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- Actor
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His full name was Joseph Alexander Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja - but he was better known as Joseph or Joe Calleia, one of Hollywood's most recognized bad guys. But Calleia's roots and talents ran much deeper than character actor. He was Maltese, born on that barren but historically important island of Malta between Italy and Africa in the Mediterranean. The Maltese culture was a crossroads of peoples (partially Arabic) but as intrepid fisherman, navigators, and warriors-as they proved to the 16th century Turks - it was a proud one. But it could not hold Calleia, who, blessed with a good singing voice and a talent for composing, joined a harmonica band that left for the Continent in 1914. This was a Europe feeling the initial blows of World War I, and Calleia's band toured the length and breadth of it in music halls and cafes. He went to Paris and eventually came to London to perform some concert singing engagements. And from there the lure of the New World brought him to New York by 1926.
It was a natural enough transition for a talented singing performer to acting. Calleia did his first play on Broadway in an original drama suitably called "Broadway" for a long run from late 1926 early 1928. This was the first of seven plays he did into early 1935. He took a double role as actor and stage manager for the 1930-31 run of "Grand Hotel". He received good reviews (once called him a "bright light" on Broadway) and later recalled that his treading the boards were his best years as an actor. By 1931 he had yet another course to steer. Hollywood had noticed him, for his constrained intensity as an actor was matched by a singular visage - heavy-lidded eyes and dark features that gave him a disquieting and menacing appearance. Yet the sometime telltale lilt in his voice betrayed the fine singer. He had just enough accent to make him Latin or Greek or Middle Eastern - or indigenous sorts. Of course, his look meant early heavy roles as he went under contract to MGM, doing his first two films in that year of 1931.
By 1935 his looks landed him the role of Sonny Black, a mob boss with many facets, and with a characteristic clenched-teeth delivery, Calleia acquitted himself in fine fashion. Through the 1930s he was pretty much typed-cast as a mobster-with variations. Always with the lean and hungry look, he was a club owner in After the Thin Man (1936) and played a government cop in the atmospheric Algiers (1938). He even had time to help write a screenplay for the film Robin Hood of El Dorado (1936) with veteran Warner Baxter. Calleia ended the decade with roles at opposite ends of the character acting spectrum-somewhat center stage as a priest in the sometimes heavy-handed Full Confession (1939) and most memorable as Vasquez, the brought-to-justice criminal on the ill-fated DC-3 that crash lands in headhunter-infested Amazon highlands in Five Came Back (1939). This is a classic adventure drama -- remade with Rod Steiger -- with a great supporting cast that included everyone's favorite wisecracking redhead, Lucille Ball.
Into the 1940s, Calleia was cast in more ethnic roles - particularly as Hispanics of various sorts. But his roles were memorable nonetheless, as El Sordo in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943) and Rodriguez in The Cross of Lorraine (1943). But two roles stand out. His Buldeo in the Alexander Korda classic production of The Jungle Book (1942) was a personal favorite, a double role, as trouble-making villager and the selfsame man now old and wise telling the story to the village children as narrator. The makeup is so good-and Calleia enjoyed character makeup-that most viewers are surprised when the old man reveals his identity. More mainstream Hollywood was his intriguing role as Detective Obregon in Gilda (1946). He's the good guy-right? - but he comes off so sly with his sidelong looks and the way he bates the principals - Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth - that you just don't know. In the end he has the task, like the chorus in a Shakespearean play, to explain and summarize-perhaps not the best means of getting to the point - but that was the director's choice. His secondary parts receded a bit into the later 1940s and further into the 1950s with Calleia typed to retrace former roles but giving them new nuance just the same. He has little more than a cameo as Indian chief Cuyloga-Native American chiefs being the lot of no few elder actors in 1950s Hollywood - in the otherwise worthwhile Disney adaptation of The Light in the Forest (1958). Calleia ventured into the TV briefly about that time.
But also from that year was another of his favorite roles. Without doubt Touch of Evil (1958) is one of the strangest of Orson Welles later efforts as director/star. It borders on the uneven but is so off-the-wall that one cannot help watching and thoroughly enjoying all the antics of Welles still brilliant film techniques: shadow and light, wild camera angles, gringos playing Mexicans-Charlton Heston is a wow and stained darker than necessary-and over-the-top performances with veteran dramatis personae like Marlene Dietrich, Akim Tamiroff, Calleia, of course, and Welles himself looking like a police captain from skid row and using that funny character voice of his that pops up in his films as an aside. Calleia, with white hair, is tired old cop Sergeant Menzies, long associate of Welles' seedy character. Doing what he has always done, covering up and running interference, in the end Menzies has to face the truth about his crooked captain. Calleia enjoyed the role as going so against his usual type - showing a man harried by his past and haunted by dirty secrets - vulnerable - and very human. It's a great part.
By 1963 Calleia walked away - or, that is - sailed away from Hollywood. He returned to his native Malta for a well deserved retirement. The Maltese had followed the career of their native son, and he had made several visits during his film career. Not surprisingly his biggest fan club was right at home. He was a kind and generous man and very appreciative of his fans wherever they were - quick to read all their letters and quick to send autographed pictures. It was strictly tongue-in-cheek when he supposedly quipped: "Everyone recognizes my face, but no one knows my name." After his passing, the government of the island state of Malta issued two commemorative stamps (1997) to honor him. A bust was erected before the house in which he was born as a further memorial to this Maltese VIP who had made good.- Writer
- Actor
- Producer
A former boxer, paratrooper and general all-around angry young man, Rod Serling was one of the radical new voices that made the "Golden Age" of television. Long before The Twilight Zone (1959), he was known for writing such high-quality scripts as "Patterns" and "Requiem for a Heavyweight," both later turned into films (Patterns (1956) and Requiem for a Heavyweight (1962)). The Twilight Zone (1959) featured forays into controversial grounds like racism, Cold War paranoia and the horrors of war. His maverick attitude eventually drove him from regular network television.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Fredric March began a career in banking but in 1920 found himself cast as an extra in films being produced in New York. He starred on the Broadway stage first in 1926 and would return there between screen appearances later on. He won plaudits (and an Academy Award nomination) for his send-up of John Barrymore in The Royal Family of Broadway (1930). Four more Academy Award nominations would come his way, and he would win the Oscar for Best Actor twice: for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). He could play roles varying from heavy drama to light comedy, and was often best portraying men in anguish, such as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman (1951). As his career advanced he progressed from leading man to character actor.- Writer
- Director
- Actor
Pier Paolo Pasolini achieved fame and notoriety long before he entered the film industry. A published poet at 19, he had already written numerous novels and essays before his first screenplay in 1954. His first film Accattone (1961) was based on his own novel and its violent depiction of the life of a pimp in the slums of Rome caused a sensation. He was arrested in 1962 when his contribution to the portmanteau film Ro.Go.Pa.G. (1963) was considered blasphemous and given a suspended sentence. It might have been expected that his next film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (1964) (The Gospel According to St. Matthew), which presented the Biblical story in a totally realistic, stripped-down style, would cause a similar fuss but, in fact, it was rapturously acclaimed as one of the few honest portrayals of Christ on screen. Its original Italian title pointedly omitted the Saint in St. Matthew). Pasolini's film career would then alternate distinctly personal and often scandalously erotic adaptations of classic literary texts: Oedipus Rex (1967) (Oedipus Rex); The Decameron (1971); The Canterbury Tales (1972) (The Canterbury Tales); Arabian Nights (1974) (Arabian Nights), with his own more personal projects, expressing his controversial views on Marxism, atheism, fascism and homosexuality, notably Teorema (1968) (Theorem), Pigsty and the notorious Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975), a relentlessly grim fusion of Benito Mussolini's Fascist Italy with the 'Marquis de Sade' which was banned in Italy and many other countries for several years. Pasolini was murdered in still-mysterious circumstances shortly after completing the film.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Her father was a minister, and when she joined a local stock company as a youngster she changed her name to avoid embarrassing her family. She worked in vaudeville and debuted on Broadway in 1916. Her film debut was in A House Divided (1931). She repeated her stage role in Dead End (1937) as Baby Face Martin (Humphrey Bogart)'s mother, which led to a number of slum mother parts. She played very strong role of Lucy, the dude ranch operator in The Women (1939). She achieved popularity as a comedienne in six 1940s movies made with Wallace Beery e.g., Barnacle Bill (1941). The character which would dominate her remaining career was established when she played Ma Kettle in The Egg and I (1947), for which she received an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. She began her co-starring series with Percy Kilbride the following year in Feudin', Fussin' and A-Fightin' (1948) and continued through seven more. Her last movie was a "Kettle" without Kilbride: The Kettles on Old MacDonald's Farm (1957).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Susan Hayward was born Edythe Marrener in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1917. Her father was a transportation worker, and Susan lived a fairly comfortable life as a child, but the precocious little redhead had no idea of the life that awaited her. She attended public school in Brooklyn, where she graduated from a commercial high school that was intended to give students a marketable skill. She had planned on becoming a secretary, but her plans changed. She started doing some modeling work for photographers in the NYC area. By 1937, her beauty in full bloom, she went to Hollywood when the nationwide search was on for someone to play the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1939). Although she--along with several hundred other aspiring Scarletts--lost out to Vivien Leigh, Susan was to carve her own signature in Hollywood circles. In 1937 she got a bit part in Hollywood Hotel (1937). The bit parts continued all through 1938, with Susan playing, among other things, a coed, a telephone operator and an aspiring actress. She wasn't happy with these bit parts, but she also realized she had to "pay her dues". In 1939 she finally landed a part with substance, playing Isobel Rivers in the hit action film Beau Geste (1939). In 1941 she played Millie Perkins in the offbeat thriller Among the Living (1941). This quirky little film showed Hollywood Susan's considerable dramatic qualities for the first time. She then played a Southern belle in Cecil B. DeMille's Reap the Wild Wind (1942), one of the director's bigger successes, and once again showed her mettle as an actress. Following that movie she starred with Paulette Goddard and Fred MacMurray in The Forest Rangers (1942), playing tough gal Tana Mason. Although such films as Jack London (1943), And Now Tomorrow (1944) and Deadline at Dawn (1946) continued to showcase her talent, she still hadn't gotten the meaty role she craved. In 1947, however, she did, and received the first of five Academy Award nominations, this one for her portrayal of Angelica Evans in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947). She played the part to the hilt and many thought she would take home the Oscar, but she lost out to Loretta Young for The Farmer's Daughter (1947). In 1949 Susan was nominated again for My Foolish Heart (1949) and again was up against stiff competition, but once more her hopes were dashed when Olivia de Havilland won for The Heiress (1949). Now, however, with two Oscar nominations under her belt, Susan was a force to be reckoned with. Good scripts finally started to come her way and she chose carefully because she wanted to appear in good quality productions. Her caution paid off, as she garnered yet a third nomination in 1953 for With a Song in My Heart (1952). Later that year she starred as Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson in The President's Lady (1953). She was superb as Andrew Jackson's embittered wife, who dies before he was able to take office as President of the United States. After her fourth Academy Award nomination for I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), Susan began to wonder if she would ever take home the coveted gold statue. She didn't have much longer to wait, though. In 1958 she gave the performance of her lifetime as real-life California killer Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958), who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the gas chamber. Susan was absolutely riveting in her portrayal of the doomed woman. Many film buffs consider it to be one of the finest performances of all time, and this time she was not only nominated for Best Actress, but won. After that role she appeared in about one movie a year. In 1972 she made her last theatrical film, The Revengers (1972). She had been diagnosed with cancer, and the disease finally claimed her life on March 14, 1975, in Hollywood. She was 57.- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Menacing looking Italian American actor who developed into the quintessential on-screen hoodlum via several strong roles in key crime films of the early 1970s. Lettieri played the villain against some of Hollywood's biggest screen names including chasing Steve McQueen in The Getaway (1972), intimidating Charles Bronson in Mr. Majestyk (1974), threatening 'John Wayne' in McQ (1974) and, arguably in his most well known role, as Virgil "The Turk" Sollozo trying to eliminate Marlon Brando in The Godfather (1972).
He was already 36 years old when he made his on screen debut in The Hanged Man (1964), and remarkably several years later was associate producer on the disturbing kidnapping drama The Night of the Following Day (1969) starring Marlon Brando. He really hit his strides in the early 1970s starring in many high profile films, before unfortunately succumbing to a heart attack at just 47 years of age. One of the most convincing "heavies" of modern cinema.- Actor
- Soundtrack
John Irwin McGiver came to acting relatively late in life. He held B.A. and Master's degrees in English from Fordham, Columbia and Catholic Universities and spent his early years teaching drama and speech at Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx. He had an early flirtation with the acting profession in 1938 as actor/director for the Irish Reperatory Theatre, but found his weekly income of $26.42 insufficient for daily survival. The next year he enlisted and saw action during World War II, fighting with the U.S. 7th Armored Division in Europe (including the Battle of the Bulge). When he was demobbed after six years in the army, he held the rank of Captain. He returned to teaching drama, with occasional forays into off-Broadway acting. In 1947, he married Chicago scenic designer Ruth Shmigelsky and settled down to live in a converted 19th-century former Baptist church.
There are conflicting stories as to how McGiver ended up becoming a film and television actor, but it happened sometime after one of his part-time acting performances in September 1955, either through the offices of an old University classmate turned stage producer or through the persuasive abilities of an agent from the Music Corporation of America. In any case, the portly, balding, owl-like and precisely spoken McGiver quickly developed an inimitable style as a comic (and occasionally serious) actor on television and in films. He was most memorable as the obtuse landscape contractor in The Gazebo (1959), a pompous jewelry salesman in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and an inept twitcher in Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962). He also played Mr. Sowerberry in a television version of Oliver Twist (1959) and starred in his own (sadly short-lived) TV show, Many Happy Returns (1964), as the complaints manager of a department store. His dramatic roles included a senator in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and, on television, the corrupt mayor in The Front Page (1970), plus a rare villainous role in the TV episode The Birds and the Bees Affair (1966). Among his numerous guest starring roles on television, he was at his best as the self-absorbed Roswell Flemington, who learns a moral lesson in Sounds and Silences (1964) (1964).- Actor
- Soundtrack
Burly American character actor with a deep gravelly voice who was equally adept at comedy and drama. The son of a theatrical costume designer, Strauss worked as a salesman and also as a singing waiter and busboy before finding success in the stage version of "Detective Story" on Broadway. He appeared with José Ferrer in the Broadway revival of "Twentieth Century." Also on Broadway, he played "Animal" in "Stalag, 17", and repeated the role in the film version (Stalag 17 (1953)). The wildly comic yet appealing character brought Strauss an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He had appeared in films as early as 1942 but became most familiar during the 1950s in memorable roles in such films as The Bridges at Toko-Ri (1954) and The Man with the Golden Arm (1955). He continued to appear on stage and also in many television programs and commercials into the '70s. He died of complications from a stroke, leaving a widow and three children from his first marriage.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Moe Howard, the "Boss Stooge" and brother of Stooges Curly Howard and Shemp Howard, began his acting career in 1909 by playing bit roles in silent Vitagraph films. At 17 he joined a troupe working on a showboat and also appeared in several two-reel comedy shorts. In 1922 he, brother Shemp and Larry Fine joined roughhouse vaudeville comic Ted Healy, forming the act that would become The Three Stooges. Howard toured vaudeville and appeared in films with Healy for ten years before the Stooges left to pursue a separate career. Moe appeared in more than 250 films during his 66-year career, including 190 Three Stooges shorts. Over the act's 50-year history, the Stooges went through several personnel changes; when Moe died, the act ended.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Henry Calvin was born on 25 May 1918 in Dallas, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Babes in Toyland (1961), Zorro (1957) and Ship of Fools (1965). He died on 6 October 1975 in Dallas, Texas, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Richard Conte was born Nicholas Richard Conte on March 24, 1910, in Jersey City, New Jersey, the son of an Italian-American barber. He held a variety of jobs before becoming a professional actor, including truck driver, Wall Street clerk and singing waiter at a Connecticut resort. The gig as a singing waiter led to theatrical work in New York, where in 1935, he was discovered by actors Elia Kazan and Julius "Julie" Garfinkle (later known as John Garfield).
Kazan helped Conte obtain a scholarship to study acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he excelled. Conte made his Broadway debut late in "Moon Over Mulberry Street" in 1939, and went on to be featured in other plays, including "Walk Into My Parlor." His stage work lead to a movie job, and he made his film debut in Heaven with a Barbed Wire Fence (1939), in which he was billed as "Nicholas Conte." His career started to thrive during the Second World War, when many Hollywood actors were away in the military.
Signing on as a contract player with 20th Century-Fox in 1942, Conte was promoted by the studio as, ironically, as "New John Garfield," the man who helped discover him. He made his debut at Fox, under the name "Richard Conte", in Guadalcanal Diary (1943). During World War II Conte appeared mostly as soldiers in war pictures, although after the war he became a fixture in the studio's "film noir" crime melodramas. His best role at Fox was as the wrongly imprisoned man exonerated by James Stewart's reporter in Call Northside 777 (1948) and he also shined as a trucker in Thieves' Highway (1949).
In the 1950s Conte essentially evolved into a B-movie actor, his best performances coming in The Blue Gardenia (1953) and Highway Dragnet (1954). After being set free of his Fox contract in the early 1950s, his career lost momentum as the film noir cycle exhausted itself, although he turned in a first-rate performance as a vicious but philosophical gangster in Joseph H. Lewis film-noir classic, The Big Combo (1955).
Conte appeared often on television, including a co-starring gig on the syndicated series The Four Just Men (1959), but by the 1960s his career was in turnaround. Frank Sinatra cast him in his two Tony Rome detective films, the eponymous Tony Rome (1967) and Lady in Cement (1968), but Conte eventually relocated to Europe. He directed and starred in Operation Cross Eagles (1968), a low-budget war picture shot in Yugoslavia. His last hurrah in Hollywood role was as Don Corleone's rival, Don Barzini, in The Godfather (1972), which many critics and filmmakers, including the late Stanley Kubrick, consider the greatest Hollywood film of all time. Ironically, Paramount - which produced "The Godfather" - had considered Conte for the title role before the casting list was whittled down to Laurence Olivier and Marlon Brando. After The Godfather (1972), Conte - whose character was assassinated in that picture, so does not appear in the equally classic sequel - continued to appear in European films.
Richard Conte was married to Ruth Storey, with whom he fathered film editor Mark Conte. He died of a heart attack on April 15, 1975, in Los Angeles, California, aged 65.- Actor
- Soundtrack
James Robertson Justice was always a noticeable presence in a film with his large stature, bushy beard and booming voice. A Ph.D., a journalist, a naturalist, an expert falconer, a racing car driver, JRJ was certainly a man of many talents.
He entered the film industry quite late in life (37) after he was spotted serving as MC for a local music hall. He became a familiar figure on-screen after a succession of "larger than life" roles during the 40s and 50s, and particularly as Sir Lancelot Spratt in the "Doctor" film series.- An enchantingly beautiful, luminous blonde, Mary Ure was born in Glasgow on February 18th, 1933. Her first film was Zoltan Korda's Storm Over the Nile (1955), a misfiring remake of The Four Feathers (1939). Next was Windom's Way (1957) - a tale of rubber plantation strikes and marital strife, but more significant events had been occurring off-screen. In 1956, she starred as "Alison" in John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger" at the Royal Court theatre in London. She began an affair with the married Osborne and, after his divorce, they tied the knot in 1957. By 1958, however, the marriage was falling apart. Osborne could be cold and detached and he did not hold his wife in particularly high esteem, as he wrote in the second volume of his memoirs, "Almost a Gentleman".
She began an affair with Robert Shaw around 1959 though she wasn't divorced from Osborne until 1962 and was complicit in the charade that the father of her first child, Colin born 31 August 1961, was Osborne's. In the meantime, she transferred her fragile, captivating portrayal of "Alison Porter" from stage to screen in the 1959 film adaptation of Look Back in Anger (1959), which also starred Richard Burton and Claire Bloom. Her beautiful performance of "Clara Dawes" in 1960's Sons and Lovers (1960) won her an Oscar nomination. In this time, she also performed a season at Stratford and, while pregnant, "The Changeling" at the Royal Court with Shaw. At the time she was pregnant, Jennifer Bourke, Shaw's first wife, was also pregnant by him (at his death in 1978 he left 9 children).
In 1963, she married Shaw and, after an absence of three years, returned to cinema screens with a good performance in The Mind Benders (1963) with Dirk Bogarde, a thought-provoking sci-fi drama. Then it was The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964) and the flawed Custer of the West (1967), both with Shaw. Neither of these productions made a significant impact, though Ure performed admirably. In 1968, she made her one and only bona-fide big-budget blockbuster, Where Eagles Dare (1968) with Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. It was a huge success but it would be two years before Ure's next, and last, film appearance.
In the meantime, she had continued to act on stage. Shaw's first wife, Jennifer Bourke, had given up her career as an actress to be a wife and mother. Ure didn't give up her career but the demands of motherhood (she bore Shaw 3 more children) and her growing dependence on alcohol meant it lapsed. Her final film was A Reflection of Fear (1972), an interesting horror psychodrama but Ure was absurdly cast as the mother of Sondra Locke, only 11 years younger than herself. After this, she returned to the stage. She died of an accidental overdose on April 3rd, 1975, taking too many sleeping pills on top of alcohol after a very late night, following an opening night on the London stage. She was a wonderful actress whose luster lingers in the mind long after the film has ended. Sadly, her own life ended aged at just 42. - Hank Patterson was born in Springville, Alabama to Green and Mary Newton Patterson. Hank's great-grandfather, James Pearson, was an original settler of St. Clair County, AL as was his mother's great-grandfather, Thomas Newton. Between 1894 & 1897, the family left AL to live in Taylor, Texas, where Hank attempted to work as a serious musician, only to settle for playing piano in traveling vaudeville shows. He worked his way out to California in the 1920s and here began his film career followed by long runs on two television series Gunsmoke (1955) and Green Acres (1965).
- Actor
- Writer
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Larry began performing as a violinist at a young age. During his teenage years, he earned his living as a singer and boxer. At 18, Larry began working vaudeville with "The Haney Sisters and Fine" and in 1925, he joined Ted Healy and Moe Howard in the act that would eventually become The Three Stooges. Fine made more than 200 films before a stroke forced him to retire in 1970.- Actress
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Brunette, convent-educated Mary Philips was an accomplished actress on the New York stage by the time she met the actor Humphrey Bogart in 1924 and became his 'speakeasy touring companion'. While both encouraged each other's prodigious affinity for alcohol, Mary proved beneficial in getting Bogie to approach his craft more seriously. Bogart considered her to be an 'inspirational influence' and the couple duly married at the home of Mary's mother in Hartford, Connecticut, in April 1928. They were briefly co-starred in a play, "Skyrocket" (which received a mixed critical reception), but soon both actors went their own way: Bogie concentrating on his film career, while Mary decided to honour her theatrical obligations on the East Coast, performing in her latest play "The Tavern". About a subsequent performance in "A Touch of Brimstone" (1935), the influential New York Times reviewer Brooks Atkinson remarked on her 'spirit and intelligence irradiating every scene'.
In keeping with the notion of a 'modern marriage', an agreement was reached which permitted both partners to have relationships on the side while separated. Mary was determined not to abandon her theatrical career for Hollywood, her publicity even failing to intimate that she was married. After another hit play in "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1936), it transpired that Mary had become rather more successful than her husband. The couple drifted apart and the marriage came to an end after ten years, though both ended up parting on friendly terms. Mary's next husband was the actor Kenneth MacKenna, a former friend of Bogie from his days as a struggling actor in New York.
Though an unquestioned star of the stage, Mary's screen career was desultory by comparison. Among only a handful of supporting roles, her best performance (and her personal favorite) was as the stern nurse Helen Ferguson, friend of Helen Hayes in A Farewell to Arms (1932). There was little else of note and by the early 1940's, good theatrical parts also began to dry up. Bogart's career had now well eclipsed that of Mary Philips.- William Hartnell was born on 8 January 1908, just south of St. Pancras railway station in London. In press materials in the 1940s he claimed that his father was a farmer and later a stockbroker; it turns out that he had actually been born out of wedlock, as his biography "Who's There?" states.
At age 16 he was adopted by Hugh Blaker, a well-known art connoisseur, who helped him to get a job with Sir Frank Benson's Shakespearean Company. He started as a general dogsbody--call-boy, assistant stage manager, property master and assistant lighting director--but was occasionally allowed to play small walk-on parts. Two years later he left Benson's group and went off on tour, working for a number of different theatre companies about Britain. He became known as an actor of farce and understudied renowned performers such as Lawrence Grossmith, Ernest Truex, Bud Flanagan and Charles Heslop. He played repertory in Richmond, Harrogate, Leeds and Sheffield and had a successful run as the lead in a touring production of "Charley's Aunt." He also toured Canada in 1928-29, acquiring much valuable experience.
On his return to England, Hartnell married actress Heather McIntyre. He starred in such films as I'm an Explosive (1933), The Way Ahead (1944), Strawberry Roan (1944), The Agitator (1945), Query (1945) and Appointment with Crime (1946).
His memorable performance on the television series The Army Game (1957) and the movie This Sporting Life (1963) led to him being cast as the Doctor on Doctor Who (1963), for which he is best remembered. His son-in-law is agent Terry Carney. His granddaughter is Jessica Carney (real name Judith Carney), who authored a biography of her grandfather, "Who's There?", in 1996. - Actor
- Soundtrack
Veteran character player Roy Roberts proudly claimed over 900 performances in a 40-year career. He might not have been known necessarily by name, but the face was distinct and obviously familiar. The prototype of the steely executive, the no-nonsense mayor, the assured banker, the stentorian leader, Roberts looked out of place without his patented dark suit and power tie. His silvery hair, perfectly trimmed mustache, nonplussed reactions and take-charge demeanor reminded one of the "Mr. Monopoly" character from the classic board game.
Roberts was born Roy Barnes Jones on March 19, 1906, in Tampa, Florida, the youngest of six children. The year 1900 is given as his birth date in several reference books, which seems compatible with his noticeably aged appearance in the last decade or so of his life, but his final resting stone bears the year 1906. His early career was on the Broadway stage, gracing such plays as "Old Man Murphy" (1931), "Twentieth Century" (1932), "The Body Beautiful" (1935) and "My Sister Eileen" (1942). In 1943 he made a successful switch to films, debuting as a Marine officer in Guadalcanal Diary (1943). Usually billed around tenth in the credits, he played a reliable succession of stalwart roles (captains, generals, politicians, sheriffs, judges, et al.). He was also a semi-standard presence in film noir, appearing in such classics as Force of Evil (1948), He Walked by Night (1948) and The Enforcer (1951) as both good cop and occasional heavy.
When Roberts made the move to TV he began to include more work in comedies. The 1950s and 1960s would prove him to be a most capable foil to a number of prime sitcom stars, including Gale Storm and Lucille Ball. His patented gruff and exasperated executives often displayed their prestige by the mere use of initials, such as "W.W." and "E.J." While he never landed the one role on film or TV that could have led to top character stardom, he nevertheless remained a solid and enjoyable presence, a character player who added stature no matter how far down the credits list.
A stocky man for most his life, Roberts gained considerable girth in the late 1960s, which made his characters even more imposing. He died of a heart attack on May 28, 1975, in Los Angeles and was buried in Fort Worth, Texas. He was survived by his wife, actress Lillian Moore.- Actor
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Seasoned London-born character actor, who had a lengthy career in American films and on television. The son of an Anglo-Italian music professor, Cyril also had a secondary career in Hollywood as a respected drama coach, engaged by Douglas Fairbanks, James Craig, and others. He appears to have divided the remainder of his time between films and the stage. For some time, around 1936, he was director in charge of production at the Little Theatre in Houston, Texas. Most of his movie roles, beginning in 1931, were uncredited bits. He appeared primarily in serials and 'B-horrors', for which dignified English gentlemen were continuously in demand as undertakers, coroners or townsfolk. Television offered him better opportunities in the early 1950's. Skeletal of build, with a heavily-lined face and a shock of white hair, Cyril always appeared rather older than his years. Something of a specialist in Cockney impersonations, his nonplussed features were also regularly glimpsed as assorted shopkeepers, accountants, butlers or academic types. He popped up to particularly good effect in four episodes of The Twilight Zone (1959), displaying deft comedic abilities as day-dreaming bank employee, Mr. Smithers, in "A Penny for Your Thoughts" (1961). However, Cyril's best on-screen moment came courtesy of The Night of the Iguana (1964), as Deborah Kerr's elderly grandfather Nonno - 'the oldest working poet in the world' - for which he received a Golden Globe Award nomination.- At age 36, actress Barbara Colby was on the brink of TV-character stardom when the native New Yorker was senselessly shot and killed one evening on the streets of Los Angeles. The tall, toothy, husky-voiced, frizzy-haired actress equipped with a keen, Brooklyn-tough sensibility and dead-on comedy instincts had just started to make a name for herself on the West Coast when tragedy occurred. Hollywood lost a wonderful personality and promising talent that summer evening, someone who was proving to the TV masses that she was a bona fide contender.
Though born in New York City in 1939, Barbara was raised predominantly in New Orleans where her interest in acting grew while attending high school. After her graduation in 1957, she received a scholarship to Bard College on the Hudson back in New York, followed by a single semester at the Paris Sorbonne University in France.
While she tried to make a go of it professionally on the New York stage, her spiritual world also began to open and develop. In contrast to her tough, streetwise exterior, the gentle, deep-feeling lady avidly pursued a metaphysical way of life. She didn't touch alcohol, was a strict vegetarian, and meditated regularly as a devoted follower of the Indian Hindu guru Swami Muktananda. She also was a firm believer in reincarnation.
Following a solid stage performance in "Six Characters in Search of an Author" in 1964, Barbara took to the Broadway lights with a debut in "The Devils" the following year. Throughout the rest of the decade, she impressed in such plays as "Under Milk Wood", "Murder in the Cathedral" and "Dear Liar", and also garnered fine notices for her Portia in "Julius Caesar" in 1966 at the American Shakespeare Theatre Festival in Stratford, Connecticut.
Marking her first prime TV role on a Columbo (1971) episode in 1971, Barbara began a bi-coastal career and played a host of support/guest roles on such established shows as The Odd Couple (1968), McMillan & Wife (1971), The F.B.I. (1965), Medical Center (1969), Kung Fu (1972) and Gunsmoke (1955). But it was MTM Productions that took strongly to Barbara after she made a hilarious appearance as worldly prostitute Sherry opposite an impossibly naive Mary Tyler Moore in a now-classic 1974 jail-cell episode of the Moore comedy series. Producers were so impressed by Barbara's dead-pan comic timing and appealingly sharp, cynical edge that they brought her character back in a subsequent episode.
Never giving up her love for the stage, Barbara continued to gain in strength in such quirky '70s plays as "Aubrey Beardsley the Neophyte", "House of Blue Leaves", "Afternoon Tea" and "The Hot L. Baltimore". She also returned to the classics with an off-Broadway role as Elizabeth in "Richard III," and was back on Broadway with the plays "Murderous Angels" in 1971 and a revival of "A Doll's House" starring Liv Ullmann in the early part of 1975. Following the close of the latter show, Barbara returned to Los Angeles with a career-making offer. MTM had just cast her as a regular player on a spin-off from The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970). The new sitcom, Phyllis (1975), starred actress Cloris Leachman who had played one of Mary's self-absorbed, scatterbrained friends to Emmy-winning effect. Barbara, who appeared earlier with Leachman in the TV-movie A Brand New Life (1973), was now in "second banana" position playing Cloris' boss, Julie Erskine, the owner of a commercial photography studio. The actress had officially paid her dues and broken into the top sitcom ranks. With two films also in the can, California Split (1974) and The Memory of Us (1974), Barbara seemed poised for bigger things.
On July 24, 1975, just weeks after her 36th birthday and only three episodes into the TV series, Barbara and her acting colleague/boyfriend, James Kiernan, were walking to their car following the teaching of an acting class in Venice, California, when they were deliberately shot by two gang members inside a parking garage area. Barbara, who was estranged at the time from Robert Levitt Jr., the son of legendary entertainer Ethel Merman, died instantly from her single gunshot wound; Mr. Kiernan, who had recently appeared in an episode of MTM's "Rhoda," was able to describe the shooting to police before he succumbed but could not recognize the two men who shot them, noting that the shooting had occurred without warning, reason or provocation. Police noted that there was no attempt to rob the pair and appeared to be a random act of violence. The killers were never caught and the homicide remains a "cold case". Barbara was later cremated and a memorial service held at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga Canyon. She was survived by her mother and younger sister Renee.
Following the tragedy, comedienne Liz Torres came on board to replace Barbara in the Julie Erskine part. The role itself lasted for only one season before they changed the sitcom's setting in order to try and improve the lackluster ratings. It didn't help. Despite a Golden Globe win for Leachman, the show was canceled after only one more season. In retrospect, one can't tell whether Barbara might have made a difference in the sitcom's ratings or outcome, but the fact remains that a single inexplicably brutal and senseless act snuffed out the life of a star comedienne in the making. - Actress
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Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, MO, in 1906 to Carrie McDonald, a laundress, and Eddie Carson, a musician. Her early life hinted at her future career. She first danced for the public on the streets of St. Louis for nickels and dimes. Later she became a chorus girl on the St. Louis stage. At age 15 she married Pullman porter William Howard Baker, but left him when she ran away from St. Louis at age 17, feeling there was too much racial discrimination in the city. She eventually made her way to Paris, France. Her first job in Paris was in "La revue negre". Her next significant job was at the Folies Bergere, where she was a member of the club's all-black revue. It was there, in 1925, that she first performed her famous "banana dance". She quickly became a favorite of the French, and her fame grew, but she had many ups and downs during her career. Although popular in France, during the "Red Scare" era of the 1950s, she was falsely accused of being a Communist and informed that she was no longer welcome in the US (in 1937 she had renounced her American citizenship, utterly disgusted by the blatant and official racism against blacks, and became a French citizen).
In 1961 Josephine was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest award. In the late 1960s she began having financial difficulties, and stopped performing in 1968. Grace Kelly, who by that time had married Prince Rainier of Monaco and was now known as Princess Grace of Monaco, offered her a home in Monaco when she learned of Josephine's financial problems. At the request of Princess Grace, Josephine performed at Monaco's summer ball in 1974 and was a great success. That same year she staged a week of performances in New York City and called the show "An Evening with Josephine Baker". She had just begun a Paris revue celebrating her half-century on the stage when on April 10, 1975, she was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage and went into a coma. She died without regaining consciousness. Her funeral was held in Paris, and she was buried in Monaco.- Pamela Brown trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Her first appearance was as "Juliet" in "Romeo and Juliet" at Stratford-on-Avon in 1936. She followed this with a variety of roles for the Old Vic Company in London. She appeared on Broadway in the 1947 production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde. Her screen debut was in One of Our Aircraft Is Missing (1942) for Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. She went on to star in two more of Powell's films and they lived together until her unfortunately early death from cancer. Her memorable face with eyes you can drown in & a resonant voice always made Pamela an actress worth watching. She was often cast as an eccentric or mysterious character which suited her perfectly.
- This stunning, fragile starlet was born Henriette Michèle Leone Girardon in Lyon in August 1938. Having completed her acting studies at the local conservatoire she won a competition as "the most photogenic girl in France" by the age of twenty. Photo shoots followed and a minor career as a model with appearances on the cover of prestige magazines "Vogue" and ""Marie-Claire". She began on screen with prominent supporting roles as a deaf mute in Luis Buñuel's Death in the Garden (1956) and as a secretary in Louis Malle's The Lovers (1958). Her first starring role came courtesy of Éric Rohmer who cast her in the lead of Sign of the Lion (1962) -- one of the first films of the French Nouvelle Vague movement, shot on location in Paris. Though not a commercial success at the time, the acting received general praise throughout and Michèle attracted attention from Hollywood. Paramount approached her with an offer to appear as the owner of a Tanzanian game farm opposite John Wayne in the African adventure Hatari! (1962). According to a Life magazine profile of July 1961 Michèle 'taught herself English' on the set. Her role did not lead to a Hollywood contract. Nevertheless, for a while she remained in demand for European productions, the pick of the bunch being leads in the Spanish-made swashbuckler The Adventures of Scaramouche (1963) and the Italian comedy The Magnificent Cuckold (1964). Less high profile, but decidedly decorative, was her supporting role in the Franco-Italian "Alfie'-lookalike comedy Tender Scoundrel (1966).
By the early 70's, film offers had dried up and Michèle's career was seriously on the skids. She became increasingly despondent, especially after the end of an unhappy dalliance with a married Spanish aristocrat, José Luis de Vilallonga (a writer and occasional actor with a well-earned reputation as a cad and spendthrift). Michèle Girardon decided to end her life by ingesting an overdose of sleeping pills in her home town on March 25, 1975, aged just 36. In a tragic irony, two co-stars in Michèle's penultimate film Good Little Girls (1971), Marie-Georges Pascal and Bella Darvi, also committed suicide at the ages of 39 and 42, respectively. - Actor
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The athletic William Lundigan stood 6' 2" and weighed 170 pounds. He played football, basketball and tennis at Syracuse (NY) University. He was discovered by Charles R. Rogers, head of production at Universal Studios. Rogers happened to tune into radio station WFBL in Syracuse. He was so intrigued by a voice he heard reading a commercial that he gave instructions for the speaker to be located, brought to New York and tested for movie possibilities. The speaker, of course, was Lundigan. He had gotten the announcing job because his father owned the building that housed WBFL. Later in his career Lundigan was successful as the host of the CBS programs Climax! (1954) and Shower of Stars (1954). For these programs he delivered on-air commercials for their sponsor, Chrysler Motors. Off screen he traveled as a goodwill ambassador for the company, covering over 100,000 miles on the road and visiting 560,000 people in 90 weeks.