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Noted stage actress who has also done limited work in TV and film. Born in Germany and raised in Madison, Wisconsin, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. Her Broadway debut was in "The Seagull" in 1938. She won her first Tony (and other awards) in 1950 for Clifford Odets "The Country Girl". Her second Tony was for the role of Martha in Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?".

She later became a highly influential acting teacher at New York's HB Studio (founded by Herbert Berghof in 1945) and authored best-selling acting texts, Respect for Acting, with Haskel Frankel, and A Challenge for the Actor. Her most substantial contributions to theater pedagogy were a series of "object exercises" that built on the work of Konstantin Stanislavski and Yevgeni Vakhtangov.

She was elected to the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981. She twice won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play and received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999.

Tall, lean, handsome veteran stage and classically trained actor, best known for his iconic role as Youngblood Priest - the long haired, stylishly dressed cocaine dealer who wants to make one last big score so he can retire from the cocaine business, in the seminal 1972 crime drama Super Fly. Son of a jazz musician who worked as a factory worker to support his family, Ron O'Neal grew up in the ghetto. After graduating Glenville High School, he attended Ohio State University, and after a disastrous semester where he, in his words, "just played bridge", developed an interest in acting after seeing Finian's Rainbow at the Karamu House. He joined the Karamu House and trained with the interracial acting troupe between 1957-1966 acting in productions of Kiss Me Kate and A Streetcar Named Desire. He moved to New York in 1967 to pursue a career in acting. He taught acting classes in Harlem to support himself and appeared in Off-Broadway plays and summer stock.

His first big break came when he was cast in a Broadway production of Ceremonies In Dark Old Men. In 1970, he was propelled into the spotlight after appearing in Charles Gordone's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, No Place to Be Somebody. The stirring performance earned him an Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Clarence Derwent Award and the National Theater Award. He had two minor roles in Move (1970) and The Organization (1971), before being contacted by an old friend from Cleveland, screenwriter Phillip Fenty, who wanted him to play the title role in a film about a drug dealer who wants to leave his life of crime behind him. Shot on a starvation budget, Super Fly became a surprise box-office hit. The gifted actor's remarkable performance brought a great measure of class and depth to the role, which if done by a lesser actor could have easily have become "cartoonish".

O'Neal received both praise and criticism for his performance. And there was even talk of an Oscar Nomination. But the criticism proved too much as he later said, "..the press thought I was some n****r off the street who made a movie about his own dissolute life. I never used drugs in those days. And my film was about a dealer who quit selling drugs and got out of that system. Still, the negative press soured my career and, eventually, it soured me."

He followed up the highly successful Super Fly with the sequel, Super Fly T.N.T. (1972), in which he starred in and directed. Unfortunately, the film failed at the box-office and O'Neal soon found the only film roles offered to him were pimps and drug dealers. He returned to Broadway in 1975, replacing Cleavon Little in Murray Schisgal's All Over Town, which was directed by Dustin Hoffman and was Othello at Connecticut's American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford in the 1970s. He'd also been Macbeth and Petruchio in the Taming of the Shrew.

A film career that began with such promise was never allowed to come to fruition. Amidst the political backlash and controversy surrounding Super Fly, and other so called "blaxploitation" films, he was typecast-unable to get roles of merit. He was subjugated to supporting roles beneath his talent and ability - appearing in a string of mediocre low budget and straight to video films. Only his role in the 1977 drama Brothers, and his role in the 1981 made-for-TV film The Sophisticated Gents were of any merit. He also appeared in a number of television guest spots, usually as detectives. He co-starred in the short-lived 1982 series "Bring 'Em Back Alive" and in the television series "The Equalizer" in 1986. O'Neal could be seen in episodes of "A Different World" and "Frank's Place" among others. He appeared in a number of stage productions, including Othello at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in the 1990s. He once again directed, the 1991 well-intentioned drama Up Against A Wall and appeared with fellow "blaxploitation" icons in the 1996 hit film Original Gangsters.

Unfortunately, he was never able to break free from the iconic image he helped to create. On January 14, 2004, he died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was only 66. Ironically, he died a day after Super Fly made its debut on DVD.

There was a time when Catherine Craig was known in Hollywood as a promising and talented "B"-level actress as opposed to being simply Mrs. Robert Preston. All in all, she handled it with grace, poise and wifely dedication.

Born Catherine Jewel Feltus on January 18, 1915, in Bloomington, Indiana, she was the daughter of a circus proprietor and cinema owner who piqued her initial interest in the arts. Although she attended school in the States (in her native Bloomington), she spoke Spanish fluently as a result of her childhood trips with her family to South America (including Santiago, Chile). Graduating from the University of Indiana in 1936, she was a speech instructor's assistant for a time while appearing on the local stage in Indiana.

Eventually relocating to Los Angeles in search of a professional career, her well-modulated voice and crisp diction came in handy when radio work came her way. She met actor Preston while both were fellow students at the Pasadena Playhouse. The lovely blue-eyed, chestnut-haired Catherine initially earned studio interest interest after being spotted by a 20th Century Fox talent agent. She promptly apprenticed with the films Doomed to Die (1940), Murder Over New York (1940) and Manhattan Heartbeat (1940).

Catherine, however, earned a contract at her husband's studio, Paramount, but remained relatively obscure with a trail of decorative bit roles in such dubiously-titled "B" hokum as Las Vegas Nights (1941), West Point Widow (1941), Parachute Nurse (1942), Showboat Serenade (1944) and The Bride Wore Boots (1946). In the post-war years the blue-eyed, chestnut-haired beauty finally began to earn more noticeable assignments such as her lifeboat survivor in Seven Were Saved (1947), her wealthy fiancé menaced by a conniving Albert Dekker in the superb "B" crime thriller The Pretender (1947), and her innocent-eyed prairie flower opposite Randolph Scott in Albuquerque (1948).

Following a few stage endeavors (she appeared with Preston in the plays "Girl of the Golden West" and "The Play's The Thing" in the late 1940s), she appeared in a few more films, the best being The Pretender (1947). By 1950 Catherine had drifted back to minor status and retired from films after a nothing part in No Man of Her Own (1950). From then on she completely avoided the limelight in support of her husband's career. Preston himself became disillusioned with films and the couple moved to New York wherein he became a Tony-winning Broadway performer of musicals and legit plays. Catherine appeared in an occasional play such as "Bell, Book and Candle" and "Inherit the Wind".

After living in Greenwich, Connecticut, then Montecito, California, Preston's film career was rejuvenated when he transferred his Harold Hill success to the big screen in The Music Man (1962). He won an Oscar nomination decades later with Victor/Victoria (1982). Following Preston's death from lung cancer in 1987, Catherine, along with former theater co-stars Mary Martin and Bernadette Peters, paid tribute to him at the Tony Awards presentation that year. Catherine settled in Santa Barbara and passed away at age 88 in 2004.

Sexcelia was born on 25 December 1970 in Puerto Rico. He was an actor, known for Let's Talk About Sex (1998). He died on 14 January 2004.

Bogdan Devic was born on 31 October 1927 in Vrsac, Serbia, Yugoslavia. He was an actor, known for Horoscope (1969), Devetnaest djevojaka i jedan mornar (1971) and Nase priredbe (1973). He died on 14 January 2004 in Belgrade, Serbia and Montenegro.

Joaquín Nin-Culmell was born on 5 September 1908 in Berlin, Germany. He was a composer, known for La sombra de las ideas (2010), Cymbeline (1981) and Antonio María Valencia: Música en Cámara (1987). He died on 14 January 2004 in Oakland, California, USA.

Rubén Recio was an actor, known for El fiscal de hierro (1989), Malditos polleros (1985) and La coralillo (1981). He died on 14 January 2004 in Mexico.