Sophie’s Choice 1982 premiere

Kevin Kline was born in St. Louis, Missouri, to Margaret and Robert Joseph Kline, who owned several stores. His father was of German Jewish descent and his mother was of Irish ancestry. After attending Indiana University in Bloomington, Kline studied at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1972, Kline joined the Acting Company in New York which was run by John Houseman. With this company, Kline performed Shakespeare across the country. On the stage, Kline has won two Tony Awards for his work in the musicals "On the Twentieth Century" (1978) and "The Pirates of Penzance" (1981). After working on the Television soap Search for Tomorrow (1951), Kline went to Hollywood where his first film was Sophie's Choice (1982). He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. His work in the ensemble cast of The Big Chill (1983) would again be highly successful, so that when Lawrence Kasdan wrote Silverado (1985), Kline would again be part of the cast. With his role as Otto "Don't call me Stupid!" West in the film A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Kline would win the Oscar for Supporting Actor. Kline could play classic roles such as Hamlet in Hamlet (1990); or a swashbuckling actor like Douglas Fairbanks in Chaplin (1992); or a comedic role in Soapdish (1991). In all the films that he has worked in, it is hard to find a performance that is not well done. In 1989, Kline married actress Phoebe Cates.

Considered by many critics to be the greatest living actress, Meryl Streep has been nominated for the Academy Award an astonishing 21 times, and has won it three times. Meryl was born Mary Louise Streep in 1949 in Summit, New Jersey, to Mary Wolf (Wilkinson), a commercial artist, and Harry William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive. Her father was of German and Swiss-German descent, and her mother had English, Irish, and German ancestry.

Meryl's early performing ambitions leaned toward the opera. She became interested in acting while a student at Vassar and upon graduation she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama. She gave an outstanding performance in her first film role, Julia (1977), and the next year she was nominated for her first Oscar for her role in The Deer Hunter (1978). She went on to win the Academy Award for her performances in Kramer vs. Kramer (1979) and Sophie's Choice (1982), in which she gave a heart-wrenching portrayal of an inmate mother in a Nazi death camp.

A perfectionist in her craft and meticulous and painstaking in her preparation for her roles, Meryl turned out a string of highly acclaimed performances over the next decade in great films like Silkwood (1983); Out of Africa (1985); Ironweed (1987); and A Cry in the Dark (1988). Her career declined slightly in the early 1990s as a result of her inability to find suitable parts, but she shot back to the top in 1995 with her performance as Clint Eastwood's married lover in The Bridges of Madison County (1995) and as the prodigal daughter in Marvin's Room (1996). In 1998 she made her first venture into the area of producing, and was the executive producer for the moving ...First Do No Harm (1997). A realist when she talks about her future years in film, she remarked that "...no matter what happens, my work will stand..."

Peter MacNicol is an American actor. He received a Theatre World Award for his 1981 Broadway debut in the play Crimes of the Heart. His film roles include Galen in Dragonslayer (1981), Stingo in Sophie's Choice (1982), Janosz Poha in Ghostbusters II (1989), camp organizer Gary Granger in Addams Family Values (1993), and David Langley in Bean (1997).

Carly Simon has an unparalleled career that spans five decades of openhearted storytelling both in song and print. Joining the singer-songwriters of the early 1970s, Simon changed the public's conception of pop music to an honest, sensitive and intelligent craftwork. Simon's biggest success came with 1972's No Secrets which included "You're So Vain." The album sold millions of copies and occupied the Billboard charts for 71 weeks, peaking at #1 for three consecutive weeks.

Carly has released over twenty-eight albums of original music, multiple award-winning film scores including two Disney movies based on Winnie the Pooh, treasured children's books, two instant #1 New York Times bestseller memoirs, and composed Romulus Hunt, a family opera. Her hit songs include "That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be," "Anticipation," "You're So Vain," "Coming Around Again," and "Let the River Run" which was featured in Mike Nichols' movie Working Girl (1988), earning Simon an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Grammy, making her the first female artist in history to win all three awards for a single song as a performer and composer. She has been inducted into the the Grammy Hall of Fame for "You're So Vain", the Songwriter's Hall of Fame and was presented the prestigious Founders Award by ASCAP.

Carly Simon has had an indelible impact on popular music and continues to create, influence and inspire.

Al Corley was born on 22 May 1956 in Wichita, Kansas, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Dynasty (1981), The Ice Road (2021) and Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006). He was previously married to Jessika Cardinahl.

Joan Baez is the middle daughter of Albert Baez and Joan Baez Sr.. At age 10, her father took a job (and the family) to Baghdad, Iraq. A year later they moved to Palo Alto, CA, home of Stanford University. In 1956, she bought her first guitar and heard Martin Luther King, Jr.'s lecture on nonviolence; the following year, she heard Ira Sandperl, a Gandhian scholar, who also influenced her strongly. She graduated from Palo Alto High School in 1958, failed with a demo album, and move the next year to Massachusetts where her father had taken a teaching position at MIT. She performed at Club 47, a folk music club in Cambridge, and participated in the album "Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square". The same year, she met Odetta and Bob Gibson while she was performing at Chicago's "Gate of Horn". Bob invited her to perform July 11 at the Newport Folk Festival, which launched her fame as a folksinger. Her first album for Vanguard, "Joan Baez" (1960), was a huge success. The following year, she met Bob Dylan and released her second very successful album, followed the year later by many southern civil-rights performances and Grammy nominated "Joan Baez in Concert". She launched a tax revolt as part of her protest of the Vietnam war, protested Pete Seeger's exclusion by ABC-TV, and joined in the Free Speech Movement at Berkeley and the civil rights march in Selma AL. In 1967, she spent two brief periods in jail for anti-war protests. In 1969, she gave birth to Gabriel Harris while his father, David Harris, was serving 20 months of a three year sentence for draft resistance. In 1971, her songs were featured in the films Sacco & Vanzetti (1971) and Celebration at Big Sur (1971). A 1974 world tour included Japan, Australia, Israel, Lebanon, Tunisia and Argentina. The 1978 film Renaldo and Clara (1978) featured her performances in Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder tours. In 1980, Antioch University and Rutgers University awarded her the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters for her music and her activism. Next year, PBS aired the documentary "There But For Fortune: Joan Baez in Latin America". The albums, causes and concerts continue, far too numerous to list here.

William Styron was born on 11 June 1925 in Newport News, Virginia, USA. He was a writer, known for Sophie's Choice (1982), Lie Down in Darkness and Playhouse 90 (1956). He was married to Rose Burgunder. He died on 1 November 2006 in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA.

Rose Styron is known for Plimpton! Starring George Plimpton as Himself (2012), All Downhill from Here (2015) and Classical Baby (I'm Grown Up Now): The Poetry Show (2008).

Norman Mailer, the Brooklyn-born and -bred writer who fought for what he characterized as the "heavyweight championship" of American letters after the 1961 death of Ernest Hemingway, never came close to his dream of writing the Great American novel, but he was a colossus of American culture and literature in the 1960s, '70s and '80s. When he died in 2007 at the age of 84, Mailer towered above all other American writers of his and subsequent generations,according to his "New York Times" obituary. A primal life force whose writing elucidated the human condition among America and Americans better than any of his contemporaries for better than three decades, Mailer likely will rank with Herman Melville and Hemingway as among the greatest writers produced by the United States. Although denied the Nobel Prize that he had long coveted (winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, Mailer believed that the near-fatal stabbing of his second-wife Adele Morales by himself in 1960 attributed to his failure to win the big prize), Mailer will be the writer that future generations go to to understand the America of the late 1940s through at least the early '80s. "Advertisements for Myself" (1959), "An American Dream (1966)" (1965), "The Armies of the Night" (1969) and "Executioners Song, The (1980) (TV)_" -- one compendium of odds and ends interlaced with Mailer's musings, one novel, and two books of "journalism" that he classified as novels -- will be mandatory on the reading lists of universities 100 years in the future.

Norman Mailer was born in January 1923 in Long Branch, New Jersey, to Fanny (Schneider), who ran a nursing/housekeeping agency, and Isaac Barnett Mailer, an accountant. His family was Jewish. Mailer entered Harvard College in 1939 at the age of 16 to study engineering at a time when there was still a quota on Jews at the Ivy League universities, to keep them the province of the WASPs that still controlled the control up to and through World War II. (Mailer would be a commentator on WASPs and their loosening grip on America and American culture in the post-World War II period. He saw the space project and the landing of a man on the moon as the apotheosis of WASP culture.) He fell in love with literature at Harvard, and began his first attempts at creative writing. Mailer took his degree in 1943, was drafted into the Army the following year and served briefly with a rifle company in the Philippines. His experiences as an infantryman would be the genesis of his 1948 novel "The Naked and The Dead", one of the first of the World War II novels written by the men who had fought it.

Mailer would never have termed the generation that went to war in 1941-45 "The Greatest Generation", a concept alien to such post-war writers as Mailer's erstwhile friend James Jones (author of "From Here to Eternity", "Catch-22" author Joseph Heller, or populist American historian Howard Zinn, all of whom served in the War. The officers and enlisted men of Mailer's novel "The Naked and the Dead" are not saints, nor are they on noble missions, let alone quests for something as abstract as "democracy". Democracy is not a staple of Norman Mailer's Army. The officers, as a class, represent an insidious form of fascism -- in kind, if not degree -- in this war against fascism. Published in 1948, "The Naked and The Dead" was a bestseller and made its 25 year old author famous and relatively well-off, financially. Mailer would never have to toil at any craft other than writing for the rest of the nearly 60 years allotted to him. His next two novels, "Barbary Shore" (1951) and "The Deer Park" (1954) were artistic and commercial failures. For 10 years after the publication of "The Deer Park" until "An American Dream" (serialized in "Esquire Magazine" in 1964, rewritten and published as a novel in 1965), Mailer eschewed tackling another novel. Instead, he turned to journalism and revolutionized what had been one of the ghettos of American letters. If there had been no Norman Mailer, perhaps there would have been a "New Journalism", but it would have been poorer as he was its greatest exponent. "New Journalism" was a moniker hung on a particularly personal type of reflection added to the pedantic Who, What, Where & How? of traditional reporting. Rather than exile himself from the story in the interest of an impossible-to-obtain "neutrality" that is so dear to the mainstream American newspaper and magazine culture currying favor with advertisers beyond the truss & body building equipment slums of the old "Men's magazines", Mailer injected himself into the story and wrote about how he was effected by events. His seminal article about the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles, "Superman Comes to the Supermarket" (Superman being John F. Kennedy and the Supermarket the Los Angeles where the DNC was held, as well as the new post-War America at large") might very well be considered as the starting point of the New Journalism. The article was published in the November 1960 issue of "Esquire Magazine." Tom Wolfe and other masters of the "New Journalism," which stressed a kind of irreverence towards the subject, soon followed.

In an American society that is still enthralled to Victorian-era concepts of class (Virginia Woolf denounced authors who wrote for money, a reflection of the aristocratic disdain for anyone who made rather than inherited money as vulgarians whose seed was tainted by contact with the till), Mailer's achievement was looked down upon. Rather than being hailed for revolutionizing American letters, Mailer was treated patronizingly by the Literary Establishment. Yet, the serious literary novel now is as nearly dead as all the Cassandras of the 1960s and '70s prognosticated, replaced by "non-fiction" memoirs, in which writers no longer hide behind fictive personas to tell stories, but take full-credit for living lives as full of foul incidents as any novel ever published. (That many of these "true tales" are fiction is beside the point.) Ironically, Norman Mailer, who longed to write the Great American novel, likely must bear the lion's share of responsibility for the death of the novel and the rise of the confessional "non-fiction" book, as he elevated "mere journalism" into an art form. Reporting became and art when Mailer married his beautiful writing with naked confession that made him a world-class celebrity in the 1960s and '70s, featured as a regular staple on television talk shows. Simply put, without Norman Mailer, there would not be American literature as we know it.

As concerns Hollywood, Mailer wrote a novel about Hollywood ("The Deer Park") and the first "serious" biography of Marilyn Monroe, which got him (and Monroe) the cover of the July 16 1973 edition of "Time Magazine." He made three improvisational films in the late 1960s: Wild 90 (1968), Beyond the Law (1968) and Maidstone (1970) and directed the 1987 adaptation of his own neo-noir novel Tough Guys Don't Dance (1987). He despised the 1958 movie made from The Naked and the Dead (1958), but had better luck with The Executioner's Song (1982) (1979), for which he wrote the screenplay for the 1982 telefilm. In 1983, Mailer was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing in a Limited Series or a Special for his work, three years after his 1979 "novel" (Mailer had characterized his "The Armies of the Night" as "The novel as history, history as a novel") had won him his second Pulitzer Prize, for Fiction. ("Armies" had conquered him his first, for General Non-Fictionm in 1969.)

Norman Mailer died of acute renal failure at New York City's Sinai Hospital on November 10, 2007. He was 84 years old.

Norris Mailer was born on 31 January 1949 in Washington, USA. She was an actress, known for Ragtime (1981), The Executioner's Song (1982) and Jet Lag (1981). She was married to Norman Mailer and Larry Norris. She died on 21 November 2010 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA.

Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a salesman and her mother as a secretary. They divorced when she was five and she rarely saw her father after that.

As a school girl, she originally wanted to be a dancer, but later switched gears to head into acting. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, after attending She was educated at Highland Manor, a private boarding school in Tarrytown, New York (through the generosity of wealthy uncles), and then at Julia Richman High School, which enabled her to get her feet wet in some off-Broadway productions.

Out of school, she entered modeling and, because of her beauty, appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, one of the most popular magazines in the US. The wife of famed director Howard Hawks spotted the picture in the publication and arranged with her husband to have Lauren take a screen test. As a result, which was entirely positive, she was given the part of Marie Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944), a thriller opposite Humphrey Bogart, when she was just 19 years old. This not only set the tone for a fabulous career but also one of Hollywood's greatest love stories (she married Bogart in 1945). It was also the first of several Bogie-Bacall films.

After 1945's Confidential Agent (1945), Lauren received second billing in The Big Sleep (1946) with Bogart. The mystery, in the role of Vivian Sternwood Rutledge, was a resounding success. Although she was making one film a year, each production would be eagerly awaited by the public. In 1947, again with her husband, Lauren starred in the thriller Dark Passage (1947). The film kept movie patrons on the edge of their seats. The following year, she starred with Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore in Key Largo (1948). The crime drama was even more of a nail biter than her previous film.

In 1950, Lauren starred in Bright Leaf (1950), a drama set in 1894. It was a film of note because she appeared without her husband - her co-star was Gary Cooper. In 1953, Lauren appeared in her first comedy as Schatze Page in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). The film, with co-stars Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, was a smash hit all across the theaters of America.

After filming Designing Woman (1957), which was released in 1957, Humphrey Bogart died on January 14 from throat cancer. Devastated at being a widow, Lauren returned to the silver screen with The Gift of Love (1958) in 1958 opposite Robert Stack. The production turned out to be a big disappointment. Undaunted, Lauren moved back to New York City and appeared in several Broadway plays to huge critical acclaim. She was enjoying acting before live audiences and the audiences in turn enjoyed her fine performances.

Lauren was away from the big screen for five years, but she returned in 1964 to appear in Shock Treatment (1964) and Sex and the Single Girl (1964). The latter film was a comedy starring Henry Fonda and Tony Curtis. In 1966, Lauren starred in Harper (1966) with Paul Newman and Julie Harris, which was one of former's signature films.

Alternating her time between films and the stage, Lauren returned in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express (1974). The film, based on Agatha Christie's best-selling book was a huge hit. It also garnered Ingrid Bergman her third Oscar. Actually, the huge star-studded cast helped to ensure its success. Two years later, in 1976, Lauren co-starred with John Wayne in The Shootist (1976). The film was Wayne's last - he died from cancer in 1979. In late 1979, Lauren appeared with her good friend, James Garner, in a double episode, Lions, Tigers, Monkeys and Dogs (1979), of his Rockford Files series.

For Lauren's next film role, she appeared in a large ensemble film, HealtH (1980), which again paired her with James Garner, and in 1981, she played an actress being stalked by a crazed admirer in The Fan (1981). The thriller was absolutely fascinating with Lauren in the lead role, again playing opposite her good friend James Garner, making three straight screen roles with Lauren opposite James Garner. After that production, Lauren was away from films again, this time for seven years. In the interim, she again appeared on the stages of Broadway. When she returned, it was for the filming of 1988's Appointment with Death (1988) and Mr. North (1988). After 1990's Misery (1990) and several made for television films, Lauren appeared in 1996's My Fellow Americans (1996), a comedy romp with Jack Lemmon and James Garner as two ex-presidents and their escapades. In 1997, Lauren appeared in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), in one of the best roles of her later career, opposite Barbra Streisand, where Lauren was nominated as Best Actress in a Supporting Role by both the Academy and the Golden Globes, winning the Golden Globe for the role.

Despite her age and failing health, she made a small-scale comeback in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004) ("Howl's Moving Castle," based on the young-adult novel by Diana Wynne Jones) as the Witch of the Waste, and several other roles through 2008, but thereafter acting endeavors for the beloved actress became increasingly rare. Lauren Bacall died on 12 August 2014, five weeks short of her 90th birthday.

Sam Robards was born on 16 December 1961 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), American Beauty (1999) and Casualties of War (1989). He has been married to Sidsel Jensen since 8 November 1997. They have two children. He was previously married to Suzy Amis.

Burly, talented character actor who remained consistently busy playing "rough edged" or scary characters, often on the wrong side of the law. Young was born on April 30, 1940, in New York City, the son of a high school shop teacher. He is of Italian descent. Young received his dramatic arts training under acting coach Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

Young first gathered notice playing tough thugs in such films as The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight (1971), Across 110th Street (1972), Chinatown (1974) and The Gambler (1974). Director Sam Peckinpah cast Young as the getaway driver/assassin, "Mac", in The Killer Elite (1975), and Young came to the attention of newcomer Sylvester Stallone, who cast him as future brother-in-law "Paulie" in the 1976 sleeper hit Rocky (1976).

Young was nominated for an Oscar, and has gone on to reprise the role in all five "Rocky" sequels to date! Peckinpah re-hired him to play renegade trucker "Pigpen" in the moderately successful Convoy (1978) (watch for "Pigpen's" Mack truck where the writing on the door states "Paulie Hauling"!).

Young also appeared in Once Upon a Time in America (1984), The Pope of Greenwich Village (1984), Last Exit to Brooklyn (1989), Mickey Blue Eyes (1999) and The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002).

Jon Voight is an American actor of German and Slovak descent. He has won the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as paraplegic Vietnam War veteran Luke Martin in the war film "Coming Home" (1978). He has also been nominated for the same award other two times. He was first nominated for his role as aspiring gigolo Joe Buck in "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), He was last nominated for the award for his role as escaped convict Oscar "Manny" Manheim in "Runaway Train" (1985). He was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role, for his role as sports journalist Howard Cosell (1918-1995) in "Ali" (2001).

In 1938, Voight was born in Yonkers, New York. His parents were professional golfer Elmer Samuel Voight (original name Elemír Vojtka) and his wife Barbara Agnes (Kamp). His paternal grandfather was a Slovak immigrant, as were the parents of his paternal grandmother. His maternal grandfather was a German immigrant, as were the parents of his maternal grandmother. His maternal great-uncle was political activist Joseph P. Kamp (1900-1993), a leader of the anti-communist organization "Constitutional Educational League".

Voight has two siblings: volcanologist Barry Voight (1937-) and singer-songwriter James Wesley Voight (pseudonym Chip Taylor, 1940-). Barry is most famous for first predicting and then investigating the eruption of Mount St. Helens (1980). James is most famous for writing the hit songs "Wild Thing" (1965) and "Angel of the Morning" (1967).

Voight was educated at Archbishop Stepinac High School, an all-boys Roman Catholic high school located at White Plains, New York. At the time, the school was operated by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. He took an interest in acting in his high school years, performing a comedic role in the school's annual musical, "The Song of Norway". He graduated in 1956, at the age of 18.

Voight continued his education at The Catholic University of America, located in Washington, D.C.. He majored in art, and graduated in 1960. He was 22-years-old at the time of graduation. He then moved to New York City, having decided to pursue an acting career.

In the early 1960s, Voight primarily worked as a television actor. He guest starred in episodes of then-popular television series, such as "Naked City", "The Defenders", "NET Playhouse", "12 O'Clock High", and "Gunsmoke". His first notable theatrical role was playing the illegal immigrant Rodolfo in a 1965 Off-Broadway production of the play "A View from the Bridge" (1955) by Arthur Miller (1915-2005). In the play, Rodolfo is the love interest of the American girl Catherine, and disliked by her uncle and guardian Eddie Carbone (who is in love with his niece).

Voight made his film debut in the superhero comedy "Fearless Frank" (1967), playing the role of the eponymous superhero. Frank was depicted as a murder victim who gets resurrected and granted superpowers by a scientist. Voiight's second film role was playing historical gunman and outlaw Curly Bill Brocius (1845-1882) in the Western film "Hour of the Gun" (1967). The historical Brocius was an an enemy of the Esrp family, and was killed by Wyatt Earp (1848-1929).

Voigh't third film appearance was "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), his first great success. He played the role of a naive hustler from Texas who tries to become a gigolo in New York City. The film was critically acclaimed, and became the only X-rated feature to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Voight was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, but the award was instead won by rival actor John Wayne (1907-1979).

Voight's first role in the 1970s was playing lieutenant Milo Minderbinder in the black comedy "Catch-22" (1970). The film was based on a 1961 satirical novel by Joseph Heller (1923-1999), and offered a satirical view on war and bureaucracy. Voight's next role was playing the left-wing student A in the political drama "The Revolutionary" (1970).

Voight found further critical acclaim with the thriller film "Deliverance" (1972), playing Atlanta businessman Ed Gentry. In the film, Gentry and his first are targeted by villainous mountain men in the northern Georgia wilderness. The film earned about 46 million dollars at the domestic box office, and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.

His subsequent roles included idealistic schoolteacher Pat Conroy in "Conrack" (1974), journalist Peter Miller in "The Odessa File" (1974). His next great success was playing paraplegic war veteran Luke Martin in "Coming Home" (1978), in a role inspired by the life of war veteran and anti-war activist Ron Kovic (1976-). He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this film. His co-star Jane Fonda (1937-) won her second Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in this film.

Voight's early 1980s roles included conman Alex Kovac in "Lookin' to Get Out" (1982) and widowed father J. P. Tannen in "Table for Five" (1983). His next big success was the role of escaped convict Oscar "Manny" Manheim in "Runaway Train" (1985). He was again nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, but the Award was instead won by rival actor William Hurt (1950-).

Voight's next role was that of Jack Chismore in the drama film "Desert Bloom" (1986). Chismore is depicted as a war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), who is trying to raise three stepdaughters. He frequently abuses his stepdaughter Rose Chismore (played by Annabeth Gish), but is genuinely concerned for her safety when Rose runs away from home. This film was Voigh's last film role for several years, as he took a hiatus from acting.

Voight returned to acting with the drama film "Eternity" (1990), where he was also the screenwriter. The film deals with reincarnation, as a medieval war within brothers continues in modern American politics. Following his return to acting, Voight started appearing frequently in television films and miniseries. He also guest-starred in a 1994 episode of "Seinfeld", playing himself.

Voight returned to film acting with the crime drama "Heat" (1995), where he had a minor role as a fence. He had a more substantial role in the spy film "Mission: Impossible" (1996), where he played spymaster James Phelps. The film was an adaptation of the popular television series "Mission: Impossible" (1966-1973), about the adventures of a group of secret agents. The role of James Phelps was previously played by actor Peter Graves (1926-2010). The film was a great commercial success, earning about 458 million dollars at the worldwide box office.

Voight appeared in six different films in 1997, one of the busiest years of his career. The most notable among them was the horror film "Anaconda" (1997), where he played obsessive hunter Paul Serone, the film's main antagonist. The film won about 137 million dollars at the box office, despite a mostly negative critical reception. For this role, Voight was nominated for the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor. He lost the award to rival actor Kevin Costner (1955-).

His next notable role was that Thomas Brian Reynolds, agent of the National Security Agency (NSA) in the action thriller "Enemy of the State" (1998). In the film, the NSA conspires to expand the surveillance powers of intelligence agencies over individuals and groups, at the cost of American citizens' right to privacy. The film was another box office success in Voight's career, earning about 251 million dollars at the box office.

In the same year, Voight played inspector Ned Kenny in the crime film "The General" (1998). The film was loosely based on the career of Irish crime boss Martin Cahill (1949-1994), who was nicknamed "the General". The film was critically acclaimed and director John Boorman won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director.

Voight's next notable role was that of domineering coach Bud Kilmer in the sports film "Varsity Blues" (1999). The film dealt with the difficulties in the life of the players of a Texas-based high school football team, and was not expected to attract much attention by audiences. It earned about 54 million dollars at the box office, making it a modest box office hit. It is credited with introducing Voight to a next generation of fans.

Voight's final film in the 1990s was "A Dog of Flanders" (1999), based on a 1872 novel by Ouida (1839-1908). He played the role of artist Michel La Grande, the mentor of Nello (played by Jeremy James Kissner), who is eventually revealed to be Nello's biological father. The film failed at the box office, failing to earn as much as its modest budget.

Voight appeared in no film released in 2000, but had a busy year in 2001. He appeared in several box office hits of the year. He played President of the United States Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945, term 1933-1945) in the war drama "Pearl Harbor", Lara Croft's father Lord Richard Croft in the action film "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider", coal-miner and working class father Larry Zoolander in action comedy "Zoolander", and sports journalist Howard Cosell in the biographical film "Ali". For his role in "Ali", Voight was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. The award was instead won by rival actor Jim Broadbent (1949-). It was Voight's fourth and (so far) last nomination for an Academy Award.

Voight had a notable role playing Pope John Paul II (1920-2005, term 1978-2005) in the miniseries "Pope John Paul II" (2005). He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie, but the award was instead won by rival actor Andre Braugher (1962-).

Voight had a supporting role as John Keller, United States Secretary of Defense in the science fiction film "Transformers" (2007). The film was based on the Transformers toy line by Hasbro.It earned about 710 million dollars at the box office, one of the most commercially successful films in Voight's career.

In 2009, Voight had a notable television role, playing Jonas Hodges, the CEO of a Virginia-based private military company in the then-popular television series "24" (2001-2010, 2014). He was a main antagonist in the seventh season of the series. His role was inspired by the careers of Hessian colonel Johann Rall (c. 1726-1776), German industrialist Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach (1907-1967), and private military company CEO Erik Prince (1969-).

His 2010s notable film roles include the role of Dracula's enemy Loonardo Van Helsing in the horror film "Dracula: The Dark Prince" (2013), football coach Paul William "Bear" Bryant (1913-1983) in the sports drama "Woodlawn" (2015), and newspaper owner Henry Shaw Sr. in "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (2016). "Fantastic Beasts" earned about 814 million dollars at the worldwide box office, being one of the most commercially successful films that Voight ever appeared in.

In 2020, was 82-years-old, and he is still working as an actor.

James Howard Woods was born on April 18, 1947 in Vernal, Utah, the son of Martha A. (Smith) and Gail Peyton Woods, a U.S. Army intelligence officer who died during Woods' childhood. James is of Irish, English, and German descent. He grew up in Warwick, Rhode Island, with his mother and stepfather Thomas E. Dixon. He graduated from Pilgrim High School in 1965, near the top of his class. James earned a scholarship to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; dropping out during his senior year in 1969, he then headed off to New York with his fraternity brother Martin Donovan to pursue aspirations to appear on the stage. After appearing in a handful of New York City theater productions, Woods scored his first film role in All the Way Home (1971) and followed that up with meager supporting roles in The Way We Were (1973) and The Choirboys (1977).

However, it was Woods' cold-blooded performance as the cop killer in The Onion Field (1979), based on a Joseph Wambaugh novel, that seized the attention of movie-goers to his on-screen power. Woods quickly followed up with another role in another Joseph Wambaugh film adaptation, The Black Marble (1980), as a sleazy and unstable cable-T.V.-station owner in David Cronenberg's mind-bending and prophetic Videodrome (1983), as gangster Max Bercovicz in Sergio Leones mammoth epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984), and scored a best actor Academy Award nomination as abrasive journalist Richard Boyle in Oliver Stone's gritty and unsettling Salvador (1986).

There seemed to be no stopping the rise of this star as he continued to amaze movie-goers with his remarkable versatility and his ability to create such intense, memorable characters. The decade of the 1990s started off strongly with high praise for his role as Roy Cohn in the television production of Citizen Cohn (1992). Woods was equally impressive as sneaky hustler Lester Diamond who cons Sharon Stone in Casino (1995), made a tremendous H.R. Haldeman in Nixon (1995), portrayed serial killer Carl Panzram in Killer: A Journal of Murder (1995), and then as accused civil rights assassin Byron De La Beckwith in Ghosts of Mississippi (1996).

Not to be typecast solely as hostile hoodlums, Woods has further expanded his range to encompass providing voice-overs for animated productions including Hercules (1997), Hooves of Fire (1999), and Stuart Little 2 (2002). Woods also appeared in the critically praised The Virgin Suicides (1999), in the coming-of-age movie Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), as a corrupt medico in Any Given Sunday (1999), and in the comedy-horror spoof Scary Movie 2 (2001). A remarkable performer with an incredibly diverse range of acting talent, Woods remains one of Hollywood's outstanding leading men.

Sarah Owen was born in 1963. She is an actress, known for Elizabeth (1998), Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Casualty (1986). She was previously married to James Woods.

Jill Krementz was previously married to Kurt Vonnegut Jr..

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on 11 November 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Back to School (1986), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) and General Electric Theater (1953). He was married to Jill Krementz and Jane Marie Cox. He died on 11 April 2007 in New York City, New York, USA.

Rita Karin was born on 24 October 1919 in Warsaw, Poland. She was an actress, known for Sophie's Choice (1982), He Said, She Said (1991) and Enemies, A Love Story (1989). She was married to Norbert Horowitz. She died on 10 September 1993 in New York City, New York, USA.

Stephen D. Newman was born on 20 January 1943 in Seattle, Washington, USA. He is an actor, known for Sophie's Choice (1982), Hanky Panky (1982) and The Adams Chronicles (1976). He was previously married to Ruth Hunt.

The son of Broadway and film star Zero Mostel, Joshua Mostel is every bit the "heavyweight" that his father was -- perhaps even heavier. A graduate of Brandeis University, Mostel followed his father's sizable footsteps by going on-stage. His first major film appearance was as King Herod -- complete with anachronistic psychedelic costuming, and surrounded by go-go girls -- in Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). Of his three regular assignments on series television, Mostel is probably least proud of his role as Blotto, younger brother of John Belushi's Bluto, in Delta House (1979), the mercifully short-lived TV spin-off of National Lampoon's National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). Conversely, one of Joshua Mostel's best film roles was the fish-peddling Uncle Abe in Woody Allen's Radio Days (1987).

Marcell Rosenblatt was born on 4 July 1947 in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. She is an actress, known for Sophie's Choice (1982), The Ice Storm (1997) and Law & Order (1990).

Moishe Rosenfeld is known for Sophie's Choice (1982), The Kill Room (2023) and A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy (1982).

Robin Bartlett is a revered stage actress who made her film and television acting debut opposite Vanessa Redgrave, Jane Alexander and Shirley Knight in Playing for Time (1980), a CBS television film written by Arthur Miller. Bartlett gave an emotionally gripping performance as one of several female prisoners to the Auschwitz concentration camp, where she and a group of female classical musicians were spared in return for performing for their captors.

Over the course of her career, she's worked with talented moviemaking mavericks, including Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, and received award nominations for unique performances.

It might appear that Bartlett prefers theater but she continues to dabble in film and television, and whichever role, small or large, delivers with deliberation and exquisite artistry.

Eugene Lipinski was born on 5 November 1956 in Wansford Camp, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for The Recruit (2003), The Informer (2019) and Superman II (1980).