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John Cazale was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to an Irish-American mother, Cecilia (Holland), and an Italian-American father, John Cazale. Cazale made only five feature films in his career, which fans and critics alike call classics. But before his film debut, in the short The American Way (1962), he won Obie Awards for his off-Broadway performances in "The Indian Wants the Bronx" and "The Line".
Cazale scored the role of Fredo Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), after his long-time friend, Al Pacino, invited him to audition. He reprised his role as the troubled Fredo in The Godfather Part II (1974), where his character endures one of the most infamous movie moments in the history of cinema.
Cazale also starred with Gene Hackman and Harrison Ford in the thriller, The Conversation (1974), as Hackman's assistant, Stan. The Godfather's director, Francis Ford Coppola, also directed the movie.
Cazale's fourth feature film, Dog Day Afternoon (1975), earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Sal, a bank robber. His long-time friend and Godfather costar, Al Pacino, played his partner, Sonny.
His final film, The Deer Hunter (1978), was filmed whilst he was ill with cancer. He was in a relationship with his costar, Meryl Streep, whilst filming The Deer Hunter (1978), whom he met when they both appeared in the New York Public Theater's 1976 production of Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.
Controversy occurred during the filming. While the studio was unaware of his condition, the director, Michael Cimino, knew about it. As Cazale was evidently weak, he was forced to film his scenes first. When the studio discovered he was suffering from cancer, they wanted him removed from the film. His costar and girlfriend, Meryl Streep, threatened to quit if he was fired. He died shortly after filming was completed.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Robert Archibald Shaw was born on August 9, 1927, in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England, the eldest son of Doreen Nora (Avery), a nurse, and Thomas Archibald Shaw, a doctor. His paternal grandfather was Scottish, from Argyll. Shaw's mother, who was born in Piggs Peak, Swaziland, met his father while she was a nurse at a hospital in Truro, Cornwall. His father was an alcoholic and a manic depressive; he committed suicide when Robert was only 12. He had three sisters--Elisabeth, Joanna and Wendy--and one brother, Alexander.
As a boy, he attended school in Truro and was quite an athlete, competing in rugby, squash and track events but turned down an offer for a scholarship at 17 to go to London, with further education in Cambridge, as he did not want a career in medicine but, luckily for the rest of us, in acting. He was also inspired by one of the schoolmasters, Cyril Wilkes, who got him to read just about everything, including all of the classics. Wilkes would take three or four of the boys to London to see plays. The first play Robert would ever see was "Hamlet" in 1944 with Sir John Gielgud at the Haymarket. Robert went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts with a £1,000 inheritance from his grandmother. He went on from the Academy, after two years (1946-1948) to Stratford-on-Avon, where he was directed by Gielgud, who said to Shaw, "I do admire you and think you've got a lot of ability, and I'd like to help you, but you make me so nervous." He then went on to make his professional stage debut in 1949 and tour Australia in the same year with the Old Vic.
He had joined the Old Vic at the invitation of Tyrone Guthrie, who had directed him as the Duke of Suffolk in "Henry VIII" at Stratford. He played nothing but lesser Shakespearean roles, Cassio in "Othello" and Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and toured Europe and South Africa with the company. Shaw was sold on Shakespeare and thought that it would be his theatrical life at that stage. He was discovered while performing in "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1950 at Stratford by Sir Alec Guinness, who suggested he come to London to do Hamlet with him. He then went on to his first film role, a very small part in the classic The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) with Guinness but a start nonetheless. It was also at this time that he married his first wife, Jennifer Bourne, an actress he had met while working at the Old Vic, and married her in Sallsbury, South Rhodesia, on August 1, 1952. Together they would have four daughters: Deborah, Penny, Rachel and Katherine.
He would also appear briefly in The Dam Busters (1955) and did the London production of "Tiger at the Gates" in June 1955 as Topman. He would also make "Hill in Korea" around that time and then, after taking on several jobs as a struggling actor and to support his growing family, he would be cast as Dan Tempest in The Buccaneers (1956). Shaw did not take his role seriously but made £10,000 for eight months' work. It was around that time that he wrote his first novel, "The Hiding Place." It was a success, selling 12,000 copies in England and about the same in France and in the United States. He also wrote a dramatization of it that was produced on commercial television in England, and Playhouse 90 (1956) aired a different dramatization in America. Around 1959, he became involved with well-known actress Mary Ure, who was married to actor John Osborne at the time. He slipped her his telephone number one night at 3 a.m. while visiting the couple, and she called him the next day. It was around then, in 1960, that Robert Shaw became a reporter for England's Queen magazine and covered the Olympics in Rome. Shaw and Ure acted together in Middleton's The Changeling at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1961. He was playing the part of an ugly servant in love with the mistress of the house, who persuades him to murder her fiance. Shaw and Ure had a child on August 31 even though they were still married to their other spouses. His wife, Jennifer, and Ure had children of his only weeks apart from each other. Ure divorced Osborne and married Shaw in April 1963. The couple was often quoted by the press as being "very much in love," and they would have four children together: Colin, Elizabeth, Hannah and Ian. That same year, after making the next two films, The Valiant (1962) and The Guest (1963), he made From Russia with Love (1963) and was unforgettable as blond assassin, Donald 'Red' Grant.
He also made Tomorrow at Ten (1963), as well as a TV version of Hamlet as Claudius. He would then film The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964) with Ure and then star in Battle of the Bulge (1965) as German Panzer commander Hessler. He wrote "The Flag" on the set of the film. He was nominated for his next role, as Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons (1966), an outstanding, unequal lead performance. He would write his fourth novel "The Man in the Glass Booth," which was later made into a play with Donald Pleasence and later into a film with Maximilian Schell. In 1967, he again starred with his wife in Custer of the West (1967) and went on to The Birthday Party (1969) and Battle of Britain (1969). One of his best performances of this decade was also as Spanish conqueror Pizarro in The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969). His last published novel, "A Card from Morocco," was also a big success and he went on to make Figures in a Landscape (1970) with Malcolm McDowell as two escaped convicts in a Latin American country. As the father of Churchill in Young Winston (1972), he was once again his brilliant self, stealing the scene from John Mills, Patrick Magee, Anthony Hopkins and Ian Holm. After his portrayal of Lord Randolph Churchill, he made A Reflection of Fear (1972), a horror movie with Ure, Sondra Locke and Sally Kellerman. As chauffeur Steven Ledbetter in The Hireling (1973), he falls in love with Sarah Miles, an aristocratic widow he helps recover from a nervous breakdown. The film took the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was quite a thought-provoking film.
It was his performances in the following two films--USA-produced The Sting (1973) and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)--that Shaw became familiar once again to American audiences, but it was his portrayal as a grizzled Irish shark hunter named Quint, in Jaws (1975), that everyone remembers--even to this day. Hard to believe that Shaw wasn't that impressed with the script and even confided to a friend, Hector Elizondo: "They want me to do a movie about this big fish. I don't know if I should do it or not." When Elizondo asked why Shaw had reservations, Shaw said he'd never heard of the director and didn't like the title, "JAWS." It's also incredible that as the biggest box office film at the time, which was the first to gross more than $100 million worldwide and that he had ever been part of, he didn't make a cent from it because of the taxes he had to pay from working in the United States, Canada and Ireland. It was also during that time that he became a depressed recluse following the death of his wife, who had taken an accidental overdose of barbiturates and alcohol. Some have speculated throughout the years that her death was suicidal, but there was no evidence of that, and so it is mere sensationalism. Following Diamonds (1975), he made End of the Game (1975) and then delivered another brilliant performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin and Marian (1976). During the same year, he also made Swashbuckler (1976) with Geneviève Bujold and James Earl Jones, a very lighthearted pirate adventure.
His next film, Black Sunday (1977), with Shaw playing an Israeli counterterrorist agent trying to stop a terrorist organization called Black September, which is plotting an attack at the Super Bowl, was a big success both with critics and at the box office. I wasn't surprised, considering the depth to which he was also involved in writing the script, although he didn't receive billing for it. Shaw was very happy with the success of his acting career but remained a depressed recluse in his personal life until he finished Black Sunday (1977), when he found himself in love with his secretary of 15 years, Virginia Dewitt Jansen (Jay). They were wed on July 29, 1976, in Hamilton, Bermuda. He adopted her son, Charles, and the couple also had one son, Thomas. During his stay in Bermuda, Shaw began work on his next movie, The Deep (1977), which teamed him and writer Peter Benchley once again, which may have been a mistake in that everyone expected another Jaws (1975). At one point, discussing how bad the film was going, Shaw could be quoted as saying to Nick Nolte, "It's a treasure picture Nick; it's a treasure picture." It did well at the box office but not with critics, although they did hail Shaw as the saving grace. He had done it for the money, as he was to do with his next film, for he had decided when Ure died that life was short and he needed to provide for his 10 children.
In 1977, Shaw traveled to Yugoslavia, where he starred in Force 10 from Navarone (1978), a sequel to The Guns of Navarone (1961). He revived the lead role of British MI6 agent Mallory, originally played by Gregory Peck. He was a big box office draw, and some producers were willing to pay top wages for his work, but he felt restricted by the parts he was being offered. "I have it in mind to stop making these big-budget extravaganzas, to change my pattern of life. I wanted to prove, I think, that I could be an international movie star. Now that I've done it, I see the valuelessness of it." In early 1978, Shaw appeared in Avalanche Express (1979) which was to be his last film; in which he played General Marenkov, a senior Russian official who decides to defect to the West and reveals to a CIA agent, played by Lee Marvin, that the Russians are trying to develop biological weapons. An alcoholic most of his life, Shaw died--before the film was completed--of a heart attack at the age of 51 on August 28, 1978. In poor health due to alcoholism during most of the filming, he in fact completed over 90% of his scenes before the death of director Mark Robson two months earlier, in June 1978, brought production to a halt.
While living in Ireland and taking a hiatus from work, Shaw was driving from Castlebar to his home in Tourmakeady, Ireland, with wife, Virginia, and young son, Thomas, after spending the day playing golf with friends on a local course as well as shopping with Virginia in the town. As they approached their cottage, he felt chest pains which he claimed to Virginia had started earlier that day while he was playing golf but whose pains subsided. He pulled the car over a few hundred yards from his cottage and told her he would get out and walk the pains off. After taking four or five steps from the parked car, he collapsed by the side of the road, and his wife ran to the cottage to phone for help. An ambulance arrived 15 minutes later, and Shaw was taken to Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.- Bob Crane was born in Waterbury, CT, the youngest of two sons. In school he was known for being a class clown and an intense music lover. His favorites were jazz and big band. Bob's specialty was the drums. After graduating from Stamford High School in 1946, he turned his attention to his love for music. He became a drummer with the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra for about a year. He was later dismissed for not being "serious enough". In 1949 Bob married Ann Terzian, his high school sweetheart. They had three children - Robert David Crane, Debbie, and Karen. In 1956 Bob and his family left the east and moved out west to California. There he began a lengthy, successful career in radio. He worked at KNX radio and became "King of the Airwaves" in Los Angeles. His radio program became a huge success, the most listened to on the air. This was due to Crane's personality and humor. He had charm and an undeniable quick wit. Hollywood's biggest and brightest were frequently interviewed by Bob on his show, including Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Marvin Gaye, Mary Tyler Moore, and Bob Hope. In the midst of his success, Bob's true goal was to make it big as an actor. He began to make guest appearances on such shows as The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) and The Twilight Zone (1959). He also appeared in the 1961 films, Return to Peyton Place (1961) and Man-Trap (1961). In 1963 Bob got a role on the popular The Donna Reed Show (1958), as "Dr. Dave Kelsey". After two years the producers let him go, saying his character was "too suggestive". This was no problem for Crane. In 1965 he received the starring role in a new sitcom for CBS called Hogan's Heroes (1965). It was a comedy about a group of POWs in a Nazi prison camp. He played the smooth-talking, crafty "Colonel Robert Hogan". Hogan's Heroes became a hit show, finishing in the top 10 at the end of the 1965-66 season. Crane was nominated for an Emmy twice, in 1966 and 1967. He had reached the peak of his success. It was during this time that Crane met Patti Olson, known as Sigrid Valdis. She played "Hilda" on Hogan's Heroes. Bob divorced his wife, Ann, after 20 years of marriage, and married Patti in 1970. They married on the set of "Hogan's Heroes". They had a son, Scott Crane, in 1971. Also in 1971, the new president of CBS abruptly canceled Hogan's Heroes after a 6-year run. Following the end of Hogan's Heroes Bob continued to act. However the roles were few and not very fulfilling. He starred in Superdad (1973) and Gus (1976), two Disney films, and had guest spots on shows, including Police Woman (1974), Ellery Queen (1975), and The Love Boat (1977). Bob briefly had his own show, The Bob Crane Show (1975), in 1975. Unfortunately, NBC canceled the show after 3 months. In 1973 Bob bought the rights to the play "Beginner's Luck". He both directed the play and starred in it. The play went around the country, including California, Texas, Hawaii, and Arizona. In June, 1978 Bob took "Beginner's Luck" to Scottsdale, Arizona. It was in Scottsdale that the unthinkable happened. In the early morning hours of June 29, 1978, Bob Crane was brutally murdered in his rented apartment room. He was beaten to death while he slept, and strangled with an electrical cord. He was 49 years old. His murder remains unsolved.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Will Geer was born William Aughe Ghere in Frankfort, Indiana, to Katherine (Aughe), a teacher, and Roy Aaron Ghere, a postal worker. Will admired his grandfather, a man who said hello to trees by their Latin names and who had used what he brought back to Indiana from the California gold rush to build Frankfort's first opera house. Will pursued a college major in botany, from Chicago through a Master's degree at Columbia, but ultimately gave in to his need to perform. Starting with touring company tent shows and river boats, his six-decade career included Broadway, movies, television; many Shakespeare roles; one-man performances as Walt Whitman and Mark Twain. His best known role was his last, Zebulon Walton, grandpa in the long-running television series The Waltons (1972). Less well-known was his life-long role as a political agitator and radical ("Someone who goes to the roots, which is the Latin derivation of radical") and folklorist/folksinger - he toured U.S. government work camps in the 1930s, singing with Woody Guthrie and Burl Ives. He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era for refusing to testify before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. In 1951, he formed the "Theatricum Botanicum," a repertory theater in Topanga Canyon, California, where he not only coached actors but also encouraged outdoor philosophical discussion and, of course, folksinging. At his deathbed, his family sang "This Land Is Your Land" and recited Robert Frost poems. His ashes lie in a corner of the Shakespearean garden on the grounds of his Theatricum Botanicum.- Gig Young was born Byron Barr to parents John and Emma Barr in Minnesota, and raised in Washington, DC, where he developed a passion for theatre while appearing in high school plays. After gaining some amateur experience, he applied for and received a scholarship to the acclaimed Southern California's Pasadena Community Playhouse. While acting in "Pancho", a south-of-the-border play by Lowell Barrington, he was spotted by a Warner Brothers talent scout, leading to his signing contracts with the studio. Still acting under his given name, Byron Barr, he played bits and extra roles. He experimented with varying screen names because there was already another actor with the same name (see Byron Barr). In 1942, in the picture The Gay Sisters (1942), he was given the role of a character whose name was Gig Young, which he liked well enough to finally adopt it as his permanent stage name. His intermittent roles and, therefore, income, required Young to supplement his income working at a gas station, but success in The Gay Sisters (1942) eventually allowed him the freedom to become a full-time actor. Although service in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II interrupted his ascension, after discharge he quickly established himself as a reliable light leading man, usually the second male lead to stars who were established box office draws. A dramatic part in Come Fill the Cup (1951) resulted in his being nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar; a second Supporting Actor nomination followed seven years later for his comedic performance in Teacher's Pet (1958). A prolific television career later complemented his film work. In 1969, his surprisingly seedy portrayal of a dance-marathon emcee in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) finally brought him that Supporting Actor Oscar. A succession of marriages, including one to actress Elizabeth Montgomery, failed. In 1978, only three weeks after marrying German actress Kim Schmidt, Young apparently shot her to death in their New York City apartment and then turned the gun on himself. The precise motivation for the sad and grisly murder-suicide remains unclear. Young was not quite 65, his bride, 31.
- Maggie McNamara -- with her brown hair in a ponytail -- arrives in Rome in Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) expecting great things to happen. Petite and slender, she looks almost like a schoolgirl in her prim blue suit. She is bright and vivacious and goes for what she wants -- a proposal from "Prince Dino De Cessi" played by Louis Jourdan. She was in her mid-20s, then, and at the height of her career as she made her second film. One of four children of Irish-American parents, Maggie had come a long way since attending Textile High in New York to prepare for a modeling career. Pert as well as petite, she must have reminded people of the young Debbie Reynolds. Both had a look that was popular in the late 1940s. Maggie's picture appeared twice on the cover of Life Magazine and people were saying she too ought to be in movies. She started taking lessons with a dramatic coach and, at the age of 23, she was discovered by Otto Preminger. He signed her to play the role of a proper young lady who lets herself be lured to a bachelor's apartment in the Chicago production of a play of F. Hugh Herbert. She played the ingénue role in "The Moon Is Blue" in the national company for 18 months. Then, in 1951, she made it to Broadway in "The King of Friday's Men". Brooks Atkinson, drama critic for the New York Times, said of her performance in that play that she was "remarkably pretty and has a gift for acting". Then Maggie was offered the female lead in the Otto Preminger's film version of The Moon Is Blue (1953) with William Holden and David Niven. Theater patrons in New York and Chicago had found the stage version of the story amusing. The Catholic Legion of Decency was not amused when it previewed the film. It was stamped "C" for Condemned. The New York Times noted in 1978: "The Moon Is Blue aroused a storm of controversy because of what some observers regarded as 'indecent' discussion of sex, and the ridicule of the rules of parental protection. By current standards, it was, in fact, a prim and proper work". Maggie was supporting herself as a typist when she died in 1978. The New York Times obituary appeared four weeks after her death. It said she was 48. The relative who confirmed that she had died did not give the newspaper the date of her birth. The relative said Maggie had been doing some writing recently and a film script, "The Mighty Dandelion", had been accepted by a new film producing company.
- Richard Duane Kelton was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, and was the only child of Fred and Glenna Kelton. While growing up in Miami, Oklahoma, he remembered watching James Dean and cites him as his main influence on becoming an actor. After studying drama at The University of Kansas, he made his way to California where he made his debut playing "Bud" in a 1970 2-part episode (Snow Train) of Gunsmoke Gunsmoke (1955). Soon after that he made his TV movie debut as "Lieutenant Charring" in Wild Women (1970). He continued in numerous other guest starring roles and a movie roles. He also played the role of "Nick" in the Broadway revival of "Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf" in 1976. He made his starring role as "Ficus" in the short-lived science fiction series "Quark" (1978). Later that year he was invited back to The University of Kansas to give a short seminar on films. He continued his career until his death in 1978.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Of Swedish descent, burly, light-haired character actor Karl Swenson was born in Brooklyn and started his four-decade career on radio. Throughout the late 30s and 40s, his voice could be heard all over the airwaves, appearing in scores of daytime serials ("Lorenzo Jones") and mystery dramas ("Inner Sanctum Mysteries"). He gave visual life to one of his serial characters, Walter Manning, in "Portia Faces Life" when it went to TV in 1953. It was during his lengthy work in this medium that he met his wife, stage and radio actress Joan Tompkins. They appeared together throughout their careers on TV and in a few films. In the 1950s, he kept afloat on TV in rugged guest spots (Dr. Kildare (1961), Gunsmoke (1955), Maverick (1957), Mission: Impossible (1966) and Hawaii Five-O (1968)). He didn't appear in films until age 50+ with minor roles in Kings Go Forth (1958), North to Alaska (1960), The Birds (1963) and The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). His voice was also well utilized in such animated features as The Sword in the Stone (1963) as the voice of Merlin. Karl met actor Michael Landon on the set of Bonanza (1959), appearing in four separate episodes over time. Landon remembered him when he began to film Little House on the Prairie (1974). Cast in the recurring role of lumber mill owner Lars Hanson, he remained with the show until his death in 1978 of a heart attack. His character on the show also died.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Colorful character actor of American Westerns. A musician from his youth, he performed from the age of 12 with tent shows, in vaudeville, and with stock companies. While performing in vaudeville in Kansas City, he married ballet dancer Betty Chappelle, with whom he had two children. He formed a musical group, Chill Wills and His Avalon Boys. During an appearance at the Trocadero in Hollywood, they were spotted by an RKO executive, subsequently appearing as a group in several low-budget Westerns. After a prominent appearance with The Avalon Boys as both himself and the bass-singing voice of Stan Laurel in Way Out West (1937), Wills disbanded the group and began a solo career as a usually jovial (but occasionally sinister) character actor, primarily in Westerns. His delightful portrayal of Beekeeper in The Alamo (1960) won him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, but his blatant and embarrassing campaign for the Oscar cost him the award and subjected him to a great deal of humiliation -- and probably cost the film a number of awards as well. His wife died in 1971, and he remarried, to Novadeen Googe, in 1973. He continued to work in films and television, usually in roguishly lovable good-old'-boy parts, up until his death in 1978.- Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Carl Betz formed a repertory theatre company while still in high school, then worked in summer stock. He served in the U.S. Army during the Second World War, then attended Carnegie Tech. Following graduation, he worked as a radio announcer. He made his Broadway debut in "The Long Watch". He was given a contract at Twentieth Century-Fox, and appeared in supporting roles in a number of films before moving into television. After a brief period working in soap operas, he was cast as Dr. Alex Stone on the popular The Donna Reed Show (1958) and spent eight years there. He followed that show with another series, Judd for the Defense (1967), in which he played a masterful attorney. He worked primarily in television, in both guest appearances and TV movies, throughout the Seventies, though he continued to work on stage around the U.S. He fought a gallant fight against early cancer and died in 1978.
- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Hacks are nothing new in Hollywood. Since the beginning of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century, thousands of untalented people have come to Los Angeles from all over America and abroad to try to make it big (as writers, producers, directors, actors, talent agents, singers, composers, musicians, artists, etc.) but who end up using, scamming and exploiting other people for money as well as using their creative ability (either self-taught or professional training), leading to the production of dull, bland, mediocre, unimaginative, inferior, trite work in the forlorn hope of attaining commercial success. Had Edward D. Wood, Jr. been born a decade or two earlier, it's easy to imagine him working for some Poverty Row outfit in Gower Gulch, competing with the likes of no-talent and no-taste producers and directors--such as Victor Adamson, Robert J. Horner and Dwain Esper--for the title of all-time hack. He would have fit in nicely working at Weiss Brothers-Artclass Pictures in the early 1930s in directing low budget Western-themed serials, or directing low budget film noir crime drama features at PRC (Producers Releasing Corporation) in the following decade from 1940 to 1946. Ed Wood is the probably the most well known of all the Hollywood hacks because he is imprisoned in his own time, and in the 1950s, Ed Wood simply had no competition. He was ignored throughout his spectacularly unsuccessful film making career and died a penniless alcoholic, only to be "rediscovered" when promoters in the early 1980s tagged him "The Worst Director of All Time" (mostly thanks to the Medveds' hilarious book, "Golden Turkey Awards") and he was given the singular honor of a full-length biopic by Tim Burton (Ed Wood (1994)). This post-mortem celebrity has made him infinitely more famous today than he ever was during his lifetime.
Wood was an exceedingly complex person. He was born on October 10, 1924, in Poughkeepsie, NY, where he lived most of his childhood. He joined the US Marine Corps in 1943 at the height of World War II and was, by all accounts, an exemplary marine, wounded in ferocious combat in the Pacific theater (a transgender, he claimed to have been wearing a bra and panties under his uniform while storming ashore during the bloody beachhead landing at Tarawa in November 1943). He was habitually optimistic, even in the face of the bleak realities that would later consume him. His personality bonded him with a small clique of outcasts who eked out life on the far edges of the Hollywood fringe.
After settling in Los Angeles in the late 1940s, Wood attempted to break into the film industry, initially without success, but in 1952 he landed the chance to direct a film based on the real-life Christine Jorgensen sex-change story, then a hot topic. The result, Glen or Glenda (1953), gave a fascinating insight into Wood's own personality and shed light on his transgender identity (an almost unthinkable subject for an early 1950s mainstream feature). Although devoutly heterosexual, Wood was an enthusiastic cross-dresser, with a particular fondness for angora. On the debit side, though, the film revealed the almost complete lack of talent that would mar all his subsequent films, his tendency to resort to stock footage of lightning during dramatic moments, laughable set design and a near-incomprehensible performance by Bela Lugosi as a mad doctor whose presence is never adequately explained. The film deservedly flopped miserably but Wood, always upbeat, pressed ahead.
Wood's main problem was that he saw himself as a producer-writer-director, when in fact he was spectacularly incompetent in all three capacities. Friends who knew Wood have described him as an eccentric, oddball hack who was far more interested in the work required in cobbling a film project together than in ever learning the craft of film making itself or in any type of realism. In an alternate universe, Wood might have been a competent producer if he had better industry connections and an even remotely competent director. Wood, however, likened himself to his idol, Orson Welles, and became a triple threat: bad producer, poor screenwriter and God-awful director. All of his films exhibit illogical continuity, bizarre narratives and give the distinct impression that a director's job was simply to expose the least amount of film possible due to crushing budget constraints. His magnum opus, Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), features visible wires connected to pie-pan UFOs, actors knocking over cardboard "headstones", cars changing models and years during chase sequences, scenes exhibiting a disturbing lack of handgun safety and the ingenious use of shower curtains in airplane cockpits that have virtually no equipment are just a few of the trademarks of that Edward D. Wood Jr. production. When criticized for their innumerable flaws, Wood would cheerfully explain his interpretation of the suspension of disbelief. It's not so much that he made movies so badly without regard to realism--the amazing part is that he managed to get them made at all.
His previous film with Lugosi, Bride of the Monster (1955), was no better (unbelievably, it somehow managed to earn a small profit during its original release, undoubtedly more of a testament to how cheaply it was produced than its value as entertainment), and Wood only shot a few seconds of silent footage of Lugosi (doped and dazed, wandering around the front yard of his house) for "Plan 9" before the actor died in August 1956. What few reviews the film received were brutal. Typically undaunted, Wood soldiered on despite incoherent material and a microscopic budget, peopling it with his regular band of mostly inept actors. Given the level of dialog, budget and Wood's dismal directorial abilities, it's unlikely that better actors would have made much of a difference (lead actor Gregory Walcott made his debut in this film and went on to have a very respectable career as a character actor, but was always embarrassed by his participation in this film)--in fact, it's the film's semi-official status as arguably the Worst Film Ever Made that gives it its substantial cult following. The film, financed by a local Baptist congregation led by Wood's landlord, reaches a plateau of ineptitude that tends to leave viewers open-mouthed, wondering what is it they just saw. "Plan 9" became, whether Wood realized it or not, his singular enduring legacy. Ironically, the rights to the film were retained by the church and it is unlikely that Wood ever received a dime from it; his epic bombed upon release in 1959 and remained largely forgotten for years to come.
After this career "peak," Wood went into, relatively speaking, a decline. Always an "enthusiastic"--for lack of a better word--drinker, his alcohol addiction worsened in the 1960s due to his depression of not achieving the worldwide fame he had always sought. He began to draw away from film directing and focused most of his time on another profession: writing. Beginning in the early 1960s up until his death, Wood wrote at least 80 lurid crime and sex paperback novels in addition to hundreds of short stories and non-fiction pieces for magazines and daily newspapers. Thirty-two stories known to be written by Wood (he sometimes wrote under pseudonyms such as "Ann Gora" and "Dr. T.K. Peters") are collected in 'Blood Splatters Quickly', published by OR Books in 2014. Novels include Black Lace Drag (1963) (reissued in 1965 as Killer in Drag), Orgy of the Dead (1965), Devil Girls (1967), Death of a Transvestite (1967), The Sexecutives (1968), The Photographer (1969), Take It Out in Trade (1970), The Only House in Town (1970), Necromania (1971), The Undergraduate (1972), A Study of Fetishes and Fantasies (1973) and Fugitive Girls (1974).
In 1965, Wood wrote the quasi-memoir 'Hollywood Rat Race', which was eventually published in 1998. In it, Wood advises new writers to "just keep on writing. Even if your story gets worse, you'll get better", and also recounts tales of dubious authenticity, such as how he and Bela Lugosi entered the world of nightclub cabaret.
In the 1970s, Wood directed a number of undistinguished softcore and later hardcore adult porno films under various aliases, one of which is the name "Akdov Telmig" ("vodka gimlet" spelled backwards; it helps to imagine that you're a boozy dyslexic, as Ed Wood was). His final years were spent largely drunk in his apartment and occasionally being rolled stumbling out of a local liquor store. Three days before his death, Wood and his wife Kathy were evicted from their Hollywood apartment due to failure to pay the rent and moved into a friend's apartment shortly before his death on the afternoon of December 10, 1978, at age 54. He had a heart attack and died while drinking in bed.
Due to his recent resurgence in popularity, many of his equally interesting transgender - themed sex novels have been republished. The gravitational pull of Planet Angora remains quite strong.- Actor
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Charles Boyer studied philosophy before he went to the theater where he gave his debut in 1920. Although he had at first no intentions to pursue a career at the movies (his first movie was Man of the Sea (1920) by Marcel L'Herbier) he used his chance in Hollywood after several filming stations all over Europe. In the beginning of his career his beautiful voice was hidden by the silent movies but in Hollywood he became famous for his whispered declarations of love (like in movies with Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich or Ingrid Bergman). In 1934 he married Pat Paterson, his first and (unusual for a star) only wife. He was so faithful to her that he decided to commit suicide two days after her death in 1978.- Robert Coogan was born on 13 December 1924 in Glendale, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Skippy (1931), Joe Palooka in the Squared Circle (1950) and Ghost Chasers (1951). He died on 12 May 1978.
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Totie Fields was born on 7 May 1927 in Hartford, Connecticut, USA. She was an actress, known for That's Life (1968), Medical Center (1969) and Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967). She was married to George William Johnston. She died on 2 August 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- He was David Thayer Hersey from an upper crust Winchester, Massachusetts family. After secondary school he began attending Harvard University. Along with several students he founded the Brattle Theatre Company in 1946. After working closely on Brattle with fellow Harvard graduates and his father,Thayer Frye Hersey, David took the stage name Thayer David in honor of his father.
Thayer David was tall and heavy-set with a prominent beetling brow and protruding lips (a somewhat intimidating demeanor) which inevitably bound him to character roles. But he had no false illusions about leading man roles and whatnot other than applying a consummate passion for being a good actor in those parts allotted him. To this he brought a forceful if pursed and imperious voice and a knack for developing voice characterizations to fit any part.
By late 1950 he was on Broadway in a revival of the comedy play "The Relapse" Through most the 1950s he was busy with theater roles rounded with returns to Broadway for the next two decades in some great dramas, including stepping in as a replacement to play Cardinal Wolsey in "A Man for All Seasons" (1961-63). Like many a trained actor looking beyond the stage, David saw the potential of the small screen as a new acting vehicle. By 1957 he had launched his TV career amid the television playhouse phenomenon which had been established by 1950. He would revisit perennially through most of the 1960s, but he had about the same time been discovered by filmdom as well.
His first role was in the quite well done Baby Face Nelson (1957), part of the body of serious dramas that Mickey Rooney (as the machine gun-happy 1930s gangster) was amassing since his early days as one of Hollywood's biggest juvenile stars. David next film had the clumsy and long forgotten title A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958), but it was a much more substantial part with young John Gavin as German friends who become World War II officers and confront humanity versus the Nazi war mentality. As was usual with his roles, David was the veiled (if not overt) antagonist-always intellectual but with a brutish shadow. Within a year the chance to play a really melodramatic villain came with his casting in the film version of Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) from the novel by the visionary French 19th century sci-fi author Jules Verne. Although the film substantially strayed from the novel, the latter plodded along, while the script was fast-paced and engaging. And where there was no villain except nature herself, the film had David as the self-serving-downright nasty - Count Saknussem. With James Mason heading the cast and-then-teen heartthrob Pat Boone drawing in as well a young female audience, the film and its special effects made for a rousing good time.
Into the 1960s David's opportunities focused most on television. And among these was a fad TV acting goal of being a guest super villain on the highly popular and inventive The Wild Wild West (1965 to 1969). David had the even better fortune of being cast in two episodes (1967 and 1969). In the meantime David had hit some more substantial TV pay dirt. The smash daytime horror soaper Dark Shadows had premiered in 1966, and David was in on the ground floor as perfect for several characters to emerge through the series run (1966 to 1971). He played seven characters in the course of the show, the most prominent being Professor T. Elliot Stokes. He reprised this role in the substantially more potent in-a-nutshell film version of the story House of Dark Shadows (1970), considered by horror aficionados as one of best blood and gore vampire romps. David returned in the studio-butchered and thus unsuccessful film sequel Night of Dark Shadows (1971) as his eighth characterization, the Reverend Strack. In all cases David was intimately involved and delighted in meshing makeup and costumes with the voices he invented for all these roles (most of which he developed) for the series.
If not from an already dependable track record, David's longevity on the series marked him as a veteran trooper in the casting halls of Hollywood. But he later recalled that his time invested in doing voice over commercials could often come close to DS production schedule conflicts. His commercial work marked the inevitable practical side of acting. Even the best known actors and actresses have stooped to such business over art, for the money is always good.
David was thereafter quite in demand through the decade of the 1970s in both film and TV. Although he might be best recalled from the era as the crooked fight manager in historic Rocky (1976), his most character of character roles was by far his Dragon in the Clint Eastwood adventure/thriller The Eiger Sanction (1975). Based on the novel by American author Rod Whitaker who used the pseudonym Trevanian to come off European, there is much name wordplay, for instance, Dragon's full name in the novel is Uras S. Dragon (say it fast). David's Dragon is head of CIA-like shadow hit unit which employed Eastwood's character, and Dragon is an extreme albino (can't tolerate normal environment). David gives him a rather strident rasping voice with a hint of menace that along with his nearly colorless eyes and figure bathed in the dramatic red light of an infrared-controlled environment easily makes him the most memorable character in the film.
David guest-starred on some of the most watched episodic fare of the 1970s, and he was especially busy between 1975 and 1977. Amid two to three films per year he made the rounds of TV production at the major studios. Universal had continued using his talents during this period when this contributor met and worked with Thayer David in early 1977. He was an engaging person who enjoyed good conversation - the more obscure the better - and a good cigar. Among outside pursuits he was also a rare book collector with varied interests and enjoyed entertaining at home.
A big man, he was nonetheless at that time overweight and the demands of production visibly put a strain on him - he looked ill. But an actor must work, and he carried on into the next year and lost some weight as well. It was then that Paramount television offered him a potentially great opportunity. This was the lead role in the TV pilot movie for a series on the preoccupied but brilliant, corpulent - and most important, rich - detective Nero Wolfe. The script was good, and Thayer lent his accumulated and considerable characterization talents to make Wolfe his own, although his loss of weight was now much more noticeable and was rumored to be cancer. The success of the TV pilot looked promising, as would the subsequent go-ahead for the series. But in one of the ironic twists of fate, Thayer David suddenly died of a heart attack, perhaps a complication of the purported advancing cancer - he was only 51 years old. The pilot was shelved for over a year, ending up premiering as a late night TV offering (Dec 1979). A Nero Wolfe series did appear (1981), but it was short-lived.
One can only wonder if Thayer David had remained hale. A Nero Wolfe series with such a dedicated and creative actor may have thrived with a long run - the Holy Grail of any actor - the dream of security and the opportunity to contribute thoroughly to on-going success. Oh well - the stuff of dreams - posterity has to settle for the filmed record of Thayer David as is - and that is a very substantial offering indeed. - Actress
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Above all else, singer/actress Peggy Wood has endeared herself to both TV and film audiences with one single role in each medium. She made warm, lasting impressions as the benevolent, strong-willed Scandinanvian matriarch Marta Hansen in the series drama Mama (1949), and as the knowing Mother Abbess who gently but firmly steers Julie Andrews' novice away from the nunnery and into the arms of love and a certain Austrian captain with her stirring rendition of "Climb Every Mountain" in, what is arguably considered the most popular musical film ever made, The Sound of Music (1965). But Peggy was so much more than those two undeniable treasures. Encompassing a stage career that lasted six decades, Peggy was unequivocally one of the grand dames of Broadway and London theatre, heightened by the fact that writer Noël Coward wrote some of his strongest pieces with her in mind.
Brooklyn-born Peggy was christened Margaret Wood on February 9, 1892, the daughter of a popular newspaperman and humorist. The lovely blonde soprano began taking singing lessons at age 8 and made her debut as a teenager in the chorus of "Naughty Marietta" (1910). Within a year, she took her first her Broadway bow in "The Three Romeos" (1911) and grew in status after drawing strong applause for her lead ingenue debut in "Maytime" in 1917 while introducing the song "Will You Remember?" The blossoming performer went on to excel prominently in musicals/operettas, including "Buddies" (1919), "Marjolaine" (1922), and "The Clinging Vine" (1922), before making equally respectable ventures into witty comedy (the title role in George Bernard Shaw's "Candida" (1925) and "A Lady in Love" (1927)) and Shakespeare (Portia in "The Merchant of Venice" (1928)).
A quiet beauty who projected little sex appeal, she was naturally not a strong contender for Hollywood stardom but made her feature film debut anyway in the silent movie Almost a Husband (1919) opposite humorist Will Rogers. She never made another silent picture. Along with her first husband, poet, and literary editor John V.A. Weaver, she was a member of the New York "intellectual" circuit and the well-chronicled Algonquin (restaurant) Round Table. Noël Coward wrote Peggy's "Bitter Sweet" role specifically for her. She originated the part in London's West End in 1929 and introduced the song "I'll See You Again." While in London, she also appeared in Jerome Kern's "The Cat and the Fiddle" (1932) with Francis Lederer, wherein she sang the popular "Try to Forget," and complemented Coward once again in the musical "Operette" (1938) with her renditions of "Where Are the Songs We Sung" and "Dearest Love." In 1941, Peggy again inspired Coward, this time playing the role of second wife Ruth Condomine in the New York premiere of "Blithe Spirit" with Clifton Webb, and then took the show to the Piccadilly Theatre in London. During World War II, she also lent her singing talent patriotically with several USO tours.
She returned to films in mid-career and co-starred without much fanfare in Handy Andy (1934) playing Will Rogers' nagging wife, The Right to Live (1935), Jalna (1935) and Call It a Day (1937). Following her supporting work in The Bride Wore Boots (1946), Magnificent Doll (1946) and Dream Girl (1948), she was ignored in films until handed the roles of Naomi in the biblical drama The Story of Ruth (1960) and her Oscar-nominated Mother Abbess.
A master dialectician who handled many ethnic roles during her long career, she became one of early TV's critically-acclaimed "Golden Age" stars with the Norwegian family drama Mama (1949) and was Emmy-nominated twice for her efforts. She also continued on the 50s and 60s stage with roles in "Charley's Aunt", "The Girls in 508" with Imogene Coca, "The Rape of the Belt", "Pictures in the Hallway" and "The Madwoman of Chaillot", which would be one of her last stage shows in 1970. From 1959 to 1966, she served as President of ANTA (American National Theatre and Academy).
Peggy married and was widowed twice. Her first husband died of tuberculosis at age 44 and her second, William Walling, an executive in the printing business, died in 1973 after 32 years. Peggy herself, at age 86, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Stanford, Connecticut, on March 18, 1978, and was survived by her son, David Weaver, who once assistant stage managed one of her Broadway plays "The Happiest Years".- Korean-American character actor Philip Ahn played hundreds of Chinese and Japanese characters during a long career. He was born in Los Angeles in 1905 (though 1911 is the year usually given, U.S. government records confirm that Ahn was born in 1905), the son of a Korean diplomat. He attended the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Ahn got his first film acting job in 1935 and quickly made a place for himself playing Asians of many ethnicities. Although his kindly demeanor made him perfect for sympathetic roles, he could excel in the occasional villainous "Yellow Peril"-type role. Condemned, like most Asian actors of the period, to stereotypical roles, Ahn nevertheless brought a dignity to even the most subservient of characters. In his later years he achieved his greatest fame as the wise Master Kan on the television series Kung Fu (1972). Ahn was also a successful Los Angeles restaurateur. He died in 1978. Not to be confused with his brother, actor Philson Ahn.
- Charles Horvath was born on 27 October 1920 in Upper Macungie Township, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for A Woman Under the Influence (1974), His Majesty O'Keefe (1954) and Vera Cruz (1954). He was married to Margo and Georgiana Walker. He died on 23 July 1978 in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA.
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Barry Atwater was born on 16 May 1918 in Denver, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for Star Trek (1966), One Step Beyond (1959) and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964). He died on 24 May 1978 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Because of his heavy generically "European" accent and Slavic-sounding surname (not an uncommon one among Czechs or Slovaks), many people assumed Oscar Homolka was Eastern European or Russian. In fact, he was born in Vienna (then Austria-Hungary), the multicultural capital of a large multi-ethnic empire at the time. It was there he began his successful stage career, which eventually led him to Hollywood. Homolka was one of the many Austrian and specifically Viennese actors (many of them Jewish) who fled Europe for the U.S. with the rise to power of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party. Although often typecast in villainous roles - Communist spies, Soviet-bloc military officers or scientists and the like - he was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of Uncle Chris in I Remember Mama (1948).
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Born in New York City, Dan Dailey started his career in vaudeville, later making his Broadway debut in the stage version of "Babes in Arms".
When signed to MGM, the studio initially cast him as a Nazi in The Mortal Storm (1940). The studio realized their mistake and cast him in musical films, thereafter. Then, after serving in World War II, Dailey later returned to acting to make more musicals.- Shelly Novack was a star athlete at Venice High School in California. He later played football at Santa Monica City College, Long Beach State, and was drafted by the San Diego Chargers in 1965. He became an actor through football, much like some other athletes do. Shelly won the first Toyota Grand Prix Pro Celebrity Race in 1977. Although he was a decent actor his passion was sports.
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Distinguished character player James Firman Daly first appeared on stage in his home town of Wisconsin Rapids in 1928. He was set on acting from an early age, and was strongly encouraged by his parents. His father was in the fuel business and his mother at one time a CIA employee. Upon leaving school, Daly studied dramatic arts at various Midwestern colleges, eventually graduating from Grinnell in Iowa. His acting career was then put on hold as a result of the war and he served in all three of the service branches, the last four years spent in the navy as an ensign.
Daly's acting career got off to a good start once he arrived in New York in 1946, landing a part as understudy to Gary Merrill in the long-running hit play "Born Yesterday" on Broadway. By the time he appeared in his third play, "Man and Superman" (1949), he was billed third in the cast and won a Daniel Blum Award for his performance. Subsequently, Daly had a busy time on stage, both on and off-Broadway. He co-starred three times with the legendary Helen Hayes, most famously in "The Glass Menagerie" in 1950. That same year he also collected the Theater Guild Award as the star of "Major Barbara". His other theatrical roles of note included "Billy Budd", "Saint Joan", "The Merchant of Venice" and (on tour with Colleen Dewhurst) "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".
A hard-working actor and intent on diversifying into different media, Daly clearly understood the potential of live television drama. He made his small screen debut in the late 1940s and soon starred in early Playhouse productions. Within a few years he featured in his own weekly syndicated series, Foreign Intrigue (1951), about a family of foreign correspondents in Europe. This was one of the first TV shows to be shot on location and it necessitated his and his family's temporary relocation to Paris and Stockholm. Throughout the next twenty years, Daly remained much in demand as a reliable leading television actor with 'gravitas', often playing tragic or despairing figures. He was commanding as the titular star of Give Us Barabbas! (1961). Four years later, he picked up an Emmy for his role in the Hallmark Hall of Fame (1951) episode "The Eagle and the Cage".
Another memorably poignant portrayal was in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode "A Stop at Willoughby", with Daly as a salesperson driven to the brink of a nervous breakdown, desperately escaping his world to a fantasy town in his own mind where life is perpetually simple and peaceful. He was also David Vincent's ill-fated business partner and friend in the pilot episode "Beach-Head", one of the first victims of The Invaders (1967). Many viewers will remember Daly as 'Flint', the solitary near-immortal from the Star Trek (1966) episode "Requiem for Methuselah". There were countless other guest starring roles and even a few choice movie parts, such as Planet of the Apes (1968). Daly enjoyed another recurring role in the long-running (170 episodes) Medical Center (1969) as resident 'elder statesman' to young surgeon Chad Everett. He had just completed filming on an episode of "Roots: The Next Generations" and was scheduled to appear in the play "Equus" at the historic Westchester Theatre, Tarrytown Music Hall, when he died of a heart attack at the age of 59.- Actress
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Edith MacDonald was the second daughter of Daniel and Anne MacDonald; her father was a contractor and politician. Early on, her older sister Elsie, younger sister Jeanette MacDonald, and she were given theatrical training. Blossom and Jeanette played Philadelphia vaudeville houses while still youngsters.
Edith went to New York where she wed Clarence Rock in 1926; they toured in vaudeville for three years. When vaudeville died, she toured with her husband in "Grand Hotel" and, in 1936, played a streetwalker in "Dead End". The MGM talent agent who saw her in this signed her to the same studio as her now-famous sister Jeanette. Re-named Marie Blake, she debuted in Joan Crawford's Mannequin (1937) and, in 1938, she became established as "Sally" the phone operator in the Dr. Kildare series. After the last of these in 1947, she left MGM, changed her stage name to "Blossom Rock", freelanced, and doing bit parts. She appeared in television often, becoming widely known through the part of "Grandmama" in The Addams Family (1964) series.
Her husband was night manager at the Beverly Hilton Hotel for fifteen years, dying in 1960. After retiring, she lived at the Motion Picture Country Home.- Michael Bates was born on 4 December 1920 in Jhansi, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, British India. He was an actor, known for A Clockwork Orange (1971), Frenzy (1972) and Patton (1970). He was married to Margaret M. J. Chisholm. He died on 11 January 1978 in Chelsea, London, England, UK.