Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-10 of 10
- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Actor/director/producer Mel Ferrer was born Melchor Gaston Ferrer on August 25, 1917, in Elberon, New Jersey. The son of a Cuban-born surgeon and a Manhattan socialite, he went to prep school and attended Princeton University. From the age of 15 he worked in summer stock. After Princeton he became an editor on a small Vermont newspaper and wrote a children's book, "Tito's Hats." He became a chorus dancer on Broadway in 1938 in two musicals and made his New York debut as an actor two years later. After a bout with polio he started in radio as a disc jockey in Texas and Arkansas and rose to producer-director of top-rated shows for NBC in New York. He made a modest debut as a director at Columbia with the low-budget The Girl of the Limberlost (1945), then returned to acting on Broadway to star in Lillian Smith's "Strange Fruit." He was John Ford's assistant on The Fugitive (1947).
Ferrer made his screen acting debut in Lost Boundaries (1949). He is best remembered for the role of the lame puppeteer in Lili (1953) and as Prince Andrei in War and Peace (1956). He directed Claudette Colbert in The Secret Fury (1950) and Audrey Hepburn - his wife at the time - in Green Mansions (1959). Ferrer produced the hit Wait Until Dark (1967), also with Hepburn. In the following year, the couple separated and ultimately divorced. Since 1960 had been producing and acting mainly in Europe.- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Ever heard "I Want Candy" or "Not Fade Away" or "Willie & The Hand Jive", Shirley & Company's "Shame, Shame, Shame" or U2's "Desire" or George Michael's "Faith"? If you have, then you've heard the "Bo Diddley beat", the most famous beat in the world! One of the founding fathers of rock 'n' roll, Bo Diddley's innovative pounding and hypnotic, Latin-tinged beat, his vast array of electric custom-built guitars, his use of reverb, tremelo and distortion to make his guitars talk, mumble and roar, his use of female musicians, his wild stage shows, and his on-record and on-stage rapping, pre-date all others. Bo Diddley was born Ellas Bates on Sunday December 30, 1928, on a small farm near the town of McComb, Mississippi, in rural Pike County, close to the Louisiana border, the only child of Ethel Wilson and Eugene Bates, he had three half-brothers and a half-sister. He was adopted by his mother's cousin, Mrs. Gussie McDaniel, along with his cousins Willis, Lucille and Freddie, and adopted the name Ellas McDaniel. In the mid-1'30s the family moved to the south side of Chicago. Soon after, he began to take violin lessons from Professor O.W. Frederick at the Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church. He studied the violin for 12 years, composing two concertos for the instrument. For Christmas in 1940, his sister Lucille bought him his first guitar, a cheap Harmony acoustic. It was at this time that he acquired the nickname "Bo Diddley" (" . . . Bo Diddley is me; to tell ya the truth, I don't know what it [the name] really is . . . ") from his fellow pupils at the Foster Vocational High School in Chicago. The newly named Bo Diddley had long been fascinated by the rhythms that he heard coming from the sanctified churches. A frustrated drummer, he tried to translate the sounds that he heard into his own style. Gradually he began to duplicate what he did with his violin bow by rapidly flicking his pick across his guitar strings: "I play the guitar as if I'm playing the drums . . . I play drum licks on the guitar." He continued to practice the guitar through his early teens. Shortly before leaving school he formed his first group, a trio named The Hipsters, later known as The Langley Avenue Jive Cats, after the Chicago street where he lived. Upon graduation he pursued a variety of low-paid occupations including truck driving, building site work and boxing, playing locally with his group to supplement his income. Around this time he married his first wife, Louise Woolingham, but the marriage did not survive. A year later he married Ethel "Tootsie" Smith, a marriage that lasted just over a decade. In 1950 maracas player Jerome Green joined the group, followed a year later by harmonica player Billy Boy Arnold. After more than a decade of playing on street corners and in clubs around Chicago, Bo Diddley finally got the chance to cut a demo of 2 songs that he had written; "Uncle John" and "I'm A Man". After various rejections from local record labels (most notably VeeJay), in the spring of 1955 he took the recordings to brothers Leonard and Phil Chess, owners of Chess Records, with studios located at 4750-2 South Cottage Grove Ave. in Chicago. They suggested that he changed the title and the lyrics of "Uncle John" to more reflect his own unique personality. The twp songs were re-recorded at Bill Putnam's Universal Recording Studio at 111 E. Ontario in Chicago on Wednesday, March 2, 1955, and released as a double A-side disc "Bo Diddley"/"I'm A Man" on the Chess Records subsidiary label Checker Records. It went straight to the top of the R&B charts, establishing him as one of the most exciting and original new talents in American music. With musical influences of his own ranging from Louis Jordan to John Lee Hooker, and from 'Nat 'King' Cole' to Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley was now set to help shape and define the sound and presentation of rock music for all time. From Elvis Presley to George Thorogood, from The Rolling Stones to ZZ Top, from The Doors to The Clash, from Buddy Holly to Prince, and from The Everly Brothers to Run DMC, all acknowledged the unique influences of Bo Diddley upon their styles of music. Now in his early 70s, he is still very much active in the recording studio and in the clubs and the concert halls around the world. He performed a rousing version of his classic song "Who Do You Love" with George Thorogood & The Destroyers in front of a TV audience of millions at the Live Aid Concert in Philadelphia in 1985. A couple of years later he was deservedly an early inductee into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame. In 1996 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhythm 'n' Blues Foundation and in 1998 received another Lifetime Achievement Award, this time from The Recording Academy at that year's annual Grammy Awards Ceremony. In 2000 yet another honor was justifiably awarded to him when he was inducted into The Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame. In the words of one of his many famous eponymous songs, "Bo Diddley Put The Rock in Rock 'n' Roll", and remember . . . Bo Knows!- Producer
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Bill Dial was born on 17 June 1943 in the USA. He was a producer and writer, known for E.A.R.T.H. Force (1990), Legmen (1984) and Code Name: Foxfire (1985). He died on 2 June 2008.- Writer
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Mark Tuttle was born on 17 March 1935 in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. He was a writer and producer, known for The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Three's a Crowd (1984) and Three's Company (1976). He died on 2 June 2008 in Sunland, California, USA.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Paul Sills is best remembered as Chicago's father of improvisation, the innovative co-founder/director of the celebrated Compass Players and Chicago's Second City improvisational comedy troupes. Sills sought to teach the comedy acting techniques of improvisation instilled in him by his mother, Viola Spolin, who once taught creative dramatics to children and adults at a recreational center. Her techniques included acting games, storytelling, folk dances and other forms of self-expression now the basis of most improvisational training.
Reluctant of the limelight, Sills stayed pretty much out of the picture but his legion of followers have included some of entertainment's most renowned actors. One of his first ensembles (Compass Players) included Severn Darden, Elaine May, Mike Nichols and Barbara Harris, to whom he was once married. His original Second City troupe included Darden, Harris, Roger Bowen, Mina Kolb, Andrew Duncan and Eugene Troobnick. A famous branch of the Chicago group formed in Toronto, Canada and included upcoming comedy sketch stars Gilda Radner, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. On Broadway, one of Sills' biggest successes came with the Tony-nominated revue "Story Theatre", a reworking of fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm. Cast member Paul Sand won a Tony award for his performance in 1971.
Into the '90s, Sills continued to influence up-and-coming talent with his lectures and workshops. He also published a book in 2000 entitled "Paul Sills' Story Theater: Four Shows." The father of five (one son and four daughters -- David, Rachel, Polly, Aretha and Neva), Paul lived in Baileys Harbor, Wisconsin with his third wife, Carol Bleackley, a painter and teacher, until his death of pneumonia at age 80 in 2008.- Ferenc Fejtö was born on 31 August 1909 in Nagykanizsa, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. He died on 2 June 2008 in Paris, France.
- Tom Hadley was born on 6 October 1927 in the USA. He was an actor, known for The Good Old Boys (1995). He died on 2 June 2008 in Mason, Texas, USA.
- Soundtrack
Pecos Kanvas was born on 11 November 1953 in Caracas, Venezuela. He died on 2 June 2008 in Caracas, Venezuela.- Gonzalo Pérez de Olaguer died on 2 June 2008 in Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
- Mary Rennie was born in 1928 in Portsoy, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK. She was an actress, known for Doctor in the House (1969), Doctor in Charge (1972) and Big Brother (1970). She was married to John Tucker. She died on 2 June 2008 in England, UK.