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Once told by an interviewer, "Everybody would like to be Cary Grant", Grant is said to have replied, "So would I."
Cary Grant was born Archibald Alec Leach on January 18, 1904 in Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria (Kingdon) and Elias James Leach, who worked in a factory. His early years in Bristol would have been an ordinary lower-middle-class childhood, except for one extraordinary event. At age nine, he came home from school one day and was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. However, the real truth was that she had been placed in a mental institution, where she would remain for years, and he was never told about it (he would not see his mother again until he was in his late 20s).
He left school at age 14, lying about his age and forging his father's signature on a letter to join Bob Pender's troupe of knockabout comedians. He learned pantomime as well as acrobatics as he toured with the Pender troupe in the English provinces, picked up a Cockney accent in the music halls in London, and then in July 1920, was one of the eight Pender boys selected to go to the United States. Their show on Broadway, "Good Times", ran for 456 performances, giving Grant time to acclimatize. He would stay in America. Mae West wanted Grant for She Done Him Wrong (1933) because she saw his combination of virility, sexuality and the aura and bearing of a gentleman. Grant was young enough to begin the new career of fatherhood when he stopped making movies at age 62.
One biographer said Grant was alienated by the new realism in the film industry. In the 1950s and early 1960s, he had invented a man-of-the-world persona and a style - "high comedy with polished words". In To Catch a Thief (1955), he and Grace Kelly were allowed to improvise some of the dialogue. They knew what the director, Alfred Hitchcock, wanted to do with a scene, they rehearsed it, put in some clever double entendres that got past the censors, and then the scene was filmed. His biggest box-office success was another Hitchcock 1950s film, North by Northwest (1959) made with Eva Marie Saint since Kelly was by that time Princess of Monaco.
Although Grant retired from the screen, he remained active. He accepted a position on the board of directors at Faberge. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed. Grant regularly attended meetings and traveled internationally to support them. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park, the Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle - Hollywood, California), Western Airlines (acquired by Delta Airlines in 1987) and MGM.
Grant expressed no interest in making a career comeback. He was in good health until almost the end of his life, when he suffered a mild stroke in October 1984. In his last years, he undertook tours of the United States in a one-man-show, "A Conversation with Cary Grant", in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. On November 29, 1986, Cary Grant died at age 82 of a cerebral hemorrhage in Davenport, Iowa.
In 1999, the American Film Institute named Grant the second male star of Golden Age of Hollywood cinema (after Humphrey Bogart). Grant was known for comedic and dramatic roles; his best-known films include Bringing Up Baby (1938), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963).- Born to George & Frances Simonson Walter, and named Sterling Relyea Walter. Father died in 1925. Adopted by stepfather 'James Hayden' renamed Sterling Walter Hayden. Grew up in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., and Maine. Though very poor, attended prep school at Wassookeag School in Dexter, Maine. Ran away to sea at 17, first as ship's boy, then as doryman on the Grand Banks, as a seaman and fireman on numerous vessels before getting his first command at 19. He sailed around the world a number of times, becoming a well-known and highly respected ship's captain. At urging of friends, met with producer Edward H. Griffith who signs him to a Paramount contract. Fell for his first leading lady, Madeleine Carroll, and married her. Prior to Pearl Harbor, abandoned Hollywood to become a commando with the COI (later the OSS). Joined Marines under pseudonym "John Hamilton" (a name he never acts under), eventually running guns and supplies to Yugoslav partisans through the German blockade of the Adriatic, as well as parachuting into Croatia for guerrilla activities. Won Silver Star and citation from Tito of Yugoslavia. Briefly flirted with Communist Party membership due to friendship with Yugoslav Communists. Returned to film work, which he despised, in order to pay for a succession of sailing vessels. As Red Scare deepens in U.S., he cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee, confessing his brief Communist ties. Ever after regretted this action, holding himself in enormous contempt for what he considered "ratting". Offered role of Tarzan as replacement for Lex Barker, but refused. Made headlines defying court order not to sail to Tahiti with his children following divorce decree. Published autobiography "Wanderer" in 1963, and novel "Voyage" in 1976, both to great acclaim. Cast as Quint in Jaws (1975) but unable to play due to tax problems. Died of cancer in 1986.
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The most famous Soviet film-maker since Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky (the son of noted poet Arseniy Tarkovsky) studied music and Arabic in Moscow before enrolling in the Soviet film school VGIK. He shot to international attention with his first feature, Ivan's Childhood (1962), which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival. This resulted in high expectations for his second feature Andrei Rublev (1966), which was banned by the Soviet authorities for two years. It was shown at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival at four o'clock in the morning on the last day, in order to prevent it from winning a prize - but it won one nonetheless, and was eventually distributed abroad partly to enable the authorities to save face. Solaris (1972), had an easier ride, being acclaimed by many in Europe and North America as the Soviet answer to Kubrick's '2001' (though Tarkovsky himself was never too fond of his own film nor Kubrick's), but he ran into official trouble again with Mirror (1975), a dense, personal web of autobiographical memories with a radically innovative plot structure. Stalker (1979) had to be completely reshot on a dramatically reduced budget after an accident in the laboratory destroyed the first version, and after Nostalghia (1983), shot in Italy (with official approval), Tarkovsky defected to Europe. His last film, The Sacrifice (1986) was shot in Sweden with many of Ingmar Bergman's regular collaborators, and won an almost unprecedented four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival. He died of lung cancer at the end of the year. Two years later link=Sergei Parajanov dedicated his film Ashik Kerib to Tarkovsky.- The talented scion of a show-business family, Keenan Wynn's father was the great burlesque and television buffoon Ed Wynn while his maternal grandfather, Frank Keenan, earned distinction on the other side of the entertainment ladder as a Shakespearean tragedian. Mother Hilda Keenan was also a minor actress. Born in New York City on July 27, 1916, during the height of his father's Broadway popularity, Keenan grew up in the lap of luxury and was educated at St. John's Military Academy. He initially followed in his grandfather's dramatic footsteps as opposed to his father's clown shoes, making his professional bow in Maine with the Lakewood Players in a production of "Accent of Youth". By 1937, he was on Broadway with "Hitch Your Wagon" in two small roles. During the run of the show, he met first wife, actress Evie Wynn Johnson, who became his coach, manager and advisor. At the same time, he began to get steady radio work.
Through the aid and encouragement of his wife and her contacts, he eventually wrangled screen tests for both 20th Century-Fox and MGM. Turned down by the first studio, he signed with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer at a rather low pay scale of $300 a week. At MGM, Keenan became the utilitarian character player, adept at playing almost anything handed to him. Balding, homely but with real distinctive, imposing features, he made his unbilled debut in Somewhere I'll Find You (1942), and went on to play a grab-bag of shady brutes, usually in comic relief style. He was Gene Kelly's agent in For Me and My Gal (1942), a gangster in Lost Angel (1943), a soldier buddy to Robert Walker in See Here, Private Hargrove (1944) and its sequel; a drunk in a diner in The Clock (1945); Lucille Ball's tipsy beau in the Katharine Hepburn / Spencer Tracy vehicle Without Love (1945); and a news editor paired up with Ms. Ball again in Easy to Wed (1946). Moreover, he was given "B" co-star assignments in lesser material such as The Thrill of Brazil (1946), No Leave, No Love (1946) and The Cockeyed Miracle (1946).
Two sons were born to Keenan and Eve during the war years but he and Eve soon drifted apart. In 1946, the couple filed divorce papers with a third-party involvement in the form of family close friend and MGM star Van Johnson. Eve went on to marry Johnson the day after the couple's divorce was decreed in 1947. Keenan's second marriage in 1949 to Betty Jane Butler lasted only four years.
He resigned with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the postwar years and ventured on as one of Hollywood's strongest character players. The drawback was that not many of his roles were high-quality challenges, roles that might have moved him toward the top of the MGM hierarchy. The more scene-stealing roles that came to him were his disagreeable, self-important burlesque star in the Clark Gable starrer The Hucksters (1947); his jazz reedman in Song of the Thin Man (1947); and the songwriter friend to Kirk Douglas in My Dear Secretary (1948). He was also given his quota of vulgar, blunt-talking villains to play, both comically and dramatically, in such films as Love That Brute (1950), Kind Lady (1951) and, in particular, his Runyonesque gangster in the musical classic Kiss Me Kate (1953). Partnered with co-hort James Whitmore, their rendering of "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" was one of many comedy highlights. He also doled out a number of brash soldier types in such films as Fearless Fagan (1952), Battle Circus (1953), Code Two (1953) and Men of the Fighting Lady (1954).
After leaving Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1954, he set his sights on television, but the lure of films (and steady work) never stopped. In The Great Man (1956), Keenan finally appeared with father Ed Wynn, who had suffered a major career slide and subsequent nervous breakdown. Keenan, who at one time had gone to great lengths to extricate himself from his father's famous shadow, was now an instrument of encouragement. He suggested the elder Wynn abandon his old-styled clowning in favor of a serious character acting. His father agreed to try and appeared in a small role in the film but they had no scenes together. The risk worked. The following year both were being hailed for their superlative work together in the dramatic television production Requiem for a Heavyweight (1956).
Disney employed both father and son in the 1960s with a mustachioed Keenan as an exceptionally hissable villain in the studio's comedy feature The Absent Minded Professor (1961) and its sequel, Son of Flubber (1962). His hammy antics were spurred on in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), The Great Race (1965), Viva Max (1969) and Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), along with standard, if not always stand-out, television work. His annoying, fast-talking conmen, scheming tycoons and other unappetizing cronies never lost their demand. In 1975, he earned an Emmy Award nomination for his guest-starring role on Police Woman (1974).
Though his later years were marred by a severe case of tinnitus (a ringing in the ear that blocks out exterior sound), he was able to continue acting until the very end. One of his last roles was as a regular on the short-lived television series The Last Precinct (1986). Sons Ned Wynn ("Edmund") and Tracy Keenan Wynn became successful writers in the business. On October 14, 1986, Keenan Wynn died of pancreatic cancer at age 70 and was survived by third wife Sharley Jean Hudson, who had three daughters by him: Hilda, Emily and Edwina. His granddaughter Jessica Keenan Wynn (Edwina's daughter) is also a Broadway singer and actress. - Murray Hamilton was one of those character actors whose face would be familiar to most movie buffs at an instant, yet his name may not. That's a shame, because Hamilton was one of the most versatile and prolific of performers who was never anything less than completely convincing in any role he took on, from priests to gangsters, soldiers to politicians, ordinary men to aliens. His characters would rarely fail to evoke emotion, whether that be sympathy or dislike. He particularly excelled at hard-edged, street-wise tough guys on either side of the law. His own dictum was to be always "true to the part as it is written".
Born and schooled in Washington, North Carolina, he had originally studied graphic design but had an early yearning for the acting profession. Barely out of his teens, he took a bus to Los Angeles, eventually arriving in Hollywood with just $50 to his name. He gained a foothold at Warner Brothers (his favorite studio) through the back door, as a messenger boy, earning $22 a week. He soon found work as an extra in films, but by 1945, returned to New York making his debut on Broadway as "a mill hand" in 'Strange Fruit', directed by 'Jose Ferrer (I)'.
His breakthrough came three years later, when he appeared with Henry Fonda in the long-running play 'Mister Roberts' (1948-51), first playing the role of a shore patrol officer, later taking over from David Wayne in the key part of Ensign Pulver. Over the years, Murray became quite comfortable with playing more comedic roles on stage and made good impressions as the over-zealous director Dion Kapakos in 'Critic's Choice' (1960-61), and as Otis Clifton in his Tony Award-nominated performance in 'Absence of a Cello' (1964-65), co-starring with Fred Clark and Charles Grodin. Of his enactment as Robert E. Lee Prewitt in the short-lived military drama 'Stockade' (1954), critic Brooks Atkinson remarked: "Modest of manner, pleasant of voice, he has a steel-like spirit that brings Prewitt honestly to life" (New York Times, September 17, 1986).
Murray began in films properly as a credited screen actor from 1951, alternating with guest starring roles on television (by the end of his life he had appeared in more than 100 TV shows). His expressive face and gravelly voice became an adaptable combination for playing surly gangsters (Perry Mason (1957)), authority figures with integrity (James Stewart's ill-fated colleague in The FBI Story (1959)), or without (pompous mayor Larry Vaughn in Jaws (1975)). He was particularly good as Irving Blanchard in the comedy No Time for Sergeants (1958), giving an excellent drunk impersonation; as obtuse barkeeper Al Paquette in Anatomy of a Murder (1959), the key witness to the crime who keeps mum out of misguided loyalty; cocky Kentuckian millionaire Findley who thinks he can take Fast Eddie in The Hustler (1961); and Anne Bancroft's complacent, cuckolded husband, Mr. Robinson, in The Graduate (1967), a role for which Marlon Brando was at one time considered. Of Murray's performance in the iconic 1960s film, Bosley Crowther posited that "Murray Hamilton is piercing ... a seemingly self-indulgent type who is sharply revealed as bewildered and wounded in one fine, funny scene" (New York Times, December 22, 1967).
On the small screen, he was memorable as "Mr. Death" in the 'One for the Angels' episode of Rod Serling's The Twilight Zone (1959), who is seemingly sweet-talked by salesman Lew Bookman (Ed Wynn) to remain on earth just long enough to make his big "pitch to the angels". As Lewis Dunn in the episode 'The Condemned' of The Invaders (1967), he was a very different type of visitor to earth, a sinister alien. In addition to numerous portrayals of harassed or cynical cops, he is also remembered for his recurring TV role, Captain Rutherford T. Grant, in B.J. and the Bear (1978).
Unlike other busy actors, Hamilton was not a part of the established Hollywood set, preferring to spend his life in his native North Carolina, and in Manhattan. He counted George C. Scott, Jason Robards, and Walter Matthau, among his close friends.
When the actor was suffering from the effects of cancer and found film roles harder to come by, Scott helped out by getting him a part in the made-for-television movie The Last Days of Patton (1986).
Murray Hamilton died, aged 63, in September 1986 in his native North Carolina. - Actor
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Ray Milland became one of Paramount's most bankable and durable stars, under contract from 1934 to 1948, yet little in his early life suggested a career as a motion picture actor.
Milland was born Alfred Reginald Jones in the Welsh town of Neath, Glamorgan, to Elizabeth Annie (Truscott) and Alfred Jones. He spent his youth in the pursuit of sports. He became an expert rider early on, working at his uncle's horse-breeding estate while studying at the King's College in Cardiff. At 21, he went to London as a member of the elite Household Cavalry (Guard for the Royal Family), undergoing a rigorous 19-months training, further honing his equestrian skills, as well as becoming adept at fencing, boxing and shooting. He won trophies, including the Bisley Match, with his unit's crack rifle team. However, after four years, he suddenly lost his means of financial support (independent income being a requirement as a Guardsman) when his stepfather discontinued his allowance. Broke, he tried his hand at acting in small parts on the London stage.
There are several stories as to how he derived his stage name. It is known, that during his teens he called himself "Mullane", using his stepfather's surname. He may later have suffused "Mullane" with "mill-lands", an area near his hometown. When he first appeared on screen in British films, he was billed first as Spike Milland, then Raymond Milland.
In 1929, Ray befriended the popular actress Estelle Brody at a party and, later that year, visited her on the set of her latest film, The Plaything (1929). While having lunch, they were joined by a producer who persuaded the handsome Welshman to appear in a motion picture bit part. Ray rose to the challenge and bigger roles followed, including the male lead in The Lady from the Sea (1929). The following year, he was signed by MGM and went to Hollywood, but was given little to work with, except for the role of Charles Laughton's ill-fated nephew in Payment Deferred (1932). After a year, Ray was out of his contract and returned to England.
His big break did not come until 1934 when he joined Paramount, where he was to remain for the better part of his Hollywood career. During the first few years, he served an apprenticeship playing second leads, usually as the debonair man-about-town, in light romantic comedies. He appeared with Burns and Allen in Many Happy Returns (1934), enjoyed third-billing as a British aristocrat in the Claudette Colbert farce The Gilded Lily (1935) and was described as "excellent" by reviewers for his role in the sentimental drama Alias Mary Dow (1935). By 1936, he had graduated to starring roles, first as the injured British hunter rescued on a tropical island by The Jungle Princess (1936), the film which launched Dorothy Lamour's sarong-clad career. After that, he was the titular hero of Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937) and, finally, won the girl (rather than being the "other man") in Mitchell Leisen's screwball comedy Easy Living (1937). He also re-visited the tropics in Ebb Tide (1937), Her Jungle Love (1938) and Tropic Holiday (1938), as well as being one of the three valiant brothers of Beau Geste (1939).
In 1940, Ray was sent back to England to star in the screen adaptation of Terence Rattigan's French Without Tears (1940), for which he received his best critical reviews to date. He was top-billed (above John Wayne) running a ship salvage operation in Cecil B. DeMille's lavish Technicolor adventure drama Reap the Wild Wind (1942), besting Wayne in a fight - much to the "Duke's" personal chagrin - and later wrestling with a giant octopus. Also that year, he was directed by Billy Wilder in a charming comedy, The Major and the Minor (1942) (co-starred with Ginger Rogers), for which he garnered good notices from Bosley Crowther of the New York Times. Ray then played a ghost hunter in The Uninvited (1944), and the suave hero caught in a web of espionage in Fritz Lang's thriller Ministry of Fear (1944).
On the strength of his previous role as "Major Kirby", Billy Wilder chose to cast Ray against type in the ground-breaking drama The Lost Weekend (1945) as dipsomaniac writer "Don Birnam". Ray gave the defining performance of his career, his intensity catching critics, used to him as a lightweight leading man, by surprise. Crowther commented "Mr. Milland, in a splendid performance, catches all the ugly nature of a 'drunk', yet reveals the inner torment and degradation of a respectable man who knows his weakness and his shame" (New York Times, December 3, 1945). Arrived at the high point of his career, Ray Milland won the Oscar for Best Actor, as well as the New York Critic's Award. Rarely given such good material again, he nonetheless featured memorably in many more splendid films, often exploiting the newly discovered "darker side" of his personality: as the reporter framed for murder by Charles Laughton's heinous publishing magnate in The Big Clock (1948); as the sophisticated, manipulating art thief "Mark Bellis" in the Victorian melodrama So Evil My Love (1948) (for which producer Hal B. Wallis sent him back to England); as a Fedora-wearing, Armani-suited "Lucifer", trawling for the soul of an honest District Attorney in Alias Nick Beal (1949); and as a traitorous scientist in The Thief (1952), giving what critics described as a "sensitive" and "towering" performance. In 1954, Ray played calculating ex-tennis champ "Tony Wendice", who blackmails a former Cambridge chump into murdering his wife, in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder (1954). He played the part with urbane sophistication and cold detachment throughout, even in the scene of denouement, calmly offering a drink to the arresting officers.
With Lisbon (1956), Ray Milland moved into another direction, turning out several off-beat, low-budget films with himself as the lead, notably High Flight (1957), The Safecracker (1958) and Panic in Year Zero! (1962). At the same time, he cheerfully made the transition to character parts, often in horror and sci-fi outings. In accordance with his own dictum of appearing in anything that had "any originality", he worked on two notable pictures with Roger Corman: first, as a man obsessed with catalepsy in The Premature Burial (1962); secondly, as obsessed self-destructive surgeon "Dr. Xavier" in X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963)-the Man with X-Ray Eyes, a film which, despite its low budget, won the 1963 Golden Asteroid in the Trieste Festival for Science Fiction.
As the years went on, Ray gradually disposed of his long-standing toupee, lending dignity through his presence to many run-of-the-mill television films, such as Cave in! (1983) and maudlin melodramas like Love Story (1970). He guest-starred in many anthology series on television and had notable roles in Rod Serling's Night Gallery (1969) and the original Battlestar Galactica (1978) (as Quorum member Sire Uri). He also enjoyed a brief run on Broadway, starring as "Simon Crawford" in "Hostile Witness" (1966), at the Music Box Theatre.
In his private life, Ray was an enthusiastic yachtsman, who loved fishing and collecting information by reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica. In later years, he became very popular with interviewers because of his candid spontaneity and humour. In the same self-deprecating vein he wrote an anecdotal biography, "Wide-Eyed in Babylon", in 1976. A film star, as well as an outstanding actor, Ray Milland died of cancer at the age of 79 in March 1986.- Actress
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Donna Reed was born in the midwestern town of Denison, Iowa, on January 27, 1921, as Donna Belle Mullenger. A small town - a population of less than 3,000 people - Denison was located by the Boyer River, and was the county seat of Crawford County. Donna grew up as a farm girl, much like many young girls in western Iowa, except for one thing - Donna was very beautiful. That wasn't to say that others weren't as pretty, it's just that Donna's beauty stood out from all the other local girls, so much so that she won a beauty contest in Denison. Upon graduation from high school Donna left for college in Los Angeles, in the hopes of eventually entering movies. While at Los Angeles City College, she pursued her dream by participating in several college stage productions. In addition to the plays, she also won the title of Campus Queen. At one of those stage plays Donna was spotted by an MGM talent scout and was signed to a contract. Her first film was a minor role in MGM's The Getaway (1941). That was followed by a small part in Babes on Broadway (1941), with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland as a secretary. She then won her breakthrough role in Shadow of the Thin Man (1941). Afterwards, MGM began giving her better parts, in films such as The Bugle Sounds (1942), The Courtship of Andy Hardy (1942) and The Man from Down Under (1943). In 1944 she received second billing playing Carol Halliday in See Here, Private Hargrove (1944), a comedy about a reporter drafted into the army who eventually meets up with Donna's character as a worker in the canteen. The following year Donna starred in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), her best role to date. It was a love story set in London in 1890. It got mixed critical reviews but did well at the box-office. Donna was now one of the leading ladies of Hollywood. In 1946 she starred in what is probably her best-known role, as the wife of James Stewart in the classic It's a Wonderful Life (1946). This timeless story is a holiday staple to this day. The film also starred Lionel Barrymore and Thomas Mitchell. The next year Donna starred as Ann Daniels in Paramount's Beyond Glory (1948) with Alan Ladd, which did well at the box-office. Her next role was the strongest she had had yet--Chicago Deadline (1949), again with Ladd. It was one of the best mystery dramas to come out of Hollywood in a long time, and did very well at the box office. As the 1940s faded out and the 1950s stormed in, Donna's roles got bigger but were mainly of the wholesome, girl-next-door type. In 1953, however, she starred as the hostess Alma in the widely acclaimed From Here to Eternity (1953). She was so good in that film she was nominated for and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, beating out such veterans as Thelma Ritter and Marjorie Rambeau. The film itself won for Best Picture and remains a classic to this day. Later that year Donna starred in The Caddy (1953), a comedy with Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Three years later she landed the role of Sacajawea in The Far Horizons (1955), the story of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, starring Charlton Heston and Fred MacMurray. After finishing The Whole Truth (1958), Donna began her own TV series (produced by her husband), The Donna Reed Show (1958), a hit that ran for eight years. She was so effective in the show that she was nominated for TV's prestigious Emmy Award as Best Actress every year from 1959-1962. She was far more popular in TV than on the screen. After the run of the program, Donna took some time away from show business before coming back in a couple of made-for-TV movies (in 1974, she had made a feature called Welcome to Arrow Beach (1973), but it was never released). She did get the role of Ellie Ewing Farlow in the hit TV series Dallas (1978) during the 1984-85 season. It was to be her final public performance. On January 14, 1986, less than two weeks before her 65th birthday, she died of pancreatic cancer in Beverly Hills, California. Grover Asmus, her husband, created the Donna Reed Foundation for the Performing Arts in her hometown of Denison. The foundation helps others who desire a career in the arts. Donna never forgot her roots. She was still a farm girl at heart.- Actor
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One of Hollywood's preeminent male stars of all time, James Cagney was also an accomplished dancer and easily played light comedy. James Francis Cagney was born on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City, to Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr., who was a bartender and amateur boxer. Cagney was of Norwegian (from his maternal grandfather) and Irish descent. Ending three decades on the screen, he retired to his farm in Stanfordville, New York (some 77 miles/124 km. north of his New York City birthplace), after starring in Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three (1961). He emerged from retirement to star in the 1981 screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel "Ragtime" (Ragtime (1981)), in which he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 1930s, Pat O'Brien, and which was his last theatrical film and O'Brien's as well). Cagney's final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (1984), in which he played opposite Art Carney.- Actor
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Scatman Crothers was born Benjamin Sherman Crothers on May 23, 1910 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Songwriter ("Dearest One"), actor, composer, singer, comedian, and guitarist who, after high school, appeared in nightclubs, hotels, and films, and on television. He made many records, including his own compositions. He joined ASCAP in 1959, and his popular-song compositions also include "The Gal Looks Good", "Nobody Knows Why", "I Was There", "A Man's Gotta Eat", and "When, Oh When". Scatman Crothers died at age 76 of pneumonia and lung cancer at his home in Van Nuys, California on November 22, 1986.- Actress
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Virginia Gregg was born on 6 March 1916 in Harrisburg, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Operation Petticoat (1959), Crime in the Streets (1956) and Police Story (1973). She was married to Jaime Del Valle. She died on 15 September 1986 in Encino, Los Angeles, California, USA.- Producer
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Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III was born in Santiago, Cuba on March 2, 1917. His father was the mayor of Santiago. The 1933 revolution led by Fulgencio Batista had landed his father in jail and stripped the family of its wealth, property and power. His father was released because of the intercession of U.S. officials who believed him to be neutral during the revolt. The family fled to Miami, Florida. One of Desi's first jobs in America consisted of cleaning canary cages. However, after forming his own small band of musicians, he was hired by Xavier Cugat, the "king" of Latin music.
Desi soon left Cugat, formed his own Latin band, and literally launched the conga craze in America. He was cast in the Broadway play "Too Many Girls" and then brought to Hollywood to make the film version of the play. It was on the set of Too Many Girls (1940) that he and Lucille Ball met. They soon married and approximately 10 years later formed Desilu Productions and began the I Love Lucy (1951) shows. Desi and Lucille had two children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr.. At the end of the I Love Lucy (1951) run, which included The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957), the two divorced. Desi later wrote an autobiography entitled "A Book." In 1986 he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He died on December 2, 1986 at age 69.- Actress
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Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born into an unconventional a family at the turn of the 20th century. Her parents, James "Shamus" Sullivan and Edith "Biddy" Lanchester, were socialists - very active members of the Social Democratic Federation (SDF) in a rather broad sense - and did not believe in the institution of marriage and being tied to any conventions of legality, for that matter. Her mother had actually been committed to an asylum in 1895 by her father and older brothers because of her unmarried state with James. The incident received worldwide press as the "Lanchester Kidnapping Case."
Elsa had a great desire to become a classical dancer and to that end at age 10 her mother enrolled her at the famed Isadora Duncan's Bellevue School in Paris in 1912. But the uncertainties of WW1 brought her home after only two years. At age 12, she was sent to a co-educational boarding school in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, England, to teach dance classes in exchange for her education and board. In 1918, she was hired as a dance teacher at Margaret Morris's school on the Isle of Wight.
Next to dance, she loved the music halls of the period, so in 1920 she debuted in a music hall act as an Egyptian dancer. About the same time she founded the Children's Theater in Soho, London and taught there for several years. She made her stage debut in 1922 in the West End play "Thirty Minutes in a Street." In 1924 she and her partner, Harold Scott, opened a London nightclub called the Cave of Harmony. They performed one-act plays by Pirandello and Chekhov and sang cabaret songs. She would later collect and record these and many others. The spot was frequented by literati like Aldous Huxley, H.G. Wells and also James Whale, working in London theater and soon to be directing on Broadway and Hollywood's most famous horror films. Lanchester kept busy including, on her own admission, posing nude for artists. During a 1926 comic performance in the Midnight Follies at London's Metropole, a member of the British Royal family walked out as she sang, "Please Sell No More Drink to My Father." She closed her nightclub in 1928 as her film career began in earnest.
Perhaps not beautiful in the more conventional sense, Lanchester was certainly pretty as a young woman with a turned-up nose that gave her a pert, impish expression, all the more striking with her large, expressive dark eyes and full lips. She had a lithe figure that she carried with the assuredness of her dancing background. Her voice was bright and distinctive, and had a delightful rush and trill that had an almost Scottish burr quality. What clicked on stage would do the same in the movies.
Her first film appearance was actually in an amateur movie by friend and author Evelyn Waugh called The Scarlet Woman: An Ecclesiastical Melodrama (1925). Her formal film debut was in the British movie One of the Best (1927). She continued stage work and became associated in 1927 with a rather self-possessed but keenly dedicated actor, Charles Laughton. He appeared with her in three of four films Lanchester did in 1928. (Three of these were written for her by H.G. Wells). They did a few plays as well and wed in 1929. According to Lanchester, after two years, she discovered Laughton was homosexual but they remained married until his death in 1962. Lanchester declared in a 1958 interview that she kept to a separate career path from her husband. They appeared together on occasion, moving through 1931 with several smart play-like films including Potiphar's Wife (1931) with Laurence Olivier. She had done the play "Payment Deferred" in London in 1930 and followed it to Broadway in 1931.
MGM offered her a contract in 1932. In 1933 Alexander Korda was casting his The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and decided that Laughton was the perfect choice - and his wife would be just as perfect as one of Henry's six wives. Her versatility pointed to a part with some comedic elements and fitting more into a caricature. She looked most like Hans Holbein's famous portrait of Anne of Cleves (Henry's fourth wife who was actually somewhat more homely than the painter depicted). In costume Lanchester was charming if not striking. Her interpretation of Anne was a perfect integration with herself, and her scene with Laughton informally playing cards on the marriage bed and deciding on annulment is a high point of the movie.
Of course, it would be hard to mention her film career of the 1930s without mentioning the one role that would forever dog her, Bride of Frankenstein (1935). Having come to Hollywood with Laughton in 1932 (but not permanently until 1939), Lanchester did only a few films up to 1935 and was disappointed enough with Hollywood's reception to return to London for a respite. She was quickly called back by an old friend from London, stage and film associate James Whale, now the noted director of Frankenstein (1931) and The Invisible Man (1933). He wanted her for two parts in Bride: author Mary Shelley and the bride. A central joke of the movie build-up was the tag lines: "WHO will be The Bride of Frankenstein? WHO will dare?"
Indeed, it was no honeymoon for her. For some ten days, Lanchester was wrapped in yards of bandage and covered in heavy makeup. The stand-on-end hairdo was accomplished by combing it over a wire mesh cage. Lanchester was in real agony with her eyes kept taped wide open for long takes - and it showed in her looks of horror. Her monster's screaming and hissing sounds (based on the sounds of Regents Park swans in London) were taped and then run backward to spook-up the effect. She was delightfully melodramatic and picturesque as Wollstonecraft, and her bride would become iconic. Many have considered Bride of Frankenstein (1935) the best of the golden age horror movies.
Lanchester stood out in her next movie with Laughton the next year, Korda's dark Rembrandt (1936), but she only did a few more films for the remainder of the decade. Through the 1940s she was doubly busy - a couple of films per year while regenerating her beloved musical revue sketches. She performed for 10 years at the Turnabout Theater in Hollywood, using old London music hall/cabaret songs and others written for her. Later she would have to split her time further doing a similar act at a supper club called The Bar of Music. By the later 1940s she had become rather matronly, and the roles would settle appropriately. But she always lent her sparkle, as with her charming maid Matilda in The Bishop's Wife (1947). She would be nominated for best supporting actress in Come to the Stable (1949).
She entered the 1950s busy with road touring of her nightclub act with pianist J. Raymond Henderson (who went by "Ray" and who is sometimes confused with popular songwriter Ray Henderson). There was a series of tours to complement Laughton's famous reading tours, called Elsa Lanchester's Private Music Hall which ended in 1952; Elsa Lanchester--Herself which ended in 1961; and once more in 1964 at the Ivar Theater. She was equally busy with a stock of film roles and a large share of TV playhouse theater. She made ten movies with Laughton, the last of which, Witness for the Prosecution (1957) garnered her second supporting actress nomination. But her dizzy Aunt Queenie Holroyd of Bell Book and Candle (1958) is a fond remembrance of that time.
With the two decades from the 1960s to early 1980s, Lanchester was a fixture on episodic TV and an institution in Disney and G-rated fare - perhaps a bit ironic for the unconventional Lanchester. She wrote two autobiographies: "Charles Laughton and I" (1938) and "Elsa Lanchester: Herself" (1983), both recalling her nearly 100 roles before the camera. Lanchester remained humorously reflective in regard to her film career, describing it as "...large parts in lousy pictures and small parts in big pictures." It was the mix of silly, bawdy, and outrageous in her revues that was her great joy: "I was content because I was fully aware that I did not like straight acting but preferred performing direct to an audience. You might call what I do vaudeville. Making a joke, especially impromptu, and getting a big laugh is just plain heaven."- Actor
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Actor Ted Knight paid his dues with nearly two decades of relatively obscure dramatic, often villainous television work, before finding enduring fame in a scene-stealing supporting turn on a classic 1970s sitcom, hilariously overplaying a silver-haired, self-important imbecile. Although the conceited "stuffed shirt" typecast plagued him for the rest of his career, the self-proclaimed "Polish Prince of Comedy" continued on good-naturedly, earning lead status on his own comedy series. The Connecticut-born actor was christened Tadeusz (Theodore) Wladyslaw Konopka, the son of a Polish-American family in his native town of Terryville, Connecticut. A high school dropout, he enlisted for World War II duty and eventually became a decorated member of the A Company, 296th Combat Engineer Battalion.
During his tour of duty, Ted developed an interest in acting, returning home in the post-war years to study his craft in Hartford, Connecticut, at the Randall School of Dramatic Arts. A fascination with puppetry and ventriloquism led to his first steady paycheck, as the host of a children's radio show (WJAR) in Providence, Rhode Island (1950-1955). Following this, Ted found more work (WROW-TV) in Albany, New York, hosting a children's variety show while playing radio announcer for its sister radio station, WROW.
Heading west to Los Angeles, California in 1957, Ted spent most of his early years providing slick commercial voiceovers and earning minor roles on television (Sea Hunt (1958)) and film (Psycho (1960)). He appeared regularly on the short-lived, The New Loretta Young Show (1962), and the daytime soap opera, The Young Marrieds (1964). Other television guest appearances sprouted including dramatic (The Twilight Zone (1959), The Fugitive (1963), Gunsmoke (1955), Highway Patrol (1955), Bonanza (1959), Combat! (1962)) as well as occasional comedic parts (McHale's Navy (1962), Gomer Pyle: USMC (1964), Get Smart (1965)). But nothing monumental pushed his career forward.
Ted's well-modulated voice was his moneymaker during the lean years, whether as an announcer/narrator or cartoon voice character. However, this anonymity ended went he copped the role of inept, pearly-toothed WJM anchorman "Ted Baxter" on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970). The arrogant but highly insecure character earned Knight two supporting Emmy trophies (1973, 1976) but severely pigeon-holed him for the rest of his career. However, the genial actor made the best of it and continued on stage ("Some of My Best Friends") and in commercials and TV spots that were similar in persona. In 1975, a musical album entitled "Hi, Guys!" (a catchphrase of the Baxter character) was released, which included a series of bizarre novelty songs.
Knight eventually starred opposite Nancy Dussault in his own television series, Too Close for Comfort (1980), which had a healthy run despite the fact that Knight, as the lead, was more subdued than on the Mary Tyler Moore classic. Renamed "The Ted Knight Show" after it became a syndicated series, the series finally ended in 1986 only due to Knight's terminal illness. The actor's sole post-Ted Baxter movie role was as a judge in the golf-themed comedy, Caddyshack (1980), in which he continually bumped heads with the film's star, Rodney Dangerfield.
Knight was initially diagnosed with cancer in 1977, for which he was treated over an extended period of time. In 1985, the television star's conditioned worsened and the 62-year-old actor died on August 26, 1986, following surgery for a growth in his urinary tract. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California (his marker reads Theodore C. Konopka), and was survived by his wife of 38 years, Dorothy Knight (nee Smith), and their three children, Ted Knight Jr., Elyse Knight and Eric Knight.- Actress
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Susan Cabot was born in Boston and raised in a series of eight foster homes. She attended high school in Manhattan, where she took an interest in dramatics and joined the school dramatic club. Later, while trying to decide between a career in music or art, she illustrated children's books during the day and sang at Manhattan's Village Barn at night. It was at this same time that she made her film debut as an extra in Fox's New York-made Kiss of Death (1947) and worked in New York-based television. Maxwell Arnow, a casting director for Columbia Pictures, spotted Cabot at the Village Barn, and a co-starring role in that studio's B-grade South Seas drama On the Isle of Samoa (1950) resulted. While in Hollywood Cabot was also signed for the role of an Indian maiden in Universal's Tomahawk (1951) with Van Heflin. Subsequently signed to an exclusive contract by Universal, Cabot co-starred in a long string of films opposite leading men like John Lund, Tony Curtis and Audie Murphy. Inevitably, she became fed up with the succession of western and Arabian Nights roles, asked for a release from her Universal pact and accepted an offer from Harold Robbins to star in his play "A Stone for Danny Fisher" in New York. Roger Corman lured her back to Hollywood to play the lead in the melodramatic rock-'n-'roller Carnival Rock (1957) and she stayed on to star in five more films for the enterprising young producer-director. After a highly publicized 1959 fling with Jordan's King Hussein, Cabot divided her time between TV work and roles in stage plays and musicals.- Actor
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Albert Gordon MacRae was born on March 12, 1921, in East Orange, NJ. During his early years, he resided in Syracuse, NY, and, while in high school, spent much of his time singing and acting in the Drama Club. It was also during this time that he learned to play the piano, clarinet and the saxophone. At 19, he entered a singing contest and won a two-week engagement at The World's Fair in New York, performing with the Harry James and Les Brown bands. In 1940, while working in New York City as a page, he was "discovered" and hired to sing for the Horace Heidt Band. After a two-year stint, he joined the Army Air Corps and worked as a navigator for the next two years. He made his Broadway debut in a show called "Junior Miss", as a replacement in the role of "Tommy Arbuckle". Next, he appeared, again on Broadway, in Ray Bolger's 1946 revue, "Three To Make Ready". It was here that he was spotted by Capitol Records and signed to a long-term recording contract in 1947. He stayed with the label for more than 20 years. In October 1948, on ABC, he starred on the radio show "The Railroad Hour". The show moved to NBC in October 1949 and continued until June of 1954. It presented operettas and musical dramatizations, all starring Gordon and many different leading ladies. Also in 1948, he was signed to a seven-year contract with Warner Brothers Pictures and, soon after, made his film debut in the non-musical, The Big Punch (1948), opposite Lois Maxwell (well-known later as "Miss Moneypenny" in the James Bond films). What followed was a string of hit musicals, starting with Look for the Silver Lining (1949), in which MacRae had a featured role opposite June Haver and Ray Bolger, and five fondly remembered films with Doris Day, beginning with Tea for Two (1950). Perhaps his two best and well-known films were two of his last: Oklahoma! (1955) and Carousel (1956), both written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II and both opposite screen newcomer Shirley Jones. MacRae began to suffer, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, from bouts of heavy drinking and, by his own admission, developed into an alcoholic. He revealed that he had been "picked up for drunk driving" during the filming of "Carousel". He conquered the disease in the 1970s and went on to counsel other alcoholics. He continued recording and performing on dozens of television shows. He and his wife, Sheila MacRae, appeared together frequently and even released an album together. His daughters, Meredith MacRae and Heather MacRae, acted in films and on TV. On September 22, 1974, he appeared as a sheriff on an episode of McCloud (1970), starring Dennis Weaver, entitled "The Barefoot Girls of Bleeker Street". His final film came in 1979, a fine dramatic role in The Pilot (1980), which starred Cliff Robertson. He suffered a stroke in 1982. He continued on with the support of his second wife, Elizabeth, and his five children. This brilliant performer continued to tour, when his health would permit, allowing audiences to relive some of his biggest film hits. On January 24, 1986, Gordon MacRae died at the age of 64, at his home in Lincoln, NE, of pneumonia, the result of complications from cancer of the mouth and jaw.- Actor
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Forrest Tucker, best known to the Baby Boom generation as Sergeant O'Rourke on the classic TV sitcom F Troop (1965), was born on February 12, 1919, in Plainfield, Indiana. He began his performing career at age 14 at the 1933 Chicago "Century of Progress" World's Fair, pushing big wicker tourists' chairs by day and singing at night. His family moved to Arlington, Virginia, where he attended Washington-Lee High School in 1938.
Big for his age, as a youth Tucker was hired by the Old Gayety Burlesque Theater in Washington, DC, to serve as a Master of Ceremonies for the burly-cue after consecutively winning Saturday night amateur contests. He was fired when it was found out that he was underage. When he turned 18, he was rehired by the Old Gayety.
After graduating from high school in 1938, the 6'4", 200-lb. Tucker played semi-pro football in the Washington, DC, area. He also enlisted in the National Guard and was assigned to a cavalry unit in Ft. Myers, Virginia. He started at the top when he entered the movies, in a supporting role in William Wyler's The Westerner (1940) opposite Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan, who won his third Oscar for portraying Judge Roy Bean in the picture. He got the role during his 1939 vacation from the Old Gayety, which shut down due to the District of Columbia's horrible summers in the days before air conditioning was common.He was signed to the part in the Wyler picture, which required a big fellow with enough presence for a fight scene with the 6'3" superstar Cooper.
Tucker moved to California and began auditioning for parts in films. After "The Westerner", it was off to Poverty Row, where he appeared in William Beaudine's Emergency Landing (1941) at rock-bottom PRC (Producers Releasing Corp.). He was soon signed by Columbia and assigned to the B-pictures unit, though he was lent to MGM for the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn vehicle Keeper of the Flame (1942), his last film before going off to World War II.
Tucker served as an enlisted man in the Army during the war, being discharged as a second lieutenant in 1945. He returned to Columbia and resumed his acting career with an appearance in the classic film The Yearling (1946). He signed with Republic Pictures in 1948, which brought him one of his greatest roles, that of the Marine corporal bearing a grudge against gung-ho sergeant John Wayne in Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). At Republic Tucker was top-billed in many of the "B' pictures in the action and western genres the studio was famous for, such as Rock Island Trail (1950), California Passage (1950) and Ride the Man Down (1952), among many others. In 1958 he broke out of action / western pictures and played Beauregard Burnside to Rosalind Russell's Auntie Mame (1958), the highest grossing US film of the year. It showed that Tucker was capable of performing in light comedy.
Morton DaCosta, his director on "Auntie Mame", cast Tucker as "Professor" Harold Hill in the national touring production of The Music Man (1962), and he was a more than credible substitute for the great Broadway star Robert Preston, who originated the role. Tucker made 2,008 appearances in The Music Man over the next five years, then starred in "Fair Game for Lovers" on Broadway in 1964.
However, it was television that provided Tucker with his most famous role: scheming cavalry sergeant Morgan O'Rourke in "F Troop", which ran from 1965 to 1967 on ABC. Ably supported by Larry Storch, Ken Berry and James Hampton, Tucker showed a flair for comedy and he and Storch had great chemistry, but the series was canceled after only two seasons. It has, however, remained in syndication ever since.
Following "F Troop", Tucker returned to films in supporting parts (having a good turn as the villain in the John Wayne western Chisum (1970)) and character leads (The Wild McCullochs (1975)). On television he was a regular on three series: Dusty's Trail (1973) with Bob Denver; The Ghost Busters (1975), which reunited him with Larry Storch; and Filthy Rich (1982). Tucker was also a frequent guest star on TV, with many appearances on Gunsmoke (1955) and in the recurring role of Jarvis Castleberry, Flo's estranged father, on Alice (1976) and its spin-off, Flo (1980). He continued to be active on stage as well, starring in the national productions of Plaza Suite (1971), Show Boat (1936), and That Championship Season (1982). He also toured with Roy Radin's Vaudeville Revue, a variety show in which, as a headliner, he told Irish stories and jokes and sang Irish songs.
Tucker returned to the big screen after an absence of several years in 1986, playing hero trucker Charlie Morrison in the action film Thunder Run (1985). His comeback to features was short-lived, however, as he died on October 25, 1986, in the Los Angeles suburb of Woodland Hills, of complications from lung cancer and emphysema. He was 67 years old. Tucker was buried in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles.- Actor
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Robert Murray Helpmann was born in Mount Gambier, Australia, as the eldest of three children born to stock and station agent James Murray Helpman and Mary Gardiner.
After the family moved to Adelaide in 1914, Helpmann was educated at Prince Alfred's College, but he soon left school at the age of 14 to focus on dance, specifically ballet. He was taught ballet by Nora Stewart. Helpmann first danced solo at the Theatre Royal in Adelaide in "The Ugly Duckling" in 1922. In 1926, he was trained by Alexis Dolinoff, the leading male dancer for Anna Pavlova, whom Helpmann soon became an apprentice for. The next year, in 1927, he joined J. C. Williamson Ltd. as their star dancer.
Helpmann went on to become the principal dancer at Sadlers Wells Ballet from 1933 to 1950. World renowned as a dancer and choreographer, amongst his other achievements he was the director of the Australian Ballet Company. He directed the world tour of Margot Fonteyn in 1963.
Towards the end of his life, Helpmann was living in Balmoral, a suburb of Mosman, in Sydney, Australia. On September 28, 1986, Helpmann died in the Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, at the age of 77, from emphysema, having been a lifelong smoker.- Director
- Producer
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Otto Ludwig Preminger was born in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary. His father was a prosecutor, and Otto originally intended to follow his father into a law career; however, he fell in love with the theater in his 20's and became one of the most imaginative stage producers and directors. He was only 24 when engaged by Max Reinhardt to take over his theatre where he produced all kids of plays. He directed his first film in 1931, and came to the US in 1936 to direct 'Libel' on the Broadway stage. He then moved to Hollywood where he signed with Fox becoming the first independent producer / director .He alternated between stage and film until the great success of Laura (1944) made him an A-list director in Hollyood.
For two decades after "Laura was released in 1944, Preminger ranked as one of the top directors in the world. His powers began to wane after Advise & Consent (1962), and by the end of the decade, he was considered washed-up. However, such was the potency of his craftsmanship that he continued to direct major motion pictures into the 1970s, with Rosebud (1975) getting scathing reviews. His last directorial effort was The Human Factor (1979), which won him respectful notices.
Otto Preminger died on April 23, 1986 in New York City from the effects of lung cancer and Alzheimer's disease. He was 80 years old.- Actor
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Broderick Crawford is best remembered for two roles: his Oscar-winning turn as Willie Stark in All the King's Men (1949) and as Chief Dan Mathews on the syndicated TV series Highway Patrol (1955). He was also memorable as Judy Holliday's vulgar partner in Born Yesterday (1950), roles both actors had originated on Broadway to great acclaim.
He was born William Broderick Crawford on December 9, 1911, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to vaudeville performers Lester Crawford and Helen Broderick. His mother had a brief movie career acting in Hollywood comedies. Broderick Crawford, large and burly, was no one's idea of a leading man due to his rough-and-tumble looks, but he broke through playing John Steinbeck's simple-minded giant Lenny in the Broadway adaptation of Steinbeck's novella "Of Mice and Men". After this Broadway success, Crawford moved to Hollywood and made his cinema debut in the comedy Woman Chases Man (1937), in a supporting role to stars Joel McCrea and Miriam Hopkins. When producer-director Lewis Milestone was casting the movie version of Steinbeck's classic (Of Mice and Men (1939)), he passed over Crawford and selected Lon Chaney Jr. to play Lenny.
After many supporting roles (including a memorable turn as a big but kindhearted lug in the comedy Larceny, Inc (1942)) and a stint in the military during World War II, Crawford had his breakthrough role in Robert Rossen's adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "All the King's Men". Crawford gave a masterly performance as the southern U.S. politician based on Louisiana's Huey Long. In addition to the Oscar, he also won the New York Film Critics' Award for Best Actor. All the King's Men (1949) was a hit, as was Born Yesterday (1950). (Crawford had also played the role on Broadway, succeeding Paul Douglas, who originated the role.) However, Crawford soon after became typecast as crude or brutish.
Five years after copping the Academy Award, TV producer Frederick W. Ziv hired Crawford to play the lead role in his syndicated police drama "Highway Patrol". The show ran for four seasons. Crawford's career, moribund in the early 1950s, revived, but he generally eschewed the big screen, preferring television, for the remainder of his career. He continued to act almost up until his death in Rancho Mirage, California, on April 26, 1986, at age 74, following a series of strokes.- Actor
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Leif Erickson was born on 27 October 1911 in Alameda, California, USA. He was an actor, known for The High Chaparral (1967), On the Waterfront (1954) and Show Boat (1951). He was married to Annie Ruth Diamond, Margaret Hayes and Frances Farmer. He died on 29 January 1986 in Pensacola, Florida, USA.- Actor
- Composer
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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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A brash character actress who specialized in cinema, television, and theater, Hermione Youlanda Ruby Clinton-Baddeley was born on November 13, 1906 in Broseley, Shropshire. She was the youngest of four sisters - including Angela Baddeley, also an actress - and her half-brother, Very Rev William Baddeley, was a Church of England Minister.
Not much is known about Baddeley's early life. She made her stage debut in 1918, and became popular in London stage comedies and revues prior to World War II, known for her dancing talent and natural comic ability. She memorably performed several times with Hermione Gingold. Baddeley made her film debut in 1927, with a role in the extremely obscure silent comedy A Daughter in Revolt (1927), but didn't come to attention until twenty years later, when she portrayed the affable but blowzy Ida in the film noir Brighton Rock (1948).
Known for her memorable character roles, Baddeley dabbled in such movies as Passport to Pimlico (1949), A Christmas Carol (1951), Tom Brown's Schooldays (1951), The Pickwick Papers (1952), The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954), Mary Poppins (1964), and The Unsinkable Molly Brown (1964). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her acid-tongued performance in Room at the Top (1958). At two minutes and thirty-two seconds, it is the shortest performance to ever be nominated for the award.
Baddeley became a household favorite for her role as irritable cockney housekeeper Mrs. Naugatuck on the '70s comedy series Maude (1972). She landed guest spots on multiple other shows, including but not limited to Hancock's Half Hour (1956), The Patty Duke Show (1963), Bewitched (1964), Night Gallery (1969), The Bionic Woman (1976), The Love Boat (1977), Charlie's Angels (1976), Wonder Woman (1975), Fantasy Island (1977), and Magnum, P.I. (1980).
Baddeley's two marriages failed, and she had a daughter, Pauline Tennant, from her first. She was in a long-term relationship with actor Laurence Harvey until he left her for Margaret Leighton, and died on August 19, 1986 at the age of 79 following a series of strokes.- Actor
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Robert Alda's career began in vaudeville, as a singer-dancer. Graduating to performing on radio and in burlesque, he made a splashy film debut as George Gershwin in Rhapsody in Blue (1945). His film career faltered somewhat after that, but he had much greater success on the Broadway stage in such productions as "Guys and Dolls" and "What Makes Sammy Run." Settling in Rome in the early 1960s, he appeared in many Italian and European films over the next 15 years. While many of them were quite successful in Europe, few made it to the United States. Alda is the father of actor Alan Alda and Antony Alda.- Alan Hewitt was born on 21 January 1915 in Manhattan, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Follow That Dream (1962), That Touch of Mink (1962) and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964). He died on 7 November 1986 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Roger C. Carmel, who was born September 27, 1932, was named after his grandfather, Roger Charles, who carved the horses for the carousel in New York's Central Park. He became an actor and won television immortality by appearing as Harry Mudd in two classic Star Trek (1966) episodes, "I, Mudd" and "Mudd's Women" (Carmel was one of the few guest actors on Star Trek (1966) to appear in more than one episode as the same character).
After appearing on stage, Carmel began working steadily on television in the early 1960s as a character actor, appearing on both dramas ("Route 66") and situation-comedies (The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961). In 1967, he was cast as the husband of Kaye Ballard's character on NBC's Desi Arnaz Productions' sitcom The Mothers-In-Law (1967), Desi Arnazs first production since I Love Lucy (1951). NBC was disappointed by the mediocre ratings of The Mothers-In-Law (1967), and almost canceled it. It picked the show up for a second season after rival network ABC expressed interest in the show, but NBC informed Arnaz that they would not give any additional money for the show. Traditionally, salaries are increased when a TV show is picked up for a new season, and all the actors' contracts specifically called for raises in the event of renewal. Arnaz, who was also producer, director, and writer, called together the cast and crew and told them that although the series had been renewed, there was no money for salary increases.
According to Carmel's own recollection, Arnaz was already drawing down multiple salaries on the program, and would shortly cast himself as a supporting character in the series, thus drawing another salary, although Carmel didn't know that at the time. Arnaz elicited a promise from the creative people, the crew and the actors to forgo salary increases to keep the show on the air. All the actors agreed but one. Carmel told Arnaz he would quit unless he received a raise, as per his contract. In a contemporaneous account of the incident, Carmel said, "Desi called me and put it on a personal basis. I didn't feel it should be done that way - it was very unfair of him. Then Desi and the Morris Agency threatened I would be replaced. Kaye Ballard and Eve Arden also called me and asked me to go along, but I wouldn't."
Arnaz's response to Carmel's ultimatum was dismissive. "Where else is he going to make two thousand dollars a week?", the producer asked rhetorically. If Arnaz's Desilu production company gave in to Carmel, it would be faced with giving all the cast members a raise, which was financially unviable with the money on offer from NBC. Arnaz was forced to terminate Carmel, who was replaced by Richard Deacon for the second season. The show had poor ratings and was canceled following its second season.
After leaving "The Mothers-in-Law", Carmel's acting career suffered. Other than his Harry Mudd appearances, Carmel's most memorable gig on TV was as the very campy guest villain Colonel Gumm on Batman (1966) in 1967. He made regular appearances on the syndicated quiz TV show "Stump The Stars" from 1968-70. Carmel even reprised his most famous role, that of Harry Mudd, in an episode of the animated version of "Star Trek" (1973-75), an indicator of the direction of his future career. However, during the 1970s, he could not secure another regular role as an ongoing character on a TV series, though he continued to appear regularly on sitcoms, mostly in ethnic roles, including appearances on "All In The Family", "Chico and The Man", and "Three's Company". He also appeared in B-movie bombs, including the Jerry Lewis flop "Hardly Working" (1981).
At the dawn of the new decade of the 1980s, Carmel finally got another opportunity for the first time in a dozen years, when he was cast as a regular on the network program Fitz and Bones (1981). An hour-long drama starring the TV comedy-musical duo The Smothers Brothers as investigative reporters, the show was a ratings failure, lasting only one month. After this monumental flop ("Fitz and Bones" was the lowest-rated series for the entire 1981-82 season), character parts dried up and Carmel was reduced to doing voice-over work for children's cartoons, including "The Transformers".
Carmel's last triumph as an actor was in commercials. He was a huge hit in advertising playing Senor Naugles, a faux-Mexican Colonel Sanders clone, for the West Coast region Mexican fast food chain Naugles. The commercials were a success and the chain began expanding rapidly. However, both the renewed success of Carmel and the fresh success of the chain were, sadly, to prove short-lived.
According to acquaintances, Carmel suffered chest pains on the night he died and called a cab to take him to the hospital. When the cab showed up at his Hollywood high-rise but Carmel did not come down to get it, the doorman sent the cab away, never inquiring why he failed to appear. Carmel was found dead on the floor of his apartment the next morning, November 11, 1986. While there were rumors that he committed suicide (he was rumored to be a recreational drug user), the official cause of death was listed as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a disease of the heart muscle in which the organ becomes enlarged. The condition leads to congestive heart failure. Carmel was only 54 years old. He was interred in Glendale, New York.
After Carmel's death, Naugles failed to come up with another successful ad campaign, and eventually, its financial fortunes changed. It was eventually acquired by rival, Del Taco. - Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Actor, composer, songwriter, voiceover artist and author. He joined ASCAP in 1956, and his chief musical collaborators included Tony Romano, Ruby Raksin, Walter Gross, and Ed Brandt. His popular-song compositions include "Hollywood Soliloquy", "The Clown", "Drowning My Sorrow", and "Voice in the Wind".- Stunts
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Starting out as a rodeo cowboy and then becoming a stuntman in silent westerns, Yakima Canutt later doubled for such stars as Clark Gable and John Wayne, among others, in such dangerous activities as jumping off the top of a cliff on horseback, leaping from a stagecoach onto its runaway team, being "shot" off a horse at full gallop and other such potentially life-threatening activities. He became expert at staging massive events involving livestock, such as cattle stampedes and covered-wagon races, as well as Indians-vs.-cavalry battles on a grand scale. Canutt's most noteworthy achievement as a second-unit director came in his staging and direction of the chariot-race sequence in William Wyler 's Ben-Hur (1959)--which, from initial planning to final execution, took two years.- Quite a familiar lady and notorious busybody on 1950s and '60s TV and film, petite, red-headed character actress Lurene Tuttle was born in Pleasant Lake, Indiana and raised on a ranch close to the Arizona border. Her father, O.V. Tuttle, started out as a performer in minstrels, but found a job as a railroad-station agent when times got hard. Her grandfather was a drama teacher who once managed an opera house in Angola, Indiana. As a child, she studied acting in Phoenix and was known for her scene-stealing comedy antics even at that early age.
At age 15, the family relocated to Monrovia, California, and it was there that Tuttle began her career. She received dramatic training at the Pasadena Playhouse and appeared in many of their productions, including "The Playboy of the Western World." She subsequently became a troupe member of Murphy's Comedians, a vaudeville company, and then eventually extended her range as a dramatic ingénue in stock shows. Although making it to Broadway somehow slipped through her fingers, Tuttle worked on stage consistently throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Known for her speaking voice and mastery of a wide range of dialects, she found a new avenue in radio during the Depression and became one of that medium's most-recognized voices playing both sweet and sour characters. Dubbed the "First Lady of Radio," her best-remembered role came as Effie, the altruistic "Girl Friday" on "The Adventures of Sam Spade" opposite Howard Duff's cynical-edged gumshoe. Red Skelton also admired her versatility and used her frequently in a variety of parts on his radio show.
Film and TV presented itself to her strongly in the 1950s, by this time fitting in comfortably whether a warm and wise wife and mother or brittle matron. Following her film debut in Heaven Only Knows (1947), Tuttle lent able support alongside film's top stars including Cary Grant in Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) and Room for One More (1952); Marilyn Monroe in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) and Niagara (1953); Joan Crawford in Goodbye, My Fancy (1951); Leslie Caron in The Glass Slipper (1955); and even Liberace when he tried to go legit in Sincerely Yours (1955). It was a rare occasion, however, when she was given a chance to truly shine in a prime supporting role. She could always be counted on to steal a bit of focus with just a sly grin or cynical look as she did playing the brief part of the sheriff's wife in Alfred Hitchcock's horror classic Psycho (1960). One of those rare exceptions when Tuttle actually top-lined a film came with her crazed portrayal of the title character in Ma Barker's Killer Brood (1960). Here Tuttle pulled out all the stops in this admittedly fictional "B" crimer, going totally ballistic as the Ozark matriarch who, along with her boys, sets people on fire, runs over cops, and tommyguns her way into infamy. On the small screen, Tuttle was an amusing regular in a plethora of sitcoms, playing starchy relatives or gossipy townsfolk. Most audiences remember her quite fondly as the matriarch in Life with Father (1953) opposite Leon Ames, and as the crusty senior nurse on the Diahann Carroll series Julia (1968). She and Ames took the play "Life With Father" on the road several times after the series' demise.
Off-stage, Tuttle was married to fellow actor and announcer Mel Ruick; their paths initially crossed while both were performing in radio. Their daughter was musical comedy actress Barbara Ruick, best known for playing Carrie Pipperidge in the classic film musical Carousel (1956). The couple eventually divorced, and Tuttle wed again, but the marriage was short-lived. Tragically, her only child, who was married to epic film composer John Williams of "Star Wars" fame, died unexpectedly in 1974.
Tuttle was a well-respected drama and diction coach for several decades. She began teaching radio technique in the 1940s and re-trained some prominent actors who were returning from extensive WWII duty. After a lengthy departure in the 1950s due to TV commitments, she returned to to teaching acting almost to the end. Some of her more famous students included Red Skelton, Orson Welles, Milton Berle, Steve Allen, and Jayne Meadows. She lived out the rest of her life in Southern California and succumbed to cancer at age 78. In addition to her famous son-in-law, she was survived by her three grandchildren: Jennifer Gruska, a story editor; Mark Towner Williams, a drummer; and Joseph Williams, a composer and singer. - Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
A charming, elegant, and exceedingly popular international film star with a gentle, understated beauty, actress Lilli Palmer was born as Lilli Marie Peiser on May 24, 1914, in Posen, Prussia. She was the daughter of Rose Lissman, an Austrian Jewish actress, and Alfred Peiser, a German Jewish surgeon. In addition to her native German, she grew up becoming fluent in French and English as well. Of her two sisters, older sister Irene Prador became an actress and singer in her own right. Lilli studied drama in Berlin and made her theatrical debut there in 1932 at age 18. Within a short time, however, the family was forced to flee their native homeland with the rise of Hitler and settled in Paris. Eventually Lilli moved to England to rebuild the career she had started on stage and film.
She made her British movie debut co-starring in the "B" mystery drama Crime Unlimited (1935), playing the distaff member of a syndicate of jewel thieves who becomes a romantic pawn for a policeman (Esmond Knight) who has infiltrated the crime ring as a plant. Throughout the rest of the decade she upped the value of her name in both "A" and "B" material, notably Alfred Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936), Silent Barriers (1937) and The Man with 100 Faces (1938) where she provided the usual element of feminine mystery.
Lilli's career took a major upswing during the early to mid 1940s. Several of her pictures centered around the omnipresent war, particularly Thunder Rock (1942), her film career-maker), which starred Michael Redgrave as an anti-fascist journalist who retreats to Canada, and Notorious Gentleman (1945), with Rex Harrison as a idle bounder who sees the error of his ways and becomes a war sacrifice. This was Lilli's first movie with husband Harrison; they married in 1943 and she bore him a son, Carey Harrison, the following year. Carey grew up to became a writer and director.
The family moved to America in 1945 to further their careers. Rex and Lilli became a prominent acting couple, appearing together on the early 50s Broadway stage with "Bell, Book and Candle" (1950), "Venus Observed" (1952) and "The Love of Four Colonels" (1953), the last mentioned directed by Harrison. In movies, they co-starred in the murky crimer The Long Dark Hall (1951) and the vastly superior The Four Poster (1952), which later gave rise to the musical adaptation "I Do! I Do!". Lilli was award the Venice Film Festival Award for this performance and represented herself well with other handsome male acting partners, notably Gary Cooper in her debut American film Cloak and Dagger (1946) and John Garfield in the classic boxing film Body and Soul (1947), leaving audiences enthralled with one of its newer foreign imports. At one point, she was given her own own (short-lived) TV show to host, The Lilli Palmer Show (1951).
Somewhat typecast by this time as heartless cads and opportunists on film, "Sexy Rexy", as husband Harrison was known in the tabloids, developed quite a reputation off-camera as well. A particularly disastrous romance with actress Carole Landis led to that actress's tragic suicide in 1948. Lilli took the high road and came off the better for it in the public's eye. She eventually called it quits, however, with both Harrison and Hollywood and returned to Europe in 1954. In 1956 Lilli filmed Between Time and Eternity (1956) [Between Time and Eternity] and fell in love with handsome Argentine co-star Carlos Thompson, who had developed matinée idol status in Germany. They married in September of 1957, several months after her divorce from Harrison became final. This marriage endured.
Lilli matured gracefully in films, the epitome of poise and class, but she lost any potential for top stardom after leaving Hollywood. She made international productions for the rest of her career, primarily German and French, but they did not live up to her early successes and were not seen all that much outside of Europe. She managed to work, however, opposite a "Who's Who" of European male stars of the time, including Curd Jürgens, James Mason, Louis Jourdan, Jean Gabin, Jean Marais, Jean Sorel, Gérard Philipe and Klaus Kinski. Of those few movies she made in Hollywood, she played the prickly wife of Clark Gable, who has a May-December affair with young Carroll Baker in But Not for Me (1959); was a sparkling and witty standout in the ensemble cast of The Pleasure of His Company (1961); and proved quite moving in the William Holden spy thriller The Counterfeit Traitor (1962). On TV here, she was touchingly effective as Mrs. Frank in a production of The Diary of Anne Frank (1967) with Max von Sydow, and enjoyed one of her last roles in the acclaimed miniseries Peter the Great (1986).
The final decade and a half played out rather routinely with supporting roles in such films as diverse as Oedipus the King (1968), De Sade (1969), and The Boys from Brazil (1978). She demonstrated her writing talents with her popular bestselling biography "Change Lobsters and Dance" in 1975, and later published a novel "The Red Raven" in 1978. Dying of cancer in 1986 at age 71 in Los Angeles, Lilli's surviving second husband Thompson, who had abandoned acting in the late 60s and turned to turned TV writing/producing, committed suicide four years later back in his native Argentina.- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Rudy Vallee started his career as a saxophone player and singer and later became a bandleader. In the 1920s and early '30s he had a hit radio program, The Fleishmann's Yeast Hour (although his explosive, ego-driven personality made his cast and crew hate him). In the early 1930s he was ranked with the likes of Bing Crosby and the tragic Russ Columbo in the Hit Parade. A huge hit on radio in 1933 with his program, initially known as 'The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour,' Vallee was considered a slavedriver by his staff. He was known to instigate fist fights with virtually anyone who got on his nerves. During his show's run he slugged photographers, threw sheet music at pianists' heads, and socked hecklers in their noses. While audiences loved him, most of his staff hated him. As a very popular star in nightclubs, on records, and in movies, he helped other singers, such as Alice Faye--who was his band singer for a while--and Frances Langford to start their careers. In his early movies he often played the romantic lead, but later he switched to stuffy and comic parts. He also appeared on Broadway. The mid-'60s Broadway hit "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" was filmed in 1967 with him in his original Broadway role.- Writer
- Script and Continuity Department
Frank Herbert was born on 8 October 1920 in Tacoma, Washington, USA. He was a writer, known for Dune (2021), Dune (1984) and Dune: Part Two (2024). He was married to Theresa Shackleford, Beverley Ann Stuart and Flora Parkinson. He died on 11 February 1986 in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.- Ronald Long was born on 30 January 1911 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Time Tunnel (1966), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) and Play of the Week (1959). He died on 23 October 1986 in Burbank, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Allen Case grew up in Dallas, Texas, and attended Southern Methodist University for two years. After performing for several months on a local TV variety program, he moved to New York and successfully tried out for a singing spot on Arthur Godfrey's morning show. This led to several nightclub engagements and parts in two Broadway-bound musicals, "Reuben Reuben" and "Pleasure Dome", both of which closed out of town. More work followed in nightclubs and on Broadway, as well as an occasional return to the Arthur Godfrey show and an appearance on Jack Paar. A small part in the movie version of Damn Yankees (1958) meant a move to California which led to roles on such TV westerns as Bronco (1958), Wagon Train (1957), Gunsmoke (1955), Have Gun - Will Travel (1957), The Rifleman (1958) and Sugarfoot (1957). Then it was back to New York for the off-Broadway production of "Once Upon a Mattress". Case left that job to co-star with Henry Fonda in the TV series, The Deputy (1959), which ran for two years (76 episodes) on NBC. Though it made no use of his singing ability, this western represented the high point in Allen Case's career.- Director
- Additional Crew
- Music Department
Born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 1903, his father Vincent was a musical conductor of the Minnelli Brothers' Tent Theater. Wanting to pursue an artistic career, Minelli worked in the costume department of the Chicago Theater, then on Broadway during the depression as a set designer and costumer, adopting a Latinized version of his father's first name when he was hired as an art-director by Radio City Music Hall. The fall of 1935 saw his directorial debut for a Franz Schubert revue, At Home Abroad. The show was the first of three, in the best Florenz Ziegfeld Jr. spirit, before receiving Arthur Freed's offer to work at MGM. This was his second try at Hollywood -- a short unsuccessful contract at Paramount led nowhere. He stayed at MGM for the next 26 years. After working on numerous Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland vehicles, usually directed by Busby Berkeley, Arthur Freed gave him his first directorial assignment on Cabin in the Sky (1943), a risky screen project with an all-black cast. This was followed by the ambitious period piece Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) whose star Judy Garland he married in 1945. Employing first-class MGM technicians, Minnelli went on directing musicals -- The Band Wagon (1953) - as well as melodramas -- Some Came Running (1958) - and urban comedies like Designing Woman (1957), occasionally even working on two films simultaneously. Minnelli is one of the few directors for whom Technicolor seems to have been invented. Many of his films included in every one of his movies features a dream sequence.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Howard da Silva was one of 324 actors, writers and directors who fell victim to the Hollywood blacklisting of the early 1950s, and had his career halted in the blink of an eye. Originally was a steelworker before making his stage debut at age 20 in New York. He made a name for himself on Broadway before going to Hollywood, but kept up his stage work after making the move to films. His most memorable performance came in the 1943 Broadway production of Oklahoma!. In Hollywood, he became a well-liked character actor, appearing in such films as Sergeant York (1941), The Big Shot (1942) and The Lost Weekend (1945). In 1947, his career was threatened when the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) began its investigation into alleged Communist influence of Hollywood. Actor Robert Taylor, called as a "friendly witness", accused many of his fellow actors and writers of either being communists or having communist sympathies. When questioned about da Silva, Taylor said, "I can name a few who seem to sort of disrupt things once in a while. Whether or not they are communists I don't know. One chap we have currently, I think is Howard da Silva. He always seems to have something to say at the wrong time." On November 25, 1947, a meeting of Hollywood executives held in New York released a statement known as the Waldorf Statement, in which they announced a blacklist would be immediately imposed aimed at anyone named or suspected as a communist. "We will forthwith discharge or suspend without compensation those in our employ and we will not re-employ any of the ten until such time as he is acquitted or has purged himself of contempt and declares under oath that he is not a communist." Howard appeared in a few more films before he was called before HUAC, refused to answer any of the committee's questions and was promptly blacklisted by the studios. He continued working in the theatre, and once the blacklist was lifted in the early 1960s made a return to film and television. He passed away two years after making his last movie.- George Brenlin was born on 10 October 1927 in Pitcairn, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Falcon Crest (1981), Rescue 8 (1958) and Inside Moves (1980). He was married to Kay Nickell. He died on 21 August 1986 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Jon Lormer was born on 7 May 1906 in Canton, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Creepshow (1982), The Twilight Zone (1959) and Getting Straight (1970). He died on 19 March 1986 in Burbank, California, USA.
- New York City native Walter Brooke, born on October 13, 1914, made his first try at dramatics by reciting a poem in German at the Grunewald gymnasium in Berlin Germany where he spent five years as a schoolboy. He won first prize.
Walter's father, a professional Chef and his mother, a nurse, brought him back to New York in the mid nineteen twenties where he finished his schooling the hard way, in and out of a score of schools.
He launched his stage career at that time by accident. At 16 years old attending Dewitt Clinton High school young Walter took a wrong turn in the school corridor which took him into a drama class. He enrolled in the class hoping to make an impression on a certain teen-age charmer he knew.
After graduation from Dewitt Clinton, he took a job ushering at the World Theater and from there, he went to work at the William Demuth Pipe Company on Long Island while he gained practical stage experience at night by playing at the Davenport Theater on West 27th Street.
From summer stock plays on Governors Island to East Hampton L.I. and then full-fledged productions, his career picked up momentum.
His first Broadway experience was gained as a walk-on and understudy in John Gielgud's production of "Hamlet" at the distinguished Empire Theater.
Just before WWII he went to Hollywood to study with Max Reinhardt and spent 18 months with the "Professor" appearing in classical plays and developing his acting technique. Then came a part on tour in "Romeo and Juliet" with Sir Lawrence Olivier.
Upon his return to Los Angeles, he helped found the Beachwood Studio under the direction of Vladimir Sokoloff, an original member of the Moscow Art Theater. Working with Sokoloff resulted in a notable change in his dramatic technique.
Warner Brothers soon discovered him and placed him under contract, but he wasn't handsome enough to be a juvenile or old enough for young character parts. He played a dozen parts in as many films, then by mutual consent, was released from his contract.
He sped back to Broadway where he played the lead in "The Barber Had Two Sons". Shortly after he was offered a job at M-G-M as the dialogue director on "Kismet" which Willam Dieterle was directing.
After Pearl Harbor, Walter had been able to avoid the service because his draft board had classified him as 4F, a conscientious objector, but at his own request, Walter went into the Army and was assigned to the 776th Field Artillery Battalion.
Corporal Brooke served for 2 1/2 years, including 144 days of uninterrupted combat where his outfit slugged from the Bulge to Bastogne, to a point further east than any other similar unit. One of his overseas duties was interpreting the words of German military prisoners making use of his knowledge of the German language.
Bombs would explode right next to his fox hole he had dug and had to live in for weeks at a time. He received a Purple Heart for leaving his fox hole to drag a wounded comrade back to their hole. Experiencing the terror of war as he did, had a profound effect on him for his entire life.
Discharged in 1946 he returned to the stage on tour with Tallulah Bankhead in "The Eagle Has Two Heads". Followed by "Two Blind Mice" with Melvyn Douglas, "Twilight Walk" opposite Nancy Kelly, and "Seagulls Over Sorrento".
In 1948 he again deserted Broadway for summer stock, this time going to Williamsburg VA, to play the role of Thomas Jefferson in Paul Greens "The Common Glory". While there he took special courses in Philosophy at William and Mary College.
Brooke credits his biggest professional break to Franchot Tone with whom he appeared in "The Second Man." Directed by Jean Dalrymple, the play successfully toured the straw-hat circuit from Maine to Florida and California.
Television's top brass saw the play and almost at once Walter jumped into starring roles on virtually all major TV shows then on the air.
During an eight-week period he did 12 leads, appearing on four one-hour shows, and eight 30-minute programs, while at the same time playing a running part on "One Man's Family". Few actors can equal or top this record. After "One Man's Family" went off the air, he resumed free-lancing.
For one year he acted the heavy on CBS's "The Brighter Day". He followed this for six months in "Three Steps to Heaven", which he left for a one-picture deal with Paramount as the star in their 3 1/2-million-dollar film "Conquest of Space" produced by George Pal.
1953 saw him appear in two plays with Ilka Chase in Nassau L.I., the following summer of 1954 he appeared with Marie Wilson and Melville Cooper in "The Little Hut".
Slim and dapper Walter Brooke met pert Elizabeth Wragge, the pretty blonde NBC Radio Star, on a blind date at an AFTRA ball at the Waldorf-Astoria. They were married four years later on January 14th, 1951. The couple had two children, Thomas Brooke and Christina Lynne Brooke.
They divided their time between a home in Elberon. N.J. and a mellow apartment, The Osborne on West 57th Street.
Quiet and dignified Walter confessed that he had an evocation for photography and liked to take photographs of his actress wife and their two children. He was an expert photographer.
As time moved forward it soon became apparent that Hollywood was the best place for Walter to be for film and television work, so he started spending more time on the west coast and by 1960 his career as an actor looked assured so he relocated to Hollywood as his wife and children stayed in midtown Manhattan pursuing their own theatrical careers.
As evidenced by his dozens of appearances in films and on television he was able to live a respectable "Hollywood lifestyle". One of his main hobbies was gardening and landscaping. He would have swimming pools installed in neglected homes that he would purchase as fixer uppers, then rent out to new Hollywood types.
This became as much of an occupation as film and television work, and he and his third partner, whom he married in Las Vegas, 1 year prior to his death in 1986, enjoyed every minute.
Besides his career as a prolific actor. Walter was an environmentalist and a Universalist. Swimming was one of his passions. In all the homes he lived in, he would create and care for a garden where he grew many types of vegetables. Picked fresh and prepared on the same day.
His motto was "Each Day Will Be Better Than the Last, If You Let It". - Actor
- Soundtrack
Buddy was the younger brother of world heavyweight champion Max Baer. In films, he played giants in Quo Vadis (1951) and Jack and the Beanstalk (1952). When television westerns were in vogue in the '50s and '60s, he often played the heavy to super-sized heroes James Arness, Clint Walker and Chuck Connors.- Florence Halop was born on 23 January 1923 in Jamaica Estates, Queens, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for St. Elsewhere (1982), Night Court (1984) and George Burns Comedy Week (1985). She was married to George Gruskin. She died on 15 July 1986 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Stephen Stucker was a marvelously wild and dynamic free-spirited actor who specialized in deliciously broad portrayals of memorably outrageous characters in a handful of comedies made in the 70's and 80's. Stucker was born on July 2, 1947 in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended Lincoln School in Alameda, California. During his school days Stephen was known as both an accomplished pianist and a class clown with a dry wit. Stucker made his film debut with a funny turn as crazed asylum escapee Bruce Wilson in the entertainingly lowbrow "Carnal Madness." He was likewise sidesplitting as a cross-dressing court stenographer in "The Kentucky Fried Movie." Stephen achieved his greatest enduring popularity with his gloriously zany and unforgettable performance as loopy airport control room worker Johnny in the hilarious disaster picture parody "Airplane!." Stucker reprised this role in "Airplane II: The Sequel" and had an amusing bit as a train stationmaster in "Trading Places." Stephen appeared in three episodes of the hit TV series "Mork & Mindy." Besides "The Kentucky Fried Movie" and "Airplane!," Stucker also worked with the comedy team of Jim Abrahams, David Zucker and Jerry Zucker as a member of the theatrical group the Kentucky Fried Theater. Stephen Stucker died at the tragically young age of 38 from AIDS on April 13, 1986.- Stunts
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
One of the modern US cinema's greatest stuntmen and stunt innovators, Dar Robinson only appeared in a relatively small number of films compared to other stuntmen (before losing his life in an off-set motorcycle accident); however, he set new benchmarks in stunt performances.
Robinson first appeared onscreen doubling for Steve McQueen jumping into the sea off a clifftop in Papillon (1973), and the following year leapt into the sea again on a motorbike doubling for crooked cop David Soul in Magnum Force (1973). Robinson also doubled for Henry Silva in the dramatic conclusion to Sharky's Machine (1981) where Silva's hitman character is blasted by cop Burt Reynolds through a plate glass window and falls to his death from an Atlanta, Georgia, skyscraper. In reality, Robinson took the dive out the window and landed an on an airbag many floors below to break his fall!
Dar was a high-fall specialist and one of his most amazing stunts was doubling for Christopher Plummer at the conclusion of Highpoint (1982) where the villain falls from the 1,170-foot-high CN Tower in Toronto, Canada. Once again, Dar took the plunge with a concealed parachute, which he opened at the absolute last moment, and he earned $150,000 for his work. Robinson also appeared in several minor acting roles onscreen; however, in 1987, Burt Reynolds backed his faith in Dar by casting him as the sadistic albino villain "Moke" in the crime thriller Stick (1985). Not only did Dar act in front of the camera but he also designed and performed the incredible stunt where "Moke" falls to his death from a very high balcony, seemingly straight onto the pavement below. In actual fact, Dar was rigged to a complex wire rig that "deccelerated" his fall, and made the use of an airbag unnecessary.
Dar Robinson was much loved by many people in Hollywood and his tragic passing meant the movie business lost a stunt genius and many people lost a sincere friend. Director Richard Donner dedicated his high voltage action film Lethal Weapon (1987) to Dar's memory!- Born in the Harlem section of New York City, joined the Navy, then studied drama at New York University; was an announcer for then joined the Negro Ensemble Co. in 1970 for such productions as "The River Niger", "Square Root of the Soul" and "The Brownsville Raid"; worked with repertory groups such as the Minnesota Theater Co., Inner City Repertory Co., and the American Shakespeare Co.; first appeared on the screen in 'Che! (1969), then returned to stage until the late 1970s when he did low-budget films The Hitter (1978), Fist of Fear, Touch of Death (1980)) before achieving his greatest success in A Soldier's Story (1984) (from the stage play for which he collected two awards), which earned him an Oscar nomination; appeared in The Color Purple (1985) and was working on Tough Guys (1986) with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas when he collapsed on the set of a heart attack and died a short time later. He was only 52.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Born Marcelino Sánchez on December 5, 1957, in Cayey, Puerto Rico, he died of AIDS-related cancer in his Hollywood home on November 21, 1986. Sanchez began acting in the late 1970s. His third film role was that of Rembrandt, a young, naïve gang member with a flair for spray painting in The Warriors (1979). After these films, Sánchez went on to appear in roles on CHiPs (1977), 48 Hrs. (1982), Hill Street Blues (1981), and, most notably, in the Bloodhound Gang segment of 3-2-1 Contact (1980).- Actor
- Stunts
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
The actor is better known for his prowess as a stunt driver. His work in Bullitt (1968) is legendary where he drove the black Dodge Charger 440 Magnum that was pursued by Steve McQueen in his Ford Mustang 390 GT. For his reputation earned on Bullitt, Hickman was hired by William Friedkin for The French Connection (1971). He staged a similar chase on the streets of Manhattan but with a greater presence of civilians, an element that had been missing in Bullitt. Doubling for Gene Hackman in the more hazardous stunts, Hickman drove the brown 1970 Pontiac at speeds up to 90mph with Friedkin manning the camera right behind him. Hickman's third spectacle would be captured in The Seven-Ups (1973) where, yet again, he virtually outdid himself driving the car being pursued by Roy Scheider in another landmark car chase.- Helen Craig was born on 13 May 1912 in San Antonio, Texas, USA. She was an actress, known for The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), They Live by Night (1948) and The Snake Pit (1948). She was married to John Beal. She died on 20 July 1986 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Esteemed character actor Paul Stewart had a pair of the coldest orbs in town and made his living for decades playing dark, callous, shiftless villains, including a vast number of mobsters. Not a well-known name per se, he was nevertheless a reliable actor who seemed to have been born for the film noir and gangland crime drama genre with his premature silvery hair, dark thick brows and probing, deep-set eyes, all accentuated by a tough and penetrating Brooklyn accent.
Born in New York City on March 13, 1908, Stewart developed an interest for acting in his teens, making his Broadway debut with "Two Seconds" in 1931, following graduation from Columbia University. He had played a few more stage roles in New York when he met and made an impression on Orson Welles. As a result he became a founding member of the Mercury Theatre and a founding member of AFTRA when it was just a radio union.
Stewart's tough, guttural voice became a familiar sound on the 1930s airwaves and he was among the cast in the infamous Welles broadcast "The War of the Worlds." He married band singer/actress Peg La Centra (1910-1996) in 1939 and over the years they appeared together on many radio programs. She also provided singing voices for such stars as Susan Hayward on celluloid. Welles next put Stewart in his films, with the classic Citizen Kane (1941) as Raymond, Kane's wily valet, and Stewart found himself in demand as an untrustworthy character player.
Paul went on to essay a number of stark, sinister types to perfection, with roles in such films as Johnny Eager (1941), Mr. Lucky (1943), Champion (1949), Illegal Entry (1949), Twelve O'Clock High (1949), Carbine Williams (1952), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Kiss Me Deadly (1955).
On TV, Paul became a regular on a couple of short-lived series -- Top Secret (1954) and The Man Who Never Was (1966). In the 1950s Stewart turned to stage and TV directing as well, helming a number of popular crimers such as Peter Gunn (1958), Michael Shayne (1960), It Takes a Thief (1968), Hawaii Five-O (1968) and Remington Steele (1982). His voice also fit the bill for cartoons in the 1960s.
In 1974 Stewart suffered a heart attack while on location in New Mexico for Bite the Bullet (1975), but he returned sporadically to films, including the role of impresario Florenz Ziegfeld in W.C. Fields and Me (1976). He suffered a second and fatal heart attack in 1986 at age 77.- Douglas Lambert was born on 7 July 1936 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Moonraker (1979), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and Spies Like Us (1985). He died on 16 December 1986 in London, England, UK.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Producer
Gian-Carlo Coppola was born on 17 September 1963 in Los Angeles County, California, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for The Outsiders (1983), Rumble Fish (1983) and Apocalypse Now (1979). He died on 26 May 1986 in Annapolis, Maryland, USA.- Steve Tracy was born on 3 October 1952 in Canton, Ohio, USA. He was an actor, known for Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) and Little House on the Prairie (1974). He died on 27 November 1986 in Tampa, Florida, USA.