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- Actress
- Soundtrack
Award-winning actress Helen Elizabeth McCrory was born in London, England, to Welsh-born Anne (Morgans) and Scottish-born Iain McCrory, a diplomat from Glasgow. After training at the Drama Centre London, Helen began her career on stage in the UK and won the Manchester Evening News' Best Actress Award for her performance in the National Theatre's "Blood Wedding" and the Ian Charleson award for classical acting for playing "Rose Trelawney" in "Trelawney of the Wells." Helen's theatre work continued to win her critical praise and a large fan base through such work as the Royal Shakespeare Company's "Les Enfant du Paradis" opposite Joseph Fiennes, Rupert Graves and James Purefoy. At the Almeida Theatre, her productions included "The Triumph of Love" opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor and the radical verse production, "Five Gold Rings," opposite Damian Lewis.
Helen also worked extensively at the Donmar Warehouse playing lead roles in "How I Learnt to Drive," "Old Times" directed by Roger Michel, and in Sam Mendes' farewell double bill of "Twelfth Night" and "Uncle Vanya" (a triumph in both London and New York). For her performance in "Twelfth Night," Helen was nominated for the Evening Standard Best Actress Award, and the New York Drama Desk Awards. She also founded the production company "The Public" with Michael Sheen, producing new work at the Liverpool Everyman, The Ambassadors and the Donmar (in which she also starred).
With over twenty productions under her belt, Mike Coveney recently wrote "We celebrate the careers of great actors Olivier, Ashcroft, Richardson, Gielgud, Dench, the Redgraves, Gambon, Walter, Sher, Russell Beale and McCrory."
On the small screen, Helen's first television film, Karl Francis' Streetlife (1995) with Rhys Ifans, won her the Welsh BAFTA, Monte Carlo Best Actress Award and the Royal Television Society's Best Actress Award, for her extraordinary performance as "Jo." The Edinburgh Film Festival wrote "simply the best performance this year." She went on to win Critics Circle Best Actress Award for her role as the barrister "Rose Fitzgerald" in the Channel 4 series North Square (2000), having been previously nominated for her performance in The Fragile Heart (1996). Helen showed diversity as an actress, appearing in comedies such as Lucky Jim (2003) with Stephen Tompkinson or Dead Gorgeous (2002) with Fay Ripley, as well as dramas such as Joe Wright's The Last King (2003) (for which she was nominated for the LA Television Awards) and Anna Karenina (2000).
Helen McCrory died on 16 April, 2021, in London, of cancer. She was 52, and was survived by her husband Damian Lewis and their two children.- Actress
- Producer
- Editorial Department
Markie Post grew up in Walnut Creek, California and started her career on films and TV shows, such as Card Sharks (1978) and "The New Card Sharks" (1986) and went on to even produce such projects as Double Dare (1976) and has made appearances on such television projects as 1st to Die (2003), E! True Hollywood Story (1996) and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl (2001). Perhaps her biggest TV role was as "Christine Sullivan" on Night Court (1984). She appeared in 156 episodes of this comedy, from 1984 to 1992.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Rarely at a loss for work, Willie Garson appeared in more than 300 episodes of television and more than 70 films. Best known for his long runs on television as Mozzie on White Collar (2009), Stanford Blatch on Sex and the City (1998), and Henry Coffield on NYPD Blue (1993), he also appeared as the grifter with a heart of gold, Gerard Hirsch, on Hawaii Five-0 (2010).
Born in New Jersey, he started training at the Actors Institute In New York, before majoring in psychology and theater at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. After graduation, he quickly started landing guest roles on such shows as Cheers (1982), Family Ties (1982), Thirtysomething (1987), L.A. Law (1986), as well as continually recurring in a wide array of shows including The X-Files (1993), Twin Peaks (1990), Two and a Half Men (2003), Stargate SG-1 (1997), Pushing Daisies (2007), The Practice (1997), Ally McBeal (1997), etc., etc., etc. His favorite long-form role on TV was Dr. Kreutz for Steven Spielberg in the acclaimed miniseries Taken (2002). Garson also appeared in many episodes of Boy Meets World (1993) and Girl Meets World (2014).
On the big screen, other than reprising his Sex and the City (1998) role for two features (Sex and the City (2008) and Sex and the City 2 (2010)), he collaborated with the Farrelly brothers on three films, There's Something About Mary (1998), Kingpin (1996), and Fever Pitch (2005), as well as appearing in Soapdish (1991), Groundhog Day (1993), Mars Attacks! (1996), The Rock (1996), Being John Malkovich (1999), and many others. He was often used by such varied directors as Spike Jonze, Michael Bay, the late great Mike Nichols, and Ron Shelton. Next up is Feed (2017), touching on a subject Garson was very proud to be a part of. Upcoming films include 7 Days to Vegas (2019), and Magic Camp (2020).
As a director, Garson directed episodes of White Collar (2009) and Girl Meets World (2014), and, with Warner Brothers, had TV shows in development as producer/creator.
Garson continued to perform with various bicoastal theater companies such as Naked Angles, Manhattan Theater Club, the Roundabout Theater, and the Geffen. He was also very involved with many charities, including AMFAR, Camp Joslin for Diabetes, Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, and especially the Alliance for Children's Rights, which facilitates adoptions in LA County. This had a special place in the Garson family, as Willie adopted his son Nathan in Los Angeles in 2010, and twice served as national spokesman for National Adoption Day.
Aside from acting, Garson was known as a world-class poker player, nicknamed Evil Willie on the first episode of Celebrity Poker Showdown (2003), and continued to play in tournaments all over the world, both for charity and through the World Poker Tour.- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
Legendary actor Christopher Plummer, perhaps Canada's greatest thespian, delivered outstanding performances as Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree (1979), the chilling villain in The Silent Partner (1978), the iconoclastic Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999), the empathetic psychiatrist in A Beautiful Mind (2001), the kindly and clever mystery writer in Knives Out (2019), and as Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009). It was this last role that finally brought him recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, when he was nominated as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, one of three Academy Award nominations he received in the 2010s, along with All the Money in the World (2017) (as J. Paul Getty) and Beginners (2010); he won for the latter role. He will also likely always be remembered as Captain Von Trapp in the atomic bomb-strength blockbuster The Sound of Music (1965), a film he publicly despised until softening his stance in his autobiography "In Spite of Me" (2008).
Christopher Plummer was born Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer on December 13, 1929 in Toronto, Ontario. He was the only child of Isabella Mary (Abbott), a secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University, and John Orme Plummer, who sold securities and stocks. Christopher was a great-grandson of John Abbott, who was Canada's third Prime Minister (from 1891 to 1892), and a great-great-great-grandson of Presbyterian clergyman John Bethune. He had Scottish, English, Anglo-Irish, and Cornish ancestry. Plummer was raised in Senneville, Quebec, near Montreal, at his maternal grandparents' home.
Aside from the youngest member of the Barrymore siblings (which counted Oscar-winners Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore in their number), Plummer was the premier Shakespearean actor to come out of North America in the 20th century. He was particularly memorable as Hamlet, Iago and Lear, though his Macbeth opposite Glenda Jackson was -- and this was no surprise to him due to the famous curse attached to the "Scottish Play" -- a failure.
Like another great stage actor, Richard Burton, early in his career Plummer failed to connect with the screen in a way that would make him a star. Dynamic on stage, he didn't succeed as a younger leading man in films. Perhaps if he had been born earlier, and acted in the studio system of Hollywood's golden age, he could have been carefully groomed for stardom. As it was, he shared the English stage actors' disdain -- and he was equally at home in London as he was on the boards of Broadway or on-stage in his native Canada -- for the movies, which did not help him in that medium, as he has confessed. As he aged, Plummer excelled at character roles. He was always a good villain, this man who garnered kudos playing Lucifer on Broadway in Archibald Macleish's Pulitzer Prize-winning "J.B.".
Plummer won two Emmy Awards out of seven nominations stretching 46 years from 1959 and 2011, and one Genie Award in six nominations from 1980 to 2009. For his stage work, Plummer has racked up two Tony Awards on six nominations, the first in 1974 as Best Actor (Musical) for the title role in "Cyrano" and the second in 1997, as Best Actor (Play), in "Barrymore". Surprisingly, he did not win (though he was nominated) for his masterful 2004 performance of "King Lear", which he originated at the Stratford Festival in Ontario and brought down to Broadway for a sold-out run. His other Tony nominations show the wide range of his talent, from a 1959 nod for the Elia Kazan-directed production of Macleish's "J.B." to recognition in 1994 for Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land", with a 1982 Best Actor (Play) nomination for his "Iago" in William Shakespeare's "Othello".
Until the 2009 Academy Awards were announced, it could be said about Plummer that he was the finest actor of the post-World War II period to fail to get an Academy Award. In that, he was following in the footsteps of the late great John Barrymore, whom Plummer so memorably portrayed on Broadway in a one-man show that brought him his second Tony Award. In 2010, Plummer finally got an Oscar nod for his portrayal of another legend, Lev Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009). Two years later, the first paragraph of his obituary was written when the 82-year-old Plummer became the oldest person in Academy history to win an Oscar. He won for playing a senior citizen who comes out as gay after the death of his wife in the movie Beginners (2010). As he clutched his statuette, the debonaire thespian addressed it thus: "You're only two years older than me darling, where have you been all of my life?"
Plummer then told the audience that at birth, "I was already rehearsing my Academy acceptance speech, but it was so long ago mercifully for you I've forgotten it." The Academy Award was a long time in coming and richly deserved.
Plummer gave many other fine portrayals on film, particularly as he grew older and settled down into a comfortable marriage with his third wife Elaine. He continued to be an in-demand character actor in prestigious motion pictures. If he were English rather than Canadian, he would have been knighted. (In 1968, he was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor and one which required the approval of the sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II.) If he lived in the company town of Los Angeles rather than in Connecticut, he likely would have several more Oscar nominations before winning his first for "The Last Station".
As it is, as attested to in his witty and well-written autobiography, Plummer was amply rewarded in life. In 1970, Plummer - then a self-confessed 43-year-old "bottle baby" - married his third wife Elaine Taylor, a dancer, who helped wean him off his dependency on alcohol. They lived happily with their dogs on a 30-acre estate in Weston, Connecticut. He thanked her from the stage during the 2012 Oscar telecast, quipping that she "deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for coming to my rescue every day of my life." Although he spent the majority of his time in the United States, he remained a Canadian citizen. He died in his Weston, Connecticut home on February 5, 2021 at age 91.
His daughter, with actress Tammy Grimes, is actress Amanda Plummer.- Actress
- Soundtrack
The legendary actress set a record when at age 82, she appeared on Dancing with the Stars (2005). Cloris Leachman was born on April 30, 1926 in Des Moines, Iowa to Berkeley Claiborne "Buck" Leachman and the former Cloris Wallace. Her father's family owned a lumber company, Leachman Lumber Co. She was of Czech (from her maternal grandmother) and English descent. After graduating from high school, Leachman attended Illinois State University and Northwestern University, where she majored in drama. After winning the title of Miss Chicago 1946 (as part of the Miss America pageant), she acted with the Des Moines Playhouse before moving to New York.
Leachman made her credited debut in 1948 in an episode of The Ford Theatre Hour (1948) and appeared in many television anthologies and series before becoming a regular on The Bob & Ray Show (1951) in 1952. Her movie debut was memorable, playing the doomed blonde femme fatale Christina Bailey in Robert Aldrich's classic noir Kiss Me Deadly (1955). Other than a role in Rod Serling's movie The Rack (1956) in support of Paul Newman, Leachman remained a television actress throughout the 1950s and the 1960s, appearing in only two movies during the latter decade, The Chapman Report (1962) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969). Though she would win an Oscar for Peter Bogdanovich's adaptation of Larry McMurtry's The Last Picture Show (1971) and appear in three Mel Brooks movies, it was in television that her career remained and her fame was assured in the 1970s and into the second decade of the new millennium.
Leachman was nominated five times for an Emmy Award playing Phyllis Lindstrom, Mary Tyler Moore's landlady and self-described best friend on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and on the spin-off series Phyllis (1975). She won twice as Best Supporting Actress in a comedy for her "Mary Tyler Moore" gig and won a Golden Globe Award as a leading performer in comedy for "Phyllis", but her first Emmy Award came in the category Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in 1973 for the television movie A Brand New Life (1973). She also won two Emmy Awards as a supporting player for Malcolm in the Middle (2000).
She was married to director-producer George Englund from 1953 to 1979. They had five children together. Cloris Leachman died of natural causes on January 27, 2021 in Encinitas, California.- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Betty White was born in Oak Park, Illinois, to Christine Tess (Cachikis), a homemaker, and Horace Logan White, a lighting company executive for the Crouse-Hinds Electric Company. She was of Danish, Greek, English, and Welsh descent.
Although she was best known as the devious Sue Ann Nivens on the classic sitcom The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) and the ditzy Rose Nylund on The Golden Girls (1985), Betty White had been in television for a long, long time before those two shows, having had her own series, Life with Elizabeth (1952) in 1952.
She was married three times, lastly for eighteen years, until widowed, to TV game-show host Allen Ludden.
She was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and she was known for her tireless efforts on behalf of animals.
Betty White died on 31 December 2021, at the age of 99.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Acclaimed actress Jessica Walter was born on January 31, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Esther (Groisser), a teacher, and David Walter (his original surname was Warshawsky), a musician who was a member of the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the NYC Ballet Orchestra. She was of Russian Jewish descent, the sister of screenwriter and Chairman of the UCLA Screenwriting program Richard Walter. Their uncle was stage and screen actor Jerry Jarrett. Raised in Queens, Walter was a graduate of New York's High School of the Performing Arts and the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. She first acted in summer stock and her extensive subsequent career on the stage included productions both on- and off-Broadway.
On Broadway, Walter appeared in Peter Ustinov's "Photo Finish" (which earned her the Clarence Derwent Award as Most Promising Newcomer), "A Severed Head", "Advise and Consent", "Night Life" and Neil Simon's "Rumors". Off-Broadway, she acted in a 1986 Los Angeles Theater Center production of "Tartuffe" opposite Ron Leibman (to whom she was married from 1983 until his death in 2019).
After guesting on several TV series in the early and mid-1960s, Walter made her move to feature films where she attracted attention for her role as the brash Libby in Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966). This seemed to set the tone for her next screen personae as bitchy, difficult or dangerously vindictive women, the most memorable of which was Evelyn in Clint Eastwood's directorial debut film, Play Misty for Me (1971). This earned Walter a richly deserved Golden Globe nomination. Another stand-out role was Pat, the bored ex-glamour model wife of one racing driver (Brian Bedford) and troublesome girlfriend of another (James Garner) in Grand Prix (1966). Walter's numerous TV roles included the enchantress Morgan LeFay in the rarely seen telemovie Dr. Strange (1978). Of her many screen villainesses she later said: "those are the fun roles. They're juicy, much better than playing the vanilla ingénues".
By the 1980s, Walter had turned increasingly towards comedy, both on the big screen (The Flamingo Kid (1984)) and the small (Three's a Crowd (1984)). However, she never shied away from other genres, whether playing an EarthGov senator on the cult sci-fi series Babylon 5 (1993) or providing the voice for the leading female character in the animated sitcom Dinosaurs (1991). Walter received an Emmy Award for Best Dramatic Actress in the Ironside (1967) spin-off Amy Prentiss (1974) and was nominated for guest-starring roles in episodes of Trapper John, M.D. (1979) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972). She found a new audience among younger viewers as the devious matriarch Lucille Bluth in Arrested Development (2003).
Jessica Walter died in her sleep on March 24, 2021 from undisclosed causes at the age of 80. Riverside Memorial Chapel and Funeral Home in New York City completed her final arrangements. She was cremated and her ashes are with her daughter.- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Peter Scolari was born on 12 September 1955 in New Rochelle, New York, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Newhart (1982), Girls (2012) and That Thing You Do! (1996). He was married to Tracy Shayne, Cathy Trien, Debra Steagall and Lisa Kretzschmar. He died on 22 October 2021 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Richard Gilliland was born on 23 January 1950 in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for Airplane II: The Sequel (1982), Designing Women (1986) and CBS Summer Playhouse (1987). He was married to Jean Smart and Lindsay Harrison. He died on 18 March 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Fetching, glossy-lipped, blue-eyed, white-hot blonde Jean Hale showed major promise playing superficial glamour girls, a la Carroll Baker and Virna Lisi, throughout the 1960s. Born on December 27, 1938, to Mormon parents in Salt Lake City, Utah, she was raised in Darien, Connecticut and expressed an early interest in acting. As a promise to her parents, however, she attended college first to test her ambitions.
After attending the University of Utah (for one semester, majoring in ballet) and then Skidmore College for Women (three additional semesters), Jean went directly to New York, where she was accepted as a student at the Neighbood Playhouse. There, she studied under Sydney Pollack and met (and later married) fellow acting student, Dabney Coleman. To supplement her income, Jean's incredible beauty served her well as a model for both the Conover and Huntington Hartford agencies. Upon her graduation from the Playhouse, she set out to find work -- her first professional job being a Hudnut commercial.
More TV work came her way as a dancer on the 1960 Sing Along with Mitch (1961) series and she also appeared, on stage, in the plays, "The Male Animal" and "Everybody Loves Opal". Agent Len Luskin (Sandra Dee's agent) took an interest and signed her up in 1960. Turning down a part in BUtterfield 8 (1960) in order to stay put in New York with Coleman, the couple eventually married on December 11, 1961, and Coleman wound up accompanying her to Puerto Rico to shoot what should have been her debut film Felicia (1964). The movie was never released.
Her second film, however, Violent Midnight (1963) [aka Psychomania], a gruesome low-budget horror film, was released. She plays the potential victim of a knifing stalker and she received decent reviews. It led to a Universal contract in 1963 and co-starring/featured parts in a modicum of films, including Taggart (1964) and McHale's Navy Joins the Air Force (1965). For the latter film as a man-hungry lieutenant, she dyed her hair platinum blonde and kept it). She also found TV guest parts in such shows as McHale's Navy (1962), The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962), The Wild Wild West (1965) and The Virginian (1962).
It was the role of a spoiled movie diva in the overly melodramatic, poorly-received flick, The Oscar (1966), that gave Jean an unexpected career boost. This led to her sexy villainous cohort role to "The Mad Hatter" (David Wayne) on TV's Batman (1966). She also capitalized on her sensuality, with a key role opposite James Coburn, in the James Bond spoof, In Like Flint (1967), a move that earned her a Fox contract -- one picture a year for seven years. Jean followed this immediately with her co-star role in The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967), directed by Roger Corman, in which she looked period perfect as George Segal's moll. And then, her career hit a major decline.
Soon after her third child was born, Jean and Dabney Coleman separated and the actress lost complete focus of her career. The studio was promoting Jean as a sex goddess but, much to its consternation, she was unwilling to fulfill the requirements of such an image -- wearing skimpy costumes; turning down film roles that required semi-nudity; turning down publicity tours in Europe for the sake of her family. Jean even refused a Playboy Magazine spread having her model men's pajama tops, while promoting the "In Like Flint" film. The frustrated heads at Fox released her.
Turning back to the small screen once again (Tarzan (1966), Perry Mason (1957), Hawaii Five-O (1968), Mod Squad (1968), Cannon (1971)), Jean then filmed Something Big (1971) with Dean Martin but all her scenes were excised from the final print. After guest appearances on such shows as "Bonanza," "The Virginian," "The Mod Squad" and "Cannon," she was little seen, but did return briefly to be featured in two TV movies -- Thanksgiving Day (1990) and Lies Before Kisses (1991).
Long separated, Jean's marriage to Coleman was finally dissolved on December 4, 1984. Her three children, daughters Kelly Johns and Mary (later aka singer-songwriter Quincy Coleman) and middle son Randy Coleman all pursued the music/acting careers at one time or another. In later years, Jean co-founded her own production company ("Coleman/Tanasescu Entertainment") with partner Gino Tanasescu and continues to reside in Southern California.- Actress
- Producer
Tawny Kitaen was born on 5 August 1961 in San Diego, California, USA. She was an actress and producer, known for Bachelor Party (1984), The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak (1984) and Witchboard (1986). She was married to Chuck Finley and David Coverdale. She died on 7 May 2021 in Newport Beach, California, USA.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Dean Robert Stockwell grew up in North Hollywood, the son of Broadway performers Harry Stockwell and Elizabeth "Betty" Stockwell (née Veronica). His vaudevillian father was a replacement Curly in the original production of "Oklahoma!". He was also a decent tenor whose voice was used for the part of Prince Charming in Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Dean's mother was a one-time Broadway chorine who used the stage moniker "Betty Veronica." His older brother was the actor Guy Stockwell.
At the age of seven, Dean made his stage debut in a Theater Guild production of Paul Osborn's The Innocent Voyage, in which his brother was also cast. The play ran for nine month. Dean was eventually spotted by a talent scout, and, on the strength of his performance, was signed by MGM in 1945. Under contract until 1947 (and again from 1949 to 1950), Stockwell became a highly sought-after child star in films like Anchors Aweigh (1945), with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, The Green Years (1946) and Song of the Thin Man (1947). His impish, dimpled looks and tousled brown hair combined with genuine acting talent kept him on the box office front line for more than a decade. Having won a Golden Globe Award as Best Juvenile Actor for Gentleman's Agreement (1947) (on loan-out to 20th Century Fox), Stockwell went on to play the title role in an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's Kim (1950). He came to admire his co-star Errol Flynn as a sort of role model. Thereafter, Stockwell segued into television for several years until resurfacing as a mature actor in Richard Fleischer's Compulsion (1959), (based on the infamous Leopold & Loeb murder case), co-starring with Bradford Dillman as one of the two young killers, and Orson Welles. He had already played the part on Broadway in 1957, on this occasion partnering Roddy McDowall. His last film role of note in the early 60s was as Edmund Tyrone in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). Despite developing a drinking problem on the set (for which he was chastised by Katharine Hepburn), Stockwell gave a solid performance which he later described as a career highlight.
Stockwell dropped out of show biz for some time in the 60s to join the hippie scene at which time he befriended Neil Young and Dennis Hopper. Later in the decade, he made a gleeful comeback in low budget psychedelic counterculture (Psych-Out (1968)) biker films (The Loners (1972)) and horror comedies (The Werewolf of Washington (1973)). Keeping a considerably lower profile during the 70s, he became a frequent TV guest star in popular crime dramas like Mannix (1967), Columbo (1971) The Streets of San Francisco (1972) and Police Story (1973). By the early 80s, work opportunities had become scarcer and Stockwell was compelled to briefly sideline as a real estate broker. He nonetheless managed to make a comeback with a co-starring role in the Wim Wenders road movie Paris, Texas (1984). New York Times reviewer Vincent Canby wrote of his performance "Mr. Stockwell, the former child star, has aged very well, becoming an exceptionally interesting, mature actor." Stockwell subsequently enjoyed high billing in David Lynch's noirish psycho-thriller Blue Velvet (1986) and received an Oscar nomination for his Mafia don Tony "The Tiger" Russo in Married to the Mob (1988). His television career also flourished, as cigar-smoking, womanizing rear admiral Al Calavicci in the popular science fiction series Quantum Leap (1989). The role won him a Golden Globe Award in 1990 and a new generation of fans. When the show ended after five seasons, Stockwell remained gainfully employed for another decade, still frequently seen as political or military authority figures (Navy Secretary Edward Sheffield in JAG (1995), Defence Secretary Walter Dean in Air Force One (1997)) or evil alien antagonists (Colonel Grat in Star Trek: Enterprise (2001), humanoid Cylon John Cavil in Battlestar Galactica (2004)).
Outside of acting, Stockwell embraced environmental issues and exhibited works of art, notably collages and sculptures. In 2015, he was forced to retire from acting after suffering a stroke. Stockwell died on November 7, 2021 due to natural causes at the age of 85.- Actor
- Stunts
- Additional Crew
William Smith was probably best known for his portrayal as "Falconetti" in Rich Man, Poor Man (1976). He first came to the screen as a child actor in films such as Going My Way (1944) and The Song of Bernadette (1943), before entering the service during the Korean War, where his fluency in foreign languages landed him in the N.S.A. Security Squadron 6907.
While working towards his doctorate, he landed a contract with MGM and never looked back. Over the next thirty years, Smith became one of the kings of B-movie and television villainy.
Smith died in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles in 2021, aged 88.- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Emmy-nominated actor and producer Michael Kenneth Williams was one of his generation's most respected and acclaimed talents. By bringing complicated and charismatic characters to life--often with surprising tenderness--Williams established himself as a gifted and versatile performer with a unique ability to mesmerize audiences with his stunning character portrayals.
Born in 1966 in Brooklyn, Williams was best known for his remarkable work on The Wire (2002). The wit and humor that Williams brought to Omar, the whistle-happy, profanity-averse, openly gay drug dealer-robbing stickup man, earned him high praise, and made Omar one of television's most memorable characters. Williams also co-starred in HBO's critically acclaimed series Boardwalk Empire (2010), in which he played Chalky White, a 1920s bootlegger and the impeccably suited, veritable mayor of Atlantic City's African American community. In 2012, "Boardwalk Empire" won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. He received his first Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series or a Movie for HBO's Bessie (2015) and subsequently received his second nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for his portrayal of Freddy in HBO's The Night Of (2016).
In 2018, Vice (2013) returned for its sixth season with an extended special season premiere produced by and featuring Williams as he embarked on a personal journey to expose the root of the American mass incarceration crisis: the juvenile justice system. The episode "Raised in the System" offered a frank and unflinching look at those caught up the system, exploring why the country's mass incarceration problem cannot be fixed without first addressing the juvenile justice problem. Williams investigated the solutions that local communities were employing that resulted in drastic drops in both crime and incarceration. Michael garnered his first Emmy nomination as a producer for this incredible documentary and continues to host screenings across the country as a way to educate and raise awareness.
Giving back to the community played an important role in Williams' off-camera life. He launched Making Kids Win, a charitable organization, the primary objective of which is to build community centers in urban neighborhoods that are in need of safe spaces for children to learn and play. Williams served as the ACLU's Ambassador of Smart Justice.
Williams began his career as a performer by dancing professionally at age 22. After numerous appearances in music videos and as a background dancer on concert tours for Madonna and George Michael, Williams decided to pursue acting seriously. He participated in several productions of the La MaMA Experimental Theater, the prestigious National Black Theater Company. and the Theater for a New Generation, directed by Mel Williams.
Michael K. Williams was born, raised, and resided in Brooklyn, New York, until his death on September 6, 2021.- Actress
- Producer
The second daughter of manufacturing executive Oscar Blum and his wife Dorothy, Tanya Roberts was born 1949 in Manhattan and grew up in the elite Westchester County suburbs Scarsdale and Greenburgh. Tanya reportedly dropped out of high school, got married and hitchhiked around the country until her mother-in-law had the marriage annulled. She met psychology student Barry Roberts while waiting in line to see a movie. A few months later, she proposed to him in a subway station, and they were married. She studied acting under Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen. In her early years in New York, she supported herself as an Arthur Murray dance instructor and by modeling. She appeared in off-Broadway productions of "Picnic" and "Antigone", and in television commercials for Ultra Brite, Clairol and Cool Ray sunglasses.
In 1977, Tanya and her husband -- by then a scriptwriter -- moved to Hollywood. She began appearing in made-for-TV films including Pleasure Cove (1979), Zuma Beach (1978), and Waikiki (1980). Her film debut was in The Last Victim (1976). After appearing in several minor films, her first big break came when she was selected as the last Angel on the final season of Charlie's Angels (1976), and was featured on the cover of People magazine (02/09/1981). The attention she garnered helped secure her most significant film roles: The Beastmaster (1982) (and posed for the cover and an inside spread in Playboy magazine to promote the film), the title role in Sheena (1984) and as a Bond girl in A View to a Kill (1985). She continued to appear in films, though mainly direct-to-video and direct-to-cable features. She was featured in the CD computer game The Pandora Directive (1996) and had a recurring lead role in the television series That '70s Show (1998). Widowed in 2006, Tanya Roberts died of sepsis from a urinary tract infection in 2021.- Actor
- Additional Crew
Michael Dennis Henry was born August 15th, 1936. He was an athletic professional football player at the time he entered the movies. He played for the Pittsburgh Steelers (1958-61) and the Los Angeles Rams (1962-64). During part of that time (1961-64) he was under contract with Warner Brothers and played a variety of bit parts (TV's Surfside 6 (1960), Hawaiian Eye (1959), Cheyenne (1955) & the movie, Spencer's Mountain (1963)). He earned the role of Tarzan when series producer, Sy Weintraub began looking for a "younger Burt Lancaster" type, anticipating not only more Tarzan movies but a TV series as well. Weintraub was a Rams fan and had seen a TV documentary about them called Men from the Boys, produced by and featuring Mike Henry. Mike only made three Tarzan movies. He suffered animal bites, food poisoning, infections, and impossible work schedules in Mexico and especially Brazil. He wound up suing Weintraub for "maltreatment, abuse, and working conditions detrimental to my health and welfare." Just before his second Tarzan release in 1967 he was signed as Sgt. Kowalski in John Wayne's The Green Berets (1968). He made more movies, including the part of "Junior", as a naive son of Jackie Gleason, with the role of Buford T. Justice! in the Smokey and the Bandit (1977) movie set there were three.- Actor
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Edward Asner was born of Russian Jewish parentage in Kansas City, to Morris David Asner (founder and owner of the Kansas City-based Asner Iron & Metal Company) and his wife Elizabeth "Lizzie" (Seliger). After attending college, Ed worked various jobs, including in a steel mill, as a door-to-door salesman and on an assembly line for General Motors. Between 1947 and 1949, he attended the University of Chicago. The onset of the Korean War saw him drafted into the U.S. Army Signals Corps and posted to France where he was primarily assigned clerical tasks. Upon demobilization, Asner joined the Playwrights Theatre Company in Chicago but soon progressed to New York. In 1955, he appeared off-Broadway in the leading role of the beggar king Jonathan Peachum in Brecht's Threepenny Opera. Five years later, he made his debut on the Great White Way in the courtroom drama Face of a Hero, co-starring alongside Jack Lemmon. He also began regular TV work in anthology drama.
From the early '60s, Asner, now based in California, earned his living as a busy supporting actor. His many noted guest appearances included turns in Route 66 (1960), The Untouchables (1959), The Fugitive (1963), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) (sinister dictator-in-exile Brynov), The Invaders (1967) (twice -- as aliens) and How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (1998) (one of a couple of ghostly residents in a haunted mansion). Heavy-set and distinctively gravelly-voiced, Asner established his reputation as tough, robust and uncompromising (though, on occasion, good-hearted) authority figures. Excellent at conveying menace, he was memorably cast as the brutish patriarch Axel Jordache in Rich Man, Poor Man (1976) and as the slave ship's morally conflicted master, Captain Thomas Davies, in Roots (1977), which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award in 1977. The immensely prolific Asner (417 IMDB screen credits!) would receive seven Emmys in total (from 21 nominations), all Primetime, and become the only actor to win in both the comedy and drama category for the same role. That was also the part which made Asner a household name: the gruff, snarky newspaper editor Lou Grant (1977). Grant began as a mainstay on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), a 30-minute sitcom.
When the character was promoted to West Coast editor of The Los Angeles Tribune, Asner went on to star in his own much acclaimed drama series. Despite consistently high ratings, the show was axed after five seasons amid rumours of disharmony between the star and producers, possibly due to the former's outspoken political views. Indeed, Asner has been a controversial figure as an activist and campaigner, engaged in a variety of humanitarian and political issues. A self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, he published a book in 2017, amusingly titled "The Grouchy Historian: An Old-Time Lefty Defends Our Constitution Against Right-Wing Hypocrites and Nutjobs."
Between 1981 and 1985, Asner served twice as President of the Screen Actors Guild, during which time he was critical of former SAG President Ronald Reagan -- then the president of a greater concern -- for his Central American policy. In 1996, he was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and in 2002 received the Screen Actors Guild's Life Achievement Award. In addition to appearing on screen and stage, he performed extensive work for radio, video games and animated TV series. He voiced the lead character Carl Fredricksen in Pixar's Oscar-winning production of Up (2009), starred as Santa in Elf (2003), and played Nicholas Drago in The Games Maker (2014). Ed passed away in Los Angeles at the age of 91 on August 29, 2021.- Diana became involved in show business at a very early age, tap dancing at seven and winning a beauty contest three years later. This led to modeling sun suits for Sears Department Stores, and, eventually, to becoming a Conover model for the John Robert Powers Agency in New York. She also acquired plenty of acting practice during seven seasons of summer stock, playing assorted leads in classic plays like The Little Foxes, The Seven Year Itch (the role immortalized by Marilyn Monroe on screen!), Tobacco Road and Life With Father. From the mid-50s, she appeared on numerous live TV shows in New York and even enjoyed a second-billed leading role in a 1955 episode of Star Tonight (1955). This did not lead anywhere career-wise, so the blonde, comely-looking Diana took on further acting studies and got herself noticed with covers in popular contemporary magazines. Alas, it took a move to Hollywood for her career to really gain some traction, then, before long, she became a much-in-demand guest actress for prime-time TV shows. So much so, where by 1962, she was given the sobriquet 'Miss Emmy'.
Diana also appeared thrice on Broadway, culminating in a leading role in the comedy play Boeing-Boeing in 1962. That same year, she toured the U.S. and Canada in a National Theatre Company Production of The Seven Year Itch, opposite Eddie Bracken.
During her prolific TV appearances in the 60s, Diana accumulated screen credits on some of the most popular shows of the day, including Maverick (1957), Gunsmoke (1955), Route 66 (1960), Rawhide (1959), Perry Mason (1957), 77 Sunset Strip (1958), The Virginian (1962) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964).
However, her undoubted career highlight came near the end of her life as an actress when producer/creator Dan Curtis offered her the juicy role of Laura Collins (an immortal Phoenix-like entity) in his cult supernatural day time series Dark Shadows (1966). Between 1966 and 1969, Diana lived and breathed this character in 62 episodes and a subsequent spin-off movie release, Night of Dark Shadows (1971). After that, her acting career ended somewhat inconspicuously.
In later years, she moved back to New York where she reinvented herself as an author of several books, including "The Power of Halloween" (dealing with supernatural themes, such as witchcraft), "How to Create Good Luck" and "I'd Rather Eat Than Act".
Between 1966 and 1968, Diana Claire Millay was married to Geoffrey Montgomery Talbot Jones, a Broadway producer, Princeton alumnus and former wartime OSS officer. Sometime during the 1990s, she worked as a promoter for Microhydrin, an antioxidant and nutritional supplement.
Diana passed away in New York on 8 January 2021 at the age of 86. - Actor
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Versatile character actor Paul Ritter was born Simon Paul Adams in Gravesend, Kent on 20 December 1966. Whilst not from a show business family, he had strong thespian connections as his mother was a class-mate of comic actor Bernard Cribbins and his father attended the same school as the great comedian and writer Eric Sykes; whom Paul would portray in the TV drama 'Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This.' In the last decade of the twentieth century and beginning of the 2000s he built up an enviable roster of stage roles, working with the National Theatre in 'The Royal Hunt of the Sun', 'All My Sons', 'Coram Boy', 'The Hot-House', 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- time' and more recently as John Major in 'The Audience'. For the Royal Shakespeare company he took part in a host of classical plays including 'Troilus and Cressida' and 'The White Devil' and in 2009, along with co-stars Amanda Root, Jessica Hynes and Stephen Mangan, he was nominated for a Tony award when the Old Vic's revival of 'The Norman Conquests' played on Broadway. In the second decade of the twenty-first century he became one of television's most welcome ubiquitous actors in such varied parts as a Scots vicar in 'Mapp and Lucia', a mother-dominated gay spy in 'The Game', in police dramas 'Vera' and 'No Offence' and as Pistol in the BBC's adaptation of 'Henry IV', for which performance the Telegraph newspaper described him as 'an actor destined for greatness soon'. However, he was arguably best known for playing eccentric, usually shirtless Martin Goodman hosting his 'bambinos' for their 'Friday Night Dinner' in the Channel 4 sitcom of that name. Paul, succumbing to a brain tumour, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by family on 5th April 2021 at the age of 54.- Actor
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George Segal was born on February 13, 1934 in New York City, New York, to Fannie Blanche (Bodkin) and George Segal Sr., a malt and hop agent. All of his grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants. After a stint in the military, he made his bones as a stage actor before being cast in his first meaty film role in The Young Doctors (1961). His turns in Ship of Fools (1965) and the eponymous King Rat (1965) heralded the arrival of a major talent. He followed this up with his Oscar-nominated performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), in which he more than held his own against Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) was a cultural phenomenon, the film that wrecked the MPDDA censorship code that had been in place since 1934, and a huge box office success to boot.
By the early 1970s, appearances in such films as The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), Blume in Love (1973), Born to Win (1971) and The Hot Rock (1972) had made him a major star with an enviable reputation, just under the heights of the superstar status enjoyed by the likes of Paul Newman. He followed up A Touch of Class (1973) (a hit film for which his co-star Glenda Jackson won an Oscar) with his brilliant performance as the out-of-control gambler in Robert Altman's California Split (1974).
At one time in the early 1970s, it seemed like George Segal would have a career like that enjoyed by his contemporary Jack Nicholson, that of an actor's actor equally adept at comedy and drama. Segal never made the leap to superstar status, and surprisingly, has never won a major acting award, the latter phenomenon being particularly surprising when viewed from the period 1973-74, when he reached the height of his career. It was at this point that Segal's career went awry, when he priced himself as a superstar with a seven-figure salary, but failed to come through at the box office. For example, The Black Bird (1975) was a failure, although his subsequent starring turn opposite Jane Fonda in Fun with Dick and Jane (1977) was a big hit that revitalized her career.
The thriller Rollercoaster (1977) became a modest hit even during a summer which saw it competing with Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), and he gave a adroit comic performance in Who Is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? (1978) with Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Morley, which proved another box office success. For all practical purposes, even after the failures of The Black Bird (1975), and The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox (1976), it seemed like Segal, with a few deft career choices, could reorient his career and deliver on the promise of his early period.
At the end of the decade, he dropped out of a movie that would have burnished his tarnished lustre as a star: Blake Edwards' 10 (1979). 10 (1979) made Dudley Moore a star, while Arthur (1981) made him a superstar in the 1980s, a lost decade for Segal. It was an example of a career burnout usually associated with the "Oscar curse" (his No Way to Treat a Lady (1968) co-star Rod Steiger, for example, was a great character actor whose career was run off the rails by the expectations raised by the Academy Award). George Segal has never won an Oscar, but more surprisingly, has only been nominated once, for Best Supporting Actor of 1966 for his role as Nick in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).
That he didn't return to the promise of the early 1970s may be the unintended consequence of his focusing on comedy to the detriment of drama. The comedy A Touch of Class (1973) made him a million dollar-per-film movie star, and that's what he concentrated on. Segal began relying on his considerable charm to pull off movies that had little going for them other than their star, and it backfired on him. These films weren't infused with the outrageously funny, subversive comedy of Where's Poppa? (1970), a success from his first period that he enjoyed along with co-star Ruth Gordon and director Carl Reiner.
When Segal first made it in the mid-1960s, he established his serious actor bona fides with a deal he cut with ABC-TV that featured him in TV adaptations of Broadway plays. He also played a very memorable Biff Loman in Death of a Salesman (1966), shining in performance in counterpoint to the vital presence that was Lee J. Cobb's Willy Loman. It was a good life for an actor, and he took time to show off his banjo-playing skills by fronting the Beverly Hills Unlisted Jazz Band, with which he cut several records.
While the 1980s were mostly a career wasteland for Segal, with no starring roles in hit films, he remained a popular figure on television, and appeared regularly on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962), where he would routinely sing and play the banjo during interviews. After a major role in the surprise hit Look Who's Talking (1989), he co-starred with Bette Midler and James Caan in For the Boys (1991), leading to a career revival in the 1990s, using his flair for comedy as part of the ensemble cast of Just Shoot Me! (1997). In the 2010s, he co-starred as the eccentric but lovable grandfather on the hit sitcom The Goldbergs (2013). On February 14, 2017, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Television on his 83rd birthday. George Segal died at age 87 of complication from bypass surgery on March 23, 2021 in Santa Rosa, California.- Actor
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Johnny Crawford was born on 26 March 1946 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor and producer, known for The Rifleman (1958), Hellboy (2004) and The Thirteenth Floor (1999). He was married to Charlotte Samco. He died on 29 April 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actor
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Hal Holbrook was an Emmy and Tony Award-winning actor who was one of the great craftsmen of stage and screen. He was best known for his performance as Mark Twain, for which he won a Tony and the first of his ten Emmy Award nominations. Aside from the stage, Holbrook made his reputation primarily on television, and was memorable as Abraham Lincoln, as Senator Hays Stowe on The Bold Ones: The Senator (1970) and as Capt. Lloyd Bucher on Pueblo (1973). All of these roles brought him Emmy Awards, with Pueblo (1973) bringing him two, as Best Lead Actor in a Drama and Actor of the Year - Special. On January 22, 2008, he became the oldest male performer ever nominated for an Academy Award, for his supporting turn in Into the Wild (2007).
He was born Harold Rowe Holbrook, Jr. on February 17, 1925 in Cleveland, Ohio, to Eileen (Davenport), a vaudeville dancer, and Harold Rowe Holbrook, Sr. Raised primarily in South Weymouth, Massachusetts by his paternal grandparents, Holbrook attended the Culver Academies. During World War II, Holbrook served in the Army in Newfoundland. After the war, he attended Denison University, graduating in 1948. While at Denison, Holbrook's senior honors project concerned Mark Twain.
He later developed "Mark Twain Tonight!," the one-man show in which he impersonates the great American writer Mark Twain, aka Samuel Clemens. Holbrook learned his craft on the boards and by appearing in the TV soap opera The Brighter Day (1954). He first played Mark Twain as a solo act in 1954, at Lock Haven State Teachers College in Pennsylvania. The show was a success that created a buzz. After seeing the performance, Ed Sullivan, the host of TV's premier variety show, featured him on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) on February 12, 1956. This lead to an international tour sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, which included appearances in Iron Curtain countries. Holbrook brought the show to Off-Broadway in 1959. He even played Mark Twain for President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The 1966 "Mark Twain Tonight" Broadway production brought Holbrook even more acclaim, and the Tony Award. The show was taped and Holbrook won an Emmy nomination. He reprised the show on Broadway in 1977 and in 2005. By that time, he had played Samuel Clemens on stage over 2,000 times.
Among Holbrook's more famous roles was "The Major" in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's "Incident at Vichy", as Martin Sheen's significant other in the controversial and acclaimed TV movie That Certain Summer (1972), the first TV movie to sympathetically portray homosexuality, and as Abraham Lincoln in Carl Sandburg's acclaimed TV biography of the 16th President Lincoln (1974), a role he also portrayed in excellent performances too in North & South: Book 1, North & South (1985) and North & South: Book 2, Love & War (1986). He also is known for his portrayal of the enigmatic "Deep Throat" in All the President's Men (1976), one of the major cinema events of the mid-'70s. In the 1990s, he had a regular supporting role in the TV series Evening Shade (1990), playing Burt Reynolds' character's father-in-law.
Hal Holbrook died on January 23, 2021, at 95 years, in Beverly Hills. He was buried in McLemoresville Cemetery in Tennessee with his wife Dixie Carter.- Actor
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Macdonald was born Norman Gene Macdonald in Quebec City, Quebec. He began his career in stand-up comedy. Macdonald's first job was writing for The Dennis Miller Show (1992) and then Roseanne (1988). While writing for Roseanne (1988), he was noticed by Lorne Michaels, who liked Norm's stand up, and gave him his job on Saturday Night Live (1975).
Macdonald became widely popular when he became the Weekend Update anchor with his trademark line, "And now the fake news". He lasted from September 24, 1994 until December 13, 1997, when he was fired by Don Ohlmeyer, president of NBC on the west coast. His last weekend update was December 13, 1997 and he officially left the show in March 1998. His movie, Dirty Work (1998), which he began working on in the summer of 1997, came out 2 months later. In March 1999, his show, called Norm (1999), came out on ABC and had a 3-season run. During that time, he also starred in the movie Screwed (2000), opposite Dave Chappelle.- Actor
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Gavan O'Herlihy was born on 29 July 1951 in Dublin, County Dublin, Ireland. He was an actor, known for The Descent: Part 2 (2009), Willow (1988) and Never Say Never Again (1983). He was married to Juliette. He died on 15 September 2021 in Bath, England, UK.- Actor
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Stocky, genial-looking supporting actor Ned Beatty was once hailed by Daily Variety as the "busiest actor in Hollywood."
Ned Thomas Beatty was born in Louisville, Kentucky, to Margaret (Fortney) and Charles William Beatty. He grew up fishing and working on farms. His hometown of St. Matthews, Kentucky, is hardly the environment to encourage a career in the entertainment industry, though, so when asked, "How did you get into show business?" Beatty responded, "By hanging out with the wrong crowd." That "crowd" includes some of the industry's most prominent names, such as John Huston, Steven Spielberg, Robert Altman, Paul Newman, Richard Burton, Charlton Heston, Marlon Brando and Robert Redford.
Beatty garnered praise from both critics and peers as a dedicated actor's actor. He started as a professional performer at age ten, when he earned pocket money singing in gospel quartets and a barber shop. The big city and bright lights did not come easy, though. The first ten years of Beatty's career were spent at the Barter Theater in Abingdon, Virginia. He then moved on to the Erie Playhouse in Pennsylvania, the Playhouse Theater in Houston, Texas, and the prestigious Arena Stage Company in Washington, D.C. He was also a member of Shakespeare in Central Park, Louisville, Kentucky. Later, he appeared in the Broadway production of "The Great White Hope". At the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, he won rave reviews when he starred in "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist."
In 1971, Beatty was chosen by director John Boorman for the role of Bobby Trippe in the hit film/backwoods nightmare Deliverance (1972). Co-star Burt Reynolds and Beatty struck up a friendship, and Ned was then cast by Burt in several other films together, including White Lightning (1973), W.W. and the Dixie Dancekings (1975), and the abysmal Stroker Ace (1983). Ned's talents were also noticed by others in Hollywood and he was cast in many key productions of the 1970s turning in stellar performance, including an Academy Award nomination of Best Supporting Actor for his role in Network (1976). Beatty was also marvelous in Nashville (1975), under fire from a crazed sniper in The Deadly Tower (1975), an undercover FBI man in the action comedy Silver Streak (1976), as Lex Luthor's bumbling assistant, Otis, in the blockbuster Superman (1978) ... and he returned again with Gene Hackman to play Otis and Lex Luthor again in Superman II (1980).
Beatty continued to remain busy throughout the 1980s with appearances in several big budget television productions including The Last Days of Pompeii (1984). However, the overall caliber of the productions in general did not match up to those he had appeared in during the 1970s. Nonetheless, Beatty still shone in films including The Big Easy (1986) and The Fourth Protocol (1987). Into the 1990s, Beatty's work output swung between a mixture of roles in family orientated productions (Gulliver's Travels (1996), Back to Hannibal: The Return of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn (1990), etc.) taking advantage of his "fatherly" type looks, but he could still accentuate a hard edge, and additionally was cast in Radioland Murders (1994) and Just Cause (1995). His many other films include The Toy (1982), All the President's Men (1976), Wise Blood (1979), Rudy (1993), Spring Forward (1999), Hear My Song (1991) -- for which he earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor -- Prelude to a Kiss (1992), He Got Game (1998) and Cookie's Fortune (1999). Beatty's numerous television credits include three years on the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), Streets of Laredo (1995) and The Boys (1993).
Beatty received an Emmy Award nomination for Best Actor for his performance in Friendly Fire (1979) opposite Carol Burnett, and a Best Supporting Actor nomination for Family Channel's Magic Hour: Tom Alone (1989). Other notable credits include The Wool Cap (2004), The Execution of Private Slovik (1974), A Woman Called Golda (1982), Pray TV (1982), the miniseries Robert Kennedy and His Times (1985), Lockerbie: A Night Remembered (1998) and T Bone N Weasel (1992). He also had a recurring role on Roseanne (1988) and performed musically on television specials for Dolly Parton and The Smothers Brothers.
In 2001, Beatty returned to his theatrical roots starring in London's West End revival production of Tennessee Williams' "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Brendan Fraser. He also appeared in the production on Broadway in 2003/2004 with Jason Patric and Ashley Judd. In 2006, Beatty completed three features to be released next year: The Walker (2007); Paul Schrader's film also starring Woody Harrelson, Kristin Scott Thomas and Lily Tomlin; Paramount Pictures' Shooter (2007) starring Mark Wahlberg; and Charlie Wilson's War (2007), Mike Nichols's film with Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julia Roberts. Also in the 21st century, Beatty turned out a terrific performance in the popular Where the Red Fern Grows (2003). Blessed with eight children, Ned Beatty enjoyed golf and playing the bass guitar. He gave himself until the age of 70 to become proficient at both. He died at age 83 of natural causes on June 13, 2021 in Los Angeles, California.- This durable, granite-faced actor with the matching steel-edged voice was one of the most interesting and recognisable leads in 1950s and 1960s television. He was born Marvin Jack Richman in South Philadelphia to paper and roofing contractor Benjamin Richman and his wife Yetta Dora (née Peck), the youngest of five siblings. His childhood was -- by his own account -- 'horrendous'. The family was not well off and money was hard to come by. For two years he played football until sidelined by a knee injury. Richman also studied at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, from which he graduated in 1951 as a fully qualified pharmacist. He briefly worked in that field, though his interest had always been in the performing arts, spurred on by regular childhood visits to the nearby Alhambra Theater and performances in high school dramatics. Between 1952 and 1954, Richman trained at the Actor's Studio in New York under Lee Strasberg, having already made his stage debut in 1947. Until 1996, he acted on and off-Broadway and on the West Coast, as well as touring nationally in seminal plays like Mister Roberts, The Rainmaker and A Hatful of Rain. For most of his early career he was billed as 'Mark Richman' but in 1971 changed his moniker to Peter Mark Richman because of his abiding belief in Subud, an Eastern spiritualist philosophy.
An amazingly prolific screen actor, Richman was first brought to Hollywood by famed director William Wyler to appear in Friendly Persuasion (1956). There were a few subsequent big screen outings, but the lean, edgy and coldly handsome actor reserved his best for the small screen. By the early 60s, he starred in his own series at NBC, Cain's Hundred (1961). His character was a former syndicate lawyer, Nick Cain, who, after wanting to 'go straight' is targeted for a hit. When his fiancée gets killed in the crosshairs instead, Cain swears revenge and joins an FBI task force to bring down the top 100 mobsters by various legal means. While the series only ran to 30 episodes, it firmly established Richman in the medium. He was henceforth to alternate between nasty villains, stern authority figures and stoic heroes and become one of the most often killed guys on TV. His numerous roles have included appearances in The Twilight Zone (1959), The Fugitive (1963), The Virginian (1962), Mission: Impossible (1966), Longstreet (1971) (as James Franciscus' cynical boss, Duke Paige), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964) (as a rather camp THRUSH operative) and -- having lost none of his edge -- in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987). Standouts have included The Probe (1965) in which Richman plays a scientist determined to explore another dimension at any cost, and the first of two guest spots on The Invaders (1967) as an ally of the chief protagonist David Vincent. Richman was almost clipped by a helicopter blade during this episode and lucky to survive the experience. He continued to perform on screen well until his late eighties.
In addition to his work on front of the camera, Richman was something of a Renaissance man: a noted humanitarian (for which he was awarded a Silver Medallion from The Motion Picture and Television Fund) and an accomplished painter from an early age, trained at the Philadelphia Sketch Club. Describing himself as a 'figurative expressionist', Richman has had at least seventeen successful one-man exhibitions on the West Coast and in New York (primarily portraits of oil on canvas). He has also written two novels and several stage plays, of which his solo show 4 Faces and the one act play A Medal for Murray were the most acclaimed. His wife of 67 years was the actress Helen Richman (née Landess). - Actor
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Joey Morgan was an actor born in Chicago, IL. He was voted one of the 9 Breakout Talents from the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival for his performance as Luke opposite Zoey Deutch in Flower (2017). He is known for Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015), Compadres (2016), Camp Manna (2018) and playing the Moon in the award-winning short, Margaret and the Moon (2016). Actor Trevor Morgan is his brother.- Actor
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Deadpan comedian Charles Sydney Grodin (originally Grodinsky) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania of Russian/Polish ancestry and raised in a Jewish orthodox home. He attended the University of Miami but dropped out, opting instead for the life of a struggling actor. The movie A Place in the Sun (1951) was said to have steered him towards his chosen profession. In his own words: "It was two things. One is I think I developed an overwhelming crush on Elizabeth Taylor. And two, Montgomery Clift made acting look like 'Gee, well that looks pretty easy - just a guy talking.'".
After a spell with Uta Hagen (1956-59), he attended Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio before making his stage debut on Broadway in 1962. Though he appeared on screen from as early as 1954, Grodin did not make a great deal of headway in this medium until he attracted critical notice playing the small but crucial role of obstetrician Dr. C.C. Hill in Rosemary's Baby (1968). More substantial roles soon followed. His first major starring turn was in The Heartbreak Kid (1972), a black comedy written by Neil Simon and directed by Elaine May. Grodin managed to inject charm and humanity in what was essentially an egotistical central character. Film reviewer Roger Ebert praised his performance, describing the actor as a "kind of Dustin Hoffman-as-overachiever", an opinion which was echoed by Vincent Canby of the New York Times. Ironically, Grodin had earlier turned down the pivotal role in The Graduate (1967) which propelled Hoffman to stardom (he also -- probably unwisely -- spurned the role of oceanographer Matt Hooper in Jaws (1975) which instead went to Richard Dreyfuss).
Grodin's ultimate breakthrough came on the Broadway stage in "Same Time Next Year" (1975) (opposite Ellen Burstyn), a hugely successful romantic comedy about two people, each married to someone else, who conduct an extramarital affair for a single day over the course of 24 years in the same room of a northern Californian inn. Though the two leads left the show after seven months, Grodin was now much sought-after in Hollywood as a droll comic actor and cast in a string of hit comedies: Heaven Can Wait (1978), Seems Like Old Times (1980), The Lonely Guy (1984) and Midnight Run (1988). He also appeared to sterling effect in the underrated farce The Couch Trip (1988), in which he co-starred with Walter Matthau and Dan Aykroyd as the brittle psychiatrist and radio host Dr. George Maitlin. Arguably his most popular box office success was opposite the titular Saint Bernard canine in the family-oriented comedy Beethoven (1992). Despite less than enthusiastic critical reviews, the film was a hit with audiences, grossed $147.2 million worldwide and spawned a sequel.
In the mid-1990s, Grodin reinvented himself as a television host (The Charles Grodin Show (1995)) and political commentator. He made frequent guest appearances on talk shows with Carson or Letterman, typically adopting the persona of a belligerent tongue-in-cheek character to facilitate "comically uncomfortable situations on the set". Grodin was also a prolific author, both of fiction and non-fiction. An autobiography was entitled "It Would Be So Nice If You Weren't Here: My Journey Through Show Business" (1989). Charles Grodin died at age 86 of bone marrow cancer on May 18, 2021 at his home in Wilton, Connecticut.- Actor
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Physically imposing, intense Yaphet Kotto was one of the few actors of his generation to succeed in breaking racial stereotypes in Hollywood. He was born in Harlem, New York, the son of Gladys, a nurse and army officer, and Abraham Kotto, a businessman-turned-construction worker. His father was a Cameroonian immigrant, of royal ancestry (his great-grandfather had been a king in pre-colonial days), and his mother's family was from Antigua and Panama. Yaphet, whose first name means "beautiful" in Hebrew, was raised in the Jewish faith. After his parents divorced, he was brought up by his grandparents in the tough Bronx district of New York. He also had an aunt in showbiz who ran a dance academy. Among her alumni were Marlon Brando and James Dean. In fact, it was Brando's performance in On the Waterfront (1954) which inspired Kotto to go into acting.
He began acting on stage in 1958 with little theatrical experience, making his debut in the title role of Othello, a role he eventually reprised on screen in 1980. He also appeared on Broadway as understudy to James Earl Jones in The Great White Hope. After joining the Actor's Studio, Kotto commenced his screen career and soon gathered critical recognition with several edgy performances across diverse genres. From playing a barkeeper in 5 Card Stud (1968) and a thief in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), he moved on to juicier supporting roles as the evil Kananga/Mr. Big in the James Bond thriller Live and Let Die (1973), Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the telemovie Raid on Entebbe (1976) and the ill-fated Nostromo engineer Parker in Alien (1979). Kotto also starred as a street-smart Detroit car worker in Blue Collar (1978) and had a recurring role as a senior detective on television's long-running crime series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993) (in addition to penning several scripts for the show). He was even on a Paramount shortlist for the coveted role of Jean Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987), alongside Mitchell Ryan and Roy Thinnes). He apparently spurned the role for fear of being typecast, but came to rueing that decision in later years. For the same reason Kotto had also turned down the part of Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise (which went to Billy Dee Williams).
Kotto died on March 15 2021 in Manila, Phillipines at the age of 81.- James Michael Tyler was born in Mississippi. The youngest of five children, he was raised by a retired United States Air Force captain father and a homemaker mother. At age 11, he moved to Anderson, South Carolina to live with his sister.
A Tigers fan, he enrolled at Clemson University and majored in Geology. While getting his B.S., Tyler joined the Clemson Players and found a love of theatre and started acting. He went on to receive an MFA in Acting from the University of Georgia.
After a brief stint selling cars in Olympia, WA, he moved to Los Angeles, CA. Upon arriving in Hollywood, he worked in both the service and entertainment industries. He was a bar-back at the Palace, sold keyboards at Guitar Center, and was a barista at the Bourgeois Pig. He also worked his way up as an extra and production assistant. Ultimately, Tyler gained acclaim playing the role of Gunther in "Friends".
When not acting, Tyler liked to play Rocket League on PS4 and record music in his home studio.
He was a founding member, along with Keith King, of the collaborative improvisational band "Red Felt Pig".
Tyler preferred to be called by his middle name, Michael.
He lived in Hollywood with his wife Jenn and their leopard gecko, Rodni. - Actor
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Gavin MacLeod's pleasing, agreeable manner on two hit TV series in the 1970s and '80s belied a number of shady villains he portrayed in his early career. Born Allan George See in Mt. Kisco, New York, on February 28, 1931, and raised in Pleasantville, he was the son of Margaret (Shea) and George See, a gas station owner who was part Chippewa Indian (Ojibwa). He followed his 1952 graduation from Ithaca College (Fine Arts major) with Air Force military duty, then moved to New York City and worked for a while as an usher and elevator operator at Radio City Music Hall. Focusing on acting, he changed his stage name to "Gavin McLeod."
A solid break on Broadway in "A Hatful of Rain" in 1956 led to a move to Los Angeles in an attempt to break into film and TV. MacLeod began to earn a minor reputation as a second-string heavy in such crime shows as "The Thin Man," "Steve Canyon," "Manhunt," "Mr. Lucky," "Peter Gunn," "Michael Shayne," "The Untouchables" and "Perry Mason." This led to a regular comedy role as part of the McHale's Navy (1962) TV series. He also managed several film roles, although far down the credits, with I Want to Live! (1958), Compulsion (1959), Pork Chop Hill (1959), Operation Petticoat (1959), Twelve Hours to Kill (1960), High Time (1960), War Hunt (1962) and McHale's Navy (1964). He was a member of the superb supporting cast of The Sand Pebbles (1966). He returned to Broadway in "The Captains and the Kings" in 1962.
MacLeod's career more or less flowed and ebbed until 1972, when his shiftless typecast was shattered forever. As Murray Slaughter, the balding, beaming, wisecracking, gleaming-toothed news writer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), MacLeod became a happy household name. From then on, he could only be envisaged as a lovable schmuck and nice guy. From there he went on to another benign starring role with the TV series, The Love Boat (1977), as the ingratiating Captain Stubing.
On the down side, "Love Boat" marred MacLeod's chances to be considered for more challenging work, and his inability to cope with success led to alcoholism and divorce from second wife Patti. However, he later turned his life around, remarried his wife, and they both wrote a book called "Back on Course" (1987). MacLeod continued sporadically on the musical stage ("Gypsy," "Annie Get Your Gun," "Gigi"), in TV reunions ("Love Boat" specials) and as a TV guest ("Murder, She Wrote," "Touched by an Angel," "The King of Queens," "Oz," "That 70s Show," "JAG" and "The Comeback Kid").- Actor
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The son of the renowned French sculptor Paul Belmondo, he studied at Conservatoire National Superieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD); after the minor stage performances he made his screen debut in À pied, à cheval et en voiture (1957) but the episodes with his participation were cut before release. However, the breakthrough role in Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (1960) made him one of the key figures in the French New Wave. Since mid-60s he completely switched to commercial mainstream pictures and became a big comedy and action star in France. Following the example of Alain Delon he founded his own production company Cerito named after his grandmother's maiden name. In 1989 he was awarded Cesar for his performance in Itinerary of a Spoiled Child (1988) . Recently he returned to stage performing in the Théâtre Marigny, Paris, notably as Edmund Kean or Cyrano de Bergerac. He still appears in the movies but not so often as before preferring mostly dramatic roles. The president of France distinguished him with order of Legion of Honour. Belmondo had three children with his first spouse Elodie Constant: Patricia Belmondo ( who died in a fire in 1993), Florence Belmondo and Paul Belmondo. In 2003, he had another daughter, Stella Belmondo, with his second spouse Natty Belmondo. None of his children became actors though you could have seen his son Paul in an episodic role (the same as his father, at an earlier age) in Itinerary of a Spoiled Child (1988).- Actress
- Producer
Long a vital, respected thespian of the classic and contemporary stage, this grand lady did not become a household name and sought-after film actress until age 56 when she turned in a glorious, Oscar-winning performance as Cher's sardonic mother in the romantic comedy Moonstruck (1987). Movie (and TV) fans then discovered what East coast theater-going audiences had uncovered decades before -- Olympia Dukakis was an acting treasure. Her adaptability to various ethnicities (Greek, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European, etc.), as well her chameleon-like versatility in everything from cutting edge comedy to stark tragedy, kept her in high demand for 30 years as one of Hollywood's topnotch character players.
Olympia Dukakis was born on June 20, 1931, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of Greek immigrants, Alexandra (Christos), from the Peloponnese, and Constantine S. Dukakis, from Anatolia. She majored in physical therapy at Boston University, where she graduated with a BA. Olympia practiced as a physical therapist during the polio epidemic. She later returned to her alma mater and entered the graduate program in performing arts, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree.
Olympia found early success by distinguishing herself first on stage performing in summer stock and with several repertory and Shakespearean companies throughout the county. She made her Broadway debut as an understudy in "The Aspern Papers" at age 30, followed by very short runs in the plays "Abraham Cochrane" (1964) and "Who's Who in Hell" (1974). In 1999, she premiered a one-woman play "Rose," at the National Theatre in London and subsequently on Broadway in 2000. The play earned her an Outer Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk Award nomination and she continues to tour the country with it.
Olympia was seen on the New York stage in the Roundabout Theatre's production of "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" (2011), in San Francisco in A.C.T.'s production of "Vigil" (2011) and as "Prospera" in "The Tempest" (2012) at Shakespeare & Co. She has performed in over 130 productions Off-Broadway and regionally at theaters including the Public Theatre, A.C.T., Shakespeare in the Park, Shakespeare & Co., and the Williamstown Summer Theatre Festival, where she also served as Associate Director. She was seen again at Shakespeare & Co. in the summer of 2013 as the title role in "Mother Courage and Her Children."
Olympia married Yugoslav-American actor Louis Zorich in 1962. The New York-based couple went on to co-found The Whole Theatre Company in Montclair, New Jersey, and ran the company for 19 years (1971-1990). As actress, director, producer and teacher, she still found the time to raise their three young children. She also became a master instructor at New York University for fourteen years. She scored theater triumphs in "A Man's a Man," for which she won an Off-Broadway Obie Award in 1962; several productions of "The Cherry Orchard" and "Mother Courage"; "Six Characters in Search of an Author"; "The Rose Tattoo"; "The Seagull"; "The Marriage of Bette and Boo" (another Obie Award); and, more notably, her many performances as the title role in "Hecuba." A good portion of her successes was launched within the walls of her own theater company, which encouraged the birth of new and untried plays.
Olympia's prolific stage directing credits include many of the classics: "Orpheus Descending," "The House of Bernarda Alba," "Uncle Vanya," and "A Touch of the Poet," as well as the more contemporary ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Kennedy's Children"). She also adapted such plays as "Mother Courage" and "The Trojan Women" for the theater company. Over the duration of their marriage, she and her husband have experienced shared successes, appearing together in "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Camino Real, "The Three Sisters" and "The Seagull," among many others. Both are master interpreters of Chekhovian plays -- one of their more recent acting collaborations was in "The Chekhov Cycle" in 2003.
Making an inauspicious debut in a bit role as a mental patient in Lilith (1964), she tended to gravitate toward off-the-wall films with various offshoots of the ethnic mother. She played mom to such leads as Dustin Hoffman in John and Mary (1969), Joseph Bologna in the cult comedy Made for Each Other (1971) and Ray Sharkey in The Idolmaker (1980). Interestingly, it was her scene-stealing work on Broadway in the comedy "Social Security" (1986) that caught director Norman Jewison's eye and earned her the Moonstruck (1987) movie role. The Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actress was the last of a stream of awards she earned for that part, including the Los Angeles Film Critics, Golden Globe and American Comedy awards.
From then on, silver-haired Olympia was frequently first in line for a number of cream-of-the-crop matron roles: Steel Magnolias (1989), Dad (1989), Look Who's Talking (1989), The Cemetery Club (1993), Mr. Holland's Opus (1995) and Mother (1995).
On TV, she received high praise for her work especially for her sympathetic trans-gendered landlady Anna Madrigal in the acclaimed miniseries Tales of the City (1993) and its sequels More Tales of the City (1998) (Emmy Nominee) and Further Tales of the City (2001). She was additionally seen in episodes of Bored to Death (2009), and TV movies The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000) (Judi Dench), Sinatra (1992) (Golden Globe Nominee), and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999) (Emmy Nominee). This work is among more than 40 other series, mini-series and guest starring roles she accumulated over her long career. Several recurring TV roles also came her way with Center of the Universe (2004), Bored to Death (2009), Sex & Violence (2013), Forgive Me (2013), Switch (2018) and one last return to her popular Anna Madrigal role with the series sequel Tales of the City (2019).
The septuagenarian hardly slowed down and continued strongly into the millennium with top supporting film credits including The Intended (2002), The Event (2003), the title role in the mystery Charlie's War (2003), The Thing About My Folks (2005), Jesus, Mary and Joey (2005), Away from Her (2006), Day on Fire (2006), In the Land of Women (2007), The Last Keepers (2013), A Little Game (2014), 7 Chinese Brothers (2015), The Infiltrator (2016), Her Secret Sessions (2016) and Change in the Air (2018). The film Cloudburst (2011), in which she shared a co-lead with Brenda Fricker, became a critical and audience darling, winning a multitude of "Best Film" awards and several "Best Actress" honors (Seattle, San Diego) at various film festivals.
An ardent liberal and Democrat, she was the cousin of 1988 presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. Moreover, she was a strong advocate of women's rights and environmental causes. Olympia published her best-selling autobiography "Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress" in 2003, an introspective chronicle full of her trademark candor and wry humor. She was also a figure on the lecture circuit covering topics as widespread as life in the theater to feminism, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and osteoporosis.
A hardcore New Yorker, she resided there following the death of her husband in 2018, and until her death in May 2021. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greek America Foundation, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.- Award-winning Greek-American actor Michael Constantine (born 22 May 1927) is best known for his portrayal of the Windex bottle-toting family patriarch "Gus Portokalos" in the sleeper hit My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). Before his appearance in that movie and the subsequent TV series based on it, he was primarily known for his portrayal of principal Seymour Kaufman in the series Room 222 (1969), for which he won a 1970 Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actor (in 1971, he also received a second Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe nomination as Best Supporting Actor for the role).
Michael Constantine was born Constantine Joanides in Reading, Pennsylvania, to Greek parents, Andromache (Fotiadou) and Theoharis Ioannides, a steel worker. He made his Broadway debut as part of the ensemble of the hit play "Inherit the Wind," which made its bow at the National Theatre on April 21, 1955, and closed on June 22, 1957, after 806 performances. During the run of the play, Constantine managed to work his way up into the part of "Conklin". His next appearance on the Great White Way was in "Compulsion," a dramatization of the Leopold & Loeb trial, in which he played three parts: speakeasy owner "Al," defense attorney "Jonathan Wilk" and "Dr. Ball." The show had a modest run of 140 performances in the 1957-58 season at the Ambassador Theatre.
On October 19, 1959, Constantine was part of the opening-night cast of the hit play "The Miracle Worker," appearing in the role of "Anagnos." It ran for 719 performances at the Playhouse through July 1, 1961, but his next play, "The Egg", was a flop, lasting but one week (eight performances) at the Cort in January 1962. His last turn on Broadway was in Tony Richardson's staging of Bertolt Brecht's mediation on the rise of Adolf Hitler, "Arturo Ui" (a.k.a. "The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui"). Constantine played the character "Dogsborough" in support of the great Broadway star Christopher Plummer's "Arturo Ui." It, too, was a one-week flop, lasting but eight performances at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in November 1963. Constantine's Broadway career was at an end.
He made his motion picture debut in The Last Mile (1959) in support of Mickey Rooney, but had already begun appearing in the medium in which he made his reputation, television, the year before. He appeared in teleplays on the omnibus television anthologies Armstrong Circle Theatre (1950) and Play of the Week (1959) and made numerous guest appearances on TV series, where his ethnic look made him valuable as heavies on such programs as The Untouchables (1959). In film, he appeared in such productions as Robert Rossen's classic The Hustler (1961), If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969) and the film version of Woody Allen's play, Don't Drink the Water (1969), the latter two films revealing his flair for comedy.
Constantine was a regular on the series Hey, Landlord (1966). His stint on Room 222 (1969) was followed by his star-turn in the short-lived series Sirota's Court (1976), for which he received his second Golden Globe nomination, this time as Best Leading Actor in a Musical or Comedy TV Series, in 1976. After that, he remained steadily employed but his career remained rather quiet until cast he was cast in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002).
Michael Constantine died in August 2021. He was 94. - Lanky, balding, intense American character actor of Puerto Rican ancestry, born in New York's Spanish Harlem. Deserted by his parents, Sierra was brought up by an aunt in a rough, predominantly Irish neighbourhood from the age of six. Though briefly tempted by gang life as a teenager, he took up acting classes after accompanying a friend to an audition and ended up playing Shakespearean roles with the National Shakespeare Company and in the New York Shakespeare Festival (playing, among many other parts, Macbeth and Romeo), as well as appearing off-Broadway. He later said "I would have been happy if I continued to do that for the rest of my life". However, in 1969, Sierra decided to move to Hollywood and began acting in episodic television where he was initially typecast as Latino heavies or cops.
Sierra made his breakthrough in the role of Julio Fuentes on NBC's Sanford and Son (1972), his character the perennial butt of bigoted jokes from the show's cantankerous lead, played by Redd Foxx. He then appeared in the original cast of the police sitcom Barney Miller (1975) as the passionate, proudly Puerto Rican Detective Sergeant Chano Amenguale. Written out of the show at the end of season two, he had further recurring roles in serial television, frequently alternating between comedy and drama. These included the short-lived hospital sitcom A.E.S. Hudson Street (1977), the controversial but hugely popular parody Soap (1977) (as South American counter-revolutionary "El Puerco"), Hill Street Blues (1981) (as Assistant District Attorney Alvarez), Zorro and Son (1983) (as garrison commander Paco Pico, one of the hero's chief antagonists), Miami Vice (1984) (as Don Johnson's erstwhile boss Lou Rodriguez, killed off by a hitman in episode four -- in fact, Sierra opted to leave the show because he disliked Miami) and the science fiction series Something Is Out There (1988) (as Captain Victor Maldonado). His numerous, varied and often highly entertaining guest appearances have included supporting roles as a Native American renegade on Gunsmoke (1955), a mutated religious leader living underneath irradiated New York in Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), a professor of anthropology helping Mulder and Scully track down the Jersey Devil in The X-Files (1993), a Cardassian member of the sinister Obsidian Order on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993), an Italian priest in John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) and an Iraqi gunboat captain in the Rambo spoof Hot Shots! Part Deux (1993).
Sierra made his home in Laguna Beach, California, where he died of cancer on January 4 2021 at the age of 84. - Born on August 21, 1939, the son of a displaced musician, Harlem-born actor Clarence Williams III was raised by his musical grandparents, the legendary jazz and boogie-woogie composer/pianist Clarence Williams, who wrote such classics as "T'Aint Nobody's Business If I Do" and "Baby, Won't You Please Come Home," and blues singer Eva Taylor. While attending a local YMCA as a teen, Williams became interested in dramatics.
After a two-year hitch with the U.S. Air Force, he started his acting career, making a minor New York stage debut with "The Long Dream" in 1960. He continued impressively with roles in "Walk in Darkness" (1963), "Sarah and the Sax" (1964) and "Doubletalk" (1964), and capped his early career with a Theatre World Award and Tony-nomination for the three-person play "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground" (1964). Continuing on with powerful work in "Does a Tiger Wear a Necktie?" (1966) and "King John," Vietnam-era Hollywood finally began to take notice of his "angry young man" charisma.
His casting as former delinquent-turned-undercover cop Linc Hayes on the highly popular TV cop series Mod Squad (1968) along with fellow white partners Michael Cole and Peggy Lipton was a huge break for all three relative unknowns. Sporting a huge Afro, paisley shirts, dark shades and spouting catchprase language like "dig it" and "solid," the gap-toothed Linc (and his mod partners) showed the requisite anti-establishment defiance and coolness to attract the hip generation--while still playing good guys.
Following the series' demise in 1973, he purposely avoided the "blaxploitation" Hollywood scene and returned to the stage, notably on Broadway opposite Maggie Smith in Tom Stoppard's play "Night and Day" (1979). In the 80s he launched an enviable character career in films, often playing a cool, streetwise character or threatening menace. Among his better-known on-screen assignments is the role of Prince's abusive father in Purple Rain (1984), a burnt-out political activist in the spoof I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1988), the recurring part of Roger Hardy in the twisted cult TV series Twin Peaks (1990), a good-guy cop in Deep Cover (1992), an rioter in the Attica-themed mini-series Against the Wall (1994) and Wesley Snipes heroin-addicted dad in Sugar Hill (1993), among others. Powerful roles on such shows as "Law & Order," "Profiler" and "Judging Amy" has kept him strongly in the limelight.
Millennium acting work included solid performances in the films Reindeer Games (2000), Ritual (2000), Blue Hill Avenue (2001), The Extreme Team (2003), Constellation (2005), The Blue Hour (2007),The Way of War (2009), A Day in the Life (2009), The Butler (2013) and American Nightmares (2018), as well as his interesting role as mysterious book store manager Philby in the lengthy Mystery Woman (2003) series of TV movies (2003-2007). Clarence also made guest appearances on TV programs, "Cold Case," "Memphis Beat," "Justified" and "Empire," to name a few.
Wed to wife Kelly until his death, Clarence was first married to actress Gloria Foster (1967-1984). The two appeared together in the movie The Cool World (1963). Following their divorce, they remained friendly and, upon her death in 2001, it was he who made the formal announcement. - A leading actress of theatre, film and TV in the former Yugoslavia, Mira Furlan emigrated to the U.S. with her husband, Goran Gajic, in November 1991, due to the intolerable political circumstances in her homeland. Ms. Furlan starred in the Warner Brothers TV series Babylon 5 (1993) as "Ambassador Delenn" (Sci-Fi Universe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Genre TV-series 1996 and 1997).
Her other American credits included the TV movie My Antonia (1995) directed by Joseph Sargent, the title roles in "Sophocles Antigone" at the Hudson Guild Theatre in Los Angeles (Dramalogue Theatre Award for Outstanding Performance in 1995) and Lorca's "Yerma" at The Indiana Repertory Theatre. She also appeared in Brecht's "Baal" at The Second Stage in Los Angeles and Shaw's "Don Juan In Hell" in which she co-starred with Edward Asner and Rene Auberjonois. Ms. Furlan was a member of The Actor's Studio.
Ms. Furlan's film credits include leading roles in over 25 films. She co-starred in Emir Kusturica's Cannes award-winning and Oscar-nominated film When Father Was Away On Business (2000). Films include: Three For Happiness, (Grand Prix, Valencia Film Festival), Beauty Of Vice, In The Jaws Of Life, The Loves Of Blanka Kolak, and Dear Video. In addition, Ms Furlan has appeared regularly on Yugoslav television, playing leading roles in numerous series and TV films. She received all the highest awards in her former country, both for her stage and film work, including two Golden Arenas (Yugoslav Oscars) for Best Actress.
In the former Yugoslavia, Furlan was a member of the Croatian National Theatre and a frequent guest star at major theatres in the whole country. Her favorite roles include: 'Natalya' in "A Month In The Country", 'Mrs. Elliot' in "Alpha-Beta", 'Celimene' in "The Misanthrope", 'Judith' in "The Devil's Disciple", 'Annabella' in "Tis Pity She's A Whore", the title role in Euripides' "Helen", 'Lea' in "Dybbuk", 'Isabelle' in Corneille's "L'Illusion Comique", 'Yvette' in "Mother Courage", 'Natasha' in "Three Sisters" and 'Ophelia' in Jiri Menzel's production of "Hamlet". - Actor
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Attended Zion Lutheran School in Anaheim, California. While in fifth grade, he portrayed 8th-grader Samuel "Screech" Powers in the television series Good Morning, Miss Bliss (1987), which evolved into Saved by the Bell (1989) and its various television movies and spin-offs. Also appeared in the television series The Wonder Years (1988).- Actress
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Jane Powell was singing and dancing at an early age. She sang on the radio and performed in theaters before her screen debut in 1944. Through the 1940s and 1950s, she had a successful career in movie musicals. However, in 1957, Jane's career in films ended, as she had outgrown her innocent girl-next-door image. She made brief returns to acting in front of the camera -- on television, in commercials, and in a workout video. She also had a variety of roles on stage after the end of her movie career, including the musicals "South Pacific," "The Sound of Music," "Oklahoma!," "My Fair Lady," "Carousel," and a one-woman show "The Girl Next Door and How She Grew," from which she took the title of her 1988 autobiography.- A native Chicagoan of Polish descent, veteran character actress Arlene Golonka seemed destined for acting from the start, having been named after silver screen actress Arline Judge, and her childhood was dominated by singing and acting classes. She headed to New York at the age of 19 and began a career on Broadway and in films made in New York City, generally playing bubble-headed or eccentric blondes, often prostitutes.
She relocated to Los Angeles in the late 1960s. There, while continuing to play small roles on the big screen, she established one of the strongest resumes in television of any character actress, appearing in dozens of programs over the following three decades, often repeatedly on the same program and sometimes playing different characters. Her TV appearances included such legendary programs as The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), All in the Family (1971), and M*A*S*H (1972). She may have been best-known for her recurring role as "Millie" on Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). - Director
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Richard Donner was born on 24 April 1930 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. He was a director and producer, known for Superman (1978), Ladyhawke (1985) and Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut (1980). He was married to Lauren Shuler Donner. He died on 5 July 2021 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Julie Strain was born in Concord, California, as Julie Ann Strain. She was an actress, known for Sex Court, (1998), Heavy Metal 2000 (2000) and Double Impact (1991), and Battle Queen 2020. She grew up in Pleasant Hill California and graduated from Diablo Valley College, in that town. Appeared in over 100 movies, was one of the tallest actresses in Hollywood, and performed all her own stunts. Julie was crowned the Queen of the B-movies.- Actor
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Scrappy, plucky-looking Kentucky-born Tommy Kirk, who was born on December 10, 1941, became synonymous with everything clean and fun that Disney Entertainment prescribed to in the late 1950s and very early 1960s. One of four sons born to a mechanic, Louie, and legal secretary, Lucy, the Kirk family, in search of better job prospects, moved from Louisville to Downey, California while Tommy was still an infant. The boy's interest in acting was ignited at the age of 13 years when he (instead of older brother Joe) was cast in a minor role in a production of Will Rogers Jr. and Bobby Driscoll in a production of Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!" at the Pasadena Playhouse. Discovered by a Hollywood agent who saw him and signed him up, Tommy went on to appear in two other Pasadena theatre plays, Portrait in Black" and "Barefoot in Athens" and on TV ("Lux Video Theatre, "Frontier," "Big Town," "Gunsmoke" and "The Loretta Young Show") and film (Down Liberty Road (1956) and The Peacemaker (1956)). It was an episode of "Matinee Theatre" that brought the freshly-scrubbed All-American kid to the attention of mogul Walt Disney who quickly signed him to a long-term contract.
In 1955, the lad became a member of the The Mickey Mouse Club (1955) TV series and won a legion of young fans as the brush-cut haired, irrepressibly inquisitive young sleuth Joe Hardy in two "Hardy Boys" serials ("The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure," "The Mystery of the Ghost Farm") with Tim Considine, another young promising Disney staple, playing older brother Frank. With time Tommy became a prime juvenile Disney hero and ideal mischief maker for many of the studio's full-length comedy and drama classics, earning nationwide teen idol status for his exuberant work in Old Yeller (1957), The Shaggy Dog (1959), Swiss Family Robinson (1960), The Absent Minded Professor (1961), Babes in Toyland (1961), Bon Voyage! (1962), Moon Pilot (1962), Son of Flubber (1962) and The Misadventures of Merlin Jones (1964).
In 1963 the bubble completely burst when the Disney factory found out 21-year-old Tommy was in a relationship with an underage boy. He was also arrested on Christmas Eve in 1964 when a party he was attending was raided and busted for marijuana use. Although charges were dropped, it was too late. Fired from his role in the John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) as a result, the Disney studio, out of protection, was forced to release him from his contract, but not after rehiring him one more time to complete a "Merlin Jones" movie sequel entitled The Monkey's Uncle (1965)).
Tommy found very mild restitution after signing with AIP (American International Pictures) and appearing in such popular teen-oriented flicks as Pajama Party (1964), co-starring fellow Disney cohort Annette Funicello, and The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966). He also began appearing on the musical stage as Harold Hill in "The Music Man," Riff in "West Side Story" and as the lead in "Tovarich." He also was lent out to do a lead in the mediocre cult sci-fi Embassy Picture Village of the Giants (1965). After leaving AIP, things got progressively worse for Tommy with a lead role in Trans American Film's It's a Bikini World (1967) -- by this time, beach party films were no longer trendy. Bargain basement fare such as Unkissed Bride (1966)_ (aka Mother Goose a Go-Go), UA's Track of Thunder (1967), Catalina Caper (1967) Mars Needs Women (1968), in which he played a Martian, and Blood of Ghastly Horror (1967) (aka Psycho a Go-Go) pretty much spelled as a leading man. Practically blacklisted by an industry that deemed "outed" gay actors "box office poison," he returned to the musical theatre in his home state of Kentucky with such shows as "Anything Goes" (as Moonface Martin), "Hello, Dolly!" (as Horace Vandergelder), "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum" (as Marcus Lycus) and "Little Mary Sunshine" (as General Fairfax).
Following roles in the low budget 70s films Ride the Hot Wind (1973) and the unreleased My Name Is Legend (1975) as well as an isolated TV part on a 1972 episode of "The Streets of San Francisco," Tommy disappeared from the limelight. His life went into a seemingly irreversible tailspin. Depressed and angry, he sought solace in drugs and nearly died from an acute overdose at one point. For health reasons he felt the need to completely abandon his career and slowly moved himself forward as a recovering addict. On a very positive note, he was able to build a very successful carpet and upholstery cleaning company for himself ("Tommy Kirk's Carpet and Upholstery) in Southern California's San Fernando Valley. It stayed open for business for well over two decades.
After some time away, Tommy showed up again in Hollywood, glimpsed in a few dismissible low-budgeters here and there, including Streets of Death (1988), Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds (1995), Little Miss Magic (1998), Billy Frankenstein (1998), Club Dead (2000) and, his last to date, The Education of a Vampire (2001). He appeared in several documentary interviews for the DVD releases of some of his best known films and TV shows, and occasionally at film festivals and nostalgia convention/memorabilia fests. He lived in Las Vegas.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Cicely Tyson was born in Harlem, New York City, where she was raised by her devoutly religious parents, who had come from the Caribbean island of Nevis. Her mother Theodosia was a domestic worker and her her father William was a carpenter and painter. Tyson was discovered by a fashion editor at Ebony Magazine, and with her stunning looks she quickly rose to the top of the modeling industry. In 1957 she began acting in Off-Broadway productions. She had small roles in feature films before she was cast as Portia in The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968). Four years later, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her sensational performance in the critically-acclaimed film Sounder (1972). In 1974, she went on to portray a 110-year-old former slave in The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), which earned her two Emmy Awards. She also appeared in the television miniseries Roots (1977), King (1978), and A Woman Called Moses (1978). While Cicely has not appeared steadily onscreen because of her loyalty to solely portraying strong, positive images of Black women, she is definitely one of the most talented, beautiful actresses who ever graced stage or screen.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Sally Ann Howes grew up in a show business family led by her father, famous English comedian/actor Bobby Howes, her mother Patricia Malone and grandfather, Broadway director Capt. J.A.E. Malone. She had her first screen test offer on her 12th birthday and went on to star in several films before she turned 20, including Anna Karenina (1948) with Vivien Leigh.
At 20, she received her first starring stage role in Glasgow in the Sandy Wilson musical Caprice. This led to other musicals including an 18-month run of Paint Your Wagon opposite her father Bobby Howes at Her Majesty's Theatre, Haymarket in 1953. This was followed by the plays Romance by Candlelight, A Hatful of Rain (non-musical) and 148 performances of the musical Summer Song. She continued to make the occasional film during the 1950's but the stage was her main focus. In 1958 she accepted the role of Eliza Doolittle in Broadway's My Fair Lady, taking over from Julie Andrews. The role had been offered to her three times previously, but film and stage commitments kept her from assuming the part that would skyrocket her fame in America.
Just before taking on My Fair Lady, she married composer Richard Adler, and he wrote the musical Gift of the Magi for her. It aired on CBS TV in December of 1958. Adler later wrote Kwamina for her, which she performed after her run in My Fair Lady. It was a short-lived run of the musical, and she went on to perform on Broadway in "Brigadoon", which earned her a Tony nomination in 1963. Afterwards she starred in the critically acclaimed musical, "What Makes Sammy Run" opposite Steven Lawrence. Soon after she landed the TV version of Brigadoon (1966) co-starring Robert Goulet and Peter Falk which went on to win seven Emmy Awards.
After she and Adler divorced in 1966, she began filming the movie that would become a mega-hit, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). Despite her large volume of work before and after the movie, she will always be most fondly remembered and loved around the world for her portrayal as the very lovely Truly Scrumptious. Producer Albert R. Broccoli wrote of her: "We wanted a typical English beauty. And to me, Sally Ann represents that ideal. She is also one of the finest musical comedy stars today, a rare combination of the right kind of beauty and the right kind of talent." Dick Van Dyke said of her in his documentary "Remembering Chitty Chitty Bang Bang": "They couldn't have picked a better Truly Scrumptious than Sally. They came up with Sally Ann and I heard her voice, and it was the richest contralto. She auditioned with the Lovely Lonely Man, and I thought, my God, this girl is great and then she was stunningly beautiful. She loved those kids and they loved her, which I think comes across on the screen. They just thought a great deal of her, and she spent a lot of time with them, you know, between shots... telling stories and playing games during all those long waiting periods."
Filming took place in England, France and Bavaria over 14 months. Critics were mixed about the film, but children were fanatical about it. The movie spawned a mass marketing phenomenon with everything from Truly Scrumptious Barbie dolls, to Jemima dress patterns, lunch-boxes, countless toys, and many other things all of which still enjoy a thriving collectible life on the secondary market. The Truly Scrumptious costumes in the film even sparked a mini-revival in Edwardian fashions, especially reflected by designer Laura Ashley.
Unfortunately, the movie came out at a time when musicals were beginning to be box office dead weight, including Julie Andrews ' Star! (1968) and Darling Lili (1970), which nearly sank Paramount. This nailed the lid shut on filmed musicals for a long time, leaving no filmed musical outlet for performers like Howes. Her film roles became very sporadic after Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968). She was a frequent and popular guest panelist on many game shows throughout the 1960s, and even up until the early 1980s, and she made several guest appearances on television series during the early 1970s. However, the theatre called her back, and with the exception of a few films, she has devoted her career almost entirely to the musical stage. Her last appearance was in 1992. She remains very active in musical theatre even today and is considered one of the grand dames of the American and British musical stage.
Other musicals and plays she has starred in Camelot; Blossom Time; The Sound of Music; King and I; Robert and Elizabeth; Man and Superman; I Do, I Do; Hans Anderson; A Little Night Music; Cinderella; Where's Charley?; James Joyce's The Dead.
She has sung at the White House for three US Presidents - Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.
She is a naturalized U.S. citizen and resides in New York. She has been married for over 30 years to Douglas Rae.- Actor
- Director
William Lucking was born on 17 June 1941 in Vicksburg, Michigan, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Red Dragon (2002), The World's Fastest Indian (2005) and Contraband (2012). He was married to Sigrid Insull and Mary Carolyn Linda Elizabeth "MiMi" Hawkins. He died on 18 October 2021 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.- Actress
- Casting Director
- Music Department
Her dancing career started in Leicestershire where her father worked in an aircraft factory. She went into pantomime as a chorus girl and eventually became known when she did a chocolate commercial which led to work on television and films, Despite what other people say she doesn't think that shes a good dancer. She met actor Peter Gilmore and became engaged to him in 1953 and married in 1958 and live in Radlett, Hertfordshire. Her ambitions are to have a family, and to pass her advanced driving test. She makes some of her own clothes,- Kevin Alexander Clark was born on December 3, 1988 in Highland Park, Illinois. He played the drums since he was three years old but didn't take private lessons until the fifth grade. He was so skilled in his performances that each one demanded a standing ovation from the audience. Kevin was an active member of the Highland Park High School's concert band and also part of its jazz bands. Not only did he have his drumming career mixed together with his acting career, he formed his own garage band where he played the drums - and a little guitar and bass when needed. Kevin composed several original pieces on computer and on guitar. He was introduced to acting at the age of thirteen, playing one of the rocking kids, Freddy Jones, in Paramount Pictures' School of Rock (2003) with Jack Black and Joan Cusack. The film had a number-one opening weekend, October 3, 2003, in the United States, and ended up grossing $81 million domestically. While Kevin never appeared in another film again, he continued drumming in Chicago-era bands, most recently Jess Bess and the Intentions.
Kevin died at age 32 on May 26, 2021 in Chicago, after being struck by a motorist while biking in the city's Avondale neighborhood. - Born Alexander Viespi, Jr. in Floral Park, New York in 1933, handsome, often mustachioed Alex Cord was stricken with polio at the age of 12. Confined to a hospital and iron lung for a long time, he overcame the illness after being sent to a Wyoming ranch for therapy. He soon regained his dream and determination of becoming a jockey or professional horseman.
A high school dropout at the age of sixteen, he grew up to be too tall to be a jockey so he joined the rodeo circuit and earned a living riding bulls and bareback horses. During another extended hospital stay, this time suffering major injuries after being thrown by a bull at a rodeo in New York City's Madison Square Garden, he reevaluated his life's direction and decided to finish his high school education by way of night school. A voracious reader during his long convalescence, he later studied and received his degree in literature at New York University.
Prodded by an interest in acting, Alex received dramatic training at the Actors Studio and began his professional career in summer stock (The Compass Players in St. Louis, Missouri) and at the American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Connecticut where he played "Laertes" in a production of "Hamlet". A British producer saw his promise and invited him to London where he co-starred in four plays ("Play With a Tiger", "The Rose Tattoo", "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "The Umbrella"). He was nominated for the "Best Actor Award" by the London Critics' Circle for the first-mentioned play.
He sought a Hollywood "in" and found one via his equestrian skills in the early 1960s. Steady work came to him on such established western TV series as Laramie (1959) and Branded (1965) and that extended itself into acting roles on crime action series (Route 66 (1960) and Naked City (1958)). Gaining a foothold in feature films within a relatively short time, he starred or co-starred in more than 30 feature films, including Get Off My Back (1965), Stagecoach (1966), Stiletto (1969) and The Brotherhood (1968).
After his film career declined in the late 1970s he turned to action adventure overseas with the "spaghetti western" A Minute to Pray, a Second to Die (1967) [A Minute to Pray, A Second to Die] and the British war drama The Last Grenade (1970) with Stanley Baker and Richard Attenborough. Around that time as well, he played the murderer opposite Sam Jaffe's old man in Edgar Allan Poe's dramatic short, The Tell-Tale Heart (1971). It was TV, however, that provided more career stability. Cord has more than 300 credits, including roles in Hotel (1983), Fantasy Island (1977), Simon & Simon (1981), Jake and the Fatman (1987), Mission: Impossible (1966), Walker, Texas Ranger (1993) and Murder, She Wrote (1984). He situated himself in a number of series, notably Airwolf (1984), in which he co-starred with Jan-Michael Vincent and Ernest Borgnine as the mysterious white-suited, eye-patched, cane-using "Michael Archangel".
Later commercial interest was drawn from his title role in Grayeagle (1977), a remake of the John Wayne film, The Searchers (1956), in which he played the Indian kidnapper of Ben Johnson's daughter. Lana Wood, sister of star Natalie Wood (who appeared in the original), also co-starred in this film. Alex can still be seen from time to time in low-budget films and the occasional television appearance, but other interests took up his time. His last film role was in the dismissible thriller Fire from Below (2009) in support of Kevin Sorbo.
Alex's love for horses extended itself into work for numerous charities and benefits. He was a regular competitor in the Ben Johnson Pro-Celebrity Rodeos that raised money for children's charities, and he is one of the founders of the Chukkers for Charity Celebrity Polo Team which has raised more than $3 million for worthy causes. He chairs "Ahead with Horses", an organization that provides therapeutic riding programs for the physically and emotionally challenged. Alex also turned to writing, thus far publishing several novels including A Feather in the Rain (2005), Days of the Harbinger (2013), The Man Who Would Be God (2014 and High Moon (2016). He has also sold three screenplays.
The actor's three marriages all ended in divorce. His second wife was British-born actress Joanna Pettet and third, Susannah, was a horse trainer. He had three children -- Toni Aluisa, Wayne and Damien Zachary. His son by Pettet, Damien, died tragically in 1995 of a heroin overdose at the age of 26. - Joanne Linville made her mark on television from the 1950s-1980s, appearing in such respected anthology series as Studio One (1948), Kraft Theatre (1947) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), among others. While her film work consisted mainly of smaller character roles and she never had regular roles on television, she guest-starred on numerous series over her career, often in Westerns but, especially in the 1970s, in a variety of drama and detective series. Star Trek (1966) fans will remember her in the episode "The Enterprise Incident", in which she played a Romulan commander--the first female Romulan ever portrayed on the series--who goes up against Captain James T. Kirk and is romanced by Mr. Spock.
The ex-wife of director Mark Rydell, she has two children by that marriage who are also actors, Amy Rydell and Christopher Rydell. She was a master teacher at Stella Adler's Academy and later started her own acting school.