Santa Claus is Comin’ To Town alternate cast

Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of drunkenness. However, as a high school student, he had displayed a certain aptitude as a caricaturist and this contributed to his decision to seriously study art. Redford then enjoyed a year-long sojourn travelling around Europe, hitchhiking, living in youth hostels and generally living the painter's life. Eventually, he came to realise that his work was unoriginal and not very good. He therefore returned to New York to pursue studies in theatrical design at the Pratt Institute of Art. He subsequently enrolled in acting classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

By the end of 1960, he was on Broadway in a series of plays including Barefoot in the Park, which launched him to fame. TV and stage experience coupled with all-American good looks led to movies and a breakthrough role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), when the actor was 33. The Way We Were (1973) and The Sting (1973), both in 1973, made Redford No. 1 at the box office for the next three years. Redford used his clout to advance environmental causes and his riches to acquire Utah property, which he transformed into a ranch and the Sundance ski resort. In 1980, he established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers. Its annual film festival has become one of the world's most influential. Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won him the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981. He waited eight years before getting behind the camera again, this time for the screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest, The Milagro Beanfield War (1988). He scored with critics and fans in 1992 with the Brad Pitt film A River Runs Through It (1992), and again, in 1994, with Quiz Show (1994), which earned him yet another Best Director nomination.

Redford married Lola Van Wagenen on August 9, 1958; they divorced in 1985 after having four children, one of which died of sudden infant death syndrome. Daughter Shauna Redford, born November 15, 1960, is a painter who married Eric Schlosser on October 5, 1985, in Provo, Utah; her first child, born in January 1991, made Redford a grandfather. Son James Redford, a screenwriter, was born May 5, 1962. Daughter Amy Redford, an actress, was born October 22, 1970. Redford has a half-brother named William, who worked in medical research.

Jeff Corey was a film and television character actor, as well as one of the top acting teachers in America.

Corey was born Arthur Zwerling on August 10, 1914 in New York City, New York, to Mary (Peskin), a Russian Jewish immigrant, and Nathan Zwerling, an Austrian Jewish immigrant. He was an indifferent student, but after taking a drama class in high school, young Corey became hooked. His talent earned him a scholarship to the Feagin School of Dramatic Arts, the top acting school in New York City at the time. Corey then became a professional actor, a career choice which saved him from a life selling sewing machines, he later said.

His first gig after acting school was with a Shakespearean repertory company, after which he became a member of a traveling troupe that entertained children. After Leslie Howard closed his Broadway production of Hamlet in December 1936, he took the play on the road with Corey cast as Rosencrantz in 1937. In 1939, Corey appeared as part of the Federal Theater Project's (FTP) Living Newspaper dramatic showcase in the Life and Death of an American, co-starring with Arthur Kennedy, and featuring the music of Alex North. He made his film debut in a bit part in the Federal Theater's sole movie production, ...One Third of a Nation... (1939). Starring Sylvia Sidney, Leif Erickson and future Oscar-winning director Sidney Lumet, the movie, which was released by Paramount, was a progressive exegesis on the hazards of tenement slum conditions. Congress terminated FTP funding on June 30, 1939, mainly due to objections to the leftist political tones of many FTP productions (see Tim Robbins' movie Cradle Will Rock (1999) about the pressures faced by the FTP in 1939).

In 1940, Corey, who had married his wife Hope in 1938, moved to Hollywood, where he appeared in studio productions through 1943, including The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), My Friend Flicka (1943) and Joan of Arc (1948). He also had a hand in establishing the Actors Lab, where he appeared in a wide variety of plays, including "Abe Lincoln in Illinois", "Miss Julie" and "Prometheus". He also produced "Juno and the Paycock" for the Lab. He joined the United States Navy Photographic Service in 1943 and was assigned to the aircraft carrier Yorktown as a motion picture combat photographer. He earned three citations while serving during the war, including one for shooting footage on the Yorktown during a kamikaze attack on the ship. The citation, which was awarded in October 1945, read: "His sequence of a Kamikaze attempt on the Carrier Yorktown, done in the face of grave danger, is one of the great picture sequences of the war in the Pacific, and reflects the highest credit upon Corey and the U.S. Navy Photographic Service."

After the war, Corey returned to Hollywood and resumed his acting career, specializing in character parts and playing heavies in films such as The Killers (1946) and Brute Force (1947), both of which starred another returning war vet, Burt Lancaster. His appearance as the psychiatrist in Home of the Brave (1949), one of his best screen performances, promised a long and productive career in Hollywood, but the first phase of his cinema career was cut short in 1951 when he was subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) after being named as a former Communist Party member by actor Marc Lawrence.

HUAC had scheduled hearings in Los Angeles as part of its crusade to ferret out Communist influence in Hollywood. Appearing before HUAC in Los Angeles in September 1951, the 37-year-old Corey refused to testify, instead invoking his 5th Amendment rights. The movie industry ruled that anyone invoking their constitutional right not to testify would be blacklisted, and Corey was, missing out on an entire decade of work in films and television during the 1950s. Ironically, Lawrence, whom Corey despised for the rest of his life, pointing out that he had remained stateside on a health deferment while Corey risked his life during the war, was virtually absent from American films and television during the same decade, having to make his living in Italy along with American expatriates who had been blacklisted.

In the book on Hollywood blacklistees "Tender Comrades", Corey explained that he had been a member of the Communist Party, and that while he no longer was in 1951, he could not in good conscience turn informer. "Most of us were retired reds," Corey said. "We had left it, at least I had, years before. The only issue was, did you want to just give them their token names so you could continue your career, or not? I had no impulse to defend a political point of view that no longer interested me particularly. They just wanted two new names so they could hand out more subpoenas."

After being blacklisted, Corey used his G.I. Bill benefits to study speech therapy at UCLA while supporting his family as a common laborer. At the request of a fellow student, Corey organized a class in speech that he taught in the garage of his home in Hollywood Hills home. He expanded his curriculum to acting, accepting $10 a month in "tuition" per month from each student that allowed them to attend weekly classes. Eventually, he expanded the garage to create a small theater where his students performed scenes. Corey's reputation as a teacher grew, and by the mid-1950s, he had become the premier acting coach in Hollywood. Although studios refused to hire the blacklisted Corey as an actor, they did send contract players to study with him.

Corey's class, which became known as the Professional Actors Workshop, attracted directors, screenwriters and established actors seeking insight into the craft. Corey's Workshop has been described by the National Observer as "A major influence in the motion picture industry." Corey was a Stanislavskian teaching the popular Method technique of sense-memory popularized by such other acting gurus as Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler, which sought to tap into the actor's own emotions and psyche. Corey's own teaching technique was eclectic: He focused on one-on-one work with an individual actor, seeking through improvisational exercises to get the actor to tap into his/her subconscious and to use their imagination to come up with a theme that would elucidate their character.

His students included Robert Blake, pop singer Pat Boone, Richard Chamberlain, singer/actress Cher, director-producer Roger Corman, James Dean, Kirk Douglas, Jane Fonda, Peter Fonda, Michael Forest, Sally Kellerman, Irvin Kershner, Shirley Knight, Penny Marshall, Rita Moreno, Jack Nicholson, Leonard Nimoy, Anthony Perkins, Rob Reiner, singer/actress/director Barbra Streisand, future Academy Award-winning screenwriter Robert Towne and Robin Williams. Of Corey the teacher, three-time Oscar-winner Jack Nicholson said after he had become a major movie star, "Acting is life study, and Corey's classes got me into looking at life as an artist."

Corey also tutored experienced actors who had trouble with a role, or who just needed insight into playing a character. One of the already-established actors Corey tutored was three-time Oscar nominee Kirk Douglas, who came to Corey for help in playing the title role in Spartacus (1960). It was Douglas who, along with Otto Preminger, ended the blacklist by hiring Dalton Trumbo to write the screenplays for Spartacus (1960) and Exodus (1960), respectively. Two years after the Trumbo-penned films debuted on the big screen, Corey again was working in films and television. In 1962, he was cast in the film The Yellow Canary (1963) when one of his acting students, pop singer Pat Boone, pressured 20th-Century Fox into hiring him. Now off the blacklist, Corey became a busy character actor in movies and on television. Corey made his reputation as an actor's actor whom other actors loved to work with. Always good with actors, Corey also directed some episodes of television series.

In addition to his acting work, Corey continued teaching. He was Professor of Theater Arts at California State University in Northridge, and was artist in residence at Ball State, in Indiana, the University of Illinois in Bloomington, Chapman College's World Campus Afloat, the University of Texas in Austin, and at the Graduate School of Creative Writing at New York University. He also conducted acting seminars at Emory University in Atlanta, and for the Canadian Film Institute in Vancouver, British Columbia.

On August 16, 2002, six days after his 88th birthday, Corey died in a Santa Monica, California hospital, of complication from a fall. He was survived by his wife of 64 years, Hope, three daughters, and grandchildren.

Lovely, indefatigable Connie Stevens added sparkle to a number of films and TV shows in the late 50s and 60s Hollywood. Brooklyn born Concetta Rosalie Ann Ingolia is of Italian/Sicilian and Irish descent, the daughter of Eleanor McGinley and Teddy Stevens (born Peter Ingolia). She was subsequently raised by her grandparents when her mother and father (a band singer and jazz musician, respectively) filed for divorce. Connie attended Catholic boarding schools in her formative years. Inheriting her parents' love and talent for music, she formed a vocal quartet called "The Foremost" which was comprised of Connie and three men. Those men later became part of The Lettermen.

In Hollywood from 1953, Connie formed yet another vocal group "The Three Debs" while trying to break into films doing extra work. Moving up to the co-star ranks in a few mediocre teen dramas such as Young and Dangerous (1957), Eighteen and Anxious (1957), The Party Crashers (1958), and Dragstrip Riot (1958), it was comedian Jerry Lewis who set things in motion by casting her in his comedy Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958). As such, Warner Bros. signed her up for their hot detective series Hawaiian Eye (1959) and she was off. As pert and pretty "Cricket Blake", a slightly flaky and tomboyish singer/photographer, Connie became an instant teen idol -- trendy and undeniably appealing. A couple of record offers (and hits) came her way as a result including "Sixteen Reasons" and the novelty song "Kookie, Kookie, Lend Me Your Comb" (in tribute to Edd Byrnes' hip, teen idol character on the popular detective series 77 Sunset Strip (1958)).

Adored for her sexy effervescence, Connie tried to broaden her "sex kitten" image in the 60's with serious attempts at adult film drama, including the title role in Susan Slade (1961), as well as co-leads in Parrish (1961), Palm Springs Weekend (1963), and Two on a Guillotine (1965), but they were modestly received. For the most part, she remained a comfy TV presence in musical variety shows ("The Red Skelton Show," "Kraft Music Hall"), westerns ("Cheyenne," "Maverick") and game shows ("Hollywood Squares"). She also appeared opposite George Burns in a second series, the sitcom Wendy and Me (1964), and co-starred in a couple of lightweight films, Never Too Late (1965) and Way... Way Out (1966), again with Jerry Lewis.

In the 1970s, she refocused on her voice and started lining up singing commercials (Ace Hardware) while subsisting in nightclubs and hotels. Connie eventually built herself up as a Las Vegas headlining act. She also starred on Broadway with "The Star-Spangled Girl" and won a Theatre World Award for her performance in 1967. Comedian Bob Hope's made her one of his regular entertainers on his USO tours. Sporadic films came her way every now and then. A TV-movie The Sex Symbol (1974) had her playing a tragic Marilyn Monroe type goddess. There was also innocuous fun in such sporadic films as Grease 2 (1982) and Back to the Beach (1987) with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. TV episodic work on "Murder, She Wrote," "The Love Boat," "Baywatch," "Ellen," the revamped "Burke's Law," "It's Garry Shandling Show," "Baywatch" and "8 Simple Rules," plus a regular role on the short-lived series Starting from Scratch (1988) also kept her afloat.

Once wed to actor James Stacy, Connie later married and divorced singer Eddie Fisher. From her union with Fisher came two daughters, Joely Fisher and Tricia Leigh Fisher, both of whom became actors. Single with two daughters, and completely out of sync with Hollywood, Connie started experiencing severe financial woes. In the 1990s, the never-say-die personality began a new lucrative career in the infomercial game with skin-care and make-up products, and turned her financial woes around. Now a self-made tycoon with her own successful beauty line to boot, Connie is living proof that anything can happen in that wild and wacky world called show biz.

She resurged briefly in films with featured roles in Love Is All There Is (1996), James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997), Returning Mickey Stern (2002), Double Duty (2009), Just Before I Go (2014) and Search Engines (2016) which starred daughter Joely. She also was seen on TV with episodic work on "s, The recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Connie was elected secretary-treasurer of the Screen Actors Guild in 2005. Since suffering a stroke in 2016, she has remained out of the limelight for the most part. In 2019, she made a brief return to films with By the Rivers of Babylon (2025), again with Joely.

Don Messick is a legendary voice actor who spent his entire adult-hood in entertainment. He started out wanting to be a ventriloquist. Thankfully for cartoon lovers that career didn't pan out. How do you think his potential career would've stacked up against Edgar Bergen and later, Paul Winchell? No matter, Messick made his way to the hallowed halls of MGM in the early '50s on the recommendation of another voice actor, Daws Butler. At the time, MGM/Tex Avery were doing the theatrical "Droopy" cartoons. Bill Thompson, known for his hilarious voices on the radio show 'Fibber McGee and Molly', borrowed his Wallace Wimple voice and applied it to Droopy. Whenever Thompson couldn't make it to a session, MGM would ask Daws Butler to fill-in. Daws had been working for MGM since the mid '40s. Later, Daws apparently grew tired of the role and suggested Don Messick be Bill Thompson's fill-in. Butler, it's been said, literally squeezed his cheeks together to try and get that sound for Droopy while Messick simply thickened his tongue and loosened his jaws. Messick made the rounds and did every voice-over role large and small in this era. In 1957 Hanna-Barbera started their own company after departing from MGM...Daws Butler and Don Messick were the two voice actors the animation titans employed during the early days. Don was always heard as the "second banana" character or a walk-on. At various times he was the villain. His voice was heard as the 'narrator' on all of the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons. On "Ruff and Reddy", the duo's first made-for-TV cartoon series, Don was heard as "Ruff" the cat and as the Droopy-sounding "Professor Gizmo". Messick was also the narrator who interracted with the duo and got caught up in the action much like a soap opera announcer on radio. Daws was "Reddy", the dog, among other nameless characters in the show. In this 1957-1966 time span, Don Messick was cast as Daws Butler's voice partner and as the cartoon narrator. "Boo-Boo" was the little friend of "Yogi Bear" who lived in Jellystone Park. Yogi stole "pic-a-nic" baskets while Boo-Boo always tried, unsuccessfully, to steer Yogi to a more safer life always reminding him "the Ranger isn't going to like it, Yogi". The Ranger in question was "Ranger Smith", the park ranger who always chased and stopped Yogi's latest schemes. Messick gave voice to the Ranger. Daws was Yogi. In other programs, Messick was heard as "Pixie Mouse" to Daws Butler's "Dixie Mouse" and "Mr. Jinx". On "Snagglepuss", Messick was always heard as the villain, mostly the befuddled "Major Minor". Daws was Snagglepuss. In Huckleberry Hound, Daws was the star character while Messick usually did the narration as well as played a villain. Messick would later provide the voices of "Astro" and "RUDI" on the Jetsons. As a versatile voice actor, Messick performed a dozen wacky space aliens on the space cartoons of the mid '60s. The gibberish of "Gloop" and "Gleep" on the Herculoids cartoon was Messick. "Blip", "Igoo", "Zorak", "Tundra", and "Zoc" are just a few of the characters that Messick groaned or grunted for in the outer space cartoons...his most famous non-verbal voice is the snickering dog, "Muttley"...later called "Mumbley". "Richochet Rabbit", "Vapor Man", "Falcon 7", "Dr. Benton Quest", and "Multi-Man" are other voices from Messick in that era. In 1969 he provided the voice for his most famous role, "Scooby-Doo". Throughout the '70s and beyond, Messick gave voice to this cowardly great dane. In 1980 he became the voice of nephew, "Scrappy-Doo", while in later versions Daws Butler was on hand as "Scooby-Dum". On the 1977 Laff-a-Lympics cartoon, Messick not only announced the show but he performed some of the characters too. "Papa Smurf" became Messick's biggest original character in the '80s but he remained busy providing voices for his older characters in new Hanna-Barbera productions. Daws Butler and Mel Blanc were also living off their famed characters by reprising the voices in numerous made-for-TV cartoon movies and Saturday morning TV in the late '70s on into the next decade. Messick remained a much-used voice actor and in 1988 ABC announced "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo". Messick was back in the role and voiced the character until it's demise in 1990. His friend and voice partner, Daws Butler, passed away in 1988. In 1989 Mel Blanc passed away leaving Don Messick, June Foray, Stan Freberg, and Paul Winchell as the remaining link to the classic era. In 1989 The Smurfs went out of production. On the new Tiny Toon Adventures, Messick was heard as "Hamton Pig", a role he remained with until his mysterious retirement in 1996 at the age of 69 which was later revealed to be a result of a stroke. Don Messick died in 1997, closing a chapter in animation history in the process.

Frances Bavier was born in New York City on December 14, 1902. Her first Broadway appearance was in April 1925 in "The Poor Nut," the start of a successful Broadway career. She traveled with the USO to entertain the U.S. troops in the Pacific during World War II. Her last appearance on Broadway was in the 1951 play, "Point of No Return" starring Henry Fonda. It ran for 356 performances.

Her first movie was the 1951 sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), which was also the first time Frances appeared with Olan Soule. He later went on to play Mayberry's choir director, John Masters, on the The Andy Griffith Show (1960). In the movie, they were both boarders in the rooming house where the alien stayed. She made many movies during the 50s and appeared on TV as featured characters on shows like It's a Great Life (1954) and The Eve Arden Show (1957) before what would become her most famous role, that of Aunt Bee to Andy Taylor (Andy Griffith) and Opie Taylor (Ron Howard) on The Andy Griffith Show (1960).