Advanced search

Carolyn Sue Jones was born in 1930, in Amarillo, Texas, to homemaker Chloe (or Cloe) Jeanette Southern (1906-1979), and Julius Alfred Jones (1897-1979), a barber. Her sister was Bette (later Mrs. Moriarty). Carolyn was an imaginative child, much like her mother; she and her mother shared the same birthday (April 28).

In 1934, her father abandoned the family and her mother moved them in with her own parents, also in Amarillo. As a child, Carolyn suffered from severe asthma. Although she loved movies, she was often too sick to attend, so she listened to her favorites, Danny Kaye and Spike Jones and read as many movie fan magazines as she could. She dreamed of attending the famed Pasadena Playhouse and received many awards at school for speech, poetry, and dramatics. In 1947, she was accepted as a student at the Pasadena Playhouse, and her grandfather agreed to pay for her classes. She worked in summer stock to supplement her income, graduating in 1950.

She gave herself a complete head-to-toe makeover, including painful cosmetic nose surgery to make herself ready for movie roles. Working as an understudy at the Players Ring Theater, she stepped in when the star left to get married. She was seen by a talent scout from Paramount and given a screen test, which went well. She made her first appearance in The Turning Point (1952). She did some other work during her 6-month contract, but when it ended, Paramount, suffering from television's impact, let it lapse. She quipped, "They let me and 16 secretaries go!"

She started working in television but kept busy on stage as well. There, she met a fellow Texan, a young man named Aaron Spelling, and they became a couple. She made a breakthrough in the 3-D movie House of Wax (1953) and garnered excellent reviews. Aaron was still struggling, so he felt he wasn't able to propose to Carolyn; she finally proposed to him. They were married in April 1953. Neither was earning much, but they really enjoyed each other and their life. Many saw them as an ideal couple. She decided against having children as she felt she could not juggle the demands of both a career and a family.

Columbia Pictures saw her and wanted to test her for the part of prostitute Alma Burke in From Here to Eternity (1953), but she got extremely sick with pneumonia and the part went to Donna Reed, nine years older, who won an Academy Award. Jones did, however, achieve success in the science-fiction classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), a subtle allegory of the times (McCarthyism). And the famous filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock cast her in The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) opposite James Stewart and Doris Day. Meanwhile, Aaron had little success as an actor and Carolyn pushed him to become a writer, even threatening to leave him. She constantly promoted his scripts whenever she could and he was ultimately hired by Dick Powell. Carolyn, meanwhile, was successful once more in The Bachelor Party (1957) (famous line, "Just say you love me--you don't have to mean it!"). For this role, she surprised cast members by dyeing her hair black and cutting it short. This stunning look served her well for a number of roles. For her eight minutes on screen, she received glowing reviews and was nominated for an Academy Award but lost. However, she did win the Golden Globe Award and the Laurel Award for Marjorie Morningstar (1958). She followed this with an impressive appearance in King Creole (1958), generally regarded as Elvis Presley's best film. She then gave arguably her best performance ever in Career (1959), but the film was not commercially successful. She played a serious role in this, leaving the kooky role she might have played to Shirley MacLaine.

As Aaron's career soared, the marriage started to fail. They separated in October 1963 and amicably divorced in August 1965, with Carolyn asking for no alimony. They remained friends. She worked at various roles including two episodes of Burke's Law (1963) for which she received a Golden Globe nomination. Soon, she got the part for which she will best be remembered, that of Morticia Addams in The Addams Family (1964). She spent two years in this role. Her costume was designed to copy the cartoon drawings and no doubt inspired such imitators as Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark). The show went head-to-head with The Munsters (1964) and Bewitched (1964).

The show was a hit and she received all the fame she had craved. However, the network decided to cancel the show, despite its success, after only two years. Typecast as Morticia but without the income that a few more years would have provided, she found life difficult and roles few. While acting on the road, she married her voice coach, Herbert Greene, a well-known and respected Broadway conductor and musical director, and they moved together to Palm Springs, California. After seven years, she left him and returned to Hollywood, determined to try to restart her career. She was surprisingly successful and performed in several shows, including Wonder Woman (1975), where she played Hippolyta, the mother of Wonder Woman (Lynda Carter) and Wonder Girl (Debra Winger). She also appeared in the landmark miniseries Roots (1977). She appeared in four episodes of Fantasy Island (1977) and one episode of The Love Boat (1977), two shows produced by her former husband, Aaron Spelling. In 1979, both of Jones's parents died; her mother from pancreatic cancer. She took on the role of Myrna Clegg on the soap Capitol (1982) from 1982 to 1983, despite having been diagnosed with colon cancer in 1981. She underwent aggressive treatment for the cancer, but it returned during her time on the show and she was told it was terminal.

She played some scenes despite being confined to a wheelchair and working in great pain. Knowing time was short, she married her boyfriend of five years, Peter Bailey-Britton, in September 1982. She died on August 3, 1983, aged 53. She had told her sister Bette that she wanted her epitaph to be "She gave joy to the world." She certainly had many friends who loved her greatly, and many fans who enjoyed her wonderful performances.

Gloria Swanson was born Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Chicago, Illinois. She was destined to be perhaps one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era. Her personality and antics in private definitely made her a favorite with America's movie-going public. Gloria certainly didn't intend on going into show business. After her formal education in the Chicago school system and elsewhere, she began work in a department store as a salesclerk. In 1915, at the age of 18, she decided to go to a Chicago movie studio with an aunt to see how motion pictures were made. She was plucked out of the crowd, because of her beauty, to be included as a bit player in the film The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (1915). In her next film, she was an extra also, when she appeared in At the End of a Perfect Day (1915). After another uncredited role, Gloria got a more substantial role in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). In 1916, she first appeared with future husband Wallace Beery. Once married, the two pulled up stakes in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles to the film colony of Hollywood. Once out west, Gloria continued her torrid pace in films. She seemed to be in hit after hit in such films as The Pullman Bride (1917), Shifting Sands (1918), and Don't Change Your Husband (1919). By the time of the latter, Gloria had divorced Beery and was remarried, but it was not to be her last marriage, as she collected a total of six husbands. By the middle 1920s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. It has been said that Gloria made and spent over $8 million in the '20s alone. That, along with the six marriages she had, kept the fans spellbound with her escapades for over 60 years. They just couldn't get enough of her. Gloria was 30 when the sound revolution hit, and there was speculation as to whether she could adapt. She did. In 1928, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role of Sadie Thompson in the film of the same name but lost to Janet Gaynor for 3 different films. The following year, she again was nominated for the same award in The Trespasser (1929). This time, she lost out to Norma Shearer in The Divorcee (1930). By the 1930s, Gloria pared back her work with only four films during that time. She had taken a hiatus from film work after 1934's Music in the Air (1934) and would not be seen again until Father Takes a Wife (1941). That was to be it until 1950, when she starred in Sunset Boulevard (1950) as Norma Desmond opposite William Holden. She played a movie actress who was all but washed up. The movie was a box office smash and earned her a third Academy Award nomination as Best Actress, but she lost to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950). The film is considered one of the best in the history of film and, on June 16, 1998, was named one of the top 100 films of all time by the American Film Institute, placing 12th. After a few more films in the 1950s, Gloria more or less retired. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared mostly on television. Her last fling with the silver screen was Airport 1975 (1974), wherein she played herself. Gloria died on April 4, 1983, in New York City at the age of 84. There was never anyone like her, before or since.

His mother was the French Lady Comynyplatt Henrietta de Gacher, his father was the British Lieutenant William Graham Niven, who died in the war when David was six years old. Niven was considered a difficult child to educate and had to change schools often until he finally went to Sandhurst Military Academy. He came to Malta as a soldier, left the army here and went to Canada, where he worked as a lumberjack, bridge builder, journalist and whiskey salesman. After detours via New York and Cuba, Niven settled in California in 1934, where he had his first roles as an extra. He appeared in smaller films until the Second World War and then had to go to war for the British army.

In between, he also starred in propaganda films. Niven fought on the British front at Dunkirk and was promoted to colonel in 1944. General Eisenhower decorated him with the medals of the American Legion of Merit. From his first marriage to Primula Rollo, whom he married in 1940, Niven had two sons, David and Jamie. After his wife died in an accident in 1946, he married the Swede Hjordis Tersmeden in 1948, and his daughters Kristine and Fiona came from this marriage. In 1952, Niven founded the television production "Four Star TV" with Charles Boyer and other colleagues and starred in the self-produced series "The David Niven Show" and "Rogues Against Crooks". He had already been successful as an actor for a long time.

Niven starred in the 1946 English production of Error in the Afterlife and then returned to Hollywood. He celebrated successes with "The Virgin on the Roof", "Bonjour Tristesse", "The Guns of Navarone", "55 Days in Peking", "The Pink Panther", "Lady L." and with "Casino Royale". In 1959 he reached the peak of his success when he was honored with the Oscar for Best Actor for Separated from Table and Bed. His most beautiful film role was that of "Phileas Fogg" in the Jules Verne film adaptation "Around the World in 80 Days". Niven later demonstrated his enormous skills in many other films. In the 1970s and 1980s he starred in "Vampira", "A Corpse for Dessert", "Death on the Nile", "The Lion Shows its Claws" and in "Grandpa Seldom Comes Alone".

In 1982 and 1983 he had his last two roles in "The Pink Panther is Hunted" and "The Curse of the Pink Panther". Niven retired and lived on the Cote d'Azur and in Switzerland.

David Niven died on July 29, 1983 in Switzerland as a result of the nervous disease ALS. He made part of his inheritance available to medical research.

Slim Pickens spent the early part of his career as a real cowboy and the latter part playing cowboys, and he is best remembered for a single "cowboy" image: that of bomber pilot Maj. "King" Kong waving his cowboy hat rodeo-style as he rides a nuclear bomb onto its target in the great black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Born in Kingsburg, near Fresno in California's Central Valley, he spent much of his boyhood in nearby Hanford, where he began rodeoing at the age of 12. Over the next two decades he toured the country on the rodeo circuit, becoming a highly-paid and well-respected rodeo clown, a job that entailed enormous danger. In 1950, at the age of 31, Slim married Margaret Elizabeth Harmon and that same year he was given a role in a western, Rocky Mountain (1950). He quickly found a niche in both comic and villainous roles in that genre. With his hoarse voice and pronounced western twang, he was not always easy to cast outside the genre, but when he was, as in "Dr. Strangelove", the results were often memorable. He died in 1983 after a long and courageous battle against a brain tumor. He was survived by his wife Margaret and children.

Paul Fix, the well-known movie and TV character actor who played "Marshal Micah Torrance" on the TV series The Rifleman (1958), was born Peter Paul Fix on March 13, 1901 in Dobbs Ferry, New York to brew-master Wilhelm Fix and his wife, the former Louise C. Walz. His mother and father were German immigrants who had left their Black Forest home and arrived in New York City in the 1870s. (The name "Fix" is of Latin/Germanic origin, and is derived from St. Vitus and means "animated" or "vital").

Besides Peter Paul, the Fix family consisted of two girls and three boys, the youngest of whom was six years older than the future actor. Peter Paul's childhood was a happy one. He and his family lived on the 200-acre property on which the Manilla Anchor Brewery, where his father was brew-master, was situated. Such was the importance of the senior Fix to the brewery that when he died at the age of 62 on the eve of America's entry into the First World War (two years after his 54-year old wife had died), the brewery closed.

The orphaned Peter Paul, who kept to himself a lot and had a vivid imagination, was sent to live with his married sisters, first one who lived nearby in Yonkers, and then to another in Zanesville, Ohio. The just-turned-17-year-old Peter Paul Fix joined the U.S. Navy on March 12, 1918, and spent his state-side service time during World War I in Newport, Rhode Island and Charleston, South Carolina. He first tread the boards as an actor while a sailor stationed in Newport, when the baby-faced salt (who looked much younger than his age) was one of six gobs chosen to play female roles in the Navy Relief Show "HMS Pinafore". The Navy staging of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta was a big hit and chalked up a run of several weeks in Providence and Boston.

Fix was assigned as an able-bodied seaman to the troopship U.S.S. Mount Vernon, which was torpedoed by a German U-boat off the coast of France but did not sink as it was run aground. The rest of Fix's naval career was less exciting, and he was demobilized on September 5, 1919. After his discharge, Fix went back to his girlfriend Frances (Taddy) Harvey, whom he had left behind in Zanesville. He and Taddy were married in 1922 and they moved to California as Fix had always wanted to live in a warm climate.

Fix and his bride settled in Hollywood, not so much because he had set ideas about becoming an actor but because he didn't know what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He liked writing and acting in local plays, and soon became friends with the fellow tyro actor Clark Gable, who was his own age. Fix and Gable were discovered by the stage actress Pauline Frederick, who hired them to be members of her touring troupe that traveled by train the length of the West Coast putting on plays. In all, Fix - who had informally renamed himself Paul Peter - appeared in 20 plays with Gable.

Paul Fix had one of his earliest acting roles on celluloid in the mid-1920s, appearing in a silent Western starring William S. Hart. The Western genre eventually would become the one he was most identified with. He played uncredited bit parts and small roles in silents before getting his first credited role in an early talkie (which was part-silent and part-talking), The First Kiss (1928), which starred future Hollywood superstar Gary Cooper and the dame that drove King Kong ape, Fay Wray. In all, Fix appeared in 300-400 films. The Western programmers of the silent and early talkie days could be shot in less than a week.

In 1925, Taddy gave birth to their daughter Marilyn Carey, who eventually would marry Harry Carey Jr., the son of one of the first great Western superstars. They would have three more children and become part of the extended family gathered around the director John Ford. In his career, Paul Fix would appear with another Western legend, John Wayne, in 26 films, starting in 1931 with Three Girls Lost (1931). Urged on by Loretta Young, Fix became an acting coach for the young actor, and Wayne later paid him back when he became a star by having Fix appear in his movies. (The Duke also was a part of the close-knit group that collected around John Ford). With the Duke's patronage, the kinds of roles that Fix played changed. He had been typed as villains in the 1930s but, in the 40s, he began assaying a better class of character.

Paul Fix was also a screenwriter, and is credited as the writer on three films: Tall in the Saddle (1944), Ring of Fear (1954) and The Notorious Mr. Monks (1958). His favorites parts included playing the stricken passenger in the John Wayne picture The High and the Mighty (1954), Elizabeth Taylor's father in George Stevens' classic Giant (1956), the grandfather of the eponymous The Bad Seed (1956) and the judge in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). His last screen appearance was in the Brooke Shields movie Wanda Nevada (1979), but he is most famous for appearing in the recurring role of "Marshal Micah Torrance" in the popular Western TV series The Rifleman (1958). As of 1981, the 80-year old Fix was still getting mail from all over the world from "Rifleman" fans.

Paul Fix died October 14, 1983 of kidney failure. He was survived by his daughter Marilyn Carey and son-in-law Harry "Dobe" Carey, three grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.

Joan Hackett was never one of your conventional leading ladies. Directors sometimes found her difficult to work with. Yet this strong-minded perfectionist had an unquenchable individuality that came through in her performances, and she never hesitated to appear unglamorous whenever the role demanded. Born of an Italian mother and an Irish-American father in East Harlem on March 1, 1934, teenage Joan left school during twelfth grade to become a model. On the cover of Harper's Junior Bazaar in 1952, the attractive brunette turned down the resulting offer of a contract with 20th Century-Fox and opted instead for acting classes at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio.

Joan made her Broadway debut in the John Gielgud production of "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1959 and also appeared in her first television episode that year. In 1961, she had her first success in an off-Broadway play, "Call Me By My Rightful Name", winning three awards, including an Obie. A later stage performance, "Night Watch" (1972), based on a play by Lucille Fletcher, saw her playing an emotionally disturbed woman with such intensity that Clive Barnes of The New York Times described her performance as "beautifully judged". From 1961 to 1962, Joan had regular work in the CBS courtroom drama series The Defenders (1961) (starring E.G. Marshall), playing social worker "Joan Miller", fiance of one of the partners in the law firm. During the remainder of the decade, she guest-starred in many top-rated TV shows, from The Twilight Zone (1959) to Bonanza (1959) and Ben Casey (1961) (an Emmy-nominated performance). She also played the second "Mrs. de Winter" in a television version of Daphne Du Maurier's classic "Rebecca".

Joan's off-beat personality likely limited her career in films. She was first featured as one of eight Vassar graduates making up The Group (1966), a 150-minute Sidney Lumet-directed part-satire, part-soap-opera film examining the lives and loves of the protagonists over the years. Her next motion pictures allowed Joan considerably more screen time: She co-starred with Charlton Heston in the moody, idiosyncratic western Will Penny (1967). She gave a decidedly understated, subtle performance as the down-to-earth frontier woman who befriends the hero, shares in his ordeals, and then is left by him when he realizes that there is no future in their relationship. In stark contrast was her role in the western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). She was very much in her element as feisty, accident-prone mayor's daughter "Prudy Perkins". In this film, she displayed a talent for visual comedy reminiscent of Lucille Ball, but otherwise rarely seen since silent films. There was also great chemistry and clever verbal interaction between her and co-star James Garner, as the newly appointed sheriff who catches her character in various embarrassing situations.

She was also featured in the spy film Assignment to Kill (1968), followed by the predictable "Baby Jane" look-alike TV thriller How Awful About Allan (1970). Joan then gave assured performances in two subsequent thrillers, the stylish The Last of Sheila (1973) and the made-for-TV disguised remake of Diabolique (1955), Reflections of Murder (1974) with Sam Waterston. Joan gave a spectacular performance in the Michael Crichton book adaption of The Terminal Man (1974) where she plays a compassionate psychiatrist who is tormented by her patient. There were to be few roles of interest until Only When I Laugh (1981). The film, based on Neil Simon's play "The Gingerbread Lady", won Joan a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress. By that time, she was already so ill with cancer that she had to travel to the award ceremony in a wheelchair.

Joan Hackett was well known as a social activist, embracing solar energy and losing causes such as the preservation of the old Morosco Theatre in Times Square with equal fervor. According to personal friends, she accepted her fate with equanimity and dignity, dying at the age of just 49 in a hospital in Encino, California, in October 1983.

Educated at the University of Toronto & Balliol College, Oxford, he joined the Canadian Field Artillery in World War I, served in France & was wounded. His first appearance was in a stage production in Siberia, during the multi-nation intervention of 1918 - 1919. Raymond returned to Canada & his family farm implement business , Massey-Harris Tractor Company, after the war, although footlights proved a greater allure than plowshares. He appeared at the Everyman Theatre, London in "In the Zone" in 1922 and from then his acting career never looked back. As adept in front of arc lights as the footlights, he was signed up for a 5 year contract by Alexander Korda. Major Massey was invalided from the Canadian Army in 1943. Raymond was devoted to his American wife Dorothy, to whom he referred all queries and problems. He had an ardent radio following in the States and became an American citizen. This was natural as his mother and maternal grandmother were Americans. A bad traveler, Raymond hated the sea and airplanes. A good sportsman, he excelled at golf and fishing, A scholar, he loved good literature. A modest man, he regarded himself as supremely uninteresting.

One of the movies' most memorable tough guys, Simon Oakland actually began his career as a concert violinist, turning to acting in the late 1940s. After a long string of roles in Broadway hits, including "Light Up the Sky," "The Shrike" and "Inherit the Wind," Oakland made his film debut as the tough but compassionate journalist who speaks up for Susan Hayward's "Barbara Graham" in I Want to Live! (1958). He would go on to play a long series of tough guy types, albeit usually on the right side of the law, in such films as The Sand Pebbles (1966), Tony Rome (1967), Psycho (1960), and, most notably, nasty Lieutenant Schrank in West Side Story (1961). He was also a frequently seen face on TV, at one point serving as a regular or semi-regular on four different series at once. Much respected by his co-workers as a total professional, he died, after a long battle with cancer, one day after his 68th birthday.

Solidly built, boyishly handsome American leading-man, Christopher George was the son of Greek immigrants. Weaned on stories of the legendary Greek heroes, George and his brother Nick (later a prominent fashion photographer) both quit high school to join the Marines. Completing his education after his tour of duty, George acted in numerous TV commercials, winning a New York Film Festival Award for his efforts. Appearing in Broadway plays like A Street Car Named Desire and films like Howard Hawks's El Dorado (1966). He became a great friend of John Wayne also in Chisum (1970). George also became a TV star in the wartime adventure series The Rat Patrol (1966). He later starred in the science fiction series The Immortal (1969) and then returned to filmmaking. He also starred in Project X (1968), The Train Robbers (1973), Midway (1976), Grizzly (1976), Day of the Animals (1977), The Exterminator (1980), Graduation Day (1981), and his last, Mortuary (1982). He also appeared in another 30 other films and TV guest appearances. Christopher George died of a heart attack. He was married to his wife, actress Lynda Day George (a frequent co-star) for 14 years.

Louis Germain David de Funès de Galarza was born on July 31, 1914, in Courbevoie, France. His father, named Carlos Luis de Funes de Galarza, was a former lawyer of Seville, Spain, who became a diamond cutter. His mother, named Leonor Soto Reguera, was of Spanish and Portugese extraction.

Young Louis de Funès was fond of drawing and piano playing. He dropped out of school and worked various jobs, mostly as a jazz pianist at Pigalle, making his customers laugh every time he made a grimace. He studied acting for one year at the Simon acting school. There he made some useful contacts, including Daniel Gélin among others. During the occupation of Paris in the Second World War, he continued his piano studies at a music school, where he fell in love with a secretary, named Jeanne de Maupassant, a grand-niece of writer Guy de Maupassant. She had fallen in love with "the young man who played jazz like god"; they married in 1943, and had two sons born in 1944 and 1949. Funès continued playing piano at clubs, knowing there wasn't much call for a short, balding, skinny actor. His wife and Daniel Gelin encouraged him until he managed to overcome his rejection. He made his film debut in 1945, at the age of 31, and went on playing about one hundred film roles in the next twenty years.

Louis de Funès shot to international fame in the 1960's after his roles in such slapstick comedies as The Gendarme of Saint-Tropez (1964) and the Fantomas (1964) trilogy. He brilliantly portrayed a funny French policeman, whose hilarious hyperactivity, uncontrolled anger, and sardonic laughter produced a highly comic effect. Funès was voted the most favorite actor in France in 1968, and remained very popular in Europe during the 1970's. He also continued to play on stage during his career as a film star, and was acclaimed for his stage works in classic French theatre. Funès was instrumental in making film adaptations of such theatre plays as 'Oscar continues' and the Molière's 'The Miser', among other plays.

Nicknamed "the man with the forty faces per minute", Louis de Funès played bit parts in over eighty films, before he got his first leading roles, eventually becoming the leading French comedian. He co-starred with the major French actors of the time, including Jean Marais and Mylène Demongeot in the Fantomas trilogy, and also Jean Gabin, Fernandel, Bourvil, Coluche, Annie Girardot, and Yves Montand. Funès's collaboration with director Gérard Oury produced a memorable tandem of Funès-Bourvil. He also worked with Jean Girault in the famous 'Gendarmes' series. In a departure from the Gendarme image, Funès collaborated with Claude Zidi, who wrote for him a new character full of nuances and frankness in The Wing or The Thigh? (1976), which is arguably the best of his roles.

Funès played over 130 roles in film and over 100 roles on stage. From 1943-1983 Louis de Funès was married to Jeanne Barthelemy de Maupassant. Their son, Olivier De Funès , had a brief acting career before becoming a pilot with Air France, his other son, named Patrick de Funès, became a medical doctor. Louis de Funès was also a rose grower, a variety of roses has been named the "Louis de Funès rose" after him. He died of a heart attack and complications of a stroke on January 27, 1983, in Nantes, France. He was laid to rest in the Cimetière du Cellier, and a monument of him was erected in the rose-garden of his wife's castle.

The father of cinematic Surrealism and one of the most original directors in the history of the film medium, Luis Buñuel was given a strict Jesuit education (which sowed the seeds of his obsession with both religion and subversive behavior), and subsequently moved to Madrid to study at the university there, where his close friends included Salvador Dalí and Federico García Lorca.

After moving to Paris, Buñuel did a variety of film-related odd jobs in Paris, including working as an assistant to director Jean Epstein. With financial assistance from his mother and creative assistance from Dalí, he made his first film, the 17-minute An Andalusian Dog (1929), in 1929, and immediately catapulted himself into film history thanks to its shocking imagery (much of which - like the sliced eyeball at the beginning - still packs a punch even today). It made a deep impression on the Surrealist Group, who welcomed Buñuel into their ranks.

The following year, sponsored by wealthy art patrons, he made his first feature, the scabrous witty and violent The Golden Age (1930), which mercilessly attacked the church and the middle classes, themes that would preoccupy Buñuel for the rest of his career. That career, though, seemed almost over by the mid-1930s, as he found work increasingly hard to come by and after the Spanish Civil War he emigrated to the US where he worked for the Museum of Modern Art and as a film dubber for Warner Bros.

Moving to Mexico in the late 1940s, he teamed up with producer Óscar Dancigers and after a couple of unmemorable efforts shot back to international attention with the lacerating study of Mexican street urchins in The Young and the Damned (1950), winning him the Best Director award at the Cannes Film Festival.

But despite this new-found acclaim, Buñuel spent much of the next decade working on a variety of ultra-low-budget films, few of which made much impact outside Spanish-speaking countries (though many of them are well worth seeking out). But in 1961, General Franco, anxious to be seen to be supporting Spanish culture invited Buñuel back to his native country - and Bunuel promptly bit the hand that fed him by making Viridiana (1961), which was banned in Spain on the grounds of blasphemy, though it won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

This inaugurated Buñuel's last great period when, in collaboration with producer Serge Silberman and writer Jean-Claude Carrière he made seven extraordinary late masterpieces, starting with Diary of a Chambermaid (1964). Although far glossier and more expensive, and often featuring major stars such as Jeanne Moreau and Catherine Deneuve, the films showed that even in old age Buñuel had lost none of his youthful vigour.

After saying that every one of his films from Belle de Jour (1967) onwards would be his last, he finally kept his promise with That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), after which he wrote a memorable (if factually dubious) autobiography, in which he said he'd be happy to burn all the prints of all his films

• a classic Surrealist gesture if ever there was one.

Burly, coarse, raspy-voiced Mike Kellin was often cast as a tough cop, gangster, or soldier, usually a corporal or sergeant, so it may be surprising to some that during his stint in the US Navy during World War II he was a Lieutenant Commander.

Though he seemed to be straight out of the tenements of New York City, he was born in upscale Hartford, Connecticut, and received his education at Boston College. After his discharge from the Navy, he enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. He appeared in more than 50 plays, winning an Obie award and being nominated for a Tony. He made his film debut in the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis comedy At War with the Army (1950)--as, of course, a sergeant. He turned in a first-rate performance as a tough infantry soldier with a soft spot for a young Polish refugee in the WWII film Hell Is for Heroes (1962). He died of cancer in Nyack, New York, in 1983.

Sir Ralph Richardson was one of the greatest actors of the 20th Century English-language theater, ascending to the height of his profession in the mid-1930s when he became a star in London's West End. He became the first actor of his generation to be knighted. He became Sir Ralph in 1947, and was quickly followed by Laurence Olivier in 1948, and then by John Gielgud in 1953. Co-stars and friends, the three theatrical knights were considered the greatest English actors of their generation, primarily for their mastery of the Shakespearean canon. They occupied the height of the British acting pantheon in the post-World War II years.

The well-worn phrase "Tall in the saddle" is certainly one easy way of describing (and perhaps pigeon-holing) leathery, wiry-framed 1940s and early 1950s western film star Rod Cameron, although he proved quite capable in crime stories, horrors and even swing-era musicals.

The 6'4" Canadian-born actor was born Nathan Roderick Cox on December 7, 1910, and raised in Alberta. Once his aspirations of becoming a Royal Canadian Mountie passed, he decided to seek fame and fortune as an actor in New York and initially grabbed some work as a laborer on the Holland Tunnel project in Manhattan. When no progress was made acting-wise, he moved to California where he made his "debut" in an unbilled bit in one of Bette Davis' scenes in The Old Maid (1939). Upon release, however, he discovered his bit in the scene had been deleted.

Cameron found a slight "in" (as in "stand-in") with Paramount Pictures for such stars as Fred MacMurray while managing to find himself sparingly used in other Paramount films. To supplement his income he also played leading man in the studio's screen tests for starlet wanna-bes and his athleticism paid off playing stunt double for such established cowboy icons as Buck Jones. Cameron toiled as a bit player for quite some time and appeared insignificantly in such classics as Christmas in July (1940) and North West Mounted Police (1940) (where he fulfilled his early wish by playing a Mountie!). Occasionally he would find a noticeable secondary role, in such lesser films as The Monster and the Girl (1941), The Forest Rangers (1942) and as Jesse James in The Remarkable Andrew (1942).

Cameron's banner year was 1943, when he finally broke out of the minor leagues and into the major ranks. His breakout screen role was as clench-jawed Agent Rex Bennett, out to bring down the foreign enemy and save the world, in the Republic serial cliffhangers G-Men vs. The Black Dragon (1943) and Secret Service in Darkest Africa (1943). From there he was signed by Universal to appear in a flurry of low-budget westerns with Fuzzy Knight as his comic sidekick. Aside from the rough-hewn heroics he was paid to display, he would occasionally show a softer side for the ladies, such as with fellow Canadian Yvonne De Carlo in Salome, Where She Danced (1945), Frontier Gal (1945) and River Lady (1948). Seldom would he venture outside the action genre, however, one of the few times being his role as a symphony conductor in Swing Out, Sister (1945). For the most part he remained rooted in westerns and the only variance within that realm was the occasional black-hatted bad guy.

Among Cameron's many dusty showcases (more often than not made at Republic or Universal), Brimstone (1949), Stampede (1949), Dakota Lil (1950) and San Antone (1953) are worth a good look. Cameron never found his Stagecoach (1939) or Shane (1953), a vehicle that might have held him even "taller" in the saddle, but between 1953 and 1955 he was still ranked "top 5" box-office.

In the 1950s Cameron found time to settle into a couple of syndicated TV series. Both City Detective (1953) and State Trooper (1956) lasted a couple of seasons. He also guested on the more popular western series, such as Bonanza (1959), Laramie (1959) and The Virginian (1962). When his movie career began to fade in the early 1960s, he went to Spain for a few spaghetti westerns and appeared in a couple of low-budget westerns such as Requiem for a Gunfighter (1965) and The Bounty Killer (1965), which was noticed more for reuniting sagebrush stars from yesteryear than for its high quality. He also played an aging rodeo star who dies early in the story in the biopic Evel Knievel (1971).

The only serious tabloid scandal he ever found himself in was when he divorced wife Angela Alves-Lico (1950-1960) and then immediately married his ex-wife's mother, Dorothy, who was a few years older than him. An extended battle with cancer finally claimed the 73-year-old actor in 1983 at a Gainesville, Georgia, hospital.

Buster Crabbe graduated from the University of Southern California. In 1931, while working on That's My Boy (1932) for Columbia Pictures, he was tested by MGM for Tarzan and rejected. Paramount Pictures put him in King of the Jungle (1933) as Kaspa, the Lion Man (after a book of that title but clearly a copy of the Tarzan stories). Publicity for this film emphasized his having won the 1932 Olympic 400-meter freestyle swimming championship and suggested a rivalry with Johnny Weissmuller. Producer Sol Lesser wanted Crabbe for an independent Tarzan the Fearless (1933), though he first had to get James Pierce to waive rights to the part already promised to him by his father-in-law, Edgar Rice Burroughs. The film was released as both a feature and a serial; most houses showed only the first serial episode, which critics panned as a badly organized feature. Just prior to the film's release, Crabbe married his college sweetheart and gave himself one year to either make it as an actor or start law school at USC. Paramount put him in a number of Zane Grey westerns, then Universal Pictures gave him the lead in very successful sci-fi serials (Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers) from 1936 to 1940. In 1940, he began a string of Billy the Kid westerns for low-budget (very low-budget) studio PRC. After World War II, he devoted much of his time to his swimming pool corporation and operation of a boys' camp in New York. In 1950, he made the serials Pirates of the High Seas (1950) and King of the Congo (1952). In addition, he was very active on television in the 1950s. In 1953, he hosted a local show in New York City that featured his serials. He played the title role in the adventure series Captain Gallant of the Foreign Legion (1955). During television's "Golden Age", he had several "meaty" lead roles on such weekly anthology series as "Kraft Theater" ("Million Dollar Rookie") and "Philco Television Playhouse" ("Cowboy for Chris") He later returned to western features to play Wyatt Earp in Badman's Country (1958) and gave a stellar performance. Buster Crabbe died at age 75 of a heart attack on April 23, 1983.

Jan Clayton was born on 26 August 1917 in Tularosa, New Mexico, USA. She was an actress, known for Lassie (1954), This Man's Navy (1945) and Flight Angels (1940). She was married to George Greeley, Robert Warren Lerner and Russell Hayden. She died on 28 August 1983 in West Hollywood, California, USA.

Fay Spain was was your typical B-movie drive-in bad girl - sometimes blonde, sometimes brunette, always bodacious. A tease, a taunt, and a temptress throughout most her career, Fay Spain was born in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1932, as Lona May Spain to R.C. Spain and Arminta Frances Cochran. She headed to New York where she initially found summer stock work and a bit of television exposure. One of her earliest TV appearances was not as an actress but as a contestant on You Bet Your Life (1950), starring Groucho Marx.

By 1956, this fetching starlet was winning episodic roles on the more popular shows of the day, including Perry Mason (1957), Cheyenne (1955) and Gunsmoke (1955). She was also gaining notice on the covers of magazines. This cheesecake attention led directly to her juvenile delinquent debut in Dragstrip Girl (1957) with John Ashley and Steven Terrell, where she immediately established herself as the party girl boys are willing to race cars and fight over. Other equally low-budget films followed, with Teenage Doll (1957), The Crooked Circle (1957), and The Abductors (1957).

She made an aggressive move into higher quality films with Erskine Caldwell's best-seller God's Little Acre (1958) as "Darlin' Jill", another amoral sexpot, and as Rod Steiger's moll in Al Capone (1959), but then it was right back to Grade Z level work with The Beat Generation (1959) co-starring Mamie Van Doren, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve (1960) in which she tempts Martin Milner with the old forbidden fruit routine, and a 1962 Italian spectacle as an evil queen trying to thwart the actions of Hercules. Although Fay made some efforts to return to TV work, her career was pretty much over by the mid-60s. One of her last roles was a bit part as a mafioso matriarch in The Godfather Part II (1974). Fay Spain died of cancer at age 50 in 1983.

George Cukor was an American film director of Hungarian-Jewish descent, better known for directing comedies and literary adaptations. He once won the Academy Award for Best Director, and was nominated other four times for the same Award.

In 1899, George Dewey Cukor was born on the Lower East Side of New York City. His parents were assistant district attorney Viktor Cukor and Helén Ilona Gross. His middle name "Dewey" honored Admiral George Dewey who was considered a war hero for his victory in the Battle of Manila Bay, in 1898.

As a child, Cukor received dancing lessons, and soon fell in love with the theater, appearing in several amateur plays. In 1906, he performed in a recital with David O. Selznick (1902-1965), who would later become a close friend.

As a teenager, Cukor often visited the New York Hippodrome, a well-known Manhattan theater. He often cut classes while attending high school, in order to attend afternoon matinees. He later took a job as a supernumerary with the Metropolitan Opera, and at times performed there in black-face.

Cukor graduated from the DeWitt Clinton High School in 1917. His father wanted him to follow a legal career, and had his son enrolled City College of New York. Cukor lost interest in his studies and dropped out of college in 1918. He then took a job as an assistant stage manager and bit player for a touring production of the British musical "The Better 'Ole". The musical was an adaptation of the then-popular British comic strip "Old Bill" by Bruce Bairnsfather (1887-1959).

In 1920, Cukor became the stage manager of the Knickerbocker Players, a theatrical troupe. In 1921, Cukor became the general manager of the Lyceum Players, a summer stock company. In 1925, Cukor was one of the co-founders the C.F. and Z. Production Company. With this theatrical company, Cukor started working as a theatrical director. He made his Broadway debut as a director with the play "Antonia" by Melchior Lengyel (1880-1974).

The C.F. and Z. Production Company was eventually renamed the Cukor-Kondolf Stock Company, and started recruiting up-and-coming theatrical talents. Cukor's theatrical troupe included at various times Louis Calhern, Ilka Chase, Bette Davis, Douglass Montgomery, Frank Morgan, Reginald Owen, Elizabeth Patterson, and Phyllis Povah.

Cukor attained great critical acclaim in 1926 for directing "The Great Gatsby", an adaptation of a then-popular novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940). He directed six more Broadway productions until 1929. At the time, Hollywood film studios were recruiting New York theater talent for sound films, and Cukor was hired by Paramount Pictures. He started as an apprentice director before the studio lent him to Universal Pictures. His first notable film work was serving as a dialogue director for "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930).

After returning to Paramount Pictures, he worked as aco-director. His first solo directorial effort was "Tarnished Lady" (1931), and at that time he earned a weekly salary of $1500. Cukor co-directed the film "One Hour with You" (1932) with Ernst Lubitsch, but Lubitsch demanded sole directorial credit. Cukor filed a legal suit but eventually had to settle for a credit as the film's assistant director. He left Paramount in protest, and took a new job with RKO Studios.

During the 1930s, Cukor was entrusted with directing films for RKO's leading actresses. He worked often with Katharine Hepburn (1907-2003), although not always with box-office success. He did direct such box office hits as "Little Women" (1933) and "Holiday" (1938), but also notable flops such as "Sylvia Scarlett" (1935).

In 1936, Cukor was assigned to work on the film adaptation of the blockbuster novel "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell. He spent the next two years preoccupied with the film's pre-production, and with supervising screen tests for actresses seeking to play leading character Scarlett O'Hara. Cukor reportedly favored casting either Katharine Hepburn or Paulette Goddard for the role. Producer David O. Selznick refused to cast either one, since Hepburn was coming off a string of flops and was viewed as "box office poison," while Goddard was rumored to have had a scandalous affair with Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977) and her reputation suffered for it.

Cukor did not get to direct "Gone with the Wind", as Selznick decided to assign the directing duties to Victor Fleming (1889-1949). Cukor's involvement with the film was limited to coaching actresses Vivien Leigh (1913-1967) and Olivia de Havilland (1916-). Similarly, the very same year, Cukor also failed to receive a directing credit for "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), though he was responsible for several casting and costuming decisions for this iconic classic.

In this same period, Cukor did direct an all-female cast in "The Women" (1939), as well as Greta Garbo's final motion picture performance in "Two-Faced Woman" (1941). Then his film career was interrupted by World War II, as he joined the Signal Corps in 1942. Given his experience as a film director, Cukor was soon assigned to producing training and instructional films for army personnel. He wanted to gain an officer's commission, but was denied promotion above the rank of private. Cukor suspected that rumors of his homosexuality were the reason he never received the promotion.

During the 1940s, Cukor had a number of box-office hits, such "A Woman's Face" (1941) and "Gaslight" (1944). He forged a working alliance with screenwriters Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon, and the trio collaborated on seven films between 1947-1954.

Until the early 1950s, most of his Cukor's films were in black-and-white, and his first film in Technicolor was "A Star Is Born" (1954), with Judy Garland as the leading actress. Casting the male lead for the film proved difficult, as several major stars were either not interested in the role or were considered unsuitable by the studio. Cukor had to settle for James Mason as the male lead, but the film was highly successful and received 6 Academy Award nominations. But Cukor was not nominated for directing.

He had a handful of critical successes over the following years, such as Les Girls (1957) and "Wild Is the Wind" (1957), and also helmed the unfinished "Something's Got to Give" (1962), which had a troubled production and went at least $2 million over budget before it was terminated.

Cukor had a comeback with the critically and commercially successful "My Fair Lady," one of the highlights of his career., for which he won both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for Best Director, along with the Directors Guild of America Award. However, his career very quickly slowed down, and the aging Cukor was infrequently involved with new projects.

Cukor's most notable film in the 1970s was the fantasy The Blue Bird (1976) , which was the first joint Soviet-American production. It was a box-office flop, though it received a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and was groundbreaking for its time. Cukor's swan song was "Rich and Famous" (1981), depicting the relationship of two women over a period of several decades., played by co-stars Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen, Cukor's final pair of leading ladies.

He retired as a director at the age of 82, and died a year later of a heart attack in 1983. At the time of his death, his net worth was estimated to be $2,377,720. He was buried at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, CA. Cukor was buried next to his long-time platonic friend Frances Howard (1903-1976), the wife of legendary studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn.

She won a beauty contest at age fourteen. In 1920 her mother, Edith Shearer, took Norma and her sister Athole Shearer (Mrs. Howard Hawks) to New York. Ziegfeld rejected her for his "Follies," but she got work as an extra in several movies. She spent much money on eye doctor's services trying to correct her cross-eyed stare caused by a muscle weakness. Irving Thalberg had seen her early acting efforts and, when he joined Louis B. Mayer in 1923, gave her a five year contract. He thought she should retire after their marriage, but she wanted bigger parts. In 1927, she insisted on firing the director Viktor Tourjansky because he was unsure of her cross-eyed stare. Her first talkie was in The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929); four movies later, she won an Oscar in The Divorcee (1930). She intentionally cut down film exposure during the 1930s, relying on major roles in Thalberg's prestige projects: The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) and Romeo and Juliet (1936) (her fifth Oscar nomination). Thalberg died of a second heart attack in September, 1936, at age 37. Norma wanted to retire, but MGM more-or-less forced her into a six-picture contract. David O. Selznick offered her the part of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939), but public objection to her cross-eyed stare killed the deal. She starred in The Women (1939), turned down the starring role in Mrs. Miniver (1942), and retired in 1942. Later that year she married Sun Valley ski instructor Martin Arrouge, eleven years younger than she (he waived community property rights). From then on, she shunned the limelight; she was in very poor health the last decade of her life.

Robert Aldrich entered the film industry in 1941 when he got a job as a production clerk at RKO Radio Pictures. He soon worked his way up to script clerk, then became an assistant director, a production manager and an associate producer. He began writing and directing for TV series in the early 1950s, and directed his first feature in 1953 (Big Leaguer (1953)). Soon thereafter he established his own production company and produced most of his own films, collaborating in the writing of many of them. Among his best-known pictures are Kiss Me Deadly (1955), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) and the muscular WW II mega-hit The Dirty Dozen (1967).

Born in Andover, Massachusetts to Dorcas (nee Curley; 07 Jan 1915-12 Oct 1993) and Phillip Anthony Costello (07 Dec 1912-09 Jun 2000). He grew up in Andover with his brother Michael.

After he graduated in 1955, from Phillips Andover Academy, Anthony went to both the Rhode Island School of Design, and the University of Florence in Italy, and then he attended Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where he received a master of fine arts degree.

Tony first tried painting as his artistic outlet, something he would continue on and off all of his life, but he also loved theatre, and toured with the Cleveland Playhouse in 1961. He then appeared in Boston theatre and finally on Broadway, and moved to Hollywood in 1963 looking to work more in film and television.

In 1974, he started writing a story in which he could star when the story was produced. The story then became a mini-series and then a novel, and when he was finished there was no part for him. Some studio producers showed interest, but when he said that the deal came with him as scriptwriter, they turned him down. Bantam Books published the story as a novel in early 1982 under the title Jericho. The book is a love story set around the Great Depression, the union movement, and the struggle between bosses in a Massachusetts mill town in decline in the 1930s.

Anthony Costello died at his home, after suffering from AIDS.

Reedy, balding, often bespectacled American character actor with pencil-thin moustache, once described as the man with TV's 'most deceptive face'. He looked like - and was - a certified public accountant, graduate from Northeastern University. A struggling actor in his youth, he worked in stock, tent shows and on radio. After army service in World War II, he became a prolific performer in early anthology series on television (eg. Kraft Theatre (1947) and Robert Montgomery Presents (1950)), though he continued to alternate these with appearances on the New York stage. He was also glimpsed in movies, invariably in small supporting roles, most notably as Deacon Davis in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958), and as George Lowery, boss to doomed Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960).

Vaughn reserved his best for the small screen, where he showed his versatility in genial or waspish roles, often as doctors, judges and bankers. He was capable of portraying benevolence as easily as taking on the mantle of greedy or corrupt attorneys, or second-string grifters. He also played George 'Pa' Barker, in an episode of The Untouchables (1959)). Among his numerous TV credits, his five journeys into The Twilight Zone (1959) stand out in particular.

Severe spinal deterioration brought about Vaughn's retirement from acting in 1976. His wife of many years, Ruth Moss, a fellow graduate of the Leland Powers School, was a noted Boston radio personality and Broadway actress.

A stocky, serious-looking character, Carl William Demarest started off in vaudeville in 1905 along with two older brothers. At one time he also performed in a stage act with his wife Estelle Collette (billed as 'Demarest and Collette') and then moved on to Broadway. He entered movies in 1926 and first appeared in Vitaphone one-reelers and in films for Warner Brothers, which included the first sound picture, The Jazz Singer (1927). In his later years, he became a household name on TV as retired sea captain Uncle Charley, replacing a seriously ill William Frawley in My Three Sons (1960). However, Demarest was truly at his best during the 1940s as a member of Preston Sturges's unofficial stock company of players, noted for his trademark deadpan or exasperated expressions. He made his reputation in eccentric comic supporting roles, invariably seen as pushy, wary or droll cops, business guys or wisecracking, jaundiced friends of the hero with names like Mugsy, Kockenlocker or Heffelfinger. The Great McGinty (1940), Sullivan's Travels (1941) and The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1943) are often cited as his best films. When movie offers began to diminish, Demarest segued into television work with many guest spots and a regular co-starring role as a ranch foreman in the western series Tales of Wells Fargo (1957). As a character actor, his quiet intensity and comic timing kept him in demand well into his eighties. Nominated just once for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor in the biopic The Jolson Story (1946), he lost out to Harold Russell for his performance in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946).

Michael Conrad was a powerfully built, towering New York-born American character actor, best known for his role as the pompous but beloved desk sergeant Phil Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues (1981), for which he won two Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series Emmy Awards (1981, 1982). He also played Michael Stivic (Rob Reiner)'s uncle on an early episode of All in the Family (1971), who objects to his nephew's non-religious marriage ceremony to a non-Catholic. Conrad did a stint of military service with the U.S. Army Field Artillery before attended New York City College and later drama school. He made his television debut in 1955, moving to Hollywood in 1963. Conrad remained busy for almost 30 years, appearing in 25 TV movies. He was a familiar supporting player in films, including The Longest Yard (1974), and, early in his career, on stage. Conrad died from urethral cancer during the shooting of the police drama's fourth season, five weeks after his 58th birthday.

The son of a solicitor, British character actor John Le Mesurier attended public school in Dorset, England, before embarking on a career in law. However, acting was his true calling, and at age 20, with his parents' approval, he began his acting career by studying drama at the Fay Compton School of Acting, where one of his classmates was Alec Guinness.

After acting school he performed in repertory until World War II, when he served as a captain in the Northwest Indian Frontier.

After the war, he returned to the stage and made his film debut in Death in the Hand (1948). By the late 1950s Le Mesurier had made appearances in numerous films, especially those made by the Boulting Brothers, and also on television, particularly on Hancock's Half Hour (1956). In 1968 he landed arguably his most popular role, that of Sgt. Wilson in the long-running television series Dad's Army (1968). Although preferring comedy, Le Mesurier also excelled in drama, winning a BAFTA award for Best Actor of the Year in 1971 for his performance in Dennis Potter's "Traitor (1971) (TV)".

In 1977, during "Dad's Army", he had become very ill, but he recovered and continued acting until his death six years later.