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Willard Carroll "Will" Smith II (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, comedian, producer, rapper, and songwriter. He has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him "the most powerful actor in Hollywood". Smith has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy Awards.
In the late 1980s, Smith achieved modest fame as a rapper under the name The Fresh Prince. In 1990, his popularity increased dramatically when he starred in the popular television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show ran for six seasons (1990-96) on NBC and has been syndicated consistently on various networks since then. After the series ended, Smith moved from television to film, and ultimately starred in numerous blockbuster films. He is the only actor to have eight consecutive films gross over $100 million in the domestic box office, eleven consecutive films gross over $150 million internationally, and eight consecutive films in which he starred open at the number one spot in the domestic box office tally.
Smith is ranked as the most bankable star worldwide by Forbes. As of 2014, 17 of the 21 films in which he has had leading roles have accumulated worldwide gross earnings of over $100 million each, five taking in over $500 million each in global box office receipts. As of 2014, his films have grossed $6.6 billion at the global box office. He has received Best Actor Oscar nominations for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness.
Smith was born in West Philadelphia, the son of Caroline (Bright), a Philadelphia school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., a refrigeration engineer. He grew up in West Philadelphia's Wynnefield neighborhood, and was raised Baptist. He has three siblings, sister Pamela, who is four years older, and twins Harry and Ellen, who are three years younger. Smith attended Our Lady of Lourdes, a private Catholic elementary school in Philadelphia. His parents separated when he was 13, but did not actually divorce until around 2000.
Smith attended Overbrook High School. Though widely reported, it is untrue that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); he never applied to college because he "wanted to rap." Smith says he was admitted to a "pre-engineering [summer] program" at MIT for high school students, but he did not attend. According to Smith, "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college."
Smith started as the MC of the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, with his childhood friend Jeffrey "DJ Jazzy Jeff" Townes as producer, as well as Ready Rock C (Clarence Holmes) as the human beat box. The trio was known for performing humorous, radio-friendly songs, most notably "Parents Just Don't Understand" and "Summertime". They gained critical acclaim and won the first Grammy awarded in the Rap category (1988).
Smith spent money freely around 1988 and 1989 and underpaid his income taxes. The Internal Revenue Service eventually assessed a $2.8 million tax debt against Smith, took many of his possessions, and garnished his income. Smith was nearly bankrupt in 1990, when the NBC television network signed him to a contract and built a sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, around him.
The show was successful and began his acting career. Smith set for himself the goal of becoming "the biggest movie star in the world", studying box office successes' common characteristics.
Smith's first major roles were in the drama Six Degrees of Separation (1993) and the action film Bad Boys (1995) in which he starred opposite Martin Lawrence.
In 1996, Smith starred as part of an ensemble cast in Roland Emmerich's Independence Day. The film was a massive blockbuster, becoming the second highest grossing film in history at the time and establishing Smith as a prime box office draw. He later struck gold again in the summer of 1997 alongside Tommy Lee Jones in the summer hit Men in Black playing Agent J. In 1998, Smith starred with Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State.
He turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix in favor of Wild Wild West (1999). Despite the disappointment of Wild Wild West, Smith has said that he harbors no regrets about his decision, asserting that Keanu Reeves's performance as Neo was superior to what Smith himself would have achieved, although in interviews subsequent to the release of Wild Wild West he stated that he "made a mistake on Wild Wild West. That could have been better."
In 2005, Smith was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for attending three premieres in a 24-hour time span.
He has planned to star in a feature film remake of the television series It Takes a Thief.
On December 10, 2007, Smith was honored at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Smith left an imprint of his hands and feet outside the world-renowned theater in front of many fans. Later that month, Smith starred in the film I Am Legend, released December 14, 2007. Despite marginally positive reviews, its opening was the largest ever for a film released in the United States during December. Smith himself has said that he considers the film to be "aggressively unique". A reviewer said that the film's commercial success "cemented [Smith's] standing as the number one box office draw in Hollywood." On December 1, 2008, TV Guide reported that Smith was selected as one of America's top ten most fascinating people of 2008 for a Barbara Walters ABC special that aired on December 4, 2008.
In 2008 Smith was reported to be developing a film entitled The Last Pharaoh, in which he would be starring as Taharqa. It was in 2008 that Smith starred in the superhero movie Hancock.
Men in Black III opened on May 25, 2012 with Smith again reprising his role as Agent J. This was his first major starring role in four years.
On August 19, 2011, it was announced that Smith had returned to the studio with producer La Mar Edwards to work on his fifth studio album. Edwards has worked with artists such as T.I., Chris Brown, and Game. Smith's most recent studio album, Lost and Found, was released in 2005.
Smith and his son Jaden played father and son in two productions: the 2006 biographical drama The Pursuit of Happyness, and the science fiction film After Earth, which was released on May 31, 2013.
Smith starred opposite Margot Robbie in the romance drama Focus. He played Nicky Spurgeon, a veteran con artist who takes a young, attractive woman under his wing. Focus was released on February 27, 2015. Smith was set to star in the Sci-Fic thriller Brilliance, an adaptation of Marcus Sakey's novel of the same name scripted by Jurassic Park writer David Koepp. But he left the project.
Smith played Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute in the sports-drama Concussion, who became the first person to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a football player's brain. CTE is a degenerative disease caused by severe trauma to the head that can be discovered only after death. Smith's involvement is mostly due to his last-minute exit from the Sci-Fi thriller-drama Brilliance. Concussion was directed by Peter Landesman and-bead filmed in Pittsburgh, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It received $14.4 million in film tax credits from Pennsylvania. Principal photography started on October 27, 2014. Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw played his wife. Omalu served as a consultant.
As of November 2015, Smith is set to star in the independent drama Collateral Beauty, which will be directed by David Frankel. Smith will play a New York advertising executive who succumbs to an deep depression after a personal tragedy.
Nobel Peace Prize Concert December 11, 2009, in Oslo, Norway: Smith with wife Jada and children Jaden and Willow Smith married Sheree Zampino in 1992. They had one son, Trey Smith, born on November 11, 1992, and divorced in 1995. Trey appeared in his father's music video for the 1998 single "Just the Two of Us". He also acted in two episodes of the sitcom All of Us, and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and on the David Blaine: Real or Magic TV special.
Smith married actress Jada Koren Pinkett in 1997. Together they have two children: Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born 1998), his co-star in The Pursuit of Happyness and After Earth, and Willow Camille Reign Smith (born 2000), who appeared as his daughter in I Am Legend. Smith and his brother Harry own Treyball Development Inc., a Beverly Hills-based company named after Trey. Smith and his family reside in Los Angeles, California.
Smith was consistently listed in Fortune Magazine's "Richest 40" list of the forty wealthiest Americans under the age of 40.- Actress
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Karyn Parsons decided to go into acting at the age of 13. She had her first TV role in the NBC drama The Bronx Zoo (1987), but she made her big break as Will Smith's cousin "Hilary Banks" on the NBC sitcom The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990). During the show's six-year run, she starred in movies such as Class Act (1992) and Major Payne (1995). After The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990), she starred in the short-lifted sitcom Lush Life (1996), co-starring Lori Petty, which only lasted three episodes before it was canceled. In 1998, she starred in her first lead role in the award-winning movie Mixing Nia (1998). She guest-starred in TV sitcoms before starring in 13 Moons (2002), in which she met her husband, director Alexandre Rockwell, whom she married in 2003. After their wedding, they had a child and now live in New York.- Actress
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Tatyana Marisol Ali was born on January 24, 1979, in North Bellmore, New York, to Sonia, a nurse from Panama, and Sheriff Ali, a retired police officer from Trinidad. At the age of four, she started singing and got a taste of fame when she begged her mother to take her to an audition for Sesame Street (1969).
She went on to perform in many productions in her native New York, including the Broadway show "Fences"--with James Earl Jones and, later, Billy Dee Williams--and the off-Broadway show "Orfeo del Campo". When she was seven, she appeared on Star Search (1983) and won twice, receiving a four-star rating when she appeared for a second time. At age 11, Tatyana moved from New York to Los Angeles to establish her career and, not long afterwards, got her breakthrough role:Will Smith's cousin, "Ashley Banks," from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990).
While filming "The Fresh Prince," she also had exciting side projects, including guest roles in television shows such as The Cosby Show (1984), The All New Mickey Mouse Club (1989) (aka "The Mickey Mouse Club"), Kyno's Storytime (1992), Are You Afraid of the Dark? (1990) and Foster's Field Trip (1994).
The public saw her grow on "Fresh Prince" from an adorable little girl to a stunning young woman, and she sang in several episodes of the show, most notably her rendition of Aretha Franklin's "Respect" and an original song, "Make Up Your Mind." Smith was so impressed with her singing that he asked if she would consider doing it professionally. Tatyana began preparing for her singing career during the last year of the show as she began training her vocal cords, recording demos and publicly performing on television and in various informal live concerts. Her performances on "The Fresh Prince" actually helped her build a fan base that anxiously waited for her first album launch. On August 25, she released her album "Kiss the Sky" (MJJ Music/Work/SME) and her single "Daydreamin'." The single was certified gold within weeks of its release, and it quickly rose on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles, where it reached #6 and stayed there for two weeks. She also contributed to major movies such as Crocodile Dundee II (1988) and Eddie Murphy: Raw (1987). Since then, she has had significant roles in two films, Fall Into Darkness (1996) and Fakin' Da Funk (1997). She has also guest-starred in several sitcoms, including In the House (1995), and had a cameo role in the film Kiss the Girls (1997). She also went to Harvard and graduated with a degree in Anthropology in June 2002. She is now working on a new album and starring in more movies.- Writer
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Francine Joy "Fran" Drescher was born on September 30, 1957 in Queens, New York City, New York to Sylvia Drescher, a bridal consultant & Mort Drescher, a naval systems analyst. Fran attended Hillcrest High School in New York with another now-famous name, Ray Romano. She was a studious girl and was quite popular. In fact, at age fifteen, she'd met the man she thought she'd spend the rest of her life with. That man was Peter Marc Jacobson. Her first break was in the unforgettable movie, Saturday Night Fever (1977) with John Travolta. She continued to play small roles in movies, until she came up with the idea for The Nanny (1993). She was visiting a friend in England and came up with the plot line. The Nanny (1993) became an instant success, and so did Fran. Since then, she has been in films such as The Beautician and the Beast (1997) (which she also produced) and Picking Up the Pieces (2000) co-starring Woody Allen. Fran has since divorced her husband Jacobson. She is a cancer survivor and an inspiration to women everywhere.- Actor
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This Arkansas native was born on 26 November 1945 to parents who owned a movie theater. He often felt that his desire to become an actor came from the fact that he spent so much time in the theater's "crying room" for babies - and listening to the likes of Tyrone Power and others. His first "professional" work came at the age of 11 when he became a member of the cast of a children's TV series broadcast from Little Rock - "Betty's Little Rascals". His formal acting training came from the Arkansas Arts Center (a fine arts conservatory with its own repertory company), followed by work with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, and 6 years with the American Conservatory Theatre, among many others. He also taught acting classes while at ACT. His love of the theater has continued through his career. He has played in nearly every Shakespeare play and an untold number of musicals (he's an accomplished singer) and straight plays. For the year 2000 Tony Awards, he was recognized with a nomination as best actor in a featured role for his performance in "Wrong Mountain". When The Nanny (1993) first went on the air, many people believed that the very British butler "Niles" was definitely being played by a British actor. This Southern boy was so convincing in his role that many fans wrote to the show and suggested that he teach Charles Shaughnessy (a true British native) how to improve his accent!- Actress
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Lauren Lane played C.C. Babcock in a six-year run on the television comedy The Nanny. She also played the female lead on the detective drama Hunter in its final season. On LA Law she played a scheming journalist opposite Corbin Bernsen. She has won numerous awards for her work as an actor including an LA Critics Award, an Austin Critics Circle Award and multiple B. Iden Payne Awards. She has worked at major regional theatres across the country including: The Kennedy Center, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, The American Conservatory Theatre and The Mark Taper Forum.- Actress
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Nicholle is probably best known for her role as Maggie Sheffield on hit CBS series "The Nanny" or Ryce Newton in Universal's "Beethoven" and "Beethoven's 2nd" feature films.
Most recently Nicholle portrayed Vicky White in the dramatic true story of her jailbreak in TUBI's "Prisoner of Love".
Nicholle portrayed Peter Scolari's daughter, Miriam Loeb, on Fox's "Gotham" and Reoccurred as Brassy Blonde, Maureen, on SHOWTIME's "Masters of Sex". She played the sexually frustrated mother of two, Debby, on the NBC comedy "About a Boy" (TV Series) And a struggling plantation actress, Hazel-Fay on STARZ's "Survivor's Remorse" (TV Series).
She starred alongside Emmy-winner Christine Lahti, in the title role of the CBS movie, "The Book of Ruth", in which she portrays an emotionally abused young woman desperately seeking independence from her over-bearing mother.
Nicholle was cast in the very first comedy series made for the Independent Film Channel's (IFC) "The Minor Accomplishments of Jackie Woodman". Starring Laura Kightlinger (The Black Dahlia, Will & Grace), Nicholle plays her very ambitious best friend and partner in crime, Tara Winsel, who will sell her soul to make it in Hollywood.
Other credits include: "Criminal Minds", "Beverly Hills 90210" and "For My Daughter's Honor", "Panic" "The Princess Diaries".
Nicholle was the first actress to ever voice Kara/Supergirl in the animated series "Justice League", "The New Batman Adventures" and "Superman: The Animated Series".
Nicholle was born in Hinsdale, Illinois and currently resides in Los Angeles, CA.- Actress
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Madeline Zima was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to parents Dennis and Marie, and is the sister of actresses Vanessa Zima and Yvonne Zima. "Zima", a Polish surname, is her mother's maiden name; Madeline's maternal grandfather was of Polish descent, while her other ancestry is Italian, German, and Irish.
She and her sister Vanessa were discovered by Woody Allen for his movie, Alice (1990). She actually quit show business, the week when she was urged to come in for her sixth call back for The Hand That Rocks the Cradle (1992). She came back for one more audition and booked the role of "Emma". She booked the movie and has never stopped working since. It was both Madeline and Julianne Moore's first film and was directed by Academy Award-winning director and writer, Curtis Hanson. Madeline won critical notice for her first film role.
Madeline followed that dramatic thriller with a short film that Daryl Hannah directed. It was a Sundance favorite called The Last Supper (1995), where Madeline, as a tiny wily child, scared away her mother's abusive boyfriend by convincing him that she and her mother were cannibals. She followed that with the comedies, Mr. Nanny (1993), Our Song, a pilot with George Hamilton, and finally The Nanny (1993). By this time, the pilot of The Nanny (1993) was picked up and Madeline moved from New York to L.A., when The Nanny (1993) became a hit show.
She has starred in TV films: The Secret Path (1999). Her sister, Yvonne Zima played the seven-year-old counterpart to her characters. She played the daughter of the late John Ritter and Marg Helgenberger on Lethal Vows (1999).
After a worldwide search in all English-speaking countries, Madeline was the choice to play Lucille Ball as a teenager, in the CBS mini-series, Lucy (2003) (aka "Redhead"). She followed that up playing the wicked stepsister of Hilary Duff in A Cinderella Story (2004).
In a return to television, she agreed to play the mysterious and destructive character "Mia" on the hit Showtime series, Californication (2007).- Actress
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Emma Charlotte Duerre Watson was born in Paris, France, to British parents, Jacqueline Luesby and Chris Watson, both lawyers. She moved to Oxfordshire when she was five, where she attended the Dragon School. From the age of six, Emma knew that she wanted to be an actress and, for a number of years, she trained at the Oxford branch of Stagecoach Theatre Arts, a part-time theatre school where she studied singing, dancing and acting. By the age of ten, she had performed and taken the lead in various Stagecoach productions and school plays.
In 1999, casting began for Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone (2001), the film adaptation of British author J.K. Rowling's bestselling novel. Casting agents found Emma through her Oxford theatre teacher. After eight consistent auditions, producer David Heyman told Emma and fellow applicants, Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint, that they had been cast for the roles of the three leads, Hermione Granger, Harry Potter and Ron Weasley. The release of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) was Emma's cinematic screen debut. The film broke records for opening-day sales and opening-weekend takings and was the highest-grossing film of 2001. Critics praised the film and the performances of the three leading young actors. The highly distributed British newspaper, 'The Daily Telegraph', called her performance "admirable". Later, Emma was nominated for five awards for her performance in the film, winning the Young Artist Award for Leading Young Actress in a Feature Film.
After the release of the first film of the highly successful franchise, Emma became one of the most well-known actresses in the world. She continued to play the role of Hermione Granger for nearly ten years, in all of the following Harry Potter films: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010), and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011). Emma acquired two Critics' Choice Award nominations from the Broadcast Film Critics Association for her work in Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban and Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. The completion of the seventh and eight movies saw Emma receive nominations in 2011 for a Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award, and for Best Actress at the Jameson Empire Awards. The Harry Potter franchise won the BAFTA for Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema in February 2011.
2011 saw Emma in Simon Curtis's My Week with Marilyn (2011), alongside a stellar cast of Oscar nominees including Michelle Williams as Marilyn Monroe and Kenneth Branagh as Sir Laurence Olivier, in addition to Eddie Redmayne, Dame Judi Dench, Dougray Scott, Zoe Wanamaker, Toby Jones and Dominic Cooper. Chronicling a week in Marilyn Monroe's life, the film featured Emma in the supporting role of Lucy, a costume assistant to Colin Clark (Redmayne). The film was released by The Weinstein Company and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical. In 2012 Emma was seen in Stephen Chbosky's adaptation of his coming-of-age novel The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), starring opposite Logan Lerman and Ezra Miller. This independent drama centered around Charlie (Lerman), an introverted freshman who is taken under the wings of two seniors (Watson and Miller) who welcome him to the real world. The film premiered at the 2012 Toronto International Film Festival and received rave reviews. The film won the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie and Emma also picked up the People's Choice Award for Favourite Dramatic Movie Actress. Emma was awarded a second time for this role with the Best Supporting Actress Award at the San Diego Film Critics Society Awards where the film also won the Best Ensemble Performance Award.
In summer 2013, Emma starred in Sofia Coppola's American satirical black comedy crime film, The Bling Ring (2013), opposite Katie Chang and Israel Broussard. The film took inspiration from real events and followed a group of teenagers who, obsessed with fashion and fame, burgled the homes of celebrities in Los Angeles. The film opened the Un Certain Regard section of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. Emma also appeared in a cameo role as herself in Seth Rogen's apocalypse comedy This Is The End (2013). The film tells the story about what happens to some of Hollywood's best loved celebrities when the apocalypse strikes during a party at James Franco's house.
In 2014, Emma was seen in Darren Aronofsky's Noah (2014), opposite Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone, Douglas Booth, Logan Lerman, and Anthony Hopkins. The film told the epic, biblical tale of Noah and the ark. Emma plays the role of Ila, a young woman who develops a close relationship with Noah's son, Shem (Booth). Noah made an outstanding $300m since its release in March. In 2015, Emma starred in Regression (2015), written and directed by Alejandro Amenábar and Occultum Luciferus. Also headlined by Oscar-nominated Ethan Hawke, and set in Minnesota in 1990, Regression tells the story of Detective Bruce Kenner (Hawke), who investigates the case of young Angela, played by Emma, who accuses her father of sexual abuse.
In 2012, Emma was honored with the Calvin Klein Emerging Star Award at the ELLE Women in Hollywood Awards. In 2013, Emma was awarded the Trailblazer Award at the MTV Movie Awards in April and was honored with the GQ Woman of the Year Award at the GQ Awards in September. Further to her acting career, Emma is a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN, promoting gender equality and the empowerment of women. Emma graduated from Brown University in May 2014.
In 2017, Emma starred in the live-action Disney fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), one of the biggest movies of all time in the U.S., and the dramatic thriller The Circle (2017).- Actress
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Hannah Dakota Fanning was born on the 23rd of February 1994, in Conyers, Georgia, USA, to Heather Joy (Arrington) and Steven Fanning. Her mother played professional tennis, and her father, now an electronics salesman, played minor league baseball. She is of German, Irish, English, French, and Channel Islander descent. Before her debut into the cinematic world, Dakota did her own acting around her house. She was very active for her age, and often put a blanket under her shirt and pretended to be having a baby, using her younger sister, Elle Fanning, who is also an actress now, as the baby. Dakota went to a playhouse near her home, where the children that attended put on a play every week to show to their parents. But the people running the playhouse noticed that Dakota stood out, and advised her parents to take her to an agency. They believed that she was extremely talented.
The Fanning family were advised to spend six weeks in Los Angeles, a long way from their home in Georgia. But there Dakota managed to get her first work; to star in a national Tide commercial. She was chosen out of many, many other children.
The family then decided to move to Los Angeles permanently, for it looked like Dakota's career was looking very good. After they moved, Dakota signed with a professional agency, and soon won a role in the movie Tomcats (2001). She then went onto a small project called Father Xmas (2001) as Clairee.
But Dakota's big break-through was yet to come. She auditioned for one of the main characters in I Am Sam (2001), and the director and the rest of the crew were amazed by her extraordinary talent. Dakota was cast, and starred in the movie as Lucy Diamond Dawson, alongside major Hollywood stars Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer.
After I Am Sam (2001) her talent was immediately recognized around the world. She went straight onto Trapped (2002) as Abby Jennings, alongside Charlize Theron, then played the younger version of Reese Witherspoon in 2002's Sweet Home Alabama (2002) But Dakota still had two more movies to come in 2002. Firstly she got a huge role in Steven Spielberg's Taken (2002), the mini-TV series, and narrated the ten whole episodes, as well as having a part. This was a little more challenging, as she was playing a troubled alien child, but she managed to do brilliantly. Her last movie for 2002 was the children's movie Hansel & Gretel (2002) as Katie.
2003 was also a brilliant year for Dakota, as she starred in a number of exciting projects. Firstly, it was as Sally Walden in The Cat in the Hat (2003) with Mike Myers, then she played Lorraine "Ray" Schleine, a bratty little girl, in the sweet comedy Uptown Girls (2003) alongside Brittany Murphy. She then voiced preschool Kim in Kim Possible: A Sitch in Time (2003).
In 2004, Dakota appeared in the violent thriller, Man on Fire (2004), alongside Denzel Washington. Her reviews were excellent.
First in 2005 was Nine Lives (2005), as Maria, then the chilling Hide and Seek (2005) alongside Robert De Niro. By now, she was the busiest child actress in Hollywood, with a resume to die for. Her younger sister, (Elle Fanning), had also been discovered a few years earlier.
After Hide and Seek (2005) came War of the Worlds (2005), which was one of her major movies out of everything she'd worked in. Not only did it make her more popular, but she got to play the daughter of A-list Hollywood actor Tom Cruise. They had four very successful premieres; the first in Tokyo, Japan, the second in France, the third in London, England and the fourth in New York, USA. The reviews were outstanding, especially Dakota's. She then voiced Lilo in Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch (2005).- Actress
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Mariska (Ma-rish-ka) Magdolna Hargitay was born on January 23, 1964, in Santa Monica, California. Her parents are Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield. She is the youngest of their three children. In June 1967, Mariska and her brothers Zoltan and Mickey Jr. were in the back seat of a car when it was involved in the fatal accident which killed her mother. The children escaped with minor injuries. Her father remarried a stewardess named Ellen, and they raised the three children and gave them a normal childhood. They also financially supported the children, since Jayne Mansfield's debt-ridden estate left no money for them.
Mariska majored in theater at UCLA. Her first motion picture feature was the cult favorite, Ghoulies (1984), where she gave a memorable performance as Donna. Unlike her mother Jayne, who had changed her name, her hair color, and did nude pictorials to become a star, Mariska took a very different approach on her journey to become a star. She rejected advice to change her name and appearance. And she refused to copy her mother's sexy image by turning down nude scenes in her next film Jocks (1986). She told casting directors that she was her own person when she held onto her dark locks and athletic figure, when they were expecting another blond, buxom Jayne Mansfield. Mariska continued with her acting classes and waited on tables, while she landed forgettable roles in short-lived television shows. She appeared a few times on the nighttime soap Falcon Crest (1981). She also appeared in the hit film Leaving Las Vegas (1995), credited as 'Hooker at the bar', and in the flop film Lake Placid (1999) as Myra Okubo. Her recurring role on the top-rated show ER (1994) in 1998 gave her career enough of a jolt to land her the starring role of Det. Olivia Benson in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), the first spin off from the excellent franchise of Law & Order (1990). The hour-long show deals with sex crimes and the detectives who solve these cases. Mariska played Olivia as a tough, compassionate detective, who did action scenes and her own stunt work. She reaped the rewards from the hit TV show, after struggling and studying her craft for fifteen years. She became the highest paid actress on television, and she won Emmy and Golden Globe awards for her performance. The show also changed her personal life, since she met her husband actor Peter Hermann on the set and married him on August 28, 2004. That same year, she appeared in the television movie Plain Truth (2004), in which she played attorney Ellie Harrison. Mariska became an activist, when fans of her show who were abused, would write to her, and she founded a non-profit organization called "Joyful Heart Foundation" to help "survivors of sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse."
Mariska gave birth to her son August in 2006. But that tremendous joy was soon followed by tremendous sadness when her beloved father Mickey died just two months later at the age of 80. Mariska and her husband Peter adopted two children, a girl named Amaya, and a boy named Andrew, within a span of few months in 2011.
Mariska speaks English, Hungarian, French, Spanish, and Italian, and her husband also speaks several languages, including his native language German. They divide their time between New York and Los Angeles.- Actress
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Stephanie March was born on 23 July 1974 in Dallas, Texas, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for The Invention of Lying (2009), Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999). She has been married to Dan Benton since 1 September 2017. She was previously married to Bobby Flay.- Actress
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Jorja Fox has become a familiar face by playing major roles in three of the most successful television dramas in history: ER (1994), The West Wing (1999) and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000).
As a teenager, Fox had a career as a fashion model. She then turned to formal study of the acting craft at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York, as well as under the tutelage of veteran actor William Hickey at HB Studios.
After appearing in several films and TV series, Fox got her big break in 1996 by landing a role in the immensely successful ER (1994) TV series. She appeared in 33 episodes as "Dr. Maggie Doyle", a lesbian, vegetarian, ER Resident from Chicago's south side. Fox then got a recurring role in the renowned The West Wing (1999) TV series where she portrayed Gina Toscano, a Secret Service agent who was in charge of protecting the President's college-age daughter.
Fox appeared as part of the regular cast of the TV series mega-hit CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), where she portrayed one of the crime scene investigators as a regular until 2008. She was a guest star of the show in 2009, recurred in 2010, and returned as a regular from 2011 to the present. Fox shared in CSI's 2005 Screen Actors Guild award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series, the show's 300th episode, and the CSI finale which aired in September of 2015.
In addition to her TV and movie roles, Fox is the co-founder of a production company called Seafox productions. So far the company has co-produced a musical about Dusty Springfield in Los Angeles and New York City called "Stay Forever: The Life and Music of Dusty Springfield" and four feature documentaries.
Fox is also a long-time environmental and animal welfare advocate.- Actor
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Michael J. Fox was born Michael Andrew Fox on June 9, 1961 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Phyllis Fox (née Piper), a payroll clerk, and William Fox. His parents moved their 10-year-old son, his three sisters, Kelli Fox, Karen, and Jacki, and his brother Steven, to Vancouver, British Columbia, after his father, a sergeant in the Canadian Army Signal Corps, retired. During these years Michael developed his desire to act. At 15 he successfully auditioned for the role of a 10-year-old in a series called Leo and Me (1978). Gaining attention as a bright new star in Canadian television and movies, Michael realized his love for acting when he appeared on stage in "The Shadow Box." At 18 he moved to Los Angeles and was offered a few television-series roles, but soon they stopped coming and he was surviving on boxes of macaroni and cheese. Then his agent called to tell him that he got the part of Alex P. Keaton on the situation comedy Family Ties (1982). He starred in the feature films Teen Wolf (1985), High School U.S.A. (1983), Poison Ivy (1985) and Back to the Future (1985).- William Petersen was born on 21 February 1953 in Evanston, Illinois, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), Manhunter (1986) and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985). He has been married to Gina Cirone since 14 June 2003. They have two children. He was previously married to Joanne Brady.
- Marg Helgenberger is an established dramatic actress whose prominence has been steadily increasing. Her work has been noted on stage, film and TV. Most of her career has been spent in dramatic roles on television, but she has also had a noteworthy presence in feature films.
Helgenberger earned a degree in drama at Northwestern University. A talent scout recruited her from there to work on the soap opera Ryan's Hope (1975) where she appeared over the course of the next four years.
Throughout the 1990s Helgenberger took on numerous roles in made-for-TV movies and as a guest star on many TV series. In particular she appeared in many movies made specifically for the Lifetime cable network and also for Showtime. She won critical acclaim for In Sickness and in Health (1992), Thanks of a Grateful Nation (1998) and Perfect Murder, Perfect Town: JonBenét and the City of Boulder (2000).
In TV series she won an Emmy for her portrayal of a hard-bitten prostitute who catered to Vietnam War soldiers, in the series China Beach (1988). She also was George Clooney's love interest in a multi-episode arc of the monumentally successful TV series ER (1994).
In feature films, Helgenberger has appeared in Tootsie (1982), Steven Spielberg's Always (1989), Species (1995) and In Good Company (2004).
Her greatest claim to fame on the silver screen may be when she played opposite Julia Roberts as a chemical exposure victim in the popular movie Erin Brockovich (2000).
Helgenberger is most known for her TV role as a crime scene investigator in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000). She shared in CSI's 2005 Screen Actors Guild award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series.
In her personal life, Helgenberger is the daughter of a cancer survivor and is very active in supporting research for breast cancer. - Actress
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Louise Lombard lived and breathed the arts from an early age, and projected extreme versatility in many arenas. A trained dancer and actress from childhood, Lombard displayed a remarkable predilection for emotionally and psychologically challenging characters. After appearing in the BBC series Casualty and Bergerac, the ITV show Capital City, and the ITV movies Catherine Cookson's A Black Velvet Gown, and Perfect Scoundrels: Sweeter Than Wine, Lombard landed a leading role in the TV series Chancer, opposite Clive Owen. Lombard then broke through to national fame in 1991, with the lead role of Evangeline Eliott in the three-season House of Eliott series on the BBC. For the remainder of the 1990s, Lombard sought out a series of highly individualized and intelligent projects, including taking the role of Lady Macbeth in a BBC production of Macbeth, Elizabeth Gill's 1997 ensemble drama Gold in the Streets and the ITV series Bodyguards (as one of the toughs of the title). After two years as a literature student at Cambridge University (as well as studying photography and print work at St. Martin's College), Lombard spent the first few years of the new millennium branching out into more internationally oriented roles, including After the Rain (a harrowing story set in South Africa during apartheid) Ellen Brachman in the movie Claim (2000), and the role of Kath in My Kingdom (2001), a highly modernized adaptation of Shakespeare's King Lear with Richard Harris. American viewers, however, will most closely associate Lombard with the romantic lead of Lady Anne Davenport in the Viggo Mortensen period adventure saga Hidalgo (2004), and the role of Dr. Harriet Fellows, a physician who assists crash survivor Alec Baldwin, in the TNT movie Second Nature (2003). In 2004 Louise began the recurring role of Sophia Curtis in CSI. Louise remained on CSI until 2008, when she left to shoot a TV pilot for ABC, playing the title role in Judy's got a Gun. Louise then returned to the UK to play the lead role in the BBC movie, Kiss of Death. She recently played Macy in NCIS for CBS and Robert Carlyle's dying wife in Stargate Universe.- Actress
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Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).- Actress
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Precocious, outspoken child-teen starlet of the 1990s, Christina Ricci was born on February 12, 1980 in Santa Monica, California, the youngest of four children of Sarah (Murdoch), a realtor, and Ralph Ricci, a lawyer and therapist. She is of Italian (from her paternal grandfather), Irish, and Scots-Irish descent. She made her screen debut at the age of 9 in Mermaids (1990), in which she worked with Winona Ryder and Cher. Her breakthrough adult role was in The Ice Storm (1997), in which she plays a nymphet who skillfully seduces two brothers. She worked with Johnny Depp and Casper Van Dien in the Tim Burton film Sleepy Hollow (1999).- Actress
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Winona Ryder was born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, and was named after a nearby town, Winona, Minnesota. She is the daughter of Cynthia (Istas), an author and video producer, and Michael Horowitz, a publisher and bookseller. Her father's family is Ukrainian Jewish and Romanian Jewish. She grew up in a ranch commune in Northern California which had no electricity. She is the goddaughter of Timothy Leary. Her parents were friends of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and once edited a book called "Shaman Woman Mainline Lady", an anthology of writings on the drug experience in literature, which included one piece by Louisa May Alcott. Ryder would later play the lead role of Josephine March in the adaptation of this author's novel Little Women (1994).
Ryder moved with her parents to Petaluma, California when she was ten and enrolled in acting classes at the American Conservatory Theater. At age 13, she had a video audition to the film Desert Bloom (1986), but did not get the role. However, director David Seltzer spotted her and cast her in Lucas (1986). When telephoned to ask how she would like to have her name appear on the credits, she suggested Ryder as her father's Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels album was playing the background. Ryder was selected for the role of Mary Corleone in The Godfather Part III (1990), but had to drop out of the role after catching the flu from the strain of doing the films Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael (1990) and Mermaids (1990) back-to-back. She said she did not want to let everyone down by doing a substandard performance. She later made The Age of Innocence (1993), which was directed by Martin Scorsese, whom she believes to be "the best director in the world".- Emily Procter is a native of Raleigh, N.C. who attended East Carolina University. "I tried to get in the theatre department," she says, "but it was full." After graduation, however, she moved to Los Angeles and landed a number of small roles in films such as Jerry Maguire (1996). "Then I got the chance to audition for The West Wing (1999) and I got the part," she says.
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Emily Erin Deschanel (born October 11, 1976) is an American actress and producer. She is best known for starring in the Fox crime procedural comedy-drama series Bones as Dr. Temperance Brennan since 2005.
Deschanel was born in Los Angeles, California, to cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir). Her younger sister is actress and singer-songwriter Zooey Deschanel. Her paternal grandfather was French, from Oullins, Rhône; her ancestry also includes Swiss, Dutch, English, Irish, and other French roots.
Deschanel attended Harvard-Westlake and Crossroads School in Los Angeles before graduating from Boston University's Professional Actors Training Program with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theater.
In 1994, Deschanel made her feature film debut in It Could Happen to You. Her next notable role was in Stephen King's Rose Red in 2002. Then she appeared in Cold Mountain, The Alamo, and Glory Road and was named one of "six actresses to watch" by Interview Magazine in 2004.
In 2005, Deschanel won the role of Dr. Temperance Brennan with David Boreanaz as FBI agent Seeley Booth on the Fox crime procedural comedy-drama Bones, based on the novels and the career of forensic anthropologist and author Kathy Reichs that premiered on September 13, 2005. For her performance, she received a 2006 Satellite Award nomination and a 2007 Teen Choice Award nomination. Deschanel and Boreanaz served as co-producers at the start of the show's third season, before becoming producers in the middle of the show's fourth season.
Deschanel, with Alyson Hannigan, Jaime King, Minka Kelly, and Katharine McPhee made a video slumber party featured on FunnyorDie.com to promote regular breast cancer screenings for the organization Stand Up 2 Cancer. In recent years, her passion for animal welfare has led her to providing the narration for My Child Is a Monkey and serving as an associate producer on the documentary film How I Became an Elephant. Deschanel ranked number 72 in The 2012 Hot 100 on AfterEllen.
Deschanel is a vegan and a committed supporter of animal rights causes. She can be seen in an Access Hollywood video at the book launch event of Karen Dawn's Thanking the Monkey: Rethinking the Way We Treat Animals, discussing how vegetarian and vegan diets help the environment, and a video on the homepage of the book's website talking about the importance of animal rights. She collaborated with PETA on a video encouraging mothers to raise their children as vegans. In September 2014, she joined the board of directors at Farm Sanctuary.
Deschanel was raised Roman Catholic, but is no longer practicing, and has expressed agnostic views, saying "I am more of a spiritual person, if anything, and I am of the belief that we don't know, and I'm not going to pretend that I do."
On September 25, 2010, Deschanel married It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor and writer David Hornsby in a small private ceremony in the Pacific Palisades area of Los Angeles. On September 21, 2011, Deschanel gave birth to their son Henry Lamar Hornsby. On June 8, 2015, she gave birth to their second son, Calvin.
Deschanel is best friends with her Bones co-star Michaela Conlin, who plays her best friend Angela Montenegro on the show; she is also friends with her Bones co-star David Boreanaz with whom she has a strong working relationship.- Actress
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Eva LaRue grew up in California. At the age of 6 she began her show-business career. She starred in television commercials and sang many "jingles" for them. She still often sings at sports events and any other opportunities that arise. Eva likes to ride horses and has shown horses for over a decade. She also enjoys Tae Kwon Do. She's the oldest of three children. She loves acting and is well into her craft.- Anna Belknap was born on 22 May 1972 in Damariscotta, Maine, USA. She is an actress, known for CSI: NY (2004), Deadline (2000) and Medical Investigation (2004). She has been married to Eric Siegel since 31 August 2003. They have two children.
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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.- Actor
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Though born in Great Neck, Long Island, Christopher Lambert's family left the US when he was only two years old. His father was a United Nations diplomat assigned to Switzerland and, as a result, Chris was educated at private boarding schools in Geneva. Inspired through his having appeared in a play at age 12, he went to the Paris Conservatoire where he remained for two years. After a few small parts in French films, beginning in 1980, he successfully competed for the title role in Warner Bros. Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). His co-stars included Ian Holm, James Fox and Ralph Richardson (in his final film performance). The movie was popular with Tarzan buffs for remaining faithful (in the first half at least) to Edgar Rice Burroughs' original story. Two years later Lambert brought to the screen Gregory Widens' legendary Connor MacLeod, the immortal Highlander (1986), born in the Highlands of Scotland in 1518 and carrying over into the futuristic Highlander II: The Quickening (1991) and Highlander: The Final Dimension (1994). In recent years he has become a producer while continuing to act in mostly action/adventure films.- Actress
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Naomi Ellen Watts was born on September 28, 1968 in Shoreham, England to Myfanwy Edwards "Miv" (Roberts), an antiques dealer and costume/set designer, and Peter Watts (Peter Anthony Watts), Pink Floyd's road manager. Her maternal grandfather was Welsh. Her father died when she was seven and she followed her mother and brother around England until she was 14 and they finally settled in Australia, homeland of her maternal grandmother. When they arrived, she coaxed her mother to let her take acting classes. After bit parts in commercials, she landed her first role in For Love Alone (1986). Naomi met her best friend Nicole Kidman when they both auditioned for a bikini commercial and shared a taxi ride home. In 1991, Naomi starred with Kidman in the sleeper hit Flirting (1991), directed by John Duigan. Naomi continued her career by starring in the Australian Brides of Christ (1991) co-starring Oscar-winners Russell Crowe and Brenda Fricker.
In 1993, she worked with John Duigan again in Wide Sargasso Sea (1993) and director George Miller in Gross Misconduct (1993). Tank Girl (1995), in 1995, an adaptation of the comic book was a cult hit, starred Naomi as "Jet Girl", but it didn't do at the box-office or do much for her career. Watts continued to take insignificant parts in movies including the much forgotten film Children of the Corn: The Gathering (1996). It wasn't until David Lynch cast her in the critically acclaimed film Mulholland Drive (2001) that she began to become noticed. Her part as an aspiring actress showed her strong acting ability and wide range and earned her much respect, as much as to say by some that she was overlooked for a Oscar nomination that year. Stardom finally came to Naomi in the surprise hit The Ring (2002), which grossed over $100,000,000 at the box-office and starred Watts as an investigative reporter hunting down the truth behind several mysterious deaths seemingly caused by a video tape. While the movie did not fare well with the critics, it launched her into the spotlight. In 2003, she starred in Alejandro González Iñárritu's 21 Grams (2003) which earned her - what some say is a much overdue Oscar nomination and brought others to call her one of the best in her generation of actors. The same year, she was nominated for 21 Grams (2003), Naomi was chosen to play "Ann Darrow" in director Peter Jackson's King Kong (2005) which took her to New Zealand for a five month shoot. Watts completed her first comedy in I Heart Huckabees (2004) for director David O. Russell, playing a superficial spokes model - a break from her usual intense and dramatic roles she is known for.
In 2005, she reprized her role as the protective-mother-reporter "Rachel Keller" in The Ring Two (2005). The movie, released in March, opened to $35,000,000 at the box office in the first weekend and established her as a box-office draw. Also in 2005, it was decided that her independent movie Ellie Parker (2001) would be re-released in late 2005 after its success at resurfacing at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie, which Naomi also produced, features her in the title role and is a bit biographical, but yet exaggerated take of the life of a struggling actress as she comes to Hollywood and encounters nightmares of the profession (it also features Watts' own beat-up Honda which she travels around in). In 2006, she starred with Edward Norton in The Painted Veil (2006). In July of 2007, Naomi gave birth to a boy, Alexander Pete (Sasha Schreiber) in Los Angeles with Liev Schreiber. Since then her career choices have gathered even more critical acclaim with starring roles roles in German director Michael Haneke's American remake of his thriller Funny Games (2007), David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (2007), and the action-thriller, The International (2009), released in February 2009. In mid-2008, Watts announced she was expecting her second child with Schreiber and gave birth to second son Samuel Kai Schreiber, in New York on December 13.- Actress
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Milena Markovna "Mila" Kunis is a Ukrainian-American actress born to a Jewish family in Chernivtsi, Ukraine.
Her mother, Elvira, is a physics teacher, her father, Mark Kunis, is a mechanical engineer, and she has an older brother named Michael. Her family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1991. After attending one semester of college between gigs, she realized that she wanted to act for the rest of her life. She started acting when she was nine years old, when her father heard about an acting class on the radio and decided to enroll Mila in it. There, she met her future agent. Her first gig was when she played a character named Melinda in Make a Wish, Molly (1995). From there, her career skyrocketed into big-budget films.
Although she is mostly known for playing Jackie Burkhart on That '70s Show (1998), she has shown the world that she can do so much more. Since 1999, she provided the voice of self-conscious daughter Meg Griffin on the animated sitcom Family Guy (1999). Her breakthrough film was Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), in which she played a free-spirited character named Rachel Jansen. She has since starred or co-starred in the films Max Payne (2008), The Book of Eli (2010), Black Swan (2010), Friends with Benefits (2011), Ted (2012) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013).
Mila Kunis is married to actor Ashton Kutcher, with whom she has two children.- Actress
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Kathryn Morris was born on 28 January 1969 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. She is an actress, known for Minority Report (2002), Mindhunters (2004) and Cold Case (2003).- Actor
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At a consistently lean 6' 2", green-eyed Timothy Dalton may very well be one of the last of the dying breed of swashbuckling, classically trained Shakespearean actors who have forged simultaneous successful careers in theater, television and film. He has been comparison-shopped roundly for stepping into roles played by other actors, first following Sir Laurence Olivier in Wuthering Heights (1970), in Scarlett (1994).
Undaunted and good-natured, he has always stated that he likes the risk of challenges. He was born in Colwyn Bay, North Wales, the oldest of five children of Dorothy (Scholes) and Peter Dalton-Leggett. His father was stationed in Colwyn Bay during World War II, and moved the family to Manchester in the late 1940s, where he worked in advertising and raised the growing Dalton family, in an upper-class neighbourhood outside of Belper, Derbyshire. Timothy was enrolled in a school for bright children, where he excelled in sports and was interested in the sciences. He was fascinated with acting from a young age, perhaps due to the fact that both his grandfathers were vaudevillians, but it was when he saw a performance of "Macbeth" at age 16 that his destiny was clinched.
After leaving Herbert Strutt Grammar School at age 16, he toured as a leading member of Michael Croft's National Youth Theater. Between 1964-66, he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Just before completing his two years, he quit and joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, playing the lead in many productions under the direction of Peter Dews while at the same time then as James Bond in The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989), and even more brutally, recently, as Rhett Butler turning professional. Dalton later said of RADA in an interview with "Seventeen" magazine (December 1970), "It took a year to undo the psychological damage that was caused by the oppressive teachers.".
His talent and classic good looks immediately landed him professional work in television, guest-starring on an episode of the short-lived series, Judge Dee (1969), and as a regular on the 14-episode series Sat'day While Sunday (1967) with the young Malcolm McDowell. In late 1967, Peter O'Toole recommended him for the role of the young King Philip of France in The Lion in Winter (1968) (coincidentally, this was also Anthony Hopkins' big break). The following year, he starred in the Italian film Giuochi particolari (1970) with Marcello Mastroianni and Virna Lisi, although his voice was dubbed into Italian by another actor. Dalton also mixed in a healthy dose of BBC work during this time, including The Three Princes (1968), Five Finger Exercise (1970) and Candida (1973). Also during this time, he was approached and tested for the role of James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969) which he turned down, feeling he was too young for the role. His next film was another costume drama, Cromwell (1970), working with director Ken Hughes, with whom he later made his first American film, Sextette (1977). He followed Cromwell (1970) with Wuthering Heights (1970) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1971).
He was already developing a pattern in his films that would follow him throughout his career: costume dramas where he played royalty, which he had done in three of his first four films (and ridden horses in three, and raised a sword in two). In 1972, he was contracted to play a role in Lady Caroline Lamb (1972). However, he was replaced at the last moment. Dalton sued the company and won, but the film went on without him. From the early to mid-1970s, he decided to further hone his skills by going back into the theater full time. He signed on with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and the Prospect Theatre Company (PTC), and toured the world with both, playing the leads in "Romeo and Juliet", "King Lear", "Henry V", "Love's Labours Lost" and "Henry IV" - parts 1 and 2.
In 1975, he returned to movies in the British/Austrian production of The Executioner (1975). It was followed in 1976 by the Spanish religious historical film about the inquisition, El hombre que supo amar (1976), which was never widely released. After this, he took another break from film, mixing in a healthy dose of theater, returning for his first American film, Sextette (1977), and the lengthy miniseries Centennial (1978), his first American television appearance, in which Lynn Redgrave played his wife. Because of his broad exposure to American audiences in this series, he began to get more frequent film and television work in the United States, including the Charlie's Angels (1976) episode "Fallen Angel" -- which, ironically, had several references to his character being like James Bond -- and the TV movie The Flame Is Love (1979). Although he did a few features, including playing Vanessa Redgrave's husband in Agatha (1979), most of his work until 1985 consisted of TV movies and miniseries. He played Prince Barin in the science fiction classic Flash Gordon (1980). He followed this with a small film, Chanel Solitaire (1981) and also filmed a staged production of Antony and Cleopatra (1984) opposite Lynn Redgrave, with Anthony Geary, as well as Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig of the original Star Trek (1966) series.
The years 1983-1987 have so far been the most prolific of his career. In 1983, he starred as Rochester in what he considers one of his best works, the popular BBC miniseries Jane Eyre (1983). Also, during this time, Roger Moore was considering leaving Bond, and Dalton was again approached, but due to his full schedule, he had to decline. In 1984, he did one of his many narrations in the Faerie Tale Theatre (1982) production of The Emperor's New Clothes (1987). That same year also saw him in the Hallmark Hall of Fame piece The Master of Ballantrae (1984) opposite Michael York and Richard Thomas, and another miniseries, Mistral's Daughter (1984), opposite Stefanie Powers and Stacy Keach. The next year was also a very busy one. He starred in another miniseries, Sins (1986), playing the brother of Joan Collins, and also starred in and narrated the four-hour miniseries Florence Nightingale (1985), opposite Jaclyn Smith. He also starred in The Doctor and the Devils (1985) as Dr. Thomas Rock, with Stephen Rea, Jonathan Pryce and Patrick Stewart.
In the mid-to-late 1980s, Dalton narrated many nature documentaries, most notably several episodes of the UK series Wildlife Chronicles (1987). In the spring of 1986, he teamed with Vanessa Redgrave for another revival of a Shakespeare production, The Taming of the Shrew (1988) and his interpretation of Petrucchio received uniformly high praise. Simultaneously, the world was playing a guessing game as to who would succeed Roger Moore as James Bond. Dalton was approached but was committed to the theater, and so Pierce Brosnan was offered the role. When Brosnan was unable to get out of his Remington Steele (1982) contract at the last minute, Dalton was again approached. Able now to work it into his tight schedule, he agreed. Although his first outing as Bond, The Living Daylights (1987), did reasonably well at the box-office, Licence to Kill (1989) suffered from a lack of marketing that appeared to harm its chances of big box-office success. However, Dalton's interpretation of "Bond" in this film received critical acclaim in some quarters as being the closest to author Ian Fleming's literary "Bond". Back in the theater, he teamed again with Vanessa Redgrave for a revival of Eugene O'Neill's seldom performed play, "A Touch of the Poet", which is considered by some to be his and Redgrave's finest professional collaboration. Although there were talks of bringing the play to Broadway, this never materialized.
Following Licence to Kill (1989), he immediately returned to one of his strengths, costume drama, in The King's Whore (1990). It was followed by his excellent performance in the Disney action adventure The Rocketeer (1991), where he played an Errol Flynn type Nazi agent. In August 1991, he teamed with Whoopi Goldberg for the first biracial interpretation of "Love Letters" for the final sold-out performances of the play in Los Angeles. When he had signed on to do Bond, it was for three pictures, but the rights to the Bond films became entangled in lengthy litigation, delaying production of the third. During this wait, he was set to star in the title role of another historical epic, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992). However, the film was doomed from the start due to the competition with the Gérard Depardieu "Columbus" picture, which was racked with its own problems. When the director was replaced, Dalton backed out and was followed by his co-star, Isabella Rossellini.
In 1992, he starred in the A&E production Framed (1992), which won a bronze medal in the 1993 New York Film Festival. The next year, he journeyed to northern Alaska and Minnesota to make a documentary on one of his favorite subjects, wolves. In the Company of Whales (1991) went on to win a silver medal in the 1994 New York Film Festival. He kept busy in television through 1993 and 1994. He made Red Eagle (1994), Scarlett (1994) and managed to squeeze in a guest appearance on Tales from the Crypt (1989) in the episode "Werewolf Concerto". In 1994, he took on the role of Rhett Butler in the eight-hour miniseries Scarlett (1994), produced by Robert Halmi Sr. for the Hallmark Hall of Fame. In April of that year, believing he needed to move on to fresh challenges, he officially resigned the role of James Bond, a move which was much regretted by the producers, though they understood his reasons. After two months of negotiations, the role went to Pierce Brosnan.
In September 1994, Dalton was called upon for two readings of "Peter and the Wolf" at the Hollywood Bowl. He played to full-capacity crowds. In November, Scarlett (1994) premiered and, though given only a lukewarm response by critics, it was a ratings success not only in the United States but all over the world, breaking records in many European countries. As always after a major work, Dalton again withdrew quietly and without fanfare to search for his next project, a small, personal film. In the summer of 1995, he journeyed to Canada to shoot Salt Water Moose (1996). The film was made by Canada's Norstar Entertainment and was sold to Halmi to be the first video release in his new line of Hallmark family films. It premiered on Showtime in June 1996.
During the spring of 1996, he made the IRA drama The Informant (1997) in Ireland and, in May, he traveled to Prague to shoot Passion's Way (1999), opposite Sela Ward. On February 7, 1997, the comedy The Beautician and the Beast (1997) co-starring Fran Drescher opened in the United States. He also gleefully parodied his swashbuckling/James Bond image in Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003) as a spy playing an actor playing a spy.
In 1995, Dalton began a relationship with Oksana Grigorieva which produced a child in 1997, Dalton's son Alexander. Over the following years, Dalton has been a caring and loving father of his son. Very much a private man, Dalton's pastimes include fishing, reading, jazz, opera, antique fairs and auctions and, of course, movies.- Actress
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Evanna Patricia Lynch is an Irish actress. Born in the town of Termonfeckin in Ireland, she is one of four children to Donal and Marguerite Lynch. Her acting career began in 2007 when she competed in an open audition against nearly 15,000 girls, and won the coveted role of Luna Lovegood in the "Harry Potter" movie franchise. She appeared in four Harry Potter films and became a main character in the final two films in 2010 and 2011. She also voiced her character in their tie-in video games. She continues to pursue acting and does charity work for organizations such as the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Ireland and The Harry Potter Alliance, of which she is a member of the Board of Advisors.- Actor
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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.- Actor
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His mother was the French Lady Comynyplatt Henrietta de Gacher, his father was the British Lieutenant William Graham Niven, who died in the war when David was six years old. Niven was considered a difficult child to educate and had to change schools often until he finally went to Sandhurst Military Academy. He came to Malta as a soldier, left the army here and went to Canada, where he worked as a lumberjack, bridge builder, journalist and whiskey salesman. After detours via New York and Cuba, Niven settled in California in 1934, where he had his first roles as an extra. He appeared in smaller films until the Second World War and then had to go to war for the British army.
In between, he also starred in propaganda films. Niven fought on the British front at Dunkirk and was promoted to colonel in 1944. General Eisenhower decorated him with the medals of the American Legion of Merit. From his first marriage to Primula Rollo, whom he married in 1940, Niven had two sons, David and Jamie. After his wife died in an accident in 1946, he married the Swede Hjordis Tersmeden in 1948, and his daughters Kristine and Fiona came from this marriage. In 1952, Niven founded the television production "Four Star TV" with Charles Boyer and other colleagues and starred in the self-produced series "The David Niven Show" and "Rogues Against Crooks". He had already been successful as an actor for a long time.
Niven starred in the 1946 English production of Error in the Afterlife and then returned to Hollywood. He celebrated successes with "The Virgin on the Roof", "Bonjour Tristesse", "The Guns of Navarone", "55 Days in Peking", "The Pink Panther", "Lady L." and with "Casino Royale". In 1959 he reached the peak of his success when he was honored with the Oscar for Best Actor for Separated from Table and Bed. His most beautiful film role was that of "Phileas Fogg" in the Jules Verne film adaptation "Around the World in 80 Days". Niven later demonstrated his enormous skills in many other films. In the 1970s and 1980s he starred in "Vampira", "A Corpse for Dessert", "Death on the Nile", "The Lion Shows its Claws" and in "Grandpa Seldom Comes Alone".
In 1982 and 1983 he had his last two roles in "The Pink Panther is Hunted" and "The Curse of the Pink Panther". Niven retired and lived on the Cote d'Azur and in Switzerland.
David Niven died on July 29, 1983 in Switzerland as a result of the nervous disease ALS. He made part of his inheritance available to medical research.- Actress
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Alyssa Milano comes from an Italian-American family; her mother Lin Milano is a fashion designer and father Thomas Milano is a film music editor. Alyssa was born in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn and grew up in a modest house on Staten Island. One day her babysitter, who was an aspiring dancer, dragged Alyssa along to an open audition for the first national tour of "Annie". However, it was Alyssa and not the sitter who was chosen from 1500 other girls for the role. So at the tender age of seven, with her mother in tow, Alyssa joined the tour as July, one of the orphans. After 18 months on the road Alyssa, who had begun to garner a reputation as an energetic and charismatic young actress, left Annie to be featured in off-Broadway productions and television commercials. Then in 1983, at age 10, she landed her breakthrough role on the sitcom Who's the Boss? (1984) as Tony Danza's saccharine sweet daughter, "Samantha Micelli", a kid whose native Brooklyn accent rivaled her TV dad's. In order for Alyssa to accept the gig, the Milano family had to uproot and move 3,000 miles to Hollywood.- Actress
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Shannen Doherty was born in Memphis, Tennessee, USA, on April 12, 1971, to Rosa Doherty (Wright) and Tom Doherty. Her father worked in a bank, while her mother owned a beauty parlor. She has an older brother, Sean B. Doherty. Her ancestry includes Irish, English, Scottish, and French. In 1978, at the tender age of seven, she and her family moved to Los Angeles, where her father started a West Coast branch of the family transportation business. She knew she wanted to pursue an acting career when she made her acting debut at age ten, with a role on the series Father Murphy (1981).
Shannen was a confident student, involving herself in school performances and working hard in school, making sure she always had exceptional grades. Despite her confidence she isolated herself from large crowds and preferred to few close friends. She made a name for herself as a child actress at just 11-years-old, starring in Little House on the Prairie (1974) as Jenny Wilder. It was Michael Landon who noticed her performance in an episode of Father Murphy (1981) that he decided to cast her. She then went on to appear in Our House (1986) with Deidre Hall and Wilford Brimley. She also starred alongside Sarah Jessica Parker and Helen Hunt in Girls Just Want to Have Fun (1985) and then in Heathers (1988), a teen comedy also starring Winona Ryder.
Her real success came in 1990, at the age of 19, when she was cast in Aaron Spelling's long-running hit series, Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990) as Brenda Walsh, the twin sister of Brandon Walsh, played by Jason Priestley. She attracted media attention from the press and eventually made her a household name. The success of the popular teen drama appealed to young teenage girls who could relate to her character. After four years she left the show in 1994. Afterward, she continued her work in movies, starring in the thriller Almost Dead (1994) and the comedy Mallrats (1995).
During the fall of 1998, she reunited with long-time producer Aaron Spelling, when she was cast as Prue Halliwell on Charmed (1998), a show about three ordinary women who happen to be witches. She starred alongside Alyssa Milano and Holly Marie Combs. After three years she left the show to find work in movies. Before her departure from the show she directed three of the last episodes in which she starred. She continued her work in movies by starring in Another Day (2001), The Rendering (2002), Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay (2002), and View of Terror (2003). In 2003, she hosted season one of Scare Tactics (2003) as well as season two with only 8 episodes and then left to pursue other endeavors.
In the fall of 2004, Shannen made her return to television on Fox's drama series North Shore (2004), where she played Alexandra Hudson, the long-lost sister of Nicole Booth, played by Brooke Burns. The show was canceled after one season. Then in 2005 she landed the role of Denise Johnson on the UPN series Love, Inc. (2005); however, after the pilot episode she was dropped from the sitcom. From there she has ventured into new projects and in 2006 she starred in her own reality series, Breaking Up with Shannen Doherty (2006).- Actress
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Holly moved to New York at the tender age of 7. Already her stunning looks had turned heads, resulting in jobs in print ads and commercials. Soon these experiences lead to a desire to act, a dream shared by Holly's mother, who herself was only 24. After a few bit parts, Holly landed a leading role as Kimberly in TV drama Picket Fences (1992). This show ran for 4 years, winning Holly critical acclaim and a Young Actors award. After the show ended, Holly starred in more roles in TV movies, enjoying her marriage and career success. This wasn't to last; in 1997, she divorced husband Bryan Travis Smith and yearned for more challenging roles. Then in 1998, Holly's good friend Shannen Doherty told her about a new television show based around three sisters who happen to be witches, who save the world from evil. Holly auditioned for the middle sister, won the role and is now known world wide for her portrayal of Piper Halliwell in the WB smash hit show Charmed (1998). Holly now lives in Burbank with her husband and their three sons.- Actress
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Rose McGowan is an American actress and director, known for her contribution to independent film. Since the age of nineteen, she has appeared in acclaimed films by Gregg Araki, Wes Craven, Brian De Palma, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. In 2014, her directorial debut Dawn (2014) was nominated for the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. Rose Arianna McGowan was born on September 5, 1973 in Florence, Tuscany, Italy, to American parents Terri and Daniel Patrick McGowan. She is the second eldest of six siblings, and has Irish, French, and English ancestry. As a young child, she was raised within the Italian chapter of the Children of God. During the early 1980s, her family severed ties with the community and migrated to Eugene, Oregon, USA. Following the divorce of her parents, Rose relocated to Gig Harbor, Washington, to live with her grandmother. At age 14, McGowan was accused of drug use by a family friend and committed to rehabilitation. She has consistently maintained the decision was unjustified. Upon release, she spent a year without a home and was emancipated from her parents by the age of 15. McGowan's career as an actor began with The Doom Generation (1995). Originally intended for Jordan Ladd, the character of Amy Blue was, coincidentally, awarded to McGowan by an associate of director Gregg Araki. For her performance, she was nominated at the 1995 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Debut Performance. Subsequently cast in Wes Craven's Scream (1996), she experienced further success when the project defied expectations to become one of the highest grossing films of the year. The innovative career of McGowan was overshadowed throughout much of the 1990s by her high-profile relationship with musician Brian Warner (aka Marilyn Manson). Strong performances in Going All the Way (1997), Lewis & Clark & George (1997), Southie (1998) and Jawbreaker (1999) were largely unseen by the general public. When the relationship ended between Rose and Manson in 2001, she remarked: "There is great love, but our lifestyle difference is, unfortunately, even greater". Rose continued to work solidly, appearing in a string of soft-sounding studio and independent films. Performances from this period included: a political activist in Showtime's The Killing Yard (2001), a grifter in Roads to Riches (2002) and a factory worker in "Stealing Bess" (aka Vacuums (2003)). She was re-introduced to the mainstream as Paige Matthews in Aaron Spelling's Charmed (1998), a popular television series for which she devoted five consecutive years. When "Charmed" finished its run in 2006, McGowan emerged in top form. Critics praised her efforts in Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror (2007), and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007). In several interviews, McGowan has expressed a general apathy and disdain for Hollywood. Despite this, her work ethic remains strong. Following her recent marriage to LA-based artist Davey Detail, the actress has resolved to purse further projects as a director.- Actor
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Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded three times.
A distinguished stage actor in his native Hungary, Austria-Hungary, he began his stage career in 1901 and started appearing in films during World War I, fleeing to Germany in 1919 as a result of his left-wing political activity (he organized an actors' union). In 1920 he emigrated to the US and made a living as a character actor, shooting to fame when he played Count Dracula in the legendary 1927 Broadway stage adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. It ran for three years, and was subsequently, and memorably, filmed by Tod Browning in 1931, establishing Lugosi as one of the screen's greatest personifications of pure evil. Also in 1931, he became a U.S. citizen. Sadly, his reputation rapidly declined, mainly because he had been blacklisted by the main studios and had no choice but to accept any part (and script) handed to him, and ended up playing parodies of his greatest role, in low-grade poverty row films. Due to shady blacklisting among the top Hollywood studio executives, he refused to sell out or to compromise his integrity, and therefore ended his career working for the legendary Worst Director of All Time, Edward D. Wood Jr..
Lugosi was married to Ilona Szmik (1917 - 1920), Ilona von Montagh (? - ?), and Lillian Arch (1933 - 1951). He is the father of Bela Lugosi Jr. (1938). Lugosi helped organize the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-'30s, joining as member number 28.
Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956. He was buried in a Dracula costume, including a cape, but not the ones used in the 1931 film, contrary to popular--but unfounded--rumors.- Actor
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Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it be Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), or Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002), or as the title monster in the Hammer Horror film, The Mummy (1959).
Lee was born in 1922 in London, England, where he and his older sister Xandra were raised by their parents, Contessa Estelle Marie (Carandini di Sarzano) and Geoffrey Trollope Lee, a professional soldier, until their divorce in 1926. Later, while Lee was still a child, his mother married (and later divorced) Harcourt George St.-Croix (nicknamed Ingle), who was a banker. Lee's maternal great-grandfather was an Italian political refugee, while Lee's great-grandmother was English opera singer Marie (Burgess) Carandini.
After attending Wellington College from age 14 to 17, Lee worked as an office clerk in a couple of London shipping companies until 1941 when he enlisted in the Royal Air Force during World War II. Following his release from military service, Lee joined the Rank Organisation in 1947, training as an actor in their "Charm School" and playing a number of bit parts in such films as Corridor of Mirrors (1948). He made a brief appearance in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948), in which his future partner-in-horror Peter Cushing also appeared. Both actors also appeared later in Moulin Rouge (1952) but did not meet until their horror films together.
Lee had numerous parts in film and television throughout the 1950s. He struggled initially in his new career because he was discriminated as being taller than the leading male actors of his time and being too foreign-looking. However, playing the monster in the Hammer film The Curse of Frankenstein (1957) proved to be a blessing in disguise, since the was successful, leading to him being signed on for future roles in Hammer Film Productions.
Lee's association with Hammer Film Productions brought him into contact with Peter Cushing, and they became good friends. Lee and Cushing often than not played contrasting roles in Hammer films, where Cushing was the protagonist and Lee the villain, whether it be Van Helsing and Dracula respectively in Horror of Dracula (1958), or John Banning and Kharis the Mummy respectively in The Mummy (1959).
Lee continued his role as "Dracula" in a number of Hammer sequels throughout the 1960s and into the early 1970s. During this time, he co-starred in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), and made numerous appearances as Fu Manchu, most notably in the first of the series The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), and also appeared in a number of films in Europe. With his own production company, Charlemagne Productions, Ltd., Lee made Nothing But the Night (1973) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976).
By the mid-1970s, Lee was tiring of his horror image and tried to widen his appeal by participating in several mainstream films, such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), The Three Musketeers (1973), The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge (1974), and the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
The success of these films prompted him in the late 1970s to move to Hollywood, where he remained a busy actor but made mostly unremarkable film and television appearances, and eventually moved back to England. The beginning of the new millennium relaunched his career to some degree, during which he has played Count Dooku in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and as Saruman the White in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Lee played Count Dooku again in Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005), and portrayed the father of Willy Wonka, played by Johnny Depp, in the Tim Burton film, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005).
On 16 June 2001, he was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of his services to drama. He was created a Knight Bachelor on 13 June 2009 in the Queen's Birthday Honours List for his services to drama and charity. In addition he was made a Commander of the Order of St John on 16 January 1997.
Lee died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 7 June 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday there. His wife delayed the public announcement until 11 June, in order to break the news to their family.- Actor
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Edward Regan Murphy was born April 3, 1961 in Brooklyn, New York, to Lillian Lynch (born: Lillian Laney), a telephone operator, and Charles Edward Murphy, a transit police officer who was also an amateur comedian and actor. After his father died, his mother married Vernon Lynch, a foreman at a Breyer's Ice Cream plant. His brothers are Charlie Murphy & Vernon Lynch Jr. Eddie had aspirations of being in show business since he was a child. A bright kid growing up in the streets of New York, Murphy spent a great deal of time on impressions and comedy stand-up routines rather than academics. His sense of humor and wit made him a stand out amongst his classmates at Roosevelt Junior-Senior High School. By the time he was fifteen, Murphy worked as a stand-up comic on the lower part of New York, wooing audiences with his dead-on impressions of celebrities and outlooks on life.
In the early 1980s, at the age of 19, Murphy was offered a contract for the Not-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players of Saturday Night Live (1975), where Murphy exercised his comedic abilities in impersonating African American figures and originating some of the show's most memorable characters: Velvet Jones, Mr. Robinson, and a disgruntled and angry Gumby. Murphy made his feature film debut in 48 Hrs. (1982), alongside Nick Nolte. The two's comedic and antagonistic chemistry, alongside Murphy's believable performance as a streetwise convict aiding a bitter, aging cop, won over critics and audiences. The next year, Murphy went two for two, with another hit, pairing him with John Landis, who later became a frequent collaborator with Murphy in Coming to America (1988) and Beverly Hills Cop III (1994). Beverly Hills Cop (1984) was the film that made Murphy a box-office superstar and most notably made him a celebrity worldwide, and it remains one of the all-time biggest domestic blockbusters in motion-picture history. Murphy's performance as a young Detroit cop in pursuit of his friend's murderers earned him a third consecutive Golden Globe nomination. Axel Foley became one of Murphy's signature characters. On top of his game, Murphy was unfazed by his success, that is until his box office appeal and choices in scripts resulted into a spotty mix of hits and misses into the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Films like The Golden Child (1986) and Beverly Hills Cop II (1987) were critically panned but were still massive draws at the box office. In 1989, Murphy, coming off another hit, Coming to America (1988), found failure with his directorial debut, Harlem Nights (1989). Another 48 Hrs. (1990), his turn as a hopeless romantic in Boomerang (1992) and as a suave vampire in Vampire In Brooklyn did little to resuscitate his career. However, his remake of Jerry Lewis's The Nutty Professor (1996) brought Murphy's drawing power back into fruition. From there, Murphy rebounded with occasional hits and misses but has long proven himself as a skilled comedic actor with laudable range pertaining to characterizations and mannerisms. Though he has grown up a lot since his fast-lane rise as a superstar in the 1980s, Murphy has lived the Hollywood lifestyle with controversy, criticism, scandal, and the admiration of millions worldwide for his talents. As Murphy had matured throughout the years, learning many lessons about the Hollywood game in the process, he settled down with more family-oriented humor with Doctor Dolittle (1998), Mulan (1998), Bowfinger (1999), and the animated smash Shrek (2001), in a supporting role that showcased Murphy's comedic personality and charm. Throughout the 2000s, he further starred in the hits The Haunted Mansion (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Dreamgirls (2006) (for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar), Norbit (2007), Shrek the Third (2007), and Shrek Forever After (2010).
Murphy was married to Nicole Mitchell Murphy from 1993 to 2006. Murphy has ten children.- Writer
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Daniel Edward Aykroyd was born on July 1, 1952 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, to Lorraine Hélène (Gougeon), a secretary from a French-Canadian family, and Samuel Cuthbert Peter Hugh Aykroyd, a civil engineer who advised prime minister Pierre Trudeau. Aykroyd attended Carleton University in 1969, where he majored in Criminology and Sociology, but he dropped out before completing his degree. He worked as a comedian in various Canadian nightclubs and managed an after-hours speakeasy, Club 505, in Toronto for several years. He worked with Second City Stage Troupe in Toronto and started his acting career at Carleton University with Sock'n'Buskin, the campus theater/drama club. Married to Donna Dixon since 1983, they have three daughters. His parents are named Peter and Lorraine and his brother Peter Aykroyd is a psychic researcher. Dan received an honorary Doctorate from Carleton University in 1994 and was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1998.- Actress
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Jamie Lee Curtis was born on November 22, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of legendary actors Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis. She got her big break at acting in 1978 when she won the role of Laurie Strode in Halloween (1978). After that, she became famous for roles in movies like Trading Places (1983), Perfect (1985) and A Fish Called Wanda (1988). She starred in one of the biggest action films ever, True Lies (1994), for which she won a Golden Globe Award for her performance. Curtis also appeared on Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), and starred in Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981) as the title role. Her first starring role was opposite Richard Lewis on the ABC situation comedy Anything But Love (1989). In 1998, she starred in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998) in which she reprised her role that made her famous back in 1978.
Jamie Lee served as an honorary chairperson for the Building Resilience for Young Children Dealing with Trauma program held at the Shakespeare Theatre - Harman Center for the Arts in Washington, D.C. She was an inspiration for the youth that were celebrated. Curtis was also given an award from US Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius and National Endowment for the Arts Chairman Rocco Landesman for her work on behalf of children through her charities and children's books.- Actress
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Jennifer Aniston was born in Sherman Oaks, California, to actors John Aniston and Nancy Dow. Her father was Greek, and her mother was of English, Irish, Scottish, and Italian descent. Jennifer spent a year of her childhood living in Greece with her family. Her family then relocated to New York City where her parents divorced when she was nine. Jennifer was raised by her mother and her father landed a role, as "Victor Kiriakis", on the daytime soap Days of Our Lives (1965). Jennifer had her first taste of acting at age 11 when she joined the Rudolf Steiner School's drama club. It was also at the Rudolf Steiner School that she developed her passion for art. She began her professional training as a drama student at New York's School of Performing Arts, aka the "Fame" school. It was a division of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and the Arts. In 1987, after graduation, she appeared in such Off-Broadway productions as "For Dear Life" and "Dancing on Checker's Grave". In 1990, she landed her first television role, as a series regular on Molloy (1990). She also appeared in The Edge (1992), Ferris Bueller (1990), and had a recurring part on Herman's Head (1991). By 1993, she was floundering. Then, in 1994, a pilot called "Friends Like These" came along. Originally asked to audition for the role of "Monica", Aniston refused and auditioned for the role of "Rachel Green", the suburban princess turned coffee peddler. With the success of the series Friends (1994), Jennifer has become famous and sought-after as she turns her fame into movie roles during the series hiatus.- Actress
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Courteney Cox was born on June 15th, 1964 in Birmingham, Alabama, into an affluent Southern family. She is the daughter of Courteney (Bass) and Richard Lewis Cox (1930-2001), a businessman. She was the baby of the family with two older sisters (Virginia and Dottie) and an older brother, Richard, Jr. She was raised in an exclusive society town, Mountain Brook, Alabama. Courteney was the archetypal daddy's girl, and therefore was understandably devastated when, in 1974, her parents divorced, and her father moved to Florida.
She became a rebellious teen, and did not make things easy for her mother, and new stepfather, New York businessman Hunter Copeland. Now, she is great friends with both. She attended Mountain Brook High School, where she was a cheerleader, tennis player and swimmer. In her final year, she received her first taste of modeling. She appeared in an advert for the store, Parisians. Upon graduation, she left Alabama to study architecture and interior design at Mount Vernon College. After one year she dropped out to a pursue a modeling career in New York, after being signed by the prestigious Ford Modelling Agency. She appeared on the covers of teen magazines such as Tiger Beat and Little Miss, plus numerous romance novels. She then moved on to commercials for Maybeline, Noxema, New York Telephone Company and Tampax.
While modeling, she attended acting classes, as her real dream and ambition was to be an actress. In 1984, she landed herself a small part in one episode of As the World Turns (1956) as a young débutante named Bunny. Her first big break, however, was being cast by Brian De Palma in the Bruce Springsteen video "Dancing in The Dark". In 1985, she moved to LA to star alongside Dean Paul Martin in Misfits of Science (1985). It was a flop, but a few years later, she was chosen out of thousands of hopefuls to play Michael J. Fox's girlfriend, psychology major Lauren Miller in Family Ties (1982).
In 1989, Family Ties (1982) ended, and Cox went through a lean spell in her career, featuring in unmemorable movies such as Mr. Destiny (1990) with Michael Caine. Fortunes changed dramatically for Cox, when in 1994, she starred alongside Jim Carrey in the unexpected hit Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (1994), and a year later she was cast as Monica Geller on the hugely successful sitcom Friends (1994). It was this part that turned her into an international superstar and led to an American Comedy Award nomination. In 1996 Cox starred in Wes Craven's horror/comedy Scream (1996) . This movie grossed over $100 million at the box office, and won Cox rave reviews for her standout performance as the wickedly bitchy and smug TV reporter Gale Weathers. She went on to play this character again in each of the three sequels. Not only did her involvement in this movie lead to critical acclaim, but it also led to her meeting actor husband David Arquette. He played her on-screen love interest Dewey, and life imitated art as the two fell in love for real. Their wedding took place in San Francisco, at the historic Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill, on June 12th, 1999. Joined by 200 guests, including Cox's film star friends Liam Neeson and Kevin Spacey, the happy couple finally became Mr. and Mrs. Arquette.- Actress
- Producer
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Hardly the dumb blonde of Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997), Lisa was born in Encino, California on July 30, 1963. Her mother, Nedra S. (Stern), worked as a travel agent, and her father, Lee N. Kudrow, is a physician. Her parents are both from Jewish families (from Belarus, Russia, and Hungary). Lisa was raised in Tarzana and played varsity-level tennis in high school and college, and is a pool shark who has mastered some of the more difficult trick shots (so beware). She graduated from Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York, with a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychobiology. At first, she wanted to pursue a career in research, so she returned to Los Angeles to begin working with her father. However, Lisa got inspired to perform by one of her brother's friends, comedian Jon Lovitz, and so the tall (5' 8") blonde-haired, green-eyed beauty entered show biz. Lisa auditioned for the improv theater group, The Groundlings, based in Los Angeles. Cynthia Szigeti, a well-known improv teacher, took Lisa under her wing. In that class, Lisa became a friend of Conan O'Brien. Graduating with honors in 1989, Lisa became a full-fledged member of The Groundlings. Breaking into TV, she got a recurring role as Ursula, the ditsy waitress on Mad About You (1992). This led to her starring role on Friends (1994). In the debut season (1994-95) of Friends (1994), Lisa earned an Emmy nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series; in 1998, she won that award for her role as Phoebe, the ditsy but lovable folk singer. Lisa has also been nominated for Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild and American Comedy Awards for her performances.
Lisa made the transition to the big screen with a lot of success. In 1997, she starred opposite Oscar winner Mira Sorvino in the above-mentioned Romy and Michele's High School Reunion (1997). Lisa garnered more praise for her film work when she got the New York Film Critics Award for her starring role in The Opposite of Sex (1998).
Lisa married Michel Stern, an advertising executive, on May 27, 1995. On May 7, 1998, they were blessed with a son, Julian Murray; they live in Los Angeles.- Actor
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Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to television.
He was a writer for, Your Show of Shows (1950) Caesar's Hour (1954) and wrote the Broadway show Shinbone Alley. He also worked in the creation of The 2000 Year Old Man (1975) and Get Smart (1965) before embarking on a highly successful film career in writing, acting, producing and directing.
Brooks is famous for the spoofs of different film genres that he made such as Blazing Saddles (1974), History of the World: Part I (1981), Silent Movie (1976), Young Frankenstein (1974), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), High Anxiety (1977), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), and Spaceballs (1987).- Actress
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Madeline Kahn was born Madeline Gail Wolfson of Russian Jewish descent on September 29, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts, to Freda Goldberg (later known as Paula Kahn), who was still in her teens, and Bernard B. Wolfson, a garment manufacturer. She began her acting career in high school and went on to university where she trained as an opera singer and starred in several campus productions, ultimately earning a doctorate in her chosen field.
Kahn's best-known work came in Paper Moon (1973) with Ryan O'Neal, which was followed the next year by Mel Brooks's outrageous Blazing Saddles (1974) as Lili Von Shtupp, a cabaret singer who was obviously based on Marlene Dietrich's performance in Destry Rides Again (1939). Kahn was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in both movies. In 1998, she lent her voice to the character of "Gypsy" in A Bug's Life (1998).
On December 3, 1999, Madeline Kahn died of ovarian cancer in New York City, after a yearlong or so battle, during part of which time she was a cast member of Cosby (1996), aged 57.- Actor
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When he was 11, he wanted to be a comedian like Sid Caesar. Then, when he was 15 and saw Lee J. Cobb in 'Death of a Salesman,' he decided he would be a comedy actor and found that Mel Brooks was a great influence on his screen writing. He combined both talents with directing in The World's Greatest Lover (1977), followed by The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975).- Actor
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Leslie William Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and raised in Tulita (formerly Fort Norman), Northwest Territories. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (Davies), was Welsh. His father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen, was a Danish-born Mountie and a strict disciplinarian. Leslie studied at the Academy of Radio Arts in Toronto before moving on to New York's Neighborhood Playhouse. His acting career started at a much earlier age when he was forced to lie to his father in order to avoid severe punishment. Leslie starred in over fifty films and many more television films. One of his two brothers became the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada. On October 10, 2002, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Canada (OC) in recognition of his contributions to the film and television industries. On November 28, 2010, Leslie Nielsen died at age 84 of pneumonia and was buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.- Actor
- Stunts
Born in Cardiff, Peter trained as a doctor at Brasenose College, Oxford and St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, but chose an acting career just prior to graduation. Peter caught the acting bug as a teenager at the National Youth Theatre in Wales and his drama training was at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. On leaving drama school in 1990, Peter made his television debut in Beeban Kidron's Screen Two production of "Antonia and Jane" before going on to play lead roles in three television drama series: "Alex" in Granada TV's Medics; "Lt. Nick Pasco" in "Soldier Soldier" for Central TV; and "Tom Walton" in "The Men's Room" (1991), a five-part series directed by Antonia Bird for BBC TV.
For the next few years, Peter worked steadily in the UK doing several noteworthy productions, such as Pirandello's "Six Characters in Search of an Author", "Alun Lewis" in "Alun Lewis: Death and Beauty" for the BBC Wales and "Martin Chuzzlewit" for the BBC, as well as the movie "Uncovered", directed by Jim McBride. In 1995, Peter did a guest shot on "Highlander the Series" playing Methos, a 5000 year old Immortal, which led to a recurring role on the series and changed the theater of his work from the UK to America. He moved to Canada during the filming of "Highlander", then returned to the UK to play Tom Kirby in the Granada Television series "Noah's Ark." Back in Canada, he did two seasons of "Cold Squad" as Inspector Simon Ross and had roles in "X-Men 2- X-Men United" and "Catwoman". He received a Gemini Award nomination and a Christian TV Excellence nomination for best actor for his work in "The Miracle of the Cards". In 2006, Peter appeared on the BBC series, "Dalziel and Pascoe." Peter and his family relocated to Los Angeles in the fall of 2005 where he did guest shots on the series "Charmed," and "Medium" as well as "The Collector" for CTV in Canada. He revisited the character of Methos for the new Highlander movie, "The Source" and also played the title role in "The Last Sin Eater" directed by Michael Landon Jr. for Fox Faith Pictures. In the summer of 2006, Peter returned to the UK to join the cast of the popular medical drama "Holby City" for at least one year as Medical Consultant Daniel Clifford.
Peter holds an Advanced Level Stage fighting certificate, is a former National Trampoline Champion and his personal best time for running the London Marathon is 3 hours exactly. Peter is married and he and his wife have a son.
As of August, 2011, Peter has returned to medical school, attending the University of Vermont, to become a doctor. He graduated in May 2015.- Actress
- Producer
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Kimberly Alexis Bledel was born in Houston, Texas, to Nanette (Dozier) and Martin Bledel. Her parents are both Spanish-speakers (her mother was born in Arizona and raised in Mexico, and her father was born in Argentina), and Alexis's ancestry includes Danish, Welsh, English, Scottish, Irish, and French.
Alexis made her television debut in Gilmore Girls (2000), after spending years in front of the camera as a model. Bledel's parents encouraged her to try community theater in Houston when she was 8 years old, hoping it would help their daughter overcome her shyness. She went on to perform in productions of Our Town, The Wizard of Oz and Aladdin, and later was scouted in a local mall to model. She began her modeling career while still in high school, traveling all over to locations like Tokyo, Milan, New York and Los Angeles. After graduating, she enrolled at NYU as a film major. In the Spring of 2000, Bledel landed a manager through her modeling agency and headed to Los Angeles for her first pilot season, where she quickly landed the coveted role of Rory on Gilmore Girls (2000).
When she's not working, Bledel enjoys writing, reading, shooting photography, going to the movies and spending time with her family. She was married to actor Vincent Kartheiser, with whom she has a son.- Actress
- Producer
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Leslie Easterbrook is an American actress from Nebraska. She has had a decades-long career, but she is mostly remembered for the role of the tough training instructor Debbie Callahan in the "Police Academy" movie series (1984-1994). She appeared in six of the series' seven films, and Callahan was considered among the series' most memorable characters. Easterbrook has also appeared in several horror films.
Easterbrook was born on July 29, 1948. At the age of 9 months, she was adopted by the Easterbrook family. Her adoptive father Carl Easterbrook worked as a music professor. Her adoptive mother Helen worked as an English teacher at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, a public university located at the small city of Kearney, Nebraska. The city was incorporated in 1873, and named after the nearby historic outpost Fort Kearny.
Easterbrook was primarily raised in the small village of Arcadia, Nebraska. In 1950, Arcadia had a population of 574 people. Easterbrook received her secondary education at Kearney High School, a public high school located in Kearney. She received her tertiary education at Stephens College, a private women's college located in Columbia, Missouri. Stephens had a distinguished Drama Department, which had initially won its fame under the leadership of the actress Maude Adams (1872-1953).
Easterbrook decided to follow an acting career, but she was fairly obscure during the 1970s. She gained her first major television role in 1980, when cast in the role of aspiring actress Rhonda Lee in the sitcom Laverne & Shirley (1976). She was a regular in the sixth, seventh, and eighth seasons of the sitcom. Rhonda was depicted as a vain woman, who spoke of herself in the third person. She liked to brag about her successful love life to her neighbors Laverne DeFazio (Penny Marshall) and Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams).
Easterbrook was cast in her first major film role as Debbie Callahan in the police comedy Police Academy (1984). Callahan was depicted as a tough and strict training instructor at the Metropolitan Police Academy, who is both physically and sexually aggressive. According to a later interview, Easterbrook had to convince the film's producer and director that she could play an intimidating character. This was a first in her career, but she performed well. The film's subplot was that Callahan maintained a sexual relationship with cadet George Martin (Andrew Rubin), where she dominated her partner.
Police Academy (1984) was a box office hit, earning about 150 million dollars at the worldwide box office. The film had six sequels. Easterbrook did not appear in the second film, but appeared in all the rest. Callahan was a major character in the movie series. A major subplot in the third and fourth films was that Callahan was involved in an interracial relationship with the Japanese cadet Tomoko Nogata (Brian Tochi). The movie series ended in 1994.
In 1985, Easterbrook had a supporting role in the adventure comedy film Private Resort (1985). The film deals with two teenagers at a posh resort in Miami, Florida, who have to stop an experienced jewel thief. The film was a box office flop, but it is remembered for depicting novice actors Johnny Depp and Rob Morrow in starring roles. In 1986, Easterbrook joined the cast of the long-running soap opera Ryan's Hope (1975), playing the regular character Devlin Kowalski. The series depicted life in the neighborhood of Washington Heights, Manhattan. New characters were frequently added to the cast, as older ones were written out. Easterbrook remained a series regular until 1987, and the series was canceled two years later.
In 1992, Easterbrook voiced the sentient android Randa Duane in a two-part episode of Batman: The Animated Series (1992). Randa was depicted as the ultimate creation of the supercomputer H.A.R.D.A.C., and its main agent in a scheme to replace humans with lookalike androids. Randa's appearance was patterned after real-life actress Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962). In 1995, Easterbrook played a character in the interactive film Mr. Payback: An Interactive Movie (1995). The film depicts the vigilante android Mr. Payback (Billy Warlock) punishing or humiliating criminals in sadistic ways. The audience could vote for various directions the story would take.
In 1997, Easterbrook voiced the Kryptonian criminal Mala in a two-part episode of Superman: The Animated Series (1996). Mala was depicted as a female soldier who once participated in a failed coup d'état, and was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment in the Phantom Zone. The character Mala was originally created for this series, but was loosely based on the comic book villain Faora and the film villain Ursa. Both original characters were depicted as prominent Kryptonian enemies of Superman. Also in 1997, Easterbrook guest-starred as Debbie Callahan in the sitcom Police Academy: The Series (1997). The series was a spin-off of the movie series, featuring mostly new characters. In her guest appearance, Callahan was depicted as a retired police officer. She had began a new career as an assistant district attorney.
Easterbrook gained her next prominent role when cast as Mother Firefly in the horror film The Devil's Rejects (2005). Her character was depicted as the matriarch of a family of psychopaths who are hunted down by authorities. The film was a sequel of the movie House of 1000 Corpses (2003), where Mother Firefly was played by Karen Black. The film earned about 19.5 million dollars at the box office. Critics praised the film for fleshing out the recurring characters, providing them with "personalities, histories and motives".
Easterbrook next played the security guard Patty Frost in the horror film Halloween (2007), a remake of the 1978 horror film of the same name. In the remake, Frost is one of several security guards charged with transporting mental patient Michael Myers (played by Tyler Mane). The film earned about 80.5 million dollars at the worldwide box office, and revived the "Halloween" movie franchise.
Easterbrook played the eccentric innkeeper Betty in the supernatural horror film House (2008). The film only received a limited release, and earned about 575,000 dollars at the domestic box office. Easterbrook played the leading role of the mentally unstable killer Maggie in the horror film The Afflicted (2011). The film was loosely based on the life of serial killer Theresa Knorr (1946-), who had tortured and killed two of her own children. Easterbrook played wealthy benefactor Stella Fawnskin in the horror film Sorority Party Massacre (2012). In the film, Fawnskin organizes an annual contest for sorority girls. In the contest's final year, both Fawnskin and her contestants are targeted for murder.
Easterbrook had a more sympathetic role in the ghost-themed film Compound Fracture (2014). She played Annabelle Wolffsen, a wife who is charged with taking care of her aging husband, who suffers from dementia. As of 2021, she has never retired from acting, though she has had few prominent roles in recent years. She is fondly remembered by generations of comedy and horror fans. Several of her older films remain popular.- Actress
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Liza Weil's childhood was spent traveling around the world with her parents, who were members of The Mad House of London, a prestigious comedy troupe known throughout Europe. At the age of 7, Liza's family settled in a small town in Pennsylvania, and soon after, she began performing in local theater. Without any formal training, her parents helped guide her career, permitting Liza to travel several times a month to audition for roles in Manhattan. After a series of standout theatrical performances in such plays as "Our Town" and "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds," casting directors began to take notice of Liza. She has also appeared Off-Broadway in the Playwright's Horizon production of "Life By Asphyxiation" and has performed onstage in several regional productions, including "The Miracle Worker" and "Fifteen Minute Hamlet," among others. She made her feature film debut in Whatever (1998) which premiered at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival.- Actor
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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.- Actor
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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.- Actress
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Uma Karuna Thurman was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a highly unorthodox and internationally-minded family. She is the daughter of Nena Thurman (née Birgitte Caroline von Schlebrügge), a fashion model and socialite who now runs a mountain retreat, and of Robert Thurman (Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman), a professor and academic who is one of the nation's foremost Buddhist scholars. Uma's mother was born in Mexico City, Mexico, to a German father and a Swedish mother (who herself was of Swedish, Danish, and German descent). Uma's father, a New Yorker, has English, Scots-Irish, Scottish, and German ancestry. Uma grew up in Amherst, Massachusetts, where her father worked at Amherst College.
She and her siblings all have names deriving from Buddhist mythology; and Middle American behavior was little understood, much less pursued. And so it was that the young Thurman confronted childhood with an odd name and eccentric home life -- and nature seemingly conspired against her as well. She is six feet tall, and from an early age towered over everyone else in class. Her famously large feet would soon sprout to size 11 -- and even beyond that -- and although they would eventually be lovingly filmed by director Quentin Tarantino, as a child she generally wore the biggest shoes in class, which only provided another subject of ridicule. Even her long nose moved one of her mother's friends to helpfully suggest rhinoplasty -- to the ten-year-old Thurman. To make matters worse yet, the family constantly relocated, making the gangly, socially inept Thurman perpetually the new kid in class. The result was an exceptionally awkward, self-conscious, lonely and alienated childhood.
Unsurprisingly, the young Thurman enjoyed making believe she was someone other than herself, and so thrived at acting in school plays -- her sole successful extracurricular activity. This interest, and her lanky frame, perfect for modeling, led the 15-year-old Thurman to New York City for high school and modeling work (including a layout in Glamour Magazine) as she sought acting roles. The roles soon came, starting with a few formulaic and forgettable Hollywood products, but immediately followed by Terry Gilliam's The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons (1988), both of which brought much attention to her unorthodox sensuality and performances that intriguingly combined innocence and worldliness. The weird, gangly girl became a sex symbol virtually overnight.
Thurman continued to be offered good roles in Hollywood pictures into the early '90s, the least commercially successful but probably best-known of which was her smoldering, astonishingly-adult performance as June, Henry Miller's wife, in Henry & June (1990), the first movie to actually receive the dreaded NC-17 rating in the USA. After a celebrated start, Thurman's career stalled in the early '90s with movies such as the mediocre Mad Dog and Glory (1993). Worse, her first starring role was in Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993), which had endured a tortured journey from cult-favorite book to big-budget movie, and was a critical and financial debacle. Fortunately, Uma bounced back with a brilliant performance as Mia Wallace, that most unorthodox of all gangster's molls, in Tarantino's lauded, hugely successful Pulp Fiction (1994), a role for which Thurman received an Academy Award nomination.
Since then, Thurman has had periods of flirting with roles in arty independents such as A Month by the Lake (1995), and supporting roles in which she has lent some glamorous presence to a mixed batch of movies, such as Beautiful Girls (1996) and The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996). Thurman returned to smaller films after playing the villainess Poison Ivy in the reviled Joel Schumacher effort Batman & Robin (1997) and Emma Peel in a remake of The Avengers (1998). She worked with Woody Allen and Sean Penn on Sweet and Lowdown (1999), and starred in Richard Linklater's drama Tape (2001) opposite Hawke. Thurman also won a Golden Globe award for her turn in the made-for-television film Hysterical Blindness (2002), directed by Mira Nair.
A return to the mainstream spotlight came when Thurman re-teamed with Quentin Tarantino for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003), a revenge flick the two had dreamed up on the set of Pulp Fiction (1994). She also turned up in the John Woo cautioner Paycheck (2003) that same year. The renewed attention was not altogether welcome because Thurman was dealing with the break-up of her marriage with Hawke at about this time. Thurman handled the situation with grace, however, and took her surging popularity in stride. She garnered critical acclaim for her work in Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) and was hailed as Tarantino's muse. Thurman reunited with Pulp Fiction (1994) dance partner John Travolta for the Get Shorty (1995) sequel Be Cool (2005) and played Ulla in The Producers (2005).
Thurman had been briefly married to Gary Oldman, from 1990 to 1992. In 1998, she married Ethan Hawke, her co-star in the offbeat futuristic thriller Gattaca (1997). The couple had two children, Levon and Maya. Hawke and Thurman filed for divorce in 2004.- Actress
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Michelle Pfeiffer was born in Santa Ana, California to Dick and Donna Pfeiffer. She has an older brother and two younger sisters - Dedee Pfeiffer, and Lori Pfeiffer, who both dabbled in acting and modeling but decided against making it their lives' work. She graduated from Fountain Valley High School in 1976, and attended one year at the Golden West College, where she studied to become a court reporter. But it was while working as a supermarket checker at Vons, a large Southern California grocery chain, that she realized her true calling. She was married to actor/director Peter Horton ("Gary" of Thirtysomething (1987)) in 1981. They were later divorced, and she then had a three year relationship with actor Fisher Stevens. When that didn't work out, Pfeiffer decided she didn't want to wait any longer before having her own family, and in March of 1993, she adopted a baby girl, Claudia Rose. On November 13th of the same year, she married lawyer-turned-writer/producer David E. Kelley, creator of Picket Fences (1992), Chicago Hope (1994), The Practice (1997), and Boston Public (2000). On August 5, 1994 their son, John Henry was born.- Actor
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Rowan Sebastian Atkinson was born on 6 January, 1955, in Consett, Co. Durham, UK, to Ella May (Bainbridge) and Eric Atkinson. His father owned a farm, where Rowan grew up with his two older brothers, Rupert and Rodney. He attended Newcastle University and Oxford University where he earned degrees in electrical engineering. During that time, he met screenwriter Richard Curtis, with whom he wrote and performed comedy revues.
Later, he co-wrote and appeared in Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), which was a huge success and spawned several best-selling books. It won an International Emmy Award and the British Academy Award for "Best Light Entertainment Programme of 1980." He won the "British Academy Award" and was named "BBC Personality of the Year" for his performance in Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979).
Atkinson also appeared in several movies, including Dead on Time (1983), Pleasure at Her Majesty's (1976) (aka "Monty Python Meets Beyond the Fringe"), Never Say Never Again (1983), and The Tall Guy (1989). He played "Mr. Bean" in the TV series, Mr. Bean (1990) but, apart from that and Not the Nine O'Clock News (1979), he also appeared in several other series like Blackadder (1982) and Funny Business (1992), etc.
Atkinson enjoys nothing more than fast cars. He has two children, named Benjamin and Lily, with ex-wife Sunetra Sastry.- Actor
- Producer
Widely regarded as one of the greatest stage and screen actors both in his native UK and internationally, the unparalleled Nigel Hawthorne was born in Coventry, England on 5 April 1929, raised in South Africa and returned to the UK in the 1950s with his extensive work as a great gentleman of acting following during the decade as well as in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. His portrayal of 'Sir Humphrey Appleby' in the BBC comedy Yes Minister (1980) won him international acclaim in the 1980s. In 1992, he was awarded the Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for his sublime interpretation of 'George III' in Alan Bennett's hit stage play, "The Madness of King George III" and he was also nominated for an Academy Award of Best Actor in a Leading Role in its brilliant film adaptation The Madness of King George (1994), both of them exquisitely directed by Nicholas Hytner.- Actress
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Renée O'Connor was born in Houston, Texas, to Walter and Sandra O'Connor (now Wilson), and raised in Katy, a Houston suburb. She attended Taylor High School and the Houston High School of Visual and Performing Arts. Renée has one older brother, Chris.
Renée appeared in commercials, including one for McDonalds, a feature film called Night Game (1989), and some work for The All New Mickey Mouse Club (1989) (aka "The Mickey Mouse Club) in 1989. She also made guest appearances on TV shows such as NYPD Blue (1993), before starring as "Deineira" in the Hercules TV movie Hercules: The Legendary Journeys - Hercules and the Lost Kingdom (1994). She caught the eyes of executive producers Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, who cast Renée in the 1994 film Darkman II: The Return of Durant (1995). Soon after, Hercules' sister show, Xena: Warrior Princess (1995) was launched, and Renée was cast as "Gabrielle", Xena's trusty sidekick.- Actress
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Helena Bonham Carter is an actress of great versatility, one of the UK's finest and most successful.
Bonham Carter was born May 26, 1966 in Golders Green, London, England, the youngest of three children of Elena (née Propper de Callejón), a psychotherapist, and Raymond Bonham Carter, a merchant banker. Through her father, she is the great-granddaughter of former Prime Minister Herbert H. Asquith, and her blue-blooded family tree also contains Barons and Baronesses, diplomats, and a director, Bonham Carter's great-uncle Anthony Asquith, who made Pygmalion (1938) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), among others. Cousin Crispin Bonham-Carter is also an actor. Her maternal grandfather, Eduardo Propper de Callejón, was a Spanish diplomat who was awarded the honorific Righteous Among the Nations, by Israel, for helping save Jews during World War II (Eduardo's own father was a Czech Jew). Helena's maternal grandmother, Hélène Fould-Springer, was from an upper-class Jewish family from France, Austria, and Germany, and later converted to her husband's Catholic faith.
Bonham Carter experienced family dramas during her childhood, including her father's stroke - which left him wheelchair-bound. She attended South Hampstead High School and Westminster School in London, and subsequently devoted herself to an acting career. That trajectory actually began in 1979 when, at age thirteen, she entered a national poetry writing competition and used her second place winnings to place her photo in the casting directory "Spotlight." She soon had her first agent and her first acting job, in a commercial, at age sixteen. She then landed a role in the made-for-TV movie A Pattern of Roses (1983), which subsequently led to her casting in the Merchant Ivory films A Room with a View (1985), director James Ivory's tasteful adaptation of E.M. Forster's novel, and Lady Jane (1986), giving a strong performance as the uncrowned Queen of England. She had roles in three other productions under the Merchant-Ivory banner (director Ivory, producer Ismail Merchant, and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala): an uncredited appearance in Maurice (1987), and large roles in Where Angels Fear to Tread (1991) and Howards End (1992).
Often referred to as the "corset queen" or "English rose" because of her early work, Bonham Carter continued to surprise audiences with magnificent performances in a variety of roles from her more traditional corset-clad character in The Wings of the Dove (1997) and Shakespearian damsels to the dark and neurotic anti-heroines of Fight Club (1999). Her acclaimed performance in The Wings of the Dove (1997) earned her a Best Actress Academy Award nomination, a Golden Globe Best Actress nomination, a BAFTA Best Actress nomination, and a SAG Awards Best Actress nomination. It also won her a Best Actress Award from the National Board of Review, the Los Angeles Film Critics, the Boston Society Film Critics, the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Texas Society of Film Critics, and the Southeastern Film Critics Association.
In the late 1990s, Bonham Carter embarked on the next phase of her career, moving from capable actress to compelling star. Audiences and critics had long been enchanted by her delicate beauty, evocative of another time and place. Her late '90s and early and mid 2000s roles included Mick Jackson's Live from Baghdad (2002), alongside Michael Keaton, receiving a nomination for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe; Paul Greengrass' The Theory of Flight (1998), in which she played a victim of motor neurone disease; Trevor Nunn's Twelfth Night (1996), in which she played Olivia; opposite Woody Allen in his Mighty Aphrodite (1995); Mort Ransen's Margaret's Museum (1995); Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein (1994); and Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet (1990).
Other notable credits include her appearance with Steve Martin in Novocaine (2001), Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes, in which she played an ape, Thaddeus O'Sullivan's The Heart of Me (2002), opposite Paul Bettany, and Big Fish (2003), her second effort with Tim Burton, in which she appeared as a witch.
In between her films, Helena has managed a few television appearances, which include her portrayal of Jacqui Jackson in Magnificent 7 (2005), the tale of a mother struggling to raise seven children - three daughters and four autistic boys; as Anne Boleyn in the two-parter biopic of Henry VIII starring Ray Winstone; and as Morgan Le Fey, alongside Sam Neill and Miranda Richardson, in Merlin. Earlier television appearances include Michael Mann's Miami Vice (1984) as Don Johnson's junkie fiancée, and as a stripper who wins Rik Mayall's heart in Dancing Queen (1993). Helena has also appeared on stage, in productions of Trelawney of the Wells, The Barber of Seville, House of Bernarda Alba, The Chalk Garden, and Woman in White.
Bonham Carter was nominated for a Golden Globe for the fifth time for her role in partner Tim Burton's film adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007), for which Burton and co-star Johnny Depp were also nominated. For the role, she was awarded Best Actress at the Evening Standard British Film Awards 2008. Other 2000s work includes playing Mrs Bucket in Tim Burton's massive hit Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), providing the voices for the aristocratic Lady Campanula Tottington in Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005) and for the eponymous dead heroine in Tim Burton's spooky Corpse Bride (2005), and co-starring in Conversations with Other Women (2005) opposite Aaron Eckhart.
After their meeting while filming Planet of the Apes (2001), Bonham Carter and Tim Burton made seven films together. They lived in adjoining residences in London, shared a connecting hallway, and have two children: Billy Ray Burton, born in 2003, and Nell Burton, who was born in 2007. Ironically, a mutual love of Sweeney Todd was part of the initial attraction for the pair. Bonham Carter has said in numerous interviews that her audition process for the role of Mrs. Lovett was the most grueling of her career and that, ultimately, it was Sondheim who she had to convince that she was right for the role.- Actress
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Christina Applegate was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, to record producer/executive Robert Applegate and singer-actress Nancy Priddy. Her parents split-up shortly after her birth. She has two half-siblings from her father's re-marriage - Alisa (b. October 10, 1977) and Kyle (b. July 15, 1981). Alisa and Christina are best friends and even lived together while Alisa was going to college. Christina's mother took her along on all of her auditions and acting jobs. She made her acting debut at age five months, when her mother got her in a commercial for Playtex nursers. Her mother never remarried, but kept company with Stephen Stills. Christina still cherishes a guitar Stephen gave her when she was young. She played in a number of TV series before landing her breakout role in Married... with Children (1987). Christina still studies jazz dance.- Actress
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Natalie Portman is the first person born in the 1980s to have won the Academy Award for Best Actress (for Black Swan (2010)).
Natalie was born Natalie Hershlag on June 9, 1981, in Jerusalem, Israel. She is the only child of Avner Hershlag, an Israeli-born doctor, and Shelley Stevens, an American-born artist (from Cincinnati, Ohio), who also acts as Natalie's agent. Her parents are both of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. Natalie's family left Israel for Washington, D.C., when she was still very young. After a few more moves, her family finally settled in New York, where she still lives to this day. She graduated with honors, and her academic achievements allowed her to attend Harvard University. She was discovered by an agent in a pizza parlor at the age of 11. She was pushed towards a career in modeling but she decided that she would rather pursue a career in acting. She was featured in many live performances, but she made her powerful film debut in the movie Léon: The Professional (1994) (aka "Léon"). Following this role Natalie won roles in such films as Heat (1995), Beautiful Girls (1996), and Mars Attacks! (1996).
It was not until 1999 that Natalie received worldwide fame as Queen Amidala in the highly anticipated US$431 million-grossing prequel Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). She then she starred in two critically acclaimed comedy dramas, Anywhere But Here (1999) and Where the Heart Is (2000), followed by Closer (2004), for which she received an Oscar nomination. She reprised her role as Padme Amidala in the last two episodes of the Star Wars prequel trilogy: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones (2002) and Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005). She received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Black Swan (2010).
She received a second nomination for Best Actress, for playing Jacqueline Kennedy in Jackie (2016).- Actress
- Producer
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Cote de Pablo was born in Santiago, Chile, but was raised in Miami, Florida. She attended Arvida Middle School in Miami and then Carnegie Mellon University. She graduated in 2000 after studying music theater. Whilst at Carnegie Mellon she appeared in several theater productions, including "Indiscretions," "The Fantasticks," "The House of Bernarda Alba," "And The World Goes 'Round," "A Little Night Music," and "Cloud Techtonics." Her first television job was co-hosting the 1994 show Control (2000), alongside Entertainment Tonight (1981) host Carlos Ponce.
In 2001, Cote appeared on the New York City Public Theater stage in the Shakespearean play "Measure for Measure," then moved on to roles on the small screen such as Gina in the ABC series The Education of Max Bickford (2001), acting alongside Academy Award-winners Richard Dreyfuss and Marcia Gay Harden, Golden Globe winner Regina Taylor, veteran actress Helen Shaver, and Katee Sackhoff. She also had roles in The $treet (2000) and When I Grow Up (1990). In 2004, she starred in the short-lived Fox series The Jury (2004), playing Marguerite Cisneros.
In 2005, she played Dolores Fuentes in the stage musical "The Mambo Kings" and later was cast as Mossad officer Ziva David in the hit series NCIS (2003), alongside Mark Harmon, Michael Weatherly, Pauley Perrette, David McCallum, Sean Murray, Lauren Holly, Rocky Carroll, and Brian Dietzen.
As of 2008, she was living in Los Angeles.- Actress
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Pauley Perrette is known to millions around the world as Abby Sciuto, the brilliant but offbeat forensic scientist on CBS's NCIS (2003). Her additional credits include appearances on such shows as Almost Famous (2000), The Ring (2002), 24 (2001), CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), Murder One (1995), The Drew Carey Show (1995), Jesse (1998), Time of Your Life (1999), Philly (2001), Special Unit 2 (2001), Haunted (2002) and many independent films, commercials, and music videos.
Born in New Orleans, Pauley was raised in Alabama, Georgia, and all over the South. She was an undergrad honor student in sociology, psychology, and criminal science. She began her master's degree in criminal science at Georgia State University before moving to New York City. She worked as a bartender while pursuing an acting career.
In addition to being a talented actress, Pauley is also a director, producer, published writer, poet, photographer, spoken-word artist, and singer/songwriter. A passionate and dedicated advocate for civil rights, she is directing and producing a documentary about U.S. civil rights attorney and author Mark Lane. An ardent social and civil activist, Pauley is involved in many charitable organizations that work on behalf of animal rescue, civil rights, and LGBT rights. She is on the board of Project Angel Food and supports Habitat for Humanity, NoH8, PATH (People Assisting the Homeless), EQCA (Equality California), AIDS Walk LA, the Humane Society, AIDS Task Force, NOH8 Campaign, Los Angeles Zoo, Hope Gardens, Union Rescue Mission, DonorsChoose.org, APLA (AIDS Project Los Angeles), the Amanda Foundation, the American Red Cross, Out of the Closet, Top Cops, 5p21 (AIDS clinic), Strike Out AIDS, Petfinder.com, Hollywood Homeless Lunch, Campaign for Care, and Save the Children. Pauley is also an active congregant of the social and civilly active Hollywood United Methodist Church.
Her dedication to independent film has resulted in her winning, among other accolades, Best Actress in the Beverly Hills Films Festival 2010 for To Comfort You (2009). Being placed on several IT lists, including those of Entertainment Weekly and LA Weekly, she also was singled out as the only woman in the top 10 of the Q rankings, and tied with Tom Hanks and Morgan Freeman at #1 as the most favorable celebrities. In the E-Poll survey, she ranked #4 most liked celebrity.
Pauley was recently honored by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul as Community Advocate of the Year, by the Union Rescue Mission with the Heart for Service Award, by the Desert AIDS Project as Next Generation Advocate, and by the Union Rescue Mission for her social media efforts that saved Hope Gardens (a homeless shelter for women and children). She is finishing recording her new album with her band, Stop Making Friends, performing songs that she wrote and sings. She is also the former lead singer of the all-girl rock band Lo-Ball. She recently collaborated with new artist B. Taylor on his single, "Fire in Your Eyes," and soon will be heard on the Run-D.M.C. single "Attention Please."
Pauley has been a frequent entertaining guest on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005), Late Show with David Letterman (1993), Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (2009), and many other entertainment and talk shows.- Actor
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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.- Writer
- Actor
- Script and Continuity Department
"I am too old to die young, and too young to grow up," Marty Feldman told a reporter -- a week before he died.
This beloved comedian, who poked fun at himself, as well as others, was born Martin Alan Feldman on July 8, 1934, in London, England. His parents were of Ukrainian Jewish heritage (from Kiev). He was the son of Cecilia (née Crook) and Myer Feldman, a gown manufacturer. Marty spent his childhood in the poverty-stricken London East End and left school at the age of 15, hoping for a career as a jazz trumpeter (his appearance in a Variety show earned him the title "the worst trumpeter in the world"). He had just started his comedy career, as a writer for BBC radio programs and TV shows in the late 1950s, when he married Lauretta Sullivan in January 1959 (they would stay married until his death in 1982). There's a saying: "Your face is your fortune"; Marty had received a double-whammy. His nose was mangled in his youthful years in a boxing match; his walleyed orbs were the result of both a hyperactive thyroid and a botched operation after a car accident before his 30th birthday, in 1963. American audiences first saw Marty in Dean Martin Presents the Golddiggers (1968), where he did comedy skits with Susie Ewing and the Golddiggers. He appeared in a number of movies, his most-remembered role being that of Igor (pronounced Eye-Gor) in Young Frankenstein (1974). Besides acting, he made his directorial debut in The Last Remake of Beau Geste (1977). Beloved and popular, it seemed Marty was to enjoy a long career in the entertainment field. However, he died of a massive heart attack, caused by shellfish food poisoning, while filming Yellowbeard (1983) in Mexico City, on December 2, 1982... he was only 48.- Actor
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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.- Actor
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Bill Murray is an American actor, comedian, and writer. The fifth of nine children, he was born William James Murray in Wilmette, Illinois, to Lucille (Collins), a mailroom clerk, and Edward Joseph Murray II, who sold lumber. He is of Irish descent. Among his siblings are actors Brian Doyle-Murray, Joel Murray, and John Murray. He and most of his siblings worked as caddies, which paid his tuition to Loyola Academy, a Jesuit school. He played sports and did some acting while in that school, but in his words, mostly "screwed off." He enrolled at Regis College in Denver to study pre-med but dropped out after being arrested for marijuana possession. He then joined the National Lampoon Radio Hour with fellow members Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, and John Belushi. However, while those three became the original members of Saturday Night Live (1975), he joined Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell (1975), which premiered that same year. After that show failed, he later got the opportunity to join Saturday Night Live (1975), for which he earned his first Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy-Variety or Music Series. He later went on to star in comedy films, including Meatballs (1979), Caddyshack (1980), Stripes (1981), Tootsie (1982), Ghostbusters (1984), Ghostbusters II (1989), Scrooged (1988), What About Bob? (1991), and Groundhog Day (1993). He also co-directed Quick Change (1990). Murray garnered additional critical acclaim later in his career, starring in Lost in Translation (2003), which earned him a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor, as well as an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. He also received Golden Globe nominations for his roles in Ghostbusters, Rushmore (1998), Hyde Park on Hudson (2012), St. Vincent (2014), and the HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge (2014), for which he later won his second Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Andie MacDowell was born Rosalie Anderson MacDowell on April 21, 1958 in Gaffney, South Carolina, to Pauline Johnston (Oswald), a music teacher, and Marion St. Pierre MacDowell, a lumber executive. She was enrolled at Winthrop College located in Rock Hill, South Carolina. Initially discovered by a rep from Wilhelmina Models while on a trip to Los Angeles. Later signed on with Elite Model Management in New York City in 1978. Made debut film appearance in Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). Went on to study method acting at the Actors Studio. Had commercial success with performances in Harold Ramis's Groundhog Day (1993) and Mike Newell's Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994).- Actress
- Producer
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Rachel Hannah Weisz was born on 7 March, 1970, in London, U.K., to Edith Ruth (Teich), a psychoanalyst, and George Weisz, an inventor. Her parents both came to England around 1938. Her father is a Hungarian Jewish immigrant, and her mother, from Vienna, was of Italian and Austrian Jewish heritage. Rachel has a sister, Minnie, a curator and photographer.
Rachel started modeling when she was 14, and began acting during her studies at Cambridge University. While there, she formed a theater company named "Talking Tongues", which won the Guardian Award, at the Edinburgh Festival, for its take on Neville Southall's "Washbag". Rachel went on to star on stage in the lauded Sean Mathias revival of Noël Coward's "Design For Living". It was a role that won her a vote for Most Promising Newcomer by the London Critics' Circle.
She has starred in many movies, including The Mummy (1999), Enemy at the Gates (2001) and Stealing Beauty (1996). Rachel can also be seen in the movies The Shape of Things (2003), About a Boy (2002), Constantine (2005) and The Constant Gardener (2005), for which she won an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Rachel has a son with her former partner, director Darren Aronofsky. In June 2011, she married "James Bond" actor Daniel Craig in a private ceremony in New York.- Actor
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David Carradine was born in Hollywood, California, the eldest son of legendary character actor John Carradine, and his wife, Ardanelle Abigail (McCool). He was a member of an acting family that included brothers Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine as well as his daughters Calista Carradine and Kansas Carradine, and nieces Ever Carradine and Martha Plimpton.
He was born in Hollywood and educated at San Francisco State College, where he studied music theory and composition. It was while writing music for the Drama Department's annual revues that he discovered his own passion for the stage, joining a Shakespearean repertory company and learning his craft on his feet. After a two-year stint in the army, he found work in New York as a commercial artist and later found fame on Broadway in "The Deputy" and "The Royal Hunt of the Sun" opposite Christopher Plummer. With that experience he returned to Hollywood, landing the lead in the short-lived TV series Shane (1966) before being tapped to star opposite Barbara Hershey in Martin Scorsese's first Hollywood film, Boxcar Bertha (1972). The iconic Kung Fu (1972) followed, catapulting Carradine to super-stardom for the next three years, until he left the series to pursue his film career.
That career included more than 100 feature films, a couple of dozen television movies, a whole range of theater on and off Broadway and another hit series, Kung Fu: A Legend Reborn (1992).
Carradine received the Best Actor Award from the National Board of Film Review as well as a Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of Woody Guthrie in Hal Ashby's Bound for Glory (1976), and he won critical acclaim for his work as Cole Younger in The Long Riders (1980). "Kung Fu" also received seven Emmy nominations in its first season, including one for Carradine as Best Actor. In addition, he won the People's Prize at the Cannes Film Festival's "Director's Fortnight" for his work on Americana (1981), and a second Golden Globe nomination for his supporting role in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985). Among his other notable film credits were Gray Lady Down (1978), Mean Streets (1973), Bird on a Wire (1990), The Long Goodbye (1973), The Serpent's Egg (1977) and Circle of Iron (1978). He returned to the screen in what could be his greatest performance, playing the title role in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003) and Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004), for which he received his fourth Golden Globe nomination. He also continued his devotion to music, and recorded some 60 tracks in various musical genres and sang in several movies. He made his home in Los Angeles with his fifth wife Annie, her four children and their two dogs.
Found dead in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 3, 2009, aged 72.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kirsten Cooke was born on 4 October 1952 in Cuckfield, East Sussex, England, UK. She is an actress, known for 'Allo 'Allo! (1982), The Return of 'Allo 'Allo! (2007) and 'Allo 'Allo! at the London Palladium (1988).- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Guy is known the world over for his portrayal of Lieutenant Gruber, one of the original and enduring characters of over 90 episodes of 'Allo 'Allo! which is one of the most successful comedy series the B.B.C. has ever produced and is still shown in more than 80 countries.
Guy was born in Manhattan to an American father and an English mother. He was educated in England and trained for the stage at the Webber Douglas Academy in London where he won the Rodney Millington Award for his performance as The Emcee in Cabaret. In a career of some 50 years he has become a household name in the U.K. both in theatre and television. In recent years he has spent much of his time working in the film industry in Los Angeles but is now based in London where he juggles two careers - actor and writer/producer. With his producing partner David Mansell he runs Einstein Films, with several movies in development.
Guy made his first London appearance in the highly acclaimed Cowardy Custard at the Mermaid Theatre. Other London credits include Off the Peg, Nickleby and Me, Toad of Toad Hall, The Frogs, Wealth, The Biograph Girl and Don't Dress for Dinner. He has also appeared several times in cabaret at The Ritz. He has worked with many of the leading English repertory companies including Coventry, Leicester, Brighton, Windsor, Oxford and The Bristol Old Vic, and did six major tours with Jonathan Lynn's Cambridge Theatre Company in a repertoire mainly of the classics including The Master Builder, The Relapse, An Inspector Calls and Uncle Vanya. He twice toured Australia with the stage show of 'Allo 'Allo which also enjoyed a record-breaking U.K. tour and long West End runs both at the Prince of Wales and the London Palladium.
Television work in London includes: I Claudius, Dr. Who, Life at Stake, Z Cars, Softly Softly, The Secret Army, You Rang M'Lord?, The Brittas Empire, Doctors and of course 'Allo 'Allo! In LA: Seinfeld, Martial Law, Diagnosis Murder (with Dick van Dyke), Zoe, Babylon 5, When Billie Beat Bobbie (with Holly Hunter and Goldie Hawn), That's My Bush (with the writers of South Park), The Agency and Startrek: Enterprise.
Guy's experience and contacts in all aspects of film-making are widespread. Movies include: The Disappearance of Kevin Johnson, Great Harry and Jane, Lost Highway (written and directed by David Lynch), Leprechaun 4, Bug, Return to the Secret Garden, The Second Front (with Todd Field), Megiddo (with Michael York), Vlad (with Billy Zane), Provoked, The Loss Adjuster (with Luke Goss) and Pirates of the Caribbean (with Johnny Depp).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Kim Hartman was born on 11 January 1952 in Hammersmith, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for 'Allo 'Allo! (1982), Dunkirk (2017) and Grange Hill (1978). She has been married to John Nolan since 1975. They have two children.- Actor
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Anthony Perkins was born April 4, 1932 in New York City, to Janet Esselstyn (Rane) and Osgood Perkins, an actor of both stage and film. His father died when he was five. Anthony's paternal great-grandfather was engraver Andrew Varick Stout Anthony. Perkins attended the Brooks School, the Browne & Nichols School, Columbia University and Rollins College. He made his screen debut in The Actress (1953), and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar Friendly Persuasion (1956). Four years later, he appeared in what would be his most noted role, Norman Bates in Psycho (1960), memorializing him into film history forever.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Sofia Vassilieva was born on 22 October 1992 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. She is an actress, known for The Little Things (2021), Looking for Alaska (2019) and My Sister's Keeper (2009).- Actress
- Producer
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Naomi Scott is a multi-talented actor, singer, and songwriter. She stars as "Jasmine" in Disney's blockbuster live-action remake Aladdin (2019), alongside Mena Massoud and Will Smith, directed by Guy Ritchie. Disney released the film in May 2019, and it became one of the biggest films of the year.
Naomi was born in London, England to Usha (Joshi) and Christopher Scott, who are pastors of the Bridge Church, Woodford in Redbridge. Her father is British and her mother, who is from Uganda, is from a Gujarati Indian family.
Naomi appeared in "The 33," directed by Patricia Riggen. Starring Juliette Binoche, Gabriel Byrne, and Antonio Banderas, the film is based on the 2010 rescue of 33 Chilean miners after being trapped for 69 days in a gold and copper mine. Naomi plays "Escarlette", the daughter of Banderas' character who is the leader of the miners. Additional credits include a series regular role in Steven Spielberg's television series "Terra Nova" for DreamWorks and FOX, a lead role in the hit Disney Channel movie "Lemonade Mouth", and a lead role in Lee Toland Krieger's short film "Modern/Love" produced by Roman Coppola.
In 2017, Scott was seen in Lionsgate's Power Rangers (2017), directed by Dean Israelite, which tells the story of a group of teenagers who transform into a uniformed team of superheroes ready to protect the world from evil. Naomi plays "Kimberly" aka 'The Pink Ranger', a girl unconventionally cool in a way all the popular girls wish they were.
Naomi is in production on "Charlie's Angels," which Elizabeth Banks is helming for Sony; she won the highly-coveted leading role of "Elena" opposite Kristen Stewart. Sony is set to release the film in November 2019.
Naomi resides in London.- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Allison Miller was born in Rome, Italy, to American parents, Margo and John Winn Miller. She grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, where her father worked as a journalist.
The family eventually settled in Tallahassee, Florida, where she studied dance, piano, acting and singing while still at high school before briefly attending the University of Florida at Gainesville. She dropped out and moved to Los Angeles to start a career in acting.
She appeared in one episode of General Hospital (1963) in 2006 and followed that with several more TV and movie appearances before landing a role in the critically acclaimed Kings (2009).- Producer
- Actress
- Music Department
Sandra Annette Bullock was born in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington, D.C. Her mother, Helga Bullock (née Helga Mathilde Meyer), was a German opera singer. Her father, John W. Bullock, was an American voice teacher, who was born in Alabama, of German descent. Sandra grew up on the road with her parents and younger sister, chef Gesine Bullock-Prado, and spent much of her childhood in Nuremberg, Germany. She often performed in the children's chorus of whatever production her mother was in. That singing talent later came in handy for her role as an aspiring country singer in The Thing Called Love (1993). Her family moved back to the Washington area when she was adolescent. She later enrolled in East Carolina University in North Carolina, where she studied acting. Shortly afterward she moved to New York to pursue a career on the stage. This led to acting in television programs and then feature films. She gave memorable performances in Demolition Man (1993) and Wrestling Ernest Hemingway (1993), but did not achieve the stardom that seemed inevitable for her until her work in the smash hit Speed (1994). She now ranks as one of the most popular actresses in Hollywood. For her role in The Blind Side (2009) she won the Oscar, and her blockbusters The Proposal (2009), The Heat (2013) and Gravity (2013) made her a bankable star. With $56,000,000, she was listed in the Guinness Book Of World Records as the highest-paid actress in the world.- Writer
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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.- Actor
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Hugh was born in Oxford, England on June 11, 1959, to Patricia (Laidlaw) and William George Ranald Mundell "Ran" Laurie, a doctor, both of Scottish descent. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge. Son of an Olympic gold medalist in the sport, he rowed for the England youth team (1977) and for Cambridge (1980). He met Emma Thompson at Cambridge in 1978 when both joined "Footlights" and was introduced to Stephen Fry by Emma in 1980. Hugh is married and lives in Los Angeles. His wife and three children, who previously lived in London, are moving to Los Angeles to live with him. Besides acting and comedy, he has written the best-selling thriller The Gun Seller. A second novel, titled The Paper Soldier, is forthcoming.- Actress
- Producer
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From her role as Dr. Lisa Cuddy on the hit Fox series "House" to her starring role as Abby McCarthy in Bravo's first scripted series "Girlfriends' Guide to Divorce," Lisa Edelstein's range of roles are as diverse as her talent. Set for a Summer 2018 Season 5 premiere, "Girlfriends' Guide" is a dramedy following a best-selling author of a self-help series who separates from her husband and must navigate big career changes and the dating world as a newly single mother. Created by Marti Noxon, the show not only gave Edelstein the opportunity to be the series lead playing everything from heartfelt drama to physical comedy, she also had the chance to expand creatively by being a writer, producer and director on the show.
Edelstein is developing a dramedy pilot with Universal Cable based on the book Confessions of a Sociopath by M.E. Thomas. She is co-writing the script with Carol Barbee, will star in the lead role and executive produce along with Phoenix Pictures. She is also shooting a recurring role in the new Netflix series "The Kominsky Method," starring Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin and created by Chuck Lorre. Edelstein plays Phoebe, the drug-addled hot mess daughter of Arkin's character. The show will premiere later this year. In addition, she took the helm this year by writing, directing, and starring in the short film "Unzipping." Based on the short story by Etgar Keret, Edelstein produced the film with Jane Hollen and Kate Cohen of Straight Up Films. James Le Gros and Jason Lewis co-star.
No stranger to fearless and even some iconic television roles, Edelstein was the risotto-loving Karen on "Seinfeld," Rob Lowe's call-girl girlfriend Laurie on "West Wing," the transsexual Cindy on "Ally McBeal," and Rhonda Roth, the first out-lesbian on network TV in Jason Katim's "Relativity." Other guest and recurring appearances include "Scandal," "The Good Wife," and "House of Lies." She co-starred for seven seasons on the medical drama "House," which became the most watched show in the world and garnered Edelstein the People's Choice Award for Favorite TV Actress.
Edelstein's feature credits include "Keeping The Faith," starring Ben Stiller and directed by Edward Norton, Mel Gibson's "What Women Want," "Daddy Day Care" with Eddie Murphy, "As Good As It Gets," the dramatic Showtime feature "Fathers and Sons," "Joshy," and "Dr. Bird's Advice to Sad Poets." She also works in the realm of animation voiceover in such shows as "American Dad," "King of the Hill," "Airbender: Legend of Korra," as well as the character Mercy Graves in the "Superman" and "Justice League" series.
While honing her craft at the prestigious NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Edelstein appeared in numerous off-Broadway productions and then authored, composed and performed the AIDS-related musical "Positive Me" at Ellen Stuart's La Mama in Manhattan. It was one of the first productions in any medium about the crisis and New York's Common Ground bestowed to her a Humanitarian Award for her efforts to further awareness.
Edelstein resides in Los Angeles in a century old home with her husband artist Robert Russell, two step-sons, and several rescue dogs. She volunteers her time with a variety of charity organizations including Best Friends Animal Sanctuary, The Anti-Defamation League, Planned Parenthood and The Center for Reproductive Rights.- Actress
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Jennifer Marie Morrison was born in Chicago, Illinois, the oldest child of teachers David and Judy Morrison. She was raised in Arlington Heights, IL, with a younger sister and brother. She attended the same school her parents taught at, Prospect High School. As a child, she did some work as a model. After graduating from high school, she attended Loyola University in Chicago, where she studied Theater and English. She then moved on to study at the Steppenwolf Theater Company, before relocating to Los Angeles, California to pursue her acting career. Morrison's movie debut came in 1994, playing the daughter of Richard Gere and Sharon Stone in Intersection (1994). Success followed with various film and television roles, including the lead in Urban Legends: Final Cut (2000). She came to wide scale public attention in 2004 for her role as Dr. Allison Cameron in the television series House (2004), for which she was nominated for a prestigious Screen Actors Guild Award. Since leaving "House M.D.", her career has continued to progress with roles in Star Trek (2009), How I Met Your Mother (2005) and Warrior (2011).- Actress
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Actress and activist Olivia Wilde is a modern day renaissance woman, starring in many acclaimed film productions, while simultaneously giving back to the community.
She was born on March 10, 1984 in New York City. Her parents are Leslie Cockburn (née Leslie Corkill Redlich) and Andrew Cockburn. Her mother is American-born and her father was born in London, England to an upper-class British family; he also later became a citizen of Ireland. Wilde is the middle child, having an older sister, Chloe Cockburn, and, a younger brother, Charlie Cockburn. She is of English, Irish, Scottish, German, and Manx descent.
She was raised in Georgetown, Washington, D.C., and spent her summers in Ardmore, County Waterford, Ireland. She attended the private Georgetown Day School, as well as, Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, graduating in 2002. She was accepted to Bard College, another highly selective private school in Duchess County, New York but deferred her enrollment three times in order to pursue an acting career. She later studied at the Gaiety School of Acting in Dublin, Ireland.
Wilde is known for her television roles as Alex Kelly in The O.C. (2003) from 2004-2005 and Dr. Remy "Thirteen" Hadley in the medical-drama television series, House (2004) when she joined the cast in 2007 and appeared on the show until the series end in 2012.
Wilde is a board member of the organization "Artists for Peace and Justice," which supports communities in Haiti through programs in education, health care, and dignity through the performing arts. She has served as executive producer on several documentary short films, including, Sun City Picture House (2010), which is about a community in Haiti that rallies to build a movie theater after the disastrous 2010 earthquake and Baseball in the Time of Cholera (2012), which explored the cholera epidemic in Haiti.
Wilde is known for her roles in Year One (2009), Tron: Legacy (2010), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), In Time (2011), People Like Us (2012), Her (2013), Rush (2013), Drinking Buddies (2013), The Longest Week (2014), Love the Coopers (2015), and Meadowland (2015).
Since 2011, Wilde had been in a relationship with Jason Sudeikis. They have two children together, Otis Alexander Sudeikis (born April 20, 2014) and Daisy Josephine Sudeikis (born October 11, 2016). In November 2020, they announced that they had ended their relationship.
Wilde made her Broadway debut in the play "1984" at the Hudson Theatre in New York City in 2017. She has recently starred in Life Itself (2018) and A Vigilante (2018).- Actress
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Anne was raised in Newton, Massachusetts. She got the role of Iphigenia in "The Iphigenia Cycle" in Chicago while still in theater school at Northwestern University. She was a resident artist at The Court Theatre in Chicago. The production moved off-Broadway to New York City, where she won the Joseph E. Calloway award for her performance, and was profiled in American Theater Magazine as one of ten young theater artists to watch. She then appeared on Broadway in Wrong Mountain, in productions in several regional theaters, and won the Connecticut Critics Circle Award for outstanding performance in The Glass Menagerie.
Anne also worked in the United Kingdom as Clare in the BAFTA-nominated television series The Book Group (2002).- Actor
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Widely regarded as one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native Great Britain and internationally, twice nominated for the Oscar and recipient of every major theatrical award in the UK and US, Ian Murray McKellen was born on May 25, 1939 in Burnley, Lancashire, England, to Margery Lois (Sutcliffe) and Denis Murray McKellen, a civil engineer and lay preacher. He is of Scottish, Northern Irish, and English descent. During his early childhood, his parents moved with Ian and his older sister, Jean, to the mill town of Wigan. It was in this small town that young Ian rode out World War II. He soon developed a fascination with acting and the theatre, which was encouraged by his parents. They would take him to plays, those by William Shakespeare, in particular. The amateur school productions fostered Ian's growing passion for theatre.
When Ian was of age to begin attending school, he made sure to get roles in all of the productions. At Bolton School in particular, he developed his skills early on. Indeed, his first role in a Shakespearian play was at Bolton, as Malvolio in "Twelfth Night". Ian soon began attending Stratford-upon-Avon theatre festivals, where he saw the greats perform: Laurence Olivier, Wendy Hiller, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson and Paul Robeson. He continued his education in English Drama, but soon it fell by the wayside as he concentrated more and more on performing. He eventually obtained his Bachelor of Arts in 1961, and began his career in earnest.
McKellen began working in theatre over the next few years. Very few people knew of Ian's homosexuality; he saw no reason to go public, nor had he told his family. They did not seem interested in the subject and so he saw no reason to bring it up. In 1988, Ian publicly came out of the closet on the BBC Radio 4 program, while discussing Margaret Thatcher's "Section 28" legislation, which made the promotion of homosexuality as a family relationship by local authorities an offense. It was reason enough for McKellen to take a stand. He has been active in the gay rights movement ever since.
Ian resides in Limehouse, where he has also lived with his former long-time partner Sean Mathias. The two men have also worked together on the film Bent (1997) as well as in exquisite stage productions. To this day, McKellen works mostly in theatre, and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1990 for his efforts in the arts. However, he has managed to make several quite successful forays into film. He has appeared in several productions of Shakespeare's works including his well received Richard III (1995), and in a variety of other movies. However, it has only been recently that his star has finally begun to shine in the eyes of North American audiences. Roles in various films, Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Apt Pupil (1998) and Gods and Monsters (1998), riveted audiences. The latter, in particular, created a sensation in Hollywood, and McKellen's role garnered him several of awards and nominations, including a Golden Globe and an Oscar nod. McKellen, as he continues to work extensively on stage, he always keeps in 'solidifying' his 'role' as Laurence Olivier's worthy 'successor' in the best sense too, such as King Lear (2008) / King Lear (2008) directed by Trevor Nunn and in a range of other staggering performances full of generously euphoric delight that have included "Peter Pan" and Noël Coward's "Present Laughter", as well as Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" and Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land" (National Theatre Live: No Man's Land (2016)), both in acclaimed productions brilliantly directed by Sean Mathias.
McKellen found mainstream success with his performance as Magneto in X-Men (2000) and its sequels. His largest mark on the big screen may be as Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy directed by Peter Jackson, which he reprised in "The Hobbit" trilogy. He also reprised the role of 'King Lear' with new artistic perspectives in National Theatre Live: King Lear (2018) offering an invaluable mesmerizing experience as a natural force of stage - and screen - of infinite generosity through his unsurpassable interpretation of the titanically vulnerable king.- Actress
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If a film were made of the life of Vivien Leigh, it would open in India just before World War I, where a successful British businessman could live like a prince. In the mountains above Calcutta, a little princess is born. Because of the outbreak of World War I, she is six years old the first time her parents take her to England. Her mother thinks she should have a proper English upbringing and insists on leaving her in a convent school - even though Vivien is two years younger than any of the other girls at the school. The only comfort for the lonely child is a cat that was in the courtyard of the school that the nuns let her take up to her dormitory. Her first and best friend at the school is an eight-year-old girl, Maureen O'Sullivan who has been transplanted from Ireland. In the bleakness of a convent school, the two girls can recreate in their imaginations the places they have left and places where they would some day like to travel. After Vivien has been at the school for 18 months, her mother comes again from India and takes her to a play in London. In the next six months Vivien will insist on seeing the same play 16 times. In India the British community entertained themselves at amateur theatricals and Vivien's father was a leading man. Pupils at the English convent school are eager to perform in school plays. It's an all-girls school, so some of the girls have to play the male roles. The male roles are so much more adventurous. Vivien's favorite actor is Leslie Howard, and at 19 she marries an English barrister who looks very much like him. The year is 1932. Vivien's best friend from that convent school has gone to California, where she's making movies. Vivien has an opportunity to play a small role in an English film, Things Are Looking Up (1935). She has only one line but the camera keeps returning to her face. The London stage is more exciting than the movies being filmed in England, and the most thrilling actor on that stage is Laurence Olivier. At a party Vivien finds out about a stage role, "The Green Sash", where the only requirement is that the leading lady be beautiful. The play has a very brief run, but now she is a real actress. An English film is going to be made about Elizabeth I. Laurence gets the role of a young favorite of the queen who is sent to Spain. Vivien gets a much smaller role as a lady-in-waiting of the queen who is in love with Laurence's character. In real life, both fall in love while making this film, Fire Over England (1937). In 1938, Hollywood wants Laurence to play Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights (1939). Vivien, who has just recently read Gone with the Wind (1939), thinks that the role of Scarlett O'Hara is the first role for an actress that would be really exciting to bring to the screen. She sails to America for a brief vacation. In New York she gets on a plane for the first time to rush to California to see Laurence. They have dinner with Myron Selznick the night that his brother, David O. Selznick, is burning Atlanta on a backlot of MGM (actually they are burning old sets that go back to the early days of silent films to make room to recreate an Atlanta of the 1860s). Vivien is 26 when Gone with the Wind (1939) makes a sweep of the Oscars in 1939. So let's show 26-year-old Vivien walking up to the stage to accept her Oscar and then as the Oscar is presented the camera focuses on Vivien's face and through the magic of digitally altering images, the 26-year-old face merges into the face of Vivien at age 38 getting her second Best Actress Oscar for portraying Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). She wouldn't have returned to America to make that film had not Laurence been going over there to do a film, Carrie (1952) based on Theodore Dreiser's novel "Sister Carrie". Laurence tells their friends that his motive for going to Hollywood to make films is to get enough money to produce his own plays for the London stage. He even has his own theater there, the St. James. Now Sir Laurence, with a seat in the British House of Lords, is accompanied by Vivien the day the Lords are debating about whether the St James should be torn down. Breaking protocol, Vivien speaks up and is escorted from the House of Lords. The publicity helps raise the funds to save the St. James. Throughout their two-decade marriage Laurence and Vivien were acting together on the stage in London and New York. Vivien was no longer Lady Olivier when she performed her last major film role, The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961).- Actress
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Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan to British parents, Lilian Augusta (Ruse), a former actress, and Walter Augustus de Havilland, an English professor and patent attorney. Her sister Joan, later to become famous as Joan Fontaine, was born the following year. Her surname comes from her paternal grandfather, whose family was from Guernsey in the Channel Islands. Her parents divorced when Olivia was just three years old, and she moved with her mother and sister to Saratoga, California.
After graduating from high school, where she fell prey to the acting bug, Olivia enrolled in Mills College in Oakland, where she participated in the school play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and was spotted by Max Reinhardt. She so impressed Reinhardt that he picked her up for both his stage version and, later, the Warner Bros. film version in 1935. She again was so impressive that Warner executives signed her to a seven-year contract. No sooner had the ink dried on the contract than Olivia appeared in three more films: The Irish in Us (1935), Alibi Ike (1935), and Captain Blood (1935), this last with the man with whom her career would be most closely identified: heartthrob Errol Flynn. He and Olivia starred together in eight films during their careers. In 1939 Warner Bros. loaned her to David O. Selznick for the classic Gone with the Wind (1939). Playing sweet Melanie Hamilton, Olivia received her first nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, only to lose out to one of her co-stars in the film, Hattie McDaniel.
After GWTW, Olivia returned to Warner Bros. and continued to churn out films. In 1941 she played Emmy Brown in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), which resulted in her second Oscar nomination, this time for Best Actress. Again she lost, this time to her sister Joan for her role in Suspicion (1941). After that strong showing, Olivia now demanded better, more substantial roles than the "sweet young thing" slot into which Warners had been fitting her. The studio responded by placing her on a six-month suspension, all of the studios at the time operating under the policy that players were nothing more than property to do with as they saw fit. As if that weren't bad enough, when her contract with Warners was up, she was told that she needed to make up the time lost because of the suspension. Irate, she sued the studio, and for the length of the court battle she didn't appear in a single film. The result, however, was worth it. In a landmark decision, the court said that not only would Olivia not need to make up the time, but also that all performers would be limited to a seven-year contract that would include any suspensions handed down. This became known as the "de Havilland decision": no longer could studios treat their performers as chattel. Olivia returned to the screen in 1946 and made up for lost time by appearing in four films, one of which finally won her the Oscar that had so long eluded her: To Each His Own (1946), in which she played Josephine Norris to the delight of critics and audiences alike. Olivia was the strongest performer in Hollywood for the balance of the 1940s.
In 1948 she turned in another strong showing in The Snake Pit (1948) as Virginia Cunningham, a woman suffering a mental breakdown. The end result was another Oscar nomination for Best Actress, but she lost to Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948). As in the two previous years, she made only one film in 1949, but she again won a nomination and the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Heiress (1949). After a three-year hiatus, Olivia returned to star in My Cousin Rachel (1952). From that point on, she made few appearances on the screen but was seen on Broadway and in some television shows. Her last screen appearance was in The Fifth Musketeer (1979), and her last career appearance was in the TV movie The Woman He Loved (1988).
Her turbulent relationship with her only sibling, Joan Fontaine, was press fodder for many decades; the two were reported as having been permanently estranged since their mother's death in 1975, when Joan claimed that she had not been invited to the memorial service, which she only managed to hold off until she could arrive by threatening to go public. Joan also wrote in her memoir that her elder sister had been physically, psychologically, and emotionally abusive when they were young. And the iconic photo of Joan with her hand outstretched to congratulate Olivia backstage after the latter's first Oscar win and Olivia ignoring it because she was peeved by a comment Joan had made about Olivia's new husband, Marcus Goodrich, remained part of Hollywood lore for many years.
Nonetheless, late in life, Fontaine gave an interview in which she serenely denied any and all claims of an estrangement from her sister. When a reporter asked Joan if she and Olivia were friends, she replied, "Of course!" The reporter responded that rumors to the contrary must have been sensationalism and she replied, "Oh, right--they have to. Two nice girls liking each other isn't copy." Asked if she and Olivia were in communication and spoke to each other, Joan replied "Absolutely." When asked if there ever had been a time when the two did not get along to the point where they wouldn't speak with one another, Joan replied, again, "Never. Never. There is not a word of truth about that." When asked why people believe it, she replied "Oh, I have no idea. It's just something to say ... Oh, it's terrible." When asked if she had seen Olivia over the years, she replied, "I've seen her in Paris. And she came to my apartment in New York often." The reporter stated that all this was a nice thing to hear. Joan then stated, "Let me just say, Olivia and I have never had a quarrel. We have never had any dissatisfaction. We have never had hard words. And all this is press." Joan died in 2013.
During the hoopla surrounding the 50th anniversary of GWTW in 1989, Olivia graciously declined requests for all interviews as the last of the four main stars. She enjoyed a quiet retirement in Paris, France, where she resided for many decades, and where she died on 26 July, 2020, at the age of 104.
As well as being the last surviving major cast member of some of cinema's most beloved pre-war and wartime film classics (including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939)), and one of the longest-lived major stars in film history, Olivia de Havilland was unquestionably the last surviving iconic figure from the peak of Hollywood's golden era during the late 1930s, and her passing truly marked the end of an era.- Actress
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Ingrid Bergman was one of the greatest actresses from Hollywood's lamented Golden Era. Her natural and unpretentious beauty and her immense acting talent made her one of the most celebrated figures in the history of American cinema. Bergman is also one of the most Oscar-awarded actresses, tied with Meryl Streep and Frances McDormand, all three of them second only to Katharine Hepburn.
Ingrid Bergman was born on August 29, 1915 in Stockholm, Sweden, to a German mother, Frieda Henrietta (Adler), and a Swedish father, Justus Samuel Bergman, an artist and photographer. Her mother died when she was only two and her father died when she was 12. She went to live with an elderly uncle.
The woman who would be one of the top stars in Hollywood in the 1940s had decided to become an actress after finishing her formal schooling. She had had a taste of acting at age 17 when she played an uncredited role of a girl standing in line in the Swedish film Landskamp (1932) in 1932 - not much of a beginning for a girl who would be known as "Sweden's illustrious gift to Hollywood." Her parents died when she was just a girl and the uncle she lived with didn't want to stand in the way of Ingrid's dream. The next year she enrolled at the Royal Dramatic Theatre School in Stockholm but decided that stage acting was not for her. It would be three more years before she would have another chance at a film. When she did, it was more than just a bit part. The film in question was The Count of the Old Town (1935), where she had a speaking part as Elsa Edlund. After several films that year that established her as a class actress, Ingrid appeared in Intermezzo (1936) as Anita Hoffman. Luckily for her, American producer David O. Selznick saw it and sent a representative from Selznick International Pictures to gain rights to the story and have Ingrid signed to a contract. Once signed, she came to California and starred in United Artists' 1939 remake of her 1936 film, Intermezzo (1939), reprising her original role. The film was a hit and so was Ingrid.
Her beauty was unlike anything the movie industry had seen before and her acting was superb. Hollywood was about to find out that they had the most versatile actress the industry had ever seen. Here was a woman who truly cared about the craft she represented. The public fell in love with her. Ingrid was under contract to go back to Sweden to film Only One Night (1939) in 1939 and June Night (1940) in 1940. Back in the US she appeared in three films, all well-received. She made only one film in 1942, but it was the classic Casablanca (1942) opposite Humphrey Bogart.
Ingrid was choosing her roles well. In 1943 she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), the only film she made that year. The critics and public didn't forget her when she made Gaslight (1944) the following year--her role of Paula Alquist got her the Oscar for Best Actress. In 1945 Ingrid played in Spellbound (1945), Saratoga Trunk (1945) and The Bells of St. Mary's (1945), for which she received her third Oscar nomination for her role of Sister Benedict. She made no films in 1947, but bounced back with a fourth nomination for Joan of Arc (1948). In 1949 she went to Italy to film Stromboli (1950), directed by Roberto Rossellini. She fell in love with him and left her husband, Dr. Peter Lindstrom, and daughter, Pia Lindström. America's "moral guardians" in the press and the pulpits were outraged. She was pregnant and decided to remain in Italy, where her son was born. In 1952 Ingrid had twins, Isotta and Isabella Rossellini, who became an outstanding actress in her own right, as did Pia.
Ingrid continued to make films in Italy and finally returned to Hollywood in 1956 in the title role in Anastasia (1956), which was filmed in England. For this she won her second Academy Award. She had scarcely missed a beat. Ingrid continued to bounce between Europe and the US making movies, and fine ones at that. A film with Ingrid Bergman was sure to be a quality production. In her final big-screen performance in 1978's Autumn Sonata (1978) she had her final Academy Award nomination. Though she didn't win, many felt it was the most sterling performance of her career. Ingrid retired, but not before she gave an outstanding performance in the mini-series A Woman Called Golda (1982), a film about Israeli prime minister Golda Meir. For this she won an Emmy Award as Best Actress, but, unfortunately, she did not live to see the fruits of her labor.
Ingrid died from cancer on August 29, 1982, her 67th birthday, in London, England.- Actress
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Alyson Hannigan was born in Washington, D.C. to Emilie (Posner), a real estate agent, and Al Hannigan, a truck driver. She began her acting career in Atlanta at the young age of 4 in commercials sponsoring such companies as McDonald's, Six Flags, and Oreos. She is a seasoned television actress, guest starring in Picket Fences (1992), Roseanne (1988), Touched by an Angel (1994) and the The Torkelsons (1991) before starring in her most notorious roles in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) as "Willow Rosenberg" and How I Met Your Mother (2005) as "Lily Aldrin."- Actress
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At sixteen years old, Melanie Lynskey dazzled the film world with an audacious debut in Peter Jackson's revered psychological crime picture, Heavenly Creatures (1994). Her electrifying portrait of Pauline Parker - high school misfit whose fierce rapport with her only friend (a pre-fame Kate Winslet) spirals dangerously out of control - was deemed "perfect" (Richard Corliss, TIME) and secured the humble New Zealander a Best Actress trophy in her motherland. Following a three-year interval spent studying at university and relocating to Los Angeles, Lynskey made a welcome return to the silver screen when she was cast as Drew Barrymore's sweet-natured stepsister in Andy Tennant's 'girl power' twist on the Brothers Grimm fairy tale, Ever After: A Cinderella Story (1998). Parts in But I'm a Cheerleader (1999), Coyote Ugly (2000), Snakeskin (2001), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), Shattered Glass (2003), and Clint Eastwood's Oscar-nominated war epic Flags of Our Fathers (2006) came next.
In the consequent years, Lynskey emerged as one of the industry's most celebrated character actors, picking up plaudits for a host of appearances in prestige vehicles such as Sam Mendes's Away We Go (2009), Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009), Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! (2009), Tom McCarthy's Win Win (2011), Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012), and Adam McKay's Don't Look Up (2021). Prolific supporting roles - opposite the calibre of George Clooney, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio - aside, spotlight turns in Hello I Must Be Going (2012), Happy Christmas (2014), The Intervention (2016) - for which she scored a Special Jury Prize at Sundance - and the genre-bending I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore (2017) have equally proved her mettle as a dynamite leading lady.
Since entering the annals of 21st century popular culture with her riotous embodiment of Rose - on the toweringly successful Two and a Half Men (2003), where she appeared for over a decade as Charlie Sheen's duplicitous admirer - Lynskey has injected her scene-stealing prowess into a multitude of small-screen gigs: among them, HBO's exalted tragicomedy Togetherness (2015), which showcased her "sublime" (Vanity Fair) depiction of a dissatisfied stay-at-home mom; macabre Stephen King spookfest Castle Rock (2018), where she headlined as pill-popping psychic Molly Strand; and all-star political period piece Mrs. America (2020), in which she joined forces with Cate Blanchett. For her spellbinding work on Showtime's Yellowjackets (2021) - where she's front-and-centre as Shauna, a suburban housewife consumed by horrific secrets - Lynskey collected the coveted Critics' Choice Award for Best Actress in a Drama Series (2022), with Rolling Stone's Alan Sepinwall describing her turn in the runaway cult smash as the "dark, messy, charismatic part she's been waiting her whole career to play".- Actress
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Lauren Graham was born in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Donna Grant and Lawrence Graham, a candy industry lobbyist. Her father was from New York and her mother was from the American South, and Lauren has Irish, English, and Scottish ancestry. She grew up in Northern Virginia, USA (Fairfax, Arlington, and Great Falls, VA) Graduate of Langley High School, McLean, VA Graduate of Barnard College with a Bachelor's Degree in English. Graduate of Southern Methodist University with a Master's Degree in Acting. She was raised by a single parent, her father. Her parents divorced when she was 5. Growing up she wanted to be a jockey but her height precluded it. She traveled extensively with her father during her childhood and discovered acting while in elementary school. Her resume includes theatre, film and television.- Actress
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Ask Kate Winslet what she likes about any of her characters, and the word "ballsy" is bound to pop up at least once. The British actress has made a point of eschewing straightforward pretty-girl parts in favor of more devilish damsels; as a result, she's built an eclectic resume that runs the gamut from Shakespearean tragedy to modern-day mysticism and erotica.
Kate Elizabeth Winslet was born in Reading, Berkshire, into a family of thespians -- parents Roger Winslet and Sally Anne Bridges-Winslet were both stage actors, maternal grandparents Oliver and Linda Bridges ran the Reading Repertory Theatre, and uncle Robert Bridges was a fixture in London's West End theatre district. Kate came into her talent at an early age. She scored her first professional gig at eleven, dancing opposite the Honey Monster in a commercial for a kids' cereal. She started acting lessons around the same time, which led to formal training at a performing arts high school. Over the next few years, she appeared on stage regularly and landed a few bit parts in sitcoms. Her first big break came at age 17, when she was cast as an obsessive adolescent in Heavenly Creatures (1994). The film, based on the true story of two fantasy-gripped girls who commit a brutal murder, received modest distribution but was roundly praised by critics.
Still a relative unknown, Winslet attended a cattle call audition the next year for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). She made an immediate impression on the film's star, Emma Thompson, and beat out more than a hundred other hopefuls for the part of plucky Marianne Dashwood. Her efforts were rewarded with both a British Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Winslet followed up with two more period pieces, playing the rebellious heroine in Jude (1996) and Ophelia in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet (1996).
The role that transformed Winslet from art house attraction to international star was Rose DeWitt Bukater, the passionate, rosy-cheeked aristocrat in James Cameron's Titanic (1997). Young girls the world over both idolized and identified with Winslet, swooning over all that face time opposite heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and noting her refreshingly healthy, unemaciated physique. Winslet's performance also garnered a Best Actress nomination, making her the youngest actress to ever receive two Academy Award nominations.
After the swell of unexpected attention surrounding Titanic (1997), Winslet was eager to retreat into independent projects. Rumor has it that she turned down the lead roles in both Shakespeare in Love (1998) and Anna and the King (1999) in order to play adventurous soul searchers in Hideous Kinky (1998) and Holy Smoke (1999). The former cast her as a young single mother traveling through 1970s Morocco with her daughters in tow; the latter, as a zealous follower of a guru tricked into a "deprogramming" session in the Australian outback. The next year found her back in period dress as the Marquis de Sade's chambermaid and accomplice in Quills (2000). Kate holds the distinction of being the youngest actor ever honored with four Academy Award nominations (she received her fourth at age 29). As of 2016, she has been nominated for an Oscar seven times, winning one of them: she received the Best Actress Oscar for the drama The Reader (2008), playing a former concentration camp guard.
For her performance of Joanna Hoffman in Steve Jobs (2015), she received her seventh Academy Award nomination.
Off camera, Winslet is known for her mischievous pranks and familial devotion. She has two sisters, Anna Winslet and Beth Winslet (both actresses), and a brother, Joss.
In 1998, she married assistant director Jim Threapleton. They had a daughter, Mia Honey Threapleton, in October 2000. They divorced in 2001. She later married director Sam Mendes in 2003 and gave birth to their son, Joe Alfie Winslet-Mendes, later that year. After seven years of marriage, in February 2010 they announced that they had amicably separated, and divorced in October 2010. In 2012, Kate married Ned Rocknroll, with whom she has a son. She was awarded Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the 2012 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to Drama.- Actress
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Elizabeth Montgomery was born into show business. Her parents were screen actor Robert Montgomery and Broadway actress Elizabeth Allen. Elizabeth graduated from the Spence School in New York City and attended the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. After three years' intensive training, she made her TV debut in her father's 1950s playhouse series Robert Montgomery Presents (1950) and appeared in more than 200 live programs over the next decade. She once remarked, "I guess you could say I'm a TV baby." Notable early film roles included The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955) and Johnny Cool (1963). However, she is best remembered for her leading role as the witch Samantha in the top-rated ABC sitcom Bewitched (1964). Her family - mother Endora (Agnes Moorehead), look-alike cousin Serena (Montgomery, wearing a dark wig) and advertising executive husband Darrin (first Dick York then Dick Sargent) - tried to suppress her supernatural skills but often turned to her tricks to solve problems. The signal of impending witchcraft was a twitch of Samantha's nose. After her first and only TV series ended she turned to made-for-TV movies, many of which won critical praise: A Case of Rape (1974), The Legend of Lizzie Borden (1975), Black Widow Murders: The Blanche Taylor Moore Story (1993). She narrated the movie The Panama Deception (1992) which won an Academy Award in 1993. Reference works showed her as 62 when she died though the family said she was 57. The family did not disclose the type of cancer which caused her death.- Actress
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Agnes was born of Anglo-Irish ancestry near Boston, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister (her mother was a mezzo-soprano) who encouraged her to perform in church pageants. Aged three, she sang 'The Lord is my Shepherd' on a public stage and seven years later joined the St. Louis Municipal Opera as a dancer and singer for four years. In keeping with her father's dictum of finishing her education first (then being permitted to do whatever she wished with her career), Agnes attended Muskingum College (Ohio), and, subsequently, the University of Wisconsin. She graduated with an M.A. in English and public speaking and later added a doctorate in literature from Bradley University to her resume. When her family moved to Reedsburg, Wisconsin, where her father had a pastorate, Agnes taught public school English and drama for five years. In between, she went to Paris to study pantomime with Marcel Marceau.
In 1928, she began training at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts and graduated with honors the following year. In order to supplement her income , Agnes had turned to radio early on. She had her first job in 1923 as a singer for a St. Louis radio station. Her love for that medium remained with her all her life. From the 1930s to the 50s, she appeared on numerous serials, dramas and children's programs. She was Min Gump in "The Gumps" (1934), the 'dragon lady' in "Terry and the Pirates" (1937), Margot Lane of classic comic strip fame in "The Shadow", Mrs.Danvers in "Rebecca" and the bed-ridden woman about to meet her end in "Sorry, Wrong Number". Acting on the airwaves was so important to her that she would insist on its continuation as a precondition of a later contract with MGM. Significantly, through her radio work on "The Shadow"and "March of Time" in 1937, she met and befriended fellow actor Orson Welles. Welles soon invited her to join him and Joseph Cotten as charter members of his Mercury Theatre on the Air. Agnes was involved in the famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast of 1938 which attracted nationwide attention and resulted in a lucrative $100,000 per picture deal with RKO in Hollywood. The Mercury players (the other principals were Ray Collins, Everett Sloane, Paul Stewart and George Coulouris) packed up and went west.
An ebullient and versatile character actress, Agnes was impossible to typecast: she could play years older than her age, appear as heroine or villainess, tragedienne or comedienne. In her first film, the iconic Citizen Kane (1941), she played the titular character's mother. She received her greatest critical acclaim for her emotive second screen performance as Aunt Fanny Minafer in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). In addition to being voted the year's best female performer by the New York Film Critics she was also nominated for an Academy Award. Through the years, Agnes would be nominated three more times: for her touching portrayal of the jaded but sympathetic Baroness Conti in Mrs. Parkington (1944); for her role as the title character's Aunt Aggie in Johnny Belinda (1948) and for playing Velma, the hard-boiled, suspicious housekeeper of Bette Davis in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), co-starring her old friend Joseph Cotten. Other notable film appearances included Jane Eyre (1943), with Orson Welles, The Woman in White (1948) as Countess Fusco), The Lost Moment (1947) (as a 105-year old woman) and Dark Passage (1947), a classic film noir in which she had third billing behind Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as the treacherous , malevolent Madge Rapf. She had a rare starring role in the campy horror flick The Bat (1959), giving (according to the New York Times of December 17) 'a good, snappy performance'.
On Broadway, she appeared in such acclaimed plays as "All the King's Men" and "Candlelight". She enjoyed success with "Don Juan in Hell", touring nationally: the first time (1951-2) with Charles Laughton and Cedric Hardwicke, the second time (though receiving fewer critical plaudits) with Ricardo Montalban and Paul Henreid in 1973. She also starred with Joseph Cotten in "Prescription Murder" (1962). While not a great critical success, this was much liked by audiences and it introduced a famous detective named Lieutenant Columbo. From 1954, she also toured the U.S. and Europe with her own a one-woman show entitled "The Fabulous Redhead". Agnes performed numerous times on television before landing the role of Endora on Bewitched (1964). One particularly interesting part came her way through the director Douglas Heyes who remembered her from "Sorry, Wrong Number". He cast her in the starring - and indeed, only role in The Invaders (1961). As the lonely old woman confronted by tiny alien invaders in her remote farmhouse, Agnes never utters a single word and cleverly acts her scenes as a pantomime of unspoken terror.
Of course, the genial Agnes Moorehead has been immortalized as Elizabeth Montgomery's flamboyant witch-mother, Endora, although that was not a role the actress wished to be remembered for (in spite of several Emmy Award nominations). Indeed, she had thought this whole witchcraft theme to be rather far-fetched and was somewhat taken aback by the show's huge popularity. Agnes had a special clause inserted in her contract which limited her appearances to eight out of twelve episodes which gave her the opportunity to also work on other projects. Commenting on the acting profession in one of her many interviews (New York Times, May 1, 1974), she found the key to success in being " sincere in your work " and to "just go right on whether audiences or critics are taking your scalp off or not".- Actor
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Leonard Simon Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dora (Spinner) and Max Nimoy, who owned a barbershop. His parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Raised in a tenement and acting in community theaters since age eight, Nimoy did not make his Hollywood debut until he was 20, with a bit part in Queen for a Day (1951) and another as a ballplayer in the perennial Rhubarb (1951). After two years in the United States Army, he was still getting small, often uncredited parts, like an Army telex operator in Them! (1954). His part as Narab, a Martian finally friendly to Earth, in the closing scene in the corny Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), somewhat foreshadowed the role which would make him a household name: Mr. Spock, the half-human/half-Vulcan science officer on Star Trek (1966) one of television's all-time most successful series. His performance won him three Emmy nominations and launched his career as a writer and director, notably of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), the story of a humpback whale rescue that proved the most successful of the Star Trek movies. Stage credits have included "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oliver", "Camelot" and "Equus". He has hosted the well-known television series In Search of... (1977) and Ancient Mysteries (1994), authored several volumes of poetry and guest-starred on two episodes of The Simpsons (1989). In the latter years of his career, he played Mustafa Mond in NBC's telling of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World (1998), voiced Sentinel Prime in the blockbuster Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011), and played Spock again in two new Star Trek films, Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).
Leonard Nimoy died on February 27, 2015 in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 83.- Actress
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Majel Barrett (born Majel Leigh Hudec) was an American actress, known for her long association with Star Trek. She had multiple Star Trek-related roles, though she is mostly remembered for her roles as Nurse Christine Chapel in Star Trek, The Original Series (1966-1969) and as Lwaxana Troi in Star Trek, The Next Generation (1987-1994) and Deep Space Nine (1993-1999). Due to her status as the second wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991), Barrett was nicknamed "the First Lady of Star Trek".
In 1932, Barrett was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Her father was police officer William Hudec (d. 1955), who was eventually killed while on duty. Barrett had aspirations of becoming an actress since childhood, and took acting classes as a child. She received her secondary education at the Shaker Heights High School, a public high school located in a suburb of Cleveland, and graduated in 1950 at the age of 18. She then enrolled at the University of Miami, a public research university located in Coral Gables, Florida.
Following her graduation from university, started a career as a theatrical actress. In 1955, she was on tour with an off-Broadway road company. She had her first film role in the satirical film "Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?" (1957), which parodied the advertising industry, among other targets of satire. Barrett appeared in an uncredited bit part in a satirical advertisement within the film. Barrett's first credited film role was that Joyce Goodwin, a novice teacher depicted in the high school drama film "As Young as We Are" (1958). The film focuses on a male student who falls in love with his young, female teacher, and resorts to kidnapping her.
In the early 1960s, Barrett had small roles in the romantic comedy "Love in a Goldfish Bowl" (1961) and the World War II-themed war film "The Quick and the Dead" (1963), and appeared in guest star roles in then-popular television series, such as "Leave It to Beaver", "The Lucy Show", and "Bonanza". She was often employed by the television production company Desilu Productions, which at the time was owned by veteran actress Lucille Ball (1911-1989).
One of the television shows she appeared in was an episode of "The Lieutenant" (1964). This short-lived series created and written by Gene Roddenberry provided his first meetings and workings with many of the actors who would later become regulars and guest stars of Star Trek, including its two pilots. Barrett and Roddenberry befriended each other, and eventually started a romantic relationship. Roddenberry was still married to Eileen-Anita Rexroat, but often pursued relationships with other women.
In 1964, Roddenberry was working on the original pilot for Star Trek. He cast Barrett in the role of "Number One", the unnamed first officer of the star-ship USS Enterprise. Number One was depicted as exceptionally intelligent and strictly rational, but seemingly unemotional. The episode hinted at a mutual attraction between Number One and her captain, Christopher Pike (played by Jeffrey Hunter). The alien Talosians try to force them to mate with each other, as part of a breeding project.
This pilot was rejected by NBC executives, who complained about several aspects of the episode. One of them was the characterization of Number One, who was disliked for being overly assertive. In the subsequent retooling of the series, Number One was written out. Her character traits were added to that of a male character, Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy). Spock went on to become one of the franchise's most popular characters, due in large part to his coldly rational behavior.
Still determined to cast Barrett in the series, Roddenberry later created a more traditionally feminine role for her. The role was that of Nurse Christine Chapel, depicted as the main assistant of Dr. Leonard McCoy (played by DeForest Kelley). Chapel was one of the main recurring characters in the series for three years. She was one of the earliest prominent female characters in Star Trek.
In 1969, "Star Trek" was canceled. Barrett and Rodenberry briefly parted ways. Later that year, Rodenberry was in Japan on business. He realized that he missed Barrett and invited her to join him in Japan. On August 6, 1969, the two had a traditional Shinto wedding ceremony. This wedding was unofficial, as Roddenberry's divorce had not been finalized yet. Following the end of the divorce process, the two were officially married on December 29, 1969. Barrett served as a stepmother to Dawn Roddenberry (b.1953), Gene's teenage daughter. Dawn moved into the new couple's residence, and Barrett helped in her upbringing.
Already known for her science fiction roles, Barrett was cast as female android Miss Carrie in the science fiction-Western "Westworld". Her character was the madame of the Westworld bordello. Barrett also had roles in the post-apocalyptic television film "Genesis II" (1973) and the science fiction television film "The Questor Tapes" (1974), both created and scripted by her husband.
Star Trek was revived with the sequel series "Star Trek: The Animated Series" (1973-1974), which used much of the main cast from the original series. Barrett voiced two of the series' main female characters, Christine Chapel and M'Ress. The new character M'Ress was depicted as a female alien in feline form, who served as an officer on the Enterprise. Barrett also voiced many of this series' female guest characters.
Barrett had a small role in the neo-noir film "The Domino Principle" (1977). The film depicted a secretive organization first helping a prisoner escape, and then trying to force him to serve as their newest assassin. When the escaped man refuses, a lethal struggle begins. This film was poorly received due to its convoluted plot.
Barrett's next notable role was the housekeeper Lilith in the horror film "Spectre" (1977). Her character is depicted as a practicing witch, who manages to cure the alcoholic tendencies of one of the main characters. The plot of film depicts the demon Asmodeus assuming a human form and identity, while two occult detectives attempt to stop the demon's scheme. The film was intended as the pilot of a television series, but was rejected.
Barrett played Christine Chapel again in the film "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (1979), depicting older versions of the characters from the original series. While Chapel was not one of the film's main characters, she was now depicted as a doctor instead of a nurse.
Barrett's last appearance in the 1970s was a minor role in the Christmas television film "The Man in the Santa Claus Suit" (1979). The film depicted Santa Claus (played by Fred Astaire) subtly helping a number of adult characters in resolving their personal problems. The film is mainly remembered as Astaire's last television role.
Barrett played Christine Chapel for the last time in the film "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" (1986). She had a supporting role in the film, which depicted the former nurse as having achieved the rank of Commander. A year later, a third Star Trek television series was launched: "Star Trek: The Next Generation", which featured entirely new characters. Barrett guested in a few episodes as alien ambassador Lwaxana Troi, the eccentric mother of counselor Deanna Troi (played by Marina Sirtis). Barrett would play this role several times in this and the next Star Trek series, "Deep Space Nine", from 1987 to 1996. A subplot involving the character was that Lwaxana's other daughter had died young in an accident, causing Lwaxana to be overly protective of Deanna. Another subplot centered on her love relationship with Deep Space 9's shape-shifting security chief Odo.
In 1991, Gene Roddenberry died from natural causes. Barrett never remarried. In the 90s, she lent her voice talents to several Star Trek video games and the animated Spider Man TV series, and had roles in two theatrical movies. As Roddenberry had left behind archives with unfinished projects, Barrett further developed one of these projects into the science fiction television series "Earth: Final Conflict" (1997-2002). She served as the series' executive producer and acted as one of the main characters, Dr. Julianne Belman, in 11 episodes in the first three seasons. The premise of the series was that a group of seemingly benevolent aliens share their advanced technology with the people of Earth. Many humans suspect that the aliens have ulterior motives, and consequently form a militant resistance organization which opposes the aliens. The series lasted 5 seasons and 110 episodes.
Barrett fleshed out another of Roddenberry's unfinished projects into the space opera television series "Andromeda" (2000-2005). The series started in a distant future, where three galaxies are unified under the control of the Systems Commonwealth. When the Commonwealth attempts to resolve a war with another space-faring civilization by ceding territory to them, an uprising against the Commonwealth begins. In an early part of the conflict the spaceship "Andromeda Ascendant" is frozen in time. It emerges from stasis 303 years later, to find that the Commonwealth has collapsed and civilization has considerably declined. Main character Dylan Hunt (played by Kevin Sorbo) has the mission of restoring the Commonwealth. Like the previous Roddenberry series, "Andromeda" also lasted 5 seasons and 110 episodes. It was canceled largely due to a change of ownership of the production company Fireworks Entertainment. It was Barrett's last effort as an executive producer.
In her last years, Barrett was suffering from leukemia. She died in December 2008, at her home in Bel Air, Los Angeles. She was 76-years-old. Her funeral was held in early January 2009, with about 250 people in attendance. Several of her former co-stars from Star Trek attended the funeral. Prior to her death, Barrett had recorded a number of voice roles in several Star Trek fan films and series, resulting in some posthumous releases of her last roles. She is still remembered as a major figure of Star Trek.- Actress
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Grace Lee Whitney was a versatile actress and vocalist born in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Beginning as a "girl singer" on Detroit's WJR radio, she soon opened in nightclubs for Billie Holiday and Buddy Rich, and toured with the Spike Jones and Fred Waring Bands. Grace debuted on Broadway in "Top Banana", and subsequently appeared in the United Artists film Top Banana (1954). Grace is probably best known for her portrayal of Yeoman Janice Rand on the original Star Trek (1966) series. She later reprised her role for a string of successful Star Trek films: Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991). Grace continued to delight fans in personal appearances at conventions and events throughout North America and Europe. In 1998, she appeared in an episode of Diagnosis Murder (1993) with her Star Trek castmates George Takei, Walter Koenig and Majel Barrett. Grace Lee Whitney died at age 85 of natural causes in her home in Coarsegold, California on May 1, 2015.- Actress
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Nichelle Nichols was one of 10 children born to parents Lishia and Samuel Nichols in Robbins, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. She was a singer and dancer before turning to acting and finding fame in her groundbreaking role of Lt. Nyota Uhura in the Star Trek (1966) series.
As long as she could remember, she wanted to do nothing but sing, dance, act and write despite no one else in her family following any of those tracks; although her father could tap dance. He not only became mayor of their town, Robbins, IL, but also a magistrate. On stage, Nichelle was twice nominated for the Sarah Siddons Award as Best Actress of the Year; while on film she danced with Sammy Davis, Jr. in Porgy and Bess, and opposite James Garner in Mister Budwing (1965). In a complete changearound soon after the Star Trek television series came to an end, she played a blousey madam, then co-starred with Lynn Redgrave n Antony and Cleopatra. She was been married twice and had a son, Kyle Johnson, from her first marriage to a tap dancer.