Composer Music Department Soundtrack
Composer Music Department Soundtrack
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More Zap Literary now represents Steve Dorff and is proud to have been on the ground floor of his book's creation and then publication. Look for "I wrote that One Too..." published November 1st, 2017 by Hal Leonard /BackBeat Imprint; His life in music, working with Willie (Nelson) to Whitney (Houston) and many many other top Artists. Multi award winning song writer and composer and now author. Michelle Zeitlin is Literary Manager.- Larry W. Herbstritt was born on 4 July 1950 in Coudersport, Pennsylvania, USA. He is a composer, known for Blast from the Past (1999), Maverick (1994) and Bronco Billy (1980).
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Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to television.
He was a writer for, Your Show of Shows (1950) Caesar's Hour (1954) and wrote the Broadway show Shinbone Alley. He also worked in the creation of The 2000 Year Old Man (1975) and Get Smart (1965) before embarking on a highly successful film career in writing, acting, producing and directing.
Brooks is famous for the spoofs of different film genres that he made such as Blazing Saddles (1974), History of the World: Part I (1981), Silent Movie (1976), Young Frankenstein (1974), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), High Anxiety (1977), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), and Spaceballs (1987).- Actor
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Sammy Davis Jr. was often billed as the "greatest living entertainer in the world".
He was born in Harlem, Manhattan, the son of dancer Elvera Davis (née Sanchez) and vaudeville star Sammy Davis Sr.. His father was African-American and his mother was of Cuban and African-American ancestry. Davis Jr. was known as someone who could do it all, sing, dance, play instruments, act, do stand-up and he was known for his self-deprecating humor; he once heard someone complaining about discrimination, and he said, "You got it easy. I'm a short, ugly, one-eyed, black Jew. What do you think it's like for me?" (he had converted to Judaism).
A short stint in the army opened his eyes to the evils of racism. A slight man, he was often beaten up by bigger white soldiers and given the dirtiest and most dangerous assignments by white officers simply because he was black. He helped break down racial barriers in show business in the 1950s and 1960s, especially in Las Vegas, where he often performed; when he started there in the early 1950s, he was not allowed to stay in the hotels he played in, as they refused to take blacks as customers. He also stirred up a large amount of controversy in the 1960s by openly dating, and ultimately marrying, blonde, blue-eyed, Swedish-born actress May Britt.
He starred in the Broadway musical "Golden Boy" in the 1960s. Initially a success, internal tensions, production problems and bad reviews--many of them directed at Davis for playing a role originally written for a white man resulted in its closing fairly quickly. His film and nightclub career were in full swing, however, and he became even more famous as one of the "Rat Pack", a group of free-wheeling entertainers that included Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford.
A chain smoker, Davis died from throat cancer at the age of 64. When he died, he was in debt. To pay for Davis' funeral, most of his memorabilia was sold off.- Actor
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Ricky Nelson was born on May 8, 1940 in Teaneck, New Jersey, USA as Eric Hilliard Nelson. He was an actor, known for The Adventures of Ozzie & Harriet (1952) and Rio Bravo (1959). He was married to Kristin Harmon. He died on December 31, 1985 in De Kalb, Texas, USA.- Music Department
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Roberta Flack was born February 10, 1937 (1939 according to some sources), in Black Mountain, North Carolina, a small town located about 10 miles (18 kilometers) from the city of Asheville, North Carolina. She is best known for her love ballad "Killing Me Softly With His Song", released in 1969. She earned a music scholarship to Howard University and graduated with a BA in Music. She briefly taught music after graduation from college. She was discovered singing and playing jazz in a Washington nightclub by pianist Les McCann, and she later signed a contract with Atlantic Records in the late 1960s. The rest is music history. Roberta's most recent album is a 1997 anthology of Christmas standards simply titled "Christmas Album".- Music Artist
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Walden Robert Cassotto, nicknamed "Bobby", was born in The Bronx, New York, in 1936. Severe rheumatic fever as a child scarred his heart and led to an overprotected and pampered childhood. He was the focal point of a family that fostered and encouraged his love of music. His music career started out with writing songs and taking demos around to different music producers. In 1958 he performed the song "Splish, Splash" on Dick Clark's American Bandstand (1952). It was a huge hit and eventually would sell over one million copies. The next year was a big one - he won two Grammies, for Best Record ("Mack the Knife") and Best New Artist. "Mack the Knife" stayed in the top ten for 52 weeks, nine of those at #1. This was Bobby's fourth gold record. His next goal was to make a movie, and that opportunity came in 1960 with the film Come September (1961), for which he also wrote the title song. The movie was filmed in Rome and that's where he met Sandra Dee. She was 16 years old and at the top of her career. They were engaged two months after they met and their son, Dodd Darin, was born a year later. Bobby continued to perform in night clubs and make movies. In 1964 he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in Captain Newman, M.D. (1963). Despite very good reviews, he lost the Oscar to Melvyn Douglas. In 1967 he asked for and was granted a divorce. Sandra was quoted as saying, "He just woke up one morning and didn't want to be married anymore". More realistically, their careers had kept them apart more often than not, and they had struggled with the marriage practically from the beginning. He went in for heart surgery in 1971 and from that point on he had bouts of ill health. After his recovery he continued to do nightclub acts and the next year he did a popular summer variety show called The Bobby Darin Show (1973). The last year of his life was spent dealing with health problems related to his heart, yet he continued to work when he could. He died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles on December 20, 1973, following open heart surgery.- Music Department
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- Actor
Immensely talented, Argentinian born pianist, conductor and composer who has written over 100 scores for both television & the cinema including the memorable themes to Mission: Impossible (1966), Mannix (1967), Starsky and Hutch (1975), Cool Hand Luke (1967), and Bullitt (1968). Schifrin has regularly worked alongside Clint Eastwood (another jazz music aficionado) on numerous contributions including the themes to all the Dirty Harry films, plus Joe Kidd (1972) and Coogan's Bluff (1968). During his illustrious career, Schifrin has received four Grammy Awards, and has received six Oscar nominations.
Schifrin received his classical music training in both Argentina & France, and is a highly respected jazz pianist. On moving back to Buenos Aires in the mid 1950s, Schifrin formed his own big band, and was noticed by jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie, who asked him to become his pianist and arranger. Schifrin moved to the United States in 1958 and his career really began to take off. In addition to his jazz and cinema compositions, he has conducted the London Philarmonic Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angelas Philarmonic, the Los Angelas Chamber Orchestra and many others.
Schifrin is one of the talented and significant contributors to film music over the past 40 years, and he continues to remain active with recent compositions for the Jackie Chan films Rush Hour (1998) and Rush Hour 2 (2001).- Music Artist
- Music Department
- Actor
Jonathan Batiste is an iconic, unique artist of this generation. With his unique voice on piano and dapper style, Jonathan has ignited the New York City music scene. He comes from a celebrated lineage of New Orleans musicians. He has performed in over 40 countries; headlined in premier venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Kennedy Center, and Concertgebouw; released CDs ("Times In New Orleans" and "Live In New York: At The Rubin Museum Of Art"), 2 EP's ("The Amazing Jon Batiste EP" and "In The Night EP"); performed on national TV (NBA All-Star Game Half-Time Show 2008, HBO series "Treme", BET etc.); and collaborated with Wynton Marsalis, Prince, Jimmy Buffett, Roy Hargrove, and Cassandra Wilson, among others. He is a "Movado Future Legend" award recipient and a "Steinway Performing Artist."
Starting out on the drums at age 8, by 12 he had moved on to--and was quickly advancing in--the piano. He is also a vocalist, arranger, composer, and "harmonabord" player.
As a role model in his community, Batiste empowers the next generation of musicians. With his role as co-director and music curator at The National Jazz Museum in Harlem, he has programmed year-long educational workshops for hundreds of students. As an educator and a humanitarian, he has conducted clinics and master classes worldwide. Jonathan is also a traveling ambassador for the NY-based non-profit organization "Music Unites," founded by Michelle Edgar. Batiste collaborates with Edgar on various projects throughout the year dedicated to bringing music education to underprivileged children in underfunded inner-city school systems.
Jonathan is the founder and leader of The Stay Human Band, which is comprised of some of New York City's most creative young musicians. The Stay Human Band is a marching band that moves through the city, sharing their world-class music and uplifting high energy with the people of New York. They recently released an album, "MY N.Y.," which was recorded entirely in the city's subway cars and on its street corners, giving the listener a candid look into New York City.- Music Artist
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Josh Groban was born on 27 February 1981 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a music artist and actor, known for Troy (2004), The Polar Express (2004) and Beauty and the Beast (2017).- Actor
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Tim McIntire was a remarkably fine, versatile and underrated actor-composer-singer-songwriter-musician who gave consistently strong, impressive and charismatic performances in both movies and TV shows alike. The son of character actor John McIntire and actress Jeanette Nolan, McIntire was born on July 19, 1944. He was the brother of actress Holly McIntire. McIntire first began acting in plays while attending high school. He worked in gas stations and men's stores in order to finance his early theatrical career. Handsome and husky, with a deep, rich and commanding voice of exceptionally exquisite sonority, McIntire made his film debut as James Stewart's son in Shenandoah (1965). MicIntire was superb in a rare substantial starring part as passionate pioneering '50s rock -'n'-roll disc jockey Alan Freed in the hugely enjoyable American Hot Wax (1978). McIntire's other notable movie roles include a raucous party hearty college student in The Sterile Cuckoo (1969), an illegal cross-country car race participant in the funny The Gumball Rally (1976), a wild-man cop in The Choirboys (1977), a shrewd top con in the offbeat prison drama Fast-Walking (1982), and a rugged mountain man in Sacred Ground (1983). McIntire supplied the deliciously dry, growly and sardonic voice of the cruel and cunning canine Blood in the terrific post-nuke sci-fi cult classic A Boy and His Dog (1975). McIntire also composed the score for the picture and even sings the catchy ending-credits theme song. McIntire also composed the scores for The Killer Inside Me (1976), Win, Place or Steal (1974), Kid Blue (1973), and Jeremiah Johnson (1972) (McIntire beautifully sings the lovely folk ballad which plays during the ending credits). Among the TV shows McIntire did guest spots on are Harry O (1973), Soap (1977) (the voice of the Devil), Kung Fu (1972), The F.B.I. (1965), Circle of Fear (1972), The New Perry Mason (1973), Bonanza (1959), All in the Family (1971), The Fugitive (1963), Gunsmoke (1955), Lassie (1954), Ben Casey (1961), and Wagon Train (1957). Outside of acting, McIntire did voice-overs for numerous TV commercials and was a prolific studio session musician. Alas, Tim McIntire had problems with drug addiction and alcoholism which led to his untimely death from heart failure at the tragically young age of 41 on April 15, 1986.- Actress
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Madeline Kahn was born Madeline Gail Wolfson of Russian Jewish descent on September 29, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Freda Goldberg (later known as Paula Kahn), who was still in her teens, and Bernard B. Wolfson, a garment manufacturer. She began her acting career in high school and went on to university where she trained as an opera singer and starred in several campus productions, ultimately earning a doctorate in her chosen field.
Kahn's best-known work came in Paper Moon (1973) with Ryan O'Neal, which was followed the next year by Mel Brooks's outrageous Blazing Saddles (1974) as Lili Von Shtupp, a cabaret singer who was obviously based on Marlene Dietrich's performance in Destry Rides Again (1939). Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in both movies. In 1998, she lent her voice to the character of "Gypsy" in A Bug's Life (1998).
On December 3, 1999, Madeline Kahn died of ovarian cancer in New York City, after a yearlong or so battle, during part of which time she was a cast member of Cosby (1996), aged 57.- Music Artist
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Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards, as well as the Kennedy Center Honor, American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement honor and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Chaplin Award.
She was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1942 to Diana Kind (née Ida Rosen), a singer turned school secretary, and Emanuel Streisand, a high school teacher. Her father died when she was 15 months old. She has a brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister, Roslyn Kind, from their mother's remarriage. As a child she attended the Beis Yakov Jewish School in Brooklyn. She was raised in a middle-class family and grew up dreaming of becoming an actress (or even an actress / conductor, as she happily described her teenage years at one of her concerts).
After a period as a nightclub singer and off-Broadway performer in New York City she began to attract interest and a fan base, thanks to her original and powerful vocal talent. She debuted on Broadway in the 1962 musical comedy "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" by Harold Rome, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Drama Critics Poll award. The following year she reached great commercial success with her first Columbia Records solo releases, "The Barbra Streisand Album" (multiple Grammy winner, including "Best Album of the Year") and "The Second Barbra Streisand Album" (her first RIAA Gold Album); these albums, mostly devoted to composer Harold Arlen, brought her critical praise and, most of all, public acclaim all over the US. In 1964 she had another smash Broadway hit when she portrayed legendary Broadway star Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill; the show's main song, "People", became her first hit single and she appeared on the cover of Time magazine. After many TV appearances as a guest on various music and variety shows (such as an episode of The Judy Garland Show (1963), for which she was nominated for an Emmy), she signed an exclusive contract with CBS for a series of annual TV specials. My Name Is Barbra (1965) (which won an Emmy) and Color Me Barbra (1966) were extremely successful.
After a brief London stage period and the birth of her son Jason Gould (with then-husband Elliott Gould), in summer 1967 she gave a memorable free concert in New York City, "A Happening in Central Park", that was filmed and later broadcast (in an edited version) as a TV special; then she flew to Hollywood for her first movie, Funny Girl (1968), a filming of her stage success. The picture, directed by William Wyler, opened in 1968 and became a hit in the US and abroad, making her an international "superstar" and multiple award winner, including the Best Actress Oscar. After a series of screen musicals, such as Gene Kelly's Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Vincente Minnelli's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), she wanted to try comedies, resulting in such films as The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and What's Up, Doc? (1972). She turned to dramas and turned out Up the Sandbox (1972) and the classic The Way We Were (1973), directed by Sydney Pollack and co-starring Robert Redford. The song "The Way We Were" (written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman) became one of her biggest hits and most memorable and famous songs.
She returned to TV for a new special conceived as a musical journey covering many world musical styles, Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments (1973), then returned (for contractual reasons) to her Fanny Brice role in a sequel to her hit "Funny Girl" film, Funny Lady (1975), and the next year turned out one of her most personal film projects, A Star Is Born (1976), one of the biggest hits of the year for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress and her second Oscar, for the song "Evergreen". Always extremely busy on the discography side, averaging one album a year throughout the '70s and '80s, she had a string of successful singles and albums, such as "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (duet with Neil Diamond), "Enough is Enough" (with Donna Summer), "The Main Event" (from her film The Main Event (1979) with her friend Ryan O'Neal) and the album "Guilty", written for her by The Bee Gees' Barry Gibb, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
She debuted as a director with the musical drama Yentl (1983), in which she also portrayed a Jewish girl who is forced to pass herself off as a man to pursue her dreams. The movie received generally positive reviews and the beautiful score by Michel Legrand and lyricists Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman stands up as one of Streisand's finest musical works. The film received several Oscar nominations, winning in two categories, but she was not nominated as Best Director, which disappointed both her and her fans, many of whom consider this the Academy's biggest "snub".
In 1985 her album "The Broadway Album" was an unexpected runaway success, winning a Grammy Award and helping to introduce a new generation to the world of American musical theater. In 1986 she performed in a memorable concert, after 19 years of stage silence, "One Voice". She returned to the screen in Nuts (1987), a drama directed by Martin Ritt, in the role of a prostitute accused of murder who fights to avoid being labeled "insane" at her trial. In 1991 she appeared in The Prince of Tides (1991), which many consider to be the pinnacle of her screen career, playing a psychiatrist who tries to help a man (Nick Nolte) to find the pieces of his past life. The film received seven Oscar nominations (but again NOT for Best Directing), but she did receive a nomination from the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Best Director. In 1994 she returned to the stage after 27 years for a series of sold-out concerts (for the televised version of one of these, she won another Emmy).
In the 1990s she broke several personal records: with two #1 albums ("Back to Broadway" in 1993 and "Higher Ground" in 1997) and became the only artist to achieve a #1 album on the Billboard charts in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (she extended this record into the 21st century in 2009 with the jazz album "Love is the Answer"). In 1996 she starred in her third picture as director, The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), with Jeff Bridges and Lauren Bacall. The film had a "the girl got the guy" ending, and the same happened to her in real life--the next year she married well known TV actor James Brolin.
In 2000 she focused her career again on concerts ("Timeless") and in 2006-07 with a European tour. She made only two more films--a supporting role as a sex therapist mother in the Ben Stiller comedy Meet the Fockers (2004) and its sequel, Little Fockers (2010), alongside Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. She published a book, "Passion for Design", in 2010 and celebrated her friendship with the Bergmans with an entire album of their songs, "What Matters Most" (2011), that debuted in the top 10.
After a long break from filming, she returned in a starring role for the 2012 holiday season with The Guilt Trip (2012), a mother/son picture co-starring Seth Rogen and directed by Anne Fletcher, and is working on putting together a film version of the well-known Jule Styne musical "Gypsy". In almost 50 years of career, Streisand has contributed to the show business industry in a personal and unique way, collecting a multi-generational fan base; she has a powerful and recognize vocal range, and a raucous and often self-deprecating sense of humor, which doesn't prevent her from showing the serious and dramatic sides of her personality. Her strong political belief in social justice infuses her professional career and personal life, and she makes no bones about what she believes; her willingness to put her money where her mouth is has resulted in some truly vicious attacks by many who hold opposite political views, but that hasn't stopped her from acting on her beliefs. She has been honored with the Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign, an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Brandeis University in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2013 and the bestowing by the government of France the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. She supports many humanitarian causes through the Streisand Foundation and has been a dedicated environmentalist for many years; she endowed a chair in environmental studies in 1987 and donated her 24-acre estate to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. In addition, she was the lead founder for the Clinton Climate Change Initiative. This effort brought together a consortium of major cities around the world to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. She is a leading spokesperson and fund-raiser for social and political causes close to her heart and has often dedicated proceeds from her live concert performances to benefit programs she supports.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Martin was born Dino Paul Crocetti in Steubenville, Ohio, to Gaetano Alfonso "Guy" Crocetti, an Italian immigrant and barber, and his Ohio-born wife, Angela (Barra) Crocetti. He spoke only Italian until age five. Martin came up the hard way, with such jobs as a boxer ("Kid Crochet"), a steel mill worker, a gas station worker and a casino croupier/dealer. In 1946, Martin got his first ticket to stardom, as he teamed up with another hard worker who was also trying to succeed in Hollywood: Jerry Lewis. Films such as At War with the Army (1950) sent the team toward super-stardom. The duo were to become one of Hollywood's truly great teams. They lasted 11 years together, and starred in 16 movies. They were unstoppable, but personality conflicts broke up the team. Even without Lewis, Martin was a true superstar.
Few thought that Martin would go on to achieve solo success, but he did, winning critical acclaim for his role in The Young Lions (1958) with Marlon Brando and Montgomery Clift, and Some Came Running (1958), with Shirley MacLaine and Frank Sinatra. Movies such as Rio Bravo (1959) brought him international fame. One of his best remembered films is in Ocean's Eleven (1960), in which he played Sam Harmon alongside the other members of the legendary Rat Pack: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford. Martin proved potent at the box office through the 1960s, with films such as Bells Are Ringing (1960) and Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964), again with Rat Pack pals Sammy Davis Jr. and Sinatra. During much of the 1960s and 1970s, his film persona of a boozing playboy prompted a series of films as secret agent Matt Helm and his own television variety show. Airport (1970) followed, featuring Martin as a pilot. He played a phony priest in The Cannonball Run (1981).
In 1965, Martin explored a new method for entertaining his fans: Television. That year he hosted one of the most successful TV series in history: The Dean Martin Show (1965), which lasted until 1973. In 1965, it won a Golden Globe Award. In 1973, he renamed it "The Dean Martin Comedy Hour", and from 1974 to 1984 it was renamed again, this time "The Dean Martin Celebrity Roasts". It became one of the most successful TV series in history, skewering such greats as Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball, James Stewart, George Burns, Milton Berle, Don Rickles, Phyllis Diller, and Joe Namath.
His last public role was a return to the stage, for a cross-country concert tour with Davis and Sinatra. He spoke affectionately of his fellow Rat Packers. "The satisfaction that I get out of working with these two bums is that we have more laughs than the audience has", Martin said. After the 1980s, Martin took it easy until his son, Dean Paul Martin, was killed in a plane crash in March 1987.
Devastated by the loss, from which he never recovered, he walked out on a reunion tour with Sinatra and Davis. Martin spent his final years in solitude, out of the public light. A heavy smoker most of his life, Martin died on Christmas Day 1995 at age 78 from complications to lung cancer.- Actress
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Lulu Kennedy-Cairns was born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie in Glasgow, Scotland on November 3, 1948. As a teenager, she toured the northern clubs with her band, the Luvvers. After her initial success with a cover of "Shout" reaching #7 in 1964, Lulu went on to establish herself as one of the biggest-selling British female singers of the 1960s.
She made her film début in To Sir, with Love (1967), starring Sidney Poitier, and performed the title song, which went to No. 1 in the United States, but was only released as a B-side in the United Kingdom with the A-side, "Let's Pretend", making #11. She was one of four joint winners of the 1968 Eurovision Song Contest with "Boom Bang-a-Bang". In 1969, she married The Bee Gees member Maurice Gibb, and moved more into family entertainment, building on the success of her self-titled BBC television show. She recorded a version of David Bowie's song "The Man Who Sold the World", which reached #3 in the UK charts (it hadn't charted for Bowie), and sang the title theme to the James Bond feature The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), both in 1974.
After marriage to celebrity hairdresser John Frieda, with whom she had one son, Jordan Frieda, Lulu's career moved more into occasional adverts and pantomimes. The 1990s saw her divorce again and she released the hit album "Independence" (1993). She also penned, with her brother, "I Don't Wanna Fight", which was performed by Tina Turner on the soundtrack to What's Love Got to Do with It (1993), and at 44 she finally topped the UK charts with the British boyband Take That with a cover of "Relight My Fire". She went on to contribute to the soundtrack of the Tim Rice/Elton John musical "Aida" (1999), front her own short-lived prime-time UK lottery show on BBC TV, Red Alert with the National Lottery (1999), and starred in the film Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999).
In 2002, she released an album of duets entitled "Together", featuring the likes of Paul McCartney, Elton John, Cliff Richard, Sting, and Ronan Keating, along with a best-selling autobiography. In 2003, she released her "Greatest Hits" album, which débuted at #35 in the UK charts. She was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire at the 2000 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to entertainment. She was awarded Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the 2021 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to entertainment, music, and charity.- Music Artist
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Taylor Alison Swift is a multi-Grammy award-winning American singer/songwriter who, in 2010 at the age of 20, became the youngest artist in history to win the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. In 2011 Swift was named Billboard's Woman of the Year. She also has been named the American Music Awards Artist of the Year, as well as the Entertainer of the Year for both the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music, among many other accolades. As of this writing, she is also the top-selling digital artist in music history.
Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13, 1989, in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Andrea (Finlay), a one-time marketing executive, and Scott Kingsley Swift, a financial adviser. Her ancestry includes German and English, as well as some Scottish, Irish, Welsh and 1/16th Italian. She was named after James Taylor, and her mother believed that if she had a gender neutral name it would help her forge a business career. Taylor spent most of her childhood on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. When she was nine years old the family moved to Wyomissing, PA, where she attended West Reading Elementary Center and Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. Taylor spent her summers at her parents' vacation home at the Jersey shore. Her first hobby was English horse riding. Her mother put her in a saddle when she was nine months old and Swift later competed in horse shows. At the age of nine she turned her attention to musical theatre and performed in Berks Youth Theatre Academy productions of "Grease", "Annie", "Bye Bye Birdie" and "The Sound of Music". She traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons. However, after a few years of auditioning in New York and not getting anything, she became interested in country music. At age 11, after many attempts, Taylor won a local talent competition by singing a rendition of LeAnn Rimes' "Big Deal", and was given the opportunity to appear as the opening act for Charlie Daniels at a Strausstown amphitheater. This interest in country music isolated Swift from her middle school peers.
At age 12 she was shown by a computer repairman how to play three chords on a guitar, inspiring her to write her first song, "Lucky You". She had previously won a national poetry contest with a poem entitled "Monster in My Closet", but now began to focus on songwriting. She moved to Nashville at age 14, having secured an artist development deal with RCA Records. She left RCA Records when she was 15--the label wanted her to record the work of other songwriters and wait until she was 18 to release an album, but she felt ready to launch her career with her own material. At an industry showcase at Nashville's The Bluebird Café in 2005, Swift caught the attention of Scott Borchetta, a Dreamworks Records executive who was preparing to form his own independent record label, Big Machine Records. Taylor was one of the new label's first signings.
Taylor released her debut album, "Taylor Swift", in October of 2006 and received generally positive reviews from music critics. The New York Times described it as "a small masterpiece of pop-minded country, both wide-eyed and cynical, held together by Ms. Swift's firm, pleading voice". Her single "Our Song" made her the youngest solo writer and singer of a #1 country song. The album sold 39,000 copies during its first week. In 2008 she released her second studio album, "Fearless". The lead single from the album, "Love Story", was released in September 2008 and became the second best-selling country single of all time, peaking at #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Four more singles were released throughout 2008 and 2009: "White Horse", "You Belong with Me", "Fifteen" and "Fearless". "You Belong with Me" was the album's highest-charting single, peaking at #2 on the Billboard Hot 100. The album debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 Album Chart. It was the top-selling album of 2009 and brought Swift much crossover success.
In September 2009 she became the first country music artist to win an MTV Video Music Award when "You Belong with Me" was named Best Female Video. Her acceptance speech was interrupted by rapper Ye, who had been involved in a number of other award show incidents. West declared Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated in the same category, to be "one of the best videos of all time". When Beyoncé later won the award for Video of the Year, she invited Taylor onstage to finish her speech. In November 2009 Taylor Swift became the youngest ever artist, and one of only six women, to be named Entertainer of the Year by the Country Music Association.
She released her third studio album in October 2010, "Speak Now", and wrote all the songs herself. She originally intended to call the album "Enchanted" but Scott Borchetta, her record label's CEO, felt the title did not reflect the album's more adult themes. Swift toured throughout 2011 and early 2012 in support of "Speak Now". As part of the 13-month, 111-date world tour, Swift played seven shows in Asia, 12 in Europe, 80 in North America and 12 in Australasia (three dates on the US tour were rescheduled after she fell ill with bronchitis). The stage show was inspired by Broadway musical theatre, with choreographed routines, elaborate set-pieces, pyrotechnics and numerous costume changes. Swift invited many musicians to join her for one-off duets during the North American tour. Appearances were made by James Taylor, Jason Mraz, Shawn Colvin, Johnny Rzeznik, Andy Grammer, Tal Bachman, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Nicki Minaj, Nelly, B.o.B., Usher, Flo Rida, Tip 'T.I.' Harris, Jon Foreman, Jim Adkins, Hayley Williams, Hot Chelle Rae, Ronnie Dunn, Darius Rucker, Tim McGraw and Kenny Chesney. In May 2012 Taylor featured in B.o.B's song "Both of Us".
Swift's fourth studio album, "Red", was released on October 22, 2012. She wrote nine of the album's 16 songs alone; the remaining seven were co-written with Max Martin, Liz Rose, Dan Wilson, Ed Sheeran and Gary Lightbody. Nathan Chapman served as the album's lead producer but Jeff Bhasker, Butch Walker, Jacknife Lee, Dann Huff and Shellback (aka Shellback) also produced individual tracks. Chapman has said he encouraged Swift "to branch out and to test herself in other situations". She has described the collaborative process as "an apprenticeship" that taught her to "paint with different colors". "Red" examines Swift's attraction to drama-filled relationships; she believes that, since writing the record, such relationships no longer appeal to her. Musically, while there is some experimentation with "slick, electronic beats", the pop sheen is limited to a handful of tracks sprinkled among more recognizably Swiftian fare. "Rolling Stone" enjoyed "watching Swift find her pony-footing on Great Songwriter Mountain. She often succeeds in joining the Joni/Carole King tradition of stark-relief emotional mapping . . . Her self-discovery project is one of the best stories in pop." The Guardian described Swift as a "Brünnhilde of a rock star" and characterized "Red" as "another chapter in one of the finest fantasies pop music has ever constructed". "USA Today" felt that the "engaging" record saw Swift "write ever-more convincingly--and wittily and painfully--about the messy emotions of a young twenty something nearing the end of her transition from girl to woman". The "Los Angeles Times" noted the exploration of "more nuanced relationship issues" on "an unapologetically big pop record that opens new sonic vistas for her".
As part of the "Red" promotional campaign, representatives from 72 worldwide radio stations were flown to Nashville during release week for individual interviews with Swift. She made television appearances on The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003), Good Morning America (1975), The View (1997), Late Show with David Letterman (1993), ABC News Nightline (1980) and All Access Nashville with Katie Couric (2012). She performed at Los Angeles' MTV VMAs and London's Teen Awards, and will also perform at Nashville's CMA Awards, Frankfurt's MTV Europe Music Awards, Los Angeles' AMA Awards and Sydney's ARIA Music Awards. Swift offered exclusive album promotions through Target, Papa John's and Walgreens. She became a spokesmodel for Keds sneakers, released her sophomore Elizabeth Arden fragrance and continued her partnerships with Cover Girl, Sony Electronics and American Greetings, as well as her unofficial brand tie-ins with Ralph Lauren and Shellys. The album's lead single, "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together", was released in August 2012. The song became Swift's first #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, recording the highest ever one-week sales figures for a female artist. Two further singles have since been released: "Begin Again" (country radio) and "I Knew You Were Trouble" (pop and international radio).In her career, as of May 2012, Swift has sold over 23 million albums and 54.5 million digital tracks worldwide.
Taylor Swift is only beginning to emerge as an acting talent, having voiced the role of Audrey in the animated feature The Lorax (2012). She also made appearances in the theatrical release Valentine's Day (2010) and in an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000). She contributed two original songs to The Hunger Games (2012) soundtrack: "Safe & Sound featuring The Civil Wars" and "Eyes Open". Taylor released her fifth album, titled "1989", on October 27, 2014. This album is when she finally made the complete transition from country to pop. She says that she will not be going to any Country Music Award shows. The album is named after the year she was born, and is a sort of '80s-sounding album, in the sense that it's more electronic.
In March 2015 she began dating Scottish Disc Jockey Calvin Harris after having met at the Brit Awards in February. They were together for thirteen months.- Writer
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- Music Department
Seth Woodbury MacFarlane was born in the small New England town of Kent, Connecticut, where he lived with his mother, Ann Perry (Sager), an admissions office worker, his father, Ronald Milton MacFarlane, a prep school teacher, and his sister, Rachael MacFarlane, now a voice actress and singer. He is of English, Scottish, and Irish ancestry, and descends from Mayflower passengers.
Seth attended and studied animation at the Rhode Island School of Design and, after he graduated, he was hired by Hanna-Barbera Productions (Now called Cartoon Network Studios) working as an animator and writer on the TV series Johnny Bravo (1997) and Cow and Chicken (1997). He also worked for Walt Disney Animation as a writer on the TV series Jungle Cubs (1996). He created The Life of Larry (1995) which was originally supposed to be used as an in-between on Mad TV (1995). Unfortunately the deal fell through but, a few months later, executives at FOX called him into their offices and gave him $50,000 to create a pilot for what would eventually become Family Guy (1999).
Since Family Guy's debut, MacFarlane has gone on to create two other television shows-American Dad! (2005) and The Cleveland Show (2009). MacFarlane began to establish himself as an actor, voice actor, animator, writer, producer, director, comedian, and singer throughout his career. MacFarlane has also written, directed and starred in Ted (2012) and its sequel Ted 2 (2015), and A Million Ways to Die in the West (2014). He voiced the mouse, Mike, in the animated musical Sing (2016).- Music Artist
- Actor
- Composer
Kenny Loggins was born on 7 January 1948 in Everett, Washington, USA. He is a music artist and actor, known for Footloose (1984), Caddyshack (1980) and Top Gun (1986). He was previously married to Julia Cooper and Eva Ein.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Viola Davis is a critically revered actress of film, television, and theater and has won rave reviews for her multitude of substantial and intriguingly diverse roles. Audiences across the United States and internationally have admired her for her work- including her celebrated, Oscar-nominated performances in The Help (2011), Doubt (2008), and her Oscar winning performance in Fences (2016). In 2015, Davis won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series for her work in ABC's How To Get Away With Murder, making her the first black woman in history to take home the award. In addition to acting, Viola currently produces alongside her husband and producing partner, Julius Tennon, through their JuVee Productions banner. Together they have produced award-garnering productions across theater, television, and film.- Music Department
- Actor
- Composer
Al Jarreau was born on 12 March 1940 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Moonlighting (1985), Dick Tracy (1990) and Out of Africa (1985). He was married to Susan Player and Phyllis Hall. He died on 12 February 2017 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
- Producer
- Composer
Singer, composer, actor and author, educated at Brooklyn's Thomas Jefferson High School and a student of saxophone and piano. Between 1958 and 1960 he served in the US Army and was a vocalist with the US Army Band and Orchestra based in Fort Myers, Virginia. After he was discharged, he commenced his singing career on television, night clubs and recordings, both as a single performer and with his wife Eydie Gormé. He appeared in the mid-1960s Broadway musical "What Makes Sammy Run?". Joining ASCAP in 1957, his popular-song compositions include "After Midnight Waltz"; "All Of My Life"; "At a Time Like This"; "Can't Get Over the Bossa Nova"; "The Chase"; "Damila"; "Hi-Ho, Steve-O"; "Hurry Home for Christmas"; "I Gotta Run": "I'll Follow You"; "I'll Never Be Alone"; "It's Easier Said than Done"; "Just For Now"; "Laugh My Face"; "Let Me Be the First"; " A Little Bit Bluer"; "Oh, How You Lied"; "Only You"; "Pity, Pity"; "The Second Time Around"; "The Shortest Love Song"; "Sittin' on the Fence of Life"; "Tall People"; "Tell Me"; "Time to Say Goodnight"; "Two on the Aisle"; "What's the Use of Talking"; "When You're in Love"; "While There's Still Time"; "The World of You"; "You Better Run"; and "Your Kisses Kill Me".- Producer
- Actress
- Production Manager
The woman who will always be remembered as the crazy, accident-prone, lovable Lucy Ricardo was born Lucille Desiree Ball on August 6, 1911 in Jamestown, New York, the daughter of Desiree Evelyn "DeDe" (Hunt) and Henry Durrell "Had" Ball. Her father died before she was four, and her mother worked several jobs, so she and her younger brother were raised by their grandparents. Always willing to take responsibility for her brother and young cousins, she was a restless teenager who yearned to "make some noise". She entered a dramatic school in New York City, but while her classmate Bette Davis received all the raves, she was sent home; "too shy". She found some work modeling for Hattie Carnegie's and, in 1933, she was chosen to be a "Goldwyn Girl" and appear in the film Roman Scandals (1933).
She was put under contract to RKO Radio Pictures and several small roles, including one in Top Hat (1935), followed. Eventually, she received starring roles in B-pictures and, occasionally, a good role in an A-picture, like in Stage Door (1937) or The Big Street (1942). While filming Too Many Girls (1940), she met and fell madly in love with a young Cuban actor-musician named Desi Arnaz. Despite different personalities, lifestyles, religions and ages (he was six years younger), he fell hard, too, and after a passionate romance, they eloped and were married in November 1940. Lucy soon switched to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where she got better roles in films such as Du Barry Was a Lady (1943); Best Foot Forward (1943) and the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy vehicle Without Love (1945). In 1948, she took a starring role in the radio comedy "My Favorite Husband", in which she played the scatterbrained wife of a Midwestern banker. In 1950, CBS came knocking with the offer of turning it into a television series. After convincing the network brass to let Desi play her husband and to sign over the rights to and creative control over the series to them, work began on the most popular and universally beloved sitcom of all time.
With I Love Lucy (1951), she and Desi promoted the 3-camera technique now the standard in filming sitcoms using 35mm film (the earliest known example of the 3-camera technique is the first Russian feature film, "Defence of Sevastopol" in 1911). Desi syndicated I Love Lucy. Lucille Ball was the first woman to own her own studio as the head of Desilu Productions.
Lucille Ball died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, age 77, of an acute aortic aneurysm on April 26, 1989 in Los Angeles, CA.- Actor
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Soupy Sales was born on 8 January 1926 in Franklinton, North Carolina, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for Black Scorpion (2001), The Making of '...and God Spoke' (1993) and A Dirty Shame (2004). He was married to Trudy Carson and Barbara Fox. He died on 22 October 2009 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
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The bushy-browed, cigar-smoking wise-cracker with the painted-on moustache and stooped walk was the leader of The Marx Brothers. With one-liners that were often double entendres, Groucho never cursed in any of his performances and said he never wanted to be known as a dirty comic. With a great love of music and singing (The Marx Brothers started as a singing group), one of the things Groucho was best known for was his rendition of the song "Lydia the Tattooed Lady."- Actor
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With poofy, curly red hair, a top hat and a horn, the lovable mute was the favorite of the Marx Brothers. Though chasing women was a favorite routine of his in the movies, Harpo was a devoted father and husband. He adopted the mute routine in vaudeville and carried it over to the films. Harpo was an accomplished self-taught harpist whose musical numbers would many times bring tears to the eyes of the audience of an otherwise hilarious movie.- Actor
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As a kid trying to negotiate his way through various gang territories to a floating crap game or a new pool hall where he was not yet known as a hustler, Leonard (Chico) Marx learned to fake several accents. Because he later employed an Italian accent in the Marx Brothers' act, people assumed his name was pronounced "Cheeko." Instead, Leonard was dubbed "Chicko" for his other consuming passion, women (or "chicks"), at which he was more successful than gambling, but when a typesetter dropped the "k" out of his name, the brothers let it stay as Chico. Chico was the brother who guided the Marxes to stardom. He took over the act's managment (amicably) from their mother, Minnie, and through audacity and charm, Chico secured the Brothers their first international (London) booking, their first Broadway show and their MGM contract with Irving Thalberg, among other successes.- Actor
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Noel Harrison was born on 29 January 1934 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and The Citadel (1960). He was married to Margaret Benson, Sara Lee Eberts Tufnell and Lori Chapman. He died on 19 October 2013 in Devon, England, UK.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Julia Elizabeth Wells was born on October 1, 1935, in England. Her mother, Barbara Ward (Morris), and stepfather, both vaudeville performers, discovered her freakish but undeniably lovely four-octave singing voice and immediately got her a singing career. She performed in music halls throughout her childhood and teens, and at age 20, she launched her stage career in a London Palladium production of "Cinderella".
Andrews came to Broadway in 1954 with "The Boy Friend", and became a bona fide star two years later in 1956, in the role of Eliza Doolittle in the unprecedented hit "My Fair Lady". Her star status continued in 1957, when she starred in the TV-production of Cinderella (1957) and through 1960, when she played "Guenevere" in "Camelot".
In 1963, Walt Disney asked Andrews if she would like to star in his upcoming production, a lavish musical fantasy that combined live-action and animation. She agreed on the condition if she didn't get the role of Doolittle in the pending film production of My Fair Lady (1964). After Audrey Hepburn was cast in My Fair Lady, Andrews made an auspicious film debut in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins (1964), which earned her an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Andrews continued to work on Broadway, until the release of The Sound of Music (1965), the highest-grossing movie of its day and one of the highest-grossing of all time. She soon found that audiences identified her only with singing, sugary-sweet nannies and governesses, and were reluctant to accept her in dramatic roles in The Americanization of Emily (1964) and Alfred Hitchcock's thriller Torn Curtain (1966). In addition, the box-office showings of the musicals Julie subsequently made increasingly reflected the negative effects of the musical-film boom that she helped to create. Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) was for a time the most successful film Universal had released, but it still couldn't compete with Mary Poppins or The Sound of Music for worldwide acclaim and recognition. Star! (1968) and Darling Lili (1970) also bombed at the box office.
Fortunately, Andrews did not let this keep her down. She worked in nightclubs and hosted a TV variety series in the 1970s. In 1979, Andrews returned to the big screen, appearing in films directed by her husband Blake Edwards, with roles that were entirely different from anything she had been seen in before. Andrews starred in 10 (1979), S.O.B. (1981) and Victor/Victoria (1982), which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role.
She continued acting throughout the 1980s and 1990s in movies and TV, hosting several specials and starring in a short-lived sitcom. In 2001, she starred in The Princess Diaries (2001), alongside then-newcomer Anne Hathaway. The family film was one of the most successful G-Rated films of that year, and Andrews reprised her role as Queen Clarisse Renaldi in The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). In recent years, Andrews appeared in Tooth Fairy (2010), as well as a number of voice roles in Shrek 2 (2004), Shrek the Third (2007), Enchanted (2007), Shrek Forever After (2010), and Despicable Me (2010).- Actor
- Director
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Tall, good-looking James Darren was a student of acting coach Stella Adler and made his name in the 1950s in a series of teenage-themed films. A better actor than most of his contemporary teenage heartthrobs, he nevertheless found it difficult to escape the teen-idol image he got in pictures like Gidget (1959) and Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961). He also gained fame in the early and mid-1960s as a singer, with several hits to his credit, including "Goodbye Cruel World" and "Her Royal Majesty". His film work tapered off in the 1960s, but he did much TV work and had two hit series, The Time Tunnel (1966) in the 1960s and T.J. Hooker (1982) in the 1980s.- Actor
- Music Department
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Mel Blanc, known as "The Man of Thousand Voices" is regarded as the most prolific actor to ever work in Hollywood with over a thousand screen credits. He developed and performed nearly 400 distinct character voices with precision and a uniquely expressive vocal range. The legendary specialist from radio programs, television series, cartoon shorts and movie was rarely seen by his audience but his voice characterizations were famous around the world.
Blanc under exclusive contract until 1960 to Warner Brothers voiced virtually every major character in the Warner Brothers' Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies cartoon pantheon. Characters including Porky Pig, Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, Wile E. Coyote,The Roadrunner, Yosemite Sam, Sam the Sheepdog, Taz the Tazmanian Devil, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepé la Pew, Charlie the Dog, Blacque Jacque Shellacque, Pussyfoot, Private Snafu among others were voiced by Blanc.
After 1960, Blanc continued to work for Warner Brothers but began to work for other companies once his exclusive contract ended. He worked for Hanna-Barbera voicing characters including Barney Rubble, Dino the Dinosaur, Cosmo Spacely, Secret Squirrel, Captain Caveman, Speed Buggy, Wally Gator among others. He provided vocal effects for Tom & Jerry in the mid 1960's working with fellow Warner Bros. alum, Chuck Jones at what would become MGM Animation. In the mid 1960's, Blanc originated and voiced Toucan Sam for the Kellogg's Fruit Loops commercials. He would later go to originate and voice Twiki for Buck Rogers and Heathcliff in the late 1970's and early 1980's.- Actor
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Gregory Hines was born on 14 February 1946 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for History of the World: Part I (1981), Running Scared (1986) and Renaissance Man (1994). He was married to Pamela Koslow and Patricia Panella. He died on 9 August 2003 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Music Artist
- Actor
- Producer
Frank Sinatra was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants Natalina Della (Garaventa), from Northern Italy, and Saverio Antonino Martino Sinatra, a Sicilian boxer, fireman, and bar owner. Growing up on the gritty streets of Hoboken made Sinatra determined to work hard to get ahead. Starting out as a saloon singer in musty little dives (he carried his own P.A. system), he eventually got work as a band singer, first with The Hoboken Four, then with Harry James and then Tommy Dorsey. With the help of George Evans (Sinatra's genius press agent), his image was shaped into that of a street thug and punk who was saved by his first wife, Nancy Barbato Sinatra. In 1942 he started his solo career, instantly finding fame as the king of the bobbysoxers--the young women and girls who were his fans--and becoming the most popular singer of the era among teenage music fans. About that time his film career was also starting in earnest, and after appearances in a few small films, he struck box-office gold with a lead role in Anchors Aweigh (1945) with Gene Kelly, a Best Picture nominee at the 1946 Academy Awards. Sinatra was awarded a special Oscar for his part in a short film that spoke out against intolerance, The House I Live In (1945). His career on a high, Sinatra went from strength to strength on record, stage and screen, peaking in 1949, once again with Gene Kelly, in the MGM musical On the Town (1949) and Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949). A controversial public affair with screen siren Ava Gardner broke up his marriage to Nancy Barbato Sinatra and did his career little good, and his record sales dwindled. He continued to act, although in lesser films such as Meet Danny Wilson (1952), and a vocal cord hemorrhage all but ended his career. He fought back, though, finally securing a role he desperately wanted--Maggio in From Here to Eternity (1953). He won an Oscar for best supporting actor and followed this with a scintillating performance as a cold-blooded assassin hired to kill the US President in Suddenly (1954). Arguably a career-best performance--garnering him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor--was his role as a pathetic heroin addict in the powerful drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955).
Known as "One-Take Charlie" for his approach to acting that strove for spontaneity and energy, rather than perfection, Sinatra was an instinctive actor who was best at playing parts that mirrored his own personality. He continued to give strong and memorable performances in such films as Guys and Dolls (1955), The Joker Is Wild (1957) and Some Came Running (1958). In the late 1950s and 1960s Sinatra became somewhat prolific as a producer, turning out such films as A Hole in the Head (1959), Sergeants 3 (1962) and the very successful Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964). Lighter roles alongside "Rat Pack" buddies Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. were lucrative, especially the famed Ocean's Eleven (1960). On the other hand, he alternated such projects with much more serious offerings, such as The Manchurian Candidate (1962), regarded by many critics as Sinatra's finest picture. He made his directorial debut with the World War II picture None But the Brave (1965), which was the first Japanese/American co-production. That same year Von Ryan's Express (1965) was a box office sensation. In 1967 Sinatra returned to familiar territory in Sidney J. Furie's The Naked Runner (1967), once again playing as assassin in his only film to be shot in the U.K. and Germany. That same year he starred as a private investigator in Tony Rome (1967), a role he reprised in the sequel, Lady in Cement (1968). He also starred with Lee Remick in The Detective (1968), a film daring for its time with its theme of murders involving rich and powerful homosexual men, and it was a major box-office success.
After appearing in the poorly received comic western Dirty Dingus Magee (1970), Sinatra didn't act again for seven years, returning with a made-for-TV cops-and-mob-guys thriller Contract on Cherry Street (1977), which he also produced. Based on the novel by William Rosenberg, this fable of fed-up cops turning vigilante against the mob boasted a stellar cast and was a ratings success. Sinatra returned to the big screen in The First Deadly Sin (1980), once again playing a New York detective, in a moving and understated performance that was a fitting coda to his career as a leading man. He made one more appearance on the big screen with a cameo in Cannonball Run II (1984) and a final acting performance in Magnum, P.I. (1980), in 1987, as a retired police detective seeking vengeance on the killers of his granddaughter, in an episode entitled Laura (1987).- Actor
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This owl-faced comic actor enjoyed his first featured film role in the RKO production Too Many Girls (1940), in which he reprised the role of "JoJo Jordan" that he had played in the Broadway stage version of that musical. (Into the pantheon of pop-music standards came one that Bracken had introduced in "Too Many Girls", the melancholy "I Didn't Know What Time It Was"). But the then 20-year-old Eddie Bracken was by no means new to show business in general or Hollywood in particular. He had played in vaudeville and performed in nightclubs by the time he was 9, and had just later appeared on screen in four of the Hal Roach "Our Gang" comedy two-reeler film shorts. It was on account of his appearances in musicals and comedies as a shy, giggling, clumsy, stammering, sentimental, self-effacing, would-be hero that Bracken achieved popularity, not to say star status, among movie audiences of the 1940s. The director Preston Sturges served up those attributes of Eddie Bracken particularly well in two of Sturges's more memorable comedies. As "Norval Jones" in The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943) (filmed in 1942; released 1944), Bracken portrays a man whose destiny others have foisted upon him. A certain "Trudy Kockenlocker" (played by Betty Hutton), having attended a party for military servicemen, later finds herself to be pregnant but has no recollection of who the father might be. So she persuades the always-befuddled Norval to take credit for the child and marry her. Somehow, Norval emerges a true hero in the end, but you'll have to see the film to discover why. As Norval Jones was physically unfit for military service, so also was "Woodrow Lafayette Pershing Truesmith", with Eddie Bracken in the role, in Preston Sturges's Hail the Conquering Hero (1944). Solely on the basis of his father's reputation as a World War I U.S. Marine hero, a group of saloon-hopping World War II-era U.S. Marines, led by a crusty senior-level sergeant (played to a tee by William Demarest), elevate the physical reject Truesmith into a modern, combat-decorated veteran, and then usher him into an election campaign for Truesmith's hometown mayoralty. The complications, including a love interest (in the person of actress Ella Raines, are by now well under way. As Eddie Bracken's age increased his popularity -- or perhaps that of the genre of film vehicles that was his forte -- decreased, and in 1953 he essentially retired from the screen, moving on to pursue theatrical ventures. But he would return to Hollywood eventually, and we have been fortunate to see him in character roles in theatrical and TV films through the 80's and 90's.- Ben Powers was born on 5 July 1950 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The New Mike Hammer (1984), Good Times (1974) and The Greatest American Hero (1981). He was married to Julia Harper. He died on 6 April 2015 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, USA.
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Natalie Wood was an American actress of Russian and Ukrainian descent. She started her career as a child actress and eventually transitioned into teenage roles, young adult roles, and middle-aged roles. She drowned off Catalina Island on November 29, 1981 at age 43.
Wood was born July 20, 1938 in San Francisco to Russian immigrant parents: housewife Maria Gurdin (née Zoodiloff), known by multiple aliases including Mary, Marie and Musia, and second husband Nick Gurdin (née Zacharenko), a janitor and prop builder. Nicholas was born in Primorsky Krai, son of a chocolate-factory worker. Maria was born in Barnaul, southern Siberia to a wealthy industrialist. Natalie's maternal grandfather owned soap and candle factories.
Wood's parents had to migrate due to the Russian Civil War. Her paternal grandfather joined the anti-Bolshevik civilian forces early in the war and was killed in a street fight between Red and White Russian soldiers. This convinced the Zacharenkos to migrate to Shanghai, China, where they had relatives. Wood's paternal grandmother remarried in 1927 and moved the family to Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1933 they resettled along the U.S. West Coast. Nicholas met Wood's mother, four years his senior, while she was still married to Alexander Tatuloff, an Armenian mechanic she divorced in 1936.
Mary Tatuloff, Wood's mother, had unfulfilled ambitions of becoming a ballet dancer. She grew up in the Chinese city of Harbin and had married Alexander there in 1925. The Tatuloffs had one daughter, Ovsanna, before coming to America in 1930. After marrying Nicholas Zacharenko in 1938, five months before Wood's birth, Mary (now calling herself Marie) transferred her dream of stardom onto her second child. Marie frequently took a young Wood with her to the cinema, where she could study the films of Hollywood child stars.
Wood's parents changed the family name to Gurdin upon obtaining U.S. citizenship, and her pseudonymous mother finally settled on a permanent first name: Maria. In 1942 they bought a house in Santa Rosa, where young Natalie was noticed by members of a crew during a film shoot. She got to audition for roles as an actress, and the family moved to Los Angeles to help seek out roles for her. RKO Radio Pictures' executives William Goetz and David Lewis chose the stage name Wood for her, in reference to director Sam Wood. Natalie's younger sister Svetlana Gurdin would eventually follow an acting career as well, under the stage name Lana Wood.
Wood made her film debut in Happy Land (1943). She was only five years old, and her scene as the "Little Girl Who Drops Ice Cream Cone" lasted 15 seconds. Wood somehow attracted the interest of film director Irving Pichel who remained in contact with her family. She had few job offers over the following two years, but Pichel helped her get a screen test for a more substantial role in the romance film Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). Wood passed through an audition and won the role of Margaret Ludwig, a post-World War II German orphan. At the time, Wood was unable to "cry on cue" for a key scene, so her mother tore a butterfly to pieces in front of her, giving her a reason to cry for the scene.
Wood started appearing regularly in films following this role and soon received a contract with 20th Century Fox. Her first major role was that of Susan Walker in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), which was a commercial and critical hit. Wood got her first taste of fame, and afterwards Macy's invited her to appear in the store's annual Thanksgiving Day parade. Following her early success, Wood receive many more film offers. She typically appeared in family films, cast as the daughter of such stars as Fred MacMurray, Margaret Sullivan, James Stewart, Joan Blondell, and Bette Davis. Wood found herself in high demand and appeared in over twenty films as a child actress.
The California laws of the era required that until reaching adulthood, child actors had to spend at least three hours per day in the classroom. Wood received her primary education on the studio lots, receiving three hours of school lessons whenever she was working on a film. She was reportedly a "straight A student." Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz was quite impressed by Wood's intellect. After school hours ended, Wood would hurry to the set to film her scenes.
While Wood acquired the services of agents, her early career was micromanaged by her mother. An older Wood gained her first major television role in the short-lived sitcom The Pride of the Family (1953). At the age of 16, she found more success with the role of Judy in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). She played the role of a teenage girl who wears makeup and dresses up in racy clothes to attract the attention of a father who typically ignores her. The film's success helped Wood make the transition from child actress to an ingenue. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Her next significant film was The Searchers (1956), a western in which she played the role of abduction victim Debbie Edwards, niece of John Wayne's character. The film was a commercial and critical hit, and has since become regarded as a masterpiece. Also in 1956, Wood graduated from Van Nuys High School. She signed a contract with Warner Brothers, where she was kept busy with several new films. To her disappointment, she was typically cast as the girlfriend of the protagonist and received roles of little depth. For a while, WB had her paired with teen heartthrob Tab Hunter. The studio was hoping that the pairing would serve as a box-office draw, but this did not work out. One of Wood's only serious roles from this period was the title character in Marjorie Morningstar (1958), as a young Jewish girl whose efforts to create her own identity and career path clash with the expectations of her family. The film was a critical success, and fit well with other films exploring the restlessness of youth in the '50s.
Wood's first major box office flop was the biographical film All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960), examining the rags to riches story of jazz musician Chet Baker without actually using his name. The film's box office earnings barely covered the production costs, and MGM recorded a loss of $1,108,000. For the first time. Wood's appeal to the audience was in doubt. With her career in decline following this failure, Wood was seen as "washed up" by many in the film community. But director Elia Kazan gave her the chance to audition for the role of the sexually-repressed Wilma Dean Loomis in his upcoming film Splendor in the Grass (1961). Kazan cast Wood as the female lead, because he found in her (in his words): a "true-blue quality with a wanton side that is held down by social pressure." Kazan is credited for producing Wood's most powerful moment as an actress. The film was a critical success, with Wood nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
Wood's next important film was West Side Story (1961), where she played Maria, a restless Puerto Rican girl. Wood was once again called to represent the restlessness of youth, this time in a story involving youth gangs and juvenile delinquents. The film was a great commercial success with about $44 million gross, the highest-grossing film of 1961. It was also critically acclaimed, and is still regarded as one of the best films of Wood's career. Her next film was Gypsy (1962), playing the role of burlesque entertainer and stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. Film historians credit the film as an even better role for Wood than that of Maria, with witty dialogue, a greater emotional range, and complex characterization. The film was the eighth highest-grossing release of 1962, and was well-received critically.
Wood's next significant role was that of Macy's salesclerk Angie Rossini in Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). In the film, Angie has a one-night-stand with musician Rocky Papasano, played by Steve McQueen, finds herself pregnant and desperately seeks an abortion. The film under-performed at the box office but was critically well-received. Wood received her third (and last) nomination for an Academy Award. At age 25, Wood was tied with Teresa Wright as the youngest person to score three Oscar nominations. Wood held that designation until 2013, when Jennifer Lawrence achieved her third nomination at age 23.
Wood continued her successful film career until 1966, but her health status was not as successful. She was suffering emotionally and had sought professional therapy. She paid Warner Bros. $175,000 to cancel her contract and was able to retire for a while. She also fired her entire support team: agents, managers, publicist, accountant, and attorneys. She took a three-year hiatus from acting.
Wood made her comeback in the comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) with the themes of sexual liberation and wife swapping. It was a box office hit. Wood decided to gamble her $750,000 fee on a percentage of the gross, earning a million dollars in profits. She chose not to capitalize on the film's success, however, and did not take another acting job for five years.
In 1970, Wood was married to the screenwriter Richard Gregson and was expecting her first child, Natasha Gregson Wagner. She went into semi-retirement to be a stay-at-home mom, appearing in only four more theatrical films before her death. These films were the mystery comedy Peeper (1975), the science fiction film Meteor (1979), the comedy The Last Married Couple in America (1980), and the posthumously-released science fiction film Brainstorm (1983).
In the late '70s, Wood found success in television roles, appearing in several made-for-TV movies and the mini-series From Here to Eternity (1979). Her project received high ratings, and she had plans to make her theatrical debut in a 1982 production of Anastasia.
On November 28, 1981, Wood joined her last husband Robert Wagner, their married friend Christopher Walken, and captain Dennis Davern on a weekend boat trip to Catalina Island. Conspicuously absent from the group was Christopher's wife, casting director Georgianne Walken. The four of them were on board the Wagners' yacht "Splendour." Earwitness Marilyn Wayne heard cries for help around 11:05 P.M. and a "man's voice slurred, and in aggravated tone, say something to the effect of, 'Oh, hold on, we're coming to get you,' and not long after, the cries for help subsided." On the morning of November 29, Wood's corpse was recovered 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) away from the boat, near small Valiant-brand inflatable dinghy beached nearby. The toxicology report revealed her blood alcohol level was at .14, over the legal limit of .10. Wood was buried on December 2 at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Nine days later, the LACSD officially closed the case.- Actress
- Music Department
- Composer
Toni Tennille was born on 8 May 1940 in Montgomery, Alabama, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for Pink Floyd: The Wall (1982), 200 Cigarettes (1999) and Vega$ (1978). She was previously married to Daryl Dragon and Kenneth Shearer.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Veteran performer John Randolph was a Tony Award-winning character actor whose union and social activism in the '40s and '50s caused him to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era. The balding performer may not have been a household name, but he was a regular face in movies and TV for over four decades.
He was born Emanuel Cohen on June 1, 1915, in New York City, to Jewish immigrants from Romania and Russia, mother Dorothy (Shorr), an insurance agent, and father Louis Cohen, a hat manufacturer. When his father died and his mother remarried, his stepfather, Joseph Lippman, renamed him Mortimer.
He began his dramatic training in the '30s, studying under Stella Adler and changing his name to the less ethnic moniker of "John Randolph". He served in the Army Air Force during WWII and married actress Sarah Cunningham in Chicago in 1945 while performing in Orson Welles's stage production of "Native Son". They had two children, Martha and Harrison.
After the war, Randolph become one of the original members of the Actors Studio. After making his film debut with The Naked City (1948), his passionate, outspoken leftist views and defense of other accused figures led to Randolph and his wife being blacklisted. In 1955, they were both called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and pleaded the Fifth Amendment. Although Randolph lost many jobs during this 15-year blacklist, he continued to find work onstage, mainly in New York.
Finally, director John Frankenheimer broke the Hollywood blacklist after casting Randolph, along with fellow "marked" actors Will Geer and Jeff Corey, in Seconds (1966), in which he played a disillusioned older man surgically made to look decades younger (now played by Rock Hudson). Randolph continued to flourish in films and TV following this breakthrough with important roles in Serpico (1973), Frances (1982), Prizzi's Honor (1985) and You've Got Mail (1998), along with the TV movies The Missiles of October (1974) and "Lincoln" (1975) (mini). He also played the recurring role of Roseanne Barr's father on her popular sitcom.
In 1987, he was the recipient of both Tony and Drama Desk awards for his close-to-home portrayal of a Communist, left-wing grandfather in Neil Simon's "Broadway Bound". Randolph continued his activism into the 1980s, heading the Council of American-Soviet Friendship, a cultural exchange organization. He died of natural causes at age 88.- Actor
- Director
- Music Department
Danny Kaye left school at the age of 13 to work in the so-called Borscht Belt of Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains. It was there he learned the basics of show biz. From there he went through a series of jobs in and out of the business. In 1939, he made his Broadway debut in "Straw Hat Revue," but it was the stage production of the musical "Lady in the Dark" in 1940 that brought him acclaim and notice from agents. Also in 1940, he married Sylvia Fine, who went on to manage his career. She helped create the routines and gags, and wrote most of the songs that he performed. Danny could sing and dance like many others, but his specialty was reciting those tongue-twisting songs and monologues.
Samuel Goldwyn had been trying to sign Kaye to a movie contract for two years before he eventually agreed. Goldwyn put him in a series of Technicolor musicals, starting with Up in Arms (1944). His debut was successful, and he continued to make hit movies such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and The Inspector General (1949). In 1954, he appeared with Bing Crosby in White Christmas (1954), which was based on the Irving Berlin song of the same name. In 1955, he made what many consider his best comedy, The Court Jester (1955), with the brilliant Pellet with the Poison routine. Like all things, however, the lifespan of a comedian is limited and his movie career waned. In 1960, he began doing specials on television and this led to his own TV series, The Danny Kaye Show (1963), which ran from 1963 to 1967.
Some of his last roles were also his most memorable, such as an intense Holocaust survivor in Skokie (1981) and as a kind but goofy dentist in an episode of The Cosby Show (1984). He also worked tirelessly for UNICEF.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly Irish descent, met Eduardo in 1916 and were married the following year. Rita, herself, studied as a dancer in order to follow in her family's footsteps. She joined her family on stage when she was eight years old when her family was filmed in a movie called La Fiesta (1926). It was her first film appearance, albeit an uncredited one. Sotted by Fox studio head Winfield R. Sheehan, she signed her first studio contract, and make her film debut at age sixteen, in Dante's Inferno (1935), followed by Cruz Diablo (1934). She continued to play small bit parts in several films under the name of "Rita Cansino". Fox dropped her after five small roles, but expert, exploitative promotion by her first husband Edward Judson soon brought Rita a new contract at Columbia Pictures, where studio head Harry Cohn changed her surname to Hayworth and approved raising her hairline by electrolysis. She played the second female lead, Judy McPherson, in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). After thirteen minor roles, Columbia lent her to Warner Bros. for her first big success, The Strawberry Blonde (1941); her splendid dancing with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) made her a star. This was the film that exuded the warmth and seductive vitality that was to make her famous. Her natural, raw beauty was showcased later that year in Blood and Sand (1941), filmed in Technicolor.
Rita was probably the second most popular actress after Betty Grable. In You'll Never Get Rich (1941) with Fred Astaire, was probably the film that moviegoers felt close to Rita. Her dancing, for which she had studied all her life, was astounding. After the hit Gilda (1946) (her dancing had made the film and it had made her), her career was on the skids. Although she was still making movies, they never approached her earlier success. The drought began between The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Champagne Safari (1954). Then after Salome (1953), she was not seen again until Pal Joey (1957). Part of the reasons for the downward spiral was television, but also Rita had been replaced by a new star at Columbia, Kim Novak.
Rita, herself, said, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me". In person, Rita was shy, quiet and unassuming; only when the cameras rolled did she turn on the explosive sexual charisma that in Gilda (1946) made her a superstar. To Rita, though, domestic bliss was a more important, if elusive, goal, and in 1949 she interrupted her career for marriage - unfortunately an unhappy one almost from the start - to the playboy Prince Aly Khan. Her films after her divorce from Khan include perhaps her best straight acting performances, Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) and They Came to Cordura (1959).
After a few, rather forgettable films in the 1960s, her career was essentially over. Her final film was The Wrath of God (1972). Her career was really never the same after Gilda (1946). Perhaps Gene Ringgold said it best when he remarked, "Rita Hayworth is not an actress of great depth. She was a dancer, a glamorous personality, and a sex symbol. These qualities are such that they can carry her no further professionally." Perhaps he was right but Hayworth fans would vehemently disagree with him.
Beginning in 1960 (age 42), early onset of Alzheimer's disease (undiagnosed until 1980) limited Rita's ability. The last few roles in her 60-film career were increasingly small. With 20 years of symptoms, Rita was cared for by her daughter, Yasmin Khan, until Rita's death at age 68 on May 14, 1987, in New York City.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Eugene Curran Kelly was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the third son of Harriet Catherine (Curran) and James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman. His father was of Irish descent and his mother was of Irish and German ancestry.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest and most powerful studio in Hollywood when Gene Kelly arrived in town in 1941. He came direct from the hit 1940 original Broadway production of "Pal Joey" and planned to return to the Broadway stage after making the one film required by his contract. His first picture for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was For Me and My Gal (1942) with Judy Garland. What kept Kelly in Hollywood were "the kindred creative spirits" he found behind the scenes at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The talent pool was especially large during World War II, when Hollywood was a refuge for many musicians and others in the performing arts of Europe who were forced to flee the Nazis. After the war, a new generation was coming of age. Those who saw An American in Paris (1951) would try to make real life as romantic as the reel life they saw portrayed in that musical, and the first time they saw Paris, they were seeing again in memory the seventeen-minute ballet sequence set to the title song written by George Gershwin and choreographed by Kelly. The sequence cost a half million dollars (U.S.) to make in 1951 dollars. Another Kelly musical of the era, Singin' in the Rain (1952), was one of the first 25 films selected by the Library of Congress for its National Film Registry. Kelly was in the same league as Fred Astaire, but instead of a top hat and tails Kelly wore work clothes that went with his masculine, athletic dance style.
Gene Kelly died at age 83 of complications from two strokes on February 2, 1996 in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, California.- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Phil Silvers was a comedic actor of Russian-Jewish descent, nicknamed as "The King of Chutzpah." He was best known for his starring role as United States Army Master Sergeant Ernest "Ernie" Bilko in the very popular hit sitcom "The Phil Silvers Show" (1955-1959). He later had important roles in the comedy films "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" (1963), and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (1967), playing respectively the characters Otto Meyer and Marcus Lycus.
Silvers was a compulsive gambler, and suffered from chronic depression.
He was the 8th and youngest child to Russian-Jewish immigrants Saul Silver (alias Saul Silversmith) and Sarah Handler. Saul was a sheet metal worker who was employed in the building industry. He had helped build a number of New York City's major skyscrapers.
Silver started his career as an entertainer in 1922, at the age of 11.
A frequent accident at New York City's movie theaters was for their film projector to break down. Someone had to keep the audience entertained during repairs, so Silver was hired to sing to them. Part of his reward was to attend the movie theater free of charge.
By 1924, Silvers performed as a professional singer in the Gus Edwards Revue. His employer was theater company owner Gus Edwards (1878-1945). He then took to working in vaudeville and as a burlesque comic.
In the 1930s, Silvers started appearing in Vitaphone short films. In 1939, Silvers made his Broadway debut in "Yokel Boy." The show was considered mediocre by critics, but Silvers gained acclaim in the press. He made his feature film debut in "Hit Parade of 1941." Silvers worked primarily as a character actor over the following decades, appearing in films produced by 20th Century Fox, Columbia Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. When the studio system declined, Silvers initially returned to the theater.
He had a hit as a songwriter when he composed the lyrics of "Nancy (with the Laughing Face)" (1942) for singer Frank Sinatra (1915-1998). The song was apparently named after Frank's young daughter Nancy Sinatra (1940-).
Silvers did not become a household name until his starring role in the sitcom "The Phil Silvers Show" (1955-1959). It was a military comedy, starring Ernest "Ernie" Bilko as a United States Army Master Sergeant. The character of Bilko was depicted as a con-artist and inveterate gambler who could fast-talk people into complying with his schemes. The show lasted for 4 seasons, and 144 episodes. It found further success in syndication to this very day, and often ranks high in lists of popular sitcoms.
Silvers returned to television stardom with "The New Phil Silvers Show" (1963-1964), where he played factory foreman Harry Grafton. Like Bilko, Grafton was depicted as a con-artist who owned his own company and ran many and various schemes on the side. Not as successful as its predecessor, the series lasted for a single season and 30 episodes.
Silvers enjoyed film stardom in the 1960s, though mostly playing supporting roles. He appeared mainly in American productions, although guest-starred in the British comedy film "On Follow That Came." (1967). It was the 14th film in the popular long-running "Carry On" film series (1958-1992). The film was a parody depicting life in the French Foreign Legion, and Silvers played the Bilko-like character of Sergeant Ernie Nocker. He earned a salary of 30,000 pounds, making him the highest-paid actor of the "Carry On" film series up to that point.
Silvers appeared frequently as a guest-star in then-popular sitcoms, such as "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Gilligan's Island." In 1972, Silvers survived a stroke, although was left with permanently slurred speech. This effectively ended his theatrical career, although did not prevent him from appearing in further film and television roles.
Silvers made his last television appearance in an 1983 episode of the crime drama "CHiPs." He then went into retirement.
He died in his sleep in 1985, while in Century City, California. His family attributed the death to unspecified natural causes. He was interred at Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Silvers is still well-remembered as a great comic actor.
In 1996, TV Guide ranked him number 31 on its 50 Greatest TV Stars of All Time list.
The Hanna-Barbera characters Hokey Wolf and Top Cat were loosely based on his screen persona.- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Derek Wadsworth was born on 5 February 1939 in Cleckheaton, Yorkshire, England, UK. He was a composer, known for Space: 1999 (1975), Britannia Hospital (1982) and Spring and Port Wine (1970). He died on 3 December 2008 in Oxfordshire, England, UK.- Actress
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Joan Sutherland was born on 7 November 1926 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She was an actress, known for The Metropolitan Opera Presents (1977), Spectre (2015) and Carlito's Way (1993). She was married to Richard Bonynge. She died on 10 October 2010 in Montreux, Switzerland.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A sparkling, entertaining, highly energetic presence ever since her early days (from age 4) as a singing and tap dancing child vaudevillian, Nanette Fabray was once billed as "Baby Nanette".
She was born in Sherbrooke, Québec, Canada, then moved to the United States, to Louisiana-born parents, Lily Agnes (McGovern) and Raoul Bernard Fabares, a train conductor whose own father was from France. She worked with the top headliners of the era, notably Ben Turpin, in the Los Angeles area. She also sang on radio. It was widely rumored that she appeared in the "Our Gang" ("Little Rascal") film shorts of the late 1920s; however, this was not true. Later the young hopeful received a scholarship to the Max Reinhardt School of the Theatre and appeared in the school's productions of "The Miracle", "Six Characters in Search of an Author" and "A Servant with Two Masters", all in 1939.
The musical comedy stage, however, would be Nanette's forte. Appearing in such hit New York productions as "Meet the People" (1940), "Let's Face It" (1941), "By Jupiter" (1943) and "Bloomer Girl" (1945), she capped this period of great productivity earning awards for her Broadway work in "High Button Shoes" (1947 - Donaldson Award), and "Love Life" (1948 - Tony and Donaldson Awards).
Strangely, Nanette never obtained a strong foothold when it came to film. Aside from secondary roles in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) starring Bette Davis and Errol Flynn, and the melodrama A Child Is Born (1939), her one claim to movie fame would be her vital participation in the blockbuster MGM musical The Band Wagon (1953) in which she memorably performed the songs "That's Entertainment" and "Louisiana Hayride," and joined Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan in the standout "Triplets" number.
Into the 1950s, Nanette started checking out what television could do as a possible medium for her. It did a lot. She managed a fine feat by winning two consecutive Emmy awards as Sid Caesar's partner on the now-called Caesar's Hour (1954) following the departure of the seemingly irreplaceable Imogene Coca earlier. This led to Nanette eventually starring in her own sitcom, the short-lived Westinghouse Playhouse (1961) (aka "Yes, Yes, Nanette"), in the role of a Broadway star who becomes a makeshift mom after marrying a widower (Wendell Corey) with two children.
Broadway musicals continued to flourish with parts in "Arms and the Girl" (1950) and "Make a Wish" (1951). Nanette later copped another Tony nomination starring as a fictional "First Lady" opposition "President" Robert Ryan in the musical "Mr. President" (1962). Other tailor-made stage vehicles for her came in the form of "Plaza Suite", "Wonderful Town", "Never Too Late", "Last of the Red Hot Lovers" and "Cactus Flower", among others.
On the TV front, Nanette adjusted well into a lively and graceful support player. She served up a number of delightfully daffy moms, wisecracking friends and intrusive relatives in guest appearances -- sometimes alongside her own niece, actress Shelley Fabares, as was in the case of their regular roles on One Day at a Time (1975). Nanette was also a popular game show personality during the '60s and '70s, appearing on The Hollywood Squares (Daytime) (1965), The New High Rollers (1974), Password (1961) and The Match Game (1962), among others. The singer-comedienne could be counted on for TV musical variety appearances courtesy of headliners Dinah Shore, Andy Williams, Dean Martin and Carol Burnett.
Most importantly, Nanette's humanitarian efforts over the years were long recognized. A positive force as a hearing-impaired performer, she gave much time and effort in achieving equality for all types of handicapped and disabled people, including actors. Nanette was the widow (since 1973) of writer and sometime director/producer Ranald MacDougall, appearing in a few of his credited works, including the film The Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970), the TV pilot Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966) and the TV-movie Magic Carpet (1972). She and MacDougall have one child. Still as lively as ever, Nanette appeared in a 2007 L.A. musical revue, "The Damsel Dialogues".
Nanette died on February 22, 2018, in Palos Verdes, California. She was 97.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Anne Francis got into show business quite early in life. She was born on September 16, 1930 in Ossining, New York (which is near Sing Sing prison), the only child of Phillip Ward Francis, a businessman/salesman, and the former Edith Albertson. A natural little beauty, she became a John Robert Powers model at age 6(!) and swiftly moved into radio soap work and television in New York. By age 11, she was making her stage debut on Broadway playing the child version of Gertrude Lawrence in the star's 1941 hit vehicle "Lady in the Dark". During this productive time, she attended New York's Professional Children's School.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer put the lovely, blue-eyed, wavy-blonde hopeful under contract during the post-war World War II years. While Anne appeared in a couple of obscure bobbysoxer bits, nothing much came of it. Frustrated at the standard cheesecake treatment she was receiving in Hollywood, the serious-minded actress trekked back to New York where she appeared to good notice on television's "Golden Age" drama and found some summer stock work on the sly ("My Sister Eileen").
Discovered and signed by 20th Century-Fox's Darryl F. Zanuck after playing a seductive, child-bearing juvenile delinquent in the low budget film So Young, So Bad (1950), Anne soon starred in a number of promising ingénue roles, including Elopement (1951), Lydia Bailey (1952), and Dreamboat (1952) but she still could not seem to rise above the starlet typecast. At MGM, she found promising leading lady work in a few noteworthy 1950s classics: Bad Day at Black Rock (1955); Blackboard Jungle (1955); and the science fiction cult classic Forbidden Planet (1956). While co-starring with Hollywood's hunkiest best, including Paul Newman, Dale Robertson, Glenn Ford and Cornel Wilde, her roles still emphasized more her glam appeal than her acting capabilities. In the 1960s, Anne began refocusing strongly on the smaller screen, finding a comfortable niche on television series. She found a most appreciative audience in two classic The Twilight Zone (1959) episodes and then as a self-sufficient, Emma Peel-like detective in Aaron Spelling's short-lived cult series Honey West (1965), where she combined glamour and a sexy veneer with judo throws, karate chops and trendy fashions. The role earned her a Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nomination.
The actress returned to films only on occasion, the most controversial being Funny Girl (1968), in which her co-starring role as Barbra Streisand's pal was heartlessly reduced to a glorified cameo. Her gratuitous co-star parts opposite some of filmdom's top comics' in their lesser vehicles -- Jerry Lewis' Hook, Line and Sinker (1969) and Don Knotts' The Love God? (1969) -- did little to show off her talents or upgrade her career. For the next couple of decades, Anne remained a welcome and steadfast presence in a slew of television movies (The Intruders (1970), Haunts of the Very Rich (1972), Little Mo (1978), A Masterpiece of Murder (1986)), usually providing colorful, wisecracking support. She billed herself as Anne Lloyd Francis on occasion in later years.
For such a promising start and with such amazing stamina and longevity, the girl with the sexy beauty mark probably deserved better. Yet in reflection, her output, especially in her character years, has been strong and varied, and her realistic take on the whole Hollywood industry quite balanced. Twice divorced with one daughter from her second marriage, Anne adopted (as a single mother) a girl back in 1970 in California. She has long been involved with a metaphysical-based church, channeling her own thoughts and feelings into the inspirational 1982 book "Voices from Home: An Inner Journey". Later, she has spent more time off-camera and involved in such charitable programs as "Direct Relief", "Angel View" and the "Desert AIDS Project", among others. Her health declined sharply in the final years. Diagnosed with lung cancer in 2007, the actress died on January 2, 2011, from complications of pancreatic cancer in a Santa Barbara (California) retirement home.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Florence Henderson was considered by protocol executive Jerold Franks, CSA to be "...one of the most generous stars I have ever worked with." Los Angeles, New York and all parts of the country, Florence has helped raise millions of dollars for various charitable organizations.
Jerold Franks, friend and confidante to actress Mary Martin as well as producer of Ms. Martin's Celebration of Life moved the date of the tribute at the Majestic Theatre in New York out of respect to Mary and Florence's personal friendship as well as having played the role of "Maria" for hundreds of performances. Any Mary Martin tribute can never not include Florence Henderson. I love her as a performer and very proud to call her a friend. Franks was introduced to her late and second husband, John Kappas. Franks' credits his friend Florence for introducing him to certified hypnotist John Kappas to deal with the death of Franks' only son.- Actress
- Music Department
- Producer
Lynda Jean Cordova Carter is an American actress, singer, and beauty pageant titleholder who was crowned Miss World USA 1972 and finished in the top 15 at the Miss World 1972 pageant. Carter is best known as the star of the live-action television series Wonder Woman, in the role of Diana Prince / Wonder Woman. The role was based on the DC comic book fictional superhero character of the same name, and aired on ABC and later on CBS from 1975 to 1979.- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Rocker Freddy Cannon was born in the Boston suburb of Swampscott, Massachusetts. His father, a truck driver, was also a semi-professional musician, getting gigs in the Boston area with local bands playing his trumpet and singing. Freddy taught himself to play guitar, and after graduating high school in 1955 got a job playing guitar on a record by a local group called the Spindrifts, "Cha-Cha-Do". The record became a regional hit, and Freddy began getting more studio work, including playing the lead guitar on The G-Clefs' record "Ka-Ding Dong", which went to #24 on the Billboard national charts. Although he took a full-time job as a truck driver to support his family--he had married and had children--he didn't give up his musical career, and eventually formed a group called Freddy Karmon and the Hurrcanes, which began to make a name for itself in the Boston area. His appearances on a Boston dance show led to his signing a management contract with a Boston DJ, and soon Freddy cut a demo record--written by his mother--called "Rock and Roll Baby". His manager took the demo to the well-respected producing team of Frank Slay and Bob Crewe (later of The Four Seasons fame). The pair saw possibilities in it, and after some tweaking they sent Freddy back into the studio to re-record the song, now called "Tallahassee Lassie". Philadelphia TV personality and record producer Dick Clark heard the song and, after suggesting some further tweaks to it, had Freddy re-record it and distributed the record on Swan Records, of which he was part-owner. The song's driving guitar solo, pounding bass drums and Cannon's shouts and cries of "Whoo!" made the song a major hit, hitting the #6 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959.
With his name now changed to Freddy Cannon--at the suggestion of the record company's president--and dubbed "Boom Boom" because of his unrestrained, boisterous style of singing, he finally achieved his dream of becoming a singing star. He had numerous appearances on Clark's American Bandstand (1952) show, and altogether he had 22 songs place on the Billboard Top 100 list over the years. His follow-up song, "Okeefeenokee", did disappointing business, only reaching #43, but his next song, "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", was one of his biggest hits, going gold and shooting to #3. He toured the US and Britain. He continued to have chart hits, although no blockbusters, until 1962, when he came out with his best-known song and his biggest hit, the Chuck Barris-written "Palisades Park", about a famous New Jersey amusement park.
He continued to tour and record but his career faded somewhat until 1965, when he recorded the song "Action", which was the theme song for the Dick Clark-produced TV series Where the Action Is (1965). He also appeared in a few movies, in such teen-themed vehicles as Just for Fun (1963) and Village of the Giants (1965).
He left Swan Records and signed with Warner Bros. Records, and after leaving them in 1967 he recorded for various labels. In the 1970s he was working for Buddah Records, both as a performer and promotions man. He kept busy with recording and touring in rock-n-roll revival shows, and in 1982 made an appearance in the H.B. Halicki film The Junkman (1982).
He lives in Tarzana, California (where he is honorary fire chief) and continues to tour.- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Tommy Newsom was born on 25 February 1929 in Portsmouth, Virginia, USA. He is known for Bad Santa (2003), Ted (2012) and Night of 100 Stars (1982). He was married to Patricia Hernansky. He died on 28 April 2007 in Portsmouth, Virginia, USA.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Linda Ronstadt was born on 15 July 1946 in Tucson, Arizona, USA. She is a music artist and actress, known for The Pirates of Penzance (1983), An American Tail (1986) and The Abyss (1989).- Actor
- Soundtrack
American character actor who specialized in none-too-bright pals of the lead, though his range included villains and ethnic types. A native of New York City, he began acting at 15. He studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse and played on Broadway with the Theatre Guild, and with the Provincetown Players. He came to Hollywood in the late Thirties and quickly became a fixture in films of all genres, primarily at Warner Bros. He was a frequent foil for James Cagney and played everything from comedies to dramas and musicals. In the 1960s, he achieved greater fame as the long-suffering neighbor Abner Kravitz on the hit TV show Bewitched (1964). He retired in 1972. He died of cancer a decade later.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ginger Rogers was born Virginia Katherine McMath in Independence, Missouri on July 16, 1911, the daughter of Lela E. Rogers (née Lela Emogene Owens) and William Eddins McMath. Her mother went to Independence to have Ginger away from her husband. She had a baby earlier in their marriage and he allowed the doctor to use forceps and the baby died. She was kidnapped by her father several times until her mother took him to court. Ginger's mother left her child in the care of her parents while she went in search of a job as a scriptwriter in Hollywood and later to New York City. Mrs. McMath found herself with an income good enough to where she could send for Ginger. Lelee became a Marine in 1918 and was in the publicity department and Ginger went back to her grandparents in Missouri. During this time her mother met John Rogers. After leaving the Marines they married in May, 1920 in Liberty, Missouri. He was transferred to Dallas and Ginger (who treated him as a father) went too. Ginger won a Charleston contest in 1925 (age 14) and a 4-week contract on the Interstate circuit. She also appeared in vaudeville acts which she did until she was 17 with her mother by her side to guide her. Now she had discovered true acting.
She married in March 1929, and after several months realized she had made a mistake. She acquired an agent and she did several short films. She went to New York where she appeared in the Broadway production of "Top Speed" which debuted Christmas Day, 1929. Her first film was in 1929 in A Night in a Dormitory (1930). It was a bit part, but it was a start. Later that year, Ginger appeared, briefly, in two more films, A Day of a Man of Affairs (1929) and Campus Sweethearts (1930). For awhile she did both movies and theatre. The following year she began to get better parts in films such as Office Blues (1930) and The Tip-Off (1931). But the movie that enamored her to the public was Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933). She did not have top billing, but her beauty and voice were enough to have the public want more. One song she popularized in the film was the now famous, "We're in the Money". Also in 1933, she was in 42nd Street (1933). She suggested using a monocle, and this also set her apart. In 1934, she starred with Dick Powell in Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934). It was a well-received film about the popularity of radio.
Ginger's real stardom occurred when she was teamed with Fred Astaire where they were one of the best cinematic couples ever to hit the silver screen. This is where she achieved real stardom. They were first paired in 1933's Flying Down to Rio (1933) and later in 1935's Roberta (1935) and Top Hat (1935). Ginger also appeared in some very good comedies such as Bachelor Mother (1939) and Fifth Avenue Girl (1939), both in 1939. Also that year, she appeared with Astaire in The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle (1939). The film made money but was not anywhere successful as they had hoped. After that, studio executives at RKO wanted Ginger to strike out on her own.
She made several dramatic pictures, but it was 1940's Kitty Foyle (1940) that allowed her to shine. Playing a young lady from the wrong side of the tracks, she played the lead role well, so well in fact, that she won an Academy Award for her portrayal. Ginger followed that project with the delightful comedy, Tom, Dick and Harry (1941) the following year. It's a story where she has to choose which of three men she wants to marry. Through the rest of the 1940s and early 1950s she continued to make movies but not near the caliber before World War II. After Oh, Men! Oh, Women! (1957) in 1957, Ginger didn't appear on the silver screen for seven years. By 1965, she had appeared for the last time in Harlow (1965). Afterward, she appeared on Broadway and other stage plays traveling in Europe, the U.S., and Canada. After 1984, she retired and wrote an autobiography in 1991 entitled, "Ginger, My Story".
On April 25, 1995, Ginger died of natural causes in Rancho Mirage, California. She was 83.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Olivia Newton-John was an English singer and actress who was born on September 26, 1948, in Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, UK. In 1954, her family relocated to Australia when her father was offered a job as the dean of a Presbyterian college in Melbourne. After winning a singing talent contest, she returned to England with her mother, where she resided until 1975. Her many hit singles include, "You're The One That I Want" from the movie Grease (1978), which she starred in with John Travolta. She appeared on the TV series, It's Cliff Richard (1970), as well as in the film Toomorrow (1970). For several years, she was engaged to Bruce Welch, a founding member of The Shadows, which included Cliff Richard. Welch was one of the producers of her first international hit, "If Not For You".- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Dick Gautier was born on 30 October 1931 in Culver City, California, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Transformers (1984), G.I. Joe (1985) and Get Smart (1965). He was married to Tess Hightower, Barbara Stuart and Beverly J. Gerber. He died on 13 January 2017 in Arcadia, California, USA.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
The entertainment world has enjoyed a six-decade love affair with comedienne/singer Carol Burnett. A peerless sketch performer and delightful, self-effacing personality who rightfully succeeded Lucille Ball as the carrot-topped "Queen of Television Comedy," it was Burnett's traumatic childhood that set the stage for her comedy.
Carol's rags-to-riches story started out in San Antonio, Texas, on April 26, 1933, where she was born to Ina Louise (Creighton) and Joseph Thomas "Jodie" Burnett, both of whom suffered from acute alcoholism. As a child, she was left in the care of a beloved grandmother, who shuttled the two of them off to Hollywood, California, where they lived in a boarding house and shared a great passion for the Golden Age of movies. The plaintive, loose-limbed, highly sensitive Carol survived her wallflower insecurities by grabbing attention as a cut-up at Hollywood High School. A natural talent, she attended the University of California and switched majors from journalism to theater. Scouting out comedy parts on TV and in the theater, she first had them rolling in the aisles in the mid-1950s performing a lovelorn novelty song called "I Made a Fool of Myself Over John Foster Dulles" (then Secretary of State) in a nightclub act. This led to night-time variety show appearances with Jack Paar and Ed Sullivan and where the career ball really started rolling.
Carol's first big TV breaks came at age 22 and 23 as a foil to a ventriloquist's dummy on the already-established The Paul Winchell Show (1950) in 1955, and as Buddy Hackett's gawky girlfriend on the short-lived sitcom Stanley (1956). She also developed an affinity for game shows and appeared as a regular on one of TV earliest, Stump the Stars (1947) in 1958. While TV would bring Carol fans by the millions, it was Broadway that set her on the road to stardom. She began as the woebegone Princess Winnifred in the 1959 Broadway musical "Once Upon a Mattress" which earned her first Tony Award nomination. [She would later appear in three TV adaptations - Once Upon a Mattress (1964), Once Upon a Mattress (1972) and Once Upon a Mattress (2005).] This, in turn, led to the first of an armful of Emmy Awards as a repertoire player on the popular variety series The Garry Moore Show (1958) in 1959. Burnett invented a number of scene-stealing characters during this time, most notably her charwoman character. With the phenomenal household success of the Moore show, she moved up quickly from second banana to headliner and appeared in a 1962 Emmy-winning special Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall (1962) co-starring close friend Julie Andrews. She earned the Outer Critics Circle Award for the short-lived musical "Fade Out, Fade In" (1964); and made her official film debut opposite Bewitched (1964) star Elizabeth Montgomery and Dean Martin in the lightweight comedy Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed? (1963).
Not surprisingly, fellow redhead Lucille Ball, who had been Carol's treasured idol growing up, subsequently became a friend and mentor to the rising funny girl. Hilarious as a guest star on The Lucy Show (1962), Carol appeared as a painfully shy (natch) wallflower type who suddenly blooms in jaw-dropping fashion. Ms. Ball was so convinced of Carol's talent that she offered Carol her own Desilu-produced sitcom, but Burnett had her heart set on fronting a variety show. With her own team of second bananas, including character crony Harvey Korman, handsome foil Lyle Waggoner, and lookalike "kid sister" type Vicki Lawrence, the The Carol Burnett Show (1967) became an instant sensation, and earned 22 Emmy Awards during its 11-year run. It allowed Carol to fire off her wide range of comedy and musical ammunition--whether running amok in broad sketch comedy, parodying movie icons such as Gloria Swanson, Shirley Temple, Vivien Leigh or Joan Crawford, or singing/gushing alongside favorite vocalists Jim Nabors, Steve Lawrence, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis Jr., Ella Fitzgerald and Mel Tormé. She managed to bring in huge stars not known at all for slapstick comedy, including Rock Hudson and even then-Governor Ronald Reagan while providing a platform for such up-and-coming talent as Bernadette Peters and The Pointer Sisters In between, Carol branched out with supporting turns in the films Pete 'n' Tillie (1972), The Front Page (1974) and Robert Altman's A Wedding (1978).
Her program, whose last episode aired in March of 1978, was the last truly successful major network variety show to date. Carol took on new challenges to display her unseen dramatic mettle, and accomplished this amazingly in TV-movie showcases. She earned an Emmy nomination for her gripping portrayal of anti-Vietnam War activist Peg Mullen in Friendly Fire (1979), and convincingly played a woman coming to terms with her alcoholism in Life of the Party: The Story of Beatrice (1982). Neither character bore any traces of the usual Burnett comedy shtick. Though she proved she could contain herself for films, Carol was never able to acquire crossover success into movies, despite trouper work in The Four Seasons (1981), Annie (1982) (as the hammy villainess Miss Hannigan), and Noises Off... (1992). The last two roles had been created onstage by Broadway's Dorothy Loudon.
Carol would return from time to time to the stage and concert forums with productions of "Plaza Suite", "I Do! I Do", "Follies", "Company" and "Putting It Together". A second Tony nomination came for her comedy work in "Moon Over Buffalo" in 1995. Carol has made frequent appearances on her own favorite TV shows too, such as Password (1961) (along with Elizabeth Montgomery, Carol was considered one of the show's best players) and the daytime soaper, All My Children (1970).
During the early 1990s, Carol attempted a TV comeback of sorts, with a couple of new variety formats in Carol & Company (1990) and The Carol Burnett Show (1991), but neither could recreate the magic of the original. She has appeared, sporadically, on various established shows such as "Magnum, P.I.," "Touched by an Angel," "Mad About You" (for which she won an Emmy), "Desperate Housewives," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (Emmy nomination), "Hawaii Five-0," "Glee" and "Hot in Cleveland." Befitting such a classy clown, she has received a multitude of awards over time, including the 2003 Kennedy Center Honors and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1985. Her personal life has been valiant--tears in between the laughs. Married three times, her second union with jazz-musician-turned-variety-show-producer Joe Hamilton produced three daughters. Eldest girl, Carrie Hamilton, an actress and former teen substance abuser, tragically died of lung and brain cancer at age 38. Shortly before Carrie's death, mother and daughter managed to write a play, together, entitled "Hollywood Arms", based on Carol's 1986 memoir, "One More Time". The show subsequently made it to Broadway.
Today, at age 80 plus, Carol has been seen less frequently but still continues to make appearances, especially on TV. Most recently she has guested on the shows "Glee," "Hot in Cleveland" and the revivals of "Hawaii Five-0" and "Mad About You." As always she signs off a live appearance with her signature ear tug (acknowledging her late grandmother), reminding us all, between the wisecracks and the songs, how glad and lucky we all are to still have some of "this time together".- Lacretta is known for Second Act (2018), Gotham (2014) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).
- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Forest Steven Whitaker has packaged a king-size talent into his hulking 6' 2", 220 lb. frame. He won an Academy Award for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the film The Last King of Scotland (2006), and has also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. He is the fourth African-American male to win an Academy Award for Best Actor, following in the footsteps of Sidney Poitier, Denzel Washington, and Jamie Foxx.
Whitaker was born on July 15, 1961 in Longview, Texas, to Laura Francis (Smith), a special education teacher, and Forest Steven Whitaker, an insurance salesman. His family moved to South Central Los Angeles in 1965. The athletically-inclined Whitaker initially found his way into college via a football scholarship. Later, however, he transferred to USC where he set his concentration on music and earned two more scholarships training as an operatic tenor. This, in turn, led to another scholarship at Berkeley with a renewed focus on acting and the performing stage.
Whitaker made his film debut at the age of 21 in the raucous comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) wherein he played, quite naturally, a footballer. He went on to play another sports-oriented student, a wrestler, in his second film Vision Quest (1985). He gained experience on TV as well with featured spots on such varied shows as Diff'rent Strokes (1978) and Cagney & Lacey (1981), not to mention the TV-movie Civil War epic North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and its sequel. The movie that truly put him on the map was The Color of Money (1986). His one big scene as a naive-looking pool player who out-hustles Paul Newman's Fast Eddie Felson was pure electricity. This led to more visible roles in the "A" class films Platoon (1986), Stakeout (1987), and Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), which culminated in his breakout lead portrayal of the tortured jazz icon 'Charlie "Bird" Parker' in Clint Eastwood's passion project Bird (1988), for which Whitaker won the Cannes Film Festival award for "best actor" and a Golden Globe nomination. Whitaker continued to work with a number of well-known directors throughout the 1990s.
While his "gentle giant" characters typically display innocence, indecision, and timidity along with a strong underlying humanity, he has certainly not shied away from the edgier, darker corners of life as his occasional hitmen and other menacing streetwise types can attest. Although in only the first section of the film, he was memorable as the IRA-captured British soldier whose bizarre relationship with a mysterious femme fatale serves as the catalyst for the critically-lauded drama The Crying Game (1992). Always a willing participant to push the envelope, he's gone on to enhance a number of lesser films. Among those was his plastic surgeon in Johnny Handsome (1989), gay clothing designer in Robert Altman's Ready to Wear (1994), alien hunter in Species (1995), absentee father confronted by his estranged son in Smoke (1995), and Mafia hitman who models himself after the samurai warrior in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), among many others. As would be expected, he's also had his share of epic-sized bombs, notoriously the L. Ron Hubbard sci-fi disaster Battlefield Earth (2000). On the TV front, he was the consulting producer and host of a revamped Rod Serling's cult series classic The Twilight Zone (2002), which lasted a disappointing one season.
In the early 1990s, Whitaker widened his horizons to include producing/directing and has since gained respect behind the camera as well. He started things off co-producing the violent gangster film A Rage in Harlem (1991), in which he co-starred with Gregory Hines and Robin Givens, and then made his successful directorial debut with the soulful Waiting to Exhale (1995), showcasing a legion of distaff black stars. He also directed co-star Whitney Houston's music video of the movie's theme song ("Shoop Shoop"). He also helmed the fluffy romantic comedy First Daughter (2004) with Katie Holmes and Michael Keaton. Whitaker also served as an executive producer on First Daughter. He had previously executive produced several made-for-television movies, most notably the 2002 Emmy-award winning Door to Door, starring William H. Macy. He produced these projects through his production company, Spirit Dance Entertainment, which he shut down in 2005 to concentrate on his acting career.
In 2002, he co-starred in Joel Schumacher's thriller, Phone Booth, with Kiefer Sutherland and Colin Farrell. That year, he also co-starred with Jodie Foster in Panic Room.
Whitaker's greatest success to date is the 2006 film, The Last King of Scotland. His performance earned him the 2007 Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, For that same role, he also received the Golden Globe Award, the Screen Actors Guild Award, a BAFTA Award, and many critical accolades. He has also received several other honors. In September 2006, the 10th Annual Hollywood Film Festival presented him with its "Hollywood Actor of the Year Award," He was also honored at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival 2007, receiving the American Riviera Award. Previously, in 2005, the Deauville Festival of American Film paid tribute to him. In 2007, Forest Whitaker won the Cinema for Peace Award 2007.
In 2007, Whitaker co-starred in The Great Debaters with fellow Oscar winner Denzel Washington, and in 2008, Whitaker played opposite Keanu Reeves in Street Kings and Dennis Quaid in Vantage Point.
In 2009, Forest co-starred in the Warner Bros. film "Where the Wild Things Are," directed by Spike Jonze, which was a mix of live-action, animation and puppetry as an adaptation of the Maurice Sendak classic children's book. Around the same time, he also starred n "Repossession Mambo", with Jude Law, "Hurricane Season", "Winged Creatures", and "Powder Blue". He appeared in the Olivier Dahan film "My Own Love Song", opposite Renée Zellweger, and was part of the Africa Movie Academy Awards in 2009, in Nigeria.
He is married to former model Keisha Whitaker and has three children by her. His younger brothers Kenn Whitaker and Damon Whitaker are both actors as well.
Forest was given a star on the Hollywood Walk in April of 2007. In November 2007, Whitaker was the creative mind behind DEWmocracy.com, a website that let people decide the next flavor of Mountain Dew in a "People's Dew" poll. He directed a short film and created the characters for the video game. Whitaker has done extensive humanitarian work, he has been involved with organizations like, Penny Lane, an organization that provides assistance to abused teenagers. PETA and Farm Sanctuary, organizations that protect animals' rights. Close friends with Neurosurgeon Dr. Keith Black, Forest has helped raise awareness and funds for Dr. Blacks research. During the last couple of years, he has become a spokesperson for Hope North Ugandan orphanage and Human Rights Watch. In the year 2001 Forest received a Humanitas Prize. He was recently honored by The City of Los Angeles with the Hope of Los Angeles Award. And his entire clan received the LA BEST Family Focus Award. Last year he joined forces with "Idol Gives Back" and "Malaria No More"; he has become a GQ Ambassador supporting and fundraising for Hope North. He was a Surrogate for Barack Obama's campaign supporting him across the United States.
Whitaker's multimedia company, Spirit Dance Entertainment, includes film, television and music production. He works closely with a number of charitable organizations, giving back to his community by serving as an Honorary Board Members for Penny Lane, an organization that provides assistance to abused teenagers, the Human Rights Watch and The Hope North organization.- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Versatile American arranger/conductor who started as a trombonist with several big bands, including Tommy Dorsey. In a long, distinguished career, he not only scored numerous films and television shows, but made many now-legendary recordings in collaboration with such people as Rosemary Clooney, Nat 'King' Cole, and, most notably, Frank Sinatra. With the latter, he recorded a series of albums now regarded as legendary ("Songs for Swingin' Lovers", "The Concert Sinatra", etc.). He recorded prolifically on his own, as well, scoring two top-ten hits with "Lisbon Antigua" (#1, 1956) and "Theme from 'Route 66'" (# 10, 1962). In his later years, he made a series of successful albums with pop diva Linda Ronstadt.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Leslie Uggams was born on 25 May 1943 in New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress, known for Deadpool (2016), Deadpool 2 (2018) and American Fiction (2023). She has been married to Grahame Pratt since 16 October 1965. They have two children.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Terri Sue "Tovah" Feldshuh is an American actress, singer, and playwright. She has been a Broadway star for more than four decades, earning four Tony Award nominations. She has also received two Emmy Award nominations for Holocaust and Law & Order, and appeared in such films as A Walk on the Moon, She's Funny That Way, and Kissing Jessica Stein. In 2015-2016, she played the role of Deanna Monroe on AMC's television adaptation of The Walking Dead.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Glynis Johns was the daughter of actor Mervyn Johns. Best known for her light comedy roles and often playful flirtation, Glynis was born in South Africa while her parents were on tour there (her mother was a concert pianist) but was always proud of her Welsh roots and took delight in playing the female lead (opposite Richard Burton) in the classic Under Milk Wood (1971). She was probably best known for her role as the suffragette mother in Mary Poppins (1964) although she is probably best loved for her fishy roles in Miranda (1948) and Mad About Men (1954). She had earlier showed she could take on the serious roles as well as in Frieda (1947). Most recently seen (at the time of writing) in Superstar (1999). Johns died in 2024, aged 100, having never received the damehood she had richly deserved for decades. Predeceased by her only son, she was survived by a grandson,Thomas Forwood, and three great-grandchildren.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her surname comes from her paternal grandfather, whose family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga, California.
After graduating from high school, where she fell prey to the acting bug, Olivia enrolled in Mills College in Oakland, where she participated in the school play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was spotted by Max Reinhardt. She so impressed Reinhardt that he picked her up for both his stage version and, later, the Warner Bros. film version in 1935. She again was so impressive that Warner executives signed her to a seven-year contract. No sooner had the ink dried on the contract than Olivia appeared in three more films: The Irish in Us (1935), Alibi Ike (1935), and Captain Blood (1935), this last with the man with whom her career would be most closely identified: heartthrob Errol Flynn. He and Olivia starred together in eight films during their careers. In 1939 Warner Bros. loaned her to David O. Selznick for the classic Gone with the Wind (1939). Playing sweet Melanie Hamilton, Olivia received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, only to lose out to one of her co-stars in the film, Hattie McDaniel.
After GWTW, Olivia returned to Warner Bros. and continued to churn out films. In 1941 she played Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which resulted in her second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Again she lost, this time to her sister Joan for her role in Suspicion (1941). After that strong showing, Olivia now demanded better, more substantial roles than the "sweet young thing" slot into which Warners had been fitting her. The studio responded by placing her on a six-month suspension, all of the studios at the time operating under the policy that players were nothing more than property to do with as they saw fit. As if that weren't bad enough, when her contract with Warners was up, she was told that she needed to make up the time lost because of the suspension. Irate, she sued the studio, and for the length of the court battle she didn't appear in a single film. The result, however, was worth it. In a landmark decision, the court said that not only would Olivia not need to make up the time, but also that all performers would be limited to a seven-year contract that would include any suspensions handed down. This became known as the "de Havilland decision": no longer could studios treat their performers as chattel. Olivia returned to the screen in 1946 and made up for lost time by appearing in four films, one of which finally won her the Oscar that had so long eluded her: To Each His Own (1946), in which she played Josephine Norris to the delight of critics and audiences alike. Olivia was the strongest performer in Hollywood for the balance of the 1940s.
In 1948 she turned in another strong showing in The Snake Pit (1948) as Virginia Cunningham, a woman suffering a mental breakdown. The end result was another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948). As in the two previous years, she made only one film in 1949, but she again won a nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Heiress (1949). After a three-year hiatus, Olivia returned to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952). From that point on, she made few appearances on the screen but was seen on Broadway and in some television shows. Her last screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979), and her last career appearance was in the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988).
Her turbulent relationship with her only sibling, Joan Fontaine, was press fodder for many decades; the two were reported as having been permanently estranged since their mother's death in 1975, when Joan claimed that she had not been invited to the memorial service, which she only managed to hold off until she could arrive by threatening to go public. Joan also wrote in her memoir that her elder sister had been physically, psychologically, and emotionally abusive when they were young. And the iconic photo of Joan with her hand outstretched to congratulate Olivia backstage after the latter's first Oscar win and Olivia ignoring it because she was peeved by a comment Joan had made about Olivia's new husband, Marcus Goodrich, remained part of Hollywood lore for many years.
Nonetheless, late in life, Fontaine gave an interview in which she serenely denied any and all claims of an estrangement from her sister. When a reporter asked Joan if she and Olivia were friends, she replied, "Of course!" The reporter responded that rumors to the contrary must have been sensationalism and she replied, "Oh, right--they have to. Two nice girls liking each other isn't copy." Asked if she and Olivia were in communication and spoke to each other, Joan replied "Absolutely." When asked if there ever had been a time when the two did not get along to the point where they wouldn't speak with one another, Joan replied, again, "Never. Never. There is not a word of truth about that." When asked why people believe it, she replied "Oh, I have no idea. It's just something to say ... Oh, it's terrible." When asked if she had seen Olivia over the years, she replied, "I've seen her in Paris. And she came to my apartment in New York often." The reporter stated that all this was a nice thing to hear. Joan then stated, "Let me just say, Olivia and I have never had a quarrel. We have never had any dissatisfaction. We have never had hard words. And all this is press." Joan died in 2013.
During the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of GWTW in 1989, Olivia graciously declined requests for all interviews as the last of the four main stars. She enjoyed a quiet retirement in Paris, France, where she resided for many decades, and where she died on 26 July, 2020, at the age of 104.
As well as being the last surviving major cast member of some of cinema's most beloved pre-war and wartime film classics (including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939)), and one of the longest-lived major stars in film history, Olivia de Havilland was unquestionably the last surviving iconic figure from the peak of Hollywood's golden era during the late 1930s, and her passing truly marked the end of an era.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Diane Lane was born on January 22, 1965, in New York. She is the daughter of acting coach Burton Eugene "Burt" Lane and nightclub singer/centerfold Colleen Farrington. Her parents' families were both from the state of Georgia. Diane was acting from a very young age and made her stage debut at the age of six. Her work in such acclaimed theater productions as "The Cherry Orchard" and "Medea" led to her being called to Hollywood. She was 13 when she was cast by director George Roy Hill in his wonderful 1979 film A Little Romance (1979), opposite Sir Laurence Olivier. The film only did so-so commercially, but Olivier praised his young co-star, calling her the new Grace Kelly. After her well-received debut, Diane found herself on magazine covers all over the world, including "Time", which declared her the "new young acting sensation". However, things quietened down a bit when she found herself in such critical and financial flops as Touched by Love (1980), Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1980), Movie Madness (1982), Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains (1982) and, most unmemorably, Six Pack (1982), all of which failed to set her career on fire.
She also made several TV movies during this period, but it was in 1983 that she finally began to fulfill the promise of stardom that had earlier been predicted for her. Acclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola took note of Diane's appeal and cast her in two "youth"-oriented films based on S.E. Hinton novels. Indeed, Rumble Fish (1983) and The Outsiders (1983) have become cult classics and resulted in her getting a loyal fan base. The industry was now taking notice of Diane Lane, and she soon secured lead roles in three big-budget studio epics. She turned down the first, Splash (1983) (which was a surprise hit for Daryl Hannah). Unfortunately, the other two were critical and box-office bombs: Walter Hill's glossy rock 'n' roll fable Streets of Fire (1984) was not the huge summer success that many had thought it would be, and the massively troubled Coppola epic The Cotton Club (1984) co-starring Richard Gere was also a high-profile flop. The back-to-back failure of both of these films could have ended her career there and then -- but thankfully it didn't. Possibly "burned out" by the lambasting these films received and unhappy with the direction her career was taking, she "retired" from the film business at age 19, saying that she had forgotten what she had started acting for. She stayed away from the screen for the next three years. Ironically, the two films that were the main causes of her "retirement" have since grown in popularity, and "Streets of Fire" especially seems to have found the kind of audience it couldn't get when it was first released.
The process of rebuilding her career was a slow and gradual one. First came the obscure and very sexy straight-to-video thriller Lady Beware (1987), followed by the critically acclaimed but little seen The Big Town (1987) with Matt Dillon and Tommy Lee Jones. In the former, Diane plays a very mysterious and sexy stripper and her memorable strip sequence is a highlight of the film. Despite her sexy new on-screen image, it wasn't until 1989's smash hit TV mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989) that Diane made another big impression on a sizable audience. Her performance in the hugely popular and critically acclaimed western epic as a vulnerable "whore with a heart" won her an Emmy nomination and much praise. Film producers were interested in her again. Another well-received TV production, Descending Angel (1990), was followed by smaller roles in major films like Richard Attenborough's Chaplin (1992) and Mike Binder's Indian Summer (1993), and larger parts in small independent films like My New Gun (1992), Vital Signs (1990) and Knight Moves (1992). Indeed, the latter two films co-starred her then-husband, Christopher Lambert, with whom she had a daughter named Eleanor.
Diane was now re-established in Hollywood and started to appear in higher-profile co-starring roles in some big-budget, major movies like Walter Hill's Wild Bill (1995), the Sylvester Stallone actioner Judge Dredd (1995), the Robin Williams's comedy Jack (1996) and Murder at 1600 (1997) co-starring Wesley Snipes. However, all of these still did not quite make Diane a "big-name star" and, by 1997, she found herself, possibly by choice, back in smaller, personal projects.
Her next role as a frustrated 1960s housewife in the independent hit A Walk on the Moon (1999) deservedly won her rave notices and, at last, gave her career the big lift it needed. The cute but tear-jerking comedy My Dog Skip (2000) also proved to be a small-scale success. However, it was the £330-million worldwide grossing blockbuster hit The Perfect Storm (2000) that finally made Diane Lane the household name that she always should have been.
After the worldwide success of "The Perfect Storm", she was more in demand than ever. She played Leelee Sobieski's sinister junkie guardian in the slick thriller The Glass House (2001), and co-starred with Keanu Reeves in the #1 smash hit Hardball (2001). However, her greatest career moment was still to come with her lead role in the enormous critical and commercial hit Unfaithful (2002), in which she superbly portrayed Richard Gere's adulterous wife. Her performance won the respect of critics and audiences alike, as well as many awards and nominations including Best Actress Oscar and Golden Globe nominations.
Her follow-up films including Under the Tuscan Sun (2003), Must Love Dogs (2005), Hollywoodland (2006), Secretariat (2010), and the blockbuster, Man of Steel (2013), were all received and her performances were highly praised. She won further Best Actress Golden Globe nominations for her roles in Under the Tuscan Sun (2003) and Cinema Verite (2011).
She is very well regarded within the industry, adored by film fans, and has a credibility and quality that is all too rare today. Her immense talent at playing human and real characters, her "drop dead gorgeous" beauty and down-to-earth grittiness guarantees that she will stay on top, and she guarantee has already shown the kind of resilience that will keep her working for a long, long time.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Dan Blocker is one of the true television immortals, having played Hoss Cartwright -- the heart and soul of Bonanza (1959) -- for 13 seasons, before his untimely death in 1972 at the age of 43. "Bonanza" was the most popular TV series of the 1960s, ranked #1 for three straight seasons (1964-65 through 1966-67) and spending a then-unprecedented nine seasons in the Top 5. After Blocker's death, "Bonanza" -- still in the Top 20 with Hoss after being #8 the previous year -- didn't last another entire season.
The character of Hoss was conceived as a stereotype: The Gentle Giant. The 6'4", 300 lbs. Blocker filled Hoss's cowboy boots and ten-gallon hat admirably but brought something extra to the role, a warmth and empathy that helped ground the show. Personal accounts of Blocker testify to the fact that the man was gregarious and friendly to everyone. He brought that upbeat personality to the character of Hoss.
Hoss originally had been conceived as dull-witted, but ironically, Blocker's professional acting career was assured after he moved his family to California so he could pursue a PhD at U.C.L.A. A native of West Texas, he reportedly was discovered while making a call in a phone booth while outfitted in Western garb, including a straw cowboy hat, his standard dress being a native son of Texas, soon after arriving in California. Even after being cast in "Bonanza", he intended to complete his PhD, but the great success of the series made that impossible, due to the workload of 30+ episodes per year necessitating a 7AM-9PM work schedule five days a week.
Donny Dany Blocker made his debut on December 10, 1928 in De Kalb, Texas, weighing in at 14 lbs. He reportedly was the biggest baby ever born in Bowie County. By the age of 12, he already was 6' tall and weighed 200 lbs. (Towards the end of "Bonanza", he reportedly had ballooned past his stated weight of 300 to as much as 365 lbs.) A "TV Guide" story after his death reported that back in Texas, the young Dan once lifted a car off of a man after it slid off a jack and pinned him under the auto. "My daddy used to say that I was too big to ride and too little to hitch a wagon to," Blocker said, "no good for a damn thing".
His father, Ora Blocker, a poor Texas farmer, was hurt by the Great Depression that began the year after Dan's birth. Ora Blocker lost the farm and later went into the grocery business. He moved his family to O'Donnell, which is just south of Lubbock, where he ran a grocery store. His "no good" son went to the Texas Military Institute, and in 1946 started his undergraduate work at Hardin-Simmons University (Abilene, Texas), where he played football. It was there he fell in love with acting when he was recruited by a girlfriend to play a role in campus production of Arsenic and Old Lace as they needed a strong man to lift the bodies that the spinster aunts had dispatched up from the cellar.
After graduating in 1950 with a degree in English, Blocker went east where he did repertory work in Boston. A 1960 "TV Guide" article says that he appeared on Broadway in the 1950-51 production of King Lear, which starred Louis Calhern. The draft soon ended his apprenticeship, and he served in the Army in the Korean War, making sergeant. After being demobilized in 1952, he attended attended Sul Ross State Teacher's College (Alpine, Texas), earning a master's degree in dramatic arts. He taught English and drama at a Sonora, Texas high school before moving to Carlsbad, New Mexico, where he taught sixth grade. He then moved his family to California, where he again taught school while preparing for his PhD studies.
Blocker picked up bit parts in television, making his debut as a bartender in The Sheriff of Cochise (1956). His career rise was steady and rapid, and he appeared on many Westerns, including Gunsmoke (1955), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), The Rifleman (1958), and Maverick (1957). He claimed his turn as Hognose Hughes on "Maverick", the comic Western starring James Garner, was the seminal role of his career. As Hoss, Blocker would often star in light-hearted episodes on "Bonanza". He was cast in the recurring role of "Tiny" Carl Budinger in the short lived Western series, Cimarron City (1958). Its cancellation after one season made him available for "Bonanza", which was "Cimarron City" creator David Dortort's next project. He had previously appeared on Dortort's Western series, The Restless Gun (1957).
"Bonanza" debuted in September 1959, shot in color, and R.C.A. made color TV sets and saw the program as a good advertisement for its wares. The company sponsored the first two seasons of the show, and the sponsorship and R.C.A.'s ownership of N.B.C. was likely why it wasn't cancelled after its shaky first season, when it placed #45 in the ratings for the 1959-60 season. The following year, it cracked the top 20 at #17, but it wasn't until it was shifted to Sundays at 9PM in the 1961-62 season that it became a ratings phenomenon, coming in at #2. It was the first of nine straight seasons in the top 5. Once "Bonanza" was ensconced as America's favorite Western, Blocker and his three co-stars, Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts and Michael Landon were paid an extremely handsome salary that eventually rose to approximately $10,000 per episode each by the time Roberts quit after the sixth season, its first at #1.
Commenting on Roberts' departure, Landon said, "After he left we took one leaf out of the dining room table and we all made more money because we split the take three ways instead of four." Salary, royalties from Bonanza-related merchandise, and business ventures (Blocker started the Bonanza Steak House chain in 1963), and an eventual $1-million payout from NBC to buy out the residual rights of each of the three remaining stars made them all rich. "Bonanza" made Blocker a very wealthy man, but more importantly, it made him a television immortal. The series continues to be re-run in syndication 40 years after Hoss exited the stage.- Producer
- Music Department
- Production Manager
David Blocker was born on 4 May 1955 in the USA. He is a producer and production manager, known for Frailty (2001), Into the Wild (2007) and Choose Me (1984). He is married to Debra Dusay. They have one child.- Music Artist
- Composer
- Actor
Born on October 13, 1941, in Newark New Jersey, Paul Simon is one of the greatest singer/songwriters ever. In 1957, he and high school pal, Art Garfunkel, wrote and recorded the single, "Hey Schoolgirl", under the name "Tom and Jerry". After some failures, they broke up. Simon still wrote and recorded music as "Tico and The Triumphs" and "Jerry Landis". He also attended Queens College and got a B.A. in English. He also studied law but quit to pursue a music career in 1964.
He and Art Garfunkel got back together as Simon & Garfunkel and recorded "Wednesday Morning 3 a.m.". After the commercial failure of the album, they broke up again. Simon left America to go to England, where he played in folk circuits and he made a solo album. Back in America, the producer of their first album, Tom Wilson, dubbed bass, electric guitar, and drums to the all-acoustic song, "Sound of Silence", which propelled them into the folk-rock scene. Simon & Garfunkel were back and, in 1966, they had popularity with the album, "The Sound of Silence", which features songs such as "I am a Rock", "Richard Cory" and "Kathy's Song". Their next album, "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme", had songs such as "Homeward Bound" "The 59th Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)".
In 1967, Mike Nichols asked Simon to write a score for his upcoming movie, The Graduate (1967). Their next album, "Bookends", which is considered one of the greatest albums of the sixties, featured songs such as "Mrs. Robinson" from The Graduate (1967), "Hazy Shade of Winter", "At The Zoo", "America". Their last album, "Bridge Over Troubled Water", featured songs such as the title song, "The Boxer", "Cecilia".
In the seventies, Simon emerged as a singer/songwriter with albums such as "Paul Simon", Still Crazy After All These Years", "Hearts and Bones", "Graceland", and "Songs from the Capeman". Aside from music, he wrote and starred in the movie, One-Trick Pony (1980), and reunited with friend, Art Garfunkel, in 1981, to give a concert in Central Park.- Actress
- Soundtrack
A very pleasing and thoroughly enjoyable vision on 1950s film and 1960s TV, Patricia Crowley effortlessly lit up her surroundings with a warm, inviting personality and fresh-faced attractiveness that she still carries today. At her peak she courted top TV stardom in the mid-'60s as the beleaguered wife and mom on the successful series Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1965) and easily made the original Doris Day film role her own. Both she and TV husband Mark Miller made a handsome couple and the series deserved more than its two-season run. Perhaps audience taste, which was changing rapidly with the counterculture era taking over, triggered its somewhat quick demise.
Born September 17, 1933 (some sources incorrectly list 1929), in Olyphant, Pennsylvania, to Vincent, a coal mining foreman, and Helen (Swartz) Crowley, it was her older sister Ann Crowley (born October 17, 1929) who triggered Pat's interest in performing when, during Ann's appearance in a Chicago musical production, the ten-year-old Pat was given a walk-on part. Ann Crowley would go on to have a promising musical career appearing in such late 40s/early 50s N.Y. shows as "Carousel", "Oklahoma!" and "Paint Your Wagon". By age 11, Patricia had become a photographer's model and subsequently attended New York's High School of Performing Arts. She won her first major TV part scarcely out of high school and seemed destined to become an important teen star as the bobbysoxer lead in the Saturday morning TV series A Date with Judy (1951), which was adapted from the highly popular radio series of the 1940s. When the series moved to prime time, however, another actress replaced her.
Like her sister, Patricia was also musically inclined and appeared in a few tuneful stage shows such as "Tovarich" and "Kiss Me Kate" (as Bianca). Billed as "Pat Crowley", she made an auspicious Broadway debut with the relatively short-lived comedy play "Southern Exposure" in 1950, earning the 1951 Theatre World Award for "promising personality". She followed this with another short run (one day) in the comedy "Four Twelves Are 48".
After a number of early 1950s TV assignments, Pat was brought out to Hollywood to co-star with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in one of the pair's typical slapstick outings Money from Home (1953). In it, she played a feisty lady veterinarian. She then moved engagingly into the show business comedy Forever Female (1953) co-starring William Holden and Ginger Rogers. As the young aspirant who is vying with the long-in-the-tooth Rogers for a prime Broadway ingénue role, Pat made the most of her role and earned a Golden Globe award for "best promising female newcomer". From there, she played the second female lead in the musical Red Garters (1954) but crooning headliners Rosemary Clooney and Guy Mitchell got most of the songs. Pat did have a dance number, however, opposite Mitchell with the tune "Meet a Happy Guy".
While much of her work came from dramatic TV showcases, Pat continued in movie roles co-starring as the girlfriend of Tony Curtis in the boxing yarn The Square Jungle (1955), appearing as the female ingénue in the sudsy drama There's Always Tomorrow (1956) opposite veterans Barbara Stanwyck, Fred MacMurray and Joan Bennett, and reuniting with Martin & Lewis in their very last film Hollywood or Bust (1956) before the pair's professional breakup.
When her film career started to lose steam in the late 50s (she did appear to good effect, however, with Jeffrey Hunter in the crime drama Key Witness (1960) as a couple terrorized by gang leader Dennis Hopper), Pat found steadier work on TV and guested on many of the popular shows of the day both drama Bonanza (1959), Cheyenne (1955), The Twilight Zone (1959), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964)) and the occasional comedy (The Tab Hunter Show (1960)). It was in the sitcom vein that Pat achieved her biggest success when she was cast as "Joan Nash", the nontraditional, harried wife/columnist of an English professor whose four precocious sons and huge sheep dog added greatly to the mayhem in Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1965). Based on the best-selling Jean Kerr book, it was a role that suited Pat (now billed Patricia) to a tee and made her a household name at the time.
Since then, Patricia has continued to maintain a strong visibility especially on TV, although she was not given the star-making opportunities like this again. Crowley is best known to a later generation of viewers for her regular roles on daytime's Generations (1989) (1989-1990), Port Charles (1997) (1997-2003) and The Bold and the Beautiful (1987) (2005). A guest on such sitcoms as Frasier (1993), Roseanne (1988) and Friends (1994), recurring roles on Joe Forrester (1975) (perfectly paired with Lloyd Bridges), Dynasty (1981) and Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) also showed Pat to good advantage. More recently, she has graced episodes of "The Closer" and "Cold Case" and a featured role in the film Mont Reve (2012).
In 1958 Patricia married Ed Hookstratten, a successful attorney for top entertainment and sports icons. They had a son, Jon, and a daughter, Ann, named after her sister. After their two-decade marriage ended, she went on to marry producer Andy Friendly in 1986. While many understandably agree that Patricia Crowley's talents deserved perhaps a better serving in Hollywood, particularly on film, she has nevertheless proved herself a lovely, lively and still ingratiating presence.- Actress
- Soundtrack
She was a groovy and sexy icon of the late hippie era. To millions of TV viewers she became familiar as the reformed juvenile delinquent, turned undercover cop, Julie Barnes. With her expressive brown eyes and trademark long blonde hair, sylphlike Peggy Lipton was one third of a streetwise urban trio who - at least to baby boomers in the 60s - represented a more anti-authoritarian point of view. As a police drama with a difference, Mod Squad (1968) was a counterculture trend-setter which addressed previously neglected (or taboo) issues such as the Vietnam War, child abuse, police brutality, racism and drugs. Along with Star Trek (1966), I Spy (1965), Mannix (1967) and Mission: Impossible (1966), it was also among the first shows to feature an interracial cast.
Peggy Lipton was born into a well-to-do upper middle-class family of Russian-Jewish ancestry. Her father was a corporate lawyer, her mother an artist. Her upbringing was strict, her childhood lonely. According to her co-authored autobiography "Breathing Out", she was abused by an uncle. An introverted child of self-confessed 'morbid and gloomy' disposition, she became prone to a debilitating nervous stutter which began to disappear when she left home and struck out on her own at the age of 15. With her dad's assistance she obtained her first job as a model for the Eileen Ford agency in New York. Her mother then prompted her to take drama classes with Uta Hagen at the Herbert Berghof studio in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. At age 19, Lipton got her first gigs on TV, mostly small guest spots, albeit in popular cult shows like Bewitched (1964), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) and The Invaders (1967). She also co-starred (opposite a very young Kurt Russell) in Disney's Mosby's Marauders (1967), set during the Civil War. In between acting, Lipton enjoyed a brief, but moderately successful, singing career. Three of her singles made it to the Billboard charts. At the same time, her private life was punctuated by unhappy or abusive romantic dalliances and experimentation with drugs, including cocaine and peyote.
In 1968, Lipton's career as a TV star was properly inaugurated with Mod Squad. Success led to four Emmy nominations and a Golden Globe Award in 1971. Four years into the show she was asked by an interviewer whether she was bored with her character. She replied: "Creatively I'm bored, yes, but I'm certainly not bored with the success of it, not at all. I know what I'm doing isn't 'Medea,' or even necessarily very good TV, but it's exciting to be famous".
Fame might have been exciting, but there was a flipside. After five years of Mod Squad ("we were always working"), she was burnt out. Uncomfortable with attention from the press, Lipton became more and more withdrawn and insecure. Her subsequent marriage to music legend Quincy Jones (1974-1989) settled her down to raising a family but also led to a lengthy hiatus from acting. However, in 1988, somewhat rehabilitated from a miasma of personal problems, she made her screen comeback and a year later co-starred opposite Charles Bronson in the tough action thriller Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects (1989). Her most high profile role during the following years was that of Norma Jennings, proprietor of the Double R Diner, in David Lynch's bizarre supernatural drama Twin Peaks (1990) (a role she reprised in a later cinematic prequel, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992), as well as in the 2017 re-launch). Other sporadic appearances included a role as an antagonist in J.J. Abrams's spy series Alias (2001).
Peggy Lipton was diagnosed with cancer in 2004. The disease eventually claimed her life on May 11 2019 at the age of 72. She left two daughters from her marriage to Quincy Jones, Rashida and Kidada, who have also become actresses.- Actress
- Composer
- Music Department
Lesley Gore was born Lesley Sue Goldstein in Brooklyn, New York City, to Ronny and Leo Goldstein, a manufacturer of children's clothes and swimwear. Her family was Jewish. She grew up in Tenafly, New Jersey. Gore hit the music scene at 17 years of age in 1963 with the teen anthem "It's My Party". Born in Brooklyn (Kings County), New York, she was discovered at a party by legendary producer Quincy Jones, who signed her to Mercury Records and produced "It's My Party". More hits followed: "Judy's Turn to Cry", "She's a Fool", "That's the Way Boys Are", and the surprisingly (for the times) feminist-oriented "You Don't Own Me". She branched out from recording and began appearing on stage in summer stock, and putting in appearances in movies and television shows (including one on the TV series Batman (1966), which just happened to be produced by her uncle Howie Horwitz). In 1981, she was nominated for an Academy Award with her brother Michael Gore, for Best Song for the film Fame (1980). "Out Here on My Own" was bested for the award by another song from the same film - the theme song, written by her brother and Dean Pitchford In her later life, she toured and recorded in addition to appearing in summer stock productions. Gore died at the age of 68.- Music Department
- Composer
- Producer
Michael Gore was born on 5 March 1951 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He is a composer and producer, known for Pretty in Pink (1986), Fame (1980) and Footloose (1984).- Actor
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
Eddie Mekka was born on 14 June 1952 in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Laverne & Shirley (1976), Dreamgirls (2006) and A League of Their Own (1992). He was married to Yvonne Marie Grace and DeLee Lively. He died on 27 November 2021 in Santa Clarita, California, USA.- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
The middle of seven children, she was named, not for the heroine of "As You Like It" but for the S.S. Rosalind on which her parents had sailed, at the suggestion of her father, a successful lawyer.
After receiving a Catholic school education, she went to the American Academy of Dramatic Art in New York, having convinced her mother that she intended to teach acting. In 1934, with some stock company work and a little Broadway experience, she was tested and signed by Universal. Simultaneously, MGM tested her and made her a better offer. When she plead ignorance of Hollywood (while wearing her worst-fitting clothes), Universal released her and she signed with MGM for seven years.
For some time she was used in secondary roles and as a replacement threat to limit Myrna Loy's salary demands. Knowing she was right for comedy, she tested five times for the role of Sylvia Fowler in The Women (1939). George Cukor told her to "play her as a freak". She did and got the part. Her "boss lady" roles began with the part of reporter Hildy Johnson in His Girl Friday (1940), through whose male lead, Cary Grant, she met her future husband, Grant's house-guest at the time.
In her forties, she returned to the stage, touring "Bell, Book and Candle" in 1951 and winning a Tony Award for "Wonderful Town" in 1953. Columbia, worried the public would think she had the female lead in Picnic (1955), billed her "co-starring Rosalind Russell as Rosemary." She refused to be placed in the Best Supporting Actress category when Columbia Pictures wanted to promote her for an Academy Award nomination for her role in Picnic (1955). Many felt she would have won had she cooperated. "Auntie Mame" kept her on Broadway for two years followed by the movie version.
Oscar nominations: My Sister Eileen (1942), Sister Kenny (1946), Mourning Becomes Electra (1947), and Auntie Mame (1958). In 1972, she received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award for contributions to charity.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Hannah Waddingham was born in 1974, in Wandsworth, London. Her family was involved in performing arts as her mother, Melodie Kelly, and both her maternal grandparents were opera singers.
She is best known for her contribution to West End musical theatre, particularly her performances in the original London production of "Spamalot" as the Lady of the Lake and as Desiree Armfelt in Trevor Nunn's acclaimed revival of "A Little Night Music", roles that earned her two Olivier Award nomination.
In October 2000, she released the single "Our Kind of Love", billed simply as Hannah, in the UK Singles Chart where it peaked at No. 41.
In 2008, she made her film debut as Elizabeth Maddox in How to Lose Friends & Alienate People (2008). Her other film credits include Into the Woods (2011), Les Misérables (2012), Winter Ridge (2018) and The Hustle (2019).
In 2015, Waddingham joined the cast of the fifth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) as Septa Unella. Hannah appeared in Sex Education (2019) as Sofia Marchetti. In 2020, she gained international recognition for her acclaimed portrayal of Rebecca Welton in the Apple+ comedy series Ted Lasso (2020), for which she won Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the 2021 Critics Choice Awards.
In 2014, Hannah welcomed her first child, a daughter. Hannah has since split up with the father.- Actress
- Soundtrack
The lovely, cheery, continuously upbeat All-American mom from the classic Happy Days (1974) TV sitcom had fervent desires of becoming an actress while growing up in her obscure Minnesota town. Born Marian Ross (with an "a") on October 25, 1928, she grew up in her native state and, at one time, worked as a teenage au pair in order to earn money for drama lessons at the MacPhail Center in Minneapolis. The family eventually relocated to San Diego (she was in her late teens) and Marion attended and graduated from Point Loma High School.
Changing her stage moniker to Marion (with an "o") Ross because it read classier to her, the young hopeful enrolled at San Diego State College and appeared in the theater department's various productions. Graduating in 1950, Marion worked in summer theater in and around the San Diego area, including the Old Globe Theatre.
Marion managed to land a Paramount Studio contract with the assist of an old college professor and found a few unbilled parts to play as various actress, tourist and girlfriend types in a variety of films such as The Glenn Miller Story (1954), Secret of the Incas (1954), Sabrina (1954) and Pushover (1954). At the same time, she won a regular role as the Irish maid "Nora" in the Victorian-TV comedy Life with Father (1953) which ran a couple of seasons and was headed by Leon Ames and Lurene Tuttle. This program happened to be the first live color series for network Hollywood TV.
Not your conventional leading lady type, Marion landed slightly larger parts in such movies as The Proud and Profane (1956), Lizzie (1957), Teacher's Pet (1958) and Operation Petticoat (1959), but any and all attempts to move further up the Hollywood film ladder proved a long-lasting frustration.
Marking her Broadway debut in 1958 with a role in "Edwin Booth" starring José Ferrer, Marion nevertheless continued to focus on TV work. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared in a fairly steady amount of shows, both comedies and dramas, including Father Knows Best (1954), Rawhide (1959), Route 66 (1960), The Outer Limits (1963), The Felony Squad (1966) and The Brady Bunch (1969).
By the end of the decade, however, Marion was still disillusioned, but now she was divorced from her husband of 18 years, Freeman Meskimen, and struggling to raise two children. Middle-aged stardom came to her (in her 46th year) with the nostalgic sitcom series Happy Days (1974), which arrived on a wave of 50s popularity triggered by the huge box-office reception to the film American Graffiti (1973). The show starred "Graffiti" lead Ron Howard and co-starred Henry Winkler as "The Fonz". Marion was ideally paired with Tom Bosley, who expertly played her beleaguered hubby. The series became a certifiable hit and Marion's ever-pleasant "Marion Cunningham" the new, slightly blended version of Lucille Ball's ditzy and Barbara Billingsley's pristine perfect moms. Two Emmy nominations came Marion's way during the show's long tenure (ten seasons).
Following the demise of such an exalting hit, many actors often find themselves either resting on their laurels or witnessing a sad decline in their career. Not Marion. She continued to pursue her career assertively and challengingly and the critics kept taking notice. She earned terrific reviews for her recurring The Love Boat (1977) role in 1986, and enjoyed standard guest turns on Night Court (1984), MacGyver (1985), Burke's Law (1963) and (the revived) "Superman".
One of Marion's finest hours on TV occurred with her role as the obstinate, iron-willed Jewish matriarch in the Brooklyn Bridge (1991) series, which neatly deflected any broad, daffy stereotype she might have incurred from her Happy Days (1974) role. Irritating yet ingratiating at the same time, Marion's fine interpretation garnered the veteran actress two more Emmy nominations. Sadly, a lack of viewership triggered an abrupt cancellation and deep disappointment in Marion.
While never making a strong dent in films, an excellent supporting turn for Marion came in the form of her moving portrayal of Shirley MacLaine's loyal housekeeper and confidante in The Evening Star (1996), the long-awaited sequel to the Oscar-winning Terms of Endearment (1983). Critics predicted an Academy Award nomination for the actress but, surprisingly, it did not pan out.
Other films over the years have included Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970); Grand Theft Auto (1977), which starred Happy Days (1974) son Ron Howard (who also made his directorial debut); and, more recently, Music Within (2007) and the silly spoof Superhero Movie (2008).
During her post-"Happy Days" years, Marion reinvigorated her career on the stage. As a result, she earned renewed acclaim and respect for her roles in "Arsenic and Old Lace" (which brought her back to Broadway), "Steel Magnolias", "Long Day's Journey Into Night", "The Glass Menagerie", "Pippin" and "Barefoot in the Park", among others. She also toured with her one-woman show as poet Edna St. Vincent Millay entitled "A Lovely Light".
On TV, Marion found recurring flinty-like roles on That '70s Show (1998) (as Grandma Forman), Touched by an Angel (1994) (a fifth Emmy nomination), The Drew Carey Show (1995), Gilmore Girls (2000) (as Gloria Gilmore), and Brothers & Sisters (2006), as well as guest parts on "Nurse Jackie," "Grey's Anatomy," "Anger Management," "Two and a Half Men," "Hot in Cleveland," "Chasing Life" and "The Odd Couple." Primarily involved in voice work into the millennium, she as provided voices for such animated shows as "Family Guy," "King of the Hill," "Scooby-Doo!" and "Guardians of the Galaxy," while also voicing the recurring roles of Grandma SquarePants in SpongeBob SquarePants (1999) and Mrs. Lopart in Handy Manny (2006).
Into her nonagenarian years and still active, Marion was more recently featured in the old-fashioned comedy/fantasy Angels on Tap (2018). The ever-vital octogenarian continues to reside at her country-style home she calls the "Happy Days Farm" in California's San Fernando Valley.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Entrancing, gorgeous Lesley Ann Warren started gearing towards a life in show business right off the bat as a young ballerina who trained at the School of American Ballet at the age of 14. Little did she know that Hollywood stardom would arrive on her doorstep in the form of a "Cinderella" story.
The New York-born actress (August 16, 1946) is the daughter of a night club singer, Margot Warren (née Verblow), and real estate agent, William Warren. Her mother had earlier given up her own entertainment career for marriage and family. Growing up, Lesley attended the Professional Children's School at the age of 6 and High School of Music & Art as a young teenager. At age 17, she studied under Lee Strasberg at his Actors Studio, the youngest student to ever be accepted at the time.
Looking for on-camera work, the teenager appeared unbilled as Shelley Winters's young daughter in the melodrama The Chapman Report (1962) and was given a bit in the daytime TV show "The Doctors." The slender, young hopeful gathered early musical stage experience in such shows as "Bye Bye Birdie" (as swooning teen Kim McAfee), then made an auspicious Broadway debut in "110 in the Shade", the 1963 musical version of "The Rainmaker," and won Broadway's "Most Promising Newcomer" Award. She subsequently received the Theatre World Award for her lead work as a "cat burglar" opposite Elliott Gould in the very short-lived (8 performances) musical "Drat! The Cat!" in 1965.
The attention Lesley received from this brief stage venture, however, led to her capturing the beguiling title role in the Richard Rodgers/Oscar Hammerstein II TV musical production of Cinderella (1965) with Stuart Damon as her Prince and a glittering, all-star cast in support. The Walt Disney people immediate signed the exquisite "Cinderella" to a fresh-faced ingénue contract. Co-starring in the moderately-received musical showcases The Happiest Millionaire (1967) and The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), Lesley became convinced that she needed to quickly nip the saccharine stereotype in the bud if she was to grow and sustain as an adult actress.
Rebelling against her studio-imposed image, Lesley left Disney determined to pursue roles with more depth, drama and character. Changing her name temporarily to "Lesley Warren" to reinforce her more mature goal, she was hired in 1970 to replace Barbara Bain in the long-running espionage series Mission: Impossible (1966) when Bain left over contractual issues. Audiences were quite cool in their reception to the "new and improved" Lesley and didn't buy her as a femme-fatale replacement for the cool and aloof Ms. Bain.
After only one season, Lesley realized her mission to grow was impossible (in spite of an encouraging Golden Globe nomination) and left the show, seeking greener pastures in the TV mini-movie market. She displayed a wide range of vulnerable neurotics as well as sexier ladies that began to alter her pristine image. Such 1970s material included the plane crash adventure Seven in Darkness (1969) as one of several blind survivors; the love drama Love Hate Love (1971) co-starring Ryan O'Neal; a failed pilot in the title role of Cat Ballou (1971); a mild western as one of The Daughters of Joshua Cabe (1972); the exotic "silent star" biopic The Legend of Valentino (1975); the rags-to-riches story Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (1977), for which she won a Golden Globe award; the epic WWII story Pearl (1978); and the social melodramas Betrayal (1978) and Portrait of a Stripper (1979). Lesley also impressed with her starring roles in the Civil War miniseries Beulah Land (1980) and as a Polish-Jewish immigrant in Evergreen (1985). On stage, she ambitiously attempted to recreate Scarlett O'Hara opposite Pernell Roberts's Rhett Butler in a 1973 Broadway-bound musical version of "Gone with the Wind: The Musical." The show quickly died on the West Coast before ever reaching New York.
In the early 1980s, Lesley's movie career resurrected itself with a priceless performance as kingpin James Garner's whiny-voiced, peroxide-blonde spitfire Norma Cassidy in the slapstick musical Victor/Victoria (1982). Earning both Oscar and Golden Globe nominations, this delightful, scene-stealing turn was followed by a couple of other quality offbeat films that were directed by Alan Rudolph -- Choose Me (1984) and Songwriter (1984). Warren went on to receive a Golden Globe nomination supporting Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson in the former, and a People's Choice Award for the latter. She continued to attempt to spread her wings as a worldly "cougar" type opposite young blond and boyish Christopher Atkins in the critically-panned drama A Night in Heaven (1983). She also played Miss Scarlet in the movie version of the board game Clue (1985).
Award-worthy TV roles for Lesley with a Golden Globe performance as a successful madam in the miniseries Harold Robbins' 79 Park Avenue (1977). She also received Emmy and Golden Globe noms as the conflicted wife of a naval officer turned Russian double agent (Powers Boothe) in Family of Spies (1990), as well as for her Cable Ace nom for her work as a barmaid who aspires to be a country-western singer in Baja Oklahoma (1988). In 1997, she returned to Broadway with the musical revue "Dream" co-starring Margaret Whiting, which focused on classic "Golden Age" standards.
Entering her sixth decade of acting, Lesley remains highly active well into the millennium with often high-maintenance roles in such films as the Losing Grace (2001), Secretary (2002), My Tiny Universe (2004), When Do We Eat? (2005), The Shore (2006), Stiffs (2010), I Am Michael (2015), The Sphere and the Labyrinth (2015) and 3 Days with Dad (2019). Among her later TV credits are "Touched by an Angel," "The Practice," "Less Than Perfect," "American Princess," and a recurring role as an overly dependent mom named Jinx in the mystery crime series In Plain Sight (2008). Her dim, riotous Norma Cassady role had TV often pitching her as a scatter-brained comedienne, as in her recurring TV guest parts on Will & Grace (1998) and Desperate Housewives (2004).
Lesley has a son, actor/producer Christopher Peters, from her 1967-'73 marriage to makeup artist/hair stylist-cum-film producer Jon Peters. Since 2000, she has been married to advertising exec and sometime actor Ron Taft, a former vice-president at Columbia.- Actress
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Audrey Hepburn was born as Audrey Kathleen Ruston on May 4, 1929 in Ixelles, Brussels, Belgium. Her mother, Baroness Ella Van Heemstra, was a Dutch noblewoman, while her father, Joseph Victor Anthony Ruston, was born in Úzice, Bohemia, to English and Austrian parents.
After her parents' divorce, Audrey went to London with her mother where she went to a private girls school. Later, when her mother moved back to the Netherlands, she attended private schools as well. While she vacationed with her mother in Arnhem, Netherlands, Hitler's army took over the town. It was here that she fell on hard times during the Nazi occupation. Audrey suffered from depression and malnutrition.
After the liberation, she went to a ballet school in London on a scholarship and later began a modeling career. As a model, she was graceful and, it seemed, she had found her niche in life--until the film producers came calling. In 1948, after being spotted modeling by a producer, she was signed to a bit part in the European film Nederlands in zeven lessen (1948). Later, she had a speaking role in the 1951 film, Young Wives' Tale (1951) as Eve Lester. The part still wasn't much, so she headed to America to try her luck there. Audrey gained immediate prominence in the US with her role in Roman Holiday (1953). This film turned out to be a smashing success, and she won an Oscar as Best Actress.
On September 25, 1954, she married actor Mel Ferrer. She also starred in Sabrina (1954), for which she received another Academy Award nomination. She starred in the films Funny Face (1957) and Love in the Afternoon (1957). She received yet another Academy Award nomination for her role in The Nun's Story (1959). On July 17, 1960, she gave birth to her first son, Sean Hepburn Ferrer.
Audrey reached the pinnacle of her career when she played Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), for which she received another Oscar nomination. She scored commercial success again playing Regina Lampert in the espionage caper Charade (1963). One of Audrey's most radiant roles was in the fine production of My Fair Lady (1964). After a couple of other movies, most notably Two for the Road (1967), she hit pay dirt and another nomination in Wait Until Dark (1967).
In 1967, Audrey decided to retire from acting while she was on top. She divorced from Mel Ferrer in 1968. On January 19, 1969, she married Dr. Andrea Dotti. On February 8, 1970, she gave birth to her second son, Luca Dotti in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland. From time to time, she would appear on the silver screen.
In 1988, she became a special ambassador to the United Nations UNICEF fund helping children in Latin America and Africa, a position she retained until 1993. She was named to People's magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world. Her last film was Always (1989).
Audrey Hepburn died, aged 63, on January 20, 1993 in Tolochnaz, Vaud, Switzerland, from appendicular cancer. She had made a total of 31 high quality movies. Her elegance and style will always be remembered in film history as evidenced by her being named in Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time".- Actor
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Bandleader who had several big instrumental hits in 1960s with his band, Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass. First big hit was "The Lonely Bull" in 1963. He and the Brass followed that with other big hits like "Tijuana Taxi", "Spanish Flea" (familiar to some as "the Dating Game song"), "A Taste of Honey", and "Zorba the Greek". It wasn't until he decided to try a vocal that he finally hit #1 on the Billboard charts with "This Guy's in Love With You" in 1968. After the breakup of the Tijuana Brass, Alpert was out of the public eye until his comeback album, Rise, hit the charts in 1979. That album produced his first instrumental #1, "Rise". After several mediocre attempts after that, Alpert laid low and then resurfaced in 1987 with a more modern jazz/funk sound with "Keep Your Eye on Me".- Actor
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A Corsicana native, Rex (Clifford) Ingram was the son of Mack and Mamie Ingram. He graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in medicine before launching a brilliant acting career which spanned 50 years. Ingram made his screen debut during the silent era in Tarzan of the Apes (1918). He won widespread acclaim for his portrayal of De Lawd in The Green Pastures (1936), Ingram also appeared on the Broadway stage and in television productions, bringing skill and dignity to every performance. Actor probably best remembered for his portrayal of Jim, the fugitive slave, opposite Mickey Rooney in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1939). He died September 19, 1969 and was buried in California.- Composer
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Burt Bacharach was a well known and multi award winning singer and song writer.
Over 1,000 different artists have recorded Bacharach's songs. From 1961 to 1972, most of Bacharach and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to 1963) saw the composing duo work with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach wrote hits for singers such as Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, and B.J. Thomas. Bacharach wrote 73 U.S. and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He worked on many sound tracks including the smash hit, "Beware of the Blob" for the version of The Blob (1958) starring Steve McQueen.
He was married four times, lastly to Jane Hansen from 1993 until his death. They had two children. He also had two other children.- Music Department
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Dionne Warwick was born on 12 December 1940 in East Orange, New Jersey, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for Alive (1993), The Happytime Murders (2018) and Bird Box (2018). She was previously married to William Elliott.- Music Department
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Lani Hall was born on 1 November 1945 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She is an actress, known for Never Say Never Again (1983), Lani Hall: Never Say Never Again (1983) and Things Behind the Sun (2001). She has been married to Herb Alpert since 15 December 1974. They have one child.- Actor
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Steve Franken was born on 27 May 1932 in Queens, New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Westworld (1973), The Party (1968) and The Time Travelers (1964). He was married to Jean Garrett and Julia Elizabeth Carter. He died on 24 August 2012 in Canoga Park, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Composer
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A composer, conductor, pianist and entertainer, Richard W. "Dick" LaSalle was educated at the University of Colorado. He wrote for radio in Denver, Colorado, and performed in area hotels as a pianist and orchestra leader between 1940 and 1955. He joined the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1958.- Music Artist
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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.- Actress
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Shelley Winters was born Shirley Schrift of very humble beginnings on August 18, 1920 (some sources list 1922) in East St. Louis, Illinois. Her mother, Rose Winter, was born in Missouri, to Austrian Jewish parents, and her father, Jonas Schrift, was an Austrian Jewish immigrant. She had one sibling, a sister, Blanche. Her father moved the family to Brooklyn when she was still young so that he, a tailor's cutter, could find steadier work closer to the city's garment industry. An unfailing interest in acting began quite early for Shelley, and she appeared in high school plays. By her mid- to late teens she had already been employed as a Woolworth's store clerk, model, borscht belt vaudevillian and nightclub chorine, all in order to pay for her acting classes. During a nationwide search in 1939 for GWTW's Scarlett O'Hara, Shelley was advised by auditioning director George Cukor to get acting lessons, which she did. Apprenticing in summer stock, she made her Broadway debut in the short-lived comedy "The Night Before Christmas" in 1941 and followed it with the operetta "Rosalinda" (1942) initially billing herself in both shows as Shelley Winter (without the "s").
Within a short time, Shelley pushed ahead for a career out west. Hollywood proved to be a tough road. Toiling in bit roles for years, many of her scenes were excised altogether during her early days. Obscurely used in such movies as What a Woman! (1943), The Racket Man (1944), Cover Girl (1944) and Tonight and Every Night (1945), her breakthrough did not occur until 1947, and it happened on both the stage and big screen. Not only did she win the replacement role of Ado Annie Carnes in "Oklahoma!" on Broadway but, around the same time, scored excellent notices on film as the party girl waitress who ends up a victim of deranged strangler (and Oscar winner) Ronald Colman in the critically-hailed A Double Life (1947) directed by Cukor. From this moment, she achieved a somewhat earthy film stardom, playing second-lead broads who often met untimely ends (as in Cry of the City (1948) and The Great Gatsby (1949)), or tawdry-black-stockinged and feather-boa-adorned leads, as in South Sea Sinner (1950) in which her eclectic co-stars included Macdonald Carey and Liberace!
As a tarnished glamour girl and symbol of working-class vulgarity in Hollywood, Shelley was about to be written off in pictures altogether when one of her finest movie roles arrived on her front porch. Her best hard luck girl storyboard showed up in the form of depressed, frumpy-looking Alice Tripp, a factory girl seduced and abandoned by wanderlust Montgomery Clift in A Place in the Sun (1951). Favoring gorgeous society girl Elizabeth Taylor who is totally out of his league, Clift is subsequently blackmailed by Winters' pathetic (and now pregnant) character into marrying her. For her desperate efforts, she is purposely drowned by Clift after he tips their canoe. The role, which garnered Shelley her first Oscar nomination, finally plucked her out of the sordid starlet pool she was treading and into the ranks of serious femme star contenders. But not for long.
Winters just couldn't escape the lurid bottle-blonde quality she instilled in her characters. During what should have been her peak time in films were a host of badly-scripted "B" films. The obvious, two-dimensional chorines, barflies, floozies and gold diggers she played in Behave Yourself! (1951), Frenchie (1950), Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), Playgirl (1954), and also Mambo (1954), in which co-starred second husband Vittorio Gassman, pretty much said it all. She grew extremely disenchanted and decided to return to dramatic study. Earning membership into the famed Actors' Studio, she went to Broadway and earned kudos, thereby reestablishing her reputation as a strong actress with the drug-themed play "A Hatful of Rain" (1955). Co-starring in the show was the up-and-coming Anthony Franciosa, who became her third husband in 1957. Her renewed dedication to pursuing quality work was shown by her appearances in a number of heavyweight theater roles including Blanche in "A Streetcar Named Desire" (1955). In later years, the Actors' Studio enthusiast became one of its most respected coaches, shaping up a number of today's fine talents with the Strasberg "method" technique.
By the late 1950s, she had started growing in girth and wisely eased into colorful character supports. The switch paid off. After a sterling performance as the ill-fated wife of sadistic killer Robert Mitchum in Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955), she scored big in the Oscar department when she won "Best Supporting Actress" for the shrill and hypertensive but doomed Mrs. Van Daan in The Diary of Anne Frank (1959). From this period sprouted a host of revoltingly bad mamas, blowsy matrons, and trashy madams in such film fare as Lolita (1962), The Chapman Report (1962), The Balcony (1963) Wives and Lovers (1963), and A House Is Not a Home (1964). She topped things off as the abusive prostitute mom in A Patch of Blue (1965) who was not above pimping her own blind daughter (the late Elizabeth Hartman) for household money. The actress managed to place a second Oscar on her mantle for this riveting support work.
With advancing age and increasing size, she found a comfortable niche in the harping Jewish wife/mother category with loud, flashy, unsubtle roles in Enter Laughing (1967), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) and, most notably, The Poseidon Adventure (1972). She earned another Oscar nomination for "Poseidon" while portraying her third drowning victim. At around the same time, she scored quite well as the indomitable Marx Brothers' mama in "Minnie's Boys" on Broadway in 1970.
In the 1970s and 1980s, she developed into an oddly-distracted personality on TV, making countless talk show appearances and becoming quite the raconteur and incessant name dropper with her juicy Hollywood behind-the-scenes tales. Candid would be an understatement when she published two scintillating tell-all autobiographies that reached the bestsellers list. "Shelley, Also Known as Shirley" (1981) and "Shelley II: The Middle of My Century" (1989) detailed dalliances with Errol Flynn, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando, William Holden, Sean Connery and Clark Gable, to name just a few.
Thrice divorced (her first husband was a WWII captain; her only child, Vittoria, was the daughter of her second husband, Gassman), she remained footloose and fancy free after finally breaking it off with the volatile Franciosa in 1960. Her stormy marriages and notorious affairs, not to mention her ambitious forays into politics and feminist causes, kept her name alive for decades. She worked in films until the beginning of the millennium, her last film being the easily-dismissed Italian feature La bomba (1999). She enjoyed Emmy-winning TV work and had the recurring role of Roseanne Barr's tell-it-like-it-is grandmother on the comedienne's self-named sitcom. Her last years were marred by failing health and, for the most part, she was confined to a wheelchair. Suffering a heart attack in October of 2005, she died in a Beverly Hills nursing home of heart failure on January 14, 2006.
It was reported that only hours earlier on her deathbed she had entered into a "spiritual" union with her longtime companion of 19 years, Gerry McFord; a relationship of which her daughter disapproved. Gregarious, brazen, ambitious and completely unpredictable -- that would be Shelley Winters, the storyteller, whose amazing career lasted over six colorful decades.- Music Artist
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On Saturday, June 15th, 1996, an era in jazz singing came to an end, with the death of Ella Fitzgerald at her home in California. She was the last of four great female jazz singers (including Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, and Carmen McRae) who defined one of the most prolific eras in jazz vocal style. Ella had extraordinary vocal skills from the time she was a teenager, and joined the Chick Webb Orchestra in 1935 when she was 16 years old. With an output of more than 200 albums, she was at her sophisticated best with the songs of Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, of George Gershwin, and of Cole Porter. Her 13 Grammy awards are more than any other jazz performer, and she won the Best Female Vocalist award three years in a row. Completely at home with up-tempo songs, her scat singing placed her jazz vocals with the finest jazz instrumentalists, and it was this magnificent voice that she brought to her film appearances. Her last few years, during which she had a bout with congestive heart failure and suffered bilateral amputation of her legs from complications of diabetes, were spent in seclusion.- Actor
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Don Pardo was born on 22 February 1918 in Westfield, Massachusetts, USA. He was an actor, known for Radio Days (1987), Stay Tuned (1992) and 'Weird Al' Yankovic: The Ultimate Video Collection (2003). He was married to Catherine Anne (Kay) Lyons. He died on 18 August 2014 in Tucson, Arizona, USA.- Actor
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Adam West was born William West Anderson on September 19, 1928 in Walla Walla, Washington, to parents Otto West Anderson, a farmer, and his wife Audrey V. (Speer), an opera singer. At age 10, in 1938, West had a cache of comic books; and starting in 1939, Batman, who appeared in Detective Comics, made a big impression on him--the comic hero was part bat-man (a la Count Dracula) and part world's greatest detective (a la Charlie Chan and Sherlock Holmes). When his mother remarried to a Dr. Paul Flothow, she took West and his younger brother, John, to Seattle. At age 14, West attended Lakeside School, then went to Whitman College, where he got a degree in literature and psychology. During his last year of college, he married 17-year-old Billie Lou Yeager.
West got a job as a disc jockey at a local radio station, then enrolled at Stanford for post-grad courses. Drafted into the army, he spent the next two years starting military television stations, first at San Luis Obispo, California, then at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Afterwards, West and his wife toured Europe, visiting Germany, Switzerland and Italy's Isle of Capri. When the money ran out, he joined a childhood and college buddy, Carl Hebenstreit, who was starring in the kiddie program "The Kini Popo Show" in Hawaii. West would eventually replace Carl but not the other star, Peaches the Chimp. In 1956, he got a divorce and married a beautiful girl, originally from Tahiti, named Ngatokoruaimatauaia Frisbie Dawson (he called her "Nga" for short). They had a daughter, Jonelle (born 1957), and a son, Hunter (born 1958). In 1959, West came to Hollywood. He adopted the stage name "Adam West", which fit his roles, as he was in some westerns.
After seven years in Tinseltown, he achieved fame in his signature role as Bruce Wayne / Batman, on the wildly popular ABC-TV series Batman (1966) (though he has over 60 movie and over 80 television guest appearance credits, "Batman" is what the fans remember him for). The series, which lasted three seasons, made him not just nationally but internationally famous. The movie version, Batman: The Movie (1966), earned West the "Most Promising New Star" award in 1967. The downside was that the "Batman" fame was partly responsible for ruining his marriage, and he was typecast and almost unemployable for a while after the series ended (he did nothing but personal appearances for two years).
In 1970, he met and then married Marcelle Tagand Lear, and picked up two stepchildren, Moya and Jill. In addition, they had two children of their own: Nina West in 1976 and Perrin in 1979. You can't keep a good actor down--West's career took off again, and he appeared in 50 projects after that: movies, television movies and sometimes doing voices on television series. West wrote his autobiography, "Back to the Batcave" (1994). One of his most prized possessions was a drawing of Batman by Bob Kane with the inscription "To my buddy, Adam, who breathed life into my pen and ink creation". Beginning in 2000, West made guest appearances on the animated series Family Guy (1999), on which he played Mayor Adam West, the lunatic mayor of Quahog, Rhode Island.
On June 9, 2017, Adam West died at age 88 after a brief battle with leukemia in Los Angeles, California. On June 15, 2017, Los Angeles shone the bat-signal on City Hall, and Walla Walla shone the bat-signal on the Whitman Tower, both as a tribute to West.- Actor
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Dancing and the military were a large part of Ken Berry's life. When he was 13 he attended a carnival at his grade school; the dancers impressed him so much that he decided that's what he wanted to do with his life. His parents were supportive, and his dad even booked Ken into variety type shows. At 16 Ken got to join the Horace Heidt Youth Opportunity Program. Ken toured towns all across the nation, and through the Air Force the troupe entertained in Germany, Ireland, England, UK and several other countries. Later, while serving in the army, Ken won a spot in Arlene Francis' Talent Patrol (1953) show. Ken also got into the All-Army talent contest and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) (aka "The Ed Sullivan Show"). When Ken's army hitch was up in 1955, he took the advice of his sergeant in Atlanta, Leonard Nimoy, to move to California. In 1957 Ken enrolled in a school, Falcon Studios, on the GI Bill to study acting. He got a job at the Cabaret Theater for $11 a week (that is not a typo). From 1958 to 1964 he was with the "Billy Barnes Revue." Lucille Ball came to see the revue, and offered Ken a job at Desilu Studios for $50 a week. It was also through the Barnes Revue that Ken met dancer Jackie Joseph; they were married on May 29, 1960. Ken made the transition to TV, and the couple adopted a son, John Kenneth, in 1964, and a daughter, Jennifer Kate, in 1965. A successful screen test led to his breakout role in the classic sitcom F Troop (1965). Ken was the bashful, bumbling but good-hearted captain who was always resisting Wrangler Jane's advances (but why?). Though the show was only on for two seasons, it seems like a lot longer because of reruns. After "F Troop", toward the very end of the next TV season, Ken landed the role of a lifetime--taking over for Andy Griffith in the retooled Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). The show was a hit with Ken in the lead and was still popular when it was canceled in the spring of 1971, when CBS axed all rural-oriented programming, a devastating blow personally and professionally to Ken. After "Mayberry"'s end, he appeared in an unsold The Brady Bunch (1969) spin-off pilot.
When work in TV got slow, Ken went on the road again, doing summer and winter stock. He kept hoping for a new series, and he got his wish with Mama's Family (1983). Since he played a married man in this series, he did not resist the advances of on-screen wife Dorothy Lyman (in fact, he seemed to be making up for lost time). The series aired for two seasons, then was canceled. Ken went back to doing theater productions. However, when "Mama's Family" was sold into syndication, more new episodes were going to be needed. From 1986 to 1990 it was a top-rated sitcom. Ken was about ready to retire - almost. He continued to get occasional TV roles, and tried theater again for a while (in 1993 he starred with Carol Burnett in the stage production of "From the Top"). Early in 1999 Ken ventured back into television with a guest spot. He enjoyed it. Old soldiers and entertainers never die - they just go into syndication.- Actress
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A New York stage actress in the 1950s, McClanahan was plucked from the stage by Norman Lear for roles on All in the Family (1971) and later Maude (1972). For two years (1982 - 1984), she played "Aunt Fran" on Mama's Family (1983) until her character was killed off and she joined the cast of The Golden Girls (1985), in which she hit her comedic stride as a sharp tongued oversexed Southern belle.- Music Artist
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José Feliciano was born on 10 September 1945 in Lares, Puerto Rico. He is a music artist and composer, known for Moulin Rouge! (2001), Fargo (1996) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978). He has been married to Susan Omillian since 2 August 1982. They have three children. He was previously married to Hilda Perez.- Actress
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Nicolette Larson was born on 17 July 1952 in Helena, Montana, USA. She was an actress, known for Twins (1988), They Call Me Renegade (1987) and The Personals (1982). She was married to Russ Kunkel. She died on 16 December 1997 in Los Angeles, California, USA.