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- Although younger brother Dean Stockwell is perhaps the better known actor of the two, Guy Stockwell was a strong, seriously handsome and highly reliable performer over the years, appearing in over 30 films and 200 television shows. The son of Broadway singing baritone Harry Stockwell, his mother, Elizabeth Margaret Veronica, a former chorus girl/dancer who once went by the stage name of "Betty Veronica," sent both Dean and Guy to an open call for a 1943 Broadway show entitled "The Innocent Voyage," which was to star famed acting teacher Herbert Berghof. The play needed about a dozen children and, by chance, both boys were cast. Dean went immediately into films for MGM and became a popular post-war child star while Guy had to wait until adulthood before coming into his own. Following high school he attended the University of California where he majored in psychology and philosophy.
Guy started his career off in minor film and TV bits, then was given his big break in 1961 as a regular cast member of the outdoor sea adventure Adventures in Paradise (1959) as first mate to star Gardner McKay. He played the role for one season. Following that in 1963 he became one of 11 performers who made up the company for Richard Boone's television anthology series. Guy became a Universal contract player in 1965 and went straight into several standard tales of adventure and intrigue, including The War Lord (1965), Tobruk (1967) and Blindfold (1966). Initially promoted as a dashing Errol Flynn type in swordplay adventures and outdoor epics, the studio had him star in the remake of Gary Cooper's French Foreign Legion classic Beau Geste (1966) opposite another film up-and-comer Doug McClure. He co-starred with McClure again, this time as the villain, in The King's Pirate (1967) while vying for beauties Jill St. John and Mary Ann Mobley. He also earned the role of Buffalo Bill Cody in a remake of Cooper's The Plainsman (1966). Playing a villain again in the glossy soaper Banning (1967) with Robert Wagner and Ms. St. John, most of Guy's high-profile roles came off routine at best and the films failed at the box office. He made his last picture for Universal co-starring with Anthony Franciosa in In Enemy Country (1968) before his contract ended.
Guy subsequently gravitated towards the small screen and local stage. He created the Los Angeles Art Theater along the way where he played leading roles in well-received productions of "Hamlet" and his own adaptation of "Crime and Punishment.". Gaining respect in later years as an acting teacher, he wrote a textbook for actors called Cold Reading Advantage (1991) and taught acting (as an alumnus at the University of California) for two years in their masters program. Subsequent character parts in films were a bit offbeat to say the least, having gained some weight over time. He was also involved in extensive voice-over work.
Married and divorced three times, he had two children, Doug and Victoria, by first wife Susan; an adopted son, Kerry, by second wife Sandy; and had several stepchildren by his marriage to third wife Olga. Guy suffered from diabetes in later years and died of complications in 2002. He was 68. - Attending Catholic school, Peter "Pete" Schrum realized that he wanted to be an actor. Peter started doing play acting and drama all over the place. He was enthused to work and loved doing stage. He and lifelong friends vowed to become actors one day. Peter was the only one to uphold the promise. Every so often, he would be out of work and laugh about some of his characters. Most memorable for playing the shotgun-firing bartender, Lloyd, in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). Schrum took up the job of the Coca-Cola Santa Claus, then stopped working for years. His last film, The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) was Joel Coen's The Man Who Wasn't There.
- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Daryl Dragon was born on 27 August 1942 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor and composer, known for Payback (1990), Go for It (1976) and Sandstone (1975). He was married to Toni Tennille. He died on 2 January 2019 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.- Melanie Rauscher died on 17 July 2022 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Jet MacDonald was born on 25 October 1927 in Ashland, Kentucky, USA. She was an actress, known for The Web (1950), Shannon (1961) and Gunsmoke (1955). She was married to Jerry LaZarre and Bill Johnson. She died on 27 June 2011 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Peter Ortiz was born on 5 July 1913 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Rio Grande (1950), Spy Hunt (1950) and Commando Cody: Sky Marshal of the Universe (1953). He died on 16 May 1988 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.- Additional Crew
- Actor
Duncan Wilmore was born on 26 May 1938 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for WarGames (1983), Tank Girl (1995) and The Right Stuff (1983). He died on 6 April 2020 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.- Alan Aric was born on 20 September 1923 in San Diego, California, USA. He was an actor, known for Highway Patrol (1955), The Silent Service (1957) and Angel Baby (1961). He died on 5 September 2002 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Joy N. Houck Jr. was born on 26 January 1942 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. He was an actor and director, known for The Big Easy (1986), The Brain Machine (1972) and Night of Bloody Horror (1969). He died on 1 October 2003 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.- Camera and Electrical Department
Wallace Chewning was raised in Randolph, New York where his father, Charles Dudley Chewning was a plant supervisor for Borden's Milk Company. Afer his father's early death, he and his brother and two sisters moved, with their mother, Lucile, to Venice, California. It was 1912 and Dad was ten years old. The movie business was young and so was he when he began his career as a best boy.- Lassie Lou Ahern, who enjoyed a substantial career in 1920s Hollywood working with the likes of Will Rogers, Charley Chase, Helen Holmes, and the team of Ronald Colman and Vilma Banky, has passed away in Prescott, Arizona, USA, due to complications of the flu. After decades of relative obscurity, interest in her life and filmography won her a new audience of fans during her final years owing to a renewed cultural appreciation of silent cinema and to efforts made toward restoring her final silent film. Along with surviving star "Baby Peggy" (Diana Serra Cary), 99, Ahern was the last Hollywood performer with deep roots in motion pictures before the coming of sound. Brimming with stories, details, and information, her loss finds our relationship to silent cinema moving from living history to simply that of history.
She was born four blocks away from the Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood. Her father, Fred Ahern, was a real estate agent who had Will Rogers as a leading client as Culver City was being formed. After meeting Lassie and her older sister Peggy, Rogers encouraged Ahern to take his daughters to Hal Roach studios to be cast in parts calling for children, and soon they earned ancillary roles in the Our Gang. Rogers took an active interest in Lassie, ensuring she had parts in his films. Throughout her life, with great fondness, she considered him her "real" father. She made her debut in Roach's first full-length movie, an adaptation of The Call of the Wild (1923), and soon was regularly cast in Charley Chase comedies and as the object of rescue in the popular serials of Helen Holmes. In pictures such as Webs of Steel (1925), Lassie, like Holmes, supplied her own dangerous stunt work. Meanwhile she appeared in productions by independent producers (The Dark Angel for Samuel Goldwyn, Hell's Highroad for Cecil B. DeMille, Robes of Sin for William Russell [all 1925]), as well as features at major studies (John Ford's now lost film Thank You and Excuse Me starring Norma Shearer [both 1925]), before landing a contract with Universal in the mid-1920s.
She found her biggest success in the epic Uncle Tom's Cabin (1927), in which she landed the part of Little Harry over hundreds of boys who auditioned for the role. Shot largely on location on the Mississippi River, she appeared in the legendary sequence featuring the escape across the ice floes. While the movie would be the object of a spate of bad fortune that led to its taking more than a year and a half to make, it was the highlight of her career and won her excellent notices. Of her acting, biographer Jeffrey Crouse, in an extended interview conducted with her in 2013 for Film International, has written that, "though by today's standards she fails to convince as a boy, she commits fully to the movie in such an animated, engaging way that she provides it with a color splash which sweetly enlivens the picture." It ended up becoming the third most expensive 1920s Hollywood production after Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925) and Old Ironsides (1926), and like those other films it lost money at the box office.
At Universal she had her own dressing room (it had once been Conrad Nagel's) and star on the door. An entire clothing line was named after her ("Lassie Lou Classics"), and her name and image were used to endorse such brands as Sunkist oranges, Buster Brown shoes, and Jean Carol frocks. At the same time, she was cast in the rare Jewish-themed drama Surrender (1927) opposite Mary Philbin and, in his only American film, Ivan Mozhukhin. She also appeared as an Arab girl in The Forbidden Woman (1927) starring Jetta Goudal and Joseph Schildkraut. Schildkraut, who would later win an Oscar for playing Captain Alfred Dreyfus in The Life of Emile Zola (1937), announced at the wrap party that he was so impressed by her acting skills that he considered her his "favourite co-star." That year also saw her cast as the co-lead opposite rising child star Frankie Darro in the FBO production Little Mickey Grogan. It was her swan song to silent pictures, and alongside her part as Little Harry, her role as the street urchin Susan Dale was the one of which she was most proud.
The late 1920s saw a spate of proto-gangster films (Underworld [1927], Ladies of the Mob [1928], and Thunderbolt [1929]), and alarmed by the rising depiction of screen violence, Fred Ahern took his daughters out of pictures. Instead, he opened a dance studio, only blocks from MGM, called "Ahern's Allied Arts." There--besides dance styles such as ballet and tap--acrobatics, rope tricks, and music were taught. Ernest Belcher, Marge Champion's father, had been Lassie's dance instructor, and indeed she had been a trained dancer before the studio opened, amply showing off her skills in Uncle Tom's Cabin and Little Mickey Grogan. From 1932 to 1939, the sisters successfully toured the world together in a variety of venues, even appearing on screen (marvelous in 1937's Hollywood Party). Their act broke up when each sister decided to marry.
While Peggy permanently retired from performing, Lassie returned to Hollywood in 1941 with husband Johnny Brent, a former Dixieland drummer who was employed for years as a musician for studio orchestras. She danced in City of Lost Girls (1941) and in the early musicals Donald O'Connor made at Universal (1943's Top Man and Mister Big and 1945's Patrick the Great). She was effusive in her praise for O'Connor, openly regarding him as the finest performer she ever worked with. She was also nearly cast opposite Jennifer Jones in The Song of Bernadette (1943), and had a bit part with Joseph Cotten in George Cukor's Gaslight (1944). When she returned to the screen decades later, it was not on the big one but on television, in small parts in episodes of The Odd Couple; Love, American Style; and other popular series.
In middle age, she not only was a travel agent but for more than thirty years taught dance to generations of students at the Ashram Spa near San Diego, with Renee Zellweger and Cindy Crawford among her pupils. In the 1970s, while researching an upcoming role in which she was to be cast as a madam, Faye Dunaway approached Lassie for walking lessons because of her commanding posture.
Besides her late husband and sister, Lassie's half-brother Fred had also worked in the industry, notably as a production designer for Alfred Hitchcock in five pictures he made for the Master of Suspense from the period of Spellbound (1945) to Stage Fright (1950). Lassie leaves behind three children, Cary, Debra, and John. She told Crouse in 2013, "It's gratifying to experience such interest in my work from you and so many others from around the world. Fan letters, especially from Germany and Spain, still arrive at my mailbox at a rate that amazes me."
An original 35-mm nitrate copy of Little Mickey Grogan has been found in the Lobster Films Archive in Paris. Crouse and co-producer Eric Grayson are working to restore it. - Animation Department
- Art Department
- Art Director
Gary Hoffman was born on 17 August 1937 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. He was an art director, known for Defenders of the Earth (1986), Charlotte's Web (1973) and He-Man and She-Ra: The Secret of the Sword (1985). He died on 15 April 2016 in Prescott Valley, Arizona, USA.- Actor
- Location Management
Considered one of the first great big men in football, Faison was an All-American performer at Indiana before getting drafted by the San Diego Chargers of the American Football League (AFL). His impact was felt immediately as he was tabbed Rookie of the Year in 1961, and was a consistent All-AFL player. Along with teammate Ernie Ladd, the Chargers had the biggest defensive line in all of football. Faison helped the Chargers win the 1963 AFL championship, but after his All-Pro year of 1965, chronic back spasms led to his retirement in 1966. He then became a teacher and head football coach at San Diego Lincoln High School, where he coached future NFL superstar Marcus Allen.- Producer
Frank Shankwitz was born on 8 March 1943 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was a producer, known for Old Nevada, Wish Man (2019) and Stickability (2013). He was married to Kitty and Sue Darrah. He died on 24 January 2021 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.- Bill Cassady was born on 5 September 1923 in Paris, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), Sergeant Preston of the Yukon (1955) and Because of You (1952). He died on 15 September 2006 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Robert William Murphy was born on 27 August 1902 in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a writer, known for Run, Cougar, Run (1972) and The Magical World of Disney (1954). He was married to Jean Warfield Whittle. He died on 13 July 1971 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Les Hellman was born on 18 July 1923 in Denver, Colorado, USA. He was an actor, known for Target (1958), Sea Hunt (1958) and Highway Patrol (1955). He died on 5 November 2007 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Helen Nielsen was born on 23 October 1918. She was a writer, known for Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), Blackout (1954) and Alcoa Premiere (1961). She died on 22 June 2002 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Special Effects
- Visual Effects
- Art Department
Danny Lee was born on 9 July 1919 in Wisconsin, USA. He is known for Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), The Black Hole (1979) and Bonnie and Clyde (1967). He was married to Catharyn Jane. He died on 28 November 2014 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
He was home on the Hollywood range only a few years but Bob "Tumbleweed" Baker (ne Stanley Leland Weed) still made his mark by the time he rode off into the sunset. Born on November 8, 1910, in Forest City, IA, his family eventually moved to Colorado and then to Arizona during his growing years. He enlisted in the Army when he was 18 and earned the nickname "Tumbleweed" while also learning how to play the guitar. He later served during WWII and the Korea War.
Baker made an initial name for himself on radio. A chance audition for Universal Pictures, which was on the lookout to groom a new singing cowboy star after the meteoric success of Gene Autry, was his big break, beating out such other sagebrush hopefuls as Roy Rogers.
Baker's first film, Courage of the West (1937), was a success and the new singing cowboy stud-in-town ventured on with such solid white-hatted vehicles as The Singing Outlaw (1937), The Last Stand (1938) and The Phantom Stage (1939). Astride his horse Apache, he made nine oaters in 1938 and was ranked 10th in the "Top Ten Moneymaking Western Star" poll of 1939. That same year, however, Universal decided to form a movie trio partnering Baker with Johnny Mack Brown and Fuzzy Knight. Brown was clearly the star of the series, however, and Baker's career started to tumble. By 1942 he had gotten lost in the dust and was appearing in unbilled parts. One of his final roles was that of a bus driver in the Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942). Claiming his career had been fatally mishandled by Universal, Baker left Hollywood and would return on a very rare occasion as a stuntman.
The former western star returned to his home in Arizona with wife Evelyn (since 1935) and four children and worked for a spell as a policeman. Quite the handyman, he also owned a saddle shop where he made and sold saddles and assorted leather goods. During his last years, Baker was in extremely poor health brought on by a series of heart attacks. He suffered a fatal stroke at age 64 while battling cancer.- Paula Murphy was born on 16 June 1928 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Paula Murphy: Undaunted (2023) and What's My Line? (1950). She was married to Dan Murphy. She died on 21 December 2023 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Jim Pike was born on 6 November 1936 in St, Louis, Missouri, USA. He was married to Susan Jeanne Kennedy. He died on 9 June 2019 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Frank Cuva was born on 21 April 1932 in Detroit, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for Wild, Free & Hungry (1969), Naked Angels (1969) and The Harem Bunch (1969). He was married to Karen. He died on 22 December 2023 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.
- Stunts
- Actor
Robert Garvey was an actor. He died on 9 December 2019 in Prescott Valley, Arizona, USA.- Joyce Newhard was born on 16 November 1920 in California, USA. She was an actress, known for Fireside Theatre (1949). She died on 30 November 2006 in Prescott, Arizona, USA.