novel "Make Room!, Make Room!", Heston starred alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson and Chuck Connors in Soylent Green (1973). During the remainder of the 1970s, Heston appeared in two very popular "disaster movies" contributing lead roles in the far-fetched Airport 1975 (1974), plus in the star-laden Earthquake (1974), filmed in "Sensoround" (low-bass speakers were installed in selected theaters to simulate the earthquake rumblings on screen to movie audiences). He played an evil Cardinal in the lively The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), a mythical US naval officer in the recreation of Midway (1976), also filmed in "Sensoround", an LA cop trying to stop a sniper in Two-Minute Warning (1976) and another US naval officer in the submarine thriller Gray Lady Down (1978). Heston appeared in numerous episodes of the high-rating TV series Dynasty (1981) and The Colbys (1985), before moving onto a mixed bag of projects including TV adaptations of Treasure Island (1990) and A Man for All Seasons (1988), hosting two episodes of the comedy show, Saturday Night Live (1975), starring as the "Good Actor" bringing love struck Mike Myers to tears in Wayne's World 2 (1993), and as the eye patch-wearing boss of intelligence agent Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies (1994). He also narrated numerous TV specials and lent his vocal talents to the animated movie Hercules (1997), the family comedy Cats & Dogs (2001) and an animated version of Ben Hur (2003). Heston made an uncredited appearance in the inferior remake of Planet of the Apes (2001), and his last film appearance to date was in the Holocaust-themed drama of My Father (2003).
Heston narrated for highly classified military and Department of Energy instructional films, particularly relating to nuclear weapons, and "for six years Heston [held] the nation's highest security clearance" or Q clearance. The Q clearance is similar to a DoD or Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) clearance of Top Secret.
Heston was married to Lydia Marie Clark Heston since March 1944, and they have two children. His highly entertaining autobiography was released in 1995, titled appropriately enough "Into The Arena". Although often criticized for his strong conservative beliefs and involvement with the NRA, Heston was a strong advocate for civil right many years before it became fashionable, and was a recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, plus the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and did appear in a film or TV production after 2003. He died in April 2008, a memorable figure in the history of US cinema.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Burl Ives was one of six children born to a farming family in Hunt City, Jasper, Illinois, the son of Cordellia "Dellie" (White) and Levi Franklin Ives. He first sang in public for a soldiers' reunion when he was age 4. In high school, he learned the banjo and played fullback, intending to become a football coach when he enrolled at Eastern Illinois State Teacher's College in 1927. He dropped out in 1930 and wandered, hitching rides, doing odd jobs, street singing.
Summer stock in the late 1930s led to a job with CBS radio in 1940; through his "Wayfaring Stranger" he popularized many of the folk songs he had collected in his travels. By the 1960s, he had hits on both popular and country charts. He recorded over 30 albums for Decca and another dozen for Columbia. In 1964 he was singer-narrator of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), an often-repeated Christmas television special. His Broadway debut was in 1938, though he is best remembered for creating the role of Big Daddy in the 1950s Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) when it ran on Broadway through the early 1950s.
His four-decade, 30+ movie career began with Ives playing a singing cowboy in Smoky (1946) and reached its peak with (again) his role as Big Daddy role in the movie version of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and winning an Oscar for best supporting actor in The Big Country (1958), both in 1958. Ives officially retired from show business on his 80th birthday in 1989 and settled in Anacortes, Washington, although he continued to do frequent benefit performances at his own request. Burl Ives died in 1995.- Actor
- Soundtrack
American character actor of gruff voice and appearance who was a fixture in Hollywood pictures from the earliest days of the talkies. The fifth of seven children, he was born in the first minute of 1891. He was a boisterous child, and at nine was tried and acquitted for attempted murder in the shooting of a motorman who had run over his dog. He worked as a lumberjack and investment promoter, and briefly ran his own pest extermination business. In his late teens, he gave up the business and traveled aimlessly about country. In San Francisco, an attempt to romance a burlesque actress resulted in an offer to join her show as a performer. He spent the next dozen years touring the country in road companies, then made a smash hit on Broadway in "Outside Looking In". Cecil B. DeMille saw Bickford on the stage and offered him the lead in Dynamite (1929). Contracted to MGM, Bickford fought constantly with studio head Louis B. Mayer and was for a time blacklisted among the studios. He spent several years working in independent films as a freelancer, then was offered a contract at Twentieth Century Fox. Before the contract could take effect, however, Bickford was mauled by a lion while filming 'East of Java (1935)'. He recovered, but lost the Fox contract and his leading man status due to the extensive scarring of his neck and also to increasing age. He continued as a character actor, establishing himself as a character star in films like The Song of Bernadette (1943), for which he received the first of three Oscar nominations. Burly and brusque, he played heavies and father figures with equal skill. He continued to act in generally prestigious films up until his death in 1967.- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Chuck Connors was born Kevin Joseph Connors in Brooklyn, New York, to Marcella (nee Lundrigan; died 1971) and Alban Francis "Allan" Connors (died 1966), Roman Catholic immigrants of Irish descent from the Dominion of Newfoundland (now part of Canada). Chuck and his two-years-younger sister, Gloria, grew up in a working-class section of the west side of Brooklyn, where their father worked the local docks as a longshoreman. He served as an altar boy at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica School and attended school there. He later became a member of the Bay Ridge Boys' Club and playing sandlot ball as a member of the Bay Ridge Celtics.
A life-long Dodgers' fan, he always dreamed of a baseball career with his favorite team. His natural athletic prowess earned him a scholarship to Adelphi Academy, a private high school, and then to Seton Hall, a Catholic college in South Orange, New Jersey. Leaving Seton Hall after two years, on October 20, 1942, aged 21, he joined the army, listing his occupation as a ski instructor. After enlistment in the infantry at Fort Knox, he later served mostly as a tank-warfare instructor at Camp Campbell, Kentucky, and then finally at West Point. Following his discharge early in 1946, he resumed his athletic pursuits. He played center for the Boston Celtics in the 1946-47 season but left early for spring training with the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Baseball had always been Connors' first love, and for the next several years he knocked about the minor leagues in such places as Rochester (NY), Norfolk (VA), Newark (NJ), Newport News (VA), Mobile (AL) and Montreal, Canada (while in Montreal he met Elizabeth Riddell, whom he married in October 1948. They had four sons during their 13-year marriage). He finally reached his goal, playing for the Brooklyn Dodgers, in May 1949, but after just five weeks and one at-bat, he returned to Montreal. After a brief stint with the Chicago Cubs in 1951, during which he hit two home runs, Connors wound up with the Cubs' Triple-A farm team, the L.A. Angels, in 1952.
A baseball fan who was also a casting director for MGM spotted Connors and recommended him for a part in the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn comedy Pat and Mike (1952). Originally cast to play a prizefighter, but that role went instead to Aldo Ray. Connors was cast as a captain in the state police. He now abandoned his athletic hopes and devoted full time to his acting career, which often emphasized his muscular 6'6" physique.
During the next several years Connors made 20 movies, culminating in a key role in William Wyler's 1958 western The Big Country (1958). Also appearing in many television series, he finally hit the big time in 1958 with The Rifleman (1958), which began its highly successful five-year run on ABC. Other television series followed, as did a number of movies which, though mostly minor, allowed Connors to display his range as both a stalwart "good guy" and a menacing "heavy".
Connors died at age 71 of lung cancer and pneumonia on November 10, 1992 in Los Angeles, California. He is buried in San Fernando Mission Cemetery with his tombstone carrying a photo of Connors as Lucas McCain in "The Rifleman" as well as logos from the three professional sports teams he played for: the Dodgers, Cubs and Celtics.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he proved the doubters wrong, becoming one of the most notable film actors of his generation, with a host of great movies to his name. This arguably culminated in his greatest acclaim in 1988, when Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an Irish cop in The Untouchables (1987), stealing the thunder from the movie's principal star Kevin Costner. Connery was polled as "The Greatest Living Scot" and "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". In 1989, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine, and in 1999, at age 69, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man of the Century."
Thomas "Sean" Connery was born on August 25, 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His mother, Euphemia Maclean, was a cleaning lady, and his father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and truck driver. He also had a, Neil Connery, a plasterer in Edinburgh, who was eight years younger. Before going into acting, Sean had many different jobs, such as a milkman, lorry driver, a laborer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, coffin polisher and bodybuilder. He also joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged because of medical problems. At the age of 23, he had a choice between becoming a professional soccer player or an actor, and even though he showed much promise in the sport, he chose acting and said it was one of his more intelligent decisions.
No Road Back (1957) was Sean's first major movie role, and it was followed by several made-for-TV movies such as Anna Christie (1957), Macbeth (1961) and Anna Karenina (1961) as well as guest appearances on TV series, and also films such as Hell Drivers (1957), Another Time, Another Place (1958), Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and The Frightened City (1961). In 1962 he appeared in The Longest Day (1962) with a host of other stars.
His big breakthrough came in 1962 when he landed the role of secret agent James Bond in Dr. No (1962). He played James Bond in six more films: From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983).
After and during the success of the Bond films, he maintained a successful career as an actor and has appeared in films, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Time Bandits (1981), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Rising Sun (1993), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
Sean married actress Diane Cilento in 1962 and they had Sean's only child, Jason Connery, born on January 11, 1963. The couple announced their separation in February 1971 and filed for divorce 2½ years later. Sean then dated Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Magda Konopka and Carole Mallory. In 1975 he married Micheline Roquebrune and they stayed married, despite Sean's well-documented love affair with Lynsey de Paul in the late '80s. Sean had three stepchildren through his marriage to Micheline, who was one year his senior. He is also a grandfather. His son, Jason and Jason's ex-wife, actress Mia Sara had a son, Dashiell Connery, in 1997.
Sean Connery died at the age of 90 on October 31, 2020, in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he resided for many years.- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
Alec Baldwin is the oldest, and best-known, of the four Baldwin brothers in the acting business (the others are Stephen Baldwin, William Baldwin and Daniel Baldwin). Alexander Rae Baldwin III was born on April 3, 1958 in Massapequa, New York, the son of Carol Newcomb (Martineau) and Alexander Rae Baldwin Jr., a high school teacher and football coach at Massapequa High School. He is of Irish, as well as English, French, Scottish, and German, descent.
Alec Baldwin burst onto the TV scene in the early 1980s with appearances on several series, including The Doctors (1963) and Knots Landing (1979), before scoring feature film roles in Forever, Lulu (1986), Beetlejuice (1988), Working Girl (1988), Married to the Mob (1988) and Talk Radio (1988). In 1990, Baldwin appeared in the first on-screen adaptation of the "Jack Ryan" character created by mega-selling espionage author, Tom Clancy. The film, The Hunt for Red October (1990), was a box office and critical success, with Baldwin appearing alongside icy Sean Connery. Unfortunately, Baldwin fell out with Paramount Studios over future scripts for "Jack Ryan", and subsequent Ryan roles went to Harrison Ford.
Baldwin instead went to Broadway to perform "A Streetcar Named Desire", garnering a Tony nomination for his portrayal of "Stanley Kowalski" (he would reprise the role in a 1995 TV adaptation). Baldwin won over critics as a lowlife thief pursued by dogged cop Fred Ward in Miami Blues (1990), met his future wife Kim Basinger while filming the Neil Simon comedy, The Marrying Man (1991), starred in the film adaptation of the play, Prelude to a Kiss (1992) (in which he starred off-Broadway), and made an indelible ten-minute cameo as a hard-nosed real estate executive laying down the law in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He also made a similar tour-de-force monologue in the thriller, Malice (1993), as a doctor defending his practices, in which he stated, "Let me tell you something: I am God".
Demand for Baldwin's talents in the 1990s saw more scripts swiftly come his way, and he starred alongside his then-wife, Kim Basinger, in a remake of the Steve McQueen action flick, The Getaway (1994), brought to life the famous comic strip character, The Shadow (1994), and starred as an assistant district attorney in the civil rights drama, Ghosts of Mississippi (1996). Baldwin's distinctive vocal talents then saw him voice US-aired episodes of the highly popular UK children's show, Thomas & Friends (1984), plus later voice-only contributions to other animated/children's shows, including Clerks (2000), Cats & Dogs (2001), Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) and The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004).
In the early 2000s, Baldwin and Basinger endured an acrimonious break-up that quickly became tabloid fodder but, while his divorce was high-profile, Baldwin excelled in a number of lower-profile supporting roles in a variety of films, including State and Main (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), The Cooler (2003) (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor), The Aviator (2004), Along Came Polly (2004) and The Departed (2006). As he was excelling as a consummate character actor, Baldwin found a second career in television comedy. Already known for his comedic turns hosting Saturday Night Live (1975), he essayed an extended guest role on Will & Grace (1998) in 2005 before taking on what would arguably become his most famous role, that of network executive "Jack Donaghy", opposite Tina Fey in the highly-acclaimed sitcom, 30 Rock (2006). The role brought Baldwin two Emmy Awards, three Golden Globes, and an unprecedented six Screen Actors Guild Awards (not including cast wins).
Continuing to appear in films as 30 Rock (2006) wrapped up its final season, Baldwin was engaged in 2012 to wed Hilaria Baldwin (aka Hilaria Lynn Thomas); the couple married on June 30, 2012.- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Scott Glenn was born January 26, 1939, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to Hope Elizabeth and Theodore Glenn, a salesman. As he grew up in Appalachia, his health was poor; he was bedridden for a year and doctors predicted he would limp for the rest of his life. During long periods of illness, Glenn was reading a lot and "dreaming of becoming Lord Byron". He challenged his illness by intense training programs and eventually got rid of his limp.
After graduating high school, Glenn entered William and Mary College where he majored in English. He spent three years in the Marines and then tried to combine his passion for storytelling with his passion for adventures by working for five months as a criminal reporter at the Kenosha Evening News. Glenn planned to become an author but found out he had "problems with dialogues", so he decided to overcome it by studying acting. In 1966, he headed to New York where he joined George Morrison acting class. He helped in directing student plays to pay for his studies and appeared onstage in La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club productions. Soon after arriving in New York, Glenn became a fan of martial arts. In 1968, he joined The Actors Studio and began working in professional theater and TV. In 1970, James Bridges offered him his first movie work in The Baby Maker (1970).
Glenn left for L.A., where he spent seven of the "most miserable years of [his] life". He couldn't find interesting film roles and, doing brief TV stints, he felt "like a person who had to paint the Sistine Chapel with a house-painter's brush". On a brighter side, he worked episodically with Jonathan Demme (Angels Hard as They Come (1971), Fighting Mad (1976)), Robert Altman (Nashville (1975)) and Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now (1979)). In 1978, Glenn got tired of Hollywood and moved his family to Ketchum, Idaho, where he worked as a barman, huntsman and mountain ranger for two years (occasionally acting in Seattle stage productions). James Bridges once more changed the course of Glenn's life in 1980 when he offered him the role of John Travolta's rival in Urban Cowboy (1980) and made him a star. Glenn's acting abilities and physical presence helped him to excel both in action (Silverado (1985), The Challenge (1982)) and drama (The Right Stuff (1983), Countdown to Looking Glass (1984), The River (1984)) as he alternately played good guys and bad guys.
In the beginning of the '90s, his career was at its peak - he appeared in such indisputable masterpieces as The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and The Hunt for Red October (1990). Established as one of Hollywood's most solid and respected character actors he has appeared in a wide variety of films, such as the black Freudian farce Reckless (1995), the tragicomedy Edie & Pen (1996) and Ken Loach's socio-political declaration Carla's Song (1996), alternating mainstream (Courage Under Fire (1996), Absolute Power (1997)) with independent projects (Lesser Prophets (1997) and Larga distancia (1997)), written by his daughter Dakota Glenn), and TV (Naked City: A Killer Christmas (1998)). Continuing into the 21st century, Glenn has also appeared in Training Day (2001), W. (2008) (as Donald Rumsfeld), Secretariat (2010), Sucker Punch (2011), The Paperboy (2012), and two of the Bourne films: The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) and The Bourne Legacy (2012).- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Sam Neill was born in Omagh, Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland, to army parents, an English-born mother, Priscilla Beatrice (Ingham), and a New Zealand-born father, Dermot Neill. His family moved to the South Island of New Zealand in 1954. He went to boarding schools and then attended the universities at Canterbury and Victoria. The 6-foot tall star has a BA in English Literature. Following his graduation, he worked with the New Zealand Players and other theater groups. He also was a film director, editor and scriptwriter for the New Zealand National Film Unit for 6 years.
Sam Neill is internationally recognised for his contribution to film and television. He is well known for his roles in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993) and Jane Campion's Academy Award Winning film The Piano (1993). Other film roles include The Daughter (2015), Backtrack (2015) opposite Adrien Brody, MindGamers (2015), United Passions (2014), A Long Way Down (2014), Escape Plan (2013), The Hunter (2011) with Willem Dafoe, Daybreakers (2009), Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010), Little Fish (2005) opposite Cate Blanchett, Skin (2008), Dean Spanley (2008), Wimbledon (2004), Yes (2004), Perfect Strangers (2003), Dirty Deeds (2002), The Zookeeper (2001), Bicentennial Man (1999) opposite Robin Williams, The Horse Whisperer (1998) alongside Kristin Scott Thomas, Sleeping Dogs (1977), and My Brilliant Career (1979).
He received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for the NBC miniseries Merlin (1998). He also received a Golden Globe nomination for One Against the Wind (1991), and for Reilly: Ace of Spies (1983). The British Academy of Film and Television honoured Sam's work in Reilly by naming him Best Actor. Sam received an AFI Award for Best Actor for his role in Jessica (2004).
Other television includes House of Hancock (2015), Rake (2010), Doctor Zhivago (2002), To the Ends of the Earth (2005), The Tudors (2007) with Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Crusoe (2008), Alcatraz (2012) and recently in Old School (2014) opposite Bryan Brown, Peaky Blinders (2013) alongside Cillian Murphy and The Dovekeepers (2015) for CBS Studios.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Widely regarded as the one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native USA and internationally, James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931 in Arkabutla, Mississippi. At an early age, he started to take dramatic lessons to calm himself down. It appeared to work as he has since starred in many films over a 40-year period, beginning with the Stanley Kubrick classic Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). For several movie fans, he is probably best known for his role as Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy (due to his contribution for the voice of the role, as the man in the Darth Vader suit was David Prowse, whose voice was dubbed because of his British West Country accent). In his brilliant course of memorable performances, among others, he has also appeared on the animated series The Simpsons (1989) three times and played Mufasa both in The Lion King (1994) and The Lion King (2019), while he returned too as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016).- Actor
- Producer
- Script and Continuity Department
Harvard-educated stage and screen actor Richard Jordan was born into a socially prominent family on July 19, 1937 in New York City, the grandson of Learned Hand, the greatest American jurist never to have served on the U.S. Supreme Court. Newbold Morris, his stepfather, was a member of the New York City Council during Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia's administration. Young Richard was educated in private Manhattan schools and then at the exclusive Hotchkiss prep school in Lakeville, Connecticut. While at Hotchkiss, he was outstanding as the eponymous lead of the school play "Mr. Roberts", which won him a place in the Sharon, Connecticut summer stock company. Jordan went to England as an exchange student at the Sherbourne School, a college (private school) that was over 1,000 years old. After graduating from Sherbourne, Jordan entered Harvard College and took his degree in three years.
At Harvard, Jordan was a member of the Dramatic Club, both as an actor and as a director. It was while at Harvard that he decided to become a professional actor and began performing with off-campus stage companies. After graduating from Harvard, Jordan launched what was to be a prolific stage career in New York, making his Broadway debut in December 1961 in the play "Take Her, She's Mine" under the direction of the venerable George Abbott in Biltmore Theatre. The play, which starred Art Carney, Elizabeth Ashley in a Tony Award-winning turn, and Heywood Hale Broun, was a hit, playing 404 performances.
Jordan next appeared in a one-night flop, in "Bicycle Ride to Nevada", which opened and closed on September 24, 1963. He was more lucky with his next play, "Generation", a comedy starring Henry Fonda that played for 300 performances in the 1965-66 season. He last appeared on Broadway in a success d'estime, John Osborne's "A Patriot for Me", directed by Peter Glenville and starring Maximilian Schell and Tommy Lee Jones, who was making his Broadway debut. By that time, Jordan had established himself as a leading player Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway, which accounted for the majority of his over 100 New York stage appearances.
Jordan, as actor and director, was a major force in the development of New York's "Off-Off-Broadway" theater that flourished in the 1960s. He was one of the founders of the Gotham Arts Theater, which put on plays in an old funeral parlor on West 43rd Street. Fittingly, the company's first play was about necrophilia. Jordan engaged young New York artists to design the sets, the results of which were not always auspicious. Jordan said of this development, "With our weirdo plays against their far-out sets...it was total insanity!" He made a significant breakthrough, career-wise, with his appearance in the anti-war play "The Trial Of The Catonsville Nine" in both New York and California.
Jordan spent eight years with Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival. He made his debut with Papp's Shakespeare Festival in 1963, playing "Romeo" opposite the "Juliet" of Kathleen Widdoes, the fellow Papp stock company member who would become his wife, in Papp's Shakespeare in the Park series. The couple married in 1964, and their eight-year marriage produced a daughter, Nina Jordan, born in 1964, who would later co-star with her father in the movie Old Boyfriends (1979).
Although he appeared on television during the 1960s, the tall, handsome and talented Jordan did not make his motion picture debut until 1971, when he appeared in a supporting role in Michael Winner's horse opera Lawman (1971), which featured a first-rate cast, including Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb and Robert Duvall. However, it was his role as the baby-faced, amoral Treasury agent in The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) that made him a known commodity on-screen, while it was the monumental mini-series Captains and the Kings (1976) that made his reputation. His performance as the Irish immigrant "Joseph Armagh" brought him an Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe award, and it also brought him his long-time companion, co-star Blair Brown, whom he lived with for many years and by whom he had a son.
An actor rather than a star, Jordan played many unsympathetic roles, including that of Nazi Albert Speer in the TV movie The Bunker (1981). He continued to appear on the stage, Off-Broadway and in stock companies touring the major cities of the U.S., while appearing in films and on TV. Jordan was the manager of the L.A. Actors Theater in Los Angeles during the 1970s, where he produced, directed and wrote his own plays. For the 1983-84 Off-Broadway season, he won an Obie Award for his performance in Czech playwright Václav Havel's "A Private View". He won the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for directing Havel's "Largo Desolato" at the Taper, Too in 1987.
In 1992, Jordan had begun filming The Fugitive (1993) when his fatal illness forced him to leave the production. Thus, Jordan's final role was that of "General Lewis Armistead" in the film Gettysburg (1993), which was a labor of love for him. He was close friends with Michael Shaara, the author of the novel "The Killer Angels", which the movie was based upon, and contributed to the screenplay. Jordan's last appearance as an actor was the death of his on-screen character, "General Armistead".
Richard Jordan died in Los Angeles, California of a brain tumor on August 30, 1993. He was 56 years old.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Joss Ackland, the distinguished English actor who has appeared in over 100 movies, scores of plays and a plethora of television programs in his six-decade career, was born Sidney Edmond Jocelyn Ackland on February 29, 1928, in North Kensington, London. After attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama, the 17-year-old Ackland made his professional stage debut in "The Hasty Heart" in 1945.
Although he first appeared on film in John Boulting's and Roy Boulting's Oscar-winning thriller Seven Days to Noon (1950) in an uncredited bit role, he made his credited debut in a supporting role in Vernon Sewell's Ghost Ship (1952). He would not again grace the big screen until the end of the decade. Instead, Ackland spent the latter half of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s honing his craft in regional theatrical companies.
In 1955 he left the English stage behind and moved to Africa to manage a tea plantation, an experience that likely informed his heralded performance 20 years later in White Mischief (1987). In his two years in Africa he wrote plays and did service as a radio disc jockey. Upon his return to England in 1957, he joined the Old Vic company.
From 1962-64 he served as associate director of the Mermaid Theatre. Subsequently, his stage acting career primarily was in London's commercial West End theater, where he made a name for himself in musicals. He was distinguished as Captain Hook in the musical version of "Peter Pan" and as Juan Peron in "Evita". In the straight theater he was a memorable Falstaff in William Shakespeare's "Henry IV Parts 1 & 2" and as Captain Shotover in George Bernard Shaw's "Heartbreak House". In the 1960s Ackland began appearing more regularly in films, and his career as a movie character actor picked up rapidly in the 1970s and began to flourish in the 1980s. It has shown little sign of abating in the 21st century, even though he's well into his 70s.
In addition to his performance in "White Mischief", among his more notable turns as an actor before the camera came in the BBC-TV production of Shadowlands (1986), in which he played 'C.S. Lewis', and in Lethal Weapon 2 (1989) as the ruthless South African heavy, Arjen Rudd.
He is the father of seven children, whom he listed as his "hobby" in a 1981 interview. On December 31, 2000, Joss Ackland was named a Commander of the British Empire on the New Year's Honours List for his 50 years of service to the English stage, cinema and television.- Actor
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Timothy James Curry was born on April 19, 1946 in Grappenhall, Cheshire, England. His mother, Maura Patricia (Langmead), was a school secretary, and his father, James Curry, was a Methodist Royal Navy chaplain. Curry studied Drama and English at Birmingham University, from which he graduated with Combined Honors. His first professional success was in the London production of "Hair", followed by more work in the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Glasgow Citizens Repertory Company, and the Royal Court Theatre where he created the role of Dr. Frank-N-Furter in "The Rocky Horror Show". He recreated the role in the Los Angeles and Broadway productions and starred in the screen version entitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Curry continued his career on the New York and London stages with starring roles in "Travesties", "Amadeus", "The Pirates of Penzance", "The Rivals", "Love for Love", "Dalliance", "The Threepenny Opera", "The Art of Success" and "My Favorite Year". He also starred in the United States tour of "Me and My Girl". He has received two Tony Award nominations for best actor and won the Royal Variety Club Award as "Stage Actor of the Year".
A composer and a singer, Tim Curry toured the United States and Europe with his own band and released four albums on A&M Records. In addition to an active movie and television career, he is a sought-after actor for CD-ROM productions. His distinctive voice can be heard on more than a dozen audio books, and in countless animated television series and videos. He lives in Los Angeles, California.- Actor
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From studying history at Harvard, and acting at Yale Drama School, to making history in Hollywood, Courtney B. Vance has carefully cultivated an exceptional career that showcases his passion, talent, and intellect. His penchant for successfully finding the dignity and honor in each character exploration has made this Tony and Emmy award-winning actor a powerful presence from the theatrical boards to the silver screen.
Courtney was awarded the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series; the Critics Choice Award for Best Actor in a Movie Made for Television or Limited Series; and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Television Movie, Limited-Series or Dramatic Special for his stunning portrayal of Johnnie Cochran in the FX series The People vs. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story. He also earned SAG and Golden Globe nominations for his critically acclaimed performance.
Most recently, Courtney co-starred in Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions' Ben is Back, directed by Peter Hedges, alongside Julia Roberts and Lucas Hedges. He will also appear as a pivotal character in HBO's upcoming drama horror series Lovecraft Country and wrapped production on the Netflix film, Uncorked, with Niecy Nash and Mamoudou Athie. The film is a father-son story inspired by the family of Prentice Penny, Insecure EP and showrunner. Also, Courtney has been announced as joining the cast of the Universal/Will Packer romantic drama, The Photograph, with Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield, directed by Stella Meghie.
Other credits include his Tony Award winning performance in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy and noteworthy films such as The Hunt for Red October, The Preacher's Wife, Space Cowboys, and Terminator Genisys.
Courtney and his wife, actress Angela Bassett co-wrote the book, FRIENDS: A LOVE STORY. The inspirational book is their personal love story and chronicles their story about healthy relationships. A native of Detroit, Michigan, he is a proud Ambassador for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. He resides in Southern California with his wife and their twins, Bronwyn Golden and Slater Josiah.- Actor
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Stellan Skarsgård was born in Gothenburg, Västra Götalands län, Sweden, to Gudrun (Larsson) and Jan Skarsgård. He became a star in his teens through the title role in the TV-series Bombi Bitt och jag (1968). Between the years 1972-88 he was employed at The Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm, where he participated in "Vita rum" (1988), August Strindberg's "Ett drömspel" (1986) and "Mäster Olof" (1988). Simultaneously Skarsgård did outstanding film roles, notably in The Simple-Minded Murderer (1982) by Hans Alfredson and with Fred Ward in Noon Wine (1985). The fantastic performance gave him both a well-earned Guldbagge and Silver Berlin Bear. He portrayed the Skagen-painter Sören Kröyer in Hip hip hurra! (1987) and the Swedish ambassador Raoul Wallenberg in God afton, herr Wallenberg (1990), both directed by Kjell Grede. Codename Coq Rouge (1989) and The Democratic Terrorist (1992) he played Jan Guillou's Swedish superagent Carl Hamilton. He also had the leading part in the Oscar nominated The Ox (1991) directed by the world-famous cinematographer Sven Nykvist. Skarsgård did his first (but small) role in an big American film with The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988). The role of Captain Tupolev in The Hunt for Red October (1990) was at supposed to be biggest part in a Hollywood-film, but unfortunately it was cut down. His breakthrough instead came with Lars von Trier's Breaking the Waves (1996) opposite newcomer Emily Watson. After that Skarsgård got several supporting roles in American films, such as in My Son the Fanatic (1997), Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting (1997) and Steven Spielberg's Amistad (1997).- Fred Thompson was born on 19 August 1942 in Sheffield, Alabama, USA. He was an actor, known for The Hunt for Red October (1990), No Way Out (1987) and Baby's Day Out (1994). He was married to Jeri Kehn Thompson and Sarah Elizabeth Lindsey. He died on 1 November 2015 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
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This Arkansas native was born on 26 November 1945 to parents who owned a movie theater. He often felt that his desire to become an actor came from the fact that he spent so much time in the theater's "crying room" for babies - and listening to the likes of Tyrone Power and others. His first "professional" work came at the age of 11 when he became a member of the cast of a children's TV series broadcast from Little Rock - "Betty's Little Rascals". His formal acting training came from the Arkansas Arts Center (a fine arts conservatory with its own repertory company), followed by work with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and 6 years with the American Conservatory Theatre, among many others. He also taught acting classes while at ACT. His love of the theater has continued through his career. He has played in nearly every Shakespeare play and an untold number of musicals (he's an accomplished singer) and straight plays. For the year 2000 Tony Awards, he was recognized with a nomination as best actor in a featured role for his performance in "Wrong Mountain". When The Nanny (1993) first went on the air, many people believed that the very British butler "Niles" was definitely being played by a British actor. This Southern boy was so convincing in his role that many fans wrote to the show and suggested that he teach Charles Shaughnessy (a true British native) how to improve his accent!- Actress
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Annette Bening was born on May 29, 1958 in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children. Her family moved to California when she was young, and she grew up there. She graduated from San Francisco State University and began her acting career with the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, eventually moving to New York where she acted on the stage (including a Tony-award nomination in 1987 for her work in the Broadway play "Coastal Disturbances") and got her first film roles, in a few TV movies.
As is so often the case, her first big-screen role was in a forgettable movie, this one The Great Outdoors (1988), in which she had little screen time. However, her next work onscreen was in Milos Forman's Valmont (1989), a film adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos' "Les Liaisons Dangereuses". Unfortunately, de Laclos' story had also just served as the source of a more Hollywoodized and successful movie version, Dangerous Liaisons (1988), which had been released the previous year, and Foreman's treatment went little noticed. Bening's career turned an important corner the following year when she co-starred with Anjelica Huston and John Cusack in Stephen Frears's powerful, entertaining screen adaptation of Jim Thompson's novel The Grifters (1990), and her artful turn as a con artist gained her the first of several Academy award nominations. On the strength of this performance Warren Beatty cast Bening as Virginia Hill, Bugsy Siegel's fiery actress moll, in his Bugsy (1991), the story of Siegel's founding of Las Vegas. Although the movie itself did not fare well, it resulted in a relationship with Beatty which led to Bening's pregnancy and then her marriage to Beatty in 1992 - it was the second marriage for Bening, who had been separated from her first husband since 1986 but did not finalize her divorce until 1991. The couple then collaborated on the extravagant flop Love Affair (1994), though the next year her career rebounded with her turn as Queen Elizabeth in the highly-regarded 1995 production of Richard III (1995). Notable performances have since included an obsessive, pushy real estate agent in American Beauty (1999), and as the eponymous character in István Szabó's screen adaptation of the W. Somerset Maugham novel Being Julia (2004) - both were duly noted by the Academy, with Oscar nominations.
Bening has great poise and screen presence and, at her best, can turn in a very strong performance. Although her resume often features long stretches of mediocre productions before the next good part turns up, when it does, it proves worth the wait. Bening has four children with Beatty.- Actor
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Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Phyllis Fox (née Piper), a payroll clerk, and William Fox. His parents moved their 10-year-old son, his three sisters, Kelli Fox, Karen, and Jacki, and his brother Steven, to Vancouver, British Columbia, after his father, a sergeant in the Canadian Army Signal Corps, retired. During these years Michael developed his desire to act. At 15 he successfully auditioned for the role of a 10-year-old in a series called Leo and Me (1978). Gaining attention as a bright new star in Canadian television and movies, Michael realized his love for acting when he appeared on stage in "The Shadow Box." At 18 he moved to Los Angeles and was offered a few television-series roles, but soon they stopped coming and he was surviving on boxes of macaroni and cheese. Then his agent called to tell him that he got the part of Alex P. Keaton on the situation comedy Family Ties (1982). He starred in the feature films Teen Wolf (1985), High School U.S.A. (1983), Poison Ivy (1985) and Back to the Future (1985).- Actor
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One of modern TV and moviedom's most sturdy and reliable character actors, David Paymer dreamed of being an actor from early childhood. Although he came from a traditional middle-class Jewish family that urged him to become a doctor or lawyer, Paymer felt more at home in the world of the thespian. At 14, he used a fake I.D. to see The Graduate, which starred a young Dustin Hoffman. He grew up in Oceanside, New York, where his father was in the scrap metal business. His mother, a homemaker, had fled Belgium with her family to escape the Nazis. When his father quit the scrap metal business to pursue music, it inspired young Paymer to give his acting dream a try. His aborted big break came when he was cast in the TV series, St. Elsewhere, as "Dr. Wayne Fiscus"- then promptly dumped and replaced by Howie Mandel. Luckily, his real
"That was like getting my passport stamped", said Paymer and he was quickly in demand by directors such as Spielberg ("Amistad"), Redford ("Quiz Show"), Oliver Stone ("Nixon"), David Mamet ("State & Main"), Steven Soderbergh ("Ocean's 13"), and Sam Raimi ("Drag me to Hell"). Chameleon-like in his portrayals, Paymer has since starred in hundreds of roles in film & television, notably "The American President", "Get Shorty", "Payback", "The Hurricane", "In Good Company", Francis Ford Coppola's "Twixt" and Kenneth Branagh's "Jack Ryan: Shadow One".
Paymer received Golden Globe nominations for "Mr. Saturday Night" and for HBO's "Crime of the Century". Paymer became a hyphenate in 2002, directing the acclaimed comedy short "Candor City Hospital" for Showtime. He has since directed over 60 episodes for broadcast television, including such hits as "Grey's Anatomy", "The Mentalist", "Brothers & Sisters", "Medium" & "The Unit". He is also a producer and director on the CW series "Hart of Dixie". Paymer resides in Santa Monica, CA with his wife and two daughters.- Actor
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Richard Dreyfuss is an American leading man, who has played his fair share of irritating pests and brash, ambitious hustlers.
He was born Richard Stephen Dreyfus in Brooklyn, New York, to Geraldine (Robbins), an activist, and Norman Dreyfus, a restaurateur and attorney. His paternal grandparents were Austro-Hungarian Jewish immigrants, and his mother's family was Russian Jewish.
Richard worked his way up through bit parts (The Graduate (1967), for one) and TV before gaining attention with his portrayal of Baby Face Nelson in John Milius' Dillinger (1973). He gained prominence as a college-bound young man in American Graffiti (1973) and as a nervy Jewish kid with high hopes in The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974). By the latter part of the 1970s Dreyfuss was established as a major star, playing leads (and alter-egos) for Steven Spielberg in two of the top-grossing films of the that decade: Jaws (1975) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). He won a Best Actor Oscar in his first romantic lead as an out-of-work actor in The Goodbye Girl (1977). Dreyfuss also produced and starred in the entertaining private eye movie The Big Fix (1978). After a brief lull in the early 1980s, a well-publicized drug problem and a string of box-office disappointments (The Competition (1980), Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981), The Buddy System (1984)), a clean and sober Dreyfuss re-established himself in the mid-'80s as one of Hollywood's more engaging leads. He co-starred with Bette Midler and Nick Nolte in Paul Mazursky's popular Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986). That same year he provided the narration and appeared in the opening and closing "bookends" of Rob Reiner's nostalgic Stand by Me (1986). He quickly followed that with Nuts (1987) opposite Barbra Streisand, Barry Levinson's Tin Men (1987) in a memorable teaming with Danny DeVito, and Stakeout (1987) with Emilio Estevez. Dreyfuss continued working steadily through the end of the 1980s and into the 1990s, most notably in Mazursky's farce Moon Over Parador (1988), Spielberg's Always (1989), Postcards from the Edge (1990) and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990). He appeared as a member of an ensemble that included Holly Hunter, Gena Rowlands and Danny Aiello in the romantic comedy Once Around (1991) and as a pop psychiatrist, the author of several successful self-help books, who is driven to the edge by nutcase Bill Murray in the popular comedy What About Bob? (1991). Dreyfuss has also remained active in the theater ("Death and Maiden", 1992) and on TV. In his next project he starred the thriller Silent Fall (1994) with John Lithgow and Linda Hamilton, being the film debut of Liv Tyler, Steven Tyler's daughter (Aerosmith's lead vocals). Just later Dreyfuss made Another Stakeout (1993), sequel of Stakeout (1987) where was team again with Emilio Estevez accompanied of Rosie O'Donnell, the adaptation of Neil Simon's play Lost in Yonkers (1993) and followed with a supporting turn as the querulous political opponent in The American President (1995). Dreyfuss received some of the best notices of his career as a determined, inspiring music teacher coping with a deaf son and the demands of his career in Mr. Holland's Opus (1995). Closing the 20th century he was in Sidney Lumet's Night Falls on Manhattan (1996) with Andy Garcia, the crime comedy Mad Dog Time (1996) as the mob boss Vic, the screwball comedy Krippendorf's Tribe (1998) about an anthropologist who creates a false lost New Guinea tribe for not losing his job in the university, TV movie Lansky (1999) about the infamous mob boss to end, the too TV movie Fail Safe (2000) playing The President, and The Crew (2000), about four older mobsters retired in Miami, partnering with Hollywood legends Burt Reynolds, Dan Hedaya and Seymour Cassel.
His start in the 21st century was with the adaption of Luis Sepúlveda's novel The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2001), playing an old man to must to hunt a female jaguar turned crazy. It was followed by the supporting apparition in the comedy Who Is Cletis Tout? (2001) and another TV movie about 1981 Ronald Reagan's shooting The Day Reagan Was Shot (2001). After the short-lived TV series The Education of Max Bickford (2001) about a teacher in a women's college where his daughter is student, Dreyfuss returned to cinema in Silver City (2004) and the box-office bomb Poseidon (2006) with Kurt Russell, Emmy Rossum and Josh Lucas. Playing former vice-president Dick Cheney in the Oliver Stone's biopic W. (2008) and Irv, the cunning tourist in Greece turned in assistant of a troubled tour guide in My Life in Ruins (2009), Dreyfuss participated in low-budget productions as Leaves of Grass (2009) and The Lightkeepers (2009), for making a cameo in the wild and crazy Piranha 3D (2010) about prehistoric men-eater piranhas that make a bloodbath in a spring break. Returning to first line playing evil Alexander Dunning in the actioner RED (2010), his further productions included Paranoia (2013) as Liam Hemsworth's father partnering Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman, road movie Cas & Dylan (2013) opposites Tatiana Maslany and the biopic TV mini-series Madoff (2016) about the infamous multi-billion-dollar and hustler Bernie Madoff. Tireless and always implied in new projects, Dreyfuss played George, the funny online date of Candice Bergen in Book Club (2018), the comedy and road movie The Last Laugh (2019) with Chevy Chase, and the set in wilderness thriller Daughter of the Wolf (2019) with Gina Carano and Brendan Fehr. Making his 73rd birthday in 2020, Dreyfuss is an example of talent, diversity and love for his work, touching not only all the genres in cinema but leaving an unforgettable footprint at any of them.- Actress
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Anna Deavere Smith was born on 18 September 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for The Human Stain (2003), The American President (1995) and Rachel Getting Married (2008).- Actor
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This remarkable, soft-spoken American began in films as a diffident juvenile. With passing years, he matured into a star character actor who exemplified not only integrity and strength, but an ideal of the common man fighting against social injustice and oppression. He was born in Grand Island, Hall, Nebraska, the son of Herberta Elma (Jaynes) and William Brace Fonda, who was a commercial printer, and proprietor of the W. B. Fonda Printing Company in Omaha, Nebraska. His distant ancestors were Italians who had fled their country and moved to Holland, presumably because of political or religious persecution. In the mid-1600s, they crossed the Atlantic and settled in upstate New York where they founded a community with the Fonda name.
Growing up, Henry developed an early interest in journalism after having a story published in a local newspaper. At the age of twelve, he helped in his father's printing business for $2 a week. Following graduation from high school in 1923, he got a part-time job in Minneapolis with the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company which allowed him at first to pursue journalistic studies at the University of Minnesota. As it became difficult to juggle his working hours with his academic roster, he obtained another position as a physical education instructor at $30 a week, including room and board. By this time, he had grown to a height of six foot one and was a natural for basketball.
In 1925, having returned to Omaha, Henry reevaluated his options and came to the conclusion that journalism was not his forte, after all. For a while, he tried his hand at several temporary jobs, including as a mechanic and a window dresser. Then, despite opposition from his parents, Henry accepted an offer from Gregory Foley, director of the Omaha Playhouse, to play the title role in 'Merton of the Movies'. His father would not speak to him for a month. The play and its star received fairly good notices in the local press. It ran for a week, after which Henry observed "the idea of being Merton and not myself taught me that I could hide behind a mask". For the rest of the repertory season, Henry advanced to assistant director which enabled him to design and paint sets as well as act. A casual trip to New York, however, had already made him set his sights on Broadway.
In 1928, he headed east and briefly played in summer stock before joining the University Players, a group of talented Princeton and Harvard graduates among whose number were such future luminaries as James Stewart (who would remain his closest lifelong friend), Joshua Logan and Kent Smith. Before long, Henry played leads opposite Margaret Sullavan, soon to become the first of his five wives. Both marriage and the players broke up four years later. In 1932, Henry found himself sharing a two-room New York apartment with Jimmy Stewart and Joshua Logan. For the next two years, he alternated scenic design with acting at various repertory companies. In 1934, he got a break of sorts, when he was given the chance to present a comedy sketch with Imogene Coca in the Broadway revue New Faces. That year, he also hired Leland Hayward as his personal management agent and this was to pay off handsomely.
It was Hayward who persuaded the 29-year old to become a motion picture actor, despite initial misgivings and reluctance on Henry's part. Independent producer Walter Wanger, whose growing stock company was birthed at United Artists, needed a star for The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935). With both first choice actors Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea otherwise engaged, Henry was the next available option. After all, he had just completed a successful run on Broadway in the stage version. The cheesy publicity tag line for the picture was "you'll be fonder of Fonda", but the film was an undeniable hit. Wanger, realizing he had a good thing going, next cast Henry in a succession of A-grade pictures which capitalized on his image as the sincere, unaffected country boy. Pick of the bunch were the Technicolor outdoor western The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the gritty Depression-era drama You Only Live Once (1937) (with Henry as a back-to-the-wall good guy forced into becoming a fugitive from the law by circumstance), the screwball comedy The Moon's Our Home (1936) (with ex-wife Sullavan), the excellent pre-civil war-era romantic drama Jezebel (1938) and the equally superb Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), in which Henry gave his best screen performance to date as the 'jackleg lawyer from Springfield'. Henry made two more films with director John Ford: the pioneering drama Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940), with Henry as Tom Joad, often regarded his career-defining role as the archetypal grassroots American trying to stand up against oppression. It also set the tone for his subsequent career. Whether he played a lawman (Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946)), a reluctant posse member (The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), a juror committed to the ideal of total justice in (12 Angry Men (1957)) or a nightclub musician wrongly accused of murder (The Wrong Man (1956)), his characters were alike in projecting integrity and quiet authority. In this vein, he also gave a totally convincing (though historically inaccurate) portrayal in the titular role of The Return of Frank James (1940), a rare example of a sequel improving upon the original.
Henry rarely featured in comedy, except for a couple of good turns opposite Barbara Stanwyck -- with whom he shared an excellent on-screen chemistry -- in The Mad Miss Manton (1938) and The Lady Eve (1941). He was also good value as a poker-playing grifter in the western comedy A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966). Finally, just to confound those who would typecast him, he gave a chilling performance as one of the coldest, meanest stone killers ever to roam the West, in Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Illness curtailed his work in the 1970s. His final screen role was as an octogenarian in On Golden Pond (1981), in which he was joined by his daughter Jane. It finally won him an Oscar on the heels of an earlier Honorary Academy Award. Too ill to attend the ceremony, he died soon after at the age of 77, having left a lasting legacy matched by few of his peers.- Actor
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Lee J. Cobb, one of the premier character actors in American film for three decades in the post-World War II period, was born Leo Jacoby in New York City's Lower East Side on December 8, 1911. The son of a Jewish newspaper editor, young Leo was a child prodigy in music, mastering the violin and the harmonica. Any hopes of a career as a violin virtuoso were dashed when he broke his wrist, but his talent on the harmonica may have brought him his first professional success. At the age of 16 or 17 he ran away from home to Hollywood to try to break into motion pictures as an actor. He reportedly made his film debut as a member of Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals (their first known movie appearance was in the 1929 two-reeler Boyhood Days), but that cannot be substantiated. However, it's known that after Leo was unable to find work he returned to New York City, where he attended New York University at night to study accounting while acting in radio dramas during the day.
An older Cobb tried his luck in California once more, making his debut as a professional stage actor at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1931. After again returning to his native New York, he made his Broadway debut as a saloonkeeper in a dramatization of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but it closed after 15 performances (later in his career, Dostoevsky would prove more of a charm, with Cobb's role as Father Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1958) garnering him his second Oscar nomination),
Cobb joined the politically progressive Group Theater in 1935 and made a name for himself in Clifford Odets' politically liberal dramas Waiting for Lefty and Til the Day I Die, appearing in both plays that year in casts that included Elia Kazan, who later became famous as a film director. Cobb also appeared in the 1937 Group Theater production of Odets' Golden Boy, playing the role of Mr. Carp, in a cast that also included Kazan, Julius Garfinkle (later better known under his stage name of John Garfield), and Martin Ritt, all of whom later came under the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the heyday of the McCarthy Red Scare hysteria more than a decade later. Cobb took over the role of Mr. Bonaparte, the protagonist's father, in the 1939 film version of the play, despite the fact that he was not yet 30 years old. The role of a patriarch suited him, and he'd play many more in his film career.
It was as a different kind of patriarch that he scored his greatest success. Cobb achieved immortality by giving life to the character of Willy Loman in the original 1949 Broadway production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. His performance was a towering achievement that ranks with such performances as Edwin Booth as Richard III and John Barrymore as Hamlet in the annals of the American theater. Cobb later won an Emmy nomination as Willy when he played the role in a made-for-TV movie of the play (Death of a Salesman (1966)). Miller said that he wrote the role with Cobb in mind.
Before triumphing as Miller's Salesman, Cobb had appeared on Broadway only a handful of times in the 1940s, including in Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column (1940), Odets' "Clash by Night" (1942) and the US Army Air Force's Winged Victory (1943-44). Later he reprised the role of Joe Bonaparte's father in the 1952 revival of Golden Boy opposite Garfield as his son, and appeared the following year in The Emperor's Clothes. His final Broadway appearance was as King Lear in the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center's 1968 production of Shakespeare's play.
Aside from his possible late 1920s movie debut and his 1934 appearance in the western The Vanishing Shadow (1934), Cobb's film career proper began in 1937 with the westerns North of the Rio Grande (1937) (in which he was billed as Lee Colt) and Rustlers' Valley (1937) and spanned nearly 40 years until his death. After a hiatus while serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Cobb's movie career resumed in 1946. He continued to play major supporting roles in prestigious A-list pictures. His movie career reached its artistic peak in the 1950s, when he was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards, for his role as Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront (1954) and as the father in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). Other memorable supporting roles in the 1950s included the sagacious Judge Bernstein in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), as the probing psychiatrist Dr. Luther in The Three Faces of Eve (1957) and as the volatile Juror #3 in 12 Angry Men (1957).
It was in the 1950s that Cobb achieved the sort of fame that most artists dreaded: he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee on charges that he was or had been a Communist. The charges were rooted in Cobb's membership in the Group Theater in the 1930s. Other Group Theater members already investigated by HUAC included Clifford Odets and Elia Kazan, both of whom provided friendly testimony before the committee, and John Garfield, who did not.
Cobb's own persecution by HUAC had already caused a nervous breakdown in his wife, and he decided to appear as a friendly witness in order to preserve her sanity and his career, by bringing the inquisition to a halt. Appearing before the committee in 1953, he named names and thus saved his career. Ironically, he would win his first Oscar nomination in On the Waterfront (1954) directed and written by fellow HUAC informers Kazan and Budd Schulberg. The film can be seen as a stalwart defense of informing, as epitomized by the character Terry Malloy's testimony before a Congressional committee investigating racketeering on the waterfront.
Major films in which Cobb appeared after reaching his career plateau include Otto Preminger's adaptation of Leon Uris' ode to the birth of Israel, Exodus (1960); the Cinerama spectacle How the West Was Won (1962); the James Coburn spy spoofs, Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967); Clint Eastwood's first detective film, Coogan's Bluff (1968); and legendary director William Wyler's last film, The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970).
In addition to his frequent supporting roles in film, Cobb often appeared on television. He played Judge Henry Garth on The Virginian (1962) from 1962-66 and also had a regular role as the attorney David Barrett on The Young Lawyers (1969) from 1970-71. Cobb also appeared in made-for-TV movies and made frequent guest appearances on other TV shows. His last major Hollywood movie role was that of police detective Lt. Kinderman in The Exorcist (1973).
Lee J. Cobb died of a heart attack in Woodland Hills, California, on February 11, 1976, at the age of 64. He is buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Though he will long be remembered for many of his successful supporting performances in the movies, it is as the stage's first Willy Loman in which he achieved immortality as an actor. Bearing in mind that the role was written for him, it is through Willy that he will continue to have an influence on American drama far into the future, for as long as Death of a Salesman is revived.- Martin Henry Balsam was born on November 4, 1919 in the Bronx, New York City, to Lillian (Weinstein) and Albert Balsam, a manufacturer of women's sportswear. He was the first-born child. His father was a Russian Jewish immigrant, and his mother was born in New York, to Russian Jewish parents. Martin caught the acting bug in high school where he participated in the drama club. After high school, he continued his interest in acting by attending Manhattan's progressive New School. When World War II broke out, Martin was called to service in his early twenties. After the war, he was lucky to secure a position as an usher at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. By 1947, he was honing his craft at the Actors Studio, run at that time by Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg. His time at the Actors Studio in New York City allowed him training in the famous Stanislavsky method. Despite his excellent training, he had to prove himself, just like any up and coming young actor. He began on Broadway in the late 1940s. But, it was not until 1951 that he experienced real success. That play was Tennessee Williams' "The Rose Tattoo". After his Broadway success, he had a few minor television roles before his big break arrived when he joined the cast of On the Waterfront (1954). In the 1950s, Martin had many television roles. He had recurring roles on some of the most popular television series of that time, including The United States Steel Hour (1953), The Philco Television Playhouse (1948), Goodyear Playhouse (1951) and Studio One (1948). In 1957, he was able to prove himself on the big-screen once again, with a prominent role in 12 Angry Men (1957), directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda. All of Martin's television work in the 1950s did not go to waste. While starring on an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), Hitchcock was so impressed by his work, that he offered him a key supporting role of Detective Milton Arbogast in Psycho (1960). His work with Hitchcock opened him up to a world of other acting opportunities. Many strong movie roles came his way in the 1960s, including parts in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Cape Fear (1962) and The Carpetbaggers (1964). One of the proudest moments in his life was when he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for A Thousand Clowns (1965). It was soon after that he began accepting roles in European movies. He soon developed a love for Italy, and lived there most of his remaining years. He acted in over a dozen Italian movies and spent his later life traveling between Hollywood and Europe for his many roles. After a career that spanned more than fifty years, Martin Balsam died of natural causes in his beloved Italy at age 76. He passed away of a stroke at a hotel in Rome called Residenza di Repetta. He was survived by his third wife Irene Miller and three children, Adam, Zoe and Talia.
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Typical of busy character actors, Fiedler made his face (and voice) recognizable to millions. Many know the bald-pated Fiedler as therapy patient "Mr. Peterson" on The Bob Newhart Show (1972); others might first recognize him for the 1968 movie, The Odd Couple (1968), and spin-off TV show, The Odd Couple (1970), or perhaps even from the Broadway play that preceded them. Even kids would know that helium-high voice from animated Disney features like Robin Hood (1973), The Fox and the Hound (1981) and the "Winnie the Pooh" stories, in which he voiced "Piglet". The son of an Irish-German beer salesman, Fiedler knew he wanted to be an actor from his childhood days, when he had a full head of reddish-yellow hair. He made his first professional appearances onstage, branched out into live TV in New York and, then, during the 20 years he lived in Hollywood (1960-80), he turned up in many movies and an ever greater number of popular TV shows.- Actor
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With over 150 Film and TV appearances to his credit, E. G. Marshall was arguably most well known as the imperturbable Juror No. 4 in the Sidney Lumet legal drama 12 Angry Men (1957).
Some of his stand-out performances are in Creepshow (1982), National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989), and Nixon (1995).
Marshall married three times and had seven children.- Actor
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As a film character actor, Klugman was the epitome of the everyman. He was one of the pioneers of television acting in the 1950s, and is best remembered for his 1970s TV work as Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple (1970) and as the medical examiner on Quincy M.E. (1976).- Gravel-voiced, authoritative American character actor, a reliable presence on screen for more than four decades.
Edward Thomas Binns was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Esther (Bracken) and Edward Thoms Binns. His family were Quakers. He was a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and first learned his trade as an apprentice at the Cleveland Playhouse. Binns was among the first to join the newly established Actors Studio in 1947, which effectively paved the way for future opportunities. He made his first stage appearance that same year, appearing as a non-commissioned officer in the cast of the hit play "Command Decision". Another acclaimed performance saw him as a tough NYPD cop in "Detective Story" (1949), a part played in the film version by Frank Faylen two years later. It was no coincidence, that Binns would come to specialize in no-nonsense, hard-nosed detectives or guys in uniform, once his screen career took off in the mid-1950's. At the peak of his popularity, he starred in his own police series, Brenner (1959), which had a five-year run on CBS.
Before Binns became a much sought-after general purpose actor, utilized in literally hundreds of early live television shows, his career suffered a serious setback: he was blacklisted during the House Un-american Activities Committee (Not Senator McCarthy) witch hunts as a suspected communist sympathizer. This turned out to be a case of mistaken identity (a Brooklyn alderwoman with the same surname -- not related -- had been a member of the Communist Party), but the blacklisting was not expunged for another two years. Another (lesser) source of disgruntlement for Binns was, that he found himself often mistaken for the actor Frank Lovejoy (though, arguably, he more closely resembled Charles Aidman!).
In feature films, Binns was at his convincing best as the juror most likely to be swayed in 12 Angry Men (1957); as bomber pilot Colonel Grady in Fail Safe (1964); and as General Walter Bedell Smith in Patton (1970). He had numerous excellent TV credits to his name, including a recurring role as Al Mundy's boss on It Takes a Thief (1968) and as General Korshak, attempting to poach Hawkeye as his personal physician in M*A*S*H (1972). He was otherwise gainfully employed as a narrator, voicing commercials for Amtrak and United Way and, latterly, as a drama teacher. Ed Binns died of a heart attack, while being driven in his car on the way from Manhattan to his Connecticut home, on December 4 1990. - Actor
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Jack Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter, Jr. on September 18, 1920 in Newark, New Jersey, to Laura M. (Costello) and John Warden Lebzelter. His father was of German and Irish descent, and his mother was of Irish ancestry. Raised in Louisville, Kentucky, at the age of seventeen, young Jack Lebzelter was expelled from Louisville's DuPont Manual High School for repeatedly fighting. Good with his fists, he turned professional, boxing as a welterweight under the name "Johnny Costello", adopting his mother's maiden name. The purses were poor, so he soon left the ring and worked as a bouncer at a night club. He also worked as a lifeguard before signing up with the U.S. Navy in 1938. He served in China with the Yangtze River Patrol for the best part of his three-year hitch before joining the Merchant Marine in 1941.
Though the Merchant Marine paid better than the Navy, Warden was dissatisfied with his life aboard ship on the long convoy runs and quit in 1942 in order to enlist in the U.S. Army. He became a paratrooper with the elite 101st Airborne Division, and missed the June 1944 invasion of Normandy due to a leg badly broken by landing on a fence during a nighttime practice jump shortly before D-Day. Many of his comrades lost their lives during the Normandy invasion, but the future Jack Warden was spared that ordeal. Recuperating from his injuries, he read a play by Clifford Odets given to him by a fellow soldier who was an actor in civilian life. He was so moved by the play, he decided to become an actor after the war. After recovering from his badly shattered leg, Warden saw action at the Battle of the Bulge, Nazi Germany's last major offensive. He was demobilized with the rank of sergeant and decided to pursue an acting career on the G.I. Bill. He moved to New York City to attend acting school, then joined the company of Theatre '47 in Dallas in 1947 as a professional actor, taking his middle name as his surname. This repertory company, run by Margo Jones, became famous in the 1940s and '50s for producing Tennessee Williams's plays. The experience gave him a valuable grounding in both classic and contemporary drama, and he shuttled between Texas and New York for five years as he was in demand as an actor. Warden made his television debut in 1948, though he continued to perform on stage (he appeared in a stage production in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (1966)). After several years in small, local productions, he made both his Broadway debut in the 1952 Broadway revival of Odets' "Golden Boy" and, three years later, originated the role of "Marco" in the original Broadway production of Miller's "A View From the Bridge". On film, he and fellow World War II veteran, Lee Marvin (Marine Corps, South Pacific), made their debut in You're in the Navy Now (1951) (a.k.a. "U.S.S. Teakettle"), uncredited, along with fellow vet Charles Bronson, then billed as "Charles Buchinsky".
With his athletic physique, he was routinely cast in bit parts as soldiers (including the sympathetic barracks-mate of Montgomery Clift and Frank Sinatra in the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity (1953). He played the coach on TV's Mister Peepers (1952) with Wally Cox.
Aside from From Here to Eternity (1953) (The Best Picture Oscar winner for 1953), other famous roles in the 1950s included Juror #7 (a disinterested salesman who wants a quick conviction to get the trial over with) in 12 Angry Men (1957) - a film that proved to be his career breakthrough - the bigoted foreman in Edge of the City (1957) and one of the submariners commended by Clark Gable and Burt Lancaster in the World War II drama, Run Silent Run Deep (1958). In 1959, Warden capped off the decade with a memorable appearance in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode, The Lonely (1959), in the series premier year of 1959. As "James Corry", Warden created a sensitive portrayal of a convicted felon marooned on an asteroid, sentenced to serve a lifetime sentence, who falls in love with a robot. It was a character quite different from his role as Juror #7.
In the 1960s and early 70s, his most memorable work was on television, playing a detective in The Asphalt Jungle (1961), The Wackiest Ship in the Army (1965) and N.Y.P.D. (1967). He opened up the decade of the 1970s by winning an Emmy Award playing football coach "George Halas" in Brian's Song (1971), the highly-rated and acclaimed TV movie based on Gale Sayers's memoir, "I Am Third". He appeared again as a detective in the TV series, Jigsaw John (1976), in the mid-1970s, The Bad News Bears (1979) and appeared in a pilot for a planned revival of Topper (1937) in 1979.
His collaboration with Warren Beatty in two 1970s films brought him to the summit of his career as he displayed a flair for comedy in both Shampoo (1975) and Heaven Can Wait (1978). As the faintly sinister businessman "Lester" and as the perpetually befuddled football trainer "Max Corkle", Warden received Academy Award nominations as Best Supporting Actor. Other memorable roles in the period were as the metro news editor of the "Washington Post" in All the President's Men (1976), the German doctor in Death on the Nile (1978), the senile, gun-toting judge in And Justice for All (1979), the President of the United States in Being There (1979), the twin car salesmen in Used Cars (1980) and Paul Newman's law partner in The Verdict (1982).
This was the peak of Warden's career, as he entered his early sixties. He single-handedly made Andrew Bergman's So Fine (1981) watchable, but after that film, the quality of his roles declined. He made a third stab at TV, again appearing as a detective in Crazy Like a Fox (1984) in the mid-1980s. He played the shifty convenience store owner "Big Ben" in Problem Child (1990) and its two sequels, a role unworthy of his talent, but he shone again as the Broadway high-roller "Julian Marx" in Woody Allen's Bullets Over Broadway (1994). After appearing in Warren Beatty's Bulworth (1998), Warden's last film was The Replacements (2000) in 2000. He then lived in retirement in New York City with his girlfriend, Marucha Hinds. He was married to French stage actress Wanda Ottoni, best known for her role as the object of Joe Besser's desire in The Three Stooges short, Fifi Blows Her Top (1958). She gave up her career after her marriage. They had one son, Christopher, but had been separated for many years.- Joseph Sweeney was born on 26 July 1884 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for 12 Angry Men (1957), The United States Steel Hour (1953) and Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950). He died on 25 November 1963 in New York City, New York, USA.
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Charismatic character star Edward James Begley was born in Hartford, Connecticut of Irish parents and educated at St.Patrick's school. His interest in acting first surfaced at the age of nine, when he performed amateur theatricals at the Hartford Globe Theatre. Determined to make his own way, he left home aged eleven and drifted from job to job, had a four-year stint in the U.S. Navy, then worked in a bowling alley replacing pins, joined carnivals and circuses. In 1931, he appeared in vaudeville and was also hired as a radio announcer, his voice broadcast to nationwide audiences. It took him several years to establish himself on the legitimate stage, but in 1943, he had a role in the short-running play 'Land of Fame'.
His first success was the 1947 Arthur Miller play 'All My Sons' and this was followed by the 1925 Scopes Trial fictionalization 'Inherit the Wind' (1955-57), which ran for 806 performances at the National Theatre. Ed, co-starring with Paul Muni, played the part of Matthew Harrison Brady (played in the 1960 motion picture by Fredric March) and won the 1956 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. Upon Paul Muni's departure from the cast, Ed used the opportunity to play the part of Henry Drummond (Spencer Tracy's role in the film) with equal vigor. In 1960, he starred as Senator Orrin Knox in the political drama 'Advise and Consent'. Ed's movie career began with Boomerang! (1947), a murder mystery set in his native Connecticut, directed by Elia Kazan. Heavy-set with bushy eyebrows, the archetypal image of Ed Begley on screen is as a gruff, blustery, often heavily sweating (and sometimes corrupt) politician or industrialist. He proved his mettle in a number of classic films, including Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) and On Dangerous Ground (1951). Whether as the sympathetic executive in Patterns (1956), a bigoted ex-cop turned bank robber in Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), or the crazed billionaire bent on world domination of Billion Dollar Brain (1967), he tackled every part that came his way with conviction. The culmination of his work was a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his role of Boss Finley in Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth (1962).
In addition to countless radio broadcasts, Ed was also busy in television in the 1950s and '60s. Among frequent guest-starring appearances, his dynamic characterizations in two episodes of The Invaders (1967) ('The Betrayed' and 'Labyrinth') in particular stand out. Ed Begley died of a heart attack in April 1970 in Hollywood at the age of 69.- Actor
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Czech actor/producer/director/author George Voskovec was born Jirí Wachsmann on June 19, 1905, the son of Jirina Valentina Marie (nee Pinkasová) and Vilem Eduard Voskovec (Wachsmann). His ancestry was Czech, German, and French. Prior to George's birth, the spelling of the family name was Vaksman (Russian). By the time he was born, which was shortly after their return to Bohemia--then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire--it had been changed to Wachsmann. In 1920, the family again changed the name from Wachsmann to Voskovec, a Czech translation, and his father changed his name to Václav Voskovec. George received his education at Lycée Carnot in Dijon and Charles University (School of Law) in Prague. He made his stage début in Prague in 1927 in "Vest Pocket Revue" and subsequently formed a solid partnership with fellow actor/lyricist Jan Werich. For the next 11 years they wrote, produced and performed 26 productions for the avant-garde Liberated Theatre of Prague, Osvobozene divadlo. He also established himself in Czech comedy films as both performer and writer in tandem with Werich.
In the late 1930s, he left his homeland following the German invasion and emigrated to America. Rebuilding his status as a performer/writer/director, he débuted at the Cleveland Playhouse in 1940 in "Heavy Barbara" and "The Ass and the Shadow," again in collaboration with Werich. During the war years he and Werich wrote and broadcast a host of radio programmes for the "Voice of America". He also made his Broadway début in "The Tempest" in 1945. He returned to Prague after the war in 1946 and worked for a time in the theatre before traveling to Paris, where he first worked for UNESCO, later founded the American theatre of Paris in 1949 and served as producer/director.
Upon his return to America in 1950, he was detained for 11 months on Ellis Island on suspicion of being a communist sympathizer. After he was allowed to enter USA, Voskovec appeared in New York with "The Love of Four Colonels," which he later toured. He went on to accumulate a formidable list of theatre credits including "The Seagull," "Festival" and, notably, "Uncle Vanya" for which he won an Obie award in the title role. He made his London stage début as Otto Frank in "The Diary of Anne Frank" in 1956, and was a continued presence on the 1960s Shakespearean stage with "Caesar and Cleopatra" (as Caesar) and John Gielgud's production of "Hamlet" as the Player King, the latter play was filmed.
In films, he played supporting roles in the U.S. from 1952. Affair in Trinidad (1952), The Iron Mistress (1952), The 27th Day (1957), The Bravados (1958), BUtterfield 8 (1960), The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and The Boston Strangler (1968) all benefited from his imposing presence and professional stature. He also played one of the jurors in the classic drama 12 Angry Men (1957) alongside Lee J. Cobb and Henry Fonda. Voskovec was indeed a vital ethnic presence during the "Golden Age of Television" during the 1950s and in episodic 1960s TV. Voskovec was also a songwriter, being the lyricist of some 300 popular songs over his career. He continued to thrive in all three mediums throughout the 1970s practically until his death in 1981 at age 76. One of his final theatrical highlights was in Samuel Beckett's "Happy Days" in which he shared the stage with Irene Worth. This was followed by regular TV stints on Skag (1980) and Nero Wolfe (1981).
Divorced from his first wife and the widower of his second, Broadway stage actress Anne Gerlette, Voskovec later wed poet/journalist Christianne McKeown. He was survived by his third wife and two daughters from his second marriage: Victorie (adopted, born in 1954) and Georgeanne (adopted, born in 1956). He never returned to Prague.- Actor
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Over his 40-year career as one of Hollywood's veteran character actors, Robert Webber always marked his spot by playing all types of roles and was not stereotyped into playing just one kind of character. Sometimes he even got to play a leading role (see Hysteria (1965)). Webber first started out in small stage shows and a few Broadway plays before he landed the role of Juror 12 in 12 Angry Men (1957). He was also known for numerous war films, playing Lee Marvin's general in The Dirty Dozen (1967) or as real-life Admiral Frank J. Fletcher in Midway (1976). Webber's other best known movies include The Great White Hope (1970), Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), 10 (1979) (as composer Dudley Moore's lyricist partner), Private Benjamin (1980), Wild Geese II (1985) and co-starring with Richard Dreyfuss and Barbra Streisand as prosecutor Francis McMillian in Nuts (1987). In 1989 he died of Lou Gehrig's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) in Malibu, California, shortly after completing the 1988 TV production Something Is Out There (1988). He bore a resemblance to character actor Kevin McCarthy.- Actor
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Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through the '00s.
Nicholson was born on April 22, 1937, in Neptune, New Jersey. He was raised believing that his grandmother was his mother, and that his mother, June Frances Nicholson, a showgirl, was his older sister. He discovered the truth in 1975 from a Time magazine journalist who was researching a profile on him. His real father is believed to have been either Donald Furcillo, an Italian American showman, or Eddie King (Edgar Kirschfeld), born in Latvia and also in show business. Jack's mother's ancestry was Irish, and smaller amounts of English, German, Scottish, and Welsh.
Nicholson made his film debut in a B-movie titled The Cry Baby Killer (1958). His rise in Hollywood was far from meteoric, and for years, he sustained his career with guest spots in television series and a number of Roger Corman films, including The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
Nicholson's first turn in the director's chair was for Drive, He Said (1971). Before that, he wrote the screenplay for The Trip (1967), and co-wrote Head (1968), a vehicle for The Monkees. His big break came with Easy Rider (1969) and his portrayal of liquor-soaked attorney George Hanson, which earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination. Nicholson's film career took off in the 1970s with a definitive performance in Five Easy Pieces (1970). Nicholson's other notable work during this period includes leading roles in Roman Polanski's noir masterpiece Chinatown (1974) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which he won his first Best Actor Oscar.
The 1980s kicked off with another career-defining role for Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining (1980). A string of well-received films followed, including Terms of Endearment (1983), which earned Nicholson his second Oscar; Prizzi's Honor (1985), and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). He portrayed another renowned villain, The Joker, in Tim Burton's Batman (1989). In the 1990s, he starred in such varied films as A Few Good Men (1992), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and a dual role in Mars Attacks! (1996).
Although a glimpse at the darker side of Nicholson's acting range reappeared in The Departed (2006), the actor's most recent roles highlight the physical and emotional complications one faces late in life. The most notable of these is the unapologetically misanthropic Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets (1997), for which he won his third Oscar. Shades of this persona are apparent in About Schmidt (2002), Something's Gotta Give (2003), and The Bucket List (2007). In addition to his Academy Awards and Oscar nominations, Nicholson has seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. He also became one of the youngest actors to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement award in 1994.
Nicholson has six children by five different women: Jennifer Nicholson (b. 1963) from his only marriage to Sandra Knight, which ended in 1966; Caleb Goddard (b. 1970) with Five Easy Pieces (1970) co-star Susan Anspach, who was automatically adopted by Anspach's then-husband Mark Goddard; Honey Hollman (b. 1982) with Danish supermodel Winnie Hollman; Lorraine Nicholson (b. 1990) and Ray Nicholson (b. 1992) with minor actress Rebecca Broussard; and Tessa Gourin (b. 1994) with real estate agent Jennine Marie Gourin. Nicholson's longest relationship was the 17 nonmonogamous years he spent with Anjelica Huston; this ended when Broussard announced she was pregnant with his child.- Actress
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Demi Moore was born 1962 in Roswell, New Mexico. Her father Charles Harmon left her mother Virginia Guynes (née King) before Demi was born. Her stepfather Danny Guynes didn't add much stability to her life either. He frequently changed jobs and made the family move a total of 40 times. The parents kept on drinking, arguing and beating, until Guynes finally committed suicide. Demi quit school at the age of 16 to work as a pin-up girl. At 18 she married rock musician Freddy Moore; the marriage lasted four years. At 19 she became a regular on the soap opera General Hospital (1963). From the first salaries she started partying and sniffing cocaine. That lasted more than 3 years, until director Joel Schumacher threatened to fire her from the set of St. Elmo's Fire (1985) when she turned up high. She got a withdrawal treatment and returned clean after a week, and stayed clean. With determination and a skill for publicity stunts, like the nude appearance on cover of Vanity Fair while pregnant, she made her way to fame. Since the huge commercial success of Ghost (1990) and the controversial pictures Indecent Proposal (1993) and Disclosure (1994) she's one of Hollywood's most sought-after and most expensive actresses.- Actor
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Kevin Norwood Bacon was born on July 8, 1958 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Ruth Hilda (Holmes), an elementary school teacher, and Edmund Norwood Bacon, a prominent architect who was on the cover of Time Magazine in November 1964.
Kevin's early training as an actor came from The Manning Street. His debut as the strict Chip Diller in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) almost seems like an inside joke, but he managed to escape almost unnoticed from that role. Diner (1982) became the turning point after a couple of television series and a number of less-than-memorable movie roles. In a cast of soon-to-be stars, he more than held his end up, and we saw a glimpse of the real lunatic image of The Bacon. He also starred in Footloose (1984), She's Having a Baby (1988), Tremors (1990) with Fred Ward, Flatliners (1990), and Apollo 13 (1995).
Bacon is married to actress Kyra Sedgwick, with whom he has 2 children.- Actor
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Kiefer Sutherland was born in London, England, UK, to Canadian actors Shirley Douglas and Donald Sutherland, who moved to California shortly after his birth. His maternal grandfather, Tommy Douglas, was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who was a Premier of Saskatchewan for over 17 years and led the national NDP party for almost 10.
Kiefer got his first film role in the comedy drama Max Dugan Returns (1983). Sutherland's first major role was in the Canadian drama The Bay Boy (1984), which earned Sutherland and director Daniel Petrie, Genie award nominations for best actor and best director, respectively. Following his success in The Bay Boy, Sutherland eventually moved to Los Angeles and landed television appearances in "The Mission", an episode of Amazing Stories (1985) and in the telefilm Trapped in Silence (1986) with Marsha Mason.
In 1992, Sutherland starred opposite Ray Liotta and Forest Whitaker in Article 99 (1992) and in the military drama A Few Good Men (1992) also starring Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise. Later, in 1994, he starred with Jeff Bridges and Nancy Travis in the American version of The Vanishing (1993) for 20th Century Fox. In 1997, he co-starred with William Hurt and Rufus Sewell in Dark City (1998), directed by Alex Proyas, which was a special presentation at the Cannes Film Festival. Sutherland also added his second directorial credit and starred in Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997) alongside Kevin Pollak, Mykelti Williamson, Rod Steiger and Martin Sheen. He stars in the Fox drama series 24 (2001) as Jack Bauer for which he has earned a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Drama Series. Most recently, he has been seen in the movie Phone Booth (2002) as a man who calls up someone at a phone booth and threatens to kill them if they hang up.- Actor
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Kevin (Elliott) Pollak was born in San Francisco, California, on October 30, 1957, to Robert and Elaine (Harlow) Pollak, of Jewish descent. A stand-up comedy performer at age 10, he attended Pioneer High School in nearby San Jose, before turning professional comedian at 20. He rose through the ranks to the top of the San Francisco comedy scene by age 25, then moved to Los Angeles to decided to focus on acting.
With his early 1980's comic reputation preceding him, Kevin earned a regular role in the short-lived National Lampoon comedy series Hot Flashes (1984) and also participated in the series Comedy Break (1985). A series of TV guest parts included "Amen," "Thirtysomething," "Who's the Boss," and a regular role as the head of a senior retirement facility in the comedy series Coming of Age (1988).
Landing a part in George Lucas' Willow (1988), directed by Ron Howard, the opportunity became the wind beneath his wings, and Kevin sailed from then on. Critically noticed for his featured role as Izzy in the acclaimed Polish-Jewish family drama Avalon (1990) written and directed by Barry Levinson, he moved ahead with support parts in L.A. Story (1991) and Another You (1991), but it was dry-humored lieutenant in Rob Reiner's powerful drama A Few Good Men (1992) that shot him up the film credit's list. In addition to starring in his own HBO stand-up comedy special, Kevin Pollak: Stop with the Kicking (1991), he co-starred in the short-lived comedy series Morton & Hayes (1991) which co-starred Kevin with Bob Amaral and featured "lost clips" of them as an old time comedy team.
A strong support player in the films Indian Summer (1993), Wayne's World 2 (1993), Grumpy Old Men (1993), Clean Slate (1994) and Miami Rhapsody (1995), Pollak often played the best pal of the lead to amusing effect, but took a major departure from his comic instincts to play pungent dramatics in two crime dramas: as Todd Hockney, one of the criminals/suspects in the ultimate whodunnit The Usual Suspects (1995); as real estate hustler Philip Green in Martin Scorsese's mafioso drama Casino (1995)
Pollak returned to lighter material uplifting John Candy's last movie comedy Canadian Bacon (1995), and appearing in the Lemmon/Matthau sequel Grumpier Old Men (1995), co-starring with Jamie Lee Curtis in the fun family film House Arrest (1996); the fictional pop band musical That Thing You Do! (1996); the zany farce The Sex Monster (1999); and the romantic comedies She's All That (1999) and Deal of a Lifetime (1999).
Pollak would return to the live stand-up stage in 2001, headlining a sold out 20 city tour. Comedy Central named him on their Top 100 Comedians Of All Time list. He went on to star in his own comedy special Kevin Pollak: The Littlest Suspect (2010). He has also hosted his own talk show, Kevin Pollak's Chat Show (2009) and, as an avid poker player, participated in both Celebrity Poker Showdown (2003) and Poker Night Live (2018).
Quite busy into the millennium, Pollak's movie work has included primarily comedies, including his over-the-top crimesters in the farcical The Whole Nine Yards (2000) and its sequel The Whole Ten Yards (2004), as well as 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001), Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001), The Santa Clause 2 (2002), The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause (2006), Cop Out (2010), 3 Geezers! (2013), Compadres (2016), Lez Bomb (2018) and Benjamin (2019). On the TV front, he has enjoyed recurring roles in the mystery series Shark (2006); the horror comedy Sleeper (2010) (in which he made his directorial debut); the family comedy Mom (2013); the comedy fantasy Angel from Hell (2016); and the award-winning period comedy The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017).- J.T. Walsh was born on 28 September 1943 in San Francisco, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Breakdown (1997), Sling Blade (1996) and Needful Things (1993). He was married to Susan West. He died on 27 February 1998 in La Mesa, California, USA.
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- Soundtrack
James Marshall was born James David Greenblatt in Queens, New York, USA, to Charlotte (Bullard), a dancer, and William R. Greenblatt, a producer and director. His father is of Ashkenazi Jewish descent and his mother has English and Irish ancestry.
James grew up in Bergen County New Jersey. At the age of fifteen he moved with his family to the Los Angeles area where he attended Santa Monica High School. Once high school was over, James attended acting classes and struggled to break into Hollywood. His father offered to help James, but he didn't want to take the nepotism route. Coming from a family of entertainers (his mother a former radio city music hall Rockette and his sister a musician) he had Hollywood in site. Accepting small acting parts, working as a messenger, as well as at a pizzeria, James felt the pressures of the business. James made a big splash when director David Lynch cast Marshall for his new series entitled Twin Peaks. Playing the moody, biker boyfriend of Laura Palmer thrust James Marshall into the living rooms of millions and introduced the new actor to a captivated audience. By early 1990 his career took a turn onto the silver screen with an appearance in the movie Cadence, starring Martin Sheen and Charlie Sheen. This lead to his first starring role with a major movie studio. The movie was the 1992 boxing drama, Gladiator. Three months of rigorous training was put into the role before even getting to the set. The buzz on Marshall was so great that director Rob Reiner cast James and co-star Cuba Gooding Jr. in his upcoming film A Few Good Men. The movie was an excellent springboard towards a busy acting career. James has continued working steadily in television movies and features. In May of 1998 James married actress Renee Allman. They have appeared together in the features Criminal Affairs and Doomsday Man. Together they have one child, James David, who was born in January of 2002. The happy family live together in the Los Angeles area. James continues to work on a host a television movies and film projects. In addition James is an accomplished author, artist and musician.- James Allen Preston was born in Washington, District of Columbia, USA on November 13, 1932. He attended public schools in the nation's capital and earned a track scholarship to a college in North Carolina. J. A. married Merilyn Alsop in 1957. His acting career accelerated to recurring TV series roles when he moved from New York to California in 1976. He is best known for roles as Allen Brooks in All's Fair, Ozzie Cleveland in Hill Street Blues, Leo Daltry in Dallas, and Richard Matthews in Santa Barbara. He played many magistrates in films, most notably Judge Julius Alexander Randolph in A Few Good Men. He lives in retirement in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Wolfgang Bodison was born on 19 November 1966 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for A Few Good Men (1992), The Long Wait (2014) and Sanvean (2017).- Actor
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U.S.-born actor, director, writer, musician, and composer best known for his mockumentaries, poking fun at heavy metal music, small town theatre, dog shows, folk music and film-making itself, Christopher Haden-Guest was born February fifth, 1948, in New York City. His mother, Jean Pauline (Hindes), was a vice president of casting at CBS. His father, Peter Haden-Guest, was a UN diplomat who was a member of the British House of Lords, and was the fourth Baron of Saling in the County of Essex. Christopher's mother, who was American, was the daughter of Russian Jewish immigrants. Christopher's father, who was British, had English and Dutch-Jewish ancestry. Christopher's paternal great-grandfather, Colonel Albert Goldsmid, was a British officer.
He received his dramatic arts training at New York City's High School of Arts and Music and at Bard College, and Guest first appeared in minor film roles in a mixture of film genres, including The Hot Rock (1972), Death Wish (1974), Lemmings (1973), and The Long Riders (1980). However, he was also dabbling in writing for several T.V. shows, and when filming Million Dollar Infield (1982), Guest became acquainted with writer-director Rob Reiner and the two collaborated, along with Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, to pen the script and music for the sleeper hit This Is Spinal Tap (1984).
The mockumentary also starred Guest as dizzy lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel, whose most famous line is surely, "These go to eleven," when referring to the volume settings on the band's rather unique Marshall amplifiers!
Guest then busied himself for several years in the 1980s as a regular performer on Saturday Night Live (1975) and, along with fellow Spinal Tap band members lead singer David St. Hubbins, aka Michael McKean; and bassist Derek Smalls, aka Harry Shearer, they regularly appeared as Spinal Tap. In 1992, they released Spinal Tap: Break Like the Wind - The Videos (1992), plus A Spinal Tap Reunion: The 25th Anniversary London Sell-Out (1992).
Guest had a minor acting role in the courtroom drama of A Few Good Men (1992), before returning to poke fun at wannabe actors in the howlingly funny Waiting for Guffman (1996) with Guest taking center stage as high-strung choreographer Corky St. Clair. He made a return to heavy metal with Spinal Tap: The Final Tour (1998) and Catching Up with Marty DiBergi (2000) before turning his comedic pen to the world of championship dog shows for the sensational comedy Best in Show (2000). The latest mockumentary from Guest and co-writer-actor Eugene Levy was again met with critical praise, and movie fans just loved it, too! In 2003, Guest and Eugene Levy took aim at the folk-music world, and successfully collaborated to write the comedy A Mighty Wind (2003) about the reunion of the Folksmen, a fictional 1960s folk music group.
Guest is married to well-known actress Jamie Lee Curtis with two children, daughter Annie Guest and son Ruby Guest, plus he is the brother of actor Nicholas Guest.- Actor
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Noah Wyle was born in Hollywood, California, to Marjorie (Speer), an orthopedic head nurse, and Stephen Wyle, an entrepreneur and electrical engineer. He is one of six children. His father's family was Russian Jewish. Noah had early support for his acting ambitions from his stepfather, film restorationist James C. Katz. He had small parts in high school productions (and won an award for a play he wrote).
He participated in a Northwestern University theater program, and was hooked - acting rather than college after high school. After graduation he learned from acting teacher Larry Moss while living in a small apartment on Hollywood Boulevard. His first part was at age 17, in Blind Faith (1990), but after a few good roles he hit a dry spell for two years (no acting, waiting on tables). Then came A Few Good Men (1992) followed by another dry spell in which a return to restaurant work looked like a good option. Television shows seemed possible but Noah steered clear of these because of the 5-year contract commitment. Then came the script for the pilot of ER (1994), and the part of Dr. Carter looked very good. Three auditions later, he had the role.- Actor
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Cuba Gooding Jr. was born on January 2, 1968, in The Bronx, New York. His mother, Shirley (Sullivan), was a backup singer for The Sweethearts. His father, Cuba Gooding, was the lead vocalist for the R&B group The Main Ingredient, which had a hit with the song "Everybody Plays The Fool". His paternal grandfather was from Barbados.
Cuba's father moved the family to Los Angeles in 1972, only to leave them a few years later. Despite this setback, Cuba was able to maintain a positive outlook and overachieved throughout school. He attended four different high schools and was elected class president in three of them. While at high school, Cuba met and fell in love with Sara Kapfer, whom he later lived with for seven years before tying the knot in March 1994.
Following high school, Cuba studied Japanese martial arts for three years before turning his focus toward acting. Early on, he landed guest starring roles on shows like Hill Street Blues (1981) and MacGyver (1985). His first major role was in the 1991 box office surprise Boyz n the Hood (1991). He followed this success with supporting roles in major films like A Few Good Men (1992), Lightning Jack (1994) and Outbreak (1995).
In 1996, Cuba was cast as an arrogant but loyal football player in the Tom Cruise-Cameron Crowe film Jerry Maguire (1996). The film became a huge box office smash and earned Cuba an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His "Show Me The Money" line in the movie became a nationwide catchphrase. The role elevated him to superstar status, as many of Hollywood's top producers began to "show him the money" to appear in their films.
Since Jerry Maguire (1996), Cuba has managed to keep busy with a wide range of roles alongside many of Hollywood's biggest stars. Most recently, he won critical support for his portrayal of a mentally handicapped man in the heartwarming film Radio (2003), another movie about football. In 2002, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
He resides in Studio City, California.- Actress
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Joan Allen was born on August 20, 1956 in Rochelle, Illinois, the youngest of four children. She is the daughter of homemaker Dorothea Marie (Wirth) and gas station owner James Jefferson Allen. Her mother's family was German, and her father had English, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry. She attended Rochelle Township High School where she was voted most likely to succeed. Joining Chicago's famed Steppenwolf Theatre Company ensemble in 1977, she was one of the group's original members and starred in a number of its original productions. Her first major film credits included two critically-lauded supporting performances that showcased her versatility: a comedic turn in the suburban murder mystery Compromising Positions (1985) and a dramatic role as a blind woman befriended by a serial killer in Manhunter (1986). Around the same time, Allen was making a name for herself on the New York stage; she would eventually become one of the New York theater world's most honored actresses and a winner of every major prize for her work on Broadway and off. She received a Best Actress Tony Award in 1988 for her performance, opposite John Malkovich, in Lanford Wilson's Burn This and was Tony-nominated in the same category in 1989 for the title role in The Heidi Chronicles.
Continuing her work in film as well, Allen received her first Academy Award nomination for her role as Pat Nixon in Oliver Stone's Nixon (1995), for which she also won awards from seven critics' associations, including the Los Angeles Film Critics Association and the National Society of Film Critics. Allen received her second consecutive Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for her role in Arthur Miller's The Crucible (1996). Subsequently, her work in The Ice Storm (1997), opposite Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver, and in Pleasantville (1998), opposite William H. Macy and Jeff Daniels, earned her high praise and several critics' awards; she also co-starred in the action blockbuster Face/Off (1997) opposite John Travolta and Nicolas Cage. For her starring role in The Contender (2000), Allen received Best Actress nominations at the Golden Globes, the Academy Awards, the SAG Awards, and the Independent Spirit Awards.
Throughout the early 2000s Allen worked in both film and television, with roles in three of the Bourne films - The Bourne Supremacy (2004), The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), and The Bourne Legacy (2012) - as well as The Notebook (2004), The Upside of Anger (2005), and Death Race (2008). Allen also received Emmy nominations for The Mists of Avalon (2001) and for the title role in the biopic Georgia O'Keeffe (2009), for which she was also executive producer. She was also recently seen in HBO's drama series Luck (2011).
Allen married actor Peter Friedman in 1990, and the two divorced in 2002; Allen's daughter Sadie was born in 1994.- Actor
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Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), Drexl in True Romance (1993), George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (2017), among many others. For much of his career, he was best-known for playing over-the-top antagonists, such as terrorist Egor Korshunov in the 1997 blockbuster Air Force One (1997), though he has reached a new audience with heroic roles in the Harry Potter and Dark Knight franchises. He is also a filmmaker, musician, and author.
Gary Leonard Oldman was born on March 21, 1958 in New Cross, London, England, to Kathleen (Cheriton), a homemaker, and Leonard Bertram Oldman, a welder. He won a scholarship to Britain's Rose Bruford Drama College, in Sidcup, Kent, where he received a B.A. in theatre arts in 1979. He subsequently studied with the Greenwich Young People's Theatre and went on to appear in a number of plays throughout the early '80s, including "The Pope's Wedding," for which he received Time Out's Fringe Award for Best Newcomer of 1985-1986 and the British Theatre Association's Drama Magazine Award as Best Actor for 1985. Before fame, he was employed as a worker in assembly lines and as a porter in an operating theater. He also had jobs selling shoes and beheading pigs while supporting his early acting career.
His film debut was Remembrance (1982), though his most-memorable early role came when he played Sex Pistol Sid Vicious in the biopic Sid and Nancy (1986) picking up the Evening Standard Film Award as Best Newcomer. He then received a Best Actor nomination from BAFTA for his portrayal of '60s playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987).
In the 1990s, Oldman brought to life a series of iconic real-world and fictional villains including Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991), the title character in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Drexl Spivey in True Romance (1993), Stansfield in Léon: The Professional (1994), Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg in The Fifth Element (1997) and Ivan Korshunov in Air Force One (1997). That decade also saw Oldman portraying Ludwig van Beethoven in biopic Immortal Beloved (1994).
Oldman played the coveted role of Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), giving him a key part in one of the highest-grossing franchises ever. He reprised that role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007). Oldman also took on the iconic role of Detective James Gordon in writer-director Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), a role he played again in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Prominent film critic Mark Kermode, in reviewing The Dark Knight, wrote, "the best performance in the film, by a mile, is Gary Oldman's ... it would be lovely to see him get a[n Academy Award] nomination because actually, he's the guy who gets kind of overlooked in all of this."
Oldman co-starred with Jim Carrey in the 2009 version of A Christmas Carol in which Oldman played three roles. He had a starring role in David Goyer's supernatural thriller The Unborn, released in 2009. In 2010, Oldman co-starred with Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli. He also played a lead role in Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood. Oldman voiced the role of villain Lord Shen and was nominated for an Annie Award for his performance in Kung Fu Panda 2.
In 2011, Oldman portrayed master spy George Smiley in the adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and the role scored Oldman his first Academy Award nomination. In 2014, he played one of the lead humans in the science fiction action film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) alongside Jason Clarke and Keri Russell. Also in 2014, Oldman starred alongside Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson in the remake of RoboCop (2014), as Norton, the scientist who creates RoboCop.
Aside from acting, Oldman tried his hand at writing and directing for Nil by Mouth (1997). The movie opened the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, and won Kathy Burke a Best Actress prize at the festival.
Oldman has three children, Alfie, with first wife, actress Lesley Manville, and Gulliver and Charlie with his third wife, Donya Fiorentino. In 2017, he married writer and art curator Gisele Schmidt.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best actor for his work on Darkest Hour (2017).- Actor
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Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, the son of well-known film and TV star Lloyd Bridges and his long-time wife Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson). He grew up amid the happening Hollywood scene with big brother Beau Bridges. Both boys popped up, without billing, alongside their mother in the film The Company She Keeps (1951), and appeared on occasion with their famous dad on his popular underwater TV series Sea Hunt (1958) while growing up. At age 14, Jeff toured with his father in a stage production of "Anniversary Waltz". The "troublesome teen" years proved just that for Jeff and his parents were compelled at one point to intervene when problems with drugs and marijuana got out of hand.
He recovered and began shaping his nascent young adult career appearing on TV as a younger version of his father in the acclaimed TV- movie Silent Night, Lonely Night (1969), and in the strange Burgess Meredith film The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (1970). Following fine notices for his portrayal of a white student caught up in the racially-themed Halls of Anger (1970), his career-maker arrived just a year later when he earned a coming-of-age role in the critically-acclaimed ensemble film The Last Picture Show (1971). The Peter Bogdanovich- directed film made stars out off its young leads (Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Cybill Shepherd) and Oscar winners out of its older cast (Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman). The part of Duane Jackson, for which Jeff received his first Oscar-nomination (for "best supporting actor"), set the tone for the types of roles Jeff would acquaint himself with his fans -- rambling, reckless, rascally and usually unpredictable).
Owning a casual carefree handsomeness and armed with a perpetual grin and sly charm, he started immediately on an intriguing 70s sojourn into offbeat filming. Chief among them were his boxer on his way up opposite a declining Stacy Keach in Fat City (1972); his Civil War-era conman in the western Bad Company (1972); his redneck stock car racer in The Last American Hero (1973); his young student anarchist opposite a stellar veteran cast in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1973); his bank-robbing (also Oscar-nominated) sidekick to Clint Eastwood in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974); his aimless cattle rustler in Rancho Deluxe (1975); his low-level western writer who wants to be a real-life cowboy in Hearts of the West (1975); and the brother of an assassinated President who pursues leads to the crime in Winter Kills (1979). All are simply marvelous characters that should have propelled him to the very top rungs of stardom...but strangely didn't.
Perhaps it was his trademark ease and naturalistic approach that made him somewhat under appreciated at that time when Hollywood was run by a Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino-like intensity. Neverthless, Jeff continued to be a scene-stealing favorite into the next decade, notably as the video game programmer in the 1982 science-fiction cult classic Tron (1982), and the struggling musician brother vying with brother Beau Bridges over the attentions of sexy singer Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989). Jeff became a third-time Oscar nominee with his highly intriguing (and strangely sexy) portrayal of a blank-faced alien in Starman (1984), and earned even higher regard as the ever-optimistic inventor Preston Tucker in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988).
Since then Jeff has continued to pour on the Bridges magic on film. Few enjoy such an enduring popularity while maintaining equal respect with the critics. The Fisher King (1991), American Heart (1992), Fearless (1993), The Big Lebowski (1998) (now a cult phenomenon) and The Contender (2000) (which gave him a fourth Oscar nomination) are prime examples. More recently he seized the moment as a bald-pated villain as Robert Downey Jr.'s nemesis in Iron Man (2008) and then, at age 60, he capped his rewarding career by winning the elusive Oscar, plus the Golden Globe and Screen Actor Guild awards (among many others), for his down-and-out country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart (2009). Bridges next starred in Tron: Legacy (2010), reprising one of his more famous roles, and received another Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role in the Western remake True Grit (2010). In 2014, he co-produced and starred in an adaptation of the Lois Lowry science fiction drama The Giver (2014).
Jeff has been married since 1977 to non-professional Susan Geston (they met on the set of Rancho Deluxe (1975)). The couple have three daughters, Isabelle (born 1981), Jessica (born 1983), and Hayley (born 1985). He hobbies as a photographer on and off his film sets, and has been known to play around as a cartoonist and pop musician. His ancestry is English, and smaller amounts of Scots-Irish (Northern Irish), Irish, Swiss-German, and German.- Actor
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Christian Michael Leonard Slater was born on August 18, 1969 in New York City, to Michael Hawkins, a well-known soap actor, and Mary Jo Slater (née Lawton), a casting agent. Christian started in show business early, appearing on the soap opera The Edge of Night (1956) in 1976 at the age of 7. He went on to star in many Broadway shows in the early-1980s. He rose to fame in Hollywood after landing the role of Binx Davey in The Legend of Billie Jean (1985). He moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to pursue a further acting career after dropping out of high school. After having a starring role in the cult classic Heathers (1988), he became somewhat known as the Hollywood bad-boy, having many run-ins with the law. He is also well-known for having dated stars such as Winona Ryder, Christina Applegate, Samantha Mathis and was at one time engaged to actress/model Nina Huang. In 2000, he married Ryan Haddon, the daughter of 1970s model Dayle Haddon. The couple have two children, Jaden Christopher (b. 1999) and Eliana Sophia (b. 2001). As of early 2005, they separated and later divorced, but remain dedicated to bring up their children.- Actor
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Tall, thin, wiry Sam Elliott is the classic picture of the American cowboy. Elliott began his acting career on the stage and his film debut was in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Although his future wife, Katharine Ross co-starred in the film, the two did not meet until they filmed The Legacy (1978) together. Over the years there would be few opportunities to act in feature westerns, but it would be television that gave him that opportunity, in The Sacketts (1979), The Shadow Riders (1982) and The Yellow Rose (1983), among others. He would also work in non-westerns, usually as a tough guy, as in Lifeguard (1976) and Road House (1989). In 1985 he played Cher's love interest Gar in the drama Mask (1985), and he was in some cop movies such as Fatal Beauty (1987) and Shakedown (1988). In the 1990s, Elliott was back on the western trail, playing everyone from Brig. Gen. John Buford in the film Gettysburg (1993) to Wild Bill Hickok in the made-for-TV movie Buffalo Girls (1995). In 1991 he wrote the screenplay and co-starred with his wife in the made-for-TV western Conagher (1991), and two years later he played Wyatt Earp's brother Virgil in Tombstone (1993), with Kurt Russell as Wyatt. In 1995 the starred as John Pierce the tense thriller The Final Cut (1995), as a former head of a Bomb Squad who must to stop a dangerous bomber. In 1998 he was the narrator of the hilarious comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), playing him as The Stranger, and returned to the Western in the drama The Hi-Lo Country (1998), closing the 20th century with another western, the TV movie You Know My Name (1999).
Sam Elliott started the 21st century with the Stephen Frears' TV movie Fail Safe (2000) playing Congressman Raskob, and The Contender (2000) as Kermit Newman, at the side of Joan Allen, Jeff Bridges and Gary Oldman, and in We Were Soldiers (2002) as Sgt. Maj. Basil Plumley, together Mel Gibson. In 2003 he played Gen. Thunderbolt Ross in the Ang Lee's pre-MCU Hulk (2003), repeating in another Marvel superhero movie as Caretaker in Ghost Rider (2007). After participating in the fantasy movie The Golden Compass (2007) and made a stellar cameo in Up in the Air (2009), Elliott played Clay Wheeler in the box office flop comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? (2009), starring Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker, and in 2012 he was a supporting character as Mac Macleod in Robert Redford's The Company You Keep (2012). After the playing Coach Moore in the sport drama Draft Day (2014) In 2015 Elliott was hyperactive, appearing in seven different productions including cinema and TV: Digging for Fire (2015), I'll See You in My Dreams (2015), Sam Elliott, the sixth season of Justified (2010) as Avery Markham, and The Good Dinosaur (2015) voicing Butch. Two years later was absolute star in the drama The Hero (2017) as Lee Hayden, and in the sci-fi movie The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then the Bigfoot (2018) as Calvin Barr, to shine again as supporting character playing Bradley Cooper's brother Bobby in the multi-nominated Cooper's directorial debut A Star Is Born (2018), sharing scenes with Lady Gaga, coming back again to the western in the TV series 1883 (2021) as Shea Brennan.- William Petersen was born on 21 February 1953 in Evanston, Illinois, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), Manhunter (1986) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). He has been married to Gina Cirone since 14 June 2003. They have two children. He was previously married to Joanne Brady.
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Robin Thomas was born on 12 February 1949 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, USA. He is an actor, known for The Contender (2000), Summer School (1987) and Bulworth (1998). He was previously married to Gina I Wishnick.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Philip Baker Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, to Berdene (McDonald) and William Alexander Hall, a factory worker who was originally from Montgomery, Alabama. He did not start acting until he was 30 years old. Known to film fans for his turn as Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's one-man show film Secret Honor (1984), he shot to cult fame when he turned in another electrifying performance, as Sydney, the veteran gambler, in Paul Thomas Anderson's debut feature, Hard Eight (1996). However, it was his work in the same director's star-studded Magnolia (1999) that really caught the mass film public's attention; his performance as the legendary quiz show presenter "Jimmy Gator" was highly acclaimed. These acclaimed smaller films led to Hall's casting in multiple blockbuster hits of the 1990s and 2000s, including The Sum of All Fears (2002) and Dogville (2003), directed by Lars von Trier.- Writer
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Mike Binder was born in 1958 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He is a writer and actor, known for The Comedy Store (2020), Reign Over Me (2007) and The Upside of Anger (2005). He is married to Diane Murphy. They have two children.- Kristen Shaw is known for Straw Dogs (2011), The Last Castle (2001) and Nothing But the Truth (2008).
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kathryn Morris was born on 28 January 1969 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. She is an actress, known for Minority Report (2002), Mindhunters (2004) and Cold Case (2003).- Actress
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Mariel Hemingway was born on 22 November 1961 in Mill Valley, California, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Manhattan (1979), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) and The Sex Monster (1999). She was previously married to Stephen Crisman.- Actor
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Saul Rubinek was born in a refugee camp in Germany, where his father ran a Yiddish Repertory Theatre company. Saul started his professional career as a child actor in theater and radio in Canada. By the time he was 20, he was a member of the Stratford Shakespearean Festival company in Stratford, Ontario and, later, was a co-founder, actor and director of Theatre Le Hibou, Theatre Passe-Muraille and Toronto Free Theatre. He got his early training in film and television as an actor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Saul started working in the United States as an actor at the Public Theater in New York. Rubinek's work on U.S. and Canadian television, film and theater spans four decades. In 1997, Rubinek directed his first feature for Lionsgate, based on the play he previously directed, Jerry and Tom (1998). He also was producer on the film in partnership with his wife, Elinor Reid. The film was an official entry in competition at Sundance in 1998. He also directed the features _Club Land (2001) (TV)_ and _Bleacher Bums (2001) (TV)_ for Showtime/Paramount. Rubinek directed, and his wife and partner Elinor Reid produced the award-winning indie film Cruel But Necessary (2005). Penguin Books published (1987) Rubinek's non-fiction book, "So Many Miracles", an account of his parents' survival growing up in Poland during World War II. He wrote and produced an award-winning documentary (1988) of the same title, So Many Miracles (1987), for CBC and PBS which chronicles his parents' reunion with the people who saved their lives during the Holocaust. The DVD of the documentary is available from The National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University. Rubinek wrote the play "Terrible Advice", which was produced in 2011 in London by The Chocolate Factory, starring Scott Bakula, Andy Nyman, Caroline Quentin, Sharon Horgan, and directed by Frank Oz.- Actor
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Kurt Vogel Russell was born on March 17, 1951 in Springfield, Massachusetts and raised in Thousand Oaks, California to Louise Julia Russell (née Crone), a dancer & Bing Russell, an actor. He is of English, German, Scottish and Irish descent. His first roles were as a child on television series, including a lead role on the Western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963). Russell landed a role in the Elvis Presley movie, It Happened at the World's Fair (1963), when he was eleven years old. Walt Disney himself signed Russell to a 10-year contract, and, according to Robert Osborne, he became the studio's top star of the 1970s. Having voiced adult Copper in the animated Disney film The Fox and the Hound (1981), Russell is one of the few famous child stars in Hollywood who has been able to continue his acting career past his teen years.
Kurt spent the early 1970s playing minor league baseball. In 1979, he gave a classic performance as Elvis Presley in John Carpenter's ABC TV movie Elvis (1979), and married the actress who portrayed Priscilla Presley in the film, Season Hubley. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role. He followed with roles in a string of well-received films, including Used Cars (1980) and Silkwood (1983), for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture. During the 1980s, he starred in several films by director Carpenter; they created some of his best-known roles, including the infamous anti-hero Snake Plissken in the futuristic action film Escape from New York (1981) (and later in its sequel Escape from L.A. (1996)), Antarctic helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady in the horror film The Thing (1982), and Jack Burton in the fantasy film Big Trouble in Little China (1986), all of which have since become cult classics.
In 1983, he became reacquainted with Goldie Hawn (who appeared with him in The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968)) when they worked together on Swing Shift (1984). The two have lived together ever since. They made another film together, Garry Marshall's comedy Overboard (1987). His other 1980s titles include The Best of Times (1986), Tequila Sunrise (1988), Winter People (1989) and Tango & Cash (1989).
In 1991, he headlined the firefighter drama Backdraft (1991), he starred as Wyatt Earp in the Western film Tombstone (1993), and had a starring role as Colonel Jack O'Neil in the science fiction film Stargate (1994). In the mid-2000s, his portrayal of U.S. Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks in Miracle (2004) won the praise of critics. In 2006, he appeared in the disaster-thriller Poseidon (2006), and in 2007, in Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007) segment from the film Grindhouse (2007). Russell appeared in The Battered Bastards of Baseball (2014), a documentary about his father and the Portland Mavericks, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2014. Russell starred in the Western films Bone Tomahawk (2015) and The Hateful Eight (2015), and had a leading role in the dramatization Deepwater Horizon (2016). He also co-starred in the action sequels Furious 7 (2015) and The Fate of the Furious (2017).
Russell and Goldie Hawn live on a 72-acre retreat, Home Run Ranch, outside of Aspen. He has two sons, Boston Russell (from his marriage to Hubley) and Wyatt Russell (with Hawn). He also raised Hawn's children, actors Oliver Hudson and Kate Hudson, who consider him their father. Russell is also an avid gun enthusiast, a hunter and a staunch supporter of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. He is also an FAA-licensed private pilot holding single/multi-engine and instrument ratings, and is an Honorary Board Member of the humanitarian aviation organization Wings of Hope.- Actor
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Val Kilmer was born in Los Angeles, California, to Gladys Swanette (Ekstadt) and Eugene Dorris Kilmer, who was a real estate developer and aerospace equipment distributor. His mother, born in Indiana, was from a Swedish family, and his father was from Texas. Val studied at Hollywood's Professional's School and, in his teens, entered Juilliard's drama program. His professional acting career began on stage, and he still participates in theater; he played Hamlet at the 1988 Colorado Shakespeare Festival. His film debut was in the 1984 spoof Top Secret! (1984), wherein he starred as blond rock idol Nick Rivers. He was in a number of films throughout the 1980s, including the 1986 smash Top Gun (1986). Despite his obvious talent and range, it wasn't until his astonishingly believable performance as Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone's The Doors (1991) that the world sat up and took notice. Kilmer again put his good baritone to use in the movie, performing all of the concert pieces. Since then, he has played two more American legends, Elvis Presley in True Romance (1993) and Doc Holliday in Tombstone (1993). In July 1994, it was announced that Kilmer would be taking over the role of Batman/Bruce Wayne from Michael Keaton.- 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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Incisive, gravelly-voiced screen tough guy Powers Boothe was born on June 1, 1948 in Snyder, Texas, a sharecropper's son. Used to hard physical work "chopping cotton" as a youngster, he went on to become the first member of his family to attend university. He then proceeded to study acting via a fellowship with Southern Methodist University and graduated with a degree in Fine Arts. His performing career began in repertory with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
In 1974, Boothe arrived in New York after theatrical stints in Connecticut and Philadelphia. It took another five years before he made his breakthrough on Broadway as a swaggering Texas cowboy in James McLure's comedy play "Lone Star". His Emmy-winning performance as Reverend Jim Jones in the miniseries Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones (1980) led to a permanent move to Los Angeles. Lucrative screen offers followed and Boothe became firmly established as a leading actor after being well cast as Raymond Chandler's hard-boiled Philip Marlowe, Private Eye (1983), HBO's first drama series, set in 1930s Los Angeles.
Though his portfolio of characters would eventually comprise assorted sheriffs, military brass and FBI agents, Boothe appreciated the indisputable fact that bad guys were often the "last in people's minds" and playing them could be "more fun". Arguably, his most convincing (and oddly likeable) villain was snarling gunslinger Curly Bill Brocius, confronting the Earps in Tombstone (1993). He went on to tackle such complex characters as White House Chief of Staff Alexander Haig in Oliver Stone's Nixon (1995), hawkish Vice President Noah Daniels on 24 (2001) and industrialist power broker Lamar Wyatt in Nashville (2012).
One of his best remembered roles remains that of Cy Tolliver, the (fictional) owner of the (historical) Bella Union saloon and brothel, chief nemesis of Al Swearingen on HBO's Deadwood (2004). Boothe particularly enjoyed his lengthy soliloquies which reminded him of his time on the Shakespearean stage. The tall Texan with the penetrating eyes was rather gleefully (and enjoyably) over-the-top fiendish as Senator Roark in the post film noir Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014) and managed (at least near the end) to inject some humanity into the role of Gideon Malick, the sinister head of HYDRA, in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013).
As is so often the case with actors of the 'hard-boiled school', Boothe has often been described as the very antithesis of the characters he essayed on screen. Sin City director Robert Rodriguez fittingly eulogised him as "a towering Texas gentleman and world class artist". Powers Boothe died in his sleep, in Los Angeles, at age 68 on the morning of May 14, 2017 of a heart attack after battling pancreatic cancer for six months.- Actor
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Michael Connell Biehn was born on July 31, 1956 in Anniston, Alabama, to Marcia (Connell) and Don Biehn, a lawyer. He grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and at age 14 moved with his family to Lake Havasu, Arizona, where he won a drama scholarship to the University of Arizona. He left prematurely two years later to pursue an acting career in Hollywood. His first big role was as a psychotic fan stalking Lauren Bacall in The Fan (1981) and later appeared in The Lords of Discipline (1983). He hit the big-time when he was cast as Kyle Reese, the man sent back through time to stop Arnold Schwarzenegger in James Cameron's The Terminator (1984). This established a good working relationship with Cameron, a relationship that should have catapulted Biehn to international stardom. He starred in Cameron's subsequent films, Aliens (1986) and The Abyss (1989), the latter a standout performance as unstable Navy SEAL officer Lt. Hiram Coffey. In the 1990s he starred in films like Navy Seals (1990), K2 (1991) and was particularly memorable as Johnny Ringo in Tombstone (1993). Biehn is married and the father of five sons.- Actor
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Stephen Lang is a distinguished and award-winning actor who commands considerable respect, and is equally at home on the Broadway stage, on television, and in film.
Though he is arguably most well-known for his acclaimed performance in James Cameron's Avatar (2009), Lang began his career in theater. Broadway roles include his Tony-nominated performance as Lou in "The Speed of Darkness", Happy in the Dustin Hoffman revival of "Death of a Salesman", Colonel Nathan Jessep in "A Few Good Men", and Mike Tallman alongside Quentin Tarantino and Marisa Tomei in "Wait Until Dark".
Off-Broadway credits include John Patrick Shanley's "Defiance", Anne Nelson's "The Guys", Arthur Miller's "Finishing the Picture" and his own play, "Beyond Glory", for which he received numerous accolades. The play premiered in Washington, D.C. and has played the Goodman Theatre in Chicago, the Roundabout in New York City and a USO tour to various military bases and battleships around the world. In the fall of 2010, Lang received the Patriot Award from the Medal of Honor Society in honor of his theatrical and charitable works for the United States military.
Television and film credits include celebrated performances as Babe Ruth in Babe Ruth (1991), Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals (2003) as well as acclaimed performances in Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), Tombstone (1993), Gettysburg (1993), Public Enemies (2009), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Michael Mann's hit TV show Crime Story (1986) , the NBC revival of The Fugitive (2000), featuring Tim Daly, and Fox's sci-fi epic Terra Nova (2011).
He has been nominated for and won numerous awards including the Grace Prize, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Helen Hayes, and Tony Awards, as well as acting prizes at 2010's VisionFest and the Buffalo Niagara Film Festival.
Stephen was born in New York City, New York, to Theresa (Volmer) and Eugene Lang, a prominent businessperson and philanthropist. He is of Hungarian Jewish-German Jewish (father) and Irish-German Catholic (mother) descent. He is married to Kristina Watson, a costume designer and teacher, with whom he has four children.- Actress
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Dana Welles Delany was born on March 13, 1956, in New York City and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. Dana knew early in life that she wanted to be an actress. Following graduation from Wesleyan University, this tall (5'6") beauty moved to New York and developed her skills working in daytime television and theater. Dana starred in the Broadway show "A Life" and received critical acclaim in a number of off-Broadway productions as well. Her role in Nicholas Kazan's controversial "Bloodmoon" in New York led her to Hollywood. Dana acted in a number of TV series, working steadily until she could get her own starring vehicle. That happened in 1988 when Dana became identified with Army nurse Colleen McMurphy in ABC TV's critically acclaimed series China Beach (1988), the role earning her four Emmy nominations and two Emmy Awards as Best Actress.
Dana moved on to movies and eventually started getting starring roles in films such as Tombstone. With over a dozen TV and movie projects within the last few years, Dana is one of the busiest actresses in Hollywood.- Joanna Pacula was born on 30 December 1957 in Tomaszów Lubelski, Lubelskie, Poland. She is an actress, known for Tombstone (1993), Gorky Park (1983) and The Kiss (1988).
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Michael Rooker was born on April 6, 1955 in Jasper, Alabama. When he was thirteen, his parents divorced and he went with his mother to live in Chicago. He caught the acting bug while attending college, and began appearing in local stage productions. On first breaking into film, his intensity and "don't-mess-with-me" good looks were highlighted to chilling effect as he title character in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), filmed in 1986 but, due to its controversial nature, not released until 1990. Since that widely noticed and highly praised performance, much of his career has been spent playing brutes, villains and psychopaths. However, his occasional turns as a "good guy" are always well-acted and a welcome change for a talented actor too often typecast.
2017 marks an exciting time for Rooker, as he starred in two films premiering just two months of each other. On March 17, audiences saw Rooker in Blumhouse Tilt's indie horror thriller The Belko Experiment (2016). The film is the terrifying yet humorous look at a group of employees that become guinea pigs in a company-wide experiment that leads them to either kill their fellow employees or be killed themselves. Returning to his indie roots, Rooker starred as maintenance worker, Bud Melks, one of the employees trapped in the office building, who may or may not be able to kill his fellow staff member. On May 5, Rooker reprised his role as Yondu in the highly anticipated sequel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017). The film follows the same group of galactic underdogs saving the universe to a stellar soundtrack. Rooker's breakout performance earned him critical acclaim, as audiences were introduced to a more dramatic Yondu. The film went on to earn over $145 million domestically its opening weekend and has surpassed its predecessor by grossing over $850 million worldwide.
Rooker made his film debut, playing the title role in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), a film based on the confessions of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas. It was here that audiences were first introduced to Rooker's impeccable ability to channel a character's idiosyncrasies and subtleties. He has also starred in some of the most iconic films, such as Mississippi Burning (1988), Sea of Love (1989), JFK (1991), Tombstone (1993) and Jumper (2008) to name a few. In August 2014, Rooker starred in one of the most memorable franchises in the Marvel Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), as Yondu, the blue-skinned renegade space pirate and surrogate father to Peter Quill. The film went on to gross over $700 million at the worldwide box office and spent five weekends atop the box office, more than any other film in the Marvel Universe.
On the television front, Rooker is best known for his series regular role as Merle Dixon on AMC's hit series The Walking Dead (2010). Audiences loved to hate the ill-tempered redneck hunter and were sad to see him killed off the series in season three. Rooker has completed a variety of stints on some of the most prominent series on television: Criminal Minds (2005), CSI: Miami (2002), Las Vegas (2003), Law & Order (1990) and Archer (2009), among others. Additionally, Rooker's talents go beyond both film and television. He adds his voice to various video games, including The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, and Lollipop Chainsaw.