Greatest Actors
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Jack Nicholson, an American actor, producer, director and screenwriter, is a three-time Academy Award winner and twelve-time nominee. Nicholson is also notable for being one of two actors - the other being Michael Caine - who have received an Oscar nomination in every decade from the '60s through the '00s.
Nicholson was born on April 22, 1937, in Neptune, New Jersey. He was raised believing that his grandmother was his mother, and that his mother, June Frances Nicholson, a showgirl, was his older sister. He discovered the truth in 1975 from a Time magazine journalist who was researching a profile on him. His real father is believed to have been either Donald Furcillo, an Italian American showman, or Eddie King (Edgar Kirschfeld), born in Latvia and also in show business. Jack's mother's ancestry was Irish, and smaller amounts of English, German, Scottish, and Welsh.
Nicholson made his film debut in a B-movie titled The Cry Baby Killer (1958). His rise in Hollywood was far from meteoric, and for years, he sustained his career with guest spots in television series and a number of Roger Corman films, including The Little Shop of Horrors (1960).
Nicholson's first turn in the director's chair was for Drive, He Said (1971). Before that, he wrote the screenplay for The Trip (1967), and co-wrote Head (1968), a vehicle for The Monkees. His big break came with Easy Rider (1969) and his portrayal of liquor-soaked attorney George Hanson, which earned Nicholson his first Oscar nomination. Nicholson's film career took off in the 1970s with a definitive performance in Five Easy Pieces (1970). Nicholson's other notable work during this period includes leading roles in Roman Polanski's noir masterpiece Chinatown (1974) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which he won his first Best Actor Oscar.
The 1980s kicked off with another career-defining role for Nicholson as Jack Torrance in Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's novel The Shining (1980). A string of well-received films followed, including Terms of Endearment (1983), which earned Nicholson his second Oscar; Prizzi's Honor (1985), and The Witches of Eastwick (1987). He portrayed another renowned villain, The Joker, in Tim Burton's Batman (1989). In the 1990s, he starred in such varied films as A Few Good Men (1992), for which he received another Oscar nomination, and a dual role in Mars Attacks! (1996).
Although a glimpse at the darker side of Nicholson's acting range reappeared in The Departed (2006), the actor's most recent roles highlight the physical and emotional complications one faces late in life. The most notable of these is the unapologetically misanthropic Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets (1997), for which he won his third Oscar. Shades of this persona are apparent in About Schmidt (2002), Something's Gotta Give (2003), and The Bucket List (2007). In addition to his Academy Awards and Oscar nominations, Nicholson has seven Golden Globe Awards, and received a Kennedy Center Honor in 2001. He also became one of the youngest actors to receive the American Film Institute's Life Achievement award in 1994.
Nicholson has six children by five different women: Jennifer Nicholson (b. 1963) from his only marriage to Sandra Knight, which ended in 1966; Caleb Goddard (b. 1970) with Five Easy Pieces (1970) co-star Susan Anspach, who was automatically adopted by Anspach's then-husband Mark Goddard; Honey Hollman (b. 1982) with Danish supermodel Winnie Hollman; Lorraine Nicholson (b. 1990) and Ray Nicholson (b. 1992) with minor actress Rebecca Broussard; and Tessa Gourin (b. 1994) with real estate agent Jennine Marie Gourin. Nicholson's longest relationship was the 17 nonmonogamous years he spent with Anjelica Huston; this ended when Broussard announced she was pregnant with his child."Jack Nicholson is a textbook actor who's very intuitive. He is absolutely brilliant at going as far as you can go, always pushing to the edge, but still making it seem real." ~ Tim Burton
"I believe that Jack is one of the best actors in Hollywood, perhaps on a par with the greatest stars of the past like Spencer Tracy and James Cagney. I should think that he is on almost everyone's first-choice list for any role which suits him. His work is always interesting, clearly conceived and has the X-factor, magic. Jack is particularly suited for roles which require intelligence. He is an intelligent and literate man, and these are qualities almost impossible to act. In The Shining (1980), you believe he's a writer, failed or otherwise." ~ Stanley Kubrick
Greats: Five Easy Pieces (1970) (1970)★; The Last Detail (1973) (1973)★; Chinatown (1974) (1974)★; The Passenger (1975); One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) (1975)★; The Shining (1980) (1980)★; Reds (1981) (1981)★; Terms of Endearment (1983) (1983)★; Prizzi's Honor (1985) (1985)★; Broadcast News (1987) (1987); As Good as It Gets (1997) (1997)★; About Schmidt (2002) (2002)★; The Departed (2006)★
Give It a Shot: Easy Rider (1969) (1969)★; Ironweed (1987) (1987)★; Batman (1989) (1989)★; The Pledge (2001) (2001); Something's Gotta Give (2003) (2003)✰; The Bucket List (2007) (2007)
Caution: Tommy (1975) (1975); The Missouri Breaks (1976) (1976); A Few Good Men (1992) (1992)★; Mars Attacks! (1996) (1996); Anger Management (2003) (2003)
Other Notable Film(s): The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) (1960); The Terror (1963) (1963); The Raven (1963) (1963); The Shooting (1966) (1966); On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970) (1970); Carnal Knowledge (1971) (1971)★; The King of Marvin Gardens (1972) (1972); The Fortune (1975) (1975); Goin' South (1978) (1978); The Postman Always Rings Twice (1981) (1981); The Border (1982) (1982); Heartburn (1986) (1986); The Witches of Eastwick (1987) (1987); The Two Jakes (1990) (1990); Hoffa (1992) (1992)✰; Man Trouble (1992) (1992); Wolf (1994) (1994); The Crossing Guard (1995) (1995); Blood and Wine (1996) (1996); The Evening Star (1996) (1996); How Do You Know (2010) (2010)- Actor
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Marlon Brando is widely considered the greatest movie actor of all time, rivaled only by the more theatrically oriented Laurence Olivier in terms of esteem. Unlike Olivier, who preferred the stage to the screen, Brando concentrated his talents on movies after bidding the Broadway stage adieu in 1949, a decision for which he was severely criticized when his star began to dim in the 1960s and he was excoriated for squandering his talents. No actor ever exerted such a profound influence on succeeding generations of actors as did Brando. More than 50 years after he first scorched the screen as Stanley Kowalski in the movie version of Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and a quarter-century after his last great performance as Col. Kurtz in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979), all American actors are still being measured by the yardstick that was Brando. It was if the shadow of John Barrymore, the great American actor closest to Brando in terms of talent and stardom, dominated the acting field up until the 1970s. He did not, nor did any other actor so dominate the public's consciousness of what WAS an actor before or since Brando's 1951 on-screen portrayal of Stanley made him a cultural icon. Brando eclipsed the reputation of other great actors circa 1950, such as Paul Muni and Fredric March. Only the luster of Spencer Tracy's reputation hasn't dimmed when seen in the starlight thrown off by Brando. However, neither Tracy nor Olivier created an entire school of acting just by the force of his personality. Brando did.
Marlon Brando, Jr. was born on April 3, 1924, in Omaha, Nebraska, to Marlon Brando, Sr., a calcium carbonate salesman, and his artistically inclined wife, the former Dorothy Julia Pennebaker. "Bud" Brando was one of three children. His ancestry included English, Irish, German, Dutch, French Huguenot, Welsh, and Scottish; his surname originated with a distant German immigrant ancestor named "Brandau." His oldest sister Jocelyn Brando was also an actress, taking after their mother, who engaged in amateur theatricals and mentored a then-unknown Henry Fonda, another Nebraska native, in her role as director of the Omaha Community Playhouse. Frannie, Brando's other sibling, was a visual artist. Both Brando sisters contrived to leave the Midwest for New York City, Jocelyn to study acting and Frannie to study art. Marlon managed to escape the vocational doldrums forecast for him by his cold, distant father and his disapproving schoolteachers by striking out for The Big Apple in 1943, following Jocelyn into the acting profession. Acting was the only thing he was good at, for which he received praise, so he was determined to make it his career - a high-school dropout, he had nothing else to fall back on, having been rejected by the military due to a knee injury he incurred playing football at Shattuck Military Academy, Brando Sr.'s alma mater. The school booted Marlon out as incorrigible before graduation.
Acting was a skill he honed as a child, the lonely son of alcoholic parents. With his father away on the road, and his mother frequently intoxicated to the point of stupefaction, the young Bud would play-act for her to draw her out of her stupor and to attract her attention and love. His mother was exceedingly neglectful, but he loved her, particularly for instilling in him a love of nature, a feeling which informed his character Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972) ("Last Tango in Paris") when he is recalling his childhood for his young lover Jeanne. "I don't have many good memories," Paul confesses, and neither did Brando of his childhood. Sometimes he had to go down to the town jail to pick up his mother after she had spent the night in the drunk tank and bring her home, events that traumatized the young boy but may have been the grain that irritated the oyster of his talent, producing the pearls of his performances. Anthony Quinn, his Oscar-winning co-star in Viva Zapata! (1952) told Brando's first wife Anna Kashfi, "I admire Marlon's talent, but I don't envy the pain that created it."
Brando enrolled in Erwin Piscator's Dramatic Workshop at New York's New School, and was mentored by Stella Adler, a member of a famous Yiddish Theatre acting family. Adler helped introduce to the New York stage the "emotional memory" technique of Russian theatrical actor, director and impresario Konstantin Stanislavski, whose motto was "Think of your own experiences and use them truthfully." The results of this meeting between an actor and the teacher preparing him for a life in the theater would mark a watershed in American acting and culture.
Brando made his debut on the boards of Broadway on October 19, 1944, in "I Remember Mama," a great success. As a young Broadway actor, Brando was invited by talent scouts from several different studios to screen-test for them, but he turned them down because he would not let himself be bound by the then-standard seven-year contract. Brando would make his film debut quite some time later in Fred Zinnemann's The Men (1950) for producer Stanley Kramer. Playing a paraplegic soldier, Brando brought new levels of realism to the screen, expanding on the verisimilitude brought to movies by Group Theatre alumni John Garfield, the predecessor closest to him in the raw power he projected on-screen. Ironically, it was Garfield whom producer Irene Mayer Selznick had chosen to play the lead in a new Tennessee Williams play she was about to produce, but negotiations broke down when Garfield demanded an ownership stake in "A Streetcar Named Desire." Burt Lancaster was next approached, but couldn't get out of a prior film commitment. Then director Elia Kazan suggested Brando, whom he had directed to great effect in Maxwell Anderson's play "Truckline Café," in which Brando co-starred with Karl Malden, who was to remain a close friend for the next 60 years.
During the production of "Truckline Café," Kazan had found that Brando's presence was so magnetic, he had to re-block the play to keep Marlon near other major characters' stage business, as the audience could not take its eyes off of him. For the scene where Brando's character re-enters the stage after killing his wife, Kazan placed him upstage-center, partially obscured by scenery, but where the audience could still see him as Karl Malden and others played out their scene within the café set. When he eventually entered the scene, crying, the effect was electric. A young Pauline Kael, arriving late to the play, had to avert her eyes when Brando made this entrance as she believed the young actor on stage was having a real-life conniption. She did not look back until her escort commented that the young man was a great actor.
The problem with casting Brando as Stanley was that he was much younger than the character as written by Williams. However, after a meeting between Brando and Williams, the playwright eagerly agreed that Brando would make an ideal Stanley. Williams believed that by casting a younger actor, the Neanderthalish Kowalski would evolve from being a vicious older man to someone whose unintentional cruelty can be attributed to his youthful ignorance. Brando ultimately was dissatisfied with his performance, though, saying he never was able to bring out the humor of the character, which was ironic as his characterization often drew laughs from the audience at the expense of Jessica Tandy's Blanche Dubois. During the out-of-town tryouts, Kazan realized that Brando's magnetism was attracting attention and audience sympathy away from Blanche to Stanley, which was not what the playwright intended. The audience's sympathy should be solely with Blanche, but many spectators were identifying with Stanley. Kazan queried Williams on the matter, broaching the idea of a slight rewrite to tip the scales back to more of a balance between Stanley and Blanche, but Williams demurred, smitten as he was by Brando, just like the preview audiences.
For his part, Brando believed that the audience sided with his Stanley because Jessica Tandy was too shrill. He thought Vivien Leigh, who played the part in the movie, was ideal, as she was not only a great beauty but she WAS Blanche Dubois, troubled as she was in her real life by mental illness and nymphomania. Brando's appearance as Stanley on stage and on screen revolutionized American acting by introducing "The Method" into American consciousness and culture. Method acting, rooted in Adler's study at the Moscow Art Theatre of Stanislavsky's theories that she subsequently introduced to the Group Theatre, was a more naturalistic style of performing, as it engendered a close identification of the actor with the character's emotions. Adler took first place among Brando's acting teachers, and socially she helped turn him from an unsophisticated Midwestern farm boy into a knowledgeable and cosmopolitan artist who one day would socialize with presidents.
Brando didn't like the term "The Method," which quickly became the prominent paradigm taught by such acting gurus as Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Brando denounced Strasberg in his autobiography "Songs My Mother Taught Me" (1994), saying that he was a talentless exploiter who claimed he had been Brando's mentor. The Actors Studio had been founded by Strasberg along with Kazan and Stella Adler's husband, Harold Clurman, all Group Theatre alumni, all political progressives deeply committed to the didactic function of the stage. Brando credits his knowledge of the craft to Adler and Kazan, while Kazan in his autobiography "A Life" claimed that Brando's genius thrived due to the thorough training Adler had given him. Adler's method emphasized that authenticity in acting is achieved by drawing on inner reality to expose deep emotional experience
Interestingly, Elia Kazan believed that Brando had ruined two generations of actors, his contemporaries and those who came after him, all wanting to emulate the great Brando by employing The Method. Kazan felt that Brando was never a Method actor, that he had been highly trained by Adler and did not rely on gut instincts for his performances, as was commonly believed. Many a young actor, mistaken about the true roots of Brando's genius, thought that all it took was to find a character's motivation, empathize with the character through sense and memory association, and regurgitate it all on stage to become the character. That's not how the superbly trained Brando did it; he could, for example, play accents, whereas your average American Method actor could not. There was a method to Brando's art, Kazan felt, but it was not The Method.
After A Streetcar Named Desire (1951), for which he received the first of his eight Academy Award nominations, Brando appeared in a string of Academy Award-nominated performances - in Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953) and the summit of his early career, Kazan's On the Waterfront (1954). For his "Waterfront" portrayal of meat-headed longshoreman Terry Malloy, the washed-up pug who "coulda been a contender," Brando won his first Oscar. Along with his iconic performance as the rebel-without-a-cause Johnny in The Wild One (1953) ("What are you rebelling against?" Johnny is asked. "What have ya got?" is his reply), the first wave of his career was, according to Jon Voight, unprecedented in its audacious presentation of such a wide range of great acting. Director John Huston said his performance of Marc Antony was like seeing the door of a furnace opened in a dark room, and co-star John Gielgud, the premier Shakespearean actor of the 20th century, invited Brando to join his repertory company.
It was this period of 1951-54 that revolutionized American acting, spawning such imitators as James Dean - who modeled his acting and even his lifestyle on his hero Brando - the young Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. After Brando, every up-and-coming star with true acting talent and a brooding, alienated quality would be hailed as the "New Brando," such as Warren Beatty in Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961). "We are all Brando's children," Jack Nicholson pointed out in 1972. "He gave us our freedom." He was truly "The Godfather" of American acting - and he was just 30 years old. Though he had a couple of failures, like Désirée (1954) and The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956), he was clearly miscast in them and hadn't sought out the parts so largely escaped blame.
In the second period of his career, 1955-62, Brando managed to uniquely establish himself as a great actor who also was a Top 10 movie star, although that star began to dim after the box-office high point of his early career, Sayonara (1957) (for which he received his fifth Best Actor Oscar nomination). Brando tried his hand at directing a film, the well-reviewed One-Eyed Jacks (1961) that he made for his own production company, Pennebaker Productions (after his mother's maiden name). Stanley Kubrick had been hired to direct the film, but after months of script rewrites in which Brando participated, Kubrick and Brando had a falling out and Kubrick was sacked. According to his widow Christiane Kubrick, Stanley believed that Brando had wanted to direct the film himself all along.
Tales proliferated about the profligacy of Brando the director, burning up a million and a half feet of expensive VistaVision film at 50 cents a foot, fully ten times the normal amount of raw stock expended during production of an equivalent motion picture. Brando took so long editing the film that he was never able to present the studio with a cut. Paramount took it away from him and tacked on a re-shot ending that Brando was dissatisfied with, as it made the Oedipal figure of Dad Longworth into a villain. In any normal film Dad would have been the heavy, but Brando believed that no one was innately evil, that it was a matter of an individual responding to, and being molded by, one's environment. It was not a black-and-white world, Brando felt, but a gray world in which once-decent people could do horrible things. This attitude explains his sympathetic portrayal of Nazi officer Christian Diestl in the film he made before shooting One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Edward Dmytryk's filming of Irwin Shaw's novel The Young Lions (1958). Shaw denounced Brando's performance, but audiences obviously disagreed, as the film was a major hit. It would be the last hit movie Brando would have for more than a decade.
One-Eyed Jacks (1961) generated respectable numbers at the box office, but the production costs were exorbitant - a then-staggering $6 million - which made it run a deficit. A film essentially is "made" in the editing room, and Brando found cutting to be a terribly boring process, which was why the studio eventually took the film away from him. Despite his proved talent in handling actors and a large production, Brando never again directed another film, though he would claim that all actors essentially direct themselves during the shooting of a picture.
Between the production and release of One-Eyed Jacks (1961), Brando appeared in Sidney Lumet's film version of Tennessee Williams' play "Orpheus Descending," The Fugitive Kind (1960) which teamed him with fellow Oscar winners Anna Magnani and Joanne Woodward. Following in Elizabeth Taylor's trailblazing footsteps, Brando became the second performer to receive a $1-million salary for a motion picture, so high were the expectations for this re-teaming of Kowalski and his creator (in 1961 critic Hollis Alpert had published a book "Brando and the Shadow of Stanley Kowalski"). Critics and audiences waiting for another incendiary display from Brando in a Williams work were disappointed when the renamed The Fugitive Kind (1960) finally released. Though Tennessee was hot, with movie versions of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) burning up the box office and receiving kudos from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, The Fugitive Kind (1960) was a failure. This was followed by the so-so box-office reception of One-Eyed Jacks (1961) in 1961 and then by a failure of a more monumental kind: Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), a remake of the famed 1935 film.
Brando signed on to Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) after turning down the lead in the David Lean classic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) because he didn't want to spend a year in the desert riding around on a camel. He received another $1-million salary, plus $200,000 in overages as the shoot went overtime and over budget. During principal photography, highly respected director Carol Reed (an eventual Academy Award winner) was fired, and his replacement, two-time Oscar winner Lewis Milestone, was shunted aside by Brando as Marlon basically took over the direction of the film himself. The long shoot became so notorious that President John F. Kennedy asked director Billy Wilder at a cocktail party not "when" but "if" the "Bounty" shoot would ever be over. The MGM remake of one of its classic Golden Age films garnered a Best Picture Oscar nomination and was one of the top grossing films of 1962, yet failed to go into the black due to its Brobdingnagian budget estimated at $20 million, which is equivalent to $120 million when adjusted for inflation.
Brando and Taylor, whose Cleopatra (1963) nearly bankrupted 20th Century-Fox due to its huge cost overruns (its final budget was more than twice that of Brando's Mutiny on the Bounty (1962)), were pilloried by the show business press for being the epitome of the pampered, self-indulgent stars who were ruining the industry. Seeking scapegoats, the Hollywood press conveniently ignored the financial pressures on the studios. The studios had been hurt by television and by the antitrust-mandated divestiture of their movie theater chains, causing a large outflow of production to Italy and other countries in the 1950s and 1960s in order to lower costs. The studio bosses, seeking to replicate such blockbuster hits as the remakes of The Ten Commandments (1956) and Ben-Hur (1959), were the real culprits behind the losses generated by large-budgeted films that found it impossible to recoup their costs despite long lines at the box office.
While Elizabeth Taylor, receiving the unwanted gift of reams of publicity from her adulterous romance with Cleopatra (1963) co-star Richard Burton, remained hot until the tanking of her own Tennessee Williams-renamed debacle Boom! (1968), Brando from 1963 until the end of the decade appeared in one box-office failure after another as he worked out a contract he had signed with Universal Pictures. The industry had grown tired of Brando and his idiosyncrasies, though he continued to be offered prestige projects up through 1968.
Some of the films Brando made in the 1960s were noble failures, such as The Ugly American (1963), The Appaloosa (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967). For every "Reflections," though, there seemed to be two or three outright debacles, such as Bedtime Story (1964), Morituri (1965), The Chase (1966), A Countess from Hong Kong (1967), Candy (1968), The Night of the Following Day (1969). By the time Brando began making the anti-colonialist picture Burn! (1969) in Colombia with Gillo Pontecorvo in the director's chair, he was box-office poison, despite having worked in the previous five years with such top directors as Arthur Penn, John Huston and the legendary Charles Chaplin, and with such top-drawer co-stars as David Niven, Yul Brynner, Sophia Loren and Taylor.
The rap on Brando in the 1960s was that a great talent had ruined his potential to be America's answer to Laurence Olivier, as his friend William Redfield limned the dilemma in his book "Letters from an Actor" (1967), a memoir about Redfield's appearance in Burton's 1964 theatrical production of "Hamlet." By failing to go back on stage and recharge his artistic batteries, something British actors such as Burton were not afraid to do, Brando had stifled his great talent, by refusing to tackle the classical repertoire and contemporary drama. Actors and critics had yearned for an American response to the high-acting style of the Brits, and while Method actors such as Rod Steiger tried to create an American style, they were hampered in their quest, as their king was lost in a wasteland of Hollywood movies that were beneath his talent. Many of his early supporters now turned on him, claiming he was a crass sellout.
Despite evidence in such films as The Appaloosa (1966) and Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) that Brando was in fact doing some of the best acting of his life, critics, perhaps with an eye on the box office, slammed him for failing to live up to, and nurture, his great gift. Brando's political activism, starting in the early 1960s with his championing of Native Americans' rights, followed by his participation in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's March on Washington in 1963, and followed by his appearance at a Black Panther rally in 1968, did not win him many admirers in the establishment. In fact, there was a de facto embargo on Brando films in the recently segregated (officially, at least) southeastern US in the 1960s. Southern exhibitors simply would not book his films, and producers took notice. After 1968, Brando would not work for three years.
Pauline Kael wrote of Brando that he was Fortune's fool. She drew a parallel with the latter career of John Barrymore, a similarly gifted thespian with talents as prodigious, who seemingly threw them away. Brando, like the late-career Barrymore, had become a great ham, evidenced by his turn as the faux Indian guru in the egregious Candy (1968), seemingly because the material was so beneath his talent. Most observers of Brando in the 1960s believed that he needed to be reunited with his old mentor Elia Kazan, a relationship that had soured due to Kazan's friendly testimony naming names before the notorious House un-American Activities Committee. Perhaps Brando believed this, too, as he originally accepted an offer to appear as the star of Kazan's film adaptation of his own novel, The Arrangement (1969). However, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Brando backed out of the film, telling Kazan that he could not appear in a Hollywood film after this tragedy. Also reportedly turning down a role opposite box-office king Paul Newman in a surefire script, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), Brando decided to make Burn! (1969) with Pontecorvo. The film, a searing indictment of racism and colonialism, flopped at the box office but won the esteem of progressive critics and cultural arbiters such as Howard Zinn. He subsequently appeared in the British film The Nightcomers (1971), a prequel to "Turn of the Screw" and another critical and box office failure.
Kazan, after a life in film and the theater, said that, aside from Orson Welles, whose greatness lay in film making, he only met one actor who was a genius: Brando. Richard Burton, an intellectual with a keen eye for observation if not for his own film projects, said that he found Brando to be very bright, unlike the public perception of him as a Terry Malloy-type character that he himself inadvertently promoted through his boorish behavior. Brando's problem, Burton felt, was that he was unique, and that he had gotten too much fame too soon at too early an age. Cut off from being nurtured by normal contact with society, fame had distorted Brando's personality and his ability to cope with the world, as he had not had time to grow up outside the limelight.
Truman Capote, who eviscerated Brando in print in the mid-'50s and had as much to do with the public perception of the dyslexic Brando as a dumbbell, always said that the best actors were ignorant, and that an intelligent person could not be a good actor. However, Brando was highly intelligent, and possessed of a rare genius in a then-deprecated art, acting. The problem that an intelligent performer has in movies is that it is the director, and not the actor, who has the power in his chosen field. Greatness in the other arts is defined by how much control the artist is able to exert over his chosen medium, but in movie acting, the medium is controlled by a person outside the individual artist. It is an axiom of the cinema that a performance, as is a film, is "created" in the cutting room, thus further removing the actor from control over his art. Brando had tried his hand at directing, in controlling the whole artistic enterprise, but he could not abide the cutting room, where a film and the film's performances are made. This lack of control over his art was the root of Brando's discontent with acting, with movies, and, eventually, with the whole wide world that invested so much cachet in movie actors, as long as "they" were at the top of the box-office charts. Hollywood was a matter of "they" and not the work, and Brando became disgusted.
Charlton Heston, who participated in Martin Luther King's 1963 March on Washington with Brando, believes that Marlon was the great actor of his generation. However, noting a story that Brando had once refused a role in the early 1960s with the excuse "How can I act when people are starving in India?," Heston believes that it was this attitude, the inability to separate one's idealism from one's work, that prevented Brando from reaching his potential. As Rod Steiger once said, Brando had it all, great stardom and a great talent. He could have taken his audience on a trip to the stars, but he simply would not. Steiger, one of Brando's children even though a contemporary, could not understand it. When James Mason' was asked in 1971 who was the best American actor, he had replied that since Brando had let his career go belly-up, it had to be George C. Scott, by default.
Paramount thought that only Laurence Olivier would suffice, but Lord Olivier was ill. The young director believed there was only one actor who could play godfather to the group of Young Turk actors he had assembled for his film, The Godfather of method acting himself - Marlon Brando. Francis Ford Coppola won the fight for Brando, Brando won - and refused - his second Oscar, and Paramount won a pot of gold by producing the then top-grossing film of all-time, The Godfather (1972), a gangster movie most critics now judge one of the greatest American films of all time. Brando followed his iconic portrayal of Don Corleone with his Oscar-nominated turn in the high-grossing and highly scandalous Last Tango in Paris (1972) ("Last Tango in Paris"), the first film dealing explicitly with sexuality in which an actor of Brando's stature had participated. He was now again a top ten box office star and once again heralded as the greatest actor of his generation, an unprecedented comeback that put him on the cover of "Time" magazine and would make him the highest-paid actor in the history of motion pictures by the end of the decade. Little did the world know that Brando, who had struggled through many projects in good faith during the 1960s, delivering some of his best acting, only to be excoriated and ignored as the films did not do well at the box office, essentially was through with the movies.
After reaching the summit of his career, a rarefied atmosphere never reached before or since by any actor, Brando essentially walked away. He would give no more of himself after giving everything as he had done in Last Tango in Paris (1972)," a performance that embarrassed him, according to his autobiography. Brando had come as close to any actor to being the "auteur," or author, of a film, as the English-language scenes of "Tango" were created by encouraging Brando to improvise. The improvisations were written down and turned into a shooting script, and the scripted improvisations were shot the next day. Pauline Kael, the Brando of movie critics in that she was the most influential arbiter of cinematic quality of her generation and spawned a whole legion of Kael wannabes, said Brando's performance in Last Tango in Paris (1972) had revolutionized the art of film. Brando, who had to act to gain his mother's attention; Brando, who believed acting at best was nothing special as everyone in the world engaged in it every day of their lives to get what they wanted from other people; Brando, who believed acting at its worst was a childish charade and that movie stardom was a whorish fraud, would have agreed with Sam Peckinpah's summation of Pauline Kael: "Pauline's a brilliant critic but sometimes she's just cracking walnuts with her ass." He probably would have done so in a simulacrum of those words, too.
After another three-year hiatus, Brando took on just one more major role for the next 20 years, as the bounty hunter after Jack Nicholson in Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks (1976), a western that succeeded neither with the critics or at the box office. Following The Godfather and Tango, Brando's performance was disappointing for some reviewers, who accused him of giving an erratic and inconsistent performance. In 1977, Brando made a rare appearance on television in the miniseries Roots: The Next Generations (1979), portraying George Lincoln Rockwell; he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie for his performance. In 1978, he narrated the English version of Raoni (1978), a French-Belgian documentary film directed by Jean-Pierre Dutilleux and Luiz Carlos Saldanha that focused on the life of Raoni Metuktire and issues surrounding the survival of the indigenous Indian tribes of north central Brazil.
Later in his career, Brando concentrated on extracting the maximum amount of capital for the least amount of work from producers, as when he got the Salkind brothers to pony up a then-record $3.7 million against 10% of the gross for 13 days work on Superman (1978). Factoring in inflation, the straight salary for "Superman" equals or exceeds the new record of $1 million a day Harrison Ford set with K-19: The Widowmaker (2002). He agreed to the role only on assurance that he would be paid a large sum for what amounted to a small part, that he would not have to read the script beforehand, and his lines would be displayed somewhere off-camera. Brando also filmed scenes for the movie's sequel, Superman II, but after producers refused to pay him the same percentage he received for the first movie, he denied them permission to use the footage.
Before cashing his first paycheck for Superman (1978), Brando had picked up $2 million for his extended cameo in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979) in a role, that of Col. Kurtz, that he authored on-camera through improvisation while Coppola shot take after take. It was Brando's last bravura star performance. He co-starred with George C. Scott and John Gielgud in The Formula (1980), but the film was another critical and financial failure. Years later though, he did receive an eighth and final Oscar nomination for his supporting role in A Dry White Season (1989) after coming out of a near-decade-long retirement. Contrary to those who claimed he now only was in it for the money, Brando donated his entire seven-figure salary to an anti-apartheid charity. He then did an amusing performance in the comedy The Freshman (1990), winning rave reviews. He portrayed Tomas de Torquemada in the historical drama 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), but his performance was denounced and the film was another box office failure. He made another comeback in the Johnny Depp romantic drama Don Juan DeMarco (1994), which co-starred Faye Dunaway as his wife. He then appeared in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), co-starring Val Kilmer, who he didn't get along with. The filming was an unpleasant experience for Brando, as well as another critical and box office failure.
Brando had first attracted media attention at the age of 24, when "Life" magazine ran a photo of himself and his sister Jocelyn, who were both then appearing on Broadway. The curiosity continued, and snowballed. Playing the paraplegic soldier of The Men (1950), Brando had gone to live at a Veterans Administration hospital with actual disabled veterans, and confined himself to a wheelchair for weeks. It was an acting method, research, that no one in Hollywood had ever heard of before, and that willingness to experience life."Marlon Brando changed everything for actors. After him, everyone wanted to be Marlon. No one wanted to be a type: they all wanted to display versatility in every role. But the brilliance that Marlon had was that he had star personality that shone through in every role." ~ Peter Bogdanovich
"When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one." ~ Jack Nicholson
"He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'." ~ Martin Scorsese
Greats: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) (1951)★; On the Waterfront (1954) (1954)★; The Godfather (1972) (1972)★; Last Tango in Paris (1974)★; Apocalypse Now (1979) (1979)
Give It a Shot: The Men (1950) (1950); Viva Zapata! (1952) (1952)★; Julius Caesar (1953) (1953)★; Sayonara (1957) (1957)★; Superman (1978) (1978); The Godfather: The Game [voice] (2006)
Caution: The Missouri Breaks (1976) (1976); The Score (2001) (2001)
Other Notable Film(s): The Wild One (1953) (1953); Désirée (1954) (1954); Guys and Dolls (1955) (1955); The Teahouse of the August Moon (1956) (1956)✰; The Young Lions (1958) (1958); The Fugitive Kind (1960) (1959); One-Eyed Jacks (1961) (1961); Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) (1962); The Ugly American (1963) (1963)✰; Bedtime Story (1964) (1964); Morituri (1965) (1965); The Chase (1966) (1966); The Appaloosa (1966) (1966); A Countess from Hong Kong (1967) (1967); Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967) (1967); Candy (1968) (1968); The Night of the Following Day (1969) (1968); Burn! (1969); The Nightcomers (1971) (1971); The Formula (1980) (1980); A Dry White Season (1989) (1989)✰; The Freshman (1990) (1990); Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992) (1992); Don Juan DeMarco (1994) (1994); The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996) (1996); The Brave (1997) (1997); Free Money (1998) (1998)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained at the Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop. De Niro first gained fame for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), but he gained his reputation as a volatile actor in Mean Streets (1973), which was his first film with director Martin Scorsese. He received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Godfather Part II (1974) and received Academy Award nominations for best actor in Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Cape Fear (1991). He received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980).
De Niro has earned four Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in New York, New York (1977), opposite Liza Minnelli, Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). Other notable performances include Brazil (1985), The Untouchables (1987), Backdraft (1991), Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), Casino (1995) and Jackie Brown (1997). At the same time, he also directed and starred in such films as A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). De Niro has also received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010.
As of 2022, De Niro is 79-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to work regularly in mostly film.Greats: Mean Streets (1973) (1973); The Godfather Part II (1974) (1974)★; Taxi Driver (1976) (1976)★; The Deer Hunter (1978) (1978)★; Raging Bull (1980) (1980)★; The King of Comedy (1982) (1983)★; Once Upon a Time in America (1984) (1984); The Mission (1986) (1986); The Untouchables (1987) (1987); Goodfellas (1990) (1990)★; A Bronx Tale (1993) (1993); Heat (1995) (1995); Casino (1995) (1995); Jackie Brown (1997) (1997); Silver Linings Playbook (2012) (2012)★; American Hustle (2013) (2013); The Irishman (2019) (2019)
Give It a Shot: Midnight Run (1988) (1988)✰; Awakenings (1990) (1990)★; Cape Fear (1991) (1991)★; Sleepers (1996) (1996); Cop Land (1997) (1997); Wag the Dog (1997) (1997); Ronin (1998) (1998); Meet the Parents (2000) (2000)✰; Joker (2019) (2019)
Caution: Brazil (1985) (1985); Angel Heart (1987) (1987); Backdraft (1991) (1991); Guilty by Suspicion (1991) (1991); The Fan (1996) (1996); Analyze This (1999) (1999)✰; The Score (2001) (2001); Showtime (2002) (2002); City by the Sea (2002) (2002); Analyze That (2002) (2002); Shark Tale (2004) [voice] (2004); Meet the Fockers (2004) (2004); The Good Shepherd (2006) (2006); The Family (2013) (2013); Joy (2015) (2015)
Flops: Hide and Seek (2005) (2005); Righteous Kill (2008) (2008); Machete (2010) (2010); Little Fockers (2010) (2010); Killer Elite (2011) (2011); Dirty Grandpa (2016) (2016)
Other Notable Film(s): Hi, Mom! (1970) (1970); Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) (1973); 1900 (1976); The Last Tycoon (1976) (1976); New York, New York (1977) (1977)✰; True Confessions (1981) (1981); Falling in Love (1984) (1984); Stanley & Iris (1990) (1989); We're No Angels (1989) (1989); Jacknife (1989) (1989); Mistress (1992) (1992); Night and the City (1992) (1992); Mad Dog and Glory (1993) (1993); This Boy's Life (1993) (1993); Frankenstein (1994) (1994); Marvin's Room (1996) (1996); Great Expectations (1998) (1998); Flawless (1999) (1999); The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000) (2000); Men of Honor (2000) (2000); 15 Minutes (2001) (2001); Godsend (2004) (2004); The Bridge of San Luis Rey (2004) (2004); Stardust (2007) (2007); What Just Happened (2008) (2008); Everybody's Fine (2009) (2009); Stone (2010) (2010); Limitless (2011) (2011); New Year's Eve (2011) (2011); Freelancers (2012) (2012); Red Lights (2012) (2012); Being Flynn (2012) (2012); The Big Wedding (2013) (2013); Killing Season (2013) (2013); Last Vegas (2013) (2013); Grudge Match (2013) (2013); The Carrier (2014); Heist (2015) (2015); The Intern (2015) (2015); Hands of Stone (2016) (2016); The Comedian (2016) (2016)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Dustin Lee Hoffman was born in Los Angeles, California, to Lillian (Gold) and Harry Hoffman, who was a furniture salesman and prop supervisor for Columbia Pictures. He was raised in a Jewish family (from Ukraine, Russia-Poland, and Romania). Hoffman graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1955, and went to Santa Monica City College, where he dropped out after a year due to bad grades. But before he did, he took an acting course because he was told that "nobody flunks acting." Also received some training at Los Angeles Conservatory of Music. Decided to go into acting because he did not want to work or go into the service. Trained at The Pasadena Playhouse for two years.Greats: The Graduate (1967) (1967)★; Midnight Cowboy (1969) (1969)★; Papillon (1973) (1973); Lenny (1974) (1974)★; Marathon Man (1976) (1976)★; All the President's Men (1976) (1976)✰; Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) (1979)★; Tootsie (1982) (1982)★; Rain Man (1988) (1988)★
Give It a Shot: Straw Dogs (1971) (1971); Dick Tracy (1990) (1990); Outbreak (1995) (1995); Sleepers (1996) (1996); Wag the Dog (1997) (1997)★; Finding Neverland (2004) (2004)
Caution: Hook (1991) (1991)★; Sphere (1998) (1998); Stranger Than Fiction (2006) (2006)
Flops: Little Fockers (2010) (2011)
Other Notable Film(s): John and Mary (1969) (1969)✰; Little Big Man (1970) (1970)✰; Who Is Harry Kellerman (1971); Alfredo, Alfredo (1972) (1972); Straight Time (1978) (1978); Agatha (1979) (1979); Death of a Salesman (1985) [TV] (1985)✰; Ishtar (1987) (1987); Family Business (1989) (1989); Billy Bathgate (1991) (1991); Hero (1992) (1992); American Buffalo (1996) (1996); Mad City (1997) (1997); Joan of Arc (1999); Moonlight Mile (2002) (2002); Confidence (2003) (2003); Runaway Jury (2003) (2003); I Heart Huckabees (2004) (2004); Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006) (2006); Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium (2007) (2007); Last Chance Harvey (2008) (2008)✰; Barney's Version (2010) (2010); Kung Fu Panda 2 (2011) [voice] (2011); Luck (2011) [TV series] (2011-2012); Chef (2014) (2014); Boychoir (2014) (2014); The Cobbler (2014) (2014); The Program (2015) (2015); Kung Fu Panda 3 (2016) [voice] (2016); The Meyerowitz Stories (2017) (2017); Into the Labyrinth (2019)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Alfredo James "Al" 'Pacino established himself as a film actor during one of cinema's most vibrant decades, the 1970s, and has become an enduring and iconic figure in the world of American movies.
He was born April 25, 1940 in Manhattan, New York City, to Italian-American parents, Rose (nee Gerardi) and Sal Pacino. They divorced when he was young. His mother moved them into his grandparents' home in the South Bronx. Pacino found himself often repeating the plots and voices of characters he had seen in the movies. Bored and unmotivated in school, he found a haven in school plays, and his interest soon blossomed into a full-time career. Starting onstage, he went through a period of depression and poverty, sometimes having to borrow bus fare to succeed to auditions. He made it into the prestigious Actors Studio in 1966, studying under Lee Strasberg, creator of the Method Approach that would become the trademark of many 1970s-era actors.
After appearing in a string of plays in supporting roles, Pacino finally attained success off-Broadway with Israel Horovitz's "The Indian Wants the Bronx", winning an Obie Award for the 1966-67 season. That was followed by a Tony Award for "Does the Tiger Wear a Necktie?" His first feature films made little departure from the gritty realistic stage performances that earned him respect: he played a drug addict in The Panic in Needle Park (1971) after his film debut in Me, Natalie (1969). The role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather (1972) was one of the most sought-after of the time: Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Ryan O'Neal, Robert De Niro and a host of other actors either wanted it or were mentioned, but director Francis Ford Coppola wanted Pacino for the role.
Coppola was successful but Pacino was reportedly in constant fear of being fired during the very difficult shoot. The film was a monster hit that earned Pacino his first Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. However, instead of taking on easier projects for the big money he could now command, Pacino threw his support behind what he considered tough but important films, such as the true-life crime drama Serpico (1973) and the tragic real-life bank robbery film Dog Day Afternoon (1975). He was nominated three consecutive years for the "Best Actor" Academy Award. He faltered slightly with Bobby Deerfield (1977), but regained his stride with And Justice for All (1979), for which he received another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Unfortunately, this would signal the beginning of a decline in his career, which produced flops like Cruising (1980) and Author! Author! (1982).
Pacino took on another vicious gangster role and cemented his legendary status in the ultra-violent cult film Scarface (1983), but a monumental mistake was about to follow. Revolution (1985) endured an endless and seemingly cursed shoot in which equipment was destroyed, weather was terrible, and Pacino fell ill with pneumonia. Constant changes in the script further derailed the project. The Revolutionary War-themed film, considered among the worst films ever made, resulted in awful reviews and kept him off the screen for the next four years. Returning to the stage, Pacino did much to give back and contribute to the theatre, which he considers his first love. He directed a film, The Local Stigmatic (1990), but it remains unreleased. He lifted his self-imposed exile with the striking Sea of Love (1989) as a hard-drinking policeman. This marked the second phase of Pacino's career, being the first to feature his now famous dark, owl eyes and hoarse, gravelly voice.
Returning to the Corleones, Pacino made The Godfather Part III (1990) and earned raves for his first comedic role in the colorful adaptation Dick Tracy (1990). This earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor, and two years later he was nominated for Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). He went into romantic mode for Frankie and Johnny (1991). In 1992, he finally won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his amazing performance in Scent of a Woman (1992). A mixture of technical perfection (he plays a blind man) and charisma, the role was tailor-made for him, and remains a classic.
The next few years would see Pacino becoming more comfortable with acting and movies as a business, turning out great roles in great films with more frequency and less of the demanding personal involvement of his wilder days. Carlito's Way (1993) proved another gangster classic, as did the epic crime drama Heat (1995) directed by Michael Mann and co-starring Robert De Niro. He directed the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Looking for Richard (1996). During this period, City Hall (1996), Donnie Brasco (1997) and The Devil's Advocate (1997) all came out. Reteaming with Mann and then Oliver Stone, he gave commanding performances in The Insider (1999) and Any Given Sunday (1999).
In the 2000s, Pacino starred in a number of theatrical blockbusters, including Ocean's Thirteen (2007), but his choice in television roles (the vicious, closeted Roy Cohn in the HBO miniseries Angels in America (2003) and his sensitive portrayal of Jack Kevorkian, in the television movie You Don't Know Jack (2010)) are reminiscent of the bolder choices of his early career. Each television project garnered him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie.
Never wed, Pacino has a daughter, Julie Marie, with acting teacher Jan Tarrant, and a set of twins with former longtime girlfriend Beverly D'Angelo. His romantic history includes Jill Clayburgh, Veruschka von Lehndorff, Carole Mallory, Debra Winger, Tuesday Weld, Marthe Keller, Carmen Cervera, Kathleen Quinlan, Lyndall Hobbs, Penelope Ann Miller, and a two-decade intermittent relationship with "Godfather" co-star Diane Keaton. He currently lives with Argentinian actress Lucila Solá, who is 36 years his junior.
As of 2022, Pacino is 82-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to appear regularly in film."Al Pacino intimidated me when I watched him in rehearsals, I saw how he turned Tony Montana into something very feral, something immigrant and hungry and decadent." ~ Oliver Stone
Greats: The Panic in Needle Park (1971) (1971); The Godfather (1972) (1972)★; Scarecrow (1973) (1973)★; Serpico (1973) (1973)★; The Godfather Part II (1974) (1974)★; Dog Day Afternoon (1975) (1975)★; Scarface (1983) (1983); The Godfather Part III (1990) (1990); Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) (1992)★; Scent of a Woman (1992) (1992)★; Carlito's Way (1993) (1993); Heat (1995) (1995); The Insider (1999) (1999); Insomnia (2002) (2002); The Irishman (2019) (2019)★
Give It a Shot: And Justice for All (1979) (1979)★; Sea of Love (1989) (1989)✰; Dick Tracy (1990) (1990)★; Donnie Brasco (1997) (1997)✰; Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood (2019) (2019)
Caution: Cruising (1980) (1980); City Hall (1996) (1996); The Devil's Advocate (1997) (1997); Any Given Sunday (1999) (1999); S1m0ne (2002) (2002); The Recruit (2003) (2003); Two for the Money (2005) (2005); Ocean's Thirteen (2007) (2007)
Flops: Gigli (2003) (2003)☠; 88 Minutes (2007) (2007)☠; Righteous Kill (2008) (2008)☠
Other Notable Film(s): Bobby Deerfield (1977) (1977)✰; Author! Author! (1982) (1982)✰; Revolution (1985) (1985); Frankie and Johnny (1991) (1991); Two Bits (1995) (1995); People I Know (2002) (2002); The Merchant of Venice (2004) (2004); You Don't Know Jack (2010) [TV] (2010)✰; The Son of No One (2011) (2011); Jack and Jill (2011) (2011); Stand Up Guys (2012) (2012); Phil Spector (2013) [TV] (2013)✰; Salomé (2013) (2013); The Humbling (2014) (2014); Manglehorn (2014) (2014); Danny Collins (2015) (2015)✰; Misconduct (2016) (2016); Hangman (2017) (2017); The Pirates of Somalia (2017) (2017); Paterno (2018) [TV] (2018)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, to Elizabeth Ruth (Johnson) and Alexander Maitland Stewart, who owned a hardware store. He was of Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and some English descent. Stewart was educated at a local prep school, Mercersburg Academy, where he was a keen athlete (football and track), musician (singing and accordion playing), and sometime actor.
In 1929, he won a place at Princeton University, where he studied architecture with some success and became further involved with the performing arts as a musician and actor with the University Players. After graduation, engagements with the University Players took him around the northeastern United States, including a run on Broadway in 1932. But work dried up as the Great Depression deepened, and it was not until 1934, when he followed his friend Henry Fonda to Hollywood, that things began to pick up.
After his first screen appearance in Art Trouble (1934), Stewart worked for a time for MGM as a contract player and slowly began making a name for himself in increasingly high-profile roles throughout the rest of the 1930s. His famous collaborations with Frank Capra, in You Can't Take It with You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and, after World War II, It's a Wonderful Life (1946) helped to launch his career as a star and to establish his screen persona as the likable everyman.
Having learned to fly in 1935, he was drafted into the United States Army in 1940 as a private (after twice failing the medical for being underweight). During the course of World War II, he rose to the rank of colonel, first as an instructor at home in the United States, and later on combat missions in Europe. He remained involved with the United States Air Force Reserve after the war and officially retired in 1968. In 1959, he was promoted to brigadier general, becoming the highest-ranking actor in U.S. military history.
Stewart's acting career took off properly after the war. During the course of his long professional life, he had roles in some of Hollywood's best-remembered films, starring in a string of Westerns, bringing his everyman qualities to movies like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)), biopics (The Stratton Story (1949), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), and The Spirit of St. Louis (1957), for instance, thrillers (most notably his frequent collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock), and even some screwball comedies.
On June 25, 1997, a thrombosis formed in his right leg, leading to a pulmonary embolism, and a week later on July 2, 1997, surrounded by his children, James Stewart died at age 89 at his home in Beverly Hills, California. His last words to his family were, "I'm going to be with Gloria now"."I think he's probably the best actor who's ever hit the screen." ~ Frank Capra
Greats: You Can't Take It with You (1938) (1938); Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) (1939)★; The Philadelphia Story (1940) (1940)★; The Shop Around the Corner (1940) (1940); It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (1946)★; Rope (1948) (1948); Harvey (1950) (1950)★; Rear Window (1954) (1954)★; The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (1956); Vertigo (1958) (1958)★; Anatomy of a Murder (1959) (1959)★; The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) (1962)★
Give It a Shot: The Stratton Story (1949) (1949)
Caution: Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962) (1962)
Other Notable Film(s): Vivacious Lady (1938) (1938); Made for Each Other (1939) (1939); Destry Rides Again (1939) (1939); The Mortal Storm (1940) (1940); Come Live with Me (1941) (1941); Pot o' Gold (1941) (1940); Ziegfeld Girl (1941) (1941); Call Northside 777 (1948) (1948); Winchester '73 (1950) (1950); Broken Arrow (1950) (1950); The Jackpot (1950) (1950); No Highway in the Sky (1951); The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) (1952); Bend of the River (1952) (1952); Carbine Williams (1952) (1952); The Naked Spur (1953) (1953); Thunder Bay (1953) (1953); The Glenn Miller Story (1954) (1954); The Far Country (1954) (1954); Strategic Air Command (1955) (1955); The Man from Laramie (1955) (1955); The Spirit of St. Louis (1957) (1957); Night Passage (1957) (1957); Bell Book and Candle (1958) (1958); The FBI Story (1959) (1959); Two Rode Together (1961) (1961); How the West Was Won (1962) (1962); Take Her, She's Mine (1963) (1963); Cheyenne Autumn (1964) (1964); Shenandoah (1965) (1965); The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) (1965); The Rare Breed (1966) (1966); Firecreek (1968) (1968); Bandolero! (1968) (1968); The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) (1970); The Shootist (1976) (1976); Airport '77 (1977) (1977)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for their father, a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store and was the son of emigrants from Poland and Hungary. Newman's mother (born Terézia Fecková, daughter of Stefan Fecko and Mária Polenak) was a Roman Catholic Slovak from Homonna, Pticie (former Austro-Hungarian Empire), who became a practicing Christian Scientist. She and her brother, Newman's uncle Joe, had an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on him. He acted in grade school and high school plays. The Newmans were well-to-do and Paul Newman grew up in affluent Shaker Heights. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte (born 1929), and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he moved Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut, where he attended Yale University's School of Drama.
While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play "Picnic". Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward (born 1930), who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition.
In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, The Silver Chalice (1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it. He had always been embarrassed about the film and reveled in making fun of it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in "The Desperate Hours". In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and critics praised his performance. In 1957, with a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), co-starring Joanne Woodward.
During the shooting of this film, they realized they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together and raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The 1960s would bring Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade, and garnered three more Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (1968) was given good marks, and although the film and Woodward were nominated for Oscars, Newman was not nominated for Best Director. However, he did win a Golden Globe Award for his direction.
1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films as The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974) to lesser known films as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) to a cult classic Slap Shot (1977). After the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction. His acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (1982) for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination and, in 1987, finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony.
Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982, and also founded "Newman's Own", a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which Newman donated to charity. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status.
Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his movies. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organizations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Newman died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer.Greats: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) (1958)★; The Hustler (1961) (1961)★; Cool Hand Luke (1967) (1967)★; Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) (1969); The Sting (1973) (1973); The Verdict (1982) (1982)★; Road to Perdition (2002) (2002)★
Give It a Shot: The Long, Hot Summer (1958) (1958)★; Sweet Bird of Youth (1962) (1962)★; Hud (1963) (1963)★; Torn Curtain (1966) (1966); The Towering Inferno (1974) (1974); The Color of Money (1986) (1986)★; Fat Man and Little Boy (1989) (1989); The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) (1994)
Other Notable Film(s): The Silver Chalice (1954) (1954); Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956) (1956); The Left Handed Gun (1958) (1958); The Young Philadelphians (1959) (1959); From the Terrace (1960) (1960); Exodus (1960) (1960); Paris Blues (1961) (1961); Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962) (1962)✰; The Prize (1963) (1963); What a Way to Go! (1964) (1964); The Outrage (1964) (1964); Harper (1966) (1966); Hombre (1967) (1967); Sometimes a Great Notion (1971) (1970); The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) (1972); The MacKintosh Man (1973) (1973); The Drowning Pool (1975) (1975); Buffalo Bill and the Indians (1976); Slap Shot (1977) (1977); Quintet (1979) (1979); When Time Ran Out... (1980) (1980); Fort Apache the Bronx (1981) (1981); Absence of Malice (1981) (1981)✰; Harry & Son (1984) (1984); Blaze (1989) (1989); Nobody's Fool (1994) (1994)✰; Twilight (1998) (1998); Message in a Bottle (1999) (1999); Where the Money Is (2000) (2000); Empire Falls (2005) [TV series] (2005)✰; Cars (2006) [voice] (2006)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three children of a beautician mother, Lennis, from Georgia, and a Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham University, intent on a career in journalism. However, he caught the acting bug while appearing in student drama productions and, upon graduation, he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater. He left A.C.T. after only one year to seek work as an actor. His first paid acting role was in a summer stock theater stage production in St. Mary's City, Maryland. The play was "Wings of the Morning", which is about the founding of the colony of Maryland (now the state of Maryland) and the early days of the Maryland colonial assembly (a legislative body). He played the part of a real historical character, Mathias Da Sousa, although much of the dialogue was created. Afterwards he began to pursue screen roles in earnest. With his acting versatility and powerful presence, he had no difficulty finding work in numerous television productions.
He made his first big screen appearance in Carbon Copy (1981) with George Segal. Through the 1980s, he worked in both movies and television and was chosen for the plum role of Dr. Philip Chandler in NBC's hit medical series St. Elsewhere (1982), a role that he would play for six years. In 1989, his film career began to take precedence when he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Tripp, the runaway slave in Edward Zwick's powerful historical masterpiece Glory (1989).
Washington has received much critical acclaim for his film work since the 1990s, including his portrayals of real-life figures such as South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Cry Freedom (1987), Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X in Malcolm X (1992), boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in The Hurricane (1999), football coach Herman Boone in Remember the Titans (2000), poet and educator Melvin B. Tolson in The Great Debaters (2007), and drug kingpin Frank Lucas in American Gangster (2007). Malcolm X and The Hurricane garnered him Oscar nominations for Best Actor, before he finally won that statuette in 2002 for his lead role in Training Day (2001).
Through the 1990s, Denzel also co-starred in such big budget productions as The Pelican Brief (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), The Preacher's Wife (1996), and Courage Under Fire (1996), a role for which he was paid $10 million. He continued to define his onscreen persona as the tough, no-nonsense hero through the 2000s in films like Out of Time (2003), Man on Fire (2004), Inside Man (2006), and The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009). Cerebral and meticulous in his film work, he made his debut as a director with Antwone Fisher (2002); he also directed The Great Debaters (2007) and Fences (2016).
In 2010, Washington headlined The Book of Eli (2010), a post-Apocalyptic drama. Later that year, he starred as a veteran railroad engineer in the action film Unstoppable (2010), about an unmanned, half-mile-long runaway freight train carrying dangerous cargo. The film was his fifth and final collaboration with director Tony Scott, following Crimson Tide (1995), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006) and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. He has also been a featured actor in the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and has been a frequent collaborator of director Spike Lee.
In 2012, Washington starred in Flight (2012), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He co-starred with Ryan Reynolds in Safe House (2012), and prepared for his role by subjecting himself to a torture session that included waterboarding. In 2013, Washington starred in 2 Guns (2013), alongside Mark Wahlberg. In 2014, he starred in The Equalizer (2014), an action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Richard Wenk, based on the television series of same name starring Edward Woodward. During this time period, he also took on the role of producer for some of his films, including The Book of Eli and Safe House.
In 2016, he was selected as the recipient for the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.
He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Pauletta Washington, and their four children."What's it like finding out Denzel Washington wants you to direct his next movie? It's like getting a phone call from Muhammad Ali or Michael Jordan saying they want you to coach them." ~ Antoine Fuqua
Greats: Glory (1989) (1989)★; Malcolm X (1992) (1992)★; Philadelphia (1993) (1993)★; Training Day (2001) (2001)★
Give It a Shot: A Soldier's Story (1984) (1984); Crimson Tide (1995) (1995); The Hurricane (1999) (1999)★; Remember the Titans (2000) (2000); Inside Man (2006) (2006); American Gangster (2007) (2007)✰; Flight (2012) (2012)★; Fences (2016) (2016)★
Caution: The Bone Collector (1999) (1999); John Q (2002) (2002); Out of Time (2003) (2003); Man on Fire (2004) (2004); Deja Vu (2006) (2006); Safe House (2012) (2012); The Equalizer (2014) (2014)
Flops: Power (1986) (1986); The Book of Eli (2010) (2010)
Other Notable Film(s): Carbon Copy (1981) (1981); Cry Freedom (1987) (1987)✰; For Queen & Country (1988) (1988); The Mighty Quinn (1989) (1989); Heart Condition (1990) (1990); Mo' Better Blues (1990) (1990); Mississippi Masala (1991) (1991); Ricochet (1991) (1991); Much Ado About Nothing (1993) (1993); The Pelican Brief (1993) (1993); Virtuosity (1995) (1995); Devil in a Blue Dress (1995) (1995); Courage Under Fire (1996) (1996); The Preacher's Wife (1996) (1996); Fallen (1998) (1998); He Got Game (1998) (1998); The Siege (1998) (1998); Antwone Fisher (2002) (2002); The Great Debaters (2007) (2007); The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009) (2009); Unstoppable (2010) (2010); 2 Guns (2013) (2013); The Magnificent Seven (2016) (2016); Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017) (2017)✰; The Equalizer 2 (2018) (2018)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Spencer Tracy was the second son born on April 5, 1900, to truck salesman John Edward and Caroline Brown Tracy in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. While attending Marquette Academy, he and classmate Pat O'Brien quit school to enlist in the Navy at the start of World War I. Tracy was still at Norfolk Navy Yard in Virginia at the end of the war. After playing the lead in the play "The Truth" at Ripon College he decided that acting might be his career.
Moving to New York, Tracy and O'Brien, who'd also settled on a career on the stage, roomed together while attending the Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1923 both got nonspeaking parts as robots in "R.U.R.", a dramatization of the groundbreaking science fiction novel by Czech author Karel Capek. Making very little money in stock, Tracy supported himself with jobs as bellhop, janitor and salesman until John Ford saw his critically acclaimed performance in the lead role in the play "The Last Mile" (later played on film by Clark Gable) and signed him for The William Fox Film Company's production of Up the River (1930). Despite appearing in sixteen films at that studio over the next five years, Tracy was never able to rise to full film star status there, in large part because the studio was unable to match his talents to suitable story material.
During that period the studio itself floundered, eventually merging with Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck and William Goetz's William 20th Century Pictures to become 20th Century-Fox). In 1935 Tracy signed with MGM under the aegis of Irving Thalberg and his career flourished. He became the first actor to win back-to-back Best Actor Oscars for Captains Courageous (1937) and, in a project he initially didn't want to star in, Boys Town (1938).
During Tracy's nearly forty-year film career, he was nominated for his performances in San Francisco (1936), Father of the Bride (1950), Bad Day at Black Rock (1955), The Old Man and the Sea (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960), Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).
Tracy had a brief romantic relationship with Loretta Young in the mid-1930s, and a lifelong one with Katharine Hepburn beginning in 1942 after they were first paired in Woman of the Year by director George Stevens. Tracy's strong Roman Catholic beliefs precluded his divorcing wife Louise, though they mostly lived apart. Tracy suffered from severe alcoholism and diabetes (from the late 1940s), which led to his declining several tailor-made roles in films that would become big hits with other actors in those roles. Although his drinking problems were well known, he was considered peerless among his colleagues (Tracy had a well-deserved reputation for keeping co-stars on their toes for his oddly endearing scene-stealing tricks), and remained in demand as a senior statesman who nevertheless retained box office clout. Two weeks after completion of Stanley Kramer's Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), during which he suffered from lung congestion, Spencer Tracy died of a heart attack."the best goddamned actor I've ever seen" ~ George M. Cohan
Greats: Fury (1936) (1936); Captains Courageous (1937) (1937)★; Boys Town (1938) (1938)★; Woman of the Year (1942) (1942); A Guy Named Joe (1943) (1943); Adam's Rib (1949) (1949); Father of the Bride (1950) (1950)★; Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) (1955)★; Inherit the Wind (1960) (1960)★; Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) (1961)★; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) (1967)★
Give It a Shot: San Francisco (1936) (1936)★; Test Pilot (1938) (1938); Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941) (1941); It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963) (1963)
Caution: Tortilla Flat (1942) (1942)
Other Notable Film(s): Libeled Lady (1936) (1936); Mannequin (1937) (1937); Northwest Passage (1940); Edison, the Man (1940) (1940); Boom Town (1940) (1940); Men of Boys Town (1941) (1941); Keeper of the Flame (1942) (1942); The Seventh Cross (1944) (1944); Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944) (1944); Without Love (1945) (1945); The Sea of Grass (1947) (1947); Cass Timberlane (1947) (1947); State of the Union (1948) (1948); Edward, My Son (1949) (1949); Malaya (1949) (1949); Father's Little Dividend (1951) (1951); The People Against O'Hara (1951) (1951); Pat and Mike (1952) (1952); Plymouth Adventure (1952) (1952); The Actress (1953) (1953)✰; Broken Lance (1954) (1954); The Mountain (1956) (1956); Desk Set (1957) (1957); The Old Man and the Sea (1958) (1958)✰; The Last Hurrah (1958) (1958); The Devil at 4 O'Clock (1961) (1961)- Actor
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Born in London, England, Daniel Michael Blake Day-Lewis is the second child of Cecil Day-Lewis, Poet Laureate of the U.K., and his second wife, actress Jill Balcon. His maternal grandfather was Sir Michael Balcon, an important figure in the history of British cinema and head of the famous Ealing Studios. His older sister, Tamasin Day-Lewis, is a documentarian. His father was of Northern Irish and English descent, and his mother was Jewish (from a family from Latvia and Poland). Daniel was educated at Sevenoaks School in Kent, which he despised, and the more progressive Bedales in Petersfield, which he adored. He studied acting at the Bristol Old Vic School. Daniel made his film debut in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), but then acted on stage with the Bristol Old Vic and Royal Shakespeare Companies and did not appear on screen again until 1982, when he landed his first adult role, a bit part in Gandhi (1982). He also appeared on British television that year in Frost in May (1982) and How Many Miles to Babylon? (1982). Notable theatrical performances include Another Country (1982-83), Dracula (1984) and The Futurists (1986).
His first major supporting role in a feature film was in The Bounty (1984), quickly followed by My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and A Room with a View (1985). The latter two films opened in New York on the same day, offering audiences and critics evidence of his remarkable range and establishing him as a major talent. The New York Film Critics named him Best Supporting Actor for those performances. In 1986, he appeared on stage in Richard Eyre's "The Futurists" and on television in Eyre's production of The Insurance Man (1986). He also had a small role in a British/French film, Nanou (1986). In 1987, he assumed leading-man status in Philip Kaufman's The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988), followed by a comedic role in the unsuccessful Stars and Bars (1988). His brilliant performance as Christy Brown in Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot (1989) won him numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Actor.
He returned to the stage to work again with Eyre, as Hamlet at the National Theater, but was forced to leave the production close to the end of its run because of exhaustion, and has not appeared on stage since. He took a hiatus from film as well until 1992, when he starred in The Last of the Mohicans (1992), a film that met with mixed reviews but was a great success at the box office. He worked with American director Martin Scorsese in The Age of Innocence (1993), based on Edith Wharton's novel. Subsequently, he teamed again with Jim Sheridan to star in In the Name of the Father (1993), a critically acclaimed performance that earned him another Academy Award nomination. His next project was in the role of John Proctor in father-in-law Arthur Miller's play The Crucible (1996), directed by Nicholas Hytner. He worked with Scorsese again to star in Gangs of New York (2002), another critically acclaimed performance that earned him another Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Day-Lewis's wife, Rebecca Miller, offered him the lead role in her film The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005), in which he played a dying man with regrets over how his wife had evolved and over how he had brought up his teenage daughter. During filming, he arranged to live separate from his wife to achieve the "isolation" needed to focus on his own character's reality. The film received mixed reviews. In 2007, he starred in director Paul Thomas Anderson's loose adaptation of Upton Sinclair's novel "Oil!", titled There Will Be Blood (2007). Day-Lewis received the Academy Award for Best Actor, BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role, and a variety of film critics' circle awards for the role. In 2009, Day-Lewis starred in Rob Marshall's musical adaptation Nine (2009) as film director Guido Contini. He was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy and the Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.Greats: Gandhi (1982) (1982); My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) (1985); The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988) (1988); My Left Foot (1989)★; The Last of the Mohicans (1992) (1992); In the Name of the Father (1993) (1993)★; Gangs of New York (2002) (2002)★; There Will Be Blood (2007) (2007)★; Lincoln (2012) (2012)★; Phantom Thread (2017) (2017)★
Give It a Shot: The Age of Innocence (1993) (1993); The Crucible (1996) (1996)
Other Notable Film(s): The Bounty (1984) (1984); A Room with a View (1985) (1985); Nanou (1986) (1986); Stars and Bars (1988) (1988); Eversmile New Jersey (1989) (1989); The Boxer (1997) (1997)✰; The Ballad of Jack and Rose (2005) (2005); Nine (2009) (2009)✰- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Few actors in the world have had a career quite as diverse as Leonardo DiCaprio's. DiCaprio has gone from relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies, such as Critters 3 (1991), to a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s, as the hunky lead actor in movies such as Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997), to then become a leading man in Hollywood blockbusters, made by internationally renowned directors such as Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan.
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Irmelin DiCaprio (née Indenbirken) and former comic book artist George DiCaprio. His father is of Italian and German descent, and his mother, who is German-born, is of German, Ukrainian and Russian ancestry. His middle name, "Wilhelm", was his maternal grandfather's first name. Leonardo's father had achieved minor status as an artist and distributor of cult comic book titles, and was even depicted in several issues of American Splendor, the cult semi-autobiographical comic book series by the late 'Harvey Pekar', a friend of George's. Leonardo's performance skills became obvious to his parents early on, and after signing him up with a talent agent who wanted Leonardo to perform under the stage name "Lenny Williams", DiCaprio began appearing on a number of television commercials and educational programs.
DiCaprio began attracting the attention of producers, who cast him in small roles in a number of television series, such as Roseanne (1988) and The New Lassie (1989), but it wasn't until 1991 that DiCaprio made his film debut in Critters 3 (1991), a low-budget horror movie. While Critters 3 (1991) did little to help showcase DiCaprio's acting abilities, it did help him develop his show-reel, and attract the attention of the people behind the hit sitcom Growing Pains (1985), in which Leonardo was cast in the "Cousin Oliver" role of a young homeless boy who moves in with the Seavers. While DiCaprio's stint on Growing Pains (1985) was very short, as the sitcom was axed the year after he joined, it helped bring DiCaprio into the public's attention and, after the sitcom ended, DiCaprio began auditioning for roles in which he would get the chance to prove his acting chops.
Leonardo took up a diverse range of roles in the early 1990s, including a mentally challenged youth in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), a young gunslinger in The Quick and the Dead (1995) and a drug addict in one of his most challenging roles to date, Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries (1995), a role which the late River Phoenix originally expressed interest in. While these diverse roles helped establish Leonardo's reputation as an actor, it wasn't until his role as Romeo Montague in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) that Leonardo became a household name, a true movie star. The following year, DiCaprio starred in another movie about doomed lovers, Titanic (1997), which went on to beat all box office records held before then, as, at the time, Titanic (1997) became the highest grossing movie of all time, and cemented DiCaprio's reputation as a teen heartthrob. Following his work on Titanic (1997), DiCaprio kept a low profile for a number of years, with roles in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) and the low-budget The Beach (2000) being some of his few notable roles during this period.
In 2002, he burst back into screens throughout the world with leading roles in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002), his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. With a current salary of $20 million a movie, DiCaprio is now one of the biggest movie stars in the world. However, he has not limited his professional career to just acting in movies, as DiCaprio is a committed environmentalist, who is actively involved in many environmental causes, and his commitment to this issue led to his involvement in The 11th Hour, a documentary movie about the state of the natural environment. As someone who has gone from small roles in television commercials to one of the most respected actors in the world, DiCaprio has had one of the most diverse careers in cinema. DiCaprio continued to defy conventions about the types of roles he would accept, and with his career now seeing him leading all-star casts in action thrillers such as The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), DiCaprio continues to wow audiences by refusing to conform to any cliché about actors.
In 2012, he played a mustache twirling villain in Django Unchained (2012), and then tragic literary character Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby (2013) and Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
DiCaprio is passionate about environmental and humanitarian causes, having donated $1,000,000 to earthquake relief efforts in 2010, the same year he contributed $1,000,000 to the Wildlife Conservation Society.Greats: What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) (1993)★; Titanic (1997) (1997)✰; Gangs of New York (2002) (2002); Catch Me If You Can (2002) (2002)✰; The Aviator (2004) (2004)★; The Departed (2006) (2006)★
Give It a Shot: The Basketball Diaries (1995) (1995)★; Blood Diamond (2006) (2006)★; Body of Lies (2008) (2008); Revolutionary Road (2008) (2008)★; Inception (2010) (2010); Shutter Island (2010) (2010); Django Unchained (2012) (2012)★; The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) (2013)★; The Revenant (2015) (2015)★; Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019)★
Caution: Romeo + Juliet (1996) (1996); J. Edgar (2011) (2011)✰
Other Notable Film(s): Critters 3 (1991) (1991); Poison Ivy (1992) (1992); This Boy's Life (1993) (1993); The Quick and the Dead (1995) (1995); Total Eclipse (1995) (1995); Marvin's Room (1996) (1996); The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) (1998); Celebrity (1998) (1998); The Beach (2000) (2000); Don's Plum (2001) (2001); The Great Gatsby (2013) (2013)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Burt Lancaster, one of five children, was born in Manhattan, to Elizabeth (Roberts) and James Henry Lancaster, a postal worker. All his grandparents were immigrants from the north of Ireland. He was a tough street kid who took an early interest in gymnastics. He joined the circus as an acrobat and worked there until he was injured. In the Army during WWII he was introduced to the USO and to acting. His first film was The Killers (1946), and that made him a star. He was a self-taught actor who learned the business as he went along. He set up his own production company in 1948 with Harold Hecht and James Hill to direct his career. He played many different roles in pictures as varied as The Crimson Pirate (1952), From Here to Eternity (1953), Elmer Gantry (1960) and Atlantic City (1980).
His production company, Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, produced such films as Paddy Chayefsky's Marty (1955) (Oscar winner 1955) and The Catered Affair (1956). In the 1980s he appeared as a supporting player in a number of movies, such as Local Hero (1983) and Field of Dreams (1989). However, it will be the sound of his voice, the way that he laughed, and the larger-than-life characters he played that will always be remembered."Burt Lancaster was largely responsible for me becoming a director." ~ Sydney Pollack
Greats: From Here to Eternity (1953) (1953)★; Sweet Smell of Success (1957) (1957); Elmer Gantry (1960) (1960)★; Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) (1961)★; Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) (1962)★; The Train (1964) (1964)★; Atlantic City (1980)★
Give It a Shot: Separate Tables (1958) (1958)★; Run Silent Run Deep (1958) (1958); Airport (1970) (1970); Field of Dreams (1989) (1989)
Other Notable Film(s): The Killers (1946) (1946); Brute Force (1947) (1947); Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) (1948); Criss Cross (1949) (1949); The Flame and the Arrow (1950) (1950); The Crimson Pirate (1952) (1952); Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) (1952); Vera Cruz (1954) (1954); Apache (1954) (1954); Vera Cruz (1954) (1954); The Rose Tattoo (1955) (1955); The Rainmaker (1956) (1956)✰; Trapeze (1956) (1956); Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) (1957); The Unforgiven (1960) (1960); The Leopard (1963); A Child Is Waiting (1963) (1963); Seven Days in May (1964) (1964); The Hallelujah Trail (1965) (1965); The Professionals (1966) (1966); The Swimmer (1968) (1968); Castle Keep (1969) (1969); Lawman (1971) (1971); Valdez Is Coming (1971) (1971); Ulzana's Raid (1972) (1972); Executive Action (1973) (1973); 1900 (1976); The Cassandra Crossing (1976) (1976); The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977) (1977); Go Tell the Spartans (1978) (1978); Zulu Dawn (1979) (1979); Local Hero (1983) (1983)✰; Tough Guys (1986) (1986); Rocket Gibraltar (1988) (1988)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Jack Lemmon was born in Newton, Massachusetts, to Mildred Lankford Noel and John Uhler Lemmon, Jr., the president of a doughnut company. His ancestry included Irish (from his paternal grandmother) and English. Jack attended Ward Elementary near his Newton, MA home. At age 9 he was sent to Rivers Country Day School, then located in nearby Brookline. After RCDS, he went to high school at Phillips Andover Academy. Jack was a member of the Harvard class of 1947, where he was in Navy ROTC and the Dramatic Club. After service as a Navy ensign, he worked in a beer hall (playing piano), on radio, off Broadway, TV and Broadway. His movie debut was with Judy Holliday in It Should Happen to You (1954). He won Best Supporting Actor as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts (1955). He received nominations in comedy (Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960)) and drama (Days of Wine and Roses (1962), The China Syndrome (1979), Tribute (1980) and Missing (1982)). He won the Best Actor Oscar for Save the Tiger (1973) and the Cannes Best Actor award for "Syndrome" and "Missing". He made his debut as a director with Kotch (1971) and in 1985 on Broadway in "Long Day's Journey into Night". In 1988 he received the Life Achievement Award of the American Film Institute.Just watching Jack Lemmon made me want to get into this business. ~ Hank Azaria
I remember that Jack Lemmon, who is one of my favorite actors of all time, says that the day he stops being nervous is the day he should leave the business." ~ Kim Basinger
Greats: Some Like It Hot (1959) (1959)★; The Apartment (1960) (1960)★; The Fortune Cookie (1966) (1966); The Odd Couple (1968) (1968)✰; Missing (1982) (1982)★; JFK (1991) (1991); Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) (1992)★
Give It a Shot: Days of Wine and Roses (1962) (1962)★; Save the Tiger (1973) (1973)★; Avanti! (1972) (1972)✰; The Front Page (1974) (1974)✰; The China Syndrome (1979) (1979)★
Other Notable Film(s): It Should Happen to You (1954) (1954); Mister Roberts (1955) (1955)✰; Bell Book and Candle (1958) (1958); Irma la Douce (1963) (1963); How to Murder Your Wife (1965) (1965); The Great Race (1965) (1965); The Out of Towners (1970) (1970); The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975) (1975); Airport '77 (1977) (1977); Tribute (1980) (1980)✰; Buddy Buddy (1981) (1981); That's Life! (1986) (1986); Dad (1989) (1989); Short Cuts (1993) (1993); Grumpy Old Men (1993) (1993); Grumpier Old Men (1995) (1995); The Grass Harp (1995) (1995); My Fellow Americans (1996) (1996); Out to Sea (1997) (1997); The Odd Couple II (1998) (1998)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was born in New York City, New York, to Maud Humphrey, a famed magazine illustrator and suffragette, and Belmont DeForest Bogart, a moderately wealthy surgeon (who was secretly addicted to opium). Bogart was educated at Trinity School, NYC, and was sent to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, in preparation for medical studies at Yale. He was expelled from Phillips and joined the U.S. Naval Reserve. From 1920 to 1922, he managed a stage company owned by family friend William A. Brady (the father of actress Alice Brady), performing a variety of tasks at Brady's film studio in New York. He then began regular stage performances. Alexander Woollcott described his acting in a 1922 play as inadequate. In 1930, he gained a contract with Fox, his feature film debut in a ten-minute short, Broadway's Like That (1930), co-starring Ruth Etting and Joan Blondell. Fox released him after two years. After five years of stage and minor film roles, he had his breakthrough role in The Petrified Forest (1936) from Warner Bros. He won the part over Edward G. Robinson only after the star, Leslie Howard, threatened Warner Bros. that he would quit unless Bogart was given the key role of Duke Mantee, which he had played in the Broadway production with Howard. The film was a major success and led to a long-term contract with Warner Bros. From 1936 to 1940, Bogart appeared in 28 films, usually as a gangster, twice in Westerns and even a horror film. His landmark year was 1941 (often capitalizing on parts George Raft had stupidly rejected) with roles in classics such as High Sierra (1940) and as Sam Spade in one of his most fondly remembered films, The Maltese Falcon (1941). These were followed by Casablanca (1942), The Big Sleep (1946), and Key Largo (1948). Bogart, despite his erratic education, was incredibly well-read and he favored writers and intellectuals within his small circle of friends. In 1947, he joined wife Lauren Bacall and other actors protesting the House Un-American Activities Committee witch hunts. He also formed his own production company, and the next year made The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948). Bogie won the best actor Academy Award for The African Queen (1951) and was nominated for Casablanca (1942) and as Captain Queeg in The Caine Mutiny (1954), a film made when he was already seriously ill. He died in his sleep at his Hollywood home following surgeries and a battle with throat cancer.Greats: Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) (1938); Dark Victory (1939) (1939); The Maltese Falcon (1941) (1941)★; Casablanca (1942) (1943)★; The Big Sleep (1946) (1946); The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) (1948)★; In a Lonely Place (1950) (1950); The African Queen (1951) (1951)★; Sabrina (1954) (1954)
Give It a Shot: Sahara (1943) (1943)
Other Notable Film(s): The Petrified Forest (1936) (1936); Bullets or Ballots (1936) (1936); Black Legion (1937) (1937); Marked Woman (1937) (1937); Kid Galahad (1937) (1937); San Quentin (1937) (1937); Dead End (1937) (1937); The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) (1938); The Oklahoma Kid (1939) (1939); The Roaring Twenties (1939) (1939); They Drive by Night (1940) (1940); Brother Orchid (1940) (1940); High Sierra (1940) (1941); All Through the Night (1942) (1941); Across the Pacific (1942) (1942); Action in the North Atlantic (1943) (1943); To Have and Have Not (1944) (1944); Passage to Marseille (1944) (1944); Conflict (1945) (1945); Dark Passage (1947) (1947); Dead Reckoning (1946) (1947); The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947) (1947); Key Largo (1948) (1948); Tokyo Joe (1949) (1949); Knock on Any Door (1949) (1949); The Enforcer (1951) (1951); Sirocco (1951) (1951); Beat the Devil (1953) (1953); The Caine Mutiny (1954) (1954)✰; The Barefoot Contessa (1954) (1954); The Desperate Hours (1955) (1955); The Left Hand of God (1955) (1955); We're No Angels (1955) (1955); The Harder They Fall (1956) (1956)- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
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).He's the best star actor there ever was in the movies." ~ Richard Schickel
Greats: The Awful Truth (1937) (1937)★; Bringing Up Baby (1938) (1938)★; Only Angels Have Wings (1939) (1939); His Girl Friday (1940) (1940); The Philadelphia Story (1940) (1940)★; Suspicion (1941) (1941); Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) (1944); Notorious (1946) (1946); To Catch a Thief (1955) (1955); An Affair to Remember (1957) (1957)★; North by Northwest (1959) (1959); Charade (1963) (1963)★
Give It a Shot: Penny Serenade (1941) (1941)★; The Bishop's Wife (1947) (1947); Monkey Business (1952) (1952)
Other Notable Film(s): Blonde Venus (1932) (1932); Sylvia Scarlett (1935) (1933); I'm No Angel (1933) (1933); She Done Him Wrong (1933) (1933); Walk Don't Run (1966) (1935); Topper (1937) (1937); Holiday (1938) (1938); Gunga Din (1939) (1939); My Favorite Wife (1940) (1940); The Talk of the Town (1942) (1942); Once Upon a Honeymoon (1942) (1942); Destination Tokyo (1943) (1943); Mr. Lucky (1943) (1943); None But the Lonely Heart (1944) (1944)✰; Night and Day (1946) (1946); The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947) (1947); Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) (1948); I Was a Male War Bride (1949) (1949); People Will Talk (1951) (1951); Indiscreet (1958) (1958)✰; Houseboat (1958) (1958); Operation Petticoat (1959) (1959)✰; The Grass Is Greener (1960) (1960)✰; That Touch of Mink (1962) (1962)✰; Father Goose (1964) (1966)- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
Eugene Allen Hackman was born in San Bernardino, California, the son of Ann Lydia Elizabeth (Gray) and Eugene Ezra Hackman, who operated a newspaper printing press. He is of Pennsylvania Dutch (German), English, and Scottish ancestry, partly by way of Canada, where his mother was born. After several moves, his family settled in Danville, Illinois. Gene grew up in a broken home, which he left at the age of sixteen for a hitch with the US Marines.
Moving to New York after being discharged, he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and television production on the G.I. Bill at the University of Illinois. Hackman would be over 30 years old when he finally decided to take his chance at acting by enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse. Legend says that Hackman and friend Dustin Hoffman were voted "least likely to succeed."
Hackman next moved back to New York, where he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway. In 1964 he was cast as the young suitor in the Broadway play "Any Wednesday." This role would lead to him being cast in the small role of Norman in Lilith (1964), starring Warren Beatty. When Beatty was casting for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), he cast Hackman as Buck Barrow, Clyde Barrow's brother. That role earned Hackman a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, an award for which he would again be nominated in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). In 1972 he won the Oscar for his role as Detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection (1971). At 40 years old Hackman was a Hollywood star whose work would rise to new heights with Night Moves (1975) and Bite the Bullet (1975), or fall to new depths with The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Eureka (1983). Hackman is a versatile actor who can play comedy (the blind man in Young Frankenstein (1974)) or villainy (the evil Lex Luthor in Superman (1978)). He is the doctor who puts his work above people in Extreme Measures (1996) and the captain on the edge of nuclear destruction in Crimson Tide (1995). After initially turning down the role of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992), Hackman finally accepted it, as its different slant on the western interested him. For his performance he won the Oscar and Golden Globe and decided that he wasn't tired of westerns after all. He has since appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), and The Quick and the Dead (1995)."I idolize Gene Hackman. He is not a natural star, not an incandescent personality like Jack Nicholson, but he makes luminous the problems of being an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation." ~ Brian Dennehy
Greats: Bonnie and Clyde (1967) (1967)★; The French Connection (1971) (1971)★; Scarecrow (1973) (1973)★; The Conversation (1974) (1974)★; Night Moves (1975) (1975); Reds (1981) (1981); Unforgiven (1992) (1992)★; The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) (2001)★
Give It a Shot: I Never Sang for My Father (1970) (1970)★; The Poseidon Adventure (1972) (1972); Young Frankenstein (1974) (1974); Superman (1978) (1978); Hoosiers (1986) (1986); Mississippi Burning (1988) (1988)★; Crimson Tide (1995) (1995); Get Shorty (1995) (1995); Absolute Power (1997) (1997); Enemy of the State (1998) (1998)
Caution: The Birdcage (1996) (1996); Heist (2001) (2001)
Flops: Power (1986) (1986); The Replacements (2000) (2000); Heartbreakers (2001) (2001); Welcome to Mooseport (2004) (2004)
Other Notable Film(s): Lilith (1964) (1964); Marooned (1969) (1969); French Connection II (1975) (1975)✰; A Bridge Too Far (1977) (1977); Superman II (1980) (1980); Under Fire (1983) (1983)✰; Twice in a Lifetime (1985) (1985)✰; No Way Out (1987) (1987); Bat*21 (1988) (1988); The Package (1989) (1989); Loose Cannons (1990) (1990); Postcards from the Edge (1990) (1990); Narrow Margin (1990) (1990); Class Action (1991) (1991); The Firm (1993) (1993); Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) (1993); Wyatt Earp (1994) (1994); The Quick and the Dead (1995) (1995); Extreme Measures (1996) (1996); The Chamber (1996) (1996); Twilight (1998) (1998); Under Suspicion (2000) (2000); Behind Enemy Lines (2001) (2001); Runaway Jury (2003) (2003)- Actor
- Stunts
- Producer
Born to Alice Cooper and Charles Cooper. Gary attended school at Dunstable school England, Helena Montana and Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa (then called Iowa College). His first stage experience was during high school and college. Afterwards, he worked as an extra for one year before getting a part in a two-reeler by the independent producer Hans Tiesler . Eileen Sedgwick was his first leading lady. He then appeared in The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926) for United Artists before moving to Paramount. While there he appeared in a small part in Wings (1927), It (1927), and other films.Greats: Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936) (1936)★; Sergeant York (1941) (1941)★; Meet John Doe (1941) (1941)★; The Pride of the Yankees (1942) (1942)★; High Noon (1952) (1952)★
Other Notable Film(s): A Farewell to Arms (1932) (1932); Beau Geste (1939) (1939); The Westerner (1940) (1940); Ball of Fire (1941) (1941); For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) (1943)✰; Saratoga Trunk (1945) (1945); Unconquered (1947) (1947); The Fountainhead (1949) (1949); Vera Cruz (1954) (1954); The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) (1955); Friendly Persuasion (1956) (1956); Love in the Afternoon (1957) (1957); Man of the West (1958) (1958); The Hanging Tree (1959) (1959)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
This remarkable, soft-spoken American began in films as a diffident juvenile. With passing years, he matured into a star character actor who exemplified not only integrity and strength, but an ideal of the common man fighting against social injustice and oppression. He was born in Grand Island, Hall, Nebraska, the son of Herberta Elma (Jaynes) and William Brace Fonda, who was a commercial printer, and proprietor of the W. B. Fonda Printing Company in Omaha, Nebraska. His distant ancestors were Italians who had fled their country and moved to Holland, presumably because of political or religious persecution. In the mid-1600s, they crossed the Atlantic and settled in upstate New York where they founded a community with the Fonda name.
Growing up, Henry developed an early interest in journalism after having a story published in a local newspaper. At the age of twelve, he helped in his father's printing business for $2 a week. Following graduation from high school in 1923, he got a part-time job in Minneapolis with the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company which allowed him at first to pursue journalistic studies at the University of Minnesota. As it became difficult to juggle his working hours with his academic roster, he obtained another position as a physical education instructor at $30 a week, including room and board. By this time, he had grown to a height of six foot one and was a natural for basketball.
In 1925, having returned to Omaha, Henry reevaluated his options and came to the conclusion that journalism was not his forte, after all. For a while, he tried his hand at several temporary jobs, including as a mechanic and a window dresser. Then, despite opposition from his parents, Henry accepted an offer from Gregory Foley, director of the Omaha Playhouse, to play the title role in 'Merton of the Movies'. His father would not speak to him for a month. The play and its star received fairly good notices in the local press. It ran for a week, after which Henry observed "the idea of being Merton and not myself taught me that I could hide behind a mask". For the rest of the repertory season, Henry advanced to assistant director which enabled him to design and paint sets as well as act. A casual trip to New York, however, had already made him set his sights on Broadway.
In 1928, he headed east and briefly played in summer stock before joining the University Players, a group of talented Princeton and Harvard graduates among whose number were such future luminaries as James Stewart (who would remain his closest lifelong friend), Joshua Logan and Kent Smith. Before long, Henry played leads opposite Margaret Sullavan, soon to become the first of his five wives. Both marriage and the players broke up four years later. In 1932, Henry found himself sharing a two-room New York apartment with Jimmy Stewart and Joshua Logan. For the next two years, he alternated scenic design with acting at various repertory companies. In 1934, he got a break of sorts, when he was given the chance to present a comedy sketch with Imogene Coca in the Broadway revue New Faces. That year, he also hired Leland Hayward as his personal management agent and this was to pay off handsomely.
It was Hayward who persuaded the 29-year old to become a motion picture actor, despite initial misgivings and reluctance on Henry's part. Independent producer Walter Wanger, whose growing stock company was birthed at United Artists, needed a star for The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935). With both first choice actors Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea otherwise engaged, Henry was the next available option. After all, he had just completed a successful run on Broadway in the stage version. The cheesy publicity tag line for the picture was "you'll be fonder of Fonda", but the film was an undeniable hit. Wanger, realizing he had a good thing going, next cast Henry in a succession of A-grade pictures which capitalized on his image as the sincere, unaffected country boy. Pick of the bunch were the Technicolor outdoor western The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the gritty Depression-era drama You Only Live Once (1937) (with Henry as a back-to-the-wall good guy forced into becoming a fugitive from the law by circumstance), the screwball comedy The Moon's Our Home (1936) (with ex-wife Sullavan), the excellent pre-civil war-era romantic drama Jezebel (1938) and the equally superb Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), in which Henry gave his best screen performance to date as the 'jackleg lawyer from Springfield'. Henry made two more films with director John Ford: the pioneering drama Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940), with Henry as Tom Joad, often regarded his career-defining role as the archetypal grassroots American trying to stand up against oppression. It also set the tone for his subsequent career. Whether he played a lawman (Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946)), a reluctant posse member (The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), a juror committed to the ideal of total justice in (12 Angry Men (1957)) or a nightclub musician wrongly accused of murder (The Wrong Man (1956)), his characters were alike in projecting integrity and quiet authority. In this vein, he also gave a totally convincing (though historically inaccurate) portrayal in the titular role of The Return of Frank James (1940), a rare example of a sequel improving upon the original.
Henry rarely featured in comedy, except for a couple of good turns opposite Barbara Stanwyck -- with whom he shared an excellent on-screen chemistry -- in The Mad Miss Manton (1938) and The Lady Eve (1941). He was also good value as a poker-playing grifter in the western comedy A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966). Finally, just to confound those who would typecast him, he gave a chilling performance as one of the coldest, meanest stone killers ever to roam the West, in Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Illness curtailed his work in the 1970s. His final screen role was as an octogenarian in On Golden Pond (1981), in which he was joined by his daughter Jane. It finally won him an Oscar on the heels of an earlier Honorary Academy Award. Too ill to attend the ceremony, he died soon after at the age of 77, having left a lasting legacy matched by few of his peers.Greats: Jezebel (1938) (1938); The Grapes of Wrath (1940) (1940)★; The Lady Eve (1941) (1941); My Darling Clementine (1946) (1946); The Wrong Man (1956) (1956); 12 Angry Men (1957) (1957)★; Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)★; On Golden Pond (1981) (1981)★
Other Notable Film(s): You Only Live Once (1937) (1937); Young Mr. Lincoln (1939) (1939); Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) (1939); Jesse James (1939) (1939); The Return of Frank James (1940) (1940); Tales of Manhattan (1942) (1942); The Ox-Bow Incident (1942) (1943); The Fugitive (1947) (1947); Fort Apache (1948) (1948); Mister Roberts (1955) (1955); War and Peace (1956) (1956); The Tin Star (1957) (1957); Warlock (1959) (1959); The Longest Day (1962) (1962); How the West Was Won (1962) (1962); Advise & Consent (1962) (1962); Fail Safe (1964) (1964); The Best Man (1964) (1964); Battle of the Bulge (1965) (1965); A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966) (1966); Firecreek (1968) (1968); Madigan (1968) (1968); Yours, Mine and Ours (1968) (1968); The Boston Strangler (1968) (1968); The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) (1970); There Was a Crooked Man... (1970) (1970); Sometimes a Great Notion (1971) (1970); My Name is Nobody (1973); Midway (1976) (1976)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Laurence Olivier could speak William Shakespeare's lines as naturally as if he were "actually thinking them", said English playwright Charles Bennett, who met Olivier in 1927. Laurence Kerr Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey, England, to Agnes Louise (Crookenden) and Gerard Kerr Olivier, a High Anglican priest. His surname came from a great-great-grandfather who was of French Huguenot origin.
One of Olivier's earliest successes as a Shakespearean actor on the London stage came in 1935 when he played "Romeo" and "Mercutio" in alternate performances of "Romeo and Juliet" with John Gielgud. A young Englishwoman just beginning her career on the stage fell in love with Olivier's Romeo. In 1937, she was "Ophelia" to his "Hamlet" in a special performance at Kronborg Castle, Elsinore (Helsingør), Denmark. In 1940, she became his second wife after both returned from making films in America that were major box office hits of 1939. His film was Wuthering Heights (1939), her film was Gone with the Wind (1939). Vivien Leigh and Olivier were screen lovers in Fire Over England (1937), 21 Days Together (1940) and That Hamilton Woman (1941).
There was almost a fourth film together in 1944 when Olivier and Leigh traveled to Scotland with Charles C. Bennett to research the real-life story of a Scottish girl accused of murdering her French lover. Bennett recalled that Olivier researched the story "with all the thoroughness of Sherlock Holmes" and "we unearthed evidence, never known or produced at the trial, that would most certainly have sent the young lady to the gallows". The film project was then abandoned. During their two-decade marriage, Olivier and Leigh appeared on the stage in England and America and made films whenever they really needed to make some money.
In 1951, Olivier was working on a screen adaptation of Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie" (Carrie (1952)) while Leigh was completing work on the film version of the Tennessee Williams' play, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She won her second Oscar for bringing "Blanche DuBois" to the screen. Carrie (1952) was a film that Olivier never talked about. George Hurstwood, a middle-aged married man from Chicago who tricked a young woman into leaving a younger man about to marry her, became a New York street person in the novel. Olivier played him as a somewhat nicer person who didn't fall quite as low. A PBS documentary on Olivier's career broadcast in 1987 covered his first sojourn in Hollywood in the early 1930s with his first wife, Jill Esmond, and noted that her star was higher than his at that time. On film, he was upstaged by his second wife, too, even though the list of films he made is four times as long as hers.
More than half of his film credits come after The Entertainer (1960), which started out as a play in London in 1957. When the play moved across the Atlantic to Broadway in 1958, the role of "Archie Rice"'s daughter was taken over by Joan Plowright, who was also in the film. They married soon after the release of The Entertainer (1960)."the greatest actor in the English-speaking world." ~ Spencer Tracy
Greats: Wuthering Heights (1939) (1939)★; Rebecca (1940) (1940)★; Spartacus (1960) (1960)★; Sleuth (1972) (1972)★; Marathon Man (1976) (1976)★
Give It a Shot: 49th Parallel (1941) (1941); Hamlet (1948) (1948)★; The Boys from Brazil (1978) (1978)★
Other Notable Film(s): Pride and Prejudice (1940) (1940); That Hamilton Woman (1941) (1941); Henry V (1944)✰; Carrie (1952) (1952); Richard III (1955) (1955)✰; The Prince and the Showgirl (1957) (1957); The Entertainer (1960) (1960)✰; Othello (1965) (1965)✰; Bunny Lake Is Missing (1965) (1965); Khartoum (1966) (1966); The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) (1968); The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) (1976); A Bridge Too Far (1977) (1977); A Little Romance (1979) (1979)✰; Dracula (1979) (1979); Clash of the Titans (1981) (1981); The Bounty (1984) (1984)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
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.Greats: The Public Enemy (1931) (1931)★; Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) (1938)★; Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) (1942)★; White Heat (1949) (1949)
Other Notable Film(s): Footlight Parade (1933) (1933); A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) (1935); 'G' Men (1935) (1935); The Roaring Twenties (1939) (1939); The Oklahoma Kid (1939) (1939); Each Dawn I Die (1939) (1939); City for Conquest (1940) (1940); The Strawberry Blonde (1941) (1941); The Bride Came C.O.D. (1941) (1941); Blood on the Sun (1945) (1945); 13 Rue Madeleine (1947) (1947); Love Me or Leave Me (1955) (1955)✰; Mister Roberts (1955) (1955); Man of a Thousand Faces (1957) (1957); One, Two, Three (1961) (1961); Ragtime (1981) (1981)- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Billy Wilder proclaimed William Holden to be "the ideal motion picture actor". For almost four decades, the handsome, affable 'Golden Holden' was among Hollywood's most durable and engaging stars. He was born William Franklin Beedle Jr., one of three sons to a high school English teacher, Mary Blanche (Ball), and a chemical and fertilizer analyst, William Franklin Beedle, head of the George W. Gooch Laboratories in Pasadena. His father, a keen physical fitness enthusiast, taught young Bill the art of tumbling and boxing. During his days as a student at South Pasadena High, he also became adept at team sports (football and baseball), learned to ride and shoot and to be proficient on piano, clarinet and drums.
To his father's chagrin, Bill had no inclination of following in dad's footsteps, though he did major in chemistry at Pasadena Junior College. A trip to New York and Broadway had set Bill's path firmly on an acting career. He had already performed in school plays and lent his voice to several radio plays in Los Angeles by the time he was spotted by a Paramount talent scout (playing the part of octogenarian Eugene Curie) at the Pasadena Workshop Theatre. In early 1938, he was offered a six-month studio contract for a weekly salary of $50. Naturally, the name Beedle had to go. Several alternatives were bandied around -- including Randolph Carey and Taylor Randolph - until the head of Paramount's publicity department settled on the name Holden (based on a personal friend who was an associate editor at the L.A. Times, also named Bill).
Having joined Paramount's Golden Circle Club of promising young actors, Bill was now groomed for stardom. However, it was a loan-out to Columbia that secured him his breakthrough role. He was the sixty-sixth actor to audition for the part of an Italian violinist forced to become a boxer in Golden Boy (1939). His earlier training as a junior pugilist proved somewhat beneficial but it was self-effacing co-star Barbara Stanwyck who turned out to be most instrumental in helping him rehearse and overcoming his nerves to act alongside her and thespians Lee J. Cobb and Adolphe Menjou. The picture was a minor hit and Columbia consequently acquired half his contract. For the next few years, Bill continued playing wholesome, guy-next-door types and rookie servicemen in pictures like Our Town (1940), I Wanted Wings (1941) (which was the making of 'peek-a-boo' star Veronica Lake) and The Fleet's In (1942). His salary had been enhanced and he now earned $150 a week. In July 1941, he married 25-year old actress Brenda Marshall, who commanded five times his income.
In 1942, he enlisted in the Officers Candidate School in Florida, graduating as an Air Force second lieutenant. He spent the next three years on P.R. duties and making training films for the Office of Public Information. One of his brothers, a naval pilot, was shot down and killed over the Pacific in 1943. After war's end, he was demobbed and returned to Hollywood to resume playing similar characters in similar movies. He later commented that he found "no interest or enjoyment" in portraying the same type of "nice-guy meaningless roles in meaningless movies". That was to change - along with his image - when he was invited to play the part of caddish, down-on-his-luck scriptwriter Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard (1950). The brilliantly acidulous screenplay was by Charles Brackett and director Billy Wilder (from their story A Can of Beans) and the story was narrated in flashback by Bill's character, opening with Gillis floating face-down in the swimming pool of a decrepit mansion "of the kind crazy people bought in the 20s".
With Sunset Boulevard (1950), Holden had effectively graduated from leading man to leading actor. No longer typecast, he was now allowed more hard-edged or even morally ambiguous roles: a self-serving, cynical prisoner-of-war in Stalag 17 (1953) (for which he won an Academy Award); an unemployed drifter who disrupts and changes the lives (particularly of womenfolk) in a small Kansas town, in Picnic (1955); a happy-go-lucky gigolo (who, as Billy Wilder explained the part to Bill, gets the sports car while Bogey -- Humphrey Bogart -- gets the girl), in the delightful Sabrina (1954); and an ill-fated U.S. Navy pilot in The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954), set during the Korean War. Clever dialogue and the Holden likability factor also improved what potentially could have turned out dull or maudlin in pictures like Forever Female (1953) and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955).
Already one of the highest paid stars of the 1950s, Holden received 10% of the gross for The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), making him an instant multi-millionaire. He invested much of his earnings in various enterprises, even a radio station in Hong Kong. At the end of the decade, he relocated his family to Geneva, Switzerland, but spent more and more of his own time globetrotting. In the 1960s, Holden founded the exclusive Mount Kenya Safari Club with oil billionaire Ray Ryan and Swiss financier Carl Hirschmann. His fervent advocacy of wildlife conservation now consumed more of his time than his acting. His films, consequently, dropped in quality.
Drinking ever more heavily, he also started to show his age. By the time he appeared as the leader of an outlaw gang on their last roundup in Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969), his face was so heavily lined that someone likened it to 'a map of the United States.' He still had a couple more good performances in him, in The Towering Inferno (1974) and Network (1976), until his shock death from blood loss due to a fall at his apartment while intoxicated. In 1982, actress Stefanie Powers, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1972, helped set up the William Holden Wildlife Foundation and the William Holden Wildlife Education Center in Kenya. Bill also has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His wanderlust has left traces of him all over the world.Greats: Sunset Boulevard (1950) (1950)★; Stalag 17 (1953) (1953)★; Sabrina (1954) (1954); The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) (1957)★; The Wild Bunch (1969) (1969); Network (1976) (1976)★
Give It a Shot: Born Yesterday (1950) (1950); Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955) (1955); Picnic (1955) (1955); The Towering Inferno (1974) (1974)
Flops: Casino Royale (1967) (1967)
Other Notable Film(s): Golden Boy (1939) (1939); Our Town (1940) (1940); Rachel and the Stranger (1948) (1948); Union Station (1950) (1950); Escape from Fort Bravo (1953) (1953); The Moon Is Blue (1953) (1953); The Country Girl (1954) (1954); Executive Suite (1954) (1954); The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) (1954); The Horse Soldiers (1959) (1959); The World of Suzie Wong (1960) (1960); The Counterfeit Traitor (1962) (1962); Paris When It Sizzles (1964) (1964); Alvarez Kelly (1966) (1966); The Devil's Brigade (1968) (1968); Breezy (1973) (1973); Fedora (1978) (1978); Damien: Omen II (1978) (1978); When Time Ran Out... (1980) (1980); S.O.B. (1981) (1981)- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
William Clark Gable was born on February 1, 1901 in Cadiz, Ohio, to Adeline (Hershelman) and William Henry Gable, an oil-well driller. He was of German, Irish, and Swiss-German descent. When he was seven months old, his mother died, and his father sent him to live with his maternal aunt and uncle in Pennsylvania, where he stayed until he was two. His father then returned to take him back to Cadiz. At 16, he quit high school, went to work in an Akron, Ohio, tire factory, and decided to become an actor after seeing the play "The Bird of Paradise". He toured in stock companies, worked oil fields and sold ties. On December 13, 1924, he married Josephine Dillon, his acting coach and 15 years his senior. Around that time, they moved to Hollywood, so that Clark could concentrate on his acting career. In April 1930, they divorced and a year later, he married Maria Langham (a.k.a. Maria Franklin Gable), also about 17 years older than him.
While Gable acted on stage, he became a lifelong friend of Lionel Barrymore. After several failed screen tests (for Barrymore and Darryl F. Zanuck), Gable was signed in 1930 by MGM's Irving Thalberg. He had a small part in The Painted Desert (1931) which starred William Boyd. Joan Crawford asked for him as co-star in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931) and the public loved him manhandling Norma Shearer in A Free Soul (1931) the same year. His unshaven lovemaking with bra-less Jean Harlow in Red Dust (1932) made him MGM's most important star.
His acting career then flourished. At one point, he refused an assignment, and the studio punished him by loaning him out to (at the time) low-rent Columbia Pictures, which put him in Frank Capra's It Happened One Night (1934), which won him an Academy Award for his performance. The next year saw a starring role in Call of the Wild (1935) with Loretta Young, with whom he had an affair (resulting in the birth of a daughter, Judy Lewis). He returned to far more substantial roles at MGM, such as Fletcher Christian in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind (1939).
After divorcing Maria Langham, in March 1939 Clark married Carole Lombard, but tragedy struck in January 1942 when the plane in which Carole and her mother were flying crashed into Table Rock Mountain, Nevada, killing them both. A grief-stricken Gable joined the US Army Air Force and was off the screen for three years, flying combat missions in Europe. When he returned the studio regarded his salary as excessive and did not renew his contract. He freelanced, but his films didn't do well at the box office. He married Sylvia Ashley, the widow of Douglas Fairbanks, in 1949. Unfortunately this marriage was short-lived and they divorced in 1952. In July 1955 he married a former sweetheart, Kathleen Williams Spreckles (a.k.a. Kay Williams) and became stepfather to her two children, Joan and Adolph ("Bunker") Spreckels III.
On November 16, 1959, Gable became a grandfather when Judy Lewis, his daughter with Loretta Young, gave birth to a daughter, Maria. In 1960, Gable's wife Kay discovered that she was expecting their first child. In early November 1960, he had just completed filming The Misfits (1961), when he suffered a heart attack, and died later that month, on November 16, 1960. Gable was buried shortly afterwards in the shrine that he had built for Carole Lombard and her mother when they died, at Forest Lawn Cemetery.
In March 1961, Kay Gable gave birth to a boy, whom she named John Clark Gable after his father.Greats: It Happened One Night (1934) (1934)★; Gone with the Wind (1939) (1939)★
Give It a Shot: San Francisco (1936) (1936); Test Pilot (1938) (1938); Run Silent Run Deep (1958) (1958)
Other Notable Film(s): A Free Soul (1931) (1931); Red Dust (1932) (1932); Manhattan Melodrama (1934) (1934); Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) (1935)✰; Wife vs. Secretary (1936) (1936); Cain and Mabel (1936) (1936); Boom Town (1940) (1940); Strange Cargo (1940) (1940); Command Decision (1948) (1948); Mogambo (1953) (1953); Teacher's Pet (1958) (1958); It Started in Naples (1960) (1960); The Misfits (1961) (1961)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Cleft-chinned, steely-eyed and virile star of international cinema who rose from being "the ragman's son" (the name of his best-selling 1988 autobiography) to become a bona fide superstar, Kirk Douglas, also known as Issur Danielovitch Demsky, was born on December 9, 1916 in Amsterdam, New York. His parents, Bryna (Sanglel) and Herschel Danielovitch, were Jewish immigrants from Chavusy, Mahilyow Voblast (now in Belarus). Although growing up in a poor ghetto, Douglas was a fine student and a keen athlete and wrestled competitively during his time at St. Lawrence University. Professional wrestling helped pay for his studies as did working on the side as a waiter and a bellboy. However, he soon identified an acting scholarship as a way out of his meager existence, and was sufficiently talented to gain entry into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He made his Broadway debut in "Spring Again" before his career was interrupted by World War II. He joining the United States Navy in 1941, and then after the end of hostilities in 1945, returned to the theater and some radio work. On the insistence of ex-classmate Lauren Bacall, movie producer Hal B. Wallis screen-tested Douglas and cast him in the lead role in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946). His performance received rave reviews and further work quickly followed, including an appearance in the low-key drama I Walk Alone (1947), the first time he worked alongside fellow future screen legend Burt Lancaster. Such was the strong chemistry between the two that they appeared in seven films together, including the dynamic western Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), the John Frankenheimer political thriller Seven Days in May (1964) and their final pairing in the gangster comedy Tough Guys (1986). Douglas once said about his good friend: "I've finally gotten away from Burt Lancaster. My luck has changed for the better. I've got nice-looking girls in my films now."
After appearing in "I Walk Alone," Douglas scored his first Oscar nomination playing the untrustworthy and opportunistic boxer Midge Kelly in the gripping Champion (1949). The quality of his work continued to garner the attention of critics and he was again nominated for Oscars for his role as a film producer in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and as tortured painter Vincent van Gogh in Lust for Life (1956), both directed by Vincente Minnelli. In 1955, Douglas launched his own production company, Bryna Productions, the company behind two pivotal film roles in his career. The first was as French army officer Col. Dax in director Stanley Kubrick's brilliant anti-war epic Paths of Glory (1957). Douglas reunited with Kubrick for yet another epic, the magnificent Spartacus (1960). The film also marked a key turning point in the life of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted during the McCarthy "Red Scare" hysteria in the 1950s. At Douglas' insistence, Trumbo was given on-screen credit for his contributions, which began the dissolution of the infamous blacklisting policies begun almost a decade previously that had destroyed so many careers and lives.
Douglas remained busy throughout the 1960s, starring in many films. He played a rebellious modern-day cowboy in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), acted alongside John Wayne in the World War II story In Harm's Way (1965), again with The Duke in a drama about the Israeli fight for independence, Cast a Giant Shadow (1966), and once more with Wayne in the tongue-in-cheek western The War Wagon (1967). Additionally in 1963, he starred in an onstage production of Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," but despite his keen interest, no Hollywood studio could be convinced to bring the story to the screen. However, the rights remained with the Douglas clan, and Kirk's talented son Michael Douglas finally filmed the tale in 1975, starring Jack Nicholson. Into the 1970s, Douglas wasn't as busy as previous years; however, he starred in some unusual vehicles, including alongside a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the loopy western comedy The Villain (1979), then with Farrah Fawcett in the sci-fi thriller Saturn 3 (1980) and then he traveled to Australia for the horse opera/drama The Man from Snowy River (1982).
Unknown to many, Kirk has long been involved in humanitarian causes and has been a Goodwill Ambassador for the US State Department since 1963. His efforts were rewarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1981), and with the Jefferson Award (1983). Furthermore, the French honored him with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. More recognition followed for his work with the American Cinema Award (1987), the German Golden Kamera Award (1987), The National Board of Reviews Career Achievement Award (1989), an honorary Academy Award (1995), Recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award (1999) and the UCLA Medal of Honor (2002). Despite a helicopter crash and a stroke suffered in the 1990s, he remained active and continued to appear in front of the camera. Until his passing on February 5 2020 at the age of 103, he and Olivia de Havilland were the last surviving major stars from the Golden Years of Hollywood.Greats: Out of the Past (1947) (1947); Ace in the Hole (1951) (1951); The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) (1952)★; Lust for Life (1956) (1956)★; Paths of Glory (1957) (1957); Spartacus (1960) (1960)★
Other Notable Film(s): The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) (1946); Champion (1949) (1949)✰; A Letter to Three Wives (1949) (1949); Young Man with a Horn (1950) (1950); Detective Story (1951) (1951)✰; The Big Sky (1952) (1952); Ulysses (1954); 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) (1954); Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) (1957); The Vikings (1958) (1958); Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) (1959); Town Without Pity (1961) (1961); Lonely Are the Brave (1962) (1962); The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) (1963); Seven Days in May (1964) (1964); In Harm's Way (1965) (1965); The War Wagon (1967) (1967); There Was a Crooked Man... (1970) (1970); The Fury (1978) (1978); The Final Countdown (1980) (1980); The Man from Snowy River (1982) (1982); Tough Guys (1986) (1986); Greedy (1994) (1994)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
A leading man of prodigious talents, Peter O'Toole was born and raised in Leeds, Yorkshire, England, the son of Constance Jane Eliot (Ferguson), a Scottish nurse, and Patrick Joseph O'Toole, an Irish metal plater, football player and racecourse bookmaker. Upon leaving school, he decided to become a journalist, beginning as a newspaper copy boy. Although he succeeded in becoming a reporter, he discovered the theater and made his stage debut at age 17. He served as a radioman in the Royal Navy for two years, then attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, where his classmates included Albert Finney, Alan Bates and Richard Harris.
O'Toole spent several years on-stage at the Bristol Old Vic, then made an inconspicuous film debut in the Disney classic Kidnapped (1960). In 1962, he was chosen by David Lean to play T.E. Lawrence in Lean's epic drama Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The role made O'Toole an international superstar and received him his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role. In 1963, he played Hamlet under Laurence Olivier's direction in the premiere production of the Royal National Theater. He continued successfully in artistically rich films as well as less artistic but commercially rewarding projects. He received Academy Award nominations (but no Oscar) for seven different films.
However, medical problems (originally thought to have been brought on by his drinking but which turned out to be stomach cancer) threatened to destroy his career and life in the 1970s. He survived by giving up alcohol and, after serious medical treatment, returned to films with triumphant performances in The Stunt Man (1980) and My Favorite Year (1982). His youthful beauty lost to time and drink, O'Toole has found meaningful roles increasingly difficult to come by, though he remained one of the greatest actors of his generation. He had two daughters, Pat and Kate O'Toole, from his marriage to actress Siân Phillips. He also had a son, Lorcan O'Toole, by model Karen Brown.
On December 14, 2013, Peter O'Toole died at age 81 in London, England.Greats: Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (1962)★; Becket (1964) (1964)★; The Lion in Winter (1968) (1968)★; The Last Emperor (1987) (1987); Ratatouille (2007) [voice] (2007)
Give It a Shot: Troy (2004) (2004)
Caution: Phantoms (1998) (1998)
Flops: Casino Royale (1967) (1967)
Other Notable Film(s): What's New Pussycat (1965) (1965); Lord Jim (1965) (1965); How to Steal a Million (1966) (1966); The Bible in the Beginning... (1966) (1966); The Night of the Generals (1967) (1967); Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969) (1969)✰; Murphy's War (1971) (1971); The Ruling Class (1972) (1972)✰; Man of La Mancha (1972) (1972)✰; Zulu Dawn (1979) (1979); Caligula (1979) (1979); The Stunt Man (1980) (1980)✰; Masada (1981) [TV series] (1981)✰; My Favorite Year (1982) (1982)✰; Supergirl (1984) (1984); Creator (1985) (1985); Club Paradise (1986) (1986); High Spirits (1988) (1988); King Ralph (1991) (1991); FairyTale: A True Story (1997) (1997); Joan of Arc (1999) [TV series] (1999)✰; Bright Young Things (2003) (2003); Lassie (2005) (2005); Venus (2006) (2006)✰; Stardust (2007) (2007); Dean Spanley (2008) (2008)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Eldred Gregory Peck was born on April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, to Bernice Mae (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist and druggist in San Diego. He had Irish (from his paternal grandmother), English, and some German, ancestry. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the movies every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play "The Morning Star" (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (1944).
Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles. He appeared in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (1946), he was again nominated for an Academy Award and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (1948) and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II.
With a string of hits to his credit, Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) and Moby Dick (1956). He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (1953). Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). In the early 1960s, he appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (1962) and Captain Newman, M.D. (1963), which dealt with the way people live. He also gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (1961), one of the biggest box-office hits of that year.
In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (1972) and The Dove (1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (1976). After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (1977) and the monstrous Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (1978). In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (1982) and The Scarlet and the Black (1983). In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (1991).
In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights and civil rights. In 2003, his Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute. Gregory Peck died at age 87 on June 12, 2003 in Los Angeles, California.Greats: Spellbound (1945) (1945); Roman Holiday (1953) (1953); The Guns of Navarone (1961) (1961)★; To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) (1962)★; Cape Fear (1962) (1962)★
Give It a Shot: The Yearling (1946) (1946)★; Gentleman's Agreement (1947) (1947)★; Twelve O'Clock High (1949) (1949)★; The Omen (1976) (1976); The Boys from Brazil (1978) (1978)★; Cape Fear (1991) (1991)
Other Notable Film(s): The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) (1944)✰; The Valley of Decision (1945) (1945); Duel in the Sun (1946) (1946); The Paradine Case (1947) (1947); Yellow Sky (1948) (1948); The Gunfighter (1950) (1950); Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951) (1951); David and Bathsheba (1951) (1951); The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) (1952); Moby Dick (1956) (1956); The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) (1956); Designing Woman (1957) (1957); The Bravados (1958) (1958); The Big Country (1958) (1958); Pork Chop Hill (1959) (1959); On the Beach (1959) (1959); How the West Was Won (1962) (1962); Captain Newman, M.D. (1963) (1963)✰; Arabesque (1966) (1966); Mackenna's Gold (1969) (1969); MacArthur (1977) (1977)✰; The Sea Wolves (1980) (1980)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Veteran actor and director Robert Selden Duvall was born on January 5, 1931, in San Diego, CA, to Mildred Virginia (Hart), an amateur actress, and William Howard Duvall, a career military officer who later became an admiral. Duvall majored in drama at Principia College (Elsah, IL), then served a two-year hitch in the army after graduating in 1953. He began attending The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre In New York City on the G.I. Bill in 1955, studying under Sanford Meisner along with Dustin Hoffman, with whom Duvall shared an apartment. Both were close to another struggling young actor named Gene Hackman. Meisner cast Duvall in the play "The Midnight Caller" by Horton Foote, a link that would prove critical to his career, as it was Foote who recommended Duvall to play the mentally disabled "Boo Radley" in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). This was his first "major" role since his 1956 motion picture debut as an MP in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), starring Paul Newman.
Duvall began making a name for himself as a stage actor in New York, winning an Obie Award in 1965 playing incest-minded longshoreman "Eddie Carbone" in the off-Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge", a production for which his old roommate Hoffman was assistant director. He found steady work in episodic TV and appeared as a modestly billed character actor in films, such as Arthur Penn's The Chase (1966) with Marlon Brando and in Robert Altman's Countdown (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola's The Rain People (1969), in both of which he co-starred with James Caan.
He was also memorable as the heavy who is shot by John Wayne at the climax of True Grit (1969) and was the first "Maj. Frank Burns", creating the character in Altman's Korean War comedy M*A*S*H (1970). He also appeared as the eponymous lead in George Lucas' directorial debut, THX 1138 (1971). It was Francis Ford Coppola, casting The Godfather (1972), who reunited Duvall with Brando and Caan and provided him with his career breakthrough as mob lawyer "Tom Hagen". He received the first of his six Academy Award nominations for the role.
Thereafter, Duvall had steady work in featured roles in such films as The Godfather Part II (1974), The Killer Elite (1975), Network (1976), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976). Occasionally this actor's actor got the chance to assay a lead role, most notably in Tomorrow (1972), in which he was brilliant as William Faulkner's inarticulate backwoods farmer. He was less impressive as the lead in Badge 373 (1973), in which he played a character based on real-life NYPD detective Eddie Egan, the same man his old friend Gene Hackman had won an Oscar for playing, in fictionalized form as "Popeye Doyle" in The French Connection (1971).
It was his appearance as "Lt. Col. Kilgore" in another Coppola picture, Apocalypse Now (1979), that solidified Duvall's reputation as a great actor. He got his second Academy Award nomination for the role, and was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most versatile actor in the world. Duvall created one of the most memorable characters ever assayed on film, and gave the world the memorable phrase, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"
Subsequently, Duvall proved one of the few established character actors to move from supporting to leading roles, with his Oscar-nominated turns in The Great Santini (1979) and Tender Mercies (1983), the latter of which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Now at the summit of his career, Duvall seemed to be afflicted with the fabled "Oscar curse" that had overwhelmed the careers of fellow Academy Award winners Luise Rainer, Rod Steiger and Cliff Robertson. He could not find work equal to his talents, either due to his post-Oscar salary demands or a lack of perception in the industry that he truly was leading man material. He did not appear in The Godfather Part III (1990), as the studio would not give in to his demands for a salary commensurate with that of Al Pacino, who was receiving $5 million to reprise Michael Corleone.
His greatest achievement in his immediate post-Oscar period was his triumphant characterization of grizzled Texas Ranger Gus McCrae in the TV mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989), for which he received an Emmy nomination. He received a second Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Stalin (1992), and a third Emmy nomination playing Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in The Man Who Captured Eichmann (1996).
The shakeout of his career doldrums was that Duvall eventually settled back into his status as one of the premier character actors in the industry, rivaled only by his old friend Gene Hackman. Duvall, unlike Hackman, also has directed pictures, including the documentary We're Not the Jet Set (1974), Angelo My Love (1983) and Assassination Tango (2002). As a writer-director, Duvall gave himself one of his most memorable roles, that of the preacher on the run from the law in The Apostle (1997), a brilliant performance for which he received his third Best Actor nomination and fifth Oscar nomination overall. The film brought Duvall back to the front ranks of great actors, and was followed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod for A Civil Action (1998).
Robert Duvall will long be remembered as one of the great naturalistic American screen actors in the mode of Spencer Tracy and his frequent co-star Marlon Brando. His performances as "Boo Radley" in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), "Jackson Fentry" in Tomorrow (1972), "Tom Hagen" in the first two "Godfather" movies, "Frank Hackett" in Network (1976), "Lt. Col. Kilgore" in Apocalypse Now (1979), "Bull Meechum" in The Great Santini (1979), "Mac Sledge" in Tender Mercies (1983), "Gus McCrae" in Lonesome Dove (1989) and "Sonny Dewey" in The Apostle (1997) rank as some of the finest acting ever put on film. It's a body of work that few actors can equal, let alone surpass.Greats: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) (1962); True Grit (1969) (1969); M*A*S*H (1970) (1970); The Godfather (1972) (1972)★; The Conversation (1974) (1974); The Godfather Part II (1974) (1974); Network (1976) (1976)★; Apocalypse Now (1979) (1979)★; Tender Mercies (1983) (1983)★; Sling Blade (1996) (1996); Crazy Heart (2009) (2009)
Give It a Shot: The Detective (1968) (1968); Bullitt (1968) (1968); The Natural (1984) (1984); Falling Down (1993) (1993); Thank You for Smoking (2005) (2005)
Caution: Joe Kidd (1972) (1972); A Civil Action (1998) (1998)★; Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) (2000); The 6th Day (2000) (2000); John Q (2002) (2002); We Own the Night (2007) (2007); Jack Reacher (2012) (2012)
Flops: Kicking & Screaming (2005) (2005)
Other Notable Film(s): The Chase (1966) (1966); The Rain People (1969) (1969); THX 1138 (1971) (1971); Tomorrow (1972) (1972); The Killer Elite (1975) (1975); The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) (1976); The Eagle Has Landed (1976) (1976); The Great Santini (1979) (1979)✰; True Confessions (1981) (1981); Colors (1988) (1988); Lonesome Dove (1989) [TV Mini-Series] (1989)✰; Days of Thunder (1990) (1990); Rambling Rose (1991) (1991); Newsies (1992) (1992); Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) (1993); The Paper (1994) (1994); Something to Talk About (1995) (1995); The Scarlet Letter (1995) (1995); Phenomenon (1996) (1996); A Family Thing (1996) (1996); The Apostle (1997) (1997)✰; The Gingerbread Man (1998) (1998); Deep Impact (1998) (1998); Assassination Tango (2002) (2002); Gods and Generals (2003) (2003); Open Range (2003) (2003); Secondhand Lions (2003) (2003); Broken Trail (2006) [TV series] (2006)✰; Lucky You (2007) (2007); Four Christmases (2008) (2008); The Road (2009) (2009); Get Low (2009) (2010)✰; Seven Days in Utopia (2011) (2011); Jayne Mansfield's Car (2012) (2012*); A Night in Old Mexico (2013) (2013); The Judge (2014) (2014)✰; Wild Horses (2015) (2015); In Dubious Battle (2016) (2016)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Robert Mitchum was an underrated American leading man of enormous ability, who sublimated his talents beneath an air of disinterest. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to Ann Harriet (Gunderson), a Norwegian immigrant, and James Thomas Mitchum, a shipyard/railroad worker. His father died in a train accident when he was two, and Robert and his siblings (including brother John Mitchum, later also an actor) were raised by his mother and stepfather (a British army major) in Connecticut, New York, and Delaware. An early contempt for authority led to discipline problems, and Mitchum spent good portions of his teen years adventuring on the open road. He later claimed that on one of these trips, at the age of 14, he was charged with vagrancy and sentenced to a Georgia chain gang, from which he escaped. Working a wide variety of jobs (including ghostwriter for astrologist Carroll Righter), Mitchum discovered acting in a Long Beach, California, amateur theater company. He worked at Lockheed Aircraft, where job stress caused him to suffer temporary blindness. About this time he began to obtain small roles in films, appearing in dozens within a very brief time. In 1945, he was cast as Lt. Walker in Story of G.I. Joe (1945) and received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. His star ascended rapidly, and he became an icon of 1940s film noir, though equally adept at westerns and romantic dramas. His apparently lazy style and seen-it-all demeanor proved highly attractive to men and women, and by the 1950s, he was a true superstar despite a brief prison term for marijuana usage in 1949, which seemed to enhance rather than diminish his "bad boy" appeal. Though seemingly dismissive of "art," he worked in tremendously artistically thoughtful projects such as Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter (1955) and even co-wrote and composed an oratorio produced at the Hollywood Bowl by Orson Welles. A master of accents and seemingly unconcerned about his star image, he played in both forgettable and unforgettable films with unswerving nonchalance, leading many to overlook the prodigious talent he can bring to a project that he finds compelling. He moved into television in the 1980s as his film opportunities diminished, winning new fans with The Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988). His sons James Mitchum and Christopher Mitchum are actors, as is his grandson Bentley Mitchum. His last film was James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997) with Casper Van Dien as James Dean.He has what many of the great 1930s and 1940s actors who are today's cult heroes had: a capacity to retain and even expand their dignity, their image, their self-possession, even in the midst of the worst possible material. You see Mitchum in bad movies, but you can never spot him being bad." ~ Roger Ebert
Greats: Out of the Past (1947) (1947)★; The Night of the Hunter (1955) (1955)★; Cape Fear (1962) (1962)★; El Dorado (1966) (1966)
Give It a Shot: Scrooged (1988) (1988); Cape Fear (1991) (1991); Dead Man (1995) (1995)
Caution: River of No Return (1954) (1954); Two for the Seesaw (1962) (1962)
Other Notable Film(s): Story of G.I. Joe (1945) (1945)✰; Undercurrent (1946) (1946); Pursued (1947) (1947); Crossfire (1947) (1947); The Big Steal (1949) (1949); Holiday Affair (1949) (1949); His Kind of Woman (1951) (1951); Angel Face (1952) (1952); Not as a Stranger (1955) (1955); Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957) (1957); The Enemy Below (1957) (1957); Thunder Road (1958) (1958); Home from the Hill (1960) (1960); The Grass Is Greener (1960) (1960); The Sundowners (1960) (1960); The Longest Day (1962) (1962); What a Way to Go! (1964) (1964); 5 Card Stud (1968) (1968); Secret Ceremony (1968) (1968); Anzio (1968); Ryan's Daughter (1970) (1970); The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973) (1973); The Yakuza (1974) (1974); Farewell, My Lovely (1975) (1975); The Last Tycoon (1976) (1976); Midway (1976) (1976)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Probably best-remembered for his turbulent personal life with Elizabeth Taylor (whom he married twice), Richard Burton was nonetheless also regarded as an often brilliant British actor of the post-WWII period.
Burton was born Richard Walter Jenkins in 1925 into a Welsh (Cymraeg)-speaking family in Pontrhydyfen to Edith Maude (Thomas) and Richard Walter Jenkins, a coal miner. The twelfth of thirteen children, his mother died while he was a toddler and his father later abandoned the family, leaving him to be raised by an elder sister, Cecilia. An avid fan of Shakespeare, poetry and reading, he once said "home is where the books are". He received a scholarship to Oxford University to study acting and made his first stage appearance in 1944.
His first film appearances were in routine British movies such as Woman of Dolwyn (1949), Waterfront Women (1950) and Green Grow the Rushes (1951). Then he started to appear in Hollywood movies such as My Cousin Rachel (1952), The Robe (1953) and Alexander the Great (1956), added to this he was also spending considerable time in stage productions, both in the UK and USA, often to splendid reviews. The late 1950s was an exciting and inventive time in UK cinema, often referred to as the "British New Wave", and Burton was right in the thick of things, and showcased a sensational performance in Look Back in Anger (1959). He also appeared with a cavalcade of international stars in the World War II magnum opus The Longest Day (1962), and then onto arguably his most "notorious" role as that of Marc Antony opposite Elizabeth Taylor in the hugely expensive Cleopatra (1963). This was, of course, the film that kick-started their fiery and passionate romance (plus two marriages), and the two of them appeared in several productions over the next few years including The V.I.P.s (1963), The Sandpiper (1965), the dynamic Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and The Taming of The Shrew (1967), as well as box office flops like The Comedians (1967). Burton did better when he was off on his own giving higher caliber performances, such as those in Becket (1964), the film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams play The Night of the Iguana (1964), the brilliant espionage thriller The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) and alongside Clint Eastwood in the World War II action adventure film Where Eagles Dare (1968).
His audience appeal began to decline somewhat by the end of the 1960s as fans turned to younger, more virile male stars, however Burton was superb in Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) as King Henry VIII, he put on a reasonable show in the boring Raid on Rommel (1971), was over the top in the awful Villain (1971), gave sleepwalking performances in Hammersmith Is Out (1972) and Bluebeard (1972), and was wildly miscast in the ludicrous The Assassination of Trotsky (1972).
By the early 1970s, quality male lead roles were definitely going to other stars, and Burton found himself appearing in some movies of dubious quality, just to pay the bills and support family, including Divorce His - Divorce Hers (1973) (his last on-screen appearance with Taylor), The Klansman (1974), Brief Encounter (1974), Jackpot (1974) (which was never completed) and Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977). However, he won another Oscar nomination for his excellent performance as a concerned psychiatrist in Equus (1977). He appeared with fellow acting icons Richard Harris and Roger Moore in The Wild Geese (1978) about mercenaries in South Africa. While the film had a modest initial run, over the past thirty-five years it has picked up quite a cult following. His final performances were as the wily inquisitor "O'Brien" in the most recent film version of George Orwell's dystopian 1984 (1984), in which he won good reviews, and in the TV mini series Ellis Island (1984). He passed away on August 5, 1984 in Celigny, Switzerland from a cerebral hemorrhage.Greats: Becket (1964) (1964)★; Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) (1966)★; Where Eagles Dare (1968) (1968); Anne of the Thousand Days (1969) (1969)★
Give It a Shot: Equus (1977) (1977)★
Flops: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) (1977)
Other Notable Film(s): My Cousin Rachel (1952) (1952)✰; The Desert Rats (1953) (1953); The Robe (1953) (1953)✰; Alexander the Great (1956) (1956); Bitter Victory (1957) (1957); Look Back in Anger (1959) (1959)✰; The Longest Day (1962) (1962); The V.I.P.s (1963) (1963); Cleopatra (1963) (1963); The Night of the Iguana (1964) (1964); The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) (1965)✰; The Sandpiper (1965) (1965); The Taming of The Shrew (1967) (1967)✰; The Comedians (1967) (1967); Candy (1968) (1968); Raid on Rommel (1971) (1971); The Assassination of Trotsky (1972) (1972); The Wild Geese (1978) (1978); The Medusa Touch (1978) (1978); 1984 (1984)- Actor
- Writer
- Stunts
Edward Montgomery Clift (nicknamed 'Monty' his entire life) was born on October 17, 1920 in Omaha, Nebraska, just after his twin sister Roberta (1920-2014) and eighteen months after his brother Brooks Clift. He was the son of Ethel "Sunny" Anderson (Fogg; 1888-1988) and William Brooks Clift (1886-1964). His father made a lot of money in banking but was quite poor during the depression. His mother was born out of wedlock and spent much of her life and the family fortune finding her illustrious southern lineage and raising her children as aristocrats.
At age 13, Monty appeared on Broadway ("Fly Away Home"), and chose to remain in the New York theater for over ten years before finally succumbing to Hollywood. He gained excellent theatrical notices and soon piqued the interests of numerous lovelorn actresses; their advances met with awkward conflict. While working in New York in the early 1940s, he met wealthy former Broadway star Libby Holman. She developed an intense decade-plus obsession over the young actor, even financing an experimental play, "Mexican Mural" for him. It was ironic his relationship with the bisexual middle-aged Holman would be the principal (and likely the last) heterosexual relationship of his life and only cause him further anguish over his sexuality. She would wield considerable influence over the early part of his film career, advising him in decisions to decline lead roles in Sunset Boulevard (1950), (originally written specifically for him; the story perhaps hitting a little too close to home) and High Noon (1952).
His long apprenticeship on stage made him a thoroughly accomplished actor, notable for the intensity with which he researched and approached his roles. By the early 1950s he was exclusively homosexual, though he continued to hide his homosexuality and maintained a number of close friendships with theater women (heavily promoted by studio publicists).
His film debut was Red River (1948) with John Wayne quickly followed by his early personal success The Search (1948) (Oscar nominations for this, A Place in the Sun (1951), From Here to Eternity (1953) and Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)). By 1950, he was troubled with allergies and colitis (the U.S. Army had rejected him for military service in World War II for chronic diarrhea) and, along with pill problems, he was alcoholic. He spent a great deal of time and money on psychiatry.
In 1956, during filming of Raintree County (1957), he ran his Chevrolet into a tree after leaving a party at Elizabeth Taylor's; it was she who saved him from choking by pulling out two teeth lodged in his throat. His smashed face was rebuilt, he reconciled with his estranged father, but he continued bedeviled by dependency on drugs and his unrelenting guilt over his homosexuality.
With his Hollywood career in an irreversible slide despite giving an occasional riveting performance, such as in Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Monty returned to New York and tried to slowly develop a somewhat more sensible lifestyle in his brownstone row house on East 61st Street in Manhattan. He was set to play in Taylor's Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967), when he died in the early morning hours of July 23, 1966, at his home at age 45. His body was found by his live-in personal secretary/companion Lorenzo James, who found Clift lying nude on top of his bed, dead from what the autopsy called "occlusive coronary artery disease." Clift's last 10 years prior to his death from his 1956 car accident were called the "longest suicide in history" by famed acting teacher Robert Lewis.Greats: Red River (1948) (1948)★; A Place in the Sun (1951) (1951)★; From Here to Eternity (1953) (1953)★; I Confess (1953) (1953); Suddenly, Last Summer (1959) (1959); Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) (1961)★
Other Notable Film(s): The Search (1948) (1948)✰; The Heiress (1949) (1949); The Big Lift (1950) (1950); Indiscretion of an American Wife (1953); Raintree County (1957) (1957); The Young Lions (1958) (1958); Lonelyhearts (1958) (1958); Wild River (1960) (1960); The Misfits (1961) (1961); Freud (1962) (1962); The Defector (1966)- Actor
- Producer
- Art Department
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. When the ranch failed, the family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke" (the source of his own nickname). He did well at school both academically and in football. When he narrowly failed admission to Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7. Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. On the set he became close friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as John Wayne. His first featured film was Men Without Women (1930). After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine, Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in Stagecoach (1939), the movie that made him a star. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions. From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind", and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization, later becoming its President. His conservative political stance was also reflected in The Alamo (1960), which he produced, directed and starred in. His patriotic stand was enshrined in The Green Berets (1968) which he co-directed and starred in. Over the years Wayne was beset with health problems. In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed; in 1977 when Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope was being made, John Waynes archive voice was used for the character Garindan ezz Zavor, later in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery; and in January 1979 his stomach was removed. He received the Best Actor nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). A Congressional Gold Medal was struck in his honor in 1979. He is perhaps best remembered for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy - Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950)."John Wayne represents more force, more power than anyone else on the screen." ~ Howard Hawks
Greats: Stagecoach (1939) (1939)★; Red River (1948) (1948)★; The Searchers (1956) (1956)★; Rio Bravo (1959) (1959); The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) (1962)★; El Dorado (1966) (1966); True Grit (1969) (1969)★
Other Notable Film(s): Flying Tigers (1942) (1942); In Old Oklahoma (1943) (1943); A Lady Takes a Chance (1943) (1943); Tall in the Saddle (1944) (1944); The Fighting Seabees (1944) (1944); Flame of Barbary Coast (1945) (1945); Back to Bataan (1945) (1945); Dakota (1945) (1945); They Were Expendable (1945) (1945); Without Reservations (1946) (1946); Tycoon (1947) (1947); Angel and the Badman (1947) (1947); Wake of the Red Witch (1948) (1948); Fort Apache (1948) (1948); 3 Godfathers (1948) (1948); The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) (1949); Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) (1949)✰; She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) (1949); Rio Grande (1950) (1950); Operation Pacific (1951) (1951); Flying Leathernecks (1951) (1951); The Quiet Man (1952) (1952); Big Jim McLain (1952) (1952); Trouble Along the Way (1953) (1953); Island in the Sky (1953) (1953); Hondo (1953) (1953); The High and the Mighty (1954) (1954); The Sea Chase (1955) (1955); Blood Alley (1955) (1955); The Conqueror (1956) (1956); The Wings of Eagles (1957) (1957); Legend of the Lost (1957) (1957); Jet Pilot (1957) (1957); The Barbarian and the Geisha (1958) (1958); The Horse Soldiers (1959) (1959); The Alamo (1960) (1960); North to Alaska (1960) (1960); The Comancheros (1961) (1961); The Longest Day (1962) (1962); How the West Was Won (1962) (1962); Hatari! (1962) (1962); Donovan's Reef (1963) (1963); McLintock! (1963) (1963); They Were Expendable (1945) (1963); Circus World (1964) (1964); The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) (1965); The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) (1965); In Harm's Way (1965) (1965); Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) (1966); The War Wagon (1967) (1967); The Green Berets (1968) (1968); Hellfighters (1968) (1968); The Undefeated (1969) (1969); Chisum (1970) (1970); Rio Lobo (1970) (1970); Big Jake (1971) (1971); The Cowboys (1972) (1972); The Train Robbers (1973) (1973); Cahill U.S. Marshal (1973) (1973); McQ (1974) (1974); Brannigan (1975) (1975); Rooster Cogburn (1975) (1975); The Shootist (1976) (1976)- Actor
- Writer
- Director
His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was orphaned at 15 after his father's death in 1930 and became the ward of Dr. Maurice Bernstein of Chicago. In 1931, he graduated from the Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois. He turned down college offers for a sketching tour of Ireland. He tried unsuccessfully to enter the London and Broadway stages, traveling some more in Morocco and Spain, where he fought in the bullring.
Recommendations by Thornton Wilder and Alexander Woollcott got him into Katharine Cornell's road company, with which he made his New York debut as Tybalt in 1934. The same year, he married, directed his first short, and appeared on radio for the first time. He began working with John Houseman and formed the Mercury Theatre with him in 1937. In 1938, they produced "The Mercury Theatre on the Air", famous for its broadcast version of "The War of the Worlds" (intended as a Halloween prank). His first film to be seen by the public was Citizen Kane (1941), a commercial failure losing RKO $150,000, but regarded by many as the best film ever made. Many of his subsequent films were commercial failures and he exiled himself to Europe in 1948.
In 1956, he directed Touch of Evil (1958); it failed in the United States but won a prize at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. In 1975, in spite of all his box-office failures, he received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1984, the Directors Guild of America awarded him its highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award. His reputation as a filmmaker steadily climbed thereafter."When Orson Welles was acting in 'Compulsion,' the director Richard Fleischer let him just take over and direct the courtroom scenes. To be able to see Welles - who knew more about directing than anyone - direct himself and the other actors, it was unbelievable and unforgettable." ~ Robert Osborne
Greats: Citizen Kane (1941) (1941)★; The Stranger (1946) (1946); The Lady from Shanghai (1947) (1947)★; The Third Man (1949) (1949); Touch of Evil (1958) (1958); A Man for All Seasons (1966) (1966)
Give It a Shot: Macbeth (1948) (1948); Othello (1952); Confidential Report (1955) (1955); The Long, Hot Summer (1958) (1958); The Trial (1962); Chimes at Midnight (1965)
Flops: Casino Royale (1967) (1967)
Other Notable Film(s): Jane Eyre (1943) (1943); Tomorrow Is Forever (1946) (1946); The Black Rose (1950) (1950); Moby Dick (1956) (1956); Compulsion (1959) (1959)✰; Waterloo (1970) (1970); Catch-22 (1970) (1970)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Fredric March began a career in banking but in 1920 found himself cast as an extra in films being produced in New York. He starred on the Broadway stage first in 1926 and would return there between screen appearances later on. He won plaudits (and an Academy Award nomination) for his send-up of John Barrymore in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930). Four more Academy Award nominations would come his way, and he would win the Oscar for Best Actor twice: for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). He could play roles varying from heavy drama to light comedy, and was often best portraying men in anguish, such as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (1951). As his career advanced he progressed from leading man to character actor.Greats: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) (1931)★; The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) (1946)★; Inherit the Wind (1960) (1960)★
Other Notable Film(s): The Royal Family of Broadway (1930) (1930)✰; Anna Karenina (1935) (1935); Les Misérables (1935) (1935); Anthony Adverse (1936) (1936); A Star Is Born (1937) (1937)✰; I Married a Witch (1942) (1942); The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) (1944); Death of a Salesman (1951) (1951)✰; Executive Suite (1954) (1954); The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) (1954); The Desperate Hours (1955) (1955); The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) (1956); Alexander the Great (1956) (1956); Middle of the Night (1959) (1959); Seven Days in May (1964) (1964); Hombre (1967) (1967); The Iceman Cometh (1973) (1973)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Michael Caine was born as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in London, to Ellen (née Burchell), a cook, and Maurice Micklewhite Sr., a fish-market porter. He had a younger brother, Stanley Caine, and an older maternal half-brother named David Burchell. He left school at age 15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War, where he saw combat. Upon his return to England, he gravitated toward the theater and got a job as an assistant stage manager. He adopted the name of Caine on the advice of his agent, taking it from a marquee that advertised The Caine Mutiny (1954). In the years that followed, he worked in more than 100 television dramas, with repertory companies throughout England and eventually in the stage hit "The Long and the Short and the Tall".
Zulu (1964), the epic retelling of a historic 19th-century battle in South Africa between British soldiers and Zulu warriors, brought Caine to international attention. Instead of being typecast as a low-ranking Cockney soldier, he played a snobbish, aristocratic officer. Although "Zulu" was a major success, it was the role of Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965) and the title role in Alfie (1966) that made Caine a star of the first magnitude. He epitomized the new breed of actor in mid-1960s England, the working-class bloke with glasses and a down-home accent. However, after initially starring in some excellent films, particularly in the 1960s, including Gambit (1966), Funeral in Berlin (1966), Play Dirty (1969), Battle of Britain (1969), Too Late the Hero (1970), The Last Valley (1971) and especially Get Carter (1971), he seemed to take on roles in below-average films, simply for the money he could by then command.
However, there were some gems amongst the dross. He gave a magnificent performance opposite Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King (1975) and turned in a solid one as a German colonel in The Eagle Has Landed (1976). Educating Rita (1983), Blame It on Rio (1984) and Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) (for which he won his first Oscar) were highlights of the 1980s, while more recently Little Voice (1998), The Cider House Rules (1999) (his second Oscar) and Last Orders (2001) have been widely acclaimed. Caine played Nigel Powers in the parody sequel Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), and Alfred Pennyworth in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. He appeared in several other of Nolan's films including The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010) and Interstellar (2014). He also appeared as a supporting character in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men (2006) and Pixar's sequel Cars 2 (2011).
As of 2015, films in which Caine has starred have grossed over $7.4 billion worldwide. He is ranked the ninth highest grossing box office star. Caine is one of several actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting every decade from five consecutive decades (the other being Laurence Olivier and Meryl Streep). He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1992 Birthday Honours, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2000 Birthday Honours in recognition for his contributions to the cinema.
Caine has been married twice. First to actress Patricia Haines from 1954 to 1958. They had a daughter, Dominique, in 1957. A bachelor for some dozen-plus years after the divorce, he was romantically linked to Edina Ronay (for three years), Nancy Sinatra, Natalie Wood, Candice Bergen, Bianca Jagger, Françoise Pascal and Jill St. John. In 1971 he met his second wife, fashion model Shakira Caine (née Baksh), and they married in 1973, six months before their daughter Natasha was born. The couple has three grandchildren, and in 2023, they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary."Michael Caine is a movie star, but he's also a great actor. I can't say that about every movie star. It's the concentration he has." ~ Norman Jewison
Greats: Get Carter (1971) (1971)★; Sleuth (1972) (1972)★; The Man Who Would Be King (1975) (1975); Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) (1986)★; Children of Men (2006) (2006); The Prestige (2006) (2006)
Give It a Shot: Zulu (1964) (1964); Gambit (1966) (1966)★; Alfie (1966) (1966)★; Mona Lisa (1986) (1986); Batman Begins (2005) (2005); The Dark Knight (2008) (2008); Inception (2010) (2010); The Dark Knight Rises (2012) (2012); Now You See Me (2013) (2013); Interstellar (2014) (2014); Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) (2014); Now You See Me 2 (2016) (2016)
Caution: The Italian Job (1969) (1969); Miss Congeniality (2000) (2000); Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) (2002)
Flops: Jaws: The Revenge (1987) (1987); Bewitched (2005) (2005)
Other Notable Film(s): The Ipcress File (1965) (1965); The Wrong Box (1966) (1966); Funeral in Berlin (1966) (1966); Hurry Sundown (1967) (1967); Billion Dollar Brain (1967) (1967); Woman Times Seven (1967) (1967); Deadfall (1968) (1968); The Magus (1968) (1968); Play Dirty (1969) (1969); Battle of Britain (1969) (1969); The Eagle Has Landed (1976) (1976); A Bridge Too Far (1977) (1977); The Swarm (1978) (1978); California Suite (1978) (1978); Dressed to Kill (1980) (1980); Deathtrap (1982) (1982); Educating Rita (1983) (1983)✰; Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988) (1988); The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) (1992); Little Voice (1998) (1998)✰; The Cider House Rules (1999) (1999)✰; Quills (2000) (2000); The Quiet American (2002) (2002)✰; Secondhand Lions (2003) (2003); The Weather Man (2005) (2005); Flawless (2007) (2007); Sleuth (2007) (2007); Is Anybody There? (2008) (2008); Harry Brown (2009) (2009); Last Love (2013) (2013); Stonehearst Asylum (2014) (2014); Youth (2015) (2015); The Last Witch Hunter (2015) (2015); Going in Style (2017) (2017); Dear Dictator (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Additional Crew
James Byron Dean was born February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana, to Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton A. Dean, a farmer turned dental technician. His mother died when Dean was nine, and he was subsequently raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle in Fairmount, Indiana. After grade school, he moved to New York to pursue his dream of acting. He received rave reviews for his work as the blackmailing Arab boy in the New York production of Gide's "The Immoralist", good enough to earn him a trip to Hollywood. His early film efforts were strictly small roles: a sailor in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis overly frantic musical comedy Sailor Beware (1952); a GI in Samuel Fuller's moody study of a platoon in the Korean War, Fixed Bayonets! (1951) and a youth in the Piper Laurie-Rock Hudson comedy Has Anybody Seen My Gal (1952).
He had major roles in only three movies. In the Elia Kazan production of John Steinbeck's East of Eden (1955) he played Cal Trask, the bad brother who could not force affection from his stiff-necked father. His true starring role, the one which fixed his image forever in American culture, was that of the brooding red-jacketed teenager Jim Stark in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955). George Stevens' filming of Edna Ferber's Giant (1956), in which he played the non-conforming cowhand Jett Rink who strikes it rich when he discovers oil, was just coming to a close when Dean, driving his Porsche Spyder race car, collided with another car while on the road near Cholame, California on September 30, 1955. He had received a speeding ticket just two hours before. At age 24, James Dean was killed almost immediately from the impact from a broken neck. His very brief career, violent death and highly publicized funeral transformed him into a cult object of apparently timeless fascination.Extremely hard to rank this 50's heart throb. His tragic death left him with only three films and two oscar nominations. Can he be considered one of the best actors ever, I don't think so but his performances are easily memorable and we're lucky to squeeze three films out of this legend.
Greats: East of Eden (1955)★; Rebel Without a Cause (1955)★; Giant (1956)★- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Alec Guinness was an English actor. He is known for his six collaborations with David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), General Yevgraf Zhivago in Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Professor Godbole in A Passage to India (1984).
Guinness is really most remembered for his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy for which he receive a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1959, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. In the 1970s, Guinness made regular television appearances in Britain, including the role of George Smiley in the serialisations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982). In 1980 he received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement.
Guinness was also one of three British actors, along with Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, who made the transition from Shakespearean theatre in England to Hollywood blockbusters immediately after the Second World War.
Guinness died on 5 August 2000, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex.Greats: The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) (1957)★; Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (1962)★; Doctor Zhivago (1965) (1965); Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (1977)★; The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Give It a Shot: The Ladykillers (1955) (1955)
Caution: Murder by Death (1976) (1976)
Other Notable Film(s): Great Expectations (1946) (1946); Oliver Twist (1948) (1948); Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949) (1949); Last Holiday (1950) (1950); The Man in the White Suit (1951) (1951); The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) (1951)✰; The Promoter (1952) (1952); The Captain's Paradise (1953) (1953); The Prisoner (1955) (1955); The Swan (1956) (1956); The Horse's Mouth (1958) (1958); Our Man in Havana (1959) (1959); Tunes of Glory (1960) (1960); A Majority of One (1961) (1961); Damn the Defiant! (1962) (1962); The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) (1964); The Quiller Memorandum (1966) (1966); The Comedians (1967) (1967); Scrooge (1970) (1970); Cromwell (1970) (1970); Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) (1973); Little Lord Fauntleroy (1980) (1980); A Passage to India (1984) (1984); Little Dorrit (1987) (1988)✰- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Anthony Quinn was born Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (some sources indicate Manuel Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca) on April 21, 1915, in Chihuahua, Mexico, to Manuela (Oaxaca) and Francisco Quinn, who became an assistant cameraman at a Los Angeles (CA) film studio. His paternal grandfather was Irish, and the rest of his family was Mexican.
After starting life in extremely modest circumstances in Mexico, his family moved to Los Angeles, where he grew up in the Boyle Heights and Echo Park neighborhoods. He played in the band of evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson as a youth and as a deputy preacher. He attended Polytechnic High School and later Belmont High, but eventually dropped out. The young Quinn boxed (which stood him in good stead as a stage actor, when he played Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" to rave reviews in Chicago), then later studied architecture under Frank Lloyd Wright at the great architect's studio, Taliesin, in Arizona. Quinn was close to Wright, who encouraged him when he decided to give acting a try. Made his credited film debut in Parole! (1936). After a brief apprenticeship on stage, Quinn hit Hollywood in 1936 and picked up a variety of small roles in several films at Paramount, including an Indian warrior in The Plainsman (1936), which was directed by the man who later became his father-in-law, Cecil B. DeMille.
As a contract player at Paramount, Quinn's roles were mainly ethnic types, such as an Arab chieftain in the Bing Crosby-Bob Hope comedy, Road to Morocco (1942). As a Mexican national (he did not become an American citizen until 1947), he was exempt from the draft. With many other actors in military service during WWII, he was able to move up into better supporting roles. He married DeMille's daughter Katherine DeMille, which afforded him entrance to the top circles of Hollywood society. He became disenchanted with his career and did not renew his Paramount contract despite the advice of others, including his father-in-law, with whom he did not get along (whom Quinn reportedly felt had never accepted him due to his Mexican roots; the two men were also on opposite ends of the political spectrum) but they eventually were able to develop a civil relationship. Quinn returned to the stage to hone his craft. His portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in "A Streetcar Named Desire" in Chicago and on Broadway (where he replaced the legendary Marlon Brando, who is forever associated with the role) made his reputation and boosted his film career when he returned to the movies.
Brando and Elia Kazan, who directed "Streetcar" on Broadway and on film (A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)), were crucial to Quinn's future success. Kazan, knowing the two were potential rivals due to their acclaimed portrayals of Kowalski, cast Quinn as Brando's brother in his biographical film of Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, Viva Zapata! (1952). Quinn won the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for 1952, making him the first Mexican-American to win an Oscar. It was not to be his lone appearance in the winner's circle: he won his second Supporting Actor Oscar in 1957 for his portrayal of Paul Gauguin in Vincente Minnelli's biographical film of Vincent van Gogh, Lust for Life (1956), opposite Kirk Douglas. Over the next decade Quinn lived in Italy and became a major figure in world cinema, as many studios shot films in Italy to take advantage of the lower costs ("runaway production" had battered the industry since its beginnings in the New York/New Jersey area in the 1910s). He appeared in several Italian films, giving one of his greatest performances as the circus strongman who brutalizes the sweet soul played by Giulietta Masina in her husband Federico Fellini's masterpiece The Road (1954). He met his second wife, Jolanda Addolori, a wardrobe assistant, while he was in Rome filming Barabbas (1961).
Alternating between Europe and Hollywood, Quinn built his reputation and entered the front rank of character actors and character leads. He received his third Oscar nomination (and first for Best Actor) for George Cukor's Wild Is the Wind (1957). He played a Greek resistance fighter against the Nazi occupation in the monster hit The Guns of Navarone (1961) and received kudos for his portrayal of a once-great boxer on his way down in Rod Serling's Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962). He went back to playing ethnic roles, such as an Arab warlord in David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and he played the eponymous lead in the "sword-and-sandal" blockbuster Barabbas (1961). Two years later, he reached the zenith of his career, playing Zorba the Greek in the film of the same name (a.k.a. Zorba the Greek (1964)), which brought him his fourth, and last, Oscar nomination as Best Actor. The 1960s were kind to him: he played character leads in such major films as The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968) and The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969). However, his appearance in the title role in the film adaptation of John Fowles' novel, The Magus (1968), did nothing to save the film, which was one of that decade's notorious turkeys.
In the 1960s, Quinn told Life magazine that he would fight against typecasting. Unfortunately, the following decade saw him slip back into playing ethnic types again, in such critical bombs as The Greek Tycoon (1978). He starred as the Hispanic mayor of a southwestern city on the short-lived television series The Man and the City (1971), but his career lost its momentum during the 1970s. Aside from playing a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis in the cinematic roman-a-clef The Greek Tycoon (1978), his other major roles of the decade were as Hamza in the controversial The Message (1976) (a.k.a. "Mohammad, Messenger of God"); as the Italian patriarch in The Inheritance (1976); yet another Arab in Caravans (1978); and as a Mexican patriarch in The Children of Sanchez (1978). In 1983, he reprised his most famous role, Zorba the Greek, on Broadway in the revival of the musical "Zorba" for 362 performances (opposite Lila Kedrova, who had also appeared in the film, and won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her performance). His career slowed during the 1990s but he continued to work steadily in films and television, including an appearance with frequent film co-star Maureen O'Hara in Only the Lonely (1991).
Quinn lived out the latter years of his life in Bristol, Rhode Island, where he spent most of his time painting and sculpting. Beginning in 1982, he held numerous major exhibitions in cities such as Vienna, Paris, and Seoul. He died in a hospital in Boston at age 86 from pneumonia and respiratory failure linked to his battle with throat cancer.Outstanding performance in films such as Lust for Life, La Strada, Lawrence of Arabia, Zorba the Greek, The Guns of Navarone, Viva Zapata! and among others.
Greats: La Strada (1956)★; Lust for Life (1956) (1956)★; The Guns of Navarone (1961) (1961); Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (1962)★
Give It a Shot: Viva Zapata! (1952) (1952)★
Caution: Last Action Hero (1993) (1993)
Other Notable Film(s): Blood and Sand (1941) (1941); The Ox-Bow Incident (1942) (1943); Back to Bataan (1945) (1945); Wild Is the Wind (1957) (1957)✰; Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) (1959); The Savage Innocents (1960) (1960); Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962) (1961); Barabbas (1961) (1962); Zorba the Greek (1964)✰; A High Wind in Jamaica (1965) (1965); The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) (1969)✰; Across 110th Street (1972) (1972); The Message (1976) (1977); The Lion of the Desert (1980) (1981); Revenge (1990) (1990)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Sidney Poitier was a native of Cat Island, Bahamas, although born, two months prematurely, in Miami during a visit by his parents, Evelyn (Outten) and Reginald James Poitier. He grew up in poverty as the son of farmers, with his father also driving a cab in Nassau. Sidney had little formal education and at the age of 15 was sent to Miami to live with his brother, in order to forestall a growing tendency toward delinquency. In the U.S., he experienced the racial chasm that divides the country, a great shock to a boy coming from a society with a majority of African descent.
At 18, he went to New York, did menial jobs and slept in a bus terminal toilet. A brief stint in the Army as a worker at a veterans' hospital was followed by more menial jobs in Harlem. An impulsive audition at the American Negro Theatre was rejected so forcefully that Poitier dedicated the next six months to overcoming his accent and improving his performing skills. On his second try, he was accepted. Spotted in rehearsal by a casting agent, he won a bit part in the Broadway production of "Lysistrata", for which he earned good reviews. By the end of 1949, he was having to choose between leading roles on stage and an offer to work for Darryl F. Zanuck in the film No Way Out (1950). His performance as a doctor treating a white bigot got him plenty of notice and led to more roles. Nevertheless, the roles were still less interesting and prominent than those white actors routinely obtained. But seven years later, after turning down several projects he considered demeaning, Poitier got a number of roles that catapulted him into a category rarely if ever achieved by an African-American man of that time, that of leading man. One of these films, The Defiant Ones (1958), earned Poitier his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor. Five years later, he won the Oscar for Lilies of the Field (1963), the first African American to win for a leading role.
He remained active on stage and screen as well as in the burgeoning Civil Rights movement. His roles in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) and To Sir, with Love (1967) were landmarks in helping to break down some social barriers between blacks and whites. Poitier's talent, conscience, integrity, and inherent likability placed him on equal footing with the white stars of the day. He took on directing and producing chores in the 1970s, achieving success in both arenas.Greats: The Defiant Ones (1958) (1958)★; In the Heat of the Night (1967) (1967)★; Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) (1967)
Caution: The Jackal (1997) (1997)
Other Notable Film(s): No Way Out (1950) (1950); Blackboard Jungle (1955) (1955); Edge of the City (1957) (1957); Porgy and Bess (1959) (1959)✰; A Raisin in the Sun (1961) (1961)✰; Paris Blues (1961) (1961); Pressure Point (1962) (1962); Lilies of the Field (1963) (1963)✰; The Long Ships (1964) (1964); The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) (1965); The Bedford Incident (1965) (1965); The Slender Thread (1965) (1965); A Patch of Blue (1965) (1965)✰; Duel at Diablo (1966) (1966); To Sir, with Love (1967) (1967); For Love of Ivy (1968) (1968); They Call Me Mister Tibbs! (1970) (1970); Uptown Saturday Night (1974) (1974); The Wilby Conspiracy (1975) (1975); Let's Do It Again (1975) (1975); A Piece of the Action (1977) (1977); Shoot to Kill (1988) (1988); Little Nikita (1988) (1988); Sneakers (1992) (1992)- Writer
- Actor
- Director
Considered to be one of the most pivotal stars of the early days of Hollywood, Charlie Chaplin lived an interesting life both in his films and behind the camera. He is most recognized as an icon of the silent film era, often associated with his popular character, the Little Tramp; the man with the toothbrush mustache, bowler hat, bamboo cane, and a funny walk.
Charles Spencer Chaplin was born in Walworth, London, England on April 16, 1889, to Hannah Harriet Pedlingham (Hill) and Charles Chaplin, both music hall performers, who were married on June 22, 1885. After Charles Sr. separated from Hannah to perform in New York City, Hannah then tried to resurrect her stage career. Unfortunately, her singing voice had a tendency to break at unexpected moments. When this happened, the stage manager spotted young Charlie standing in the wings and led him on stage, where five-year-old Charlie began to sing a popular tune. Charlie and his half-brother, Syd Chaplin spent their lives in and out of charity homes and workhouses between their mother's bouts of insanity. Hannah was committed to Cane Hill Asylum in May 1903 and lived there until 1921, when Chaplin moved her to California.
Chaplin began his official acting career at the age of eight, touring with the Eight Lancashire Lads. At age 18, he began touring with Fred Karno's vaudeville troupe, joining them on the troupe's 1910 United States tour. He traveled west to California in December 1913 and signed on with Keystone Studios' popular comedy director Mack Sennett, who had seen Chaplin perform on stage in New York. Charlie soon wrote his brother Syd, asking him to become his manager. While at Keystone, Chaplin appeared in and directed 35 films, starring as the Little Tramp in nearly all.
In November 1914, he left Keystone and signed on at Essanay, where he made 15 films. In 1916, he signed on at Mutual and made 12 films. In June 1917, Chaplin signed up with First National Studios, after which he built Chaplin Studios. In 1919, he and Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and D.W. Griffith formed United Artists (UA).
Chaplin's life and career was full of scandal and controversy. His first big scandal was during World War I, at which time his loyalty to England, his home country, was questioned. He had never applied for American citizenship, but claimed that he was a "paying visitor" to the United States. Many British citizens called Chaplin a coward and a slacker. This and other career eccentricities sparked suspicion with FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), who believed that he was injecting Communist propaganda into his films. Chaplin's later film The Great Dictator (1940), which was his first "talkie", also created a stir. In the film, Chaplin plays a humorous caricature of Adolf Hitler. Some thought the film was poorly done and in bad taste. However, the film grossed over $5 million and earned five Academy Award Nominations.
Another scandal occurred when Chaplin briefly dated 22 year-old Joan Barry. However, Chaplin's relationship with Barry came to an end in 1942, after a series of harassing actions from her. In May 1943, Barry returned to inform Chaplin that she was pregnant and filed a paternity suit, claiming that the unborn child was his. During the 1944 trial, blood tests proved that Chaplin was not the father, but at the time, blood tests were inadmissible evidence, and he was ordered to pay $75 a week until the child turned 21.
Chaplin also was scrutinized for his support in aiding the Russian struggle against the invading Nazis during World War II, and the United States government questioned his moral and political views, suspecting him of having Communist ties. For this reason, HUAC subpoenaed him in 1947. However, HUAC finally decided that it was no longer necessary for him to appear for testimony. Conversely, when Chaplin and his family traveled to London for the premier of Limelight (1952), he was denied re-entry to the United States. In reality, the government had almost no evidence to prove that he was a threat to national security. Instead, he and his wife decided to settle in Switzerland.
Chaplin was married four times and had a total of 11 children. In 1918, he married Mildred Harris and they had a son together, Norman Spencer Chaplin, who lived only three days. Chaplin and Harris divorced in 1920. He married Lita Grey in 1924, who had two sons, Charles Chaplin Jr. and Sydney Chaplin. They were divorced in 1927. In 1936, Chaplin married Paulette Goddard, and his final marriage was to Oona O'Neill (Oona Chaplin), daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1943. Oona gave birth to eight children: Geraldine Chaplin, Michael Chaplin, Josephine Chaplin, Victoria Chaplin, Eugene Chaplin, Jane Chaplin, Annette-Emilie Chaplin, and Christopher Chaplin.
In contrast to many of his boisterous characters, Chaplin was a quiet man who kept to himself a great deal. He also had an "un-millionaire" way of living. Even after he had accumulated millions, he continued to live in shabby accommodations. In 1921, Chaplin was decorated by the French government for his outstanding work as a filmmaker and was elevated to the rank of Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1952. In 1972, he was honored with an Academy Award for his "incalculable effect in making motion pictures the art form of the century". He was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1975 New Year's Honours List. No formal reason for the honour was listed. The citation simply reads "Charles Spencer Chaplin, Film Actor and Producer".
Chaplin's other works included musical scores that he composed for many of his films. He also authored two autobiographical books, "My Autobiography" (1964) and its companion volume, "My Life in Pictures" (1974).
Chaplin died at age 88 of natural causes on December 25, 1977 at his home in Vevey, Switzerland. His funeral was a small and private Anglican ceremony according to his wishes. In 1978, Chaplin's corpse was stolen from its grave and was not recovered for three months; he was re-buried in a vault surrounded by cement.
Six of Chaplin's films have been selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress: The Immigrant (1917), The Kid (1921), The Gold Rush (1925), City Lights (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great Dictator (1940).
Charlie Chaplin is considered one of the greatest filmmakers in the history of American cinema, whose movies were and still are popular throughout the world and have even gained notoriety as time progresses. His films show, through the Little Tramp's positive outlook on life in a world full of chaos, that the human spirit has and always will remain the same.Greats: The Kid (1921) (1921)★; The Gold Rush (1925) (1925)★; City Lights (1931) (1931)★; Modern Times (1936) (1936)★; The Great Dictator (1940) (1940)★
Other Notable Film(s): The Tramp (1915) (1915); The Immigrant (1917) (1917); Shoulder Arms (1918) (1918); A Dog's Life (1918) (1918); The Pilgrim (1923) (1923); The Circus (1928) (1928)✰; Monsieur Verdoux (1947) (1947); Limelight (1952) (1952); A King in New York (1957) (1957)- Actor
- Producer
- Stunts
He was the ultra-cool male film star of the 1960s, and rose from a troubled youth spent in reform schools to being the world's most popular actor. Over 40 years after his untimely death from mesothelioma in 1980, Steve McQueen is still considered hip and cool, and he endures as an icon of popular culture.
McQueen was born in Beech Grove, Indiana, to mother Julian (Crawford) and father William Terence McQueen, a stunt pilot. His first lead role was in the low-budget sci-fi film The Blob (1958), quickly followed by roles in The St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959) and Never So Few (1959). The young McQueen appeared as Vin, alongside Yul Brynner, in the star-laden The Magnificent Seven (1960) and effectively hijacked the lead from the bigger star by ensuring he was nearly always doing something in every shot he and Brynner were in together, such as adjusting his hat or gun belt. He next scored with audiences with two interesting performances, first in the World War II drama Hell Is for Heroes (1962) and then in The War Lover (1962). Riding a wave of popularity, McQueen delivered another crowd pleaser as Hilts, the Cooler King, in the knockout World War II P.O.W. film The Great Escape (1963), featuring his famous leap over the barbed wire on a motorcycle while being pursued by Nazi troops (in fact, however, the stunt was actually performed by his good friend, stunt rider Bud Ekins).
McQueen next appeared in several films of mixed quality, including Soldier in the Rain (1963); Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) and Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965). However, they failed to really grab audience attention, but his role as Eric Stoner in The Cincinnati Kid (1965), alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson and Karl Malden, had movie fans filling theaters again to see the ice-cool McQueen they loved. He was back in another Western, Nevada Smith (1966), again with Malden, and then he gave what many consider to be his finest dramatic performance as loner US Navy sailor Jake Holman in the superb The Sand Pebbles (1966). McQueen was genuine hot property and next appeared with Faye Dunaway in the provocative crime drama The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), next in what many consider his signature role, that of a maverick, taciturn detective in the mega-hit Bullitt (1968), renowned for its famous chase sequence through San Francisco between McQueen's Ford Mustang GT and the killer's black Dodge Charger.
Interestingly, McQueen's next role was a total departure from the action genre, as he played Southerner Boon Hogganbeck in the family-oriented The Reivers (1969), based on the popular William Faulkner novel. Not surprisingly, the film didn't go over particularly well with audiences, even though it was an entertaining and well made production, and McQueen showed an interesting comedic side of his acting talents. He returned to more familiar territory, with the race film Le Mans (1971), a rather self-indulgent exercise, and its slow plot line contributed to its rather poor performance in theaters. It was not until many years later that it became something of a cult film, primarily because of the footage of Porsche 917s roaring around race tracks in France. McQueen then teamed up with maverick Hollywood director Sam Peckinpah to star in the modern Western Junior Bonner (1972), about a family of rodeo riders, and again with Peckinpah as bank robber Doc McCoy in the violent The Getaway (1972). Both did good business at the box office. McQueen's next role was a refreshing surprise and Papillon (1973), based on the Henri Charrière novel of the same name, was well received by fans and critics alike. He played a convict on a French penal colony in South America who persists in trying to escape from his captors and feels their wrath when his attempts fail.
The 1970s is a decade remembered for a slew of "disaster" movies and McQueen starred in arguably the biggest of the time, The Towering Inferno (1974). He shared equal top billing with Paul Newman and an impressive line-up of co-stars including Fred Astaire, Robert Vaughn and Faye Dunaway. McQueen does not appear until roughly halfway into the film as San Francisco fire chief Mike O'Halloran, battling to extinguish an inferno in a 138-story skyscraper. The film was a monster hit and set the benchmark for other disaster movies that followed. However, it was McQueen's last film role for several years. After a four-year hiatus he surprised fans, and was almost unrecognizable under long hair and a beard, as a rabble-rousing early environmentalist in An Enemy of the People (1978), based on the Henrik Ibsen play.
McQueen's last two film performances were in the unusual Western Tom Horn (1980), then he portrayed real-life bounty hunter Ralph "Papa' Thorson (Ralph Thorson) in The Hunter (1980). In 1978, McQueen developed a persistent cough that would not go away. He quit smoking cigarettes and underwent antibiotic treatments without improvement. Shortness of breath grew more pronounced and on December 22, 1979, after he completed work on 'The Hunter', a biopsy revealed pleural mesothelioma, a rare lung cancer associated with asbestos exposure for which there is no known cure. The asbestos was thought to have been in the protective suits worn in his race car driving days, but in fact the auto racing suits McQueen wore were made of Nomex, a DuPont fire-resistant aramid fiber that contains no asbestos. McQueen later gave a medical interview in which he believed that asbestos used in movie sound stage insulation and race-drivers' protective suits and helmets could have been involved, but he thought it more likely that his illness was a direct result of massive exposure while removing asbestos lagging from pipes aboard a troop ship while in the US Marines.
By February 1980, there was evidence of widespread metastasis. While he tried to keep the condition a secret, the National Enquirer disclosed that he had "terminal cancer" on March 11, 1980. In July, McQueen traveled to Rosarito Beach, Mexico for an unconventional treatment after American doctors told him they could do nothing to prolong his life. Controversy arose over McQueen's Mexican trip, because McQueen sought a non-traditional cancer treatment called the Gerson Therapy that used coffee enemas, frequent washing with shampoos, daily injections of fluid containing live cells from cows and sheep, massage and laetrile, a supposedly "natural" anti-cancer drug available in Mexico, but not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. McQueen paid for these unconventional medical treatments by himself in cash payments which was said to have cost an upwards of $40,000 per month during his three-month stay in Mexico. McQueen was treated by William Donald Kelley, whose only medical license had been (until revoked in 1976) for orthodontics.
McQueen returned to the United States in early October 1980. Despite metastasis of the cancer through McQueen's body, Kelley publicly announced that McQueen would be completely cured and return to normal life. McQueen's condition soon worsened and "huge" tumors developed in his abdomen. In late October, McQueen flew to Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico to have an abdominal tumor on his liver (weighing around five pounds) removed, despite warnings from his American doctors that the tumor was inoperable and his heart could not withstand the surgery. McQueen checked into a Juarez clinic under the alias "Sam Shepard" where the local Mexican doctors and staff at the small, low-income clinic were unaware of his actual identity.
Steve McQueen passed away on November 7, 1980, at age 50 after the cancer surgery which was said to be successful. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea. He married three times and had a lifelong love of motor racing, once remarking, "Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting.".Greats: The Magnificent Seven (1960) (1960); The Great Escape (1963) (1963)★; Bullitt (1968) (1968); The Getaway (1972) (1972); Papillon (1973) (1973)★
Give It a Shot: The Cincinnati Kid (1965) (1965); The Towering Inferno (1974) (1974)
Other Notable Film(s): Wanted: Dead or Alive (1958) [TV series] (1958-1961); The Blob (1958) (1958); The St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959) (1959); Never So Few (1959) (1959); The Honeymoon Machine (1961) (1961); Hell Is for Heroes (1962) (1962); The War Lover (1962) (1962); Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) (1963)✰; Soldier in the Rain (1963) (1963); Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965) (1965); The Sand Pebbles (1966) (1966)✰; Nevada Smith (1966) (1966); The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) (1968); The Reivers (1969) (1969)✰; Le Mans (1971) (1971); Junior Bonner (1972) (1972); The Hunter (1980) (1980); Tom Horn (1980) (1980)- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born in Concord, California, to Janet Marylyn (Frager), a hospital worker, and Amos Mefford Hanks, an itinerant cook. His mother's family, originally surnamed "Fraga", was entirely Portuguese, while his father was of mostly English ancestry. Tom grew up in what he has called a "fractured" family. He moved around a great deal after his parents' divorce, living with a succession of step-families. No problems, no alcoholism - just a confused childhood. He has no acting experience in college and credits the fact that he could not get cast in a college play with actually starting his career. He went downtown, and auditioned for a community theater play, was invited by the director of that play to go to Cleveland, and there his acting career started.
Ron Howard was working on Splash (1983), a fantasy-comedy about a mermaid who falls in love with a business executive. Howard considered Hanks for the role of the main character's wisecracking brother, which eventually went to John Candy. Instead, Hanks landed the lead role and the film went on to become a surprise box office success, grossing more than $69 million. After several flops and a moderate success with the comedy Dragnet (1987), Hanks' stature in the film industry rose. The broad success with the fantasy-comedy Big (1988) established him as a major Hollywood talent, both as a box office draw and within the film industry as an actor. For his performance in the film, Hanks earned his first Academy Award nomination as Best Actor.
Hanks climbed back to the top again with his portrayal of a washed-up baseball legend turned manager in A League of Their Own (1992). Hanks has stated that his acting in earlier roles was not great, but that he subsequently improved. In an interview with Vanity Fair, Hanks noted his "modern era of movie making ... because enough self-discovery has gone on ... My work has become less pretentiously fake and over the top". This "modern era" began for Hanks, first with Sleepless in Seattle (1993) and then with Philadelphia (1993). The former was a blockbuster success about a widower who finds true love over the radio airwaves. Richard Schickel of Time magazine called his performance "charming", and most critics agreed that Hanks' portrayal ensured him a place among the premier romantic-comedy stars of his generation.
In Philadelphia, he played a gay lawyer with AIDS who sues his firm for discrimination. Hanks lost 35 pounds and thinned his hair in order to appear sickly for the role. In a review for People, Leah Rozen stated, "Above all, credit for Philadelphia's success belongs to Hanks, who makes sure that he plays a character, not a saint. He is flat-out terrific, giving a deeply felt, carefully nuanced performance that deserves an Oscar." Hanks won the 1993 Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Philadelphia. During his acceptance speech, he revealed that his high school drama teacher Rawley Farnsworth and former classmate John Gilkerson, two people with whom he was close, were gay.
Hanks followed Philadelphia with the blockbuster Forrest Gump (1994) which grossed a worldwide total of over $600 million at the box office. Hanks remarked: "When I read the script for Gump, I saw it as one of those kind of grand, hopeful movies that the audience can go to and feel ... some hope for their lot and their position in life ... I got that from the movies a hundred million times when I was a kid. I still do." Hanks won his second Best Actor Academy Award for his role in Forrest Gump, becoming only the second actor to have accomplished the feat of winning consecutive Best Actor Oscars.
Hanks' next role - astronaut and commander Jim Lovell, in the docudrama Apollo 13 (1995) - reunited him with Ron Howard. Critics generally applauded the film and the performances of the entire cast, which included actors Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Ed Harris, and Kathleen Quinlan. The movie also earned nine Academy Award nominations, winning two. Later that year, Hanks starred in Disney/Pixar's computer-animated film Toy Story (1995), as the voice of Sheriff Woody. A year later, he made his directing debut with the musical comedy That Thing You Do! (1996) about the rise and fall of a 1960s pop group, also playing the role of a music producer.
As of 2022, Hanks is 66-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and has remained active in the film industry for more than four decades.Greats: Philadelphia (1993) (1993)★; Forrest Gump (1994) (1994)★; Toy Story (1995) [voice] (1995); Saving Private Ryan (1998) (1998)★; The Green Mile (1999) (1999)★; Toy Story 2 (1999) [voice] (1999); Catch Me If You Can (2002) (2002); Road to Perdition (2002) (2002); Toy Story 3 (2010) [voice] (2010); Captain Phillips (2013) (2013)★
Give It a Shot: Big (1988) (1988)★; A League of Their Own (1992) (1992)★; Sleepless in Seattle (1993) (1993)✰; Cast Away (2000) (2000)★; The Terminal (2004) (2004); Bridge of Spies (2015) (2015); Sully (2016) (2016); The Post (2017)✰
Caution: Turner & Hooch (1989) (1989); Apollo 13 (1995) (1995); Charlie Wilson's War (2007) (2007)✰; Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) (2011)
Other Notable Film(s): Splash (1983) (1984); Bachelor Party (1984) (1984); The Man with One Red Shoe (1985) (1985); Volunteers (1985) (1985); The Money Pit (1986) (1986); Nothing in Common (1986) (1986); Dragnet (1987) (1987); Punchline (1988) (1988); The 'Burbs (1989) (1989); Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) (1990); The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) (1990); That Thing You Do! (1996) (1996); You've Got Mail (1998) (1998); The Ladykillers (2004) (2004); The Polar Express (2004) [voice] (2004); The Da Vinci Code (2006) (2006); The Great Buck Howard (2008) (2008); Angels & Demons (2009) (2009); Larry Crowne (2011) (2011); Cloud Atlas (2012) (2012); Saving Mr. Banks (2013) (2013); Ithaca (2015) (2015); A Hologram for the King (2016) (2016); Inferno (2016) (2016); The Circle (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
With an authoritative voice and calm demeanor, this ever popular American actor has grown into one of the most respected figures in modern US cinema. Morgan was born on June 1, 1937 in Memphis, Tennessee, to Mayme Edna (Revere), a teacher, and Morgan Porterfield Freeman, a barber. The young Freeman attended Los Angeles City College before serving several years in the US Air Force as a mechanic between 1955 and 1959. His first dramatic arts exposure was on the stage including appearing in an all-African American production of the exuberant musical Hello, Dolly!.
Throughout the 1970s, he continued his work on stage, winning Drama Desk and Clarence Derwent Awards and receiving a Tony Award nomination for his performance in The Mighty Gents in 1978. In 1980, he won two Obie Awards, for his portrayal of Shakespearean anti-hero Coriolanus at the New York Shakespeare Festival and for his work in Mother Courage and Her Children. Freeman won another Obie in 1984 for his performance as The Messenger in the acclaimed Brooklyn Academy of Music production of Lee Breuer's The Gospel at Colonus and, in 1985, won the Drama-Logue Award for the same role. In 1987, Freeman created the role of Hoke Coleburn in Alfred Uhry's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Driving Miss Daisy, which brought him his fourth Obie Award. In 1990, Freeman starred as Petruchio in the New York Shakespeare Festival's The Taming of the Shrew, opposite Tracey Ullman. Returning to the Broadway stage in 2008, Freeman starred with Frances McDormand and Peter Gallagher in Clifford Odets' drama The Country Girl, directed by Mike Nichols.
Freeman first appeared on TV screens as several characters including "Easy Reader", "Mel Mounds" and "Count Dracula" on the Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) show The Electric Company (1971). He then moved into feature film with another children's adventure, Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow! (1971). Next, there was a small role in the thriller Blade (1973); then he played Casca in Julius Caesar (1979) and the title role in Coriolanus (1979). Regular work was coming in for the talented Freeman and he appeared in the prison dramas Attica (1980) and Brubaker (1980), Eyewitness (1981), and portrayed the final 24 hours of slain Malcolm X in Death of a Prophet (1981). For most of the 1980s, Freeman continued to contribute decent enough performances in films that fluctuated in their quality. However, he really stood out, scoring an Oscar nomination as a merciless hoodlum in Street Smart (1987) and, then, he dazzled audiences and pulled a second Oscar nomination in the film version of Driving Miss Daisy (1989) opposite Jessica Tandy. The same year, Freeman teamed up with youthful Matthew Broderick and fiery Denzel Washington in the epic Civil War drama Glory (1989) about freed slaves being recruited to form the first all-African American fighting brigade.
His star continued to rise, and the 1990s kicked off strongly with roles in The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), and The Power of One (1992). Freeman's next role was as gunman Ned Logan, wooed out of retirement by friend William Munny to avenge several prostitutes in the wild west town of Big Whiskey in Clint Eastwood's de-mythologized western Unforgiven (1992). The film was a sh and scored an acting Oscar for Gene Hackman, a directing Oscar for Eastwood, and the Oscar for best picture. In 1993, Freeman made his directorial debut on Bopha! (1993) and soon after formed his production company, Revelations Entertainment.
More strong scripts came in, and Freeman was back behind bars depicting a knowledgeable inmate (and obtaining his third Oscar nomination), befriending falsely accused banker Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption (1994). He was then back out hunting a religious serial killer in Se7en (1995), starred alongside Keanu Reeves in Chain Reaction (1996), and was pursuing another serial murderer in Kiss the Girls (1997).
Further praise followed for his role in the slave tale of Amistad (1997), he was a worried US President facing Armageddon from above in Deep Impact (1998), appeared in Neil LaBute's black comedy Nurse Betty (2000), and reprised his role as Alex Cross in Along Came a Spider (2001). Now highly popular, he was much in demand with cinema audiences, and he co-starred in the terrorist drama The Sum of All Fears (2002), was a military officer in the Stephen King-inspired Dreamcatcher (2003), gave divine guidance as God to Jim Carrey in Bruce Almighty (2003), and played a minor role in the comedy The Big Bounce (2004).
2005 was a huge year for Freeman. First, he he teamed up with good friend Clint Eastwood to appear in the drama, Million Dollar Baby (2004). Freeman's on-screen performance is simply world-class as ex-prize fighter Eddie "Scrap Iron" Dupris, who works in a run-down boxing gym alongside grizzled trainer Frankie Dunn, as the two work together to hone the skills of never-say-die female boxer Hilary Swank. Freeman received his fourth Oscar nomination and, finally, impressed the Academy's judges enough to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance. He also narrated Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds (2005) and appeared in Batman Begins (2005) as Lucius Fox, a valuable ally of Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne/Batman for director Christopher Nolan. Freeman would reprise his role in the two sequels of the record-breaking, genre-redefining trilogy.
Roles in tentpoles and indies followed; highlights include his role as a crime boss in Lucky Number Slevin (2006), a second go-round as God in Evan Almighty (2007) with Steve Carell taking over for Jim Carrey, and a supporting role in Ben Affleck's directorial debut, Gone Baby Gone (2007). He co-starred with Jack Nicholson in the breakout hit The Bucket List (2007) in 2007, and followed that up with another box-office success, Wanted (2008), then segued into the second Batman film, The Dark Knight (2008).
In 2009, he reunited with Eastwood to star in the director's true-life drama Invictus (2009), on which Freeman also served as an executive producer. For his portrayal of Nelson Mandela in the film, Freeman garnered Oscar, Golden Globe and Critics' Choice Award nominations, and won the National Board of Review Award for Best Actor.
Recently, Freeman appeared in RED (2010), a surprise box-office hit; he narrated the Conan the Barbarian (2011) remake, starred in Rob Reiner's The Magic of Belle Isle (2012); and capped the Batman trilogy with The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Freeman has several films upcoming, including the thriller Now You See Me (2013), under the direction of Louis Leterrier, and the science fiction actioner Oblivion (2013), in which he stars with Tom Cruise.Greats: Glory (1989) (1989)★; Unforgiven (1992) (1992); The Shawshank Redemption (1994) (1994)★; Se7en (1995) (1995)★; Million Dollar Baby (2004) (2004)★; Gone Baby Gone (2007) (2007)
Give It a Shot: Driving Miss Daisy (1989) (1989)★; Amistad (1997); Batman Begins (2005) (2005); Lucky Number Slevin (2006) (2006); The Dark Knight (2008) (2008); The Dark Knight Rises (2012) (2012); Now You See Me (2013) (2013); The Lego Movie (2014) [voice] (2013); Now You See Me 2 (2016) (2016)
Caution: The Sum of All Fears (2002) (2002); Bruce Almighty (2003) (2003); Unleashed (2005); The Contract (2006) (2006); The Bucket List (2007) (2007); Wanted (2008) (2008); Ted 2 (2015) (2015)
Flops: Dreamcatcher (2003) (2003); The Big Bounce (2004) (2004); Evan Almighty (2007) (2007)
Other Notable Film(s): Brubaker (1980) (1980); Eyewitness (1981) (1981); Harry & Son (1984) (1984); Teachers (1984) (1984); Street Smart (1987) (1987)✰; Clean and Sober (1988) (1988); Johnny Handsome (1989) (1989); Lean on Me (1989) (1989); The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) (1990); Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991) (1991); The Power of One (1992) (1992); Outbreak (1995) (1995); Moll Flanders (1996) (1996); Chain Reaction (1996) (1996); Kiss the Girls (1997) (1997); Deep Impact (1998) (1998); Hard Rain (1998) (1998); Under Suspicion (2000) (2000); Nurse Betty (2000) (2000); Along Came a Spider (2001) (2001); High Crimes (2002) (2002); Levity (2003) (2003); An Unfinished Life (2005) (2005); Edison (2005) (2005); 10 Items or Less (2006) (2006); Feast of Love (2007) (2007); The Code (2009) (2009); The Maiden Heist (2009) (2009); Invictus (2009) (2009)✰; RED (2010) (2010); Dolphin Tale (2011) (2011); Olympus Has Fallen (2013) (2013); Oblivion (2013) (2013); Last Vegas (2013) (2013); Transcendence (2014) (2014); Lucy (2014) (2014); Dolphin Tale 2 (2014) (2014); 5 Flights Up (2014) (2014); Last Knights (2015) (2014); Momentum (2015) (2015); Ben-Hur (2016) (2016); London Has Fallen (2016) (2016); Going in Style (2017) (2017); Just Getting Started (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Composer
- Producer
Anthony Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937, in Margam, Wales, to Muriel Anne (Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker. His parents were both of half Welsh and half English descent. Influenced by Richard Burton, he decided to study at College of Music and Drama and graduated in 1957. In 1965, he moved to London and joined the National Theatre, invited by Laurence Olivier, who could see the talent in Hopkins. In 1967, he made his first film for television, A Flea in Her Ear (1967).
From this moment on, he enjoyed a successful career in cinema and television. In 1968, he worked on The Lion in Winter (1968) with Timothy Dalton. Many successes came later, and Hopkins' remarkable acting style reached the four corners of the world. In 1977, he appeared in two major films: A Bridge Too Far (1977) with James Caan, Gene Hackman, Sean Connery, Michael Caine, Elliott Gould and Laurence Olivier, and Maximilian Schell. In 1980, he worked on The Elephant Man (1980). Two good television literature adaptations followed: Othello (1981) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982). In 1987 he was awarded with the Commander of the order of the British Empire. This year was also important in his cinematic life, with 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), acclaimed by specialists. In 1993, he was knighted.
In the 1990s, Hopkins acted in movies like Desperate Hours (1990) and Howards End (1992), The Remains of the Day (1993) (nominee for the Oscar), Legends of the Fall (1994), Nixon (1995) (nominee for the Oscar), Surviving Picasso (1996), Amistad (1997) (nominee for the Oscar), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Meet Joe Black (1998) and Instinct (1999). His most remarkable film, however, was The Silence of the Lambs (1991), for which he won the Oscar for Best Actor. He also got a B.A.F.T.A. for this role.Greats: The Lion in Winter (1968) (1968); The Elephant Man (1980) (1980); The Silence of the Lambs (1991) (1991)★; Westworld (2016) [TV series] (2016)
Give It a Shot: Howards End (1992) (1992); Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) (1992); Chaplin (1992) (1992); Amistad (1997) (1997)★; Red Dragon (2002) (2002); Fracture (2007) (2007); Thor: Ragnarok (2017) (2017)
Caution: Desperate Hours (1990) (1990); Hannibal (2001) (2001); Bobby (2006) (2006); Beowulf (2007) (2007); Thor (2011) (2011); Thor: The Dark World (2013) (2013)
Flops: Bad Company (2002) (2002); Alexander (2004) (2004)
Other Notable Film(s): Young Winston (1972) (1972); Juggernaut (1974) (1974); Audrey Rose (1977) (1977); A Bridge Too Far (1977) (1977); Magic (1978) (1978)✰; The Bounty (1984) (1984); 84 Charing Cross Road (1987) (1987); Freejack (1992) (1992); The Trial (1993) (1993); Shadowlands (1993) (1993); The Remains of the Day (1993) (1993)✰; Legends of the Fall (1994) (1994); The Road to Wellville (1994) (1994); Nixon (1995) (1995)✰; Surviving Picasso (1996) (1996); The Edge (1997) (1997); The Mask of Zorro (1998) (1998); Meet Joe Black (1998) (1998); Titus (1999) (1999); Instinct (1999) (1999); Hearts in Atlantis (2001) (2001); The Human Stain (2003) (2003); Shortcut to Happiness (2004); Proof (2005) (2005); The World's Fastest Indian (2005) (2005); Slipstream (2007) (2007); The City of Your Final Destination (2009) (2009); The Wolfman (2010) (2010); You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) (2010); The Rite (2011) (2011); Hitchcock (2012) (2012); RED 2 (2013) (2013); Noah (2014) (2014); Kidnapping Mr. Heineken (2015) (2015); Solace (2015) (2015); Misconduct (2016) (2016); Collide (2016) (2016); Transformers: The Last Knight (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Walter Matthau was best known for starring in many films which included Charade (1963), The Odd Couple (1968), Grumpy Old Men (1993), and Dennis the Menace (1993). He often worked with Jack Lemmon and the two were Hollywood's craziest stars.
He was born Walter Jake Matthow in New York City, New York on October 1, 1920. His mother was an immigrant from Lithuania and his father was a Russian Jewish peddler and electrician from Kiev, Ukraine. As a young boy, Matthau attended a Jewish non-profit sleep-away camp. He also attended Surprise Lake Camp. His high school was Seward Park High School.
During World War II, Matthau served in the U.S. Army Air Forces with the Eighth Air Force in Britain as a Consolidated B-24 Liberator radioman-gunner, in the same 453rd Bombardment Group as James Stewart. He was based at RAF Old Buckenham, Norfolk during this time. He reached the rank of staff sergeant and became interested in acting.
Matthau appeared in the pilot of Mister Peepers (1952) alongside Wally Cox. He later appeared in the Elia Kazan classic, A Face in the Crowd (1957), opposite Patricia Neal and Andy Griffith, and then appeared in Lonely Are the Brave (1962), with Kirk Douglas, a film Douglas has often described as his personal favorite. Matthau then appeared in Charade (1963) with Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. In 1968, Matthau made his big screen appearance as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple (1968) alongside Jack Lemmon. The two were also in the sequel (The Odd Couple II (1998)) as well as Grumpy Old Men (1993) and Grumpier Old Men (1995). Matthau was in Dennis the Menace (1993), alongside Mason Gamble. On July 1, 2000, Matthau died of a heart attack in Los Angeles, California. He was 79 years old.Greats: A Face in the Crowd (1957) (1957); Charade (1963) (1963); The Fortune Cookie (1966) (1966)★; The Odd Couple (1968) (1968)★; The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) (1974); JFK (1991) (1991)
Give It a Shot: Cactus Flower (1969) (1969); Hello, Dolly! (1969) (1969); The Front Page (1974) (1974)✰; The Bad News Bears (1976) (1976)
Other Notable Film(s): The Indian Fighter (1955) (1955); Bigger Than Life (1956) (1956); King Creole (1958) (1958); Strangers When We Meet (1960) (1960); Lonely Are the Brave (1962) (1962); Fail Safe (1964) (1964); Mirage (1965) (1965); A Guide for the Married Man (1967) (1967); A New Leaf (1971) (1968); A New Leaf (1971) (1971); Plaza Suite (1971) (1971); Kotch (1971) (1971)✰; Pete 'n' Tillie (1972) (1972)✰; Charley Varrick (1973) (1973); Earthquake (1974) (1974); The Sunshine Boys (1975) (1975)✰; California Suite (1978) (1978); Hopscotch (1980) (1980)✰; First Monday in October (1981) (1981)✰; Buddy Buddy (1981) (1981); Pirates (1986) (1986); The Couch Trip (1988) (1988); Dennis the Menace (1993) (1993); Grumpy Old Men (1993) (1993); Grumpier Old Men (1995) (1995); Out to Sea (1997) (1997); The Odd Couple II (1998) (1998); Hanging Up (2000) (2000)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.Greats: A Fistful of Dollars (1964); For a Few Dollars More (1965); The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966); Where Eagles Dare (1968) (1968); Dirty Harry (1971) (1971); High Plains Drifter (1973) (1973); The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (1976); Unforgiven (1992) (1992)★; A Perfect World (1993) (1993); In the Line of Fire (1993) (1993); The Bridges of Madison County (1995) (1995); Million Dollar Baby (2004) (2004)★; Gran Torino (2008) (2008)
Give It a Shot: Hang 'Em High (1968) (1968); Play Misty for Me (1971) (1971); The Beguiled (1971) (1971); Magnum Force (1973) (1973); Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) (1974); The Enforcer (1976) (1976); The Gauntlet (1977) (1977); Escape from Alcatraz (1979) (1979); Tightrope (1984) (1984); Pale Rider (1985) (1985); White Hunter Black Heart (1990) (1990); Absolute Power (1997) (1997); True Crime (1999) (1999); Space Cowboys (2000) (2000); Blood Work (2002) (2002)
Caution: Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) (1970); Joe Kidd (1972) (1972); The Eiger Sanction (1975) (1975); The Rookie (1990) (1990)
Flops: Every Which Way But Loose (1978) (1978)
Other Notable Film(s): Rawhide (1959) [TV series] (1959-1965); Coogan's Bluff (1968) (1968); Paint Your Wagon (1969) (1969); Kelly's Heroes (1970) (1970); Bronco Billy (1980) (1980); Any Which Way You Can (1980) (1980); Firefox (1982) (1982); Honkytonk Man (1982) (1982); Sudden Impact (1983) (1983); City Heat (1984) (1984); Heartbreak Ridge (1986) (1986); The Dead Pool (1988) (1988); Pink Cadillac (1989) (1989); Trouble with the Curve (2012) (2012); The Mule (2019)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
James Mason was born in Huddersfield and had a film career spanning over 50 years during which he appeared in over 100 films in England and America but never won an Oscar. Whatever role he played, from the wounded Belfast gunman in Odd Man Out to Rommel in The Desert Fox, his creamy velvet voice gave him away. Like Charlie Chaplin James left the screen to spend his later life living in Switzerland. His first marriage had been to Pamela Kellino, a Yorkshire mill owner's daughter and his second to Australian actress Clarissa Kaye.Greats: North by Northwest (1959) (1959); Lolita (1962) (1962)★; Heaven Can Wait (1978) (1978); The Verdict (1982) (1982)★
Give It a Shot: Julius Caesar (1953) (1953); The Boys from Brazil (1978) (1978)
Other Notable Film(s): The Seventh Veil (1945) (1945); Odd Man Out (1947) (1947); Caught (1949) (1949); The Reckless Moment (1949) (1949); Madame Bovary (1949) (1949); East Side, West Side (1949) (1949); Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951) (1951); The Desert Fox (1951); 5 Fingers (1952) (1952); The Desert Rats (1953) (1953); Prince Valiant (1954) (1954); A Star Is Born (1954) (1954)✰; 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) (1954); Bigger Than Life (1956) (1956); Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) (1959); The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) (1964); The Pumpkin Eater (1964) (1964); Lord Jim (1965) (1965); The Blue Max (1966) (1966); Georgy Girl (1966) (1966)✰; The Deadly Affair (1967) (1966); The MacKintosh Man (1973) (1973); The Last of Sheila (1973) (1973); Voyage of the Damned (1976) (1976); Cross of Iron (1977) (1977); North Sea Hijack (1980) (1979); Murder by Decree (1979) (1979); Evil Under the Sun (1982) (1982); The Shooting Party (1984) (1985)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
George C. Scott was an immensely talented actor, a star of the big screen, stage and television. He was born on October 18, 1927 in Wise, Virginia, to Helena Agnes (Slemp) and George Dewey Scott. At the age of eight, his mother died, and his father, an executive at Buick, raised him. In 1945, he joined the United States Marines and spent four years with them, no doubt an inspiration for portraying General George S. Patton years later. When Scott left the Marines, he enrolled in journalism classes at the University of Missouri, but it was while performing in a play there that the acting bug bit him. He has said it "clicked, just like tumblers in a safe."
It was in 1957 that he landed a role in "Richard III" in New York City. The play was a success and brought the young actor to the attention of critics. He soon began to get work on television, mostly in live broadcasts of plays, and he landed the role of the crafty prosecutor in Anatomy of a Murder (1959). It was this role that got him his first Oscar nomination, for Best Supporting Actor.
However, George and Oscar wouldn't actually become the best of friends. In fact, he felt the whole process forced actors to become stars and that the ceremony was little more than a "meat market." In 1962, he was nominated again for Best Supporting Actor, this time opposite Paul Newman in The Hustler (1961), but sent a message saying "No, thanks" and refused the nomination.
However, whether he was being temperamental or simply stubborn in his opinion of awards, it did not seem to stop him from being nominated in the future. "Anatomy" and "The Hustler" were followed by the clever mystery The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), in which he starred alongside Kirk Douglas, Robert Mitchum and cameos by major stars of the time, including Burt Lancaster and Frank Sinatra. It's a must-see, directed by John Huston with tongue deeply in cheek.
The following year, Scott starred as General "Buck" Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's comical anti-war film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). This became one of his favorites and he often said that he felt guilty getting paid for it, as he had so much fun making it. Another comedy followed, The Flim-Flam Man (1967), with Scott playing a smooth-talking con artist who takes on an apprentice whom he soon discovers has too many morals.
Three years followed, with some smaller television movies, before he got the role for which he will always be identified: the aforementioned General Patton in Patton (1970). This was a war movie that came at the end of a decade where anti-war protests had rocked a nation and become a symbol of youth dissatisfied with what was expected of them. Still, the actor's portrayal of this aggressive military icon actually drew sympathy for the controversial hero. He won the Oscar this time, but stayed at home watching hockey instead.
A pair of films that he made in the early 1980s were outstanding. The first of these was The Changeling (1980), a film often packaged as a horror movie but one that's really more of a supernatural thriller. He plays John Russell, a composer and music professor who loses his wife and daughter in a tragic accident. Seeking solace, he moves into an archaic mansion that had been unoccupied for 12 years. However, a child-like presence seems to be sharing the house with him and trying to share its secrets with him. From learning of the house's past, he discovers its horrific secret of long ago, a secret that the presence will no longer allow to be kept.
Then he starred -- along with a young cast of then largely unknowns, including Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn and Tom Cruise -- in the intense drama Taps (1981). He played the head of a military academy that's suddenly slated for destruction when the property is sold to local developers who plan to build condos. The students take over the academy when they feel that the regular channels are closed to them.
Scott kept up in films, television and on stage in the later years of his life (Broadway dimmed its lights for one minute on the night of his death). Among his projects were playing Ebenezer Scrooge in a worthy television update of A Christmas Carol (1984), an acclaimed performance on Broadway of "Death of a Salesman", the voice of McLeach in Disney's The Rescuers Down Under (1990) and co-starring roles in television remakes of two classic films, 12 Angry Men (1997) and Inherit the Wind (1999), to name just a few. After his death the accolades poured in, with Jack Lemmon saying, "George was truly one of the greatest and most generous actors I have ever known," while Tony Randall called him "the greatest actor in American history".Greats: Anatomy of a Murder (1959) (1959)★; The Hustler (1961) (1961)★; Dr. Strangelove (1964); Patton (1970) (1970)★
Give It a Shot: The Hospital (1971) (1971)★
Other Notable Film(s): The Hanging Tree (1959) (1959); The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) (1963); The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) (1964); The Bible in the Beginning... (1966) (1966); The Flim-Flam Man (1967) (1967); Petulia (1968) (1968); They Might Be Giants (1971) (1971); The Day of the Dolphin (1973) (1973); The Hindenburg (1975) (1975); Islands in the Stream (1977) (1977); Movie Movie (1978) (1978)✰; Hardcore (1979) (1979); The Changeling (1980) (1980); The Formula (1980) (1980); Taps (1981) (1981); Firestarter (1984) (1984); The Exorcist III (1990) (1990)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Paul Muni was born Sept. 22, 1895, in Lemberg, Austro-Hungarian Empire, to Salli and Phillip Weisenfreund, who were both professionals. His family was Jewish, and spoke Yiddish. Paul was educated in New York and Cleveland public schools. He was described as 5 feet 10 inches, with black hair and eyes, 165 pounds. He joined the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York (1908) for 4 years, and then moved to other Yiddish theaters until 1926, when he "went into an American play" called "We Americans", his first English-language role. In 1927-28, he appeared in the plays "Four Walls", "This One Man", "Counsellor-at-Law", and others. He began with Fox in 1928. He would later alternate between Broadway and Hollywood for his roles, becoming one of the more distinguished actors in either venue. Failing eyesight and otherwise poor health forced him into retirement after his appearance in The Last Angry Man (1959).Greats: Scarface (1932) (1932); I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932) (1932)★
Give It a Shot: The Story of Louis Pasteur (1936) (1936)★
Other Notable Film(s): The Valiant (1929) (1929)✰; Bordertown (1935) (1935); Black Fury (1935) (1935)✰; The Life of Emile Zola (1937) (1937)✰; The Good Earth (1937) (1937); Juarez (1939) (1939); A Song to Remember (1945) (1945); Angel on My Shoulder (1946) (1946); The Last Angry Man (1959) (1959)✰- Actor
- Producer
- Editorial Department
Christian Charles Philip Bale was born in Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK on January 30, 1974, to English parents Jennifer "Jenny" (James) and David Bale. His mother was a circus performer and his father, who was born in South Africa, was a commercial pilot. The family lived in different countries throughout Bale's childhood, including England, Portugal, and the United States. Bale acknowledges the constant change was one of the influences on his career choice.
His first acting job was a cereal commercial in 1983; amazingly, the next year, he debuted on the West End stage in "The Nerd". A role in the 1986 NBC mini-series Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986) caught Steven Spielberg's eye, leading to Bale's well-documented role in Empire of the Sun (1987). For the range of emotions he displayed as the star of the war epic, he earned a special award by the National Board of Review for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor.
Adjusting to fame and his difficulties with attention (he thought about quitting acting early on), Bale appeared in Kenneth Branagh's 1989 adaptation of Shakespeare's Henry V (1989) and starred as Jim Hawkins in a TV movie version of Treasure Island (1990). Bale worked consistently through the 1990s, acting and singing in Newsies (1992), Swing Kids (1993), Little Women (1994), The Portrait of a Lady (1996), The Secret Agent (1996), Metroland (1997), Velvet Goldmine (1998), All the Little Animals (1998), and A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999). Toward the end of the decade, with the rise of the Internet, Bale found himself becoming one of the most popular online celebrities around, though he, with a couple notable exceptions, maintained a private, tabloid-free mystique.
Bale roared into the next decade with a lead role in American Psycho (2000), director Mary Harron's adaptation of the controversial Bret Easton Ellis novel. In the film, Bale played a murderous Wall Street executive obsessed with his own physicality - a trait for which Bale would become a specialist. Subsequently, the 10th Anniversary issue for "Entertainment Weekly" crowned Bale one of the "Top 8 Most Powerful Cult Figures" of the past decade, citing his cult status on the Internet. EW also called Bale one of the "Most Creative People in Entertainment", and "Premiere" lauded him as one of the "Hottest Leading Men Under 30".
Bale was truly on the Hollywood radar at this time, and he turned in a range of performances in the remake Shaft (2000), Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001), the balmy Laurel Canyon (2002), and Reign of Fire (2002), a dragons-and-magic commercial misfire that has its share of defenders.
Two more cult films followed: Equilibrium (2002) and The Machinist (2004), the latter of which gained attention mainly due to Bale's physical transformation - he dropped a reported 60+ pounds for the role of a lathe operator with a secret that causes him to suffer from insomnia for over a year.
Bale's abilities to transform his body and to disappear into a character influenced the decision to cast him in Batman Begins (2005), the first chapter in Christopher Nolan's definitive trilogy that proved a dark-themed narrative could resonate with audiences worldwide. The film also resurrected a character that had been shelved by Warner Bros. after a series of demising returns, capped off by the commercial and critical failure of Batman & Robin (1997). A quiet, personal victory for Bale: he accepted the role after the passing of his father in late 2003, an event that caused him to question whether he would continue performing.
Bale segued into two indie features in the wake of Batman's phenomenal success: The New World (2005) and Harsh Times (2005). He continued working with respected independent directors in 2006's Rescue Dawn (2006), Werner Herzog's feature version of his earlier, Emmy-nominated documentary, Little Dieter Needs to Fly (1997). Leading up to the second Batman film, Bale starred in The Prestige (2006), the remake of 3:10 to Yuma (2007), and a reunion with director Todd Haynes in the experimental Bob Dylan biography, I'm Not There (2007).
Anticipation for The Dark Knight (2008) was spun into unexpected heights with the tragic passing of Heath Ledger, whose performance as The Joker became the highlight of the sequel. Bale's graceful statements to the press reminded us of the days of the refined Hollywood star as the second installment exceeded the box-office performance of its predecessor.
Bale's next role was the eyebrow-raising decision to take over the role of John Connor in the Schwarzenegger-less Terminator Salvation (2009), followed by a turn as federal agent Melvin Purvis in Michael Mann's Public Enemies (2009). Both films were hits but not the blockbusters they were expected to be.
For all his acclaim and box-office triumphs, Bale would earn his first Oscar in 2011 in the wake of The Fighter (2010)'s critical and commercial success. Bale earned the Best Supporting Actor award for his portrayal of Dicky Eklund, brother to and trainer of boxer "Irish" Micky Ward, played by Mark Wahlberg. Bale again showed his ability to reshape his body with another gaunt, skeletal transformation.
Bale then turned to another auteur, Yimou Zhang, for the epic The Flowers of War (2011), in which Bale portrayed a priest trapped in the midst of the Rape of Nanking. Bale earned headlines for his attempt to visit with Chinese civil-rights activist Chen Guangcheng, which was blocked by the Chinese government.
Bale capped his role as Bruce Wayne/Batman in The Dark Knight Rises (2012); in the wake of the Aurora, Colorado tragedy, Bale made a quiet pilgrimage to the state to visit with survivors of the attack that left theatergoers dead and injured. He also starred in the thriller Out of the Furnace (2013) with Crazy Heart (2009) writer/director Scott Cooper, and the drama-comedy American Hustle (2013), reuniting with David O. Russell.
Bale will re-team with The New World (2005) director Terrence Malick for two upcoming projects: Knight of Cups (2015) and an as-yet-untitled drama.
In his personal life, he devotes time to charities including Greenpeace and the World Wildlife Foundation. He lives with his wife, Sibi Blazic, and their two children.Greats: The Prestige (2006) (2006); The Fighter (2010) (2010)★; American Hustle (2013) (2013)★; The Big Short (2015) (2015)★
Give It a Shot: Empire of the Sun (1987) (1987); American Psycho (2000) (2000)★; The Machinist (2004) (2004)★; Batman Begins (2005) (2005); The New World (2005) (2005); Rescue Dawn (2006) (2006); 3:10 to Yuma (2007) (2007); The Dark Knight (2008) (2008); Public Enemies (2009) (2009); The Dark Knight Rises (2012) (2012); Out of the Furnace (2013) (2013); Ford vs. Ferrari (2019)✰
Caution: Equilibrium (2002) (2002); I'm Not There (2007) (2007); Terminator Salvation (2009) (2009); VICE (2018)★
Other Notable Film(s): Mio in the Land of Faraway (1987); Henry V (1989) (1989); Newsies (1992) (1992); Swing Kids (1993) (1993); Royal Deceit (1994); Little Women (1994) (1994); Pocahontas (1995) [voice] (1995); The Portrait of a Lady (1996) (1996); The Secret Agent (1996) (1996); Metroland (1997) (1997); Velvet Goldmine (1998) (1998); All the Little Animals (1998) (1998); A Midsummer Night's Dream (1999) (1999); Shaft (2000) (2000); Captain Corelli's Mandolin (2001) (2001); Laurel Canyon (2002) (2002); Reign of Fire (2002) (2002); Howl's Moving Castle [voice] (2004); Harsh Times (2005) (2005); The Flowers of War (2011); Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) (2014); Knight of Cups (2015) (2015); Song to Song (2017) (2016); The Promise (2016) (2016); Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle (2018) [voice] (2017); Hostiles (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Rodney Stephen Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York, to Augusta Amelia (Driver) and Frederick Jacob Steiger, both vaudevillians. He was of German and Austrian ancestry. After his parents' divorce, Steiger was raised by his mother in Newark, New Jersey. He dropped out of Westside High school at age 16 and joined the Navy. He saw action in the Pacific on a destroyer. Steiger returned to New Jersey after the war and worked for the VA. He was part of an amateur acting group, and then joined the Actors' Studio using his GI Bill benefits.
Steiger received his first film roles in the early 1950s. His first major one was in Teresa (1951), but his first lead role was in the TV version of Marty (1953). The movie version, however, had Ernest Borgnine in the lead and won him an Academy Award. Steiger's breakthrough role came in 1954, with the classic On the Waterfront (1954). Since then he has been a presence on the screen as everything from a popular leading man to a little-known character actor. Steiger made a name for himself in many different types of roles, from a crooked promoter in The Harder They Fall (1956) to the title character in Al Capone (1959). He was one of dozens of stars in the epic World War II film The Longest Day (1962). In 1964, he received his second Oscar nomination for The Pawnbroker (1964). The next couple of years he was at the height of his powers. In 1965, he starred in the dark comedy The Loved One (1965), and in David Lean's epic Doctor Zhivago (1965). In 1966, he starred in the BBC Play of the Month (1965) episode "Death of a Salesman" as Willy Loman in the TV version of his stage play "Death of a Salesman," but in 1967, he landed what many consider his greatest role: Sheriff Bill Gillespie in In the Heat of the Night (1967), opposite Sidney Poitier. Steiger deservedly took home the Best Actor Oscar for his work in that film.
He took another controversial role as a man with many tattoos in The Illustrated Man (1969) and as a serial killer in the classic No Way to Treat a Lady (1968). After that, he seemed to have withdrawn from high-profile movies and became more selective in the roles he chose. He turned down the lead in Patton (1970) and also in The Godfather (1972). Among his more notable roles in the 1970s are Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971), Lolly-Madonna XXX (1973), as Benito Mussolini in The Last 4 Days (1974), Portrait of a Hitman (1979), Jesus of Nazareth (1977), F.I.S.T. (1978) and The Amityville Horror (1979). He starred in the critically acclaimed The Chosen (1981) with Robby Benson and Maximilian Schell, perhaps the highlight of his 1980s movie career. Steiger increasingly moved away from the big Hollywood pictures, instead taking roles in foreign productions and independent movies. As the 1980s ended, Steiger landed a role as the buttoned-up New York City Chief of Police in The January Man (1989).
Steiger was seriously affected by depression for 8 years. As he returned to the screen in the late 1990s he began creating some of his most memorable roles. He was the doctor in the independently-made movie Shiloh (1996), about an abused dog. He was the crazed, kill-'em-all army general in Mars Attacks! (1996) who always called his enemies peace-mongers. He took a small part as a Supreme Court judge in The Hurricane (1999) and as a preacher in the badly produced film End of Days (1999). He was still active in films moving into the new millennium.Greats: On the Waterfront (1954) (1954)★; The Big Knife (1955) (1955); Doctor Zhivago (1965) (1965); In the Heat of the Night (1967) (1967)★
Give It a Shot: Oklahoma! (1955) (1955)
Caution: Mars Attacks! (1996) (1996); Shiloh (1996) (1996); The Hurricane (1999) (1999)
Flops: Carpool (1996) (1996)
Other Notable Film(s): The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) (1955); Jubal (1956) (1956); The Harder They Fall (1956) (1956); Run of the Arrow (1957) (1957); Al Capone (1959) (1959); Seven Thieves (1960) (1960); The Longest Day (1962) (1962); Hand Over the City (1963); The Pawnbroker (1964) (1964)✰; The Loved One (1965) (1965); No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) (1968); The Illustrated Man (1969) (1969); Waterloo (1970) (1970); Duck, You Sucker (1971); Dirty Hands (1975); F.I.S.T. (1978) (1978); The Amityville Horror (1979) (1979); The Lion of the Desert (1980) (1981); The Chosen (1981) (1981); American Gothic (1987) (1988); The January Man (1989) (1989); The Specialist (1994) (1994); Truth or Consequences, N.M. (1997) (1997); Incognito (1997) (1997); Crazy in Alabama (1999) (1999); End of Days (1999) (1999); Poolhall Junkies (2002) (2002)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Since starring in his first film, Splendor in the Grass (1961), Warren Beatty has been said to have demonstrated a greater longevity in movies than any actor of his generation. Few people have taken so many responsibilities for all phases of the production of films as producer, director, writer, and actor, and few have evidenced so high a level of integrity in a body of work.
In Rules Don't Apply (2016), he writes, produces, directs and stars in. Only Beatty and Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) have been nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as an actor, a director, a writer, and a producer for the same film. Beatty is the only person ever to have done it twice, for Heaven Can Wait (1978) and again for Reds (1981). Beatty has been nominated 15 times by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and 8 films he has produced have earned 53 Academy nominations. In 1982 he won the Academy Award for Directing and in 2000 was given the Academy's highest honor, the Irving G. Thalberg Award.
He was awarded Best Director from the Directors Guild of America and Best Writer three times from the Writers Guild of America. He has received the Milestone Award from the Producers Guild, the Board of Governors Award from the American Society of Cinematographers, the Directors Award from the Costume Designers Guild, the Life Achievement Award from the Publicists Guild, and the Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award from the Art Directors Guild. The National Association of Theater Owners has honored him as Director of the Year, as Producer of the Year and as Actor of the Year.
He has won 16 awards from the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Golden Globes. In 1992, he was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France; in Italy he received the David di Donatello award in 1968 and again in 1981 and its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998; in 2001, he received the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Sebastian International Film Festival; in 2002, he received the British Academy Fellowship from BAFTA; and in 2011, he was awarded the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film.
In December 2004, Beatty received The Kennedy Center Honor in Washington, D.C. In addition, he is the recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, the HFPA Cecile B. DeMille Award and many others. Politically active since the 1960's, Beatty campaigned with Robert F. Kennedy in his 1968 presidential campaign. That same year he traveled throughout the United States speaking in favor of gun control and against the war in Vietnam. In 1972 he took a year off from motion pictures to campaign with George McGovern.
In 1981, Beatty was a founding board member of the Center for National Policy. He is a founding member of The Progressive Majority, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has participated in the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.
Beatty serves on the Board of Directors of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Foundation. He previously served on the Board of Trustees of The Scripps Research Institute for several years. He has received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award from the Americans for Democratic Action, the Brennan Legacy Award from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, and the Philip Burton Public Service Award from The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.
In multiple forums he has addressed campaign finance reform, the increasing disparity of wealth, universal health care and the need for the Democratic Party to return to its roots.
In March of 2013, he was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
Beatty was born in Richmond, Virginia. He and his wife, Annette Bening, live in Los Angeles and have four children.
His mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from Nova Scotia, Canada, and his father, Ira Owens Beaty, a professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. His sister is actress Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty). His ancestry is mostly English and Scottish.Greats: Bonnie and Clyde (1967) (1967)★; Heaven Can Wait (1978) (1978)★; Reds (1981) (1981)★; Bugsy (1991) (1991)★
Give It a Shot: Dick Tracy (1990) (1990); Bulworth (1998) (1998)★
Caution: The Parallax View (1974) (1974)
Other Notable Film(s): Splendor in the Grass (1961) (1961)✰; The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) (1961); All Fall Down (1962) (1962); Lilith (1964) (1964); Mickey One (1965) (1965); $ (1971) (1971); McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) (1971); Shampoo (1975) (1975)✰; The Fortune (1975) (1975); Ishtar (1987) (1987); Love Affair (1994) (1994); Town & Country (2001) (2001); Rules Don't Apply (2016) (2016)- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Emanuel Goldenberg arrived in the United States from Romania at age ten, and his family moved into New York's Lower East Side. He took up acting while attending City College, abandoning plans to become a rabbi or lawyer. The American Academy of Dramatic Arts awarded him a scholarship, and he began work in stock, with his new name, Edward G. Robinson (the "G" stood for his birth surname), in 1913. Broadway was two years later; he worked steadily there for 15 years. His work included "The Kibitzer", a comedy he co-wrote with Jo Swerling. His film debut was a small supporting part in the silent The Bright Shawl (1923), but it was with the coming of sound that he hit his stride. His stellar performance as snarling, murderous thug Rico Bandello in Little Caesar (1931)--all the more impressive since in real life Robinson was a sophisticated, cultured man with a passion for fine art--set the standard for movie gangsters, both for himself in many later films and for the industry. He portrayed the title character in several biographical works, such as Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940) and A Dispatch from Reuters (1940). Psychological dramas included Flesh and Fantasy (1943), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944)and Scarlet Street (1945). Another notable gangster role was in Key Largo (1948). He was "absolved" of allegations of Communist affiliation after testifying as a friendly witness for the House Un-American Activities Committee during the McCarthy hysteria of the early 1950s. In 1956 he had to sell off his extensive art collection in a divorce settlement and also had to deal with a psychologically troubled son. In 1956 he returned to Broadway in "Middle of the Night". In 1973 he was awarded a special, posthumous Oscar for lifetime achievement.Greats: Little Caesar (1931) (1931)★; Double Indemnity (1944) (1944)★; The Woman in the Window (1944) (1944); Scarlet Street (1945) (1945); The Stranger (1946) (1946)
Give It a Shot: The Cincinnati Kid (1965) (1965)
Other Notable Film(s): Smart Money (1931) (1931); Five Star Final (1931) (1931); The Whole Town's Talking (1935) (1935); Bullets or Ballots (1936) (1936); The Last Gangster (1937) (1937); Kid Galahad (1937) (1937); The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938) (1938); A Slight Case of Murder (1938) (1938); Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) (1939); Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940) (1940); Brother Orchid (1940) (1940); The Sea Wolf (1941) (1941); Manpower (1941) (1941); Tales of Manhattan (1942) (1942); Larceny, Inc (1942) (1942); Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945) (1945); The Red House (1947) (1947); Key Largo (1948) (1948); All My Sons (1948) (1948); House of Strangers (1949) (1949)✰; The Violent Men (1955) (1955); The Ten Commandments (1956) (1956); A Hole in the Head (1959) (1959); Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) (1962); My Geisha (1962) (1962); The Prize (1963) (1963); The Outrage (1964) (1964); Cheyenne Autumn (1964) (1964); Soylent Green (1973) (1973)- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Director
Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow on April 10, 1929 in Lund, Skåne, Sweden, to a middle-class family. He was the son of Baroness Maria Margareta (Rappe), a teacher, and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and folklore professor. His surname traces back to his partial German ancestry.
When he was in high school, he and a few fellow students, including Yvonne Lombard, started a theatre club which encouraged his interest in acting. After conscription, he began to study at the Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school (1948-1951), together with Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook and Ingrid Thulin. His first role was as Nils the crofter in Alf Sjöberg's Only a Mother (1949). After graduation, he worked at the city theatres in Norrköping and Malmö.
His work in the movies by Ingmar Bergman (especially The Seventh Seal (1957), including the iconic scenes in which he plays chess with Death) made him well-known internationally, and he started to get offers from abroad. His career abroad began with him playing Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965); Hawaii (1966) and The Quiller Memorandum (1966). Since then, his career includes very different kind of characters, like Karl Oskar Nilsson in The Emigrants (1971); Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist (1973); Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor (1975), Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon (1980); the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Never Say Never Again (1983); Liet-Kynes in Dune (1984) the artist Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Lassefar in Pelle the Conqueror (1987), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination; Dr. Peter Ingham in Awakenings (1990); Lamar Burgess in Minority Report (2002) and The Renter in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011), which earned him his second Academy Award nomination.
He became one of Sweden's most admired and professional actors, and is the only male Swedish actor to receive an Oscar nomination. He was nominated twice: for Pelle the Conqueror (1987) in 1988 and for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) in 2012. He received the Guldbagge Award for Best Director in his directing debut, the drama film Ved vejen (1988). In 2016, he joined the sixth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) as the Three-eyed Raven, which earned him his Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Max von Sydow died on March 8, 2020, in Provence, France, and was survived by his wife Catherine Brelet and four children. He was 90.Legendary director Ingmar Bergman's main guy is probably Sweden's best actor.
Greats: The Seventh Seal (1957)★; Wild Strawberries (1957); Hour of the Wolf (1968); The Passion of Anna (1969); The Exorcist (1973) (1973)★; Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) (1986); Game of Thrones (2011) [TV series; 3 episodes] (2016)
Give It a Shot: Awakenings (1990) (1990); Minority Report (2002) (2002); Shutter Island (2010) (2010); Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) (2015)
Caution: Flash Gordon (1980) (1980); Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) (2011)★
Flops: Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) (1977); Rush Hour 3 (2007) (2007)
Other Notable Film(s): Miss Julie (1951); The Magician (1958); The Virgin Spring (1960); Through a Glass Darkly (1961); Winter Light (1963) (1963); The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) (1965); Hawaii (1966) (1966)✰; The Quiller Memorandum (1966) (1966); Shame (1968); The Night Vistitor (1971); The Emigrants (1971); The New Land (1972); Three Days of the Condor (1975) (1975); Voyage of the Damned (1976) (1976); March or Die (1977) (1977); Death Watch (1980); Victory (1981) (1981); Conan the Barbarian (1982) (1982); Strange Brew (1983) (1983); Never Say Never Again (1983) (1983); Dreamscape (1984) (1984); Dune (1984) (1984); Pelle the Conqueror (1987)✰; The Ox (1991) (1991); A Kiss Before Dying (1991) (1991); The Best Intentions (1992); Needful Things (1993) (1993); Judge Dredd (1995) (1995); Hamsun (1996) (1996); What Dreams May Come (1998) (1998); Snow Falling on Cedars (1999) (1999); Intact (2001); Sleepless (2001); The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007); Solomon Kane (2009) (2009); Robin Hood (2010) (2010); Branded (2012) (2012); The Letters (2014) (2014)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Toshiro Mifune achieved more worldwide fame than any other Japanese actor of his century. He was born in Tsingtao, China, to Japanese parents and grew up in Dalian. He did not set foot in Japan until he was 21. His father was an importer and a commercial photographer, and young Toshiro worked in his father's studio for a time after graduating from Dalian Middle School. He was automatically drafted into the Japanese army when he turned 20, and enlisted in the Air Force where he was attached to the Aerial Photography Unit for the duration of the World War II. In 1947 he took a test for Kajirô Yamamoto, who recommended him to director Senkichi Taniguchi, thus leading to Mifune's first film role in These Foolish Times II (1947). Mifune then met and bonded with director Akira Kurosawa, and the two joined to become the most prominent actor-director pairing in all Japanese cinema. Beginning with Drunken Angel (1948), Mifune appeared in 16 of Kurosawa's films, most of which have become world-renowned classics. In Kurosawa's pictures, especially Rashomon (1950), Mifune would become the most famous Japanese actor in the world. A dynamic and ferocious actor, he excelled in action roles, but also had the depth to plumb intricate and subtle dramatic parts. A personal rift during the filming of Red Beard (1965) ended the Mifune-Kurosawa collaboration, but Mifune continued to perform leading roles in major films both in Japan and in foreign countries. He was twice named Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival (for Yojimbo (1961) and Red Beard (1965)). In 1963 he formed his own production company, directing one film and producing several others. In his later years he gained new fame in the title role of the American TV miniseries Shogun (1980), and appeared infrequently in cameo roles after that. His last years were plagued with Alzheimer's Syndrome and he died of organ failure in 1997, a few months before the death of the director with whose name he will forever be linked, Akira Kurosawa."Mifune had a kind of talent I had never encountered before in the Japanese film world. It was, above all, the speed with which he expressed himself that was astounding. The ordinary Japanese actor might need ten feet of film to get across an impression; Mifune needed only three. The speed of his movements was such that he said in a single action what took ordinary actors three separate movements to express. He put forth everything directly and boldly, and his sense of timing was the keenest I had ever seen in a Japanese actor. And yet with all his quickness, he also had surprisingly fine sensibilities." ~ Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa's main guy is possibly the best actor in the history of Japanese cinema.
Greats: Stray Dog (1949); Rashomon (1950)★; Seven Samurai (1954)★; The Hidden Fortress (1958); Yojimbo (1961)★; Sanjuro (1962); High and Low (1963)
Give It a Shot: Grand Prix (1966) (1966)
Flops: 1941 (1979) (1979)
Other Notable Film(s): Drunken Angel (1948); The Quiet Duel (1949); Scandal (1950); The Idiot (1951); The Life of Oharu (1952); Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1954); Samurai II: Duel at Ichijoji Temple (1955); Samurai III: Duel at Ganryu Island (1956); The Lower Depths (1957); Throne of Blood (1957); Red Beard (1965)✰; Samurai Rebellion (1967); Hell in the Pacific (1968) (1968)- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Jr. was born in Petersburg, Virginia, into a well-to-do Southern family. He was the eldest of three sons born to Sally Whitworth (Willson) and Joseph Cheshire Cotten, Sr., an assistant postmaster.
Jo (as he was known) and his brothers Whit and Sam spent their summers at their aunt and uncle's home at Virginia Beach. And there and at an early age he discovered a passion for story-telling, reciting, and performing acts for his family. Cotten studied acting at the Hickman School of Expression in Washington, D.C. and worked as an advertising agent afterward. But by 1924 tried to enter acting in New York. His money opportunities were limited to shipping clerk, and after a year of attempting stage work, he left with friends, heading for Miami. There he found a variety of jobs: lifeguard, salesman, a stint as entrepreneur -- making and selling 'Tip Top Potato Salad' - but more significantly, drama critic for the Miami Herald. That evidently led to appearance in plays at the Miami Civic Theater. Through a connection at the Miami Herald he managed to land an assistant stage manager job in New York. In 1929 he was engaged for a season at the Copley Theatre in Boston, and there he was able to expand his acting experience, appearing in 30 plays in a wide variety of parts. By 1930 he made his Broadway debut. In 1931 Cotten married Lenore LaMont (usually known as Kipp), a pianist, divorced with a four-year-old daughter.
To augment his income as an actor in the mid-30s, Cotten took on radio shows in addition to his theatre work. At one audition he met an ambitious, budding actor/writer/director/producer with a mission to make his name-Orson Welles. Cotten was 10 years his senior, but the two found a kindred spirit in one another. For Cotten, Welles association would completely redirect his serious acting life. Their early co-acting attempts boded ill for employment in formal acting vehicles. At a rehearsal for CBS radio the two destroyed a scene taking place on a rubber tree plantation. One or the other was supposed to say the line: "Barrels and barrels of pith...." They could not overcome uncontrolled laughter at each attempt. The director berated them as acting like 'school-children' and 'unprofessional', and thereafter both were considered unreliable. Welles's ambition put that quickly behind them when he formed The Mercury Theatre Players. Coming on board were later Hollywood stalwarts: Everett Sloane, Agnes Moorehead, Ruth Warrick, and Ray Collins. In 1937, Cotten starred in Welles's Mercury productions of "Julius Caesar" and "Shoemaker's Holiday". And he made his film debut in the Welles-directed short Too Much Johnson (1938), a comedy based on William Gillette's 1890 play. The short was occasionally screened before or after Mercury productions, but never received an official release. Cotten returned to Broadway in 1939, starring as C.K. Dexter Haven in the original production of Philip Barry's "The Philadelphia Story". The uproar over Welles's "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast, was rewarded with an impressive contract from RKO Pictures. The two-picture deal promised full creative control for the young director, and Welles brought his Mercury players on-board in feature roles in what he chose to bring to the screen. But after a year, nothing had germinated until Welles met with writer Herman J. Mankiewicz, resulting in the Citizen Kane (1941) idea - early 1940. The story of a slightly veiled William Randolph Hearst with Welles as Kane and Cotten, in his Hollywood debut, as his college friend turned confidant and theater critic, Jed Leland, would become film history, but at the time it caused little more than a ripple. Hearst owned the majority of the country's press outlets and so forbade advertisements for the film. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards in 1942 but was largely ignored by the Academy, only winning for Best Screenplay for Welles and Mankiewicz.
The following year Cotten and Welles collaborated again in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), acclaimed but again ignored at Oscar time, and the next year's Nazi thriller Journey Into Fear (1943). Cotten, along with some Welles ideas, wrote the screenplay. Welles with his notorious overrunning of budgeting was duly dropped by RKO thereafter. Later in 1943 Cotten's exposure and acquaintance with young producer David O. Selznick resulted in a movie contract and the launching of his mainstream and very successful movie career as a romantic leading man. Thereafter he appeared with some of the most leading of Hollywood leading ladies - a favorite being Jennifer Jones, Selznick's wife with the two of them being his most intimate friends. Cotten got the opportunity to play a good range of roles through the 1940s - the darkest being the blue beard-like killer in Alfred Hitchcock thriller Shadow of a Doubt (1943) with Teresa Wright. Perhaps the most fun was The Farmer's Daughter (1947) with a vivacious Loretta Young. Cotten starred with Jennifer Jones in four films: the wartime domestic drama Since You Went Away (1944), the romantic drama Love Letters (1945), the western Duel in the Sun (1946), and later in the critically acclaimed Portrait of Jennie (1948), from the haunting Robert Nathan book. Cotten is thoroughly convincing as a second-rate, unmotivated artist who finds inspiration from a chance acquaintance budding into love with an incarnation of a girl who died years before. Welles and Cotten did not work again until The Third Man (1949), directed by Carol Reed. For Cotten, the role as the hapless boyhood friend and second-rate novel writer Holly Martins would be a defining moment in a part both comedic and bittersweet, its range making it one of his best performances. Unfortunately, he was again overlooked for an Oscar.
Cotten was kept in relative demand into his mature acting years. Into the 1950s, he reunited with "Shadow Of A Doubt" co star Thereas Wright, to do the memorable bank caper "The Steel Trap"(1952).He co stared with Jean Peters in "Blueprint For A Murder"(1953). For the most part, the movie roles were becoming more B than A. He had a brief role as a member of the Roman Senate, reuniting with lifelong friend Welles in his Othello (1951). There were a few film-noir outings along with the usual fare of the older actor with fewer roles. However, he was much more successful in returning to theater roles in the new television playhouse format. He also did some episodic TV and some series ventures, as with On Trial, which was later called The Joseph Cotten Show. He had a memorable role in an Alfred Hitchcock Presents, "Breakdown", where he was a man in a lone and isolated car accident, trapped and unable to speak. He voices over and shows his great acting skill simply through facial expressions. His one last stint with Welles was uncredited and sort of Jed Leland-revisited as the hokey coroner early in Welles's over-the-top Touch of Evil (1958). Of his association with Welles, Cotten said: "Exasperating, yes. Sometimes eruptive, unreasonable, ferocious, yes. Eloquent, penetrating, exciting, and always - never failingly even at the sacrifice of accuracy and at times his own vanity - witty. Never, never, never dull."
With the passing of his first wife in 1960 Cotten met and married British actress Patricia Medina. The 1960s found him equally busy in TV and film. He made the circuit of the most popular detective and cowboy series of the period. By 1964 he returned to film with the money making old-Hollywood-dame- horror-movie genre hit Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) with other vintage Hollywood legends Bette Davis, Olivia de Havilland, and Agnes Moorehead. His other films of that decade were of the quick entertainment variety along with some foreign productions, and TV movies. There were also more TV series and guests appearances, especially The Ed Sullivan Show, a popular stop during its long run. In the 1970s Cotten was still in demand-for even more of the curiosity-appeal of the populace for an older star. Along with the new assortment of TV series, he anchored himself at Universal with small parts in forgettable movies, the sluggish Universal epic dud Tora! Tora! Tora! for instance, and the steady diet of TV series being cranked out there. Though older actors have laughed in public about their descent into cheap horror movies, one can only wonder at the impetus to do them -- by such greats, as Claude Rains -- besides a can't-pass-up alluring salary.
Cotten did the campy The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) with Vincent Price and about that time two second rate Italian horror outings where he was Baron Blood and Baron Frankenstein. Then again there was better exposure in the Universal minor sci-fi classic Soylent Green (1973). And in yet another Universal sequel, where the profit-logic was to gather a cast of veterans from the Hollywood spectrum in any situation spelling disaster and watch the ticket sales skyrocket, Cotten joined the all-star cast of Airport '77 (1977). He rounded out the decade with the ever faddish Fantasy Island and more Universal TV rounds. This contributor met and worked with Joseph Cotten during this latter evolution of one of Hollywood's greats. He wore his own double-breasted blue blazer and tan slacks in several roles - no need for wardrobe. His pride and joy was a blue 1939 Jaguar SS, something of a fixture on the Universal lot.
Cotten was not ready to turn his back on Hollywood until the beginning of the 1980s when he managed to appear in the epic flop Heaven's Gate (1980). After a Love Boat episode (1981), Cotten joined his wife and his love of gardening and entertaining friends in retirement. He also had the time to write an engaging autobiography Vanity Will Get You Somewhere (1987). Cotten's somewhat matter-of-fact and seemingly gruff acting voice served him well. Certainly his command of varied roles deserved more than the snub of never being nominated for an Academy Award. He was not the only actor to suffer being underrated, but that is largely forgotten in those memorable roles that speak for him. And for what it is worth, the Europeans had the very good sense to award him the Venice Film Festival Award for Best Actor for Portrait of Jennie, one of his favorite roles.Easily one of the best actors to never receive an Oscar nomination.
Greats: Citizen Kane (1941) (1941)★; Shadow of a Doubt (1943) (1943)★; Gaslight (1944) (1944); Since You Went Away (1944) (1944); The Third Man (1949) (1949); Heaven's Gate (1980) (1980)
Give It a Shot: The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) (1942)
Caution: Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) (1970)
Other Notable Film(s): Love Letters (1945) (1945); Duel in the Sun (1946) (1946); The Farmer's Daughter (1947) (1947); Portrait of Jennie (1948) (1948); Under Capricorn (1949) (1949); Niagara (1953) (1953); The Last Sunset (1961) (1961); Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) (1964); The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) (1971); Soylent Green (1973) (1973); Airport '77 (1977) (1977); Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977) (1977)- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Often credited as the greatest comedian of all time, Peter Sellers was born Richard Henry Sellers to a well-off acting family in 1925 in Southsea, a suburb of Portsmouth. He was the son of Agnes Doreen "Peg" (Marks) and William "Bill" Sellers. His parents worked in an acting company run by his grandmother. His father was Protestant and his mother was Jewish (of both Ashkenazi and Sephardi background). His parents' first child had died at birth, so Sellers was spoiled during his early years. He enlisted in the Royal Air Force and served during World War II. After the war he met Spike Milligan, Harry Secombe and Michael Bentine, who would become his future workmates.
After the war, he set up a review in London, which was a combination of music (he played the drums) and impressions. Then, all of a sudden, he burst into prominence as the voices of numerous favorites on the BBC radio program "The Goon Show" (1951-1960), and then making his debut in films in Penny Points to Paradise (1951) and Down Among the Z Men (1952), before making it big as one of the criminals in The Ladykillers (1955). These small but showy roles continued throughout the 1950s, but he got his first big break playing the dogmatic union man, Fred Kite, in I'm All Right Jack (1959). The film's success led to starring vehicles into the 1960s that showed off his extreme comic ability to its fullest. In 1962, Sellers was cast in the role of Clare Quilty in the Stanley Kubrick version of the film Lolita (1962) in which his performance as a mentally unbalanced TV writer with multiple personalities landed him another part in Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) in which he played three roles which showed off his comic talent in play-acting in three different accents; British, American, and German.
The year 1964 represented a peak in his career with four films in release, all of them well-received by critics and the public alike: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), for which he was Oscar nominated, The Pink Panther (1963), in which he played his signature role of the bumbling French Inspector Jacques Clouseau for the first time, its almost accidental sequel, A Shot in the Dark (1964), and The World of Henry Orient (1964). Sellers was on top of the world, but on the evening of April 5, 1964, he suffered a nearly fatal heart attack after inhaling several amyl nitrites (also called 'poppers'; an aphrodisiac-halogen combination) while engaged in a sexual act with his second wife Britt Ekland. He had been working on Billy Wilder's Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). In a move Wilder later regretted, he replaced Sellers with Ray Walston rather than hold up production. By October 1964, Sellers made a full recovery and was working again.
The mid-1960s were noted for the popularity of all things British, from the Beatles music (who were presented with their Grammy for Best New Artist by Sellers) to the James Bond films, and the world turned to Sellers for comedy. What's New Pussycat (1965) was another big hit, but a combination of his ego and insecurity was making Sellers difficult to work with. When the James Bond spoof Casino Royale (1967) ran over budget and was unable to recoup its costs despite an otherwise healthy box-office take, Sellers received some of the blame. He turned down an offer from United Artists for the title role in Inspector Clouseau (1968), but was angry when the production went ahead with Alan Arkin in his place. His difficult reputation and increasingly erratic behavior, combined with several less successful films, took a toll on his standing. By 1970, he had fallen out of favor. He spent the early years of the new decade appearing in such lackluster B films as Where Does It Hurt? (1972) and turning up more frequently on television as a guest on The Dean Martin Show (1965) and a Glen Campbell TV special.
In 1974, Inspector Clouseau came to Sellers rescue when Sir Lew Grade expressed an interest in a TV series based on the character. Clouseau's creator, writer-director Blake Edwards, whose career had also seen better days, convinced Grade to bankroll a feature film instead, and The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) was a major hit release during the summer of Jaws (1975) and restored both men to prominence. Sellers would play Clouseau in two more successful sequels, The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) and Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), and Sellers would use his newly rediscovered clout to realize his dream of playing Chauncey Gardiner in a film adaptation of Jerzy Kosinski's novel "Being There". Sellers had read the novel in 1972, but it took seven years for the film to reach the screen. Being There (1979) earned Sellers his second Oscar nomination, but he lost to Dustin Hoffman for Kramer vs. Kramer (1979).
Sellers struggled with depression and mental insecurities throughout his life. An enigmatic figure, he often claimed to have no identity outside the roles that he played. His behavior on and off the set and stage became more erratic and compulsive, and he continued to frequently clash with his directors and co-stars, especially in the mid-1970s when his physical and mental health, together with his continuing alcohol and drug problems, were at their worst. He never fully recovered from his 1964 heart attack because he refused to take traditional heart medication and instead consulted with 'psychic healers'. As a result, his heart condition continued to slowly deteriorate over the next 16 years. On March 20, 1977, Sellers barely survived another major heart attack and had a pacemaker surgically implanted to regulate his heartbeat which caused him further mental and physical discomfort. However, he refused to slow down his work schedule or consider heart surgery which might have extended his life by several years.
On July 25, 1980, Sellers was scheduled to have a reunion dinner in London with his Goon Show partners, Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. However, at around 12 noon on July 22, Sellers collapsed from a massive heart attack in his Dorchester Hotel room and fell into a coma. He died in a London hospital just after midnight on July 24, 1980 at age 54. He was survived by his fourth wife, Lynne Frederick, and three children: Michael, Sarah and Victoria. At the time of his death, he was scheduled to undergo an angiography in Los Angeles on July 30 to see if he was eligible for heart surgery.
His last movie, The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu (1980), completed just a few months before his death, proved to be another box office flop. Director Blake Edwards' attempt at reviving the Pink Panther series after Sellers' death resulted in two panned 1980s comedies, the first of which, Trail of the Pink Panther (1982), deals with Inspector Clouseau's disappearance and was made from material cut from previous Pink Panther films and includes interviews with the original casts playing their original characters.Greats: Lolita (1962) (1962)★; Dr. Strangelove (1964)★; Being There (1979) (1979)★
Give It a Shot: The Ladykillers (1955) (1955); A Shot in the Dark (1964) (1964)
Caution: Murder by Death (1976) (1976)
Flops: Casino Royale (1967) (1967)
Other Notable Film(s): Big Time Operators (1957) (1957); Tom Thumb (1958) (1958); The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959) (1959); The Mouse That Roared (1959) (1959); I'm All Right Jack (1959) (1959); The Pink Panther (1963) (1963)✰; The World of Henry Orient (1964) (1964); What's New Pussycat (1965) (1965); The Party (1968) (1968); I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (1968) (1968); The Return of the Pink Panther (1975) (1975)✰; The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) (1976)✰; Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978) (1978)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
With features chiseled in stone, and renowned for playing a long list of historical figures, particularly in Biblical epics, the tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome Charlton Heston was one of Hollywood's top leading men of his prime and remained active in front of movie cameras for over sixty years. As a Hollywood star, he appeared in 100 films over the course of 60 years. He played Moses in the epic film, The Ten Commandments (1956) , for which he received his first Golden Globe Award nomination. He also starred in Touch of Evil (1958) with Orson Welles; Ben-Hur, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor (1959); El Cid (1961); and Planet of the Apes (1968). He also starred in the films The Greatest Show on Earth (1952); Secret of the Incas (1954); The Big Country (1958); and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965). A supporter of Democratic politicians and civil rights in the 1960s, Heston later became a Republican, founding a conservative political action committee and supporting Ronald Reagan. Heston's most famous role in politics came as the five-term president of the National Rifle Association, from 1998 to 2003.
Heston was born John Charles Carter on October 4, 1923, in No Man's Land, Illinois, to Lila (Charlton) and Russell Whitford Carter, who operated a sawmill. He had English and Scottish ancestry, with recent Canadianforebears.
Heston made his feature film debut as the lead character in a 16mm production of Peer Gynt (1941), based on the Henrik Ibsen play. In 1944, Heston enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces. He served for two years as a radio operator and aerial gunner aboard a B-25 Mitchell stationed in the Alaskan Aleutian Islands with the 77th Bombardment Squadron of the Eleventh Air Force. He reached the rank of Staff Sergeant. Heston married Northwestern University student Lydia Marie Clarke, who was six months his senior. That same year he joined the military.
Heston played 'Marc Antony' in Julius Caesar (1950), and firmly stamped himself as genuine leading man material with his performance as circus manager 'Brad Braden' in the Cecil B. DeMille spectacular The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), also starring James Stewart and Cornel Wilde. The now very popular actor remained perpetually busy during the 1950s, both on TV and on the silver screen with audience pleasing performances in the steamy thriller The Naked Jungle (1954), as a treasure hunter in Secret of the Incas (1954) and another barn storming performance for Cecil B. DeMille as "Moses" in the blockbuster The Ten Commandments (1956).
Heston delivered further dynamic performances in the oily film noir thriller Touch of Evil (1958), and then alongside Gregory Peck in the western The Big Country (1958) before scoring the role for which he is arguably best known, that of the wronged Jewish prince who seeks his freedom and revenge in the William Wyler directed Ben-Hur (1959). This mammoth Biblical epic running in excess of three and a half hours became the standard by which other large scale productions would be judged, and its superb cast also including Stephen Boyd as the villainous "Massala", English actor Jack Hawkins as the Roman officer "Quintus Arrius", and Australian actor Frank Thring as "Pontius Pilate", all contributed wonderful performances. Never one to rest on his laurels, steely Heston remained the preferred choice of directors to lead the cast in major historical productions and during the 1960s he starred as Spanish legend "Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar" in El Cid (1961), as a US soldier battling hostile Chinese boxers during 55 Days at Peking (1963),played the ill-fated "John the Baptist" in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), the masterful painter "Michelangelo" battling Pope Julius II in The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965), and an English general in Khartoum (1966). In 1968, Heston filmed the unusual western Will Penny (1967) about an aging and lonely cowboy befriending a lost woman and her son, which Heston has often referred to as his favorite piece of work on screen. Interestingly, Heston was on the verge of acquiring an entirely new league of fans due to his appearance in four very topical science fiction films (all based on popular novels) painting bleak futures for mankind.
In 1968, Heston starred as time-traveling astronaut "George Taylor", in the terrific Planet of the Apes (1968) with its now legendary conclusion as Heston realizes the true horror of his destination. He returned to reprise the role, albeit primarily as a cameo, alongside fellow astronaut James Franciscus in the slightly inferior sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970). Next up, Heston again found himself facing the apocalypse in The Omega Man (1971) as the survivor of a germ plague that has wiped out humanity leaving only bands of psychotic lunatics roaming the cities who seek to kill the uninfected Heston. And fourthly, taking its inspiration from the Harry Harrison novel "Make Room!, Make Room!", Heston starred alongside screen legend Edward G. Robinson and Chuck Connors in Soylent Green (1973). During the remainder of the 1970s, Heston appeared in two very popular "disaster movies" contributing lead roles in the far-fetched Airport 1975 (1974), plus in the star-laden Earthquake (1974), filmed in "Sensoround" (low-bass speakers were installed in selected theaters to simulate the earthquake rumblings on screen to movie audiences). He played an evil Cardinal in the lively The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), a mythical US naval officer in the recreation of Midway (1976), also filmed in "Sensoround", an LA cop trying to stop a sniper in Two-Minute Warning (1976) and another US naval officer in the submarine thriller Gray Lady Down (1978). Heston appeared in numerous episodes of the high-rating TV series Dynasty (1981) and The Colbys (1985), before moving onto a mixed bag of projects including TV adaptations of Treasure Island (1990) and A Man for All Seasons (1988), hosting two episodes of the comedy show, Saturday Night Live (1975), starring as the "Good Actor" bringing love struck Mike Myers to tears in Wayne's World 2 (1993), and as the eye patch-wearing boss of intelligence agent Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies (1994). He also narrated numerous TV specials and lent his vocal talents to the animated movie Hercules (1997), the family comedy Cats & Dogs (2001) and an animated version of Ben Hur (2003). Heston made an uncredited appearance in the inferior remake of Planet of the Apes (2001), and his last film appearance to date was in the Holocaust-themed drama of My Father (2003).
Heston narrated for highly classified military and Department of Energy instructional films, particularly relating to nuclear weapons, and "for six years Heston [held] the nation's highest security clearance" or Q clearance. The Q clearance is similar to a DoD or Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) clearance of Top Secret.
Heston was married to Lydia Marie Clark Heston since March 1944, and they have two children. His highly entertaining autobiography was released in 1995, titled appropriately enough "Into The Arena". Although often criticized for his strong conservative beliefs and involvement with the NRA, Heston was a strong advocate for civil right many years before it became fashionable, and was a recipient of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award, plus the Kennedy Center Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and did appear in a film or TV production after 2003. He died in April 2008, a memorable figure in the history of US cinema.Greats: Touch of Evil (1958) (1958); Ben-Hur (1959) (1959)★; Planet of the Apes (1968) (1968)
Caution: The Omega Man (1971) (1971); True Lies (1994) (1994); Alaska (1996) (1996); Any Given Sunday (1999) (1999)
Flops: Cats & Dogs (2001) [voice] (2001)
Other Notable Film(s): The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) (1952); The Naked Jungle (1954) (1954); The Ten Commandments (1956) (1956)✰; The Big Country (1958) (1958); The Buccaneer (1958) (1958); El Cid (1961) (1961); 55 Days at Peking (1963) (1963); The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) (1965); The War Lord (1965) (1965); The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) (1965); Major Dundee (1965) (1965); Khartoum (1966) (1966); Will Penny (1967) (1968); Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) (1970); The Three Musketeers (1973) (1973); Soylent Green (1973) (1973); Airport 1975 (1974) (1974); Earthquake (1974) (1974); Midway (1976) (1976); Two-Minute Warning (1976) (1976); Tombstone (1993) (1993); In the Mouth of Madness (1994) (1994); Hamlet (1996) (1996); The Order (2001) (2001)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
The towering presence of Canadian actor Donald Sutherland is often noticed, as are his legendary contributions to cinema. He has appeared in almost 200 different shows and films. He is also the father of renowned actor Kiefer Sutherland, among others.
Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, to Dorothy Isobel (McNichol) and Frederick McLea Sutherland, who worked in sales and electricity. He has Scottish, as well as German and English, ancestry. Sutherland worked several different jobs - he was a radio DJ in his youth - and was almost set on becoming an engineer after graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in engineering. However, he also graduated with a degree in drama, and he chose to abandon becoming an engineer in favour of an actor.
Sutherland's first roles were bit parts and consisted of such films as the horror film Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965) which starred Christopher Lee. He was also appearing in episodes of TV shows such as "The Saint" and "Court Martial". Sutherland's break would come soon, though, and it would come in the form of a war film in which he was barely cast.
The reason he was barely cast was because he had been a last-minute replacement for an actor that had dropped out of the film. The role he played was that of the dopey but loyal Vernon Pinkley in the war film The Dirty Dozen (1967). The film also starred Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, and Telly Savalas. The picture was an instant success as an action/war film, and Sutherland played upon this success by taking another role in a war film: this was, however, a comedy called M*A*S*H (1970) which landed Sutherland the starring role alongside Elliott Gould and Tom Skerritt. This is now considered a classic among film goers, and the 35-year old actor was only getting warmed up.
Sutherland took a number of other roles in between these two films, such as the theatrical adaptation Oedipus the King (1968), the musical Joanna (1968) and the Clint Eastwood-helmed war comedy Kelly's Heroes (1970). It was Kelly's Heroes (1970) that became more well-known, and it reunited Sutherland with Telly Savalas. 1970 and 1971 offered Sutherland a number of other films, the best of them would have to be Klute (1971). The film, which made Jane Fonda a star, is about a prostitute whose friend is mysteriously murdered. Sutherland received no critical acclaim like his co-star Fonda (she won an Oscar) but his career did not fade.
Moving on from Klute (1971), Sutherland landed roles such as the lead in the thriller Lady Ice (1973), and another lead in the western Alien Thunder (1974). These films did not match up to "Klute"'s success, though Sutherland took a supporting role that would become one of his most infamous and most critically acclaimed. He played the role of the murderous fascist leader in the Bernardo Bertolucci Italian epic 1900 (1976). Sutherland also gained another memorable role as a marijuana-smoking university professor in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) among other work that he did in this time.
Another classic role came in the form of the Robert Redford film, Ordinary People (1980). Sutherland portrays an older father figure who must deal with his children in an emotional drama of a film. It won Best Picture, and while both the supporting stars were nominated for Oscars, Sutherland once again did not receive any Academy Award nomination. He moved on to play a Nazi spy in a film based on Ken Follett's book "Eye of the Needle" and he would star alongside Al Pacino in the commercial and critical disaster that was Revolution (1985). While it drove Al Pacino out of films for four years, Sutherland continued to find work. This work led to the dramatic, well-told story of apartheid A Dry White Season (1989) alongside the legendary actor Marlon Brando.
Sutherland's next big success came in the Oliver Stone film JFK (1991) where Sutherland plays the chilling role of Mister X, an anonymous source who gives crucial information about the politics surrounding President Kennedy. Once again, he was passed over at the Oscars, though Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for his performance as Clay Shaw. Sutherland went on to appear in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Shadow of the Wolf (1992), and Disclosure (1994).
The new millennium provided an interesting turn in Sutherland's career: reuniting with such former collaborators as Clint Eastwood and Tommy Lee Jones, Sutherland starred in Space Cowboys (2000). He also appeared as the father figure to Nicole Kidman's character in Cold Mountain (2003) and Charlize Theron's character in The Italian Job (2003). He has also made a fascinating, Oscar-worthy performance as the revolutionist Mr. Thorne in Land of the Blind (2006) and also as a judge in Reign Over Me (2007). Recently, he has joined forces with his son Rossif Sutherland and Canadian comic Russell Peters with the new comedy The Con Artist (2010), as well as acting alongside Jamie Bell and Channing Tatum in the sword-and-sandal film The Eagle (2011). Sutherland has also taken a role in the remake of Charles Bronson's film The Mechanic (1972).
Donald Sutherland has made a lasting legacy on Hollywood, whether portraying a chilling and horrifying villain, or playing the older respectable character in his films. A true character actor, Sutherland is one of Canada's most well-known names and will hopefully continue on being so long after his time.Easily one of the best actors to never receive an Oscar nomination.
Greats: M*A*S*H (1970) (1970)★; Klute (1971) (1971); Don't Look Now (1973) (1973); Ordinary People (1980) (1980)★; JFK (1991) (1991); Cold Mountain (2003) (2003)
Give It a Shot: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) (1978); Outbreak (1995) (1995); The Italian Job (2003) (2003); Reign Over Me (2007) (2007); The Hunger Games (2012) (2012)
Caution: National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) (1978); Backdraft (1991) (1991); Space Cowboys (2000) (2000); Horrible Bosses (2011) (2011)
Flops: Fool's Gold (2008) (2008)
Other Notable Film(s): The Dirty Dozen (1967) (1967); Kelly's Heroes (1970) (1970); Start the Revolution Without Me (1970) (1970); Johnny Got His Gun (1971) (1971); The Day of the Locust (1975) (1975); Fellini's Casanova (1976); 1900 (1976); The Eagle Has Landed (1976) (1976); The Great Train Robbery (1979); Murder by Decree (1979) (1979); Eye of the Needle (1981) (1981); Heaven Help Us (1985) (1985); Revolution (1985) (1985); A Dry White Season (1989) (1989); Lock Up (1989) (1989); Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992) (1992); Six Degrees of Separation (1993) (1993); The Puppet Masters (1994) (1994); Disclosure (1994) (1994); A Time to Kill (1996) (1996); The Assignment (1997) (1997); Fallen (1998) (1998); Without Limits (1998) (1998)✰; Instinct (1999) (1999); Panic (2000) (2000); The Art of War (2000) (2000); Pride & Prejudice (2005) (2005); Ask the Dust (2006) (2006); The Mechanic (2011) (2011); The Eagle (2011) (2011); Assassin's Bullet (2012) (2012); Dawn Rider (2012) (2012); The Best Offer (2013); Jappeloup (2013) (2013); The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) (2013); The Calling (2014) (2014); The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014) (2014); Forsaken (2015) (2015); The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) (2015); Milton's Secret (2016) (2016); Measure of a Man (2018) (2017); Basmati Blues (2017) (2017); The Leisure Seeker (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Kevin Spacey Fowler, better known by his stage name Kevin Spacey, is an American actor of screen and stage, film director, producer, screenwriter and singer. He began his career as a stage actor during the 1980s before obtaining supporting roles in film and television. He gained critical acclaim in the early 1990s that culminated in his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects (1995), and an Academy Award for Best Actor for midlife crisis-themed drama American Beauty (1999).
His other starring roles have included the comedy-drama film Swimming with Sharks (1994), psychological thriller Seven (1995), the neo-noir crime film L.A. Confidential (1997), the drama Pay It Forward (2000), the science fiction-mystery film K-PAX (2001)
In Broadway theatre, Spacey won a Tony Award for his role in Lost in Yonkers. He was the artistic director of the Old Vic theatre in London from 2004 until stepping down in mid-2015. Since 2013, Spacey has played Frank Underwood in the Netflix political drama series House of Cards. His work in House of Cards earned him Golden Globe Award and Emmy Award nominations for Best Actor.
As enigmatic as he is talented, Kevin Spacey for years kept the details of his private life closely guarded. As he explained in a 1998 interview with the London Evening Standard, "the less you know about me, the easier it is to convince you that I am that character on screen. It allows an audience to come into a movie theatre and believe I am that person". In October 2017, he ended many years of media speculation about his personal life by confirming that he had had sexual relations with both men and women but now identified as gay.
There are, however, certain biographical facts to be had - for starters, Kevin Spacey Fowler was the youngest of three children born to Kathleen Ann (Knutson) and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler, in South Orange, New Jersey. His ancestry includes Swedish (from his maternal grandfather) and English. His middle name, "Spacey," which he uses as his stage name, is from his paternal grandmother. His mother was a personal secretary, his father a technical writer whose irregular job prospects led the family all over the country. The family eventually settled in southern California, where young Kevin developed into quite a little hellion - after he set his sister's tree house on fire, he was shipped off to the Northridge Military Academy, only to be thrown out a few months later for pinging a classmate on the head with a tire. Spacey then found his way to Chatsworth High School in the San Fernando Valley, where he managed to channel his dramatic tendencies into a successful amateur acting career. In his senior year, he played "Captain von Trapp" opposite classmate Mare Winningham's "Maria" in "The Sound of Music" (the pair later graduated as co-valedictorians). Spacey claims that his interest in acting - and his nearly encyclopedic accumulation of film knowledge - began at an early age, when he would sneak downstairs to watch the late late show on TV. Later, in high school, he and his friends cut class to catch revival films at the NuArt Theater. The adolescent Spacey worked up celebrity impersonations (James Stewart and Johnny Carson were two of his favorites) to try out on the amateur comedy club circuit.
He briefly attended Los Angeles Valley College, then left (on the advice of another Chatsworth classmate, Val Kilmer) to join the drama program at Juilliard. After two years of training he was anxious to work, so he quit Juilliard sans diploma and signed up with the New York Shakespeare Festival. His first professional stage appearance was as a messenger in the 1981 production of "Henry VI".
Festival head Joseph Papp ushered the young actor out into the "real world" of theater, and the next year Spacey made his Broadway debut in Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts". He quickly proved himself as an energetic and versatile performer (at one point, he rotated through all the parts in David Rabe's "Hurlyburly"). In 1986, he had the chance to work with his idol and future mentor, Jack Lemmon, on a production of Eugene O'Neill's "Long Day's Journey Into Night". While his interest soon turned to film, Spacey would remain active in the theater community - in 1991, he won a Tony Award for his turn as "Uncle Louie" in Neil Simon's Broadway hit "Lost in Yonkers" and, in 1999, he returned to the boards for a revival of O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh".
Spacey's film career began modestly, with a small part as a subway thief in Heartburn (1986). Deemed more of a "character actor" than a "leading man", he stayed on the periphery in his next few films, but attracted attention for his turn as beady-eyed villain "Mel Profitt" on the TV series Wiseguy (1987). Profitt was the first in a long line of dark, manipulative characters that would eventually make Kevin Spacey a household name: he went on to play a sinister office manager in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992), a sadistic Hollywood exec in Swimming with Sharks (1994), and, most famously, creepy, smooth-talking eyewitness Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects (1995).
The "Suspects" role earned Spacey an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor and catapulted him into the limelight. That same year, he turned in another complex, eerie performance in David Fincher's thriller Se7en (1995) (Spacey refused billing on the film, fearing that it might compromise the ending if audiences were waiting for him to appear). By now, the scripts were pouring in. After appearing in Al Pacino's Looking for Richard (1996), Spacey made his own directorial debut with Albino Alligator (1996), a low-key but well received hostage drama. He then jumped back into acting, winning critical accolades for his turns as flashy detective Jack Vincennes in L.A. Confidential (1997) and genteel, closeted murder suspect Jim Williams in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997). In October 1999, just four days after the dark suburban comedy American Beauty (1999) opened in US theaters, Spacey received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Little did organizers know that his role in Beauty would turn out to be his biggest success yet - as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged corporate cog on the brink of psychological meltdown, he tapped into a funny, savage character that captured audiences' imaginations and earned him a Best Actor Oscar.
No longer relegated to offbeat supporting parts, Spacey seems poised to redefine himself as a Hollywood headliner. He says he's finished exploring the dark side - but, given his attraction to complex characters, that mischievous twinkle will never be too far from his eyes.
In February 2003 Spacey made a major move back to the theatre. He was appointed Artistic Director of the new company set up to save the famous Old Vic theatre, The Old Vic Theatre Company. Although he did not undertake to stop appearing in movies altogether, he undertook to remain in this leading post for ten years, and to act in as well as to direct plays during that time. His first production, of which he was the director, was the September 2004 British premiere of the play Cloaca by Maria Goos (made into a film, Cloaca (2003)). Spacey made his UK Shakespearean debut in the title role in Richard II in 2005. In 2006 he got movie director Robert Altman to direct for the stage the little-known Arthur Miller play Resurrection Blues, but that was a dismal failure. However Spacey remained optimistic, and insisted that a few mistakes are part of the learning process. He starred thereafter with great success in Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten along with Colm Meaney and Eve Best, and in 2007 that show transferred to Broadway. In February 2008 Spacey put on a revival of the David Mamet 1988 play Speed-the-Plow in which he took one of the three roles, the others being taken by Jeff Goldblum and Laura Michelle Kelly.
In 2013, Spacey took on the lead role in an original Netflix series, House of Cards (2013). Based upon a British show of the same name, House of Cards is an American political drama. The show's first season received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination to include Outstanding lead actor in a drama series. In 2017, he played a memorable role as a villain in the action thriller Baby Driver (2017).Greats: Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) (1992); The Usual Suspects (1995) (1995)★; Se7en (1995) (1995)★; L.A. Confidential (1997) (1997); American Beauty (1999) (1999)★
Give It a Shot: Working Girl (1988) (1988); Outbreak (1995) (1995); The Negotiator (1998) (1998); A Bug's Life (1998) [voice] (1998); Margin Call (2011) (2011); Baby Driver (2017) (2017)
Caution: See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989) (1989); The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) (2009); Horrible Bosses (2011) (2011); Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) (2014)
Other Notable Film(s): Heartburn (1986) (1986); Rocket Gibraltar (1988) (1988); Dad (1989) (1989); A Show of Force (1990) (1990); Henry & June (1990) (1990); Consenting Adults (1992) (1992); Iron Will (1994) (1994); The Ref (1994) (1994); Swimming with Sharks (1994) (1994); A Time to Kill (1996) (1996); Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997) (1997); Hurlyburly (1998) (1998); The Big Kahuna (1999) (1999); Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000) (2000); Pay It Forward (2000) (2000); K-PAX (2001) (2001); The Shipping News (2001) (2001)✰; The United States of Leland (2003) (2003); The Life of David Gale (2003) (2003); Beyond the Sea (2004) (2004)✰; Edison (2005) (2005); Superman Returns (2006) (2006); Fred Claus (2007) (2007); 21 (2008) (2008); Telstar: The Joe Meek Story (2008) (2008); Recount (2008) [TV] (2008)✰; Shrink (2009) (2009); Moon (2009) [voice] (2009); Father of Invention (2010) (2010); Casino Jack (2010) (2010)✰; Inseparable (2011) (2012*); House of Cards (2013) [TV series] (2013-2017)✰; Elvis & Nixon (2016) (2016); Nine Lives (2016) (2016); Rebel in the Rye (2017) (2017); Billionaire Boys Club (2018) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Joaquin Phoenix was born Joaquin Rafael Bottom in San Juan, Puerto Rico, to Arlyn (Dunetz) and John Bottom, and is the middle child in a brood of five. His parents, from the continental United States, were then serving as Children of God missionaries. His mother is from a Jewish family from New York, while his father, from California, is of mostly British Isles descent. As a youngster, Joaquin took his cues from older siblings River Phoenix and Rain Phoenix, changing his name to Leaf to match their earthier monikers. When the children were encouraged to develop their creative instincts, he followed their lead into acting. Younger sisters Liberty Phoenix and Summer Phoenix rounded out the talented troupe.
The family moved often, traveling through Central and South America (and adopting the surname "Phoenix" to celebrate their new beginnings) but, by the time Joaquin was age 6, they had more or less settled in the Los Angeles area. Arlyn found work as a secretary at NBC, and John turned his talents to landscaping. They eventually found an agent who was willing to represent all five children, and the younger generation dove into television work. Commercials for meat, milk, and junk food were off-limits (the kids were all raised as strict vegans), but they managed to find plenty of work pushing other products. Joaquin's first real acting gig was a guest appearance on River's sitcom, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1982).
He worked with his brother again on the afterschool special Backwards: The Riddle of Dyslexia (1984), then struck out on his own in other made-for-TV productions. He made his big-screen debut as the youngest crew member in the interstellar romp SpaceCamp (1986), then won his first starring turn in the Cold War-era drama Russkies (1987). In the late '80s, the Phoenix clan decided to pull up stakes and relocate again--this time to Florida. River's film career had enough momentum to sustain the move, but Joaquin wasn't sure what lay in store for him in the Sunshine State. As it happened, Universal Pictures had just opened a new studio in the area and he was cast almost immediately as an angst-ridden adolescent in Parenthood (1989). His performance was very well-received, but Joaquin decided to withdraw from acting for a while--he was frustrated with the dearth of interesting roles for actors his age, and he wanted to see more of the world.
His parents were in the process of separating, so he struck out for Mexico with his father. Joaquin returned to the public eye three years later under tragic circumstances. On October 31, 1993, he was at The Viper Room (a Los Angeles nightclub partly-owned by Johnny Depp) when his brother River collapsed from a drug overdose and later died. Joaquin made the call to 911, which was rebroadcast on radio and television the world over. Months later, at the insistence of friends and colleagues, Joaquin began reading through scripts again, but he was reluctant to re-enter the acting life until he found just the right part. He finally signed up to work with Gus Van Sant (who had directed River in My Own Private Idaho (1991) and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993)) to star as Nicole Kidman's obsessive devotee in To Die For (1995). The performance made Joaquin (who had dropped Leaf and reverted to his birth name) a critics' darling in his own right.
His follow-up turn in Inventing the Abbotts (1997) scored more critical kudos and, perhaps more importantly, introduced him to his one-time fiancée Liv Tyler. (The pair dated for almost three years.) He returned to the big screen later that year with a supporting role in Oliver Stone's U Turn (1997), then played a locked-up drug scapegoat in Return to Paradise (1998). He and "Paradise" co-star Vince Vaughn re-teamed almost immediately for the small-town murder caper Clay Pigeons (1998), which Joaquin followed with a turn as a porn store clerk in 8MM (1999). The film that confirmed Phoenix as a star was the historical epic Gladiator (2000). The Roman epic cast him as the selfish, paranoid young emperor Commodus opposite Russell Crowe's swarthy hero. Determined to make his character as real as possible, Phoenix gained weight and cultivated a pasty complexion during the shoot. He received international attention and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for that role.
Later that year, he appeared in two indies, playing a dock worker in The Yards (2000) (which he counts among his favorite experiences--and one of the only films of his that he can sit through) and the priest in charge of the Marquis de Sade's asylum in Quills (2000). He received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor as the legendary musician Johnny Cash in the biography Walk the Line (2005). He also recorded an album, the film's soundtrack, for which he received the Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media.Greats: Gladiator (2000) (2000)★; Hotel Rwanda (2004) (2004); Walk the Line (2005) (2005)★; The Master (2012) (2012)★; Her (2013) (2013)★
Give It a Shot: Parenthood (1989) (1989); The Yards (2000) (1999); Signs (2002) (2002); Inherent Vice (2014) (2014)✰; Joker (2019)★
Caution: We Own the Night (2007) (2007)
Other Notable Film(s): SpaceCamp (1986) (1986); Russkies (1987) (1987); To Die For (1995) (1995); Inventing the Abbotts (1997) (1997); U Turn (1997) (1997); Return to Paradise (1998) (1998); Clay Pigeons (1998) (1998); 8MM (1999) (1999); Quills (2000) (2000); Buffalo Soldiers (2001) (2001); It's All About Love (2003) (2003); Brother Bear (2003) [voice] (2003); The Village (2004) (2004); Ladder 49 (2004) (2004); Reservation Road (2007) (2007); Two Lovers (2008) (2008); The Immigrant (2013) (2012); Irrational Man (2015) (2015); You Were Never Really Here (2017)✰- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Famed actor, composer, artist, author and director. His talents extended to the authoring of the novel "Mr. Cartonwine: A Moral Tale" as well as his autobiography. In 1944, he joined ASCAP, and composed "Russian Dances", "Partita", "Ballet Viennois", "The Woodman and the Elves", "Behind the Horizon", "Fugue Fantasia", "In Memorium", "Hallowe'en", "Preludium & Fugue", "Elegie for Oboe, Orch.", "Farewell Symphony (1-act opera)", "Elegie (piano pieces)", "Rondo for Piano" and "Scherzo Grotesque".One of the most respected supporting actors in the history of cinema along with Walter Brennan and Claude Rains.
Greats: Captains Courageous (1937) (1937); You Can't Take It with You (1938) (1938); A Guy Named Joe (1943) (1943); Since You Went Away (1944) (1944); It's a Wonderful Life (1946) (1946)★
Give It a Shot: Dinner at Eight (1933) (1933); Test Pilot (1938) (1938)
Other Notable Film(s): Sadie Thompson (1928) (1928); A Free Soul (1931) (1931)✰; Grand Hotel (1932) (1932); Treasure Island (1934) (1934); David Copperfield (1935); Mark of the Vampire (1935) (1935); Camille (1936) (1936); The Devil-Doll (1936) (1936); On Borrowed Time (1939) (1939); The Valley of Decision (1945) (1945); Duel in the Sun (1946) (1946); Key Largo (1948) (1948)- Actor
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- Soundtrack
Born to a Czech mother and a Serbian father in Chicago as Mladen Sekulovich, on March 22, 1912, Karl Malden did not speak English until he was in kindergarten. After graduating from high school in the nearby steel town of Gary, Indiana, Malden worked in the industry for three years until 1934, when he was frustrated with the drudgery of manual labor. He left to attend the Arkansas State Teacher's College, then the Goodman Theater Dramatic School and never looked back. Three years later, he went to New York City to find fame.
Malden rapidly became involved with the Group Theater, an organization of actors and directors who were changing the face of theater, where he attracted the attention of director Elia Kazan. With Kazan directing, Karl starred in plays such as "All My Sons" by Arthur Miller and "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennessee Williams. While Malden had one screen appearance before his military service in World War II, in They Knew What They Wanted (1940), he did not establish his film career until after the war. Malden won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor as Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and showed his range as an actor in roles such as that of Father Corrigan in On the Waterfront (1954) and the lecherous Archie Lee in Baby Doll (1956).
He starred in dozens of films such as Fear Strikes Out (1957), Pollyanna (1960), Birdman of Alcatraz (1962), Gypsy (1962), How the West Was Won (1962), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and Patton (1970) as General Omar Bradley. In the early 1970s, he built a television career on the tough but honest screen persona he had created when he starred as Detective Mike Stone on The Streets of San Francisco (1972), co-starring with Michael Douglas. He also became the pitchman for American Express, a position he held for 21 years. In 1988, he was elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a position he held for five years. Following that he, published his memoir entitled, "When Do I Start?: A Memoir", written with his daughter Carla.
Malden also courted controversy by pushing for a special salute to Elia Kazan at the 1999 Academy Awards. Malden defended both Kazan and the award, arguing that Kazan's artistic achievements outshone any shame attached to Kazan's naming names before the Congressional committee investigating Communists in Hollywood. Marlon Brando refused to give Kazan the statuette; Robert De Niro ultimately did. Karl Malden died at age 97 of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles on July 1, 2009. He was buried at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California.Greats: A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) (1951)★; I Confess (1953) (1953); On the Waterfront (1954) (1954)★; Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) (1962)★; Patton (1970) (1970)
Give It a Shot: The Cincinnati Kid (1965) (1965)
Other Notable Film(s): Kiss of Death (1947) (1947); The Gunfighter (1950) (1950); Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950) (1950); Halls of Montezuma (1951) (1950); Ruby Gentry (1952) (1952); Take the High Ground! (1953) (1953); Baby Doll (1956) (1956)✰; Fear Strikes Out (1957) (1957); The Hanging Tree (1959) (1959); Pollyanna (1960) (1960); The Great Impostor (1960) (1961); One-Eyed Jacks (1961) (1961); All Fall Down (1962) (1962); Gypsy (1962) (1962)✰; How the West Was Won (1962) (1962); Dead Ringer (1963) (1964); Cheyenne Autumn (1964) (1964); Nevada Smith (1966) (1966); Murderers' Row (1966) (1966); Billion Dollar Brain (1967) (1967); Blue (1968) (1968); Hot Millions (1968) (1968); The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971); Wild Rovers (1971) (1971); The Streets of San Francisco (1972) [TV series] (1972-1976)✰; Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979) (1979); Meteor (1979) (1979); The Sting II (1983) (1983); Nuts (1987) (1987)- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
William Claude Rains, born in the Clapham area of London, was the son of the British stage actor Frederick Rains. The younger Rains followed, making his stage debut at the age of eleven in "Nell of Old Drury." Growing up in the world of theater, he saw not only acting up close but the down-to-earth business end as well, progressing from a page boy to a stage manager during his well-rounded learning experience. Rains decided to come to America in 1913 and the New York theater, but with the outbreak of World War I the next year, he returned to serve with a Scottish regiment in Europe. He remained in England, honing his acting talents, bolstered with instruction patronized by the founder of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Herbert Beerbohm Tree. It was not long before his talent garnered him acknowledgment as one of the leading stage actors on the London scene. His one and only silent film venture was British with a small part for him, the forgettable -- Build Thy House (1920).
In the meantime, Rains was in demand as acting teacher as well, and he taught at the Royal Academy. Young and eager Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud were perhaps his best known students. Rains did return to New York in 1927 to begin what would be nearly 20 Broadway roles. While working for the Theater Guild, he was offered a screen test with Universal Pictures in 1932. Rains had a unique and solid British voice-deep, slightly rasping -- but richly dynamic. And as a man of small stature, the combination was immediately intriguing. Universal was embarking on its new-found role as horror film factory, and they were looking for someone unique for their next outing, The Invisible Man (1933). Rains was the very man. He took the role by the ears, churning up a rasping malice and volume in his voice to achieve a bone chilling persona of the disembodied mad doctor. He could also throw out a high-pitched maniac laugh that would make you leave the lights on before going to bed. True to Universal's formula mentality, it cast him in similar roles through 1934 with some respite in more diverse film roles -- and further relieved by Broadway roles (1933, 1934) for the remainder of his contract. By 1936, he was at Warner Bros. with its ambitious laundry list of literary epics in full swing. His acting was superb, and his eyes could say as much as his voice. And his mouth could take on both a forbidding scowl and the warmest of smiles in an instant. His malicious, gouty Don Luis in Anthony Adverse (1936) was inspired. After a shear lucky opportunity to dispatch his young wife's lover, Louis Hayward, in a duel, he triumphs over her in a scene with derisive, bulging eyes and that high pitched laugh -- with appropriate shadow and light backdrop -- that is unforgettable.
He was kept very busy through the remainder of the 1930s with a mix of benign and devious historical, literary, and contemporary characters always adapting a different nuance -- from murmur to growl -- of that voice to become the person. He culminated the decade with his complex, ethics-tortured Senator "Joe" Paine in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). That year he became an American citizen. Into the 1940s, Rains had risen to perhaps unique stature: a supporting actor who had achieved A-list stardom -- almost in a category by himself. His some 40 films during that period ranged from subtle comedy to psychological drama with a bit of horror revisited; many would be golden era classics. He was the firm but thoroughly sympathetic Dr. Jaquith in Now, Voyager (1942) and the smoothly sardonic but engaging Capt. Louis Renault -- perhaps his best known role -- in Casablanca (1942). He was the surreptitiously nervous and malignant Alexander Sebastian in Notorious (1946) and the egotistical and domineering conductor Alexander Hollenius in Deception (1946). He was the disfigured Phantom of the Opera (1943) as well. He played opposite the challenging Bette Davis in three movies through the decade and came out her equal in acting virtuosity. He was nominated four times for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar -- but incredibly never won. With the 1950s the few movies left to an older Rains were countered by venturing into new acting territory -- television. His haunted, suicidal writer Paul DeLambre in the mountaineering adventure The White Tower (1950), though a modest part, was perhaps the most vigorously memorable film role of his last years. He made a triumphant Broadway return in 1951's "Darkness at Noon."
Rains embraced the innovative TV playhouse circuit with nearly 20 roles. As a favored 'Alfred Hitchcock' alumnus, he starred in five Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) suspense dramas into the 1960s. And he did not shy away from episodic TV either with some memorable roles that still reflected the power of Claude Rains as consummate actor -- for many, first among peers with that hallowed title.One of the most respected supporting actors in the history of cinema along with Lionel Barrymore and Walter Brennan.
Greats: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939) (1939)★; Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941) (1941); Casablanca (1942) (1943)★; Notorious (1946) (1946)★; Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (1962)
Other Notable Film(s): The Invisible Man (1933) (1933); Anthony Adverse (1936) (1936); The Prince and the Pauper (1937) (1937); They Won't Forget (1937) (1937); The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) (1938); Four Daughters (1938) (1938); They Made Me a Criminal (1939) (1939); Juarez (1939) (1939); The Sea Hawk (1940) (1940); The Wolf Man (1941) (1941); Kings Row (1942) (1942); Moontide (1942) (1942); Now, Voyager (1942) (1942); Phantom of the Opera (1943) (1943); Passage to Marseille (1944) (1944); Mr. Skeffington (1944) (1944)✰; Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) (1945); Angel on My Shoulder (1946) (1946); Deception (1946) (1946); The Unsuspected (1947) (1947); The Passionate Friends (1949) (1949); Where Danger Lives (1950) (1950); The Lost World (1960) (1960); The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) (1965)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent, respectively. He was educated at Stonyhurst (a highly esteemed Jesuit college in England) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). His first appearance on stage was in 1926. Laughton formed own film company, Mayflower Pictures Corp., with Erich Pommer, in 1937. He became an American citizen 1950. A consummate artist, Laughton achieved great success on stage and film, with many staged readings (particularly of George Bernard Shaw) to his credit. Laughton died in Hollywood, California, aged 63."He was probably the greatest film actor who came from that period of time. He had something quite remarkable. His generosity as an actor, he fed himself into that work. As an actor, you cannot take your eyes off him." ~ Daniel Day-Lewis
Greats: Witness for the Prosecution (1957) (1957)★; Spartacus (1960) (1960)
Other Notable Film(s): If I Had a Million (1932) (1932); Island of Lost Souls (1932) (1932); The Old Dark House (1932) (1932); The Sign of the Cross (1932) (1932); The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) (1933)✰; The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) (1934); Ruggles of Red Gap (1935) (1935); Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) (1935)✰; Les Misérables (1935); Rembrandt (1936) (1936); The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) (1939); Jamaica Inn (1939) (1939); It Started with Eve (1941) (1941); Tales of Manhattan (1942) (1942); This Land Is Mine (1943) (1943); The Canterville Ghost (1944) (1944); Captain Kidd (1945) (1945); The Paradine Case (1947) (1947); The Big Clock (1948) (1948); Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952) (1952); Young Bess (1953) (1953); Hobson's Choice (1954) (1954); Advise & Consent (1962) (1962)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history.
Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences.
With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986); The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996), for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise.
In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever.Greats: Rain Man (1988) (1988); Born on the Fourth of July (1989) (1989)★; Magnolia (1999) (1999)★
Give It a Shot: The Outsiders (1983) (1983); Risky Business (1983) (1983)✰; The Color of Money (1986) (1986); A Few Good Men (1992) (1992)✰; Mission: Impossible (1996) (1996); Jerry Maguire (1996) (1996)★; Eyes Wide Shut (1999) (1999); Minority Report (2002) (2002); The Last Samurai (2003) (2003)✰; Collateral (2004) (2004); Tropic Thunder (2008) (2008)★
Caution: All the Right Moves (1983) (1983); Top Gun (1986) (1986); Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) (1994); Mission: Impossible II (2000) (2000); Vanilla Sky (2001) (2001); War of the Worlds (2005) (2005); Jack Reacher (2012) (2012)
Flops: Lions for Lambs (2007) (2007)
Other Notable Film(s): Taps (1981) (1981); Losin' It (1982) (1983); Legend (1985) (1985); Cocktail (1988) (1988); Days of Thunder (1990) (1990); Far and Away (1992) (1992); The Firm (1993) (1993); Mission: Impossible III (2006) (2006); Valkyrie (2008) (2008); Knight and Day (2010) (2010); Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (2011) (2011); Rock of Ages (2012) (2012); Oblivion (2013) (2013); Edge of Tomorrow (2014) (2014); Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015) (2015); American Made (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Exotic leading man of American films, famed as much for his completely bald head as for his performances, Yul Brynner masked much of his life in mystery and outright lies designed to tease people he considered gullible. It was not until the publication of the books "Yul: The Man Who Would Be King" and "Empire and Odyssey" by his son, Yul "Rock" Brynner, that many of the details of Brynner's early life became clear.
Yul sometimes claimed to be a half-Swiss, half-Japanese named Taidje Khan, born on the island of Sakhalin; in reality, he was the son of Marousia Dimitrievna (Blagovidova), the Russian daughter of a doctor, and Boris Yuliyevich Bryner, an engineer and inventor of Swiss-German and Russian descent. He was born in their home town of Vladivostok on 11 July 1920 and named Yuli after his grandfather, Jules Bryner. When Yuli's father abandoned the family, his mother took him and his sister Vera to Harbin, Manchuria, where they attended a YMCA school. In 1934 Yuli's mother took her children to Paris. Her son was sent to the exclusive Lycée Moncelle, but his attendance was spotty. He dropped out and became a musician, playing guitar in the nightclubs among the Russian gypsies who gave him his first real sense of family. He met luminaries such as Jean Cocteau and became an apprentice at the Theatre des Mathurins. He worked as a trapeze artist with the famed Cirque d'Hiver company.
He traveled to the U.S. in 1941 to study with acting teacher Michael Chekhov and toured the country with Chekhov's theatrical troupe. That same year, he debuted in New York as Fabian in "Twelfth Night" (billed as Youl Bryner). After working in a very early TV series, Mr. Jones and His Neighbors (1944), he played on Broadway in "Lute Song" with Mary Martin, winning awards and mild acclaim. He and his wife, actress Virginia Gilmore, starred in the first TV talk show, Mr. and Mrs. (1948). Brynner then joined CBS as a television director. He made his film debut in Port of New York (1949). Two years later Mary Martin recommended him for the part he would forever be known for: the King in Richard Rodgers' and Oscar Hammerstein II's musical "The King and I". Brynner became an immediate sensation in the role, repeating it for film (The King and I (1956)) and winning the Oscar for Best Actor.
For the next two decades, he maintained a starring film career despite the exotic nature of his persona, performing in a wide range of roles from Egyptian pharaohs to Western gunfighters, almost all with the same shaved head and indefinable accent. In the 1970s he returned to the role that had made him a star, and spent most of the rest of his life touring the world in "The King and I". When he developed lung cancer in the mid 1980s, he left a powerful public service announcement denouncing smoking as the cause, for broadcast after his death. The cancer and its complications, after a long illness, ended his life. Brynner was cremated and his ashes buried in a remote part of France, on the grounds of the Abbey of Saint-Michel de Bois Aubry, a short distance outside the village of Luzé. He remains one of the most fascinating, unusual and beloved stars of his time.Greats: The King and I (1956) (1956)★; The Magnificent Seven (1960) (1960)
Give It a Shot: Anastasia (1956) (1956)
Other Notable Film(s): The Ten Commandments (1956) (1956); The Brothers Karamazov (1958) (1958); The Buccaneer (1958) (1958); Solomon and Sheba (1959) (1959); Taras Bulba (1962) (1962); Morituri (1965) (1965); Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) (1966); Return of the Seven (1966) (1966); Triple Cross (1966) (1966); The Battle on the River Neretva (1969); Westworld (1973) (1973); Futureworld (1976) (1976)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Russell Ira Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand, to Jocelyn Yvonne (Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom catered movie sets. His maternal grandfather, Stanley Wemyss, was a cinematographer. Crowe's recent ancestry includes Welsh (where his paternal grandfather was born, in Wrexham), English, Irish, Scottish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, and Maori (one of Crowe's maternal great-grandmothers, Erana Putiputi Hayes Heihi, was Maori).
Crowe's family moved to Australia when he was a small child, settling in Sydney, and Russell got the acting bug early in life. Beginning as a child star on a local Australian TV show, Russell's first big break came with two films ... the first, Romper Stomper (1992), gained him a name throughout the film community in Australia and the neighboring countries. The second, The Sum of Us (1994), helped put him on the American map, so to speak. Sharon Stone heard of him from Romper Stomper (1992) and wanted him for her film, The Quick and the Dead (1995). But filming on The Sum of Us (1994) had already begun. Sharon is reported to have held up shooting until she had her gunslinger-Crowe, for her film. With The Quick and the Dead (1995) under his belt as his first American film, the second was offered to him soon after. Virtuosity (1995), starring Denzel Washington, put Russell in the body of a Virtual Serial Killer, Sid6.7 ... a role unlike any he had played so far. Virtuosity (1995), a Sci-Fi extravaganza, was a fun film and, again, opened the door to even more American offers. L.A. Confidential (1997), Russell's third American film, brought him the US fame and attention that his fans have felt he deserved all along. Missing the Oscar nod this time around, he didn't seem deterred and signed to do his first film with The Walt Disney Company, Mystery, Alaska (1999). He achieved even more success and awards for his performances in Gladiator (2000), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, and A Beautiful Mind (2001).Greats: L.A. Confidential (1997) (1997); The Insider (1999) (1999)★; Gladiator (2000) (2000)★; A Beautiful Mind (2001) (2001)★
Give It a Shot: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) (2003)✰; 3:10 to Yuma (2007) (2007); American Gangster (2007) (2007); Body of Lies (2008) (2008); The Nice Guys (2016) (2016)
Caution: The Man with the Iron Fists (2012) (2012)
Other Notable Film(s): The Crossing (1990) (1990); Proof (1991) (1991); The Efficiency Expert (1992); Romper Stomper (1992) (1992); For the Moment (1993) (1993); The Sum of Us (1994) (1994); The Quick and the Dead (1995) (1995); No Way Back (1995) (1995); Virtuosity (1995) (1995); Rough Magic (1995) (1995); Heaven's Burning (1997) (1997); Breaking Up (1997) (1997); Mystery, Alaska (1999) (1999); Proof of Life (2000) (2000); Cinderella Man (2005) (2005)✰; A Good Year (2006) (2006); State of Play (2009) (2009); Tenderness (2009) (2009); Robin Hood (2010) (2010); The Next Three Days (2010) (2010); Les Misérables (2012) (2012); Broken City (2013) (2013); Man of Steel (2013) (2013); Winter's Tale (2014) (2014); Noah (2014) (2014); The Water Diviner (2014) (2014); Fathers & Daughters (2015) (2016); The Mummy (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Ben Kingsley was born Krishna Bhanji on December 31, 1943 in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England. His father, Rahimtulla Harji Bhanji, was a Kenyan-born medical doctor, of Gujarati Indian descent, and his mother, Anna Lyna Mary (Goodman), was an English actress. Ben began to act in stage plays during the 1960s. He soon became a successful stage actor, and also began to have roles in films and television. His birth name was Krishna Bhanji, but he changed his name to "Ben Kingsley" soon after gaining fame as a stage actor, fearing that a foreign name could hamper his acting career.
Kingsley first earned international fame for his performance in the drama movie Gandhi (1982). His performance as Mohandas K. Gandhi earned him international fame. He won many awards - including an Academy Award for Best Actor. He also won Golden Globe, BAFTA and London Film Critics' Circle Awards. After acting in Gandhi (1982), Ben was recognized as one of the finest British actors.
After his international fame for appearing in Gandhi (1982), Kingsley appeared in many other famous movies. His success as an actor continued. His performance as Itzhak Stern in the drama movie Schindler's List (1993) earned him a BAFTA nomination for best supporting actor. Schindler's List (1993) won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture. During the late 1990s, Kingsley acted in many successful movies. He played Sweeney Todd in the television movie The Tale of Sweeney Todd (1997), for which he was nominated for the Screen Actors' Guild Award. His other notable role was as Otto Frank in the television movie Anne Frank: The Whole Story (2001), for which he won the Screen Actors' Guild Award.
In 2002, Kingsley was appointed Knight Bachelor of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's New Years Honours for his services to drama. In 2013, he received the BAFTA Los Angeles Britannia Award for Worldwide Contribution to Filmed Entertainment. That same year, he also received the Fellowship Award at the Asian Awards in London, England.Greats: Gandhi (1982) (1982)★; Bugsy (1991) (1991)★; Schindler's List (1993) (1993)★; Hugo (2011) (2011)★
Give It a Shot: Dave (1993) (1993); Sexy Beast (2000) (2000)★; House of Sand and Fog (2003) (2003)★; Lucky Number Slevin (2006) (2006); Shutter Island (2010) (2010)
Caution: You Kill Me (2007) (2007)
Flops: Iron Man 3 (2013) (2013)
Other Notable Film(s): Betrayal (1983) (1983); Maurice (1987) (1987); Without a Clue (1988) (1988); Sneakers (1992) (1992); Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) (1993); Death and the Maiden (1994) (1994); Death and the Maiden (1994) (1994); Species (1995) (1995); Twelfth Night (1996) (1996); The Assignment (1997) (1997); Photographing Fairies (1997) (1997); The Confession (1999) (1999); What Planet Are You From? (2000) (2000); Rules of Engagement (2000) (2000); The Triumph of Love (2001) (2001); Tuck Everlasting (2002) (2002); Thunderbirds (2004) (2004); Suspect Zero (2004) (2004); A Sound of Thunder (2005) (2005); BloodRayne (2005) (2005); Oliver Twist (2005) (2005); The Last Legion (2007) (2007); The Wackness (2008) (2008); Elegy (2008) (2008); Transsiberian (2008) (2008); The Love Guru (2008) (2008); War, Inc. (2008) (2008); Fifty Dead Men Walking (2008) (2008); Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) (2010); The Dictator (2012) (2012); A Birder's Guide to Everything (2013) (2013); A Common Man (2013) (2013); Walking with the Enemy (2013) (2013); Ender's Game (2013) (2013); The Physician (2013) (2013); War Story (2014) (2014); Stonehearst Asylum (2014); The Boxtrolls (2014) [voice] (2014); Learning to Drive (2014) (2014); Robot Overlords (2014) (2014); Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) (2014); Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (2014) (2014); Life (2015) (2015); Self/less (2015) (2015); The Walk (2015) (2015); An Ordinary Man (2017) (2016); Of Dogs and Men (2016) [voice] (2016); Collide (2016) (2016); The Jungle Book (2016) [voice] (2016); Security (2017) (2017); The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017) (2017); War Machine (2017) (2017); Backstabbing for Beginners (2018) (2017)- Producer
- Actor
- Director
Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of drunkenness. However, as a high school student, he had displayed a certain aptitude as a caricaturist and this contributed to his decision to seriously study art. Redford then enjoyed a year-long sojourn travelling around Europe, hitchhiking, living in youth hostels and generally living the painter's life. Eventually, he came to realise that his work was unoriginal and not very good. He therefore returned to New York to pursue studies in theatrical design at the Pratt Institute of Art. He subsequently enrolled in acting classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
By the end of 1960, he was on Broadway in a series of plays including Barefoot in the Park, which launched him to fame. TV and stage experience coupled with all-American good looks led to movies and a breakthrough role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), when the actor was 33. The Way We Were (1973) and The Sting (1973), both in 1973, made Redford No. 1 at the box office for the next three years. Redford used his clout to advance environmental causes and his riches to acquire Utah property, which he transformed into a ranch and the Sundance ski resort. In 1980, he established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers. Its annual film festival has become one of the world's most influential. Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won him the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981. He waited eight years before getting behind the camera again, this time for the screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest, The Milagro Beanfield War (1988). He scored with critics and fans in 1992 with the Brad Pitt film A River Runs Through It (1992), and again, in 1994, with Quiz Show (1994), which earned him yet another Best Director nomination.
Redford married Lola Van Wagenen on August 9, 1958; they divorced in 1985 after having four children, one of which died of sudden infant death syndrome. Daughter Shauna Redford, born November 15, 1960, is a painter who married Eric Schlosser on October 5, 1985, in Provo, Utah; her first child, born in January 1991, made Redford a grandfather. Son James Redford, a screenwriter, was born May 5, 1962. Daughter Amy Redford, an actress, was born October 22, 1970. Redford has a half-brother named William, who worked in medical research.Greats: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) (1969); The Sting (1973) (1973)★; All the President's Men (1976) (1976)
Give It a Shot: The Great Gatsby (1974) (1974); The Natural (1984) (1984); Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) (2014)
Caution: Out of Africa (1985) (1985)
Flops: Lions for Lambs (2007) (2007)
Other Notable Film(s): Inside Daisy Clover (1965) (1965)✰; This Property Is Condemned (1966) (1966); The Chase (1966) (1966); Barefoot in the Park (1967) (1967); Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here (1969) (1969); Downhill Racer (1969) (1969); Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970) (1970); The Hot Rock (1972) (1972); The Candidate (1972) (1972); Jeremiah Johnson (1972) (1972); The Way We Were (1973) (1973); Three Days of the Condor (1975) (1975); The Great Waldo Pepper (1975) (1975); A Bridge Too Far (1977) (1977); The Electric Horseman (1979) (1979); Brubaker (1980) (1980); Legal Eagles (1986) (1986); Havana (1990) (1990); Sneakers (1992) (1992); Indecent Proposal (1993) (1993); Up Close & Personal (1996) (1996); The Horse Whisperer (1998) (1998); The Last Castle (2001) (2001); Spy Game (2001) (2001); The Clearing (2004) (2004); An Unfinished Life (2005) (2005); Charlotte's Web (2006) [voice] (2006); The Company You Keep (2012) (2012); All Is Lost (2013) (2013) ✰; A Walk in the Woods (2015) (2015); Truth (2015) (2015); Pete's Dragon (2016) (2016); Our Souls at Night (2017) (2017); The Discovery (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Marcello Mastroianni was born in Fontana Liri, Italy in 1924, but soon his family moved to Turin and then Rome. During WW2 he was sent to a German prison camp, but he managed to escape and hide in Venice. He debuted in films as an extra in Marionette (1939), then started working for the Italian department of "Eagle Lion Films" in Rome and joined a drama club, where he was discovered by director Luchino Visconti. In 1957 Visconti gave him the starring part in his Fyodor Dostoevsky adaptation White Nights (1957) and in 1958 he was fine as a little thief in Mario Monicelli's comedy Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958). But his real breakthrough came in 1960, when Federico Fellini cast him as an attractive, weary-eyed journalist of the Rome jet-set in La Dolce Vita (1960); that film was the genesis of his "Latin lover" persona, which Mastroianni himself often denied by accepting parts of passive and sensitive men. He would again work with Fellini in several major films, like the exquisite 8½ (1963) (as a movie director who finds himself at a point of crisis) and the touching Ginger & Fred (1986) (as an old entertainer who appears in a TV show). He also appeared as a tired novelist with marital problems in Michelangelo Antonioni's La Notte (1961), as an impotent young man in Mauro Bolognini's Bell' Antonio (1960) , as an exiled prince in John Boorman's Leo the Last (1970), as a traitor in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's Allonsanfan (1974) and as a sensitive homosexual in love with a housewife in Ettore Scola's A Special Day (1977). He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, for Divorce Italian Style (1961), A Special Day (1977), and Oci ciornie (1987). During the last decade of his life he worked with directors, like Theodoros Angelopoulos, Bertrand Blier and Raúl Ruiz, who gave him three excellent parts in Three Lives and Only One Death (1996). He died of pancreatic cancer in 1996.Greats: La Dolce Vita (1960); 8½ (1963) (1963)
Other Notable Film(s): Le Notti Bianche (1957); Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958); Bell' Antonio (1960); Divorce Italian Style (1961)✰; La Notte (1961); A Very Private Affair (1962); The Organizer (1963); Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (1963); Marriage Italian Style (1964)✰; The 10th Victim (1965); Casanova 70 (1965); The Stranger (1967); Sunflower (1970); What? (1972); The Big Feast (1973); A Special Day (1977)✰; City of Women (1980); The Night of Varennes (1982); Ginger and Fred (1986); The Beekeeper (1986); Dark Eyes (1987)✰; Everybody's Fine (1990); Used People (1992) (1992)✰; Ready to Wear (1994) (1994); One Hundred and One Nights (1995); According to Pereira (1995); Beyond the Clouds (1995); Three Lives and Only One Death (1996); Voyage to the Beginning of the World (1997)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Omar Sharif, the Egyptian actor best known for playing Sherif Ali in Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and the title role in Doctor Zhivago (1965), was born Michel Demitri Shalhoub on April 10, 1932 in Alexandria, Egypt to Joseph Shalhoub, a lumber merchant, and his wife, Claire (Saada). Of Lebanese and Syrian extraction, the young Michel was raised Catholic. He was educated at Victoria College in Alexandria and took a degree in mathematics and physics from Cairo University with a major. Afterward graduating from university, he entered the family lumber business.
Before making his English-language film debut with "Lawrence of Arabia", for which he earned a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination and international fame, Sharif became a star in Egyptian cinema. His first movie was the Egyptian film The Blazing Sun (1954) ("The Blazing Sun") in 1953, opposite the renowned Egyptian actress Faten Hamamah whom he married in 1955. He converted to Islam to marry Hamama and took the name Omar al-Sharif. The couple had one child (Tarek Sharif, who was born in 1957 and portrayed the young Zhivago in the eponymous picture) and divorced in 1974. Sharif never remarried.
Beginning in the 1960s, Sharif earned a reputation as one of the world's best known contract bridge players. In the 1970s and 1980s, he co-wrote a syndicated newspaper bridge column for the Chicago Tribune. Sharif also wrote several books on bridge and has licensed his name to a bridge computer game, "Omar Sharif Bridge", which has been marketed since 1992. Sharif told the press in 2006 that he no longer played bridge, explaining, "I decided I didn't want to be a slave to any passion any more except for my work. I had too many passions, bridge, horses, gambling. I want to live a different kind of life, be with my family more because I didn't give them enough time.".
As an actor, Sharif had made a comeback in 2003 playing the title role of an elderly Muslim shopkeeper in the French film Monsieur Ibrahim (2003). For his performance, he won the Best Actor Award at the Venice Film Festival and the Best Actor César, France's equivalent of the Oscar, from the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma.
Diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2012, Sharif died of a heart attack on July 10, 2015, in Cairo, Egypt.Greats: Lawrence of Arabia (1962) (1962)★; Doctor Zhivago (1965) (1965)★; Funny Girl (1968) (1968)★
Caution: Top Secret! (1984) (1984)
Other Notable Film(s): The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) (1964); Behold a Pale Horse (1964) (1964); The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) (1964); The Night of the Generals (1967) (1967); Mackenna's Gold (1969) (1969); The Last Valley (1971) (1971); The Tamarind Seed (1974) (1974); Juggernaut (1974) (1974); Funny Lady (1975) (1975); Ashanti (1979) (1979); The 13th Warrior (1999) (1999); Monsieur Ibrahim (2003)✰; Hidalgo (2004) (2004)- Actor
- Producer
William McChord Hurt was born in Washington, D.C., to Claire Isabel (McGill) and Alfred McChord Hurt, who worked at the State Department. He was trained at Tufts University and The Juilliard School and has been nominated for four Academy Awards, including the most recent nomination for his supporting role in David Cronenberg's A History of Violence (2005). Hurt received Best Supporting Actor accolades for the role from the Los Angeles Film Critics circle and the New York Film Critics Circle.
Hurt spent the early years of his career on the stage between drama school, summer stock, regional repertory and off-Broadway, appearing in more than fifty productions including "Henry V", "5th of July", "Hamlet", "Uncle Vanya", "Richard II", "Hurlyburly" (for which he was nominated for a Tony Award), "My Life" (winning an Obie Award for Best Actor), "A Midsummer's Night's Dream" and "Good". For radio, Hurt read Paul Theroux's "The Grand Railway Bazaar", for the BBC Radio Four and "The Shipping News" by Annie Proulx. He has recorded "The Polar Express", "The Boy Who Drew Cats", "The Sun Also Rises" and narrated the documentaries, "Searching for America: The Odyssey of John Dos Passos", "Einstein-How I See the World" and the English narration of Elie Wiesel's "To Speak the Unspeakable", a documentary directed and produced by Pierre Marmiesse. In 1988, Hurt was awarded the first Spencer Tracy Award from UCLA.Greats: Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) (1985)★; Broadcast News (1987) (1987)★; A History of Violence (2005) (2005)★
Give It a Shot: Body Heat (1981) (1981); The Big Chill (1983) (1983); A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001); Into the Wild (2007) (2007); Captain America: Civil War (2016) (2016)
Caution: Changing Lanes (2002) (2002); The Good Shepherd (2006) (2006); Mr. Brooks (2007) (2007); The Incredible Hulk (2008) (2008)
Flops: Vantage Point (2008) (2008)
Other Notable Film(s): Altered States (1980) (1980)✰; Eyewitness (1981) (1981); Gorky Park (1983) (1983); Children of a Lesser God (1986) (1986)✰; The Accidental Tourist (1988) (1988); I Love You to Death (1990) (1990); Alice (1990) (1990); The Doctor (1991) (1991); Until the End of the World (1991); Smoke (1995) (1995); Jane Eyre (1996) (1996); A Couch in New York (1996); Michael (1996) (1996); Dark City (1998) (1998); Lost in Space (1998) (1998); One True Thing (1998) (1998); The Big Brass Ring (1999) (1999); The 4th Floor (1999) (1999); Tuck Everlasting (2002) (2002); The Village (2004) (2004); The King (2005) (2005); Neverwas (2005) (2005); Syriana (2005) (2005); Noise (2007) (2007); The Yellow Handkerchief (2008) (2008); Endgame (2009) (2009); Robin Hood (2010) (2010); The River Why (2010) (2010); Late Bloomers (2011) (2011); The Host (2013) (2013); The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Her (2013) (2013); Winter's Tale (2014) (2014); The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby: Them (2014) (2014); Race (2016) (2016); The King's Daughter (2022) (2017); The Miracle Season (2018) (2017)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Powerful and highly respected American actor Jason Nelson Robards, Jr. was born in Chicago, Illinois, to Hope Maxine (Glanville) and stage and film star Jason Robards Sr. He had Swedish, English, Welsh, German, and Irish ancestry. Robards was raised mostly in Los Angeles. A star athlete at Hollywood High School, he served in the U.S. Navy in World War II, where he saw combat as a radioman (though he is not listed in official rolls of Navy Cross winners, despite the claims he and his public relations personnel made. Neither was he at Pearl Harbor during the Dec. 7, 1941 attack, his ship being at sea at the time.) Returning to civilian life, he attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and struggled as a small-part actor in local New York theatre, TV and radio before shooting to fame on the New York stage in Eugene O'Neill's "The Iceman Cometh" as Hickey. He followed that with another masterful O'Neill portrayal, as the alcoholic Jamie Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night" on Broadway. He entered feature films in The Journey (1959) and rose rapidly to even greater fame as a film star. Robards won consecutive Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor for All the President's Men (1976) and Julia (1977), in each case playing real-life people. He continued to work on the stage, winning continued acclaim in such O'Neill works as "Moon For the Misbegotten" and "Hughie." Robards died of lung cancer in 2000.Greats: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968)★; All the President's Men (1976) (1976)★; Philadelphia (1993) (1993); Magnolia (1999) (1999)
Give It a Shot: Parenthood (1989) (1989)
Caution: A Thousand Clowns (1965) (1965)✰; Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970) (1970); Little Big League (1994) (1994)
Other Notable Film(s): Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) (1962); A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966) (1966); Divorce American Style (1967) (1967); The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967) (1967); Hour of the Gun (1967) (1967); The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) (1968); Isadora (1968) (1968); The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) (1970); Julius Caesar (1970) (1970); Johnny Got His Gun (1971) (1971); Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) (1973); A Boy and His Dog (1975) (1975); Julia (1977) (1977)✰; Comes a Horseman (1978) (1978); Raise the Titanic (1980) (1980); Melvin and Howard (1980) (1980)✰; The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981) (1981); Max Dugan Returns (1983) (1983); Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) (1983); The Good Mother (1988) (1988); Dream a Little Dream (1989) (1989); Black Rainbow (1989) (1989); The Adventures of Huck Finn (1993) (1993); The Trial (1993) (1993); The Paper (1994) (1994); A Thousand Acres (1997) (1997); Beloved (1998) (1998)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
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.Greats: The Lost Weekend (1945) (1945)★; Dial M for Murder (1954) (1954)★
Other Notable Film(s): Easy Living (1937) (1937); Beau Geste (1939) (1939); The Major and the Minor (1942) (1942); Reap the Wild Wind (1942) (1942); Ministry of Fear (1944) (1944); The Uninvited (1944) (1944); The Big Clock (1948) (1948); It Happens Every Spring (1949) (1949); The Thief (1952) (1952)✰; The Premature Burial (1962) (1962); Panic in Year Zero! (1962) (1962); X: The Man with the X-Ray Eyes (1963); Love Story (1970) (1970); The Thing with Two Heads (1972) (1972); Frogs (1972) (1972); Gold (1974) (1974); Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) (1975); Aces High (1976) (1976); The Last Tycoon (1976) (1976)- Though his number of film roles amount to a bit over 30, Paul Scofield has cast a giant shadow in the world of stage and film acting. He grew up in West Sussex, the son of a schoolmaster. He attended the Varndean School for Boys in Brighton. The love of acting came early. While still high school age, he began training as an actor at the Croydon Repertory Theatre School (1939) and then at the Mask Theatre School (1940) in London. He took on all the experience he could handle by joining touring companies and also entertained British troops during World War II. He joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and, from there in 1946, he moved to Stratford-upon-Avon. There, in the birthplace of William Shakespeare, he had his first great successes. He had the title role in "Henry V"; he was "Cloten" in "Cymbeline"; "Don Adriano de Armado" in "Love's Labour's Lost", "Lucio" in "Measure for Measure", and then "Hamlet". And there were many more as he honed himself into one the great Shakespearean actors of the 20th century. With a rich, sonorous voice compared to a Rolls Royce being started up, in one instance, and a great sound rumbling forth from an antique crypt in yet another, he was quickly compared to Laurence Olivier.
Scofield did not move on to commercial theater until 1949, when he took the lead role of "Alexander the Great", in playwright Terence Rattigan's unfortunately ill-received "Adventure Story". And as he continued theater work, he moved toward film very carefully. From his first in 1955, Scofield was always - as with any of his acting assignments - extremely picky about accepting a particular role. It was three years before his second film. Meanwhile, Scofield had the opportunity to play a great lead part in a new play by a schoolmaster-turned-new-playwright, Robert Bolt. The play was "A Man for All Seasons" and Scofield's choice role was that of "Sir Thomas More", the great English humanist and chancellor, who defied the ogre "King Henry VIII" in his wish to put aside his first wife for "Anne Bolyne". It was a once in a lifetime part, and Scofield debuted it in London in 1960. His only appearance on Broadway was the next year in that play, which ran into 1962. It was no surprise that the work began garnering awards for him (see Trivia below for details on theater and film awards).
He returned to Shakespeare in 1962 with Peter Brook, the noted British director and producer, directing him as "Lear" at the newly formed Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford. This was a pioneering minimalist production, one of the first "bare stage" efforts - though things were pretty bare stage in Shakespeare's day. Scofield then did "Coriolanus" and "Love's Labour's Lost" for the Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario in 1963. His third film came six years after his second screen appearance (1958). This was his standout performance in The Train (1964), a production of his co-star, Burt Lancaster, that grew in size and budget with the entrance of Lancaster's second choice for director, John Frankenheimer. Some of the difficulties involved might have turned someone of Scofield's discipline back to the stage thereafter, but the filming of "Seasons" arrived, and he would hardly refuse. With Robert Bolt handling the screenplay and a superlative supporting cast, the film version of A Man for All Seasons (1966) collected some thirty-three international awards, including a three-statue sweep of prime-Oscar categories plus another three for good measure. Scofield was unforgettable as the incisive man of state, able to juggle the volatile politics of the time but always keep his honor and so brimming with faith as to endure the inevitably mounting tide against him.
It suited Scofield for a time to keep his screen-acting to adaptations of plays, books, and ensemble pieces fitted to the big screen. Peter Brook and he teamed again for a film version of the Brook-adapted play Tell Me Lies (1968). The adaptation of Herman Melville's Bartleby (1970), despite Scofield's efforts, did not wash as an attempt to update Melville's story in the late twentieth century. Then Brook was back again to finally attempt what he said had really never been done correctly -adapting Shakespeare to film. Scofield's 1962 "Lear" was held in high esteem, and Brook decided on a film version, King Lear (1970), an even more uncompromising, even uncomfortable, desolation staging and editing of the tragedy. Despite some oddball camera work and not wholly satisfying adapting of the play, Scofield was magnificent and got his chance to show that he is perhaps the best Lear of modern times. While still keeping a concerted interest in filmed play adaptations, Scofield could be lured into more typical screen drama. He joined former co-star, Burt Lancaster, for the spy thriller, Scorpio (1973), as a memorable Russian comrade of Lancaster from the days of World War II, caught in late-Cold War spy craft brutality.
Through the 1980s, Scofield did a mix of TV and film on both sides of the Atlantic. But he was drawn back to Shakespeare and filming efforts, though in humbler parts, first in the Henry V (1989) of ambitious Kenneth Branagh, as the French king, and, the next year, in the Franco Zeffirelli, Hamlet (1990), as "The Ghost" - with the real buzz being for Mel Gibson as the dour "Prince of Denmark". Both films were well-crafted with impressive supporting casts. And Scofield could be content that as with all his roles, he was remaining consistent with himself as his own best judge of how to challenge his acting gifts. Gibson was appropriately awed, saying that working with Scofield was like being "thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson" (that is, Mike Tyson then, not now). Through the 1990s, he enjoyed his continued sampling of all acting media, even radio narration and animation voice-over.
The matter of British actors weighing upon the acceptance of knighthoods for their work began most publicly with Scofield. In 1956, after his tour of "Hamlet" with a triumph in Moscow, he gratefully accepted the appointment as a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), but thereafter he refused on three occasions the offer of knighthood. "If you want a title, what's wrong with Mr.? If you have always been that, then why lose your title? "I have a title, which is the same one that I have always had. But it's not political. I have a CBE, which I accepted very gratefully". He said this with great simplicity and charm. The matter of 'theatrical nobility' has prompted others to follow Scofield's example. One high profile example with a twist is actor Anthony Hopkins, now an American citizen, who quipped that he only accepted the knighthood because his wife wanted him to do so. In taking the oath of citizenship, Hopkins pledged to "renounce the title of nobility to which I have heretofore belonged". But Scofield's demeanor in his logically crafted refusals from the first so fit this man's very private life. Yet quite averse to being interviewed, he has always been considerate to the public for their patronage. Brilliant man and acting legacy, on and off the stage, Paul Scofield truly is a "Man for All Seasons"."He aspires to the soul rather than the character. He has no sense of personal ambition. He's one of our great, great actors. We're lucky to have him." ~ Helen Mirren
Greats: The Train (1964) (1964)★; A Man for All Seasons (1966) (1966)★; Quiz Show (1994) (1994)★
Give It a Shot: The Crucible (1996) (1996)★
Other Notable Film(s): Carve Her Name with Pride (1958) (1958); King Lear (1970) (1971); Scorpio (1973) (1973); A Delicate Balance (1973) (1973); Henry V (1989) (1989); Hamlet (1990) (1990) - Actor
- Director
- Producer
Actor Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes was born on December 22, 1962 in Suffolk, England, to Jennifer Anne Mary Alleyne (Lash), a novelist, and Mark Fiennes, a photographer. He is the eldest of six children. Four of his siblings are also in the arts: Martha Fiennes, a director; Magnus Fiennes, a musician; Sophie Fiennes, a producer; and Joseph Fiennes, an actor. He is of English, Irish, and Scottish origin.
A noted Shakespeare interpreter, he first achieved success onstage at the Royal National Theatre. Fiennes first worked on screen in 1990 and then made his film debut in 1992 as Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1992), opposite Juliette Binoche. 1993 was his "breakout year". He had a major role in the controversial Peter Greenaway film The Baby of Mâcon (1993), with Julia Ormond, which was poorly received. Later that year he became known internationally for portraying the amoral Nazi concentration camp commandant Amon Goeth in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993). For this he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. He did not win, but did win the Best Supporting Actor BAFTA Award for the role, as well as Best Supporting Actor honors from numerous critics groups, including the National Society of Film Critics, and the New York, Chicago, Boston, and London Film Critics associations. His portrayal as Göth also earned him a spot on the American Film Institute's list of Top 50 Film Villains. To look suitable to represent Goeth, Fiennes gained weight, but he managed to shed it afterwards. In 1994, he portrayed American academic Charles Van Doren in Quiz Show (1994). In 1996, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Count Almásy the World War II epic romance, and another Best Picture winner, Anthony Minghella's The English Patient (1996), in which he starred with Kristin Scott Thomas. He also received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations, as well as two Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nominations, one for Best Actor and another shared with the film's ensemble cast.
Since then, Fiennes has been in a number of notable films, including Strange Days (1995), Oscar and Lucinda (1997), the animated The Prince of Egypt (1998), István Szabó's Sunshine (1999), Neil Jordan-directed films The End of the Affair (1999) and The Good Thief (2002), Red Dragon (2002), Maid in Manhattan (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), In Bruges (2008), The Reader (2008), co-starring Kate Winslet, Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar®-winning The Hurt Locker (2008), Clash of the Titans (2010), Mike Newell's screen adaptation of Charles Dickens'Great Expectations (2012), with Helena Bonham Carter and Jeremy Irvine, and Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014).
He is also known for his roles in major film franchises such as the Harry Potter film series (2005-2011), in which he played the evil Lord Voldemort. His nephew, Hero Fiennes Tiffin played Tom Riddle, the young Lord Voldemort, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009). Ralph also appears in the James Bond series, in which he has played M, starting with the 2012 film Skyfall (2012).
In 2011, Fiennes made his directorial debut with his film adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy political thriller Coriolanus (2011), in which he also played the title character, opposite Gerard Butler and Vanessa Redgrave. Fiennes has won a Tony Award for playing Prince Hamlet on Broadway.
In 2015, Fiennes played a music producer in Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash (2015), starring opposite Tilda Swinton and Matthias Schoenaerts, and in 2016, Fiennes starred in Joel and Ethan Coen's Hail, Caesar! (2016).
Since 1999, Fiennes has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK.Greats: Schindler's List (1993) (1993)★; Quiz Show (1994) (1994); The English Patient (1996) (1996)★; In Bruges (2008) (2008); The Hurt Locker (2008) (2009); Skyfall (2012) (2012); The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) (2014)★
Give It a Shot: Red Dragon (2002) (2002); Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) (2005); Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) (2007); The Reader (2008) (2008); The Lego Batman Movie (2017) [voice] (2017)
Caution: Strange Days (1995) (1995)
Flops: The Avengers (1998) (1998); Wrath of the Titans (2012) (2012)
Other Notable Film(s): Wuthering Heights (1992) (1992); The Baby of Mâcon (1993) (1993); Oscar and Lucinda (1997) (1997); The Prince of Egypt (1998) [voice] (1998); Sunshine (1999) (1999); The End of the Affair (1999) (1999); Onegin (1999) (1999); Spider (2002) (2002); Maid in Manhattan (2002) (2002); The Constant Gardener (2005) (2005); The White Countess (2005) (2005); Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) [voice] (2005); Chromophobia (2005) (2005); The Chumscrubber (2005) (2005); Bernard and Doris (2006) (2006); Land of the Blind (2006) (2006); The Duchess (2008) (2008)✰; Clash of the Titans (2010) (2010); Cemetery Junction (2010) (2010); Nanny McPhee Returns (2010); Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) (2010); Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) (2011); Coriolanus (2011) (2011); Great Expectations (2012) (2012); The Invisible Woman (2013) (2013); Two Women (2014); A Bigger Splash (2015) (2015); Spectre (2015) (2015); Hail, Caesar! (2016) (2016); Kubo and the Two Strings (2016) [voice] (2016); Holmes & Watson (2018) (2018)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Film and stage actor and theater director Philip Seymour Hoffman was born in the Rochester, New York, suburb of Fairport to Marilyn (Loucks), a lawyer and judge, and Gordon Stowell Hoffman, a Xerox employee, and was mostly of German, Irish, English and Dutch ancestry. After becoming involved in high school theatrics, he attended New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating with a B.F.A. degree in Drama in 1989.
He made his feature film debut in the indie production Triple Bogey on a Par Five Hole (1991) as Phil Hoffman, and his first role in a major release came the next year in My New Gun (1992). While he had supporting roles in some other major productions like Scent of a Woman (1992) and Twister (1996), his breakthrough role came in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights (1997).
He quickly became an icon of indie cinema, establishing a reputation as one of the screen's finest actors, in a variety of supporting and second leads in indie and major features, including Todd Solondz's Happiness (1998), Flawless (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999), Almost Famous (2000) and State and Main (2000). He also appeared in supporting roles in such mainstream, big-budget features as Red Dragon (2002), Cold Mountain (2003) and Mission: Impossible III (2006).
Hoffman was also quite active on the stage. On Broadway, he has earned two Tony nominations, as Best Actor (Play) in 2000 for a revival of Sam Shepard's "True West" and as Best Actor (Featured Role - Play) in 2003 for a revival of Eugene O'Neill (I)'s "Long Day's Journey into Night". His other acting credits in the New York theater include "The Seagull" (directed by Mike Nichols for The New York Shakespeare Festival), "Defying Gravity", "The Merchant of Venice" (directed by Peter Sellars), "Shopping and F*@%ing" and "The Author's Voice" (Drama Desk nomination).
He was the Co-Artistic Director of the LAByrinth Theater Company in New York, for which he directed "Our Lady of 121st Street" by Stephen Adly Guirgis. He also directed "In Arabia, We'd All Be Kings" and "Jesus Hopped the A Train" by Guirgis for LAByrinth, and "The Glory of Living" by Rebecca Gilman at the Manhattan Class Company.
Hoffman consolidated his reputation as one of the finest actors under the age of 40 with his turn in the title role of Capote (2005), for which he won the Los Angeles Film Critics Award as Best Actor. In 2006, he was awarded the Best Actor Oscar for the same role.
On February 2, 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman was found dead in an apartment in Greenwich village, New York. Investigators found Hoffman with a syringe in his arm and two open envelopes of heroin next to him. Mr. Hoffman was long known to struggle with addiction. In 2006, he said in an interview with "60 Minutes" that he had given up drugs and alcohol many years earlier, when he was age 22. In 2013, he checked into a rehabilitation program for about 10 days after a reliance on prescription pills resulted in his briefly turning again to heroin.Greats: Scent of a Woman (1992) (1992); Boogie Nights (1997) (1997); The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) (1999); Magnolia (1999) (1999); Cold Mountain (2003) (2003); Capote (2005) (2005)★; Doubt (2008) (2008)★; Moneyball (2011) (2011); The Master (2012) (2012)★
Give It a Shot: Hard Eight (1996); The Big Lebowski (1998) (1998); Almost Famous (2000) (2000); Red Dragon (2002) (2002); 25th Hour (2002) (2002); Punch-Drunk Love (2002) (2002); Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) (2007); The Ides of March (2011) (2011)
Caution: Twister (1996) (1996); Along Came Polly (2004) (2005); Charlie Wilson's War (2007) (2007)★
Flops: Patch Adams (1998) (1998)
Other Notable Film(s): Leap of Faith (1992) (1992); Money for Nothing (1993) (1993); The Getaway (1994) (1994); When a Man Loves a Woman (1994) (1994); Nobody's Fool (1994) (1994); Next Stop Wonderland (1998) (1998); Happiness (1998) (1998); Flawless (1999) (1999); State and Main (2000) (2000); Love Liza (2002) (2002); Owning Mahowny (2003) (2003); Mission: Impossible III (2006) (2006); The Savages (2007) (2007)✰; Synecdoche, New York (2008) (2008); Mary and Max (2009) [voice] (2009); Pirate Radio (2009); The Invention of Lying (2009) (2009); Jack Goes Boating (2010) (2010); A Late Quartet (2012) (2012); The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013) (2013); God's Pocket (2014) (2014); A Most Wanted Man (2014) (2014); The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 (2014) (2014); The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 (2015) (2015)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Walter Pidgeon, a handsome, tall and dark-haired man, began his career studying voice at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. He then did theater, mainly stage musicals. He went to Hollywood in the early 1920s, where he made silent films, including Mannequin (1926) and Sumuru (1927). When talkies arrived, Pidgeon made some musicals, but he never received top billing or recognition in these. In 1937 MGM put him under contract, but only in supporting roles and "the other man" roles, such as in Saratoga (1937) opposite Jean Harlow and Clark Gable and in The Girl of the Golden West (1938) opposite Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Although these two films were big successes, Pidgeon was overlooked for his contributions to them. MGM lent him out to Fox, where he finally had top billing, in How Green Was My Valley (1941). When he returned to MGM the studio tried to give him bigger roles, and he was cast opposite his frequent co-star Greer Garson. However, Garson seemed to come up on top in Blossoms in the Dust (1941) and Mrs. Miniver (1942), although Pidgeon did receive an Academy Award nomination for his role in the latter film.
Pidgeon remained with MGM through the mid-'50s, making films like Dream Wife (1953) and Hit the Deck (1955) with Jane Powell and old pal Gene Raymond. In 1956 Pidgeon left the movies to do some work in the theater, but he returned to film in 1961.
Pidgeon retired from acting in 1977. He suffered from several strokes that eventually led to his death in 1984.Greats: How Green Was My Valley (1941) (1941)★; Mrs. Miniver (1942) (1942)★; The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) (1952); Funny Girl (1968) (1968)
Other Notable Film(s): Dark Command (1940) (1940); Blossoms in the Dust (1941) (1941); Man Hunt (1941) (1941); Madame Curie (1943) (1943)✰; Mrs. Parkington (1944) (1944); Week-End at the Waldorf (1945) (1945); Command Decision (1948) (1948); Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) (1952); Dream Wife (1953) (1953); Executive Suite (1954) (1954); The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) (1954); Forbidden Planet (1956) (1956); Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) (1961); Advise & Consent (1962) (1962); Skyjacked (1972) (1972); Two-Minute Warning (1976) (1976)- Japanese character actor Takashi Shimura was one of the finest film actors of the 20th century and a leading member of the "stock company" of master director Akira Kurosawa. A native of southern Japan, Shimura was a descendant of the samurai warrior class. Following university training, he founded a theatre company, Shichigatsu-za ("July Theatre"). In 1930 he joined a professional company, Kindai-za ("Modern Theatre"). Four years later he signed with the Kinema Shinko film studio. He found a niche playing samurai roles for various studios, then signed a long-term contract with Toho Studios in 1943. He appeared in an average of six films a year for Toho over the next four decades. His greatest critical acclaim came in more than 20 roles for Kurosawa, though he is almost as well recognized outside Japan for his kindly doctor role in the original "Godzilla" (Godzilla (1954)). Shimura's triumph was his unforgettable performance as a dying bureaucrat in Kurosawa's Ikiru (1952). He continued to act steadily, in good films and bad, almost until his death, culminating with Kurosawa's Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980). He is often described as filling the spot for Kurosawa that Ward Bond filled for John Ford--an ever-present and reliable character player who consistently supplied a solidity and strength to whatever film he appeared in. Shimura was definitely a finer actor than Bond, of the most versatile "chameleons" in the world cinema, a great artist with enormous range in sublime interpretations, from Ikiru (1952)'s diffident clerk to the leader of the Seven Samurai in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai (1954). He died in 1982, a reluctant icon of Japanese cinema.Akira Kurosawa's second main actor is one of the best actors in Japanese cinema history.
Greats: Stray Dog (1949); Rashomon (1950)★; Ikiru (1952) (1952)★; Seven Samurai (1954)★; The Hidden Fortress (1958); Yojimbo (1961); Sanjuro (1962); High and Low (1963); Kagemusha: The Shadow Warrior (1980) (1980)
Other Notable Film(s): Osaka Elegy (1936); Sanshiro Sugata (1943); The Most Beautiful (1944); The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail (1945); Drunken Angel (1948); The Quiet Duel (1949); Scandal (1950); The Idiot (1951); Godzilla (1954); Godzilla Raids Again (1955); I Live in Fear (1955); Godzilla: King of the Monsters! (1956) (1956); Throne of Blood (1957); The Bad Sleep Well (1960); Mothra (1961); Chushingura (1962); Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964); Kwaidan (1964) - Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Rex Harrison was born Reginald Carey Harrison in Huyton, Lancashire, England, to Edith Mary (Carey) and William Reginald Harrison, a cotton broker. He changed his name to Rex as a young boy, knowing it was the Latin word for "King". Starting out on his theater career at age 18, his first job at the Liverpool Rep Theatre was nearly his last - dashing across the stage to say his one line, made his entrance and promptly blew it. Fates were kind, however, and soon he began landing roles in the West End. "French Without Tears", a play by Terence Rattigan, proved to be his breakthrough role. Soon he was being called the "greatest actor of light comedy in the world". Having divorced his first wife Collette Thomas in 1942, he married German actress Lilli Palmer. The two began appearing together in many plays and British films. He attained international fame when he portrayed the King in Anna and the King of Siam (1946), his first American film. After a sex scandal, in which actress Carole Landis apparently committed suicide because he ended their affair, the relationship with wife Lilli became strained. Rex (by this time known as "Sexy Rexy" for his philandering ways and magnetic charm) began a relationship with British actress Kay Kendall and divorced Lilli to marry the terminally ill Kay with hopes of a re-marriage to Palmer upon Kay's death. The death of Kay affected Harrison greatly and Lilli never returned to him. During this time Rex was offered the defining role of his career: Professor Henry Higgins in the original production of "My Fair Lady". He won the Tony for the play and an Oscar for the film version. In 1962 Harrison married actress Rachel Roberts. This union and the one following it to Elizabeth Harris (Richard's ex) also ended in divorce. In 1978 Rex met and married Mercia Tinker. He and Mercia remained happily married until his death in 1990. She was also with him in 1989 when he was granted his much-deserved and long awaited knighthood at Buckingham Palace. Rex Harrison died of pancreatic cancer three weeks after his last stage appearance, as Lord Porteous in W. Somerset Maugham's "The Circle".Greats: Unfaithfully Yours (1948) (1948)★; My Fair Lady (1964) (1964)★
Other Notable Film(s): The Citadel (1938) (1938); Night Train to Munich (1940) (1940); Blithe Spirit (1945) (1945); Blithe Spirit (1945) (1945); Anna and the King of Siam (1946) (1946); The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947) (1947); Midnight Lace (1960) (1960); Cleopatra (1963) (1963)✰; The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) (1964); The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) (1965)✰; Doctor Dolittle (1967) (1967)✰; The Honey Pot (1967) (1967)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jon Voight is an American actor of German and Slovak descent. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Luke Martin in the war film "Coming Home" (1978). He has also been nominated for the same award other two times. He was first nominated for his role as aspiring gigolo Joe Buck in "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), He was last nominated for the award for his role as escaped convict Oscar "Manny" Manheim in "Runaway Train" (1985). He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, for his role as sports journalist Howard Cosell (1918-1995) in "Ali" (2001).
In 1938, Voight was born in Yonkers, New York. His parents were professional golfer Elmer Samuel Voight (original name Elemír Vojtka) and his wife Barbara Agnes (Kamp). His paternal grandfather was a Slovak immigrant, as were the parents of his paternal grandmother. His maternal grandfather was a German immigrant, as were the parents of his maternal grandmother. His maternal great-uncle was political activist Joseph P. Kamp (1900-1993), a leader of the anti-communist organization "Constitutional Educational League".
Voight has two siblings: volcanologist Barry Voight (1937-) and singer-songwriter James Wesley Voight (pseudonym Chip Taylor, 1940-). Barry is most famous for first predicting and then investigating the eruption of Mount St. Helens (1980). James is most famous for writing the hit songs "Wild Thing" (1965) and "Angel of the Morning" (1967).
Voight was educated at Archbishop Stepinac High School, an all-boys Roman Catholic high school located at White Plains, New York. At the time, the school was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. He took an interest in acting in his high school years, performing a comedic role in the school's annual musical, "The Song of Norway". He graduated in 1956, at the age of 18.
Voight continued his education at The Catholic University of America, located in Washington, D.C.. He majored in art, and graduated in 1960. He was 22-years-old at the time of graduation. He then moved to New York City, having decided to pursue an acting career.
In the early 1960s, Voight primarily worked as a television actor. He guest starred in episodes of then-popular television series, such as "Naked City", "The Defenders", "NET Playhouse", "12 O'Clock High", and "Gunsmoke". His first notable theatrical role was playing the illegal immigrant Rodolfo in a 1965 Off-Broadway production of the play "A View from the Bridge" (1955) by Arthur Miller (1915-2005). In the play, Rodolfo is the love interest of the American girl Catherine, and disliked by her uncle and guardian Eddie Carbone (who is in love with his niece).
Voight made his film debut in the superhero comedy "Fearless Frank" (1967), playing the role of the eponymous superhero. Frank was depicted as a murder victim who gets resurrected and granted superpowers by a scientist. Voiight's second film role was playing historical gunman and outlaw Curly Bill Brocius (1845-1882) in the Western film "Hour of the Gun" (1967). The historical Brocius was an an enemy of the Esrp family, and was killed by Wyatt Earp (1848-1929).
Voigh't third film appearance was "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), his first great success. He played the role of a naive hustler from Texas who tries to become a gigolo in New York City. The film was critically acclaimed, and became the only X-rated feature to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Voight was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, but the award was instead won by rival actor John Wayne (1907-1979).
Voight's first role in the 1970s was playing lieutenant Milo Minderbinder in the black comedy "Catch-22" (1970). The film was based on a 1961 satirical novel by Joseph Heller (1923-1999), and offered a satirical view on war and bureaucracy. Voight's next role was playing the left-wing student A in the political drama "The Revolutionary" (1970).
Voight found further critical acclaim with the thriller film "Deliverance" (1972), playing Atlanta businessman Ed Gentry. In the film, Gentry and his first are targeted by villainous mountain men in the northern Georgia wilderness. The film earned about 46 million dollars at the domestic box office, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
His subsequent roles included idealistic schoolteacher Pat Conroy in "Conrack" (1974), journalist Peter Miller in "The Odessa File" (1974). His next great success was playing paraplegic war veteran Luke Martin in "Coming Home" (1978), in a role inspired by the life of war veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic (1976-). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this film. His co-star Jane Fonda (1937-) won her second Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in this film.
Voight's early 1980s roles included conman Alex Kovac in "Lookin' to Get Out" (1982) and widowed father J. P. Tannen in "Table for Five" (1983). His next big success was the role of escaped convict Oscar "Manny" Manheim in "Runaway Train" (1985). He was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, but the Award was instead won by rival actor William Hurt (1950-).
Voight's next role was that of Jack Chismore in the drama film "Desert Bloom" (1986). Chismore is depicted as a war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), who is trying to raise three stepdaughters. He frequently abuses his stepdaughter Rose Chismore (played by Annabeth Gish), but is genuinely concerned for her safety when Rose runs away from home. This film was Voigh's last film role for several years, as he took a hiatus from acting.
Voight returned to acting with the drama film "Eternity" (1990), where he was also the screenwriter. The film deals with reincarnation, as a medieval war within brothers continues in modern American politics. Following his return to acting, Voight started appearing frequently in television films and miniseries. He also guest-starred in a 1994 episode of "Seinfeld", playing himself.
Voight returned to film acting with the crime drama "Heat" (1995), where he had a minor role as a fence. He had a more substantial role in the spy film "Mission: Impossible" (1996), where he played spymaster James Phelps. The film was an adaptation of the popular television series "Mission: Impossible" (1966-1973), about the adventures of a group of secret agents. The role of James Phelps was previously played by actor Peter Graves (1926-2010). The film was a great commercial success, earning about 458 million dollars at the worldwide box office.
Voight appeared in six different films in 1997, one of the busiest years of his career. The most notable among them was the horror film "Anaconda" (1997), where he played obsessive hunter Paul Serone, the film's main antagonist. The film won about 137 million dollars at the box office, despite a mostly negative critical reception. For this role, Voight was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor. He lost the award to rival actor Kevin Costner (1955-).
His next notable role was that Thomas Brian Reynolds, agent of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the action thriller "Enemy of the State" (1998). In the film, the NSA conspires to expand the surveillance powers of intelligence agencies over individuals and groups, at the cost of American citizens' right to privacy. The film was another box office success in Voight's career, earning about 251 million dollars at the box office.
In the same year, Voight played inspector Ned Kenny in the crime film "The General" (1998). The film was loosely based on the career of Irish crime boss Martin Cahill (1949-1994), who was nicknamed "the General". The film was critically acclaimed and director John Boorman won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director.
Voight's next notable role was that of domineering coach Bud Kilmer in the sports film "Varsity Blues" (1999). The film dealt with the difficulties in the life of the players of a Texas-based high school football team, and was not expected to attract much attention by audiences. It earned about 54 million dollars at the box office, making it a modest box office hit. It is credited with introducing Voight to a next generation of fans.
Voight's final film in the 1990s was "A Dog of Flanders" (1999), based on a 1872 novel by Ouida (1839-1908). He played the role of artist Michel La Grande, the mentor of Nello (played by Jeremy James Kissner), who is eventually revealed to be Nello's biological father. The film failed at the box office, failing to earn as much as its modest budget.
Voight appeared in no film released in 2000, but had a busy year in 2001. He appeared in several box office hits of the year. He played President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945, term 1933-1945) in the war drama "Pearl Harbor", Lara Croft's father Lord Richard Croft in the action film "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", coal-miner and working class father Larry Zoolander in action comedy "Zoolander", and sports journalist Howard Cosell in the biographical film "Ali". For his role in "Ali", Voight was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The award was instead won by rival actor Jim Broadbent (1949-). It was Voight's fourth and (so far) last nomination for an Academy Award.
Voight had a notable role playing Pope John Paul II (1920-2005, term 1978-2005) in the miniseries "Pope John Paul II" (2005). He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, but the award was instead won by rival actor Andre Braugher (1962-).
Voight had a supporting role as John Keller, United States Secretary of Defense in the science fiction film "Transformers" (2007). The film was based on the Transformers toy line by Hasbro.It earned about 710 million dollars at the box office, one of the most commercially successful films in Voight's career.
In 2009, Voight had a notable television role, playing Jonas Hodges, the CEO of a Virginia-based private military company in the then-popular television series "24" (2001-2010, 2014). He was a main antagonist in the seventh season of the series. His role was inspired by the careers of Hessian colonel Johann Rall (c. 1726-1776), German industrialist Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1907-1967), and private military company CEO Erik Prince (1969-).
His 2010s notable film roles include the role of Dracula's enemy Loonardo Van Helsing in the horror film "Dracula: The Dark Prince" (2013), football coach Paul William "Bear" Bryant (1913-1983) in the sports drama "Woodlawn" (2015), and newspaper owner Henry Shaw Sr. in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (2016). "Fantastic Beasts" earned about 814 million dollars at the worldwide box office, being one of the most commercially successful films that Voight ever appeared in.
In 2020, was 82-years-old, and he is still working as an actor.Greats: Midnight Cowboy (1969) (1969)★; Deliverance (1972) (1972)★; Heat (1995) (1995)
Give It a Shot: Coming Home (1978) (1978)★; Runaway Train (1985) (1985)★; Mission: Impossible (1996) (1996); Enemy of the State (1998) (1998); Ali (2001) (2001)★
Caution: Varsity Blues (1999) (1999); Holes (2003) (2003); National Treasure (2004) (2004); Glory Road (2006) (2006); Transformers (2007) (2007)☠
Flops: Anaconda (1997) (1997)☠; Zoolander (2001) (2001); Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) (2001); Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2 (2004) (2004)☠; National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) (2007)☠
Other Notable Film(s): Catch-22 (1970) (1970); The Odessa File (1974) (1974); Conrack (1974) (1974); The Champ (1979) (1979)✰; Most Wanted (1997) (1997); Rosewood (1997) (1997); The Rainmaker (1997) (1997)✰; U Turn (1997) (1997); The General (1998) (1998); Pearl Harbor (2001) (2001); The Manchurian Candidate (2004) (2004); September Dawn (2007) (2007); Bratz (2007) (2007); Pride and Glory (2008) (2008); Four Christmases (2008) (2008); An American Carol (2008) (2008); 24: Redemption (2008) [TV movie] (2008); 24 (2001) [11 episodes TV series] (2009); Getaway (2013) (2013); Dracula: The Dark Prince (2013) (2013); tt3965714 (2014); Ray Donovan (2013) [TV series] (2013-2020)✰; Woodlawn (2015) (2015); Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) (2016); American Wrestler: The Wizard (2016) (2016); Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) (2016); Surviving the Wild (2018) (2017); Same Kind of Different as Me (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Sean Penn is a powerhouse film performer capable of intensely moving work, who has gone from strength to strength during a colourful film career, and who has drawn much media attention for his stormy private life and political viewpoints.
Sean Justin Penn was born in Los Angeles, California, the second son of actress Eileen Ryan (née Annucci) and director, actor, and writer Leo Penn. His brother was actor Chris Penn. His father was from a Lithuanian Jewish/Russian Jewish family, and his mother is of half Italian and half Irish descent.
Penn first appeared in roles as strong-headed or unruly youths such as the military cadet defending his academy against closure in Taps (1981), then as fast-talking surfer stoner Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982).
Fans and critics were enthused about his obvious talent and he next contributed a stellar performance alongside Timothy Hutton in the Cold War spy thriller The Falcon and the Snowman (1985), followed by a teaming with icy Christopher Walken in the chilling At Close Range (1986). The youthful Sean then paired up with his then wife, pop diva Madonna in the woeful, and painful, Shanghai Surprise (1986), which was savaged by the critics, but Sean bounced back with a great job as a hot-headed young cop in Colors (1988), gave another searing performance as a US soldier in Vietnam committing atrocities in Casualties of War (1989) and appeared alongside Robert De Niro in the uneven comedy We're No Angels (1989). However, the 1990s was the decade in which Sean really got noticed by critics as a mature, versatile and accomplished actor, with a string of dynamic performances in first-class films.
Almost unrecognisable with frizzy hair and thin rimmed glasses, Penn was simply brilliant as corrupt lawyer David Kleinfeld in the Brian De Palma gangster movie Carlito's Way (1993) and he was still in trouble with authority as a Death Row inmate pleading with a caring nun to save his life in Dead Man Walking (1995), for which he received his first Oscar nomination. Sean then played the brother of wealthy Michael Douglas, involving him in a mind-snapping scheme in The Game (1997) and also landed the lead role of Sgt. Eddie Walsh in the star-studded anti-war film The Thin Red Line (1998), before finishing the 1990s playing an offbeat jazz musician (and scoring another Oscar nomination) in Sweet and Lowdown (1999).
The gifted and versatile Sean had also moved into directing, with the quirky but interesting The Indian Runner (1991), about two brothers with vastly opposing views on life, and in 1995 he directed Jack Nicholson in The Crossing Guard (1995). Both films received overall positive reviews from critics. Moving into the new century, Sean remained busy in front of the cameras with even more outstanding work: a mentally disabled father fighting for custody of his seven-year-old daughter (and receiving a third Oscar nomination) for I Am Sam (2001); an anguished father seeking revenge for his daughter's murder in the gut-wrenching Clint Eastwood-directed Mystic River (2003) (for which he won the Oscar as Best Actor); a mortally ill college professor in 21 Grams (2003) and a possessed businessman in The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004).
Certainly Sean Penn is one of Hollywood's most controversial, progressive and gifted actors.Greats: Carlito's Way (1993) (1993)★; The Thin Red Line (1998) (1998); Mystic River (2003) (2003)★; 21 Grams (2003) (2003)★; Milk (2008) (2008)★
Give It a Shot: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) (1982); Dead Man Walking (1995) (1995)★; The Game (1997) (1997); Sweet and Lowdown (1999) (1999)★; The Tree of Life (2011) (2011)
Caution: I Am Sam (2001) (2001)✰; The Interpreter (2005) (2005); The Angry Birds Movie (2016) [voice] (2016)
Other Notable Film(s): Taps (1981) (1981); Bad Boys (1983) (1983); Racing with the Moon (1984) (1984); The Falcon and the Snowman (1985) (1985); Shanghai Surprise (1986) (1986); At Close Range (1986) (1986); Colors (1988) (1988); Casualties of War (1989) (1989); We're No Angels (1989) (1989); State of Grace (1990) (1990); Hugo Pool (1997) (1997); U Turn (1997) (1997); She's So Lovely (1997) (1997)✰; Hurlyburly (1998) (1998); Before Night Falls (2000) (2000); The Weight of Water (2000) (2000); Up at the Villa (2000) (2000); It's All About Love (2003) (2003); The Assassination of Richard Nixon (2004) (2004); All the King's Men (2006) (2006); Persepolis (2007) [voice] (2007); What Just Happened (2008) (2008); Fair Game (2010) (2010); This Must Be the Place (2011) (2011); Gangster Squad (2013) (2012); The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) (2013); The Gunman (2015) (2015); The Professor and the Madman (2019) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II was born on June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Betty Sue Palmer (née Wells), a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, a civil engineer. He was raised in Florida. He dropped out of school when he was 15, and fronted a series of music-garage bands, including one named 'The Kids'. When he married Lori A. Depp, he took a job as a ballpoint-pen salesman to support himself and his wife. A visit to Los Angeles, California, with his wife, however, happened to be a blessing in disguise, when he met up with actor Nicolas Cage, who advised him to turn to acting, which culminated in Depp's film debut in the low-budget horror film, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), where he played a teenager who falls prey to dream-stalking demon Freddy Krueger.
In 1987 he shot to stardom when he replaced Jeff Yagher in the role of undercover cop Tommy Hanson in the popular TV series 21 Jump Street (1987). In 1990, after numerous roles in teen-oriented films, his first of a handful of great collaborations with director Tim Burton came about when Depp played the title role in Edward Scissorhands (1990). Following the film's success, Depp carved a niche for himself as a serious, somewhat dark, idiosyncratic performer, consistently selecting roles that surprised critics and audiences alike. He continued to gain critical acclaim and increasing popularity by appearing in many features before re-joining with Burton in the lead role of Ed Wood (1994). In 1997 he played an undercover FBI agent in the fact-based film Donnie Brasco (1997), opposite Al Pacino; in 1998 he appeared in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998), directed by Terry Gilliam; and then, in 1999, he appeared in the sci-fi/horror film The Astronaut's Wife (1999). The same year he teamed up again with Burton in Sleepy Hollow (1999), brilliantly portraying Ichabod Crane.
Depp has played many characters in his career, including another fact-based one, Insp. Fred Abberline in From Hell (2001). He stole the show from screen greats such as Antonio Banderas in the finale to Robert Rodriguez's "mariachi" trilogy, Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003). In that same year he starred in the marvelous family blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), playing a character that only the likes of Depp could pull off: the charming, conniving and roguish Capt. Jack Sparrow. The film's enormous success has opened several doors for his career and included an Oscar nomination. He appeared as the central character in the Stephen King-based movie, Secret Window (2004); as the kind-hearted novelist James Barrie in the factually-based Finding Neverland (2004), where he co-starred with Kate Winslet; and Rochester in the British film, The Libertine (2004). Depp collaborated again with Burton in a screen adaptation of Roald Dahl's novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and later in Alice in Wonderland (2010) and Dark Shadows (2012).
Off-screen, Depp has dated several female celebrities, and has been engaged to Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Winona Ryder and Kate Moss. He was married to Lori Anne Allison in 1983, but divorced her in 1985. Depp has two children with his former long-time partner, French singer/actress Vanessa Paradis: Lily-Rose Melody, born in 1999 and John Christopher "Jack" III, born in 2002. He married actress/producer Amber Heard in 2015, divorcing a few years later.Greats: Platoon (1986) (1986); What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) (1993); Ed Wood (1994) (1994)✰; Sleepy Hollow (1999) (1999); Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) (2007)★
Give It a Shot: A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) (1984); Edward Scissorhands (1990) (1990)✰; Dead Man (1995) (1995); Donnie Brasco (1997) (1997); Blow (2001) (2001); Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) (2003)★; Finding Neverland (2004) (2004)★; Corpse Bride (2005) [voice] (2005); Public Enemies (2009) (2009); 21 Jump Street (2012) (2012); Black Mass (2015) (2015)★
Caution: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) (1998); The Ninth Gate (1999) (1999); Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) (2003); Secret Window (2004) (2004); Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) (2006)✰; Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) (2007); Alice in Wonderland (2010) (2010)✰; Rango (2011) [voice] (2011)
Other Notable Film(s): Private Resort (1985) (1985); Cry-Baby (1990) (1990); Arizona Dream (1993) (1993); Benny & Joon (1993) (1993)✰; Don Juan DeMarco (1994) (1994); Nick of Time (1995) (1995); The Brave (1997) (1997); The Astronaut's Wife (1999) (1999); The Man Who Cried (2000) (2000); Chocolat (2000) (2000); Before Night Falls (2000) (2000); From Hell (2001) (2001); ...And They Lived Happily Ever After (2004); The Libertine (2004) (2004); Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) (2005)✰; The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) (2009); The Tourist (2010) (2010)✰; Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) (2011); The Rum Diary (2011) (2011); Dark Shadows (2012) (2012); The Lone Ranger (2013) (2013); Transcendence (2014) (2014); Into the Woods (2014) (2014); Mortdecai (2015) (2015); Yoga Hosers (2016) (2016); Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016) (2016); Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016) (2016); Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) (2017); City of Lies (2018) (2017); Murder on the Orient Express (2017) (2017); Sherlock Gnomes (2018) [voice] (2018); The Professor (2018) (2018); Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald (2018) (2018); City of Lies (2018) (2018); Waiting for the Barbarians (2019) (2019); Minamata (2020) (2020)- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
American actor Lee Marvin was born Lamont Waltman Marvin Jr. in New York City. After leaving school aged 18, Marvin enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve in August 1942. He served with the 4th Marine Division in the Pacific Theater during World War II and after being wounded in action and spending a year being treated in naval hospitals, he received a medical discharge. Marvin's military decorations include the Purple Heart Medal, the Presidential Unit Citation, the American Campaign Medal, the Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal and the Combat Action Ribbon. Returning to the United States it was while working as a plumbers apprentice, repairing a toilet at a local community theater, that he was asked to stand in for an actor who had fallen ill during rehearsals. He immediately caught the acting bug, moving to Greenwich Village to study at the American Theater Wing and began making appearances in stage productions and TV shows. His film debut came in 'You're in the Navy Now' (1951) but it was his portrayal of villains in 'The Big Heat' (1953) and 'The Wild One' (1953) that brought him to the attention of the public and critical acclaim. Now firmly established as a screen bad guy, he began shifting towards leading man roles and landed the lead role in the popular TV series 'M Squad' (1957-1960). Returning to feature films, Marvin had prominent roles in 'The Comancheros' (1961), 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance' (1962), 'Donovan's Reef' (1963) and 'The Killers' (1964) but it was his dual comic role in the offbeat western 'Cat Ballou' (1965) that made him a star and won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. He was now a much sought-after actor and starred in a number of movies as a new kind of leading man including 'The Professionals' (1966), 'The Dirty Dozen' (1967), 'Point Blank' (1967), 'Hell in the Pacific' (1968), 'Monte Walsh' (1970), 'Prime Cut' (1972), 'Emperor of the North' (1973) and 'The Spikes Gang' (1974).Later film credits include 'Shout at the Devil' (1976), 'Avalanche Express' (1979), 'The Big Red One' (1980), 'Death Hunt' (1981) and 'Gorky Park' (1983). His final film role was alongside Chuck Norris in 'The Delta Force' (1986). Lee Marvin died of a heart attack in August 1987. He was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. Marvin paved the way for leading men that didn't fit the traditional mould. An iconic American tough guy and one of the 20th Century's greatest Hollywood stars.Greats: Bad Day at Black Rock (1955) (1955); The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) (1962); Point Blank (1967) (1967)
Other Notable Film(s): The Big Heat (1953) (1953); The Wild One (1953) (1953); The Caine Mutiny (1954) (1954); Not as a Stranger (1955) (1955); 7 Men from Now (1956) (1956); Attack (1956) (1956); Raintree County (1957) (1957); The Comancheros (1961) (1961); Donovan's Reef (1963) (1963); The Killers (1964) (1964); Cat Ballou (1965) (1965)✰; Ship of Fools (1965) (1965); The Professionals (1966) (1966); The Dirty Dozen (1967) (1967); Hell in the Pacific (1968) (1968); Paint Your Wagon (1969) (1969)✰; Prime Cut (1972) (1972); Emperor of the North (1973); The Iceman Cometh (1973) (1973); Shout at the Devil (1976) (1976); The Big Red One (1980) (1980); Death Hunt (1981) (1981); Gorky Park (1983) (1983); The Delta Force (1986) (1986)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
By transforming into his characters and pulling the audience in, Ed Harris has earned a reputation as one of the most talented actors of our time.
Ed Harris was born in Tenafly, New Jersey, to Margaret (Sholl), a travel agent, and Robert Lee Harris, a bookstore worker who also sang professionally. Both of his parents were originally from Oklahoma. Harris grew up as the middle child. After graduating high school, he attended New York's Columbia University, where he played football. After viewing local theater productions, Harris took a sudden interest in acting. He left Columbia, headed to Oklahoma, where his parents were living, and enrolled in the University of Oklahoma's theater department. After graduation, he moved to Los Angeles to find work. He started acting in theater and television guest spots. Harris landed his first leading role in a film in cult-favorite George A. Romero's Knightriders (1981). Two years later, he got his first taste of critical acclaim, playing astronaut John Glenn in The Right Stuff (1983). Also that year, he made his New York stage debut in Sam Shepard's "Fool for Love", a performance that earned him an Obie for Outstanding Actor. Harris' career gathered momentum after that. In 2000, he made his debut as a director in the Oscar-winning film Pollock (2000).Greats: Glengarry Glen Ross (1992) (1992)★; Pollock (2000) (2000)★; A Beautiful Mind (2001) (2001); A History of Violence (2005) (2005)★; Gone Baby Gone (2007) (2007); Gravity (2013) [voice] (2013); Westworld (2016) [TV series] (2016)
Give It a Shot: The Abyss (1989) (1989); Apollo 13 (1995) (1995)★; The Rock (1996) (1996); Absolute Power (1997) (1997); The Truman Show (1998) (1998)★; The Hours (2002) (2002)★
Caution: Creepshow (1982) (1982); Pain & Gain (2013) (2013)
Flops: Milk Money (1994) (1994); Radio (2003) (2003); National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) (2007); Mother! (2017) (2017)
Other Notable Film(s): Knightriders (1981) (1981); The Right Stuff (1983) (1983); Under Fire (1983) (1983); Places in the Heart (1984) (1984); Swing Shift (1984) (1984); Sweet Dreams (1985) (1985); Walker (1987) (1987); To Kill A Priest (1988) (1988); Jacknife (1989) (1989)✰; State of Grace (1990) (1990); Paris Trout (1991) (1991); The Firm (1993) (1993); Needful Things (1993) (1993); China Moon (1994) (1994); Just Cause (1995) (1995); Nixon (1995) (1995); Eye for an Eye (1996) (1996); Stepmom (1998) (1998); The Third Miracle (1999) (1999); Waking the Dead (2000) (2000); The Prime Gig (2000) (2000); Enemy at the Gates (2001) (2001); Buffalo Soldiers (2001) (2001); Masked and Anonymous (2003) (2003); The Human Stain (2003) (2003); Winter Passing (2005) (2005); Copying Beethoven (2006) (2006); Cleaner (2007) (2007); Appaloosa (2008) (2008); Once Fallen (2010) (2010); The Way Back (2010) (2010); Salvation Boulevard (2011) (2011); That's What I Am (2011) (2011); Man on a Ledge (2012) (2012); Game Change (2012) [TV] (2013); Sweetwater (2013) (2013); Phantom (2013) (2013); Snowpiercer (2013) (2013); The Face of Love (2013) (2013); Frontera (2014) (2014); Planes: Fire & Rescue (2014) [voice] (2014); Cymbeline (2014) (2014); Run All Night (2015) (2015); The Adderall Diaries (2015) (2015); In Dubious Battle (2016) (2016); Rules Don't Apply (2016) (2016); Kodachrome (2017) (2017); A Crooked Somebody (2017) (2017); Geostorm (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
The son of a Lancashire bookmaker, Albert Finney came to motion pictures via the theatre. In 1956, he won a scholarship to RADA where his fellow alumni included Peter O'Toole and Alan Bates. He joined the Birmingham Repertory where he excelled in plays by William Shakespeare. A member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Finney understudied Laurence Olivier at Stratford-upon-Avon, eventually acquiring a reputation as 'the new Olivier'. He first came to critical attention by creating the title role in Keith Waterhouse's "Billy Liar" on the London stage. His film debut soon followed with The Entertainer (1960) by Tony Richardson with whom had earlier worked in the theatre. With the changing emphasis in 60s British cinema towards gritty realism and working-class milieus, Finney's typical screen personae became good-looking, often brooding proletarian types and rebellious anti-heroes as personified by his Arthur Seaton in Karel Reisz's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). His exuberant defining role, however, was in the bawdy period romp Tom Jones (1963) in which Finney revealed a substantial talent for comedy. In the same vein, he scored another hit opposite Audrey Hepburn in the charming marital comedy Two for the Road (1967).
By 1965, Finney had branched out into production, setting up Memorial Enterprises in conjunction with Michael Medwin. In 1968, he directed himself in Charlie Bubbles (1968) and three years later produced the Chandleresque homage Gumshoe (1971), in which he also starred as Eddie Ginley, a bingo-caller with delusions of becoming a private eye. From 1972 to 1975, Finney served as artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. His intermittent forays to the screen confirmed him as a versatile international actor of note, though not what one might describe as a mainstream star. His roles have ranged from Ebenezer Scrooge in the musical version of Scrooge (1970) to Daddy Warbucks in Annie (1982) and (in flamboyant over-the-top make-up) Hercule Poirot in Murder on the Orient Express (1974). He appeared as Minister of Police Joseph Fouché in Ridley Scott's superb period drama The Duellists (1977) and as a grandiloquent Shakespearean actor in The Dresser (1983) for which he received an Oscar nomination. For the small screen Finney essayed Pope John Paul II (1984) and was a totally believable Winston Churchill in the acclaimed The Gathering Storm (2002). His final movie credit was in the James Bond thriller Skyfall (2012).
Finney was five-times nominated for Academy Awards in 1964, 1975, 1984, 1985 and 2001. He won two BAFTA Awards in 1961 and 2004. True to his working-class roots, he spurned a CBE in 1980 and a knighthood in 2000, later explaining his decision by stating that the 'Sir thing' "slightly perpetuates one of our diseases in England, which is snobbery". Albert Finney was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2011. He died on February 7 2019 at a London hospital from a chest infection at the age of 82. Upon his death, John Cleese described him as "the best" and "our greatest actor".Greats: Miller's Crossing (1990) (1990); Traffic (2000) (2000); Skyfall (2012) (2012)
Give It a Shot: Big Fish (2003) (2003)★; Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007) (2007); The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) (2008)
Caution: Tom Jones (1963) (1963)★; Murder on the Orient Express (1974) (1974)★; The Bourne Legacy (2012) (2012)
Other Notable Film(s): Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960) (1960)✰; The Entertainer (1960) (1960); Two for the Road (1967) (1967); Scrooge (1970) (1970)✰; Gumshoe (1971) (1971); The Duellists (1977) (1977); Wolfen (1981) (1981); Looker (1981) (1981); Annie (1982) (1982); Shoot the Moon (1982) (1982)✰; The Dresser (1983) (1983)✰; Under the Volcano (1984) (1984)✰; The Browning Version (1994) (1994); Washington Square (1997) (1997); Simpatico (1999) (1999); Breakfast of Champions (1999) (1999); Erin Brockovich (2000) (2000)✰; Delivering Milo (2001) (2001); Corpse Bride (2005) (2005); Amazing Grace (2006) (2006); A Good Year (2006) (2006)- Actor
- Producer
- Art Department
Jeffrey Leon Bridges was born on December 4, 1949 in Los Angeles, California, the son of well-known film and TV star Lloyd Bridges and his long-time wife Dorothy Dean Bridges (née Simpson). He grew up amid the happening Hollywood scene with big brother Beau Bridges. Both boys popped up, without billing, alongside their mother in the film The Company She Keeps (1951), and appeared on occasion with their famous dad on his popular underwater TV series Sea Hunt (1958) while growing up. At age 14, Jeff toured with his father in a stage production of "Anniversary Waltz". The "troublesome teen" years proved just that for Jeff and his parents were compelled at one point to intervene when problems with drugs and marijuana got out of hand.
He recovered and began shaping his nascent young adult career appearing on TV as a younger version of his father in the acclaimed TV- movie Silent Night, Lonely Night (1969), and in the strange Burgess Meredith film The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go (1970). Following fine notices for his portrayal of a white student caught up in the racially-themed Halls of Anger (1970), his career-maker arrived just a year later when he earned a coming-of-age role in the critically-acclaimed ensemble film The Last Picture Show (1971). The Peter Bogdanovich- directed film made stars out off its young leads (Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Cybill Shepherd) and Oscar winners out of its older cast (Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman). The part of Duane Jackson, for which Jeff received his first Oscar-nomination (for "best supporting actor"), set the tone for the types of roles Jeff would acquaint himself with his fans -- rambling, reckless, rascally and usually unpredictable).
Owning a casual carefree handsomeness and armed with a perpetual grin and sly charm, he started immediately on an intriguing 70s sojourn into offbeat filming. Chief among them were his boxer on his way up opposite a declining Stacy Keach in Fat City (1972); his Civil War-era conman in the western Bad Company (1972); his redneck stock car racer in The Last American Hero (1973); his young student anarchist opposite a stellar veteran cast in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh (1973); his bank-robbing (also Oscar-nominated) sidekick to Clint Eastwood in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974); his aimless cattle rustler in Rancho Deluxe (1975); his low-level western writer who wants to be a real-life cowboy in Hearts of the West (1975); and the brother of an assassinated President who pursues leads to the crime in Winter Kills (1979). All are simply marvelous characters that should have propelled him to the very top rungs of stardom...but strangely didn't.
Perhaps it was his trademark ease and naturalistic approach that made him somewhat under appreciated at that time when Hollywood was run by a Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro and Al Pacino-like intensity. Neverthless, Jeff continued to be a scene-stealing favorite into the next decade, notably as the video game programmer in the 1982 science-fiction cult classic Tron (1982), and the struggling musician brother vying with brother Beau Bridges over the attentions of sexy singer Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989). Jeff became a third-time Oscar nominee with his highly intriguing (and strangely sexy) portrayal of a blank-faced alien in Starman (1984), and earned even higher regard as the ever-optimistic inventor Preston Tucker in Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988).
Since then Jeff has continued to pour on the Bridges magic on film. Few enjoy such an enduring popularity while maintaining equal respect with the critics. The Fisher King (1991), American Heart (1992), Fearless (1993), The Big Lebowski (1998) (now a cult phenomenon) and The Contender (2000) (which gave him a fourth Oscar nomination) are prime examples. More recently he seized the moment as a bald-pated villain as Robert Downey Jr.'s nemesis in Iron Man (2008) and then, at age 60, he capped his rewarding career by winning the elusive Oscar, plus the Golden Globe and Screen Actor Guild awards (among many others), for his down-and-out country singer Bad Blake in Crazy Heart (2009). Bridges next starred in Tron: Legacy (2010), reprising one of his more famous roles, and received another Oscar nomination for Best Actor for his role in the Western remake True Grit (2010). In 2014, he co-produced and starred in an adaptation of the Lois Lowry science fiction drama The Giver (2014).
Jeff has been married since 1977 to non-professional Susan Geston (they met on the set of Rancho Deluxe (1975)). The couple have three daughters, Isabelle (born 1981), Jessica (born 1983), and Hayley (born 1985). He hobbies as a photographer on and off his film sets, and has been known to play around as a cartoonist and pop musician. His ancestry is English, and smaller amounts of Scots-Irish (Northern Irish), Irish, Swiss-German, and German.Greats: The Last Picture Show (1971) (1971)★; Heaven's Gate (1980) (1980); Crazy Heart (2009) (2009)★
Give It a Shot: Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) (1974)★; Stay Hungry (1976) (1976); Cutter's Way (1981) (1981); Starman (1984) (1984)★; The Fisher King (1991) (1991)★; Fearless (1993) (1993); The Big Lebowski (1998) (1998); Surf's Up (2007) [voice] (2007); Iron Man (2008) (2008); True Grit (2010) (2010)★; Hell or High Water (2016) (2016)★
Caution: The Morning After (1986) (1986); The Contender (2000) (2000)★; The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) (2009); Tron: Legacy (2010) (2010)
Other Notable Film(s): Fat City (1972) (1972); Bad Company (1972) (1972); The Last American Hero (1973) (1973); The Iceman Cometh (1973) (1973); Rancho Deluxe (1975) (1975); Hearts of the West (1975) (1975); King Kong (1976) (1976); Winter Kills (1979) (1979); Tron (1982) (1982); The Last Unicorn (1982) [voice] (1982); Kiss Me Goodbye (1982) (1982); Against All Odds (1984) (1984); Jagged Edge (1985) (1985); 8 Million Ways to Die (1986) (1986); Nadine (1987) (1987); Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988) (1988); See You in the Morning (1989) (1989); The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989) (1989); Texasville (1990) (1990); American Heart (1992) (1992); The Vanishing (1993) (1993); Blown Away (1994) (1994); Wild Bill (1995) (1995); White Squall (1996) (1996); The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) (1996); Arlington Road (1999) (1999); The Muse (1999) (1999); Simpatico (1999) (1999); Scenes of the Crime (2001) (2001); K-PAX (2001) (2001); Masked and Anonymous (2003) (2003); Seabiscuit (2003) (2003); The Door in the Floor (2004) (2004); The Amateurs (2005); Tideland (2005) (2005); Stick It (2006) (2006); The Open Road (2009) (2009); A Dog Year (2009) (2009); R.I.P.D. (2013) (2013); The Giver (2014) (2014); Seventh Son (2014) (2015); The Little Prince (2015) [voice] (2015); The Only Living Boy in New York (2017) (2017); Only the Brave (2017) (2017); Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) (2017)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
A legendary actor with 50 celebrated years of film, television and producing experience, Michael Douglas is known for his era-defining roles and enduring cultural impact.
In addition to his career accomplishments, Douglas has remained a steadfast public servant, activist and philanthropist dedicated to peace and human welfare, democracy, gun control advocacy, support of the arts and support of nuclear disarmament. In 1998, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Douglas as a Messenger of Peace for his commitment on disarmament issues, including nuclear non-proliferation and halting the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.
Since his earliest acting work on Hail, Hero! (1969) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972) Douglas has played some of the most memorable and enigmatic American anti-heroes of the last half century. He is most known for his iconic screen roles, like his Academy Award-winning turn as Gordon Gekko Wall Street (1987) as well as the critically and commercially acclaimed films Fatal Attraction (1987), The American President (1995), Basic Instinct (1992), Traffic (2000) and Romancing the Stone (1984). He is also a prolific producer with credits on politically relevant and socially influential motion pictures like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The China Syndrome (1979), Traffic (2000) the television series: The Kominsky Method (2018) and an upcoming limited series where Douglas portrays Benjamin Franklin (2024) during his nine years in France lobbying for French aid for the American Revolution.
With a passion for complex protagonists and darkly humorous undercurrents, Douglas has received numerous accolades for his work, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, AFI Life Achievement Award, two French César Awards for Career Achievement and, most recently, the Palme d'or d'honneur for lifetime achievement at the 76th Annual Festival de Cannes as well as the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Cinema at the Goa Film Festival in India.
Michael Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to actors Diana Douglas (Diana Love Dill) and Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch). His paternal grandparents were Belarusian Jewish immigrants, while his mother was born in Bermuda, the daughter of a local Attorney General, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill; Diana's family had long been established in both Bermuda and the United States. Douglas's parents divorced when he was six, and he went to live with his mother and her new husband. Only seeing Kirk on holidays, Michael attended Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he was about a year younger than all of his classmates.
Douglas attended the elite preparatory Choate School and spent his summers with his father on movie sets. Although accepted at Yale, Douglas attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. Deciding he wanted to be an actor in his teenage years, Michael often asked his father about getting a "foot in the door" Kirk was strongly opposed to Michael pursuing an acting career, saying that it was an industry with many downs and few ups, and that he wanted all four of his sons to stay out of it. Michael, however, was persistent, and made his film debut in his father's film Cast a Giant Shadow (1966).
After receiving his B.A. degree in 1968, Douglas moved to New York City to continue his dramatic training, studying at the American Place Theatre with Wynn Handman, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he appeared in workshop productions of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1976) and Thornton Wilder's Happy Journey (1963). A few months after he arrived in New York, Douglas got his first big break, when he was cast in the pivotal role of the free-spirited scientist who compromises his liberal views to accept a lucrative job with a high-tech chemical corporation in the CBS Playhouse production of Ellen M. Violett's drama, The Experiment, which was televised nationwide on February 25, 1969.
Douglas' convincing portrayal won him the leading role in the adaptation of John Weston's controversial novel, Hail, Hero! (1969), which was the initial project of CBS's newly organized theatrical film production company, Cinema Center Films. Douglas starred as a well-meaning, almost saintly young pacifist determined not only to justify his beliefs to his conservative parents but also to test them under fire in the jungles of Indochina. His second feature, Adam at Six A.M. (1970) concerned a young man's search for his roots. Douglas next appeared in the film version of Ron Cowen's play Summertree (1971), produced by 'Kirk Douglas'' Bryna Company, and then Napoleon and Samantha (1972), a sentimental children's melodrama from the Walt Disney studio.
In between film assignments, he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway productions, among them "City Scenes," Frank Gagliano's surrealistic vignettes of contemporary life in New York, John Patrick Shanley's short-lived romance "Love is a Time of Day" and George Tabori's "Pinkville," in which he played a young innocent brutalized by his military training. He also appeared in the made-for-television thriller, "When Michael Calls," broadcast by ABC-TV on February 5, 1972 and in episodes of the popular series "Medical Center" and "The F.B.I."
Impressed by Douglas' performance in a segment of The F.B.I. (1965), producer 'Quinn Martin' signed the actor for the part of Karl Malden's sidekick in the police series "The Streets of San Francisco", which premiered in September 1972 and became one of ABC's highest-rated prime-time programs in the mid-1970s. Douglas earned three successive Emmy Award nominations for his performance and he directed two episodes of the series.
During the annual breaks in the shooting schedule for The Streets of San Francisco (1972), Douglas devoted most of his time to his film production company, Big Stick Productions, Ltd., which produced several short subjects in the early 1970s. Long interested in producing a film version of Ken Kesey's grimly humorous novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Douglas purchased the movie rights from his father and began looking for financial backing. After a number of major motion picture studios turned him down, Douglas formed a partnership with Saul Zaentz, a record industry executive, and the two set about recruiting the cast and crew. Douglas still had a year to go on his contract for "The Streets of San Francisco," but the producers agreed to write his character out of the story so that he could concentrate on filming "Cuckoo's Nest."
A critical and commercial success, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress, and went on to gross more than $180 million at the box office. Douglas suddenly found himself in demand as an independent producer. One of the many scripts submitted to him for consideration was Mike Gray's chilling account of the attempted cover-up of an accident at a nuclear power plant. Attracted by the combination of social relevance and suspense, Douglas immediately bought the property. Deemed not commercial by most investors, Douglas teamed up with Jane Fonda and her own motion picture production company, IPC Films.
A Michael Douglas-IPC Films co-production, The China Syndrome (1979) starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, and Michael Douglas and received Academy Award nominations for Lemmon and Fonda, as well as for Best Screenplay. The National Board of Review named the film one of the best films of the year.
Despite his success as a producer, Douglas resumed his acting career in the late 1970s, starring in Michael Crichton's medical thriller Coma (1978) with Genevieve Bujold, Claudia Weill's feminist comedy It's My Turn (1980) starring Jill Clayburgh, and Peter Hyams' gripping tale of modern-day vigilante justice, "The Star Chamber" (1983). Douglas also starred in Running (1979), as a compulsive quitter who sacrifices everything to take one last shot at the Olympics, and as Zach the dictatorial director/choreographer in Richard Attenborough's screen version of the Broadway's longest running musical A Chorus Line (1985).
Douglas' career as an actor/producer came together again in 1984 with the release of the tongue-in-cheek romantic fantasy "Romancing the Stone." Douglas had begun developing the project several years earlier, and with Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, the dowdy writer of gothic romances, Danny DeVito as the feisty comic foil Ralphie and Douglas as Jack Colton, the reluctant soldier of fortune. "Romancing the Stone" was a resounding hit and grossed more than $100 million at the box office. Douglas was named Producer of the Year in 1984 by the National Association of Theater Owners. Douglas, Turner and DeVito teamed up in 1985 for the successful sequel The Jewel of the Nile (1985).
It took Douglas nearly two years to convince Columbia Pictures executives to approve the production of Starman (1984), an unlikely tale of romance between an extraterrestrial, played by Jeff Bridges, and a young widow, played by Karen Allen. Starman (1984) was the sleeper hit of the 1984 Christmas season and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Jeff Bridges. In 1986 Douglas created a television series based on the film for ABC which starred Robert Hays.
After a lengthy break from acting, Douglas returned to the screen in 1987 appearing in two of the year's biggest hits. He starred opposite Glenn Close in the phenomenally successful psychological thriller, "Fatal Attraction," which was followed by his performance as ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987), earning him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Douglas next starred in Ridley Scott's thriller Black Rain (1989) and then teamed up again with Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito in the black comedy The War of the Roses (1989).
In 1988, Douglas formed Stonebridge Entertainment, Inc., which produced Flatliners (1990), directed by Joel Schumacher and starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin and Radio Flyer (1992) starring Lorraine Bracco and directed by Richard Donner. Douglas followed with David Seltzer's adaptation of Susan Isaacs' best-selling novel, "Shining Through," opposite Melanie Griffith. In 1992 he starred with Sharon Stone in the erotic thriller from Paul Verhoeven Basic Instinct (1992), one of the year's top grossing films.
Douglas gave one of his most powerful performances opposite Robert Duvall in Joel Schumacher's controversial drama Falling Down (1993). That year he also produced the hit comedy "Made in America" starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Danson and Will Smith. In 1994-95 he starred with Demi Moore in Barry Levinson's "Disclosure," based on the best seller by Michael Crichton. In 1995, Douglas portrayed the title role in Rob Reiner's romantic comedy The American President (1995) opposite Annette Bening, and in 1997, starred in The Game (1997) directed by David Fincher and co-starring Sean Penn.
Douglas formed Douglas/Reuther Productions with partner Steven Reuther in May 1994. The company, under the banner of Constellation Films, produced The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), starring Douglas and Val Kilmer, and John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997), based on John Grisham's best selling novel, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Matt Damon,Claire Danes, Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Mary Kay Place, Virginia Madsen, Andrew Shue, Teresa Wright, Johnny Whitworth and Randy Travis.
Michael Douglas and Steve Reuther also produced John Woo's action thriller Face/Off (1997) starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, which proved to be one of '97's major hits.
In 1998, Michael Douglas starred with Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen in the mystery thriller A Perfect Murder (1998), and formed a new production company, Furthur Films. 2000 was a milestone year for Douglas. "Wonder Boys" opened in February 2000 to much critical acclaim. Directed by Curtis Hanson and co-starring Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes, Douglas starred in the film as troubled college professor Grady Tripp. Michael was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Film Award for his performance.
"Traffic" was released by USA Films on December 22, 2000 in New York and Los Angeles and went nationwide in January 2001. Douglas played the role of Robert Wakefield, a newly appointed drug czar confronted by the drug war both at home and abroad. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and co-starring Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Amy Irving, Dennis Quaid and Catherine Zeta-Jones, "Traffic" was named Best Picture by New York Film Critics, won Best Ensemble Cast at the SAG Awards, won four Academy Awards (Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro) and has been recognized on more than 175 top ten lists.
In 2001, Douglas produced and played a small role in USA Films' outrageous comedy "One Night at McCool's" starring Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser and directed by Harald Zwart. "McCool's" was the first film by Douglas' company Furthur Films. Also in 2001, Douglas starred in "Don't Say A Word" for 20th Century Fox. The psychological thriller, directed by Gary Fleder, also starred Sean Bean, Famke Janseen and Brittany Murphy.
In 2002, Douglas appeared in a guest role on the hit NBC comedy "Will & Grace," and received an Emmy Nomination for his performance.
Douglas starred in two films in 2003. MGM/BVI released the family drama "It Runs in the Family," which Douglas produced and starred with his father Kirk Douglas, his mother Diana Douglas his son Cameron Douglas, Rory Culkin and Bernadette Peters. He also starred in the Warner Bros. comedy "The-In Laws," with Albert Brooks, Candice Bergen and Ryan Reynolds.
In 2004, Douglas, along with his father Kirk, filmed the intimate HBO documentary "A Father, A Son... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". Directed by award-winning filmmaker Lee Grant, the documentary examines the professional and personal lives of both men, and the impacts they each made on the motion picture industry.
In 2005, Douglas produced and starred in "The Sentinel", which was released by 20th Century Fox in April 2006. Based on the Gerald Petievich novel and directed by Clark Johnson, "The Sentinel" is a political thriller set in the intriguing world of the Secret Service. Douglas stars with Keifer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Bassinger. Douglas then filmed "You, Me & Dupree," starring with Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon. The comedy, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, was released by Universal Pictures during the summer of 2006. In 2007 Douglas made "King of California," co-starring Evan Rachel Wood and is written and directed by Michael Cahill, and produced by Alexander Payne and Michael London.
Michael had two films released in early 2009, "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" directed by Peter Hyams and "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner and directed by Mark Waters. He followed with the drama "Solitary Man" directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, co-starring Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary Louise-Parker, and Jenna Fischer, produced by Paul Schiff and Steven Soderbergh. In 2010, Douglas reprised his Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," earning a Golden Globe for his performance. Again directed by Oliver Stone, he co-starred with Shia Labeouf, Cary Mulligan, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon.
In 2011, Douglas had a cameo role in Steven Soderbergh's action thriller "Haywire."
"Behind the Candelabra," based on the life of '70's/80's musical icon Liberace and his partner Scott Thorson, directed by Steven Soderbergh and costarring Matt Damon, premiered on HBO in May 2013. Douglas won an Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor in a television movie or mini series for his performance as the famed entertainer. He followed with the buddy comedy "Last Vegas," directed by John Turtletaub co-starring Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline and the romantic comedy "And So It Goes," co-starring Diane Keaton directed by Rob Reiner.
Douglas recently starred in and produced the thriller "Beyond The Reach," directed by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti and costarring Jeremy Irvine. He and portrayed Dr. Hank Pym in Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) opposite Paul Rudd. The franchise was his first venture into the realm of comic book action adventure.
In 2017, he starred in the spy thriller "Unlocked" starring with Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich and directed by Michael Apted.
In 1998 Douglas was made a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Kofi Annan. His main concentrations are nuclear non-proliferation and the control of small arms. He is on the Board of Ploughshares Foundation and The Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Michael Douglas was recipient of the 2009 AFI Lifetime Achievement as well as the Producers Guild Award that year. In Spring '10 he received the New York Film Society's Charlie Chaplin Award.
Douglas has hosted 11 years of "Michael Douglas and Friends" Celebrity Golf Event which has raised over $6 million for the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Douglas is very passionate about the organization, and each year he asks his fellow actors and to come out and show that "we are an industry that takes care of own".
Douglas is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones. The couple has one son, Dylan, and one daughter, Carys. Douglas also has one son, Cameron, from a previous marriage.Greats: The China Syndrome (1979) (1979); Wall Street (1987) (1987)★; Fatal Attraction (1987) (1987); Traffic (2000) (2000)
Give It a Shot: Romancing the Stone (1984) (1984); Falling Down (1993) (1993); The American President (1995) (1995)✰; The Game (1997) (1997); Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) (2010)✰; Ant-Man (2015) (2015); Avengers: Endgame (2019) (2018)
Caution: Basic Instinct (1992) (1992); A Perfect Murder (1998) (1998); Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) (2018)
Flops: The Sentinel (2006) (2006); You, Me and Dupree (2006) (2006); Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) (2009)
Other Notable Film(s): The Streets of San Francisco (1972) [TV series] (1972-1976); Napoleon and Samantha (1972) (1972); Coma (1978) (1978); It's My Turn (1980) (1980); The Star Chamber (1983) (1983); The Jewel of the Nile (1985) (1985); A Chorus Line (1985) (1985); Black Rain (1989) (1989); The War of the Roses (1989) (1989)✰; Shining Through (1992) (1992); The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) (1996); Wonder Boys (2000) (2000)✰; One Night at McCool's (2001) (2001); Don't Say a Word (2001) (2001); It Runs in the Family (2003) (2003); The In-Laws (2003) (2003); King of California (2007) (2007); Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (2009) (2009); Solitary Man (2009) (2009); Haywire (2011) (2011); Last Vegas (2013) (2013); Behind the Candelabra (2013) [TV] (2013)✰; And So It Goes (2014) (2014); Beyond the Reach (2014) (2014); Unlocked (2017) (2017); Animal World (2018)- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
Javier Bardem belongs to a family of actors that have been working on films since the early days of Spanish cinema.
He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, to actress Pilar Bardem (María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz) and businessman José Carlos Encinas Doussinague. His maternal grandparents were actors Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro, and his uncle is screenwriter Juan Antonio Bardem. He got his start in the family business, at age six, when he appeared in his first feature, "El picaro" (1974) (A.K.A. The Scoundrel). During his teenage years, he acted in several TV series, played rugby for the Spanish National Team, and toured the country with an independent theatrical group. Javier's early film role as a sexy stud in the black comedy, Jamón, Jamón (1992) (aka Ham Ham) propelled him to instant popularity and threatened to typecast him as nothing more than a brawny sex symbol. Determined to avert a beefcake image, he refused similar subsequent roles and has gone on to win acclaim for his ability to appear almost unrecognizable from film to film. With over 25 movies and numerous awards under his belt, it is Javier's stirring, passionate performance as the persecuted Cuban writer, Reynaldo Arenas, in Before Night Falls (2000) that will long be remembered as his breakthrough role. He received five Best Actor awards and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal.Greats: Collateral (2004); No Country for Old Men (2007)★; Skyfall (2012)★
Give It a Shot: Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008)✰
Caution: To the Wonder (2012)
Flops: Mother! (2017)
Other Notable Film(s): The Ages of Lulu (1990); High Heels (1991); Jamon Jamon (1992); Golden Balls (1993); Mouth to Mouth (1995); Love Can Seriously Damage Your Health (1996); Perdita Durango (1997) (1997); Live Flesh (1997); Between Your Legs (1999); Before Night Falls (2000)✰; The Dancer Upstairs (2002) (2002); Mondays in the Sun (2002); The Sea Inside (2004)✰; Goya's Ghosts (2006) (2006); Love in the Time of Cholera (2007) (2007); Biutiful (2010) (2010)✰; Eat Pray Love (2010) (2010); The Counselor (2013) (2013); Automata (2014) [voice] (2013); The Gunman (2015) (2015); The Last Face (2016) (2015); Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017) (2017); Loving Pablo (2017) (2017); Everybody Knows (2018); The Roads Not Taken (2020); Dune (2020)- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Charles Boyer studied philosophy before he went to the theater where he gave his debut in 1920. Although he had at first no intentions to pursue a career at the movies (his first movie was Man of the Sea (1920) by Marcel L'Herbier) he used his chance in Hollywood after several filming stations all over Europe. In the beginning of his career his beautiful voice was hidden by the silent movies but in Hollywood he became famous for his whispered declarations of love (like in movies with Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich or Ingrid Bergman). In 1934 he married Pat Paterson, his first and (unusual for a star) only wife. He was so faithful to her that he decided to commit suicide two days after her death in 1978.Greats: Gaslight (1944) (1944)★
Flops: Casino Royale (1967) (1967)
Other Notable Film(s): Red-Headed Woman (1932) (1932); Liliom (1934) (1934); The Garden of Allah (1936) (1936); History Is Made at Night (1937) (1937); Conquest (1937) (1937)✰; Algiers (1938) (1938)✰; Love Affair (1939) (1939); All This, and Heaven Too (1940) (1940); Hold Back the Dawn (1941) (1941); Tales of Manhattan (1942) (1942); Cluny Brown (1946) (1946); Arch of Triumph (1948) (1948); The Earrings of Madame de... (1953); Around the World in 80 Days (1956) (1956); The Buccaneer (1958) (1958); Fanny (1961) (1961)✰; The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) (1962); Is Paris Burning? (1966); How to Steal a Million (1966) (1966); Barefoot in the Park (1967) (1967); Lost Horizon (1973) (1973); Stavisky (1974) (1974)✰- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Lee J. Cobb, one of the premier character actors in American film for three decades in the post-World War II period, was born Leo Jacoby in New York City's Lower East Side on December 8, 1911. The son of a Jewish newspaper editor, young Leo was a child prodigy in music, mastering the violin and the harmonica. Any hopes of a career as a violin virtuoso were dashed when he broke his wrist, but his talent on the harmonica may have brought him his first professional success. At the age of 16 or 17 he ran away from home to Hollywood to try to break into motion pictures as an actor. He reportedly made his film debut as a member of Borrah Minevitch and His Harmonica Rascals (their first known movie appearance was in the 1929 two-reeler Boyhood Days), but that cannot be substantiated. However, it's known that after Leo was unable to find work he returned to New York City, where he attended New York University at night to study accounting while acting in radio dramas during the day.
An older Cobb tried his luck in California once more, making his debut as a professional stage actor at the Pasadena Playhouse in 1931. After again returning to his native New York, he made his Broadway debut as a saloonkeeper in a dramatization of Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, but it closed after 15 performances (later in his career, Dostoevsky would prove more of a charm, with Cobb's role as Father Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov (1958) garnering him his second Oscar nomination),
Cobb joined the politically progressive Group Theater in 1935 and made a name for himself in Clifford Odets' politically liberal dramas Waiting for Lefty and Til the Day I Die, appearing in both plays that year in casts that included Elia Kazan, who later became famous as a film director. Cobb also appeared in the 1937 Group Theater production of Odets' Golden Boy, playing the role of Mr. Carp, in a cast that also included Kazan, Julius Garfinkle (later better known under his stage name of John Garfield), and Martin Ritt, all of whom later came under the scrutiny of the House Un-American Activities Committee during the heyday of the McCarthy Red Scare hysteria more than a decade later. Cobb took over the role of Mr. Bonaparte, the protagonist's father, in the 1939 film version of the play, despite the fact that he was not yet 30 years old. The role of a patriarch suited him, and he'd play many more in his film career.
It was as a different kind of patriarch that he scored his greatest success. Cobb achieved immortality by giving life to the character of Willy Loman in the original 1949 Broadway production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. His performance was a towering achievement that ranks with such performances as Edwin Booth as Richard III and John Barrymore as Hamlet in the annals of the American theater. Cobb later won an Emmy nomination as Willy when he played the role in a made-for-TV movie of the play (Death of a Salesman (1966)). Miller said that he wrote the role with Cobb in mind.
Before triumphing as Miller's Salesman, Cobb had appeared on Broadway only a handful of times in the 1940s, including in Ernest Hemingway's The Fifth Column (1940), Odets' "Clash by Night" (1942) and the US Army Air Force's Winged Victory (1943-44). Later he reprised the role of Joe Bonaparte's father in the 1952 revival of Golden Boy opposite Garfield as his son, and appeared the following year in The Emperor's Clothes. His final Broadway appearance was as King Lear in the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center's 1968 production of Shakespeare's play.
Aside from his possible late 1920s movie debut and his 1934 appearance in the western The Vanishing Shadow (1934), Cobb's film career proper began in 1937 with the westerns North of the Rio Grande (1937) (in which he was billed as Lee Colt) and Rustlers' Valley (1937) and spanned nearly 40 years until his death. After a hiatus while serving in the Army Air Force during World War II, Cobb's movie career resumed in 1946. He continued to play major supporting roles in prestigious A-list pictures. His movie career reached its artistic peak in the 1950s, when he was twice nominated for Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards, for his role as Johnny Friendly in On the Waterfront (1954) and as the father in The Brothers Karamazov (1958). Other memorable supporting roles in the 1950s included the sagacious Judge Bernstein in The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956), as the probing psychiatrist Dr. Luther in The Three Faces of Eve (1957) and as the volatile Juror #3 in 12 Angry Men (1957).
It was in the 1950s that Cobb achieved the sort of fame that most artists dreaded: he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee on charges that he was or had been a Communist. The charges were rooted in Cobb's membership in the Group Theater in the 1930s. Other Group Theater members already investigated by HUAC included Clifford Odets and Elia Kazan, both of whom provided friendly testimony before the committee, and John Garfield, who did not.
Cobb's own persecution by HUAC had already caused a nervous breakdown in his wife, and he decided to appear as a friendly witness in order to preserve her sanity and his career, by bringing the inquisition to a halt. Appearing before the committee in 1953, he named names and thus saved his career. Ironically, he would win his first Oscar nomination in On the Waterfront (1954) directed and written by fellow HUAC informers Kazan and Budd Schulberg. The film can be seen as a stalwart defense of informing, as epitomized by the character Terry Malloy's testimony before a Congressional committee investigating racketeering on the waterfront.
Major films in which Cobb appeared after reaching his career plateau include Otto Preminger's adaptation of Leon Uris' ode to the birth of Israel, Exodus (1960); the Cinerama spectacle How the West Was Won (1962); the James Coburn spy spoofs, Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967); Clint Eastwood's first detective film, Coogan's Bluff (1968); and legendary director William Wyler's last film, The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970).
In addition to his frequent supporting roles in film, Cobb often appeared on television. He played Judge Henry Garth on The Virginian (1962) from 1962-66 and also had a regular role as the attorney David Barrett on The Young Lawyers (1969) from 1970-71. Cobb also appeared in made-for-TV movies and made frequent guest appearances on other TV shows. His last major Hollywood movie role was that of police detective Lt. Kinderman in The Exorcist (1973).
Lee J. Cobb died of a heart attack in Woodland Hills, California, on February 11, 1976, at the age of 64. He is buried in Mount Sinai Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Though he will long be remembered for many of his successful supporting performances in the movies, it is as the stage's first Willy Loman in which he achieved immortality as an actor. Bearing in mind that the role was written for him, it is through Willy that he will continue to have an influence on American drama far into the future, for as long as Death of a Salesman is revived.Greats: On the Waterfront (1954) (1954)★; 12 Angry Men (1957) (1957)★; The Exorcist (1973) (1972)
Other Notable Film(s): Golden Boy (1939) (1939); The Song of Bernadette (1943) (1943); Anna and the King of Siam (1946) (1946); Boomerang! (1947) (1947); Captain from Castile (1947) (1947); Call Northside 777 (1948) (1948); The Dark Past (1948) (1948); Thieves' Highway (1949) (1949); Sirocco (1951) (1951); The Left Hand of God (1955) (1955); The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956) (1956); The Three Faces of Eve (1957) (1957); The Brothers Karamazov (1958) (1958)✰; Man of the West (1958) (1958); Party Girl (1958) (1958); But Not for Me (1959) (1959); Green Mansions (1959) (1959); Exodus (1960) (1960); How the West Was Won (1962) (1962); The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1962) (1962); Come Blow Your Horn (1963) (1963)✰; Our Man Flint (1966) (1966); In Like Flint (1967) (1967); Coogan's Bluff (1968) (1968); Mackenna's Gold (1969) (1969); Lawman (1971) (1971)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Richard St John Harris was born on October 1, 1930 in Limerick, Ireland, to a farming family, one of nine children born to Mildred (Harty) and Ivan Harris. He attended Crescent College, a Jesuit school, and was an excellent rugby player, with a strong passion for literature. Unfortunately, a bout of tuberculosis as a teenager ended his aspirations to a rugby career, but he became fascinated with the theater and skipped a local dance one night to attend a performance of "Henry IV". He was hooked and went on to learn his craft at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), then spent several years in stage productions. He debuted on screen in Shake Hands with the Devil (1959) and quickly scored regular work in films, including The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959), The Night Fighters (1960) and a good role as a frustrated Australian bomber pilot in The Guns of Navarone (1961).
However, his breakthrough performance was as the quintessential "angry young man" in the sensational drama This Sporting Life (1963), which scored him an Oscar nomination. He then appeared in the WW II commando tale The Heroes of Telemark (1965) and in the Sam Peckinpah-directed western Major Dundee (1965). He next showed up in Hawaii (1966) and played King Arthur in Camelot (1967), a lackluster adaptation of the famous Broadway play. Better performances followed, among them a role as a reluctant police informer in The Molly Maguires (1970) alongside Sir Sean Connery. Harris took the lead role in the violent western A Man Called Horse (1970), which became something of a cult film and spawned two sequels. As the 1970s progressed, Harris continued to appear regularly on screen; however, the quality of the scripts varied from above average to woeful.
His credits during this period included directing himself as an aging soccer player in The Hero (1970); the western The Deadly Trackers (1973); the big-budget "disaster" film Juggernaut (1974); the strangely-titled crime film 99 and 44/100% Dead! (1974); with Connery again in Robin and Marian (1976); Gulliver's Travels (1977); a part in the Jaws (1975); Orca (1977) and a nice turn as an ill-fated mercenary with Richard Burton and Roger Moore in the popular action film The Wild Geese (1978).
The 1980s kicked off with Harris appearing in the silly Bo Derek vanity production Tarzan the Ape Man (1981) and the remainder of the decade had him appearing in some very forgettable productions. However, the luck of the Irish was once again to shine on Harris's career and he scored rave reviews (and another Oscar nomination) for The Field (1990). He then locked horns with Harrison Ford as an IRA sympathizer in Patriot Games (1992) and got one of his best roles as gunfighter English Bob in the Clint Eastwood western Unforgiven (1992). Harris was firmly back in vogue and rewarded his fans with more wonderful performances in Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993); Cry, the Beloved Country (1995); The Great Kandinsky (1995) and This Is the Sea (1997). Further fortune came his way with a strong performance in the blockbuster Gladiator (2000) and he became known to an entirely new generation of film fans as Albus Dumbledore in the mega-successful Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). His final screen role was as "Lucius Sulla" in Caesar (2002).
Harris died of Hodgkin's disease, also known as Hodgkin's lymphoma, in London on October 25, 2002, aged 72.Greats: The Guns of Navarone (1961) (1961); Unforgiven (1992) (1992); Gladiator (2000) (2000)
Give It a Shot: Patriot Games (1992) (1992); Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) (2001); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) (2002)
Other Notable Film(s): The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959) (1959); Jungle Fighters (1961) (1961); Mutiny on the Bounty (1962) (1962); This Sporting Life (1963) (1963)✰; Red Desert (1964); The Heroes of Telemark (1965) (1965); Major Dundee (1965) (1965); The Bible in the Beginning... (1966) (1966); Hawaii (1966) (1966); Camelot (1967) (1967)✰; A Man Called Horse (1970) (1970); The Molly Maguires (1970) (1970); Cromwell (1970) (1970); Man in the Wilderness (1971) (1971); Juggernaut (1974) (1974); Robin and Marian (1976) (1976); The Return of a Man Called Horse (1976) (1976); The Cassandra Crossing (1976) (1976); Orca (1977) (1977); The Wild Geese (1978) (1978); Tarzan the Ape Man (1981) (1981); The Field (1990) (1990)✰; Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993) (1993); Cry, the Beloved Country (1995) (1995); Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997) (1997); The Barber of Siberia (1998); The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) (2002)- Actor
- Soundtrack
Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America's finest actors, and would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.
Melvyn Douglas was born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg on April 5, 1901, in Macon, Georgia. His father, Edouard Gregory Hesselberg, a noted concert pianist and composer, was a Latvian Jewish emigrant, from Riga. His mother, Lena Priscilla (Shackelford), from Clark Furnace, Tennessee, was from a family with deep roots in the United States, and the daughter of Col. George Taliaferro Shackelford. Melvyn's father supported his family by teaching music at university-based conservatories. Melvyn dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.
He made his Broadway debut in the drama "A Free Soul " at the Playhouse Theatre on January 12, 1928, playing the role of a raffish gangster (a part that would later make Clark Gable's career when the play was adapted to the screen as A Free Soul (1931) ). "A Free Soul" was a modest success, running for 100 performances. His next three plays were flops: "Back Here" and "Now-a-Days" each lasted one week, while "Recapture" lasted all of three before closing. He was much luckier with his next play, "Tonight or Never," which opened on November 18, 1930, at legendary producer David Belasco's theater. Not only did the play run for 232 performances, but Douglas met the woman who would be his wife of nearly 50 years: his co-star, Helen Gahagan. They were married in 1931.
The movies came a-calling in 1932 and Douglas had the unique pleasure of assaying completely different characters in widely divergent films. He first appeared opposite his future Ninotchka (1939) co-star Greta Garbo in the screen adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's As You Desire Me (1932), proving himself a sophisticated leading man as, aside from his first-rate performance, he was able to shine in the light thrown off by Garbo, the cinema's greatest star. In typical Hollywood fashion, however, this terrific performance in a top-rank film from a major studio was balanced by his appearance in a low-budget horror film for the independent Mayfair studio, The Vampire Bat (1933). However, the leading man won out, and that's how he first came to fame in the 1930s in such films as She Married Her Boss (1935) and Garbo's final film, Two-Faced Woman (1941). Douglas had shown he could play both straight drama and light comedy.
Douglas was a great liberal and was a pillar of the anti-Nazi Popular Front in the Hollywood of the 1930s. A big supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he and his wife Helen were invited to spend a night at the White House in November 1939. Douglas' leftism would come back to haunt him after the death of FDR.
Well-connected with the Roosevelt White House, Douglas served as a director of the Arts Council in the Office of Civilian Defense before joining the Army during World War II. He was very active in politics and was one of the leading lights of the anti-Communist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Helen Gahagan Douglas, who also was politically active, was elected to Congress from the 14th District in Los Angeles in 1944, the first of three terms.
Returning to films after the war, Douglas' screen persona evolved and he took on more mature roles, in such films as The Sea of Grass (1947) (Elia Kazan's directorial debut) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). His political past caught up with him, however, in the late 1940s, and he - along with fellow liberals Edward G. Robinson and Henry Fonda (a registered Republican!) - were "gray-listed" (not explicitly blacklisted, they just weren't offered any work).
Then there was the theater. Douglas made many appearances on Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s, including in a notable 1959 flop, making his musical debut playing Captain Boyle in Marc Blitzstein's "Juno." The musical, based on Sean O'Casey's play "Juno and the Paycock", closed in less than three weeks. Douglas was much luckier in his next trip to the post: he won a Tony for his Broadway lead role in the 1960 play "The Best Man" by Gore Vidal.
Douglas' evolution into a premier character actor was completed by the early 1960s. His years of movie exile seemed to deepen him, making him richer, and he returned to the big screen a more authoritative actor. For his second role after coming off of the graylist, he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Paul Newman's father in Hud (1963). Other films in which he shined were Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964), CBS Playhouse (1967) (a 1967 episode directed by George Schaefer called "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", for which he won a Best Actor Emmy) and The Candidate (1972), in which he played Robert Redford's father. It was for his performance playing Gene Hackman's father that Douglas got his sole Best Actor Academy Award nod, in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). He had a career renaissance in the late 1970s, appearing in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), Being There (1979) and Ghost Story (1981). He won his second Oscar for "Being There."
Helen Gahagan Douglas died in 1980 and Melvyn followed her in 1981. He was 80 years old.Greats: Captains Courageous (1937) (1937); Hud (1963) (1963)★; I Never Sang for My Father (1970) (1970)★; Being There (1979) (1979)★
Other Notable Film(s): Tonight or Never (1931) (1931); The Old Dark House (1932) (1932); Counsellor at Law (1933) (1933); The Vampire Bat (1933) (1933); Annie Oakley (1935) (1935); Theodora Goes Wild (1936) (1936); The Gorgeous Hussy (1936) (1936); Angel (1937) (1937); Ninotchka (1939) (1939); Too Many Husbands (1940) (1940); That Uncertain Feeling (1941) (1941); A Woman's Face (1941) (1941); The Sea of Grass (1947) (1947); Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948) (1948); Billy Budd (1962) (1962); The Americanization of Emily (1964) (1964); The Candidate (1972) (1972); The Tenant (1976); Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977) (1977); The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979) (1979); The Changeling (1980) (1980); Ghost Story (1981) (1981)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Harrison Ford was born on July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, to Dorothy (Nidelman), a radio actress, and Christopher Ford (born John William Ford), an actor turned advertising executive. His father was of Irish and German ancestry, while his maternal grandparents were Jewish emigrants from Minsk, Belarus. Harrison was a lackluster student at Maine Township High School East in Park Ridge Illinois (no athletic star, never above a C average). After dropping out of Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he did some acting and later summer stock, he signed a Hollywood contract with Columbia and later Universal. His roles in movies and television (Ironside (1967), The Virginian (1962)) remained secondary and, discouraged, he turned to a career in professional carpentry. He came back big four years later, however, as Bob Falfa in American Graffiti (1973). Four years after that, he hit colossal with the role of Han Solo in Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). Another four years and Ford was Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).
Four years later and he received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role as John Book in Witness (1985). All he managed four years after that was his third starring success as Indiana Jones; in fact, many of his earlier successful roles led to sequels as did his more recent portrayal of Jack Ryan in Patriot Games (1992). Another Golden Globe nomination came his way for the part of Dr. Richard Kimble in The Fugitive (1993). He is clearly a well-established Hollywood superstar. He also maintains an 800-acre ranch in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Ford is a private pilot of both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and owns an 800-acre (3.2 km2) ranch in Jackson, Wyoming, approximately half of which he has donated as a nature reserve. On several occasions, Ford has personally provided emergency helicopter services at the request of local authorities, in one instance rescuing a hiker overcome by dehydration. Ford began flight training in the 1960s at Wild Rose Idlewild Airport in Wild Rose, Wisconsin, flying in a Piper PA-22 Tri-Pacer, but at $15 an hour, he could not afford to continue the training. In the mid-1990s, he bought a used Gulfstream II and asked one of his pilots, Terry Bender, to give him flying lessons. They started flying a Cessna 182 out of Jackson, Wyoming, later switching to Teterboro, New Jersey, flying a Cessna 206, the aircraft he soloed in. Ford is an honorary board member of the humanitarian aviation organization Wings of Hope.
On March 5, 2015, Ford's plane, believed to be a Ryan PT-22 Recruit, made an emergency landing on the Penmar Golf Course in Venice, California. Ford had radioed in to report that the plane had suffered engine failure. He was taken to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, where he was reported to be in fair to moderate condition. Ford suffered a broken pelvis and broken ankle during the accident, as well as other injuries.A great actor that's usually in blockbusters. Ford's career went sky rocket for his role as Han Solo in George Lucas' Star Wars in 1977. After that he was in the two sequels of Star Wars (The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi). Ford was also in Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark as Indiana Jones which also spawned three Indiana Jones sequels (Temple of Doom, Last Crusade, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Ford's other well known performances are in movies such as Blade Runner, Witness, Working Girl, The Fugitive, Air Force One, and What Lies Beneath.
Greats: American Graffiti (1973) (1973); The Conversation (1974) (1974); Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) (1977); Apocalypse Now (1979) (1979); The Empire Strikes Back (1980); Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (1981); Blade Runner (1982) (1982); Return of the Jedi (1983); Witness (1985) (1985)★; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) (1989); The Fugitive (1993) (1993)★
Give It a Shot: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) (1984); Working Girl (1988) (1988); Patriot Games (1992) (1992); Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) (2015); Blade Runner 2049 (2017) (2017)
Caution: Clear and Present Danger (1994) (1994); Air Force One (1997) (1997); What Lies Beneath (2000) (2000); Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) (2008); Morning Glory (2010) (2010); Cowboys & Aliens (2011) (2011); Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013) (2013)
Other Notable Film(s): Heroes (1977) (1977); Force 10 from Navarone (1978) (1978); Hanover Street (1979) (1979); The Frisco Kid (1979) (1979); The Mosquito Coast (1986) (1986)✰; Frantic (1988) (1988); Presumed Innocent (1990) (1990); Regarding Henry (1991) (1991); Sabrina (1995) (1995)✰; The Devil's Own (1997) (1997); Six Days Seven Nights (1998) (1998); Random Hearts (1999) (1999); K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) (2002); Hollywood Homicide (2003) (2003); Firewall (2006) (2006); Crossing Over (2009) (2009); Extraordinary Measures (2010) (2010); 42 (2013) (2013); Paranoia (2013) (2013); Ender's Game (2013) (2013); The Expendables 3 (2014) (2014); The Age of Adaline (2015) (2015)- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Peter Lorre was born László Löwenstein in Rózsahegy in the Slovak area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the son of Hungarian Jewish parents. He learned both Hungarian and German languages from birth, and was educated in elementary and secondary schools in the Austria-Hungary capitol Vienna, but did not complete. As a youth he ran away from home, first working as a bank clerk, and after stage training in Vienna, Austria, made his acting debut at age 17 in 1922 in Zurich, Switzerland. He traveled for several years acting on stage throughout his home region, Vienna, Berlin, and Zurich, including working with Bertolt Brecht, until Fritz Lang cast him in a starring role as the psychopathic child killer in the German film M (1931).
After several more films in Germany, including a couple roles for which he learned to speak French, Lorre left as the Nazis came to power, going first to Paris where he made one film, then London where Alfred Hitchcock cast him as a creepy villain in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), where he learned his lines phonetically, and finally arrived in Hollywood in 1935. In his first two roles there he starred as a mad scientist in Mad Love (1935) directed by recent fellow-expatriate Karl Freund, and the leading part of Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment (1935), by another expatriate German director Josef von Sternberg, a successful movie made at Lorre's own suggestion. He returned to England for a role in another Hitchcock film, Secret Agent (1936), then back to the US for a few more films before checking into a rehab facility to cure himself of a morphine addiction.
After shaking his addiction, in order to get any kind of acting work, Lorre reluctantly accepted the starring part as the Japanese secret agent in Thank You, Mr. Moto (1937), wearing makeup to alter his already very round eyes for the part. He ended up committed to repeating the role for eight more "Mr. Moto" movies over the next two years.
Lorre played numerous memorable villain roles, spy characters, comedic roles, and even a romantic type, throughout the 1940s, beginning with his graduation from 30s B-pictures The Maltese Falcon (1941). Among his most famous films, Casablanca (1942), and a comedic role in the Broadway hit film Arsenic and Old Lace (1944).
After the war, between 1946 and '49 Lorre concentrated largely on radio and the stage, while continuing to appear in movies. In Autumn 1950 he traveled to West Gemany where he wrote, directed and starred in the critically acclaimed but generally unknown German-language film The Lost Man (1951), adapted from Lorre's own novel.
Lorre returned to the US in 1952, somewhat heavier in stature, where he used his abilities as a stage actor appearing in many live television productions throughout the 50s, including the first James Bond adaptation Casino Royale (1954), broadcast just a few months after Ian Fleming had published that first Bond novel. In that decade, Lorre had various roles, often to type but also as comedic caricatures of himself, in many episodes of TV series, and variety shows, though he continued to work in motion pictures, including the Academy Award winning Around the World in 80 Days (1956), and a stellar role as a clown in The Big Circus (1959).
In the late 50s and early 1960s he worked in several low-budget films, with producer-director Roger Corman, and producer-writer-director Irwin Allen, including the aforementioned The Big Circus and two adventurous Disney movies with Allen. He died from a stroke the year he made his last movie, playing a stooge in Jerry Lewis' The Patsy (1964).Greats: M (1931)★; The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) (1934); The Maltese Falcon (1941) (1941); Casablanca (1942) (1943); Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) (1944)
Caution: Secret Agent (1936) (1936)
Other Notable Film(s): Mad Love (1935) (1935); Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) (1940); All Through the Night (1942) (1941); Passage to Marseille (1944) (1944); The Mask of Dimitrios (1944) (1944); The Beast with Five Fingers (1946) (1946); The Verdict (1946) (1946); Black Angel (1946) (1946); My Favorite Brunette (1947) (1947); Quicksand (1950) (1950); Beat the Devil (1953) (1953); 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) (1954); Around the World in 80 Days (1956) (1956); Silk Stockings (1957) (1957); Tales of Terror (1962) (1962); The Raven (1963) (1963); The Comedy of Terrors (1963) (1963); The Patsy (1964) (1964)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Despite being one of the finest actors of his generation, Peter Finch will be remembered as much for his reputation as a hard-drinking, hell-raising womanizer as for his performances on the screen. He was born in London in 1916 and went to live in Sydney, Australia, at the age of ten. There, he worked in a series of dead-end jobs before taking up acting, his film debut being in the mediocre comedy The Farmer Goes to Town (1938). He made his stage debut as a comedian's stooge in 1939. Laurence Olivier spotted him and persuaded him to return to Britain to perform classic roles on the stage. Finch then had an affair with Olivier's wife, Vivien Leigh. Despite being married three times, Finch also had highly-publicized affairs with actresses Kay Kendall and Mai Zetterling. Finch soon switched to film after suffering appalling stage fright. As a screen actor, he won five BAFTA awards and his talent was beyond doubt. His two finest roles, the only two for which he received Oscar nominations, were as the homosexual Jewish doctor in Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) and as the "mad prophet of the air-waves" in Network (1976). He died a couple of months before being awarded the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in Network (1976) and was the first actor to have won the award posthumously.Greats: Network (1976) (1976)★
Give It a Shot: Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971) (1971)★
Other Notable Film(s): Elephant Walk (1954) (1954); The Detective (1954); A Town Like Alice (1956) (1956); Pursuit of the Graf Spee (1956) (1956); The Nun's Story (1959) (1959); Kidnapped (1960) (1960); The Pumpkin Eater (1964) (1964); The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) (1965); Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) (1967); The Red Tent (1969); Lost Horizon (1973) (1973)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
The tall, handsome and muscular Scottish actor Sean Connery is best known as the original actor to portray James Bond in the hugely successful movie franchise, starring in seven films between 1962 and 1983. Some believed that such a career-defining role might leave him unable to escape it, but he proved the doubters wrong, becoming one of the most notable film actors of his generation, with a host of great movies to his name. This arguably culminated in his greatest acclaim in 1988, when Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an Irish cop in The Untouchables (1987), stealing the thunder from the movie's principal star Kevin Costner. Connery was polled as "The Greatest Living Scot" and "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". In 1989, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man Alive" by People magazine, and in 1999, at age 69, he was proclaimed "Sexiest Man of the Century."
Thomas "Sean" Connery was born on August 25, 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His mother, Euphemia Maclean, was a cleaning lady, and his father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and truck driver. He also had a, Neil Connery, a plasterer in Edinburgh, who was eight years younger. Before going into acting, Sean had many different jobs, such as a milkman, lorry driver, a laborer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, coffin polisher and bodybuilder. He also joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged because of medical problems. At the age of 23, he had a choice between becoming a professional soccer player or an actor, and even though he showed much promise in the sport, he chose acting and said it was one of his more intelligent decisions.
No Road Back (1957) was Sean's first major movie role, and it was followed by several made-for-TV movies such as Anna Christie (1957), Macbeth (1961) and Anna Karenina (1961) as well as guest appearances on TV series, and also films such as Hell Drivers (1957), Another Time, Another Place (1958), Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) and The Frightened City (1961). In 1962 he appeared in The Longest Day (1962) with a host of other stars.
His big breakthrough came in 1962 when he landed the role of secret agent James Bond in Dr. No (1962). He played James Bond in six more films: From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983).
After and during the success of the Bond films, he maintained a successful career as an actor and has appeared in films, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Time Bandits (1981), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Rising Sun (1993), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
Sean married actress Diane Cilento in 1962 and they had Sean's only child, Jason Connery, born on January 11, 1963. The couple announced their separation in February 1971 and filed for divorce 2½ years later. Sean then dated Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Magda Konopka and Carole Mallory. In 1975 he married Micheline Roquebrune and they stayed married, despite Sean's well-documented love affair with Lynsey de Paul in the late '80s. Sean had three stepchildren through his marriage to Micheline, who was one year his senior. He is also a grandfather. His son, Jason and Jason's ex-wife, actress Mia Sara had a son, Dashiell Connery, in 1997.
Sean Connery died at the age of 90 on October 31, 2020, in Nassau, the Bahamas, where he resided for many years.There are certain men and women who, from the minute they step in front of a camera, that's exactly where they belong. Connery's one. ~ F. Murray Abraham
Greats: Dr. No (1962) (1962); From Russia with Love (1963) (1963); Goldfinger (1964) (1964); Marnie (1964) (1964); The Man Who Would Be King (1975) (1975); The Untouchables (1987) (1987)★; Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) (1989)✰
Give It a Shot: The Rock (1996) (1996); Finding Forrester (2000) (2000)
Caution: Murder on the Orient Express (1974) (1974)
Flops: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) (2003)
Other Notable Film(s): Hell Drivers (1957) (1957); Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959) (1959); The Longest Day (1962) (1962); Woman of Straw (1964) (1964); The Hill (1965) (1965); Thunderball (1965) (1965); A Fine Madness (1966) (1966); You Only Live Twice (1967) (1967); Shalako (1968) (1968); The Red Tent (1969); The Molly Maguires (1970) (1970); The Anderson Tapes (1971) (1971); Diamonds Are Forever (1971) (1971); The Offence (1973) (1972); Zardoz (1974) (1974); The Wind and the Lion (1975) (1975); Robin and Marian (1976) (1976); A Bridge Too Far (1977) (1977); The Great Train Robbery (1978); Meteor (1979) (1979); Cuba (1979) (1979); Outland (1981) (1981); Time Bandits (1981) (1981); Wrong Is Right (1982) (1982); Never Say Never Again (1983) (1983); Highlander (1986) (1986); The Name of the Rose (1986); The Presidio (1988) (1988); Family Business (1989) (1989); The Hunt for Red October (1990) (1990); The Russia House (1990) (1990); Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) (1992); Medicine Man (1992) (1992); The Thief and the Cobbler (1993) [voice] (1993); Rising Sun (1993) (1993); A Good Man in Africa (1994) (1994); Just Cause (1995) (1995); First Knight (1995) (1995); DragonHeart (1996) [voice] (1996); The Avengers (1998) (1998); Playing by Heart (1998) (1998); Entrapment (1999) (1999)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Lead and supporting actor of the American stage and films, with sandy colored hair, and pale complexion. He won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in The Deer Hunter (1978), and has been seen in mostly character roles, often portraying psychologically unstable individuals, though that generalization would not do justice to Walken's depth and breadth of performances.
Walken was born in Astoria, Queens, New York. His mother, Rosalie (Russell), was a Scottish emigrant, from Glasgow. His father, Paul Wälken, was a German emigrant, from Horst, who ran Walken's bakery. Christopher learned his stage craft, including dancing, at Hofstra University & ANTA, and picked up a Theatre World award for his performance in the revival of the Tennessee Williams play "The Rose Tattoo". Walken then first broke through into cinema in 1969 appearing in Me and My Brother (1968), before appearing alongside Sean Connery in the sleeper heist movie The Anderson Tapes (1971). His eclectic work really came to the attention of critics in 1977 with his intense portrayal of Diane Keaton suicidal younger brother in Annie Hall (1977), and then he scooped the Best Supporting Actor Academy Award in 1977 for his role as Nick in the electrifying The Deer Hunter (1978). Walken was lured back by The Deer Hunter (1978) director Michael Cimino for a role in the financially disastrous western Heaven's Gate (1980), before moving onto surprise audiences with his wonderful dance skills in Pennies from Heaven (1981), taking the lead as a school teacher with telepathic abilities in the Stephen King inspired The Dead Zone (1983) and then as billionaire industrialist Max Zorin trying to blow up Silicon Valley in the 007 adventure A View to a Kill (1985). Looking at many of Walken's other captivating screen roles, it is easy to see the diversity of his range and even his droll comedic talents with humorous appearances in Biloxi Blues (1988), Wayne's World 2 (1993), Joe Dirt (2001), Mousehunt (1997) and America's Sweethearts (2001). Most recently, he continued to surprise audiences again with his work as a heart broken and apologetic father to Leonardo DiCaprio in Catch Me If You Can (2002).Greats: Annie Hall (1977) (1977); The Deer Hunter (1978) (1978)★; Heaven's Gate (1980) (1980); Pulp Fiction (1994) (1994); Sleepy Hollow (1999) (1999); Catch Me If You Can (2002) (2002)★
Give It a Shot: The Dead Zone (1983) (1983); King of New York (1990) (1990); Batman Returns (1992) (1992); True Romance (1993) (1993); Suicide Kings (1997) (1997)
Caution: Wayne's World 2 (1993) (1993); Blast from the Past (1999) (1999); Joe Dirt (2001) (2001); The Rundown (2003) (2003); Man on Fire (2004) (2004); Wedding Crashers (2005) (2005); Click (2006) (2006); Man of the Year (2006) (2006); Hairspray (2007) (2007); Seven Psychopaths (2012) (2012)
Flops: Mousehunt (1997) (1997); Excess Baggage (1997) (1997); America's Sweethearts (2001) (2001); The Country Bears (2002) (2002)☠; Kangaroo Jack (2003) (2003)☠; Gigli (2003) (2003)☠; Balls of Fury (2007) (2007)
Other Notable Film(s): The Anderson Tapes (1971) (1971); Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976) (1976); The Sentinel (1977) (1977); Last Embrace (1979) (1979); The Dogs of War (1980) (1980); Pennies from Heaven (1981) (1981); Brainstorm (1983) (1983); A View to a Kill (1985) (1985); At Close Range (1986) (1986); The Milagro Beanfield War (1988) (1988); Biloxi Blues (1988) (1988); Homeboy (1988) (1988); Communion (1989) (1989); The Comfort of Strangers (1990) (1990); Mistress (1992) (1992); The Addiction (1995) (1995); The Prophecy (1995) (1995); Wild Side (1995) (1995); Search and Destroy (1995) (1995); Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995) (1995); Nick of Time (1995) (1995); Basquiat (1996) (1996); The Funeral (1996) (1996); Touch (1997) (1997); Illuminata (1998) (1998); New Rose Hotel (1998) (1998); Antz (1998) [voice] (1998); Scotland, Pa. (2001) (2001); The Affair of the Necklace (2001) (2001); Poolhall Junkies (2002) (2002); Undertaking Betty (2002); Envy (2004) (2004); The Stepford Wives (2004) (2004); Around the Bend (2004) (2004); Romance & Cigarettes (2005) (2005); Domino (2005) (2005); $5 a Day (2008) (2008); The Maiden Heist (2009) (2009); Kill the Irishman (2011) (2011); Stand Up Guys (2012) (2012); A Late Quartet (2012) (2012); The Power of Few (2013) (2013); Jersey Boys (2014) (2014); The Family Fang (2015) (2014); One More Time (2015); Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser (2015) (2015); The Family Fang (2015) (2015); Eddie the Eagle (2015) (2016); The Jungle Book (2016) [voice] (2016); Nine Lives (2016) (2016)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), Drexl in True Romance (1993), George Smiley in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and Winston Churchill in Darkest Hour (2017), among many others. For much of his career, he was best-known for playing over-the-top antagonists, such as terrorist Egor Korshunov in the 1997 blockbuster Air Force One (1997), though he has reached a new audience with heroic roles in the Harry Potter and Dark Knight franchises. He is also a filmmaker, musician, and author.
Gary Leonard Oldman was born on March 21, 1958 in New Cross, London, England, to Kathleen (Cheriton), a homemaker, and Leonard Bertram Oldman, a welder. He won a scholarship to Britain's Rose Bruford Drama College, in Sidcup, Kent, where he received a B.A. in theatre arts in 1979. He subsequently studied with the Greenwich Young People's Theatre and went on to appear in a number of plays throughout the early '80s, including "The Pope's Wedding," for which he received Time Out's Fringe Award for Best Newcomer of 1985-1986 and the British Theatre Association's Drama Magazine Award as Best Actor for 1985. Before fame, he was employed as a worker in assembly lines and as a porter in an operating theater. He also had jobs selling shoes and beheading pigs while supporting his early acting career.
His film debut was Remembrance (1982), though his most-memorable early role came when he played Sex Pistol Sid Vicious in the biopic Sid and Nancy (1986) picking up the Evening Standard Film Award as Best Newcomer. He then received a Best Actor nomination from BAFTA for his portrayal of '60s playwright Joe Orton in Prick Up Your Ears (1987).
In the 1990s, Oldman brought to life a series of iconic real-world and fictional villains including Lee Harvey Oswald in JFK (1991), the title character in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Drexl Spivey in True Romance (1993), Stansfield in Léon: The Professional (1994), Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg in The Fifth Element (1997) and Ivan Korshunov in Air Force One (1997). That decade also saw Oldman portraying Ludwig van Beethoven in biopic Immortal Beloved (1994).
Oldman played the coveted role of Sirius Black in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), giving him a key part in one of the highest-grossing franchises ever. He reprised that role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007). Oldman also took on the iconic role of Detective James Gordon in writer-director Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005), a role he played again in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012). Prominent film critic Mark Kermode, in reviewing The Dark Knight, wrote, "the best performance in the film, by a mile, is Gary Oldman's ... it would be lovely to see him get a[n Academy Award] nomination because actually, he's the guy who gets kind of overlooked in all of this."
Oldman co-starred with Jim Carrey in the 2009 version of A Christmas Carol in which Oldman played three roles. He had a starring role in David Goyer's supernatural thriller The Unborn, released in 2009. In 2010, Oldman co-starred with Denzel Washington in The Book of Eli. He also played a lead role in Catherine Hardwicke's Red Riding Hood. Oldman voiced the role of villain Lord Shen and was nominated for an Annie Award for his performance in Kung Fu Panda 2.
In 2011, Oldman portrayed master spy George Smiley in the adaptation of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), and the role scored Oldman his first Academy Award nomination. In 2014, he played one of the lead humans in the science fiction action film Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) alongside Jason Clarke and Keri Russell. Also in 2014, Oldman starred alongside Joel Kinnaman, Abbie Cornish, Michael Keaton, and Samuel L. Jackson in the remake of RoboCop (2014), as Norton, the scientist who creates RoboCop.
Aside from acting, Oldman tried his hand at writing and directing for Nil by Mouth (1997). The movie opened the Cannes Film Festival in 1997, and won Kathy Burke a Best Actress prize at the festival.
Oldman has three children, Alfie, with first wife, actress Lesley Manville, and Gulliver and Charlie with his third wife, Donya Fiorentino. In 2017, he married writer and art curator Gisele Schmidt.
In 2018 he won an Oscar for best actor for his work on Darkest Hour (2017).Greats: JFK (1991) (1991)
Give It a Shot: True Romance (1993) (1993); Leon: The Professional (1994); The Contender (2000) (2000); Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) (2004); Batman Begins (2005) (2005); Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) (2005); Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) (2007); The Dark Knight (2008) (2008); Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) (2011)★; The Dark Knight Rises (2012) (2012)
Caution: Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) (1992); Air Force One (1997) (1997); The Fifth Element (1997) (1997); Hannibal (2001) (2001); Darkest Hour (2017) (2017)★
Flops: A Christmas Carol (2009) [voice] (2009); The Book of Eli (2010) (2010)
Other Notable Film(s): Sid and Nancy (1986) (1986); Prick Up Your Ears (1987) (1987)✰; Track 29 (1988) (1988); Criminal Law (1988) (1988); Chattahoochee (1989) (1989); Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) (1990); State of Grace (1990) (1990); Romeo Is Bleeding (1993) (1993); Immortal Beloved (1994) (1994); Murder in the First (1995) (1995); The Scarlet Letter (1995) (1995); Basquiat (1996) (1996); Lost in Space (1998) (1998); Interstate 60 (2002) (2002); Tiptoes (2002) (2003); Sin (2003) (2003); Dead Fish (2005) (2005); BackWoods (2006); The Unborn (2009) (2009); Red Riding Hood (2011) (2011); Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) (2011); Lawless (2012) (2012); Guns, Girls and Gambling (2012) (2012); Paranoia (2013) (2013); RoboCop (2014) (2014); Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014) (2014); Child 44 (2015) (2015); Man Down (2015) (2015); Criminal (2016) (2016); The Space Between Us (2017) (2016); The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017) (2017); Hunter Killer (2018) (2017); Mary (2019)- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Lean, angular-faced and authoritatively spoken lead / supporting actor Roy Scheider obviously never heard the old actor's axiom about "never appearing with kids or animals" lest they overshadow your performance. Breaking that rule did him no harm, though, as he achieved pop cult status by finding, fighting and blowing up a 25-foot-long Great White shark (nicknamed "Bruce") in the mega-hit Jaws (1975) and then electrocuting an even bigger Great White in the vastly inferior Jaws 2 (1978).
Athletic Scheider was born in November 1932 in Orange, New Jersey, to Anna (Crosson) and Roy Bernhard Scheider, a mechanic. He was of German and Irish descent. A keen sportsman from a young age, he competed in baseball and boxing (his awkwardly mended broken nose is a result of his foray into Golden Gloves competitions). While at college, his pursuits turned from sports to theater and he studied drama at Rutgers and Franklin and Marshall. After a stint in the military, Scheider appeared with the New York Shakespeare Festival and won an "Obie Award" for his appearance in the play "Stephen D."
His film career commenced with the campy Z-grade horror cheesefest The Curse of the Living Corpse (1964), and he then showed up in Star! (1968), Paper Lion (1968), Stiletto (1969) and Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970). In 1971 he really came to the attention of film audiences with his role in the Jane Fonda thriller Klute (1971) and then as Det. Buddy Russo (scoring his first Oscar nomination) alongside fiery Gene Hackman in the crime drama The French Connection (1971). His performance as a tough street cop in that film led him into another tough cop role as NYC Det. Buddy Manucci in the underappreciated The Seven-Ups (1973), which features one of the best car chase sequences ever put on film.
In the early 1970s the Peter Benchley novel "Jaws" was a phenomenal best-seller, and young director Steven Spielberg was chosen by Universal Pictures to direct the film adaptation, Jaws (1975), in which Scheider played police chief Brody and shared lead billing with Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss in the tale of a New England seaside community terrorized by a hungry Great White shark. "Jaws" was a blockbuster, and for many years held the record as the highest-grossing film of all time. Scheider then turned up as the shady CIA agent brother of Dustin Hoffman in the unnerving Marathon Man (1976) and in the misfired William Friedkin-directed remake of The Wages of Fear (1953) titled Sorcerer (1977), before again returning to Amity to battle another giant shark in Jaws 2 (1978). Seeking a change from tough cops and hungry sharks, he took the role of womanizing, drug-popping choreographer Joe Gideon, the lead character of the semi-autobiographical portrayal of director Bob Fosse in the sparkling All That Jazz (1979). It was another big hit for Scheider (and another Oscar nomination), with the film featuring a stunning opening sequence to the tune of the funky George Benson number "On Broadway", and breathtaking dance routines including the "Airotica" performance by the glamorous Sandahl Bergman.
Returning to another law enforcement role, Scheider played a rebellious helicopter pilot in the John Badham conspiracy / action film Blue Thunder (1983), a scientist in the sequel to 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) simply titled 2010 (1984), a cheating husband who turns the tables on his blackmailers in 52 Pick-Up (1986), a cold-blooded hit man in Cohen and Tate (1988) and a CIA operative in the muddled and slow-moving The Russia House (1990). The versatile Scheider was then cast as the captain of a futuristic submarine in the relatively popular TV series SeaQuest 2032 (1993), which ran for three seasons.
Inexplicably, however, Scheider had seemingly, and slowly, dropped out of favor with mainstream film audiences, and while he continued to remain busy, predominantly in supporting roles (generally as US presidents or military officers), most of the vehicles he appeared in were B-grade political thrillers such as The Peacekeeper (1997), Executive Target (1997), Chain of Command (2000) and Red Serpent (2003).Greats: Klute (1971) (1971); The French Connection (1971) (1971)★; Jaws (1975) (1975)★; Marathon Man (1976) (1976); All That Jazz (1979) (1979)★
Give It a Shot: Sorcerer (1977) (1977)
Caution: Naked Lunch (1991) (1991)
Other Notable Film(s): The Seven-Ups (1973) (1973); Jaws 2 (1978) (1978); Last Embrace (1979) (1979); Still of the Night (1982) (1982); Blue Thunder (1983) (1983); 2010 (1984) (1984); 52 Pick-Up (1986) (1986); Cohen and Tate (1988) (1988); The Fourth War (1990) (1990); The Russia House (1990) (1990); Romeo Is Bleeding (1993) (1993); SeaQuest 2032 (1993) [TV series] (1993-1995); The Peacekeeper (1997) (1997); The Rainmaker (1997) (1997); The Myth of Fingerprints (1997) (1997); Time Lapse (2001) (2001); The Punisher (2004) (2004)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
British actor Jeremy Irons was born in Cowes, Isle of Wight, a small island off the south coast of England. He is the son of Barbara Anne Brereton (Sharpe) and Paul Dugan Irons, an accountant. Young Jeremy didn't prove very fond of figures. He visited mainland England only once a year. He wound up being grounded when his family settled down in Hertfordshire. At the age of 13 he enrolled in Sherborne School, Dorset, where he could practice his favorite sport, horse-riding. Before becoming an actor, he had considered a veterinarian surgeon's career.
He trained at the Bristol Old Vic School for two years, then joined Bristol Old Vic repertory company where he gained experience working in everything from Shakespeare to contemporary dramas. He moved to London in 1971 and had a number of jobs before landing the role of "John the Baptist" in the hit musical "Godspell". He went on to have a successful early career in the West End theatre and on TV, and debuted on-screen in Nijinsky (1980). In the early 80s, he gained international attention with his starring role in the Granada Television serial adaptation of Evelyn Waugh's classic novel Brideshead Revisited (1981), after which he was much in demand as a romantic leading man. He went on to a steady film career. In 1984, he debuted on Broadway opposite: Glenn Close in Tom Stoppard's "The Real Thing" and, in the mid-80s, he appeared in three lead roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Once described as 'the thinking woman's pin up', he has made his name in thought provoking films such as David Cronenberg's Dead Ringers (1988), for which he won the New York Critics Best Actor Award. He gained a Golden Globe Award in addition to an Oscar for Best Actor in 1990 for his role as Claus von Bulow in Reversal of Fortune (1990) alongside Glenn Close. Among his many achievements, his role as Professor Higgins in Loewe-Lerner's famous musical "My Fair Lady" mustn't be forgotten. It was in London, back in 1987.
He is married to actress Sinéad Cusack, with whom he appeared in Waterland (1992) and in the Royal Shakespeare Company plays. He appeared with his son Samuel Irons and his father-in-law Cyril Cusack in the film Danny the Champion of the World (1989). His son Max Irons is also an actor.Greats: The Mission (1986) (1986)✰; Dead Ringers (1988) (1988)★; Reversal of Fortune (1990) (1990)★; The Lion King (1994) [voice] (1994); Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995) (1995)
Give It a Shot: Margin Call (2011) (2011)
Flops: Dungeons & Dragons (2000) (2000)☠; Assassin's Creed (2016) (2016)
Other Notable Film(s): The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981) (1981); Moonlighting (1982) (1982); Betrayal (1983) (1983); Swann in Love (1984); Kafka (1991) (1991); Waterland (1992) (1992); Damage (1992) (1992); M. Butterfly (1993) (1993); The House of the Spirits (1993) (1993); Stealing Beauty (1996) (1996); Chinese Box (1997) (1997); Lolita (1997) (1997); The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) (1998); The Fourth Angel (2001) (2001); The Time Machine (2002) (2002); And Now Ladies & Gentlemen (2002) (2002); Callas Forever (2002) (2002); Being Julia (2004) (2004); The Merchant of Venice (2004) (2004); Kingdom of Heaven (2005) (2005); Casanova (2005) (2005); Inland Empire (2006) (2006); Eragon (2006) (2006); Appaloosa (2008) (2008); The Pink Panther 2 (2009) (2009); The Borgias (2011) [TV series] (2011-2013)✰; The Words (2012) (2012); Night Train to Lisbon (2013) (2013); Beautiful Creatures (2013) (2013); High-Rise (2015) (2015); The Man Who Knew Infinity (2015) (2015); Correspondence (2016) (2016); Race (2016) (2016); Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) (2016)