Advanced search

William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government and school musicals. Pitt attended the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising. He occasionally acted in fraternity shows. He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for El Pollo Loco.

Pitt's earliest credited roles were in television, starting on the daytime soap opera Another World (1964) before appearing in the recurring role of Randy on the legendary prime time soap opera Dallas (1978). Following a string of guest appearances on various television series through the 1980s, Pitt gained widespread attention with a small part in Thelma & Louise (1991), in which he played a sexy criminal who romanced and conned Geena Davis. This led to starring roles in badly received films such as Johnny Suede (1991) & Cool World (1992).

But Pitt's career hit an upswing with his casting in A River Runs Through It (1992), which cemented his status as an multi-layered actor as opposed to just a pretty face. Pitt's subsequent projects were as quirky and varied in tone as his performances, ranging from his unforgettably comic cameo as stoner roommate Floyd in True Romance (1993) to romantic roles in such visually lavish films as Interview with the Vampire (1994) and Legends of the Fall (1994), to an emotionally tortured detective in the horror-thriller Se7en (1995). His portrayal of frenetic oddball Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys (1995) won him a Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.

Pitt's portrayal of Achilles in the big-budget period drama Troy (2004) helped establish his appeal as an action star and was closely followed by a co-starring role in the stylish spy-versus-spy flick Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). It was on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith that Pitt, who married Jennifer Aniston in a highly publicized ceremony in 2000, met Angelina Jolie. Pitt left Aniston for Jolie in 2005, a break-up that continues to fuel tabloid stories years after its occurrence.

He continues to wildly vary his film choices, appearing in everything from high-concept popcorn flicks such as Megamind (2010) to adventurous critic-bait like Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Tree of Life (2011). He has received two Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). In 2014, he starred in the war film Fury (2014), opposite Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Peña.

Pitt and Jolie have 6 children, 3 adopted & 3 biological.

Actor and musician Bruce Willis is well known for playing wisecracking or hard-edged characters, often in spectacular action films. Collectively, he has appeared in films that have grossed in excess of $2.5 billion USD.

Walter Bruce Willis was born on March 19, 1955, in Idar-Oberstein, West Germany, to a German mother, Marlene Kassel, and an American father, David Andrew Willis (from Carneys Point, New Jersey), who were then living on a United States military base. His family moved to the U.S. shortly after he was born, and he was raised in Penns Grove, New Jersey, where his mother worked at a bank and his father was a welder and factory worker. Willis picked up an interest for the dramatic arts in high school, and was allegedly "discovered" whilst working in a café in New York City and then appeared in a couple of off-Broadway productions. While bartending one night, he was seen by a casting director who liked his personality and needed a bartender for a small movie role.

After countless auditions, Willis contributed minor film appearances, usually uncredited, before landing the role of private eye "David Addison" alongside sultry Cybill Shepherd in the hit romantic comedy television series Moonlighting (1985). His sarcastic and wisecracking P.I. is seen by some as a dry run for the role of hard-boiled NYC detective "John McClane" in the monster hit Die Hard (1988), in which Willis' character single-handedly battled a gang of ruthless international thieves in a Los Angeles skyscraper. He reprised the role of McClane in the sequel, Die Hard 2 (1990), set at a snowbound Washington's Dulles International Airport as a group of renegade Special Forces soldiers seek to repatriate a corrupt South American general. Excellent box office returns demanded a further sequel Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), this time co-starring Samuel L. Jackson as a cynical Harlem shop owner unwittingly thrust into assisting McClane during a terrorist bombing campaign on a sweltering day in New York.

Willis found time out from all the action mayhem to provide the voice of "Mikey" the baby in the very popular family comedies Look Who's Talking (1989), and its sequel Look Who's Talking Too (1990) also starring John Travolta and Kirstie Alley. Over the next decade, Willis starred in some very successful films, some very offbeat films and some unfortunate box office flops. The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990) and Hudson Hawk (1991) were both large scale financial disasters that were savaged by the critics, and both are arguably best left off the CVs of all the actors involved, however Willis was still popular with movie audiences and selling plenty of theatre tickets with the hyper-violent The Last Boy Scout (1991), the darkly humored Death Becomes Her (1992) and the mediocre police thriller Striking Distance (1993).

During the 1990s, Willis also appeared in several independent and low budget productions that won him new fans and praise from the critics for his intriguing performances working with some very diverse film directors. He appeared in the oddly appealing North (1994), as a cagey prizefighter in the Quentin Tarantino directed mega-hit Pulp Fiction (1994), the Terry Gilliam directed apocalyptic thriller 12 Monkeys (1995), the Luc Besson directed sci-fi opus The Fifth Element (1997) and the M. Night Shyamalan directed spine-tingling epic The Sixth Sense (1999).

Willis next starred in the gangster comedy The Whole Nine Yards (2000), worked again with "hot" director M. Night Shyamalan in the less than gripping Unbreakable (2000), and in two military dramas, Hart's War (2002) and Tears of the Sun (2003) that both failed to really fire with movie audiences or critics alike. However, Willis bounced back into the spotlight in the critically applauded Frank Miller graphic novel turned movie Sin City (2005), the voice of "RJ" the scheming raccoon in the animated hit Over the Hedge (2006) and "Die Hard" fans rejoiced to see "John McClane" return to the big screen in the high tech Live Free or Die Hard (2007) aka "Die Hard 4.0".

Willis was married to actress Demi Moore for approximately thirteen years and they share custody to their three daughters.

Blessed with a piercing, blue-eyed glint, brawny looks, cocky "tough guy" stance and effortless charisma, TV's Christopher Meloni has grabbed audiences' attention, male and female alike, finding breakthrough small screen stardom playing both sides of the law. Audiences first were taken in by his sexually arresting portrayal of a sociopathic killer in the gripping prison drama Oz (1997) on cable TV. Although his small screen roots were in 90s situation comedy, the network powers-that-be wisely discovered his power and allure as a dramatic star and quickly handed him his own prime-time crime series, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), as a not-quite-by-the-book crime detective. This one-two punch of "Oz" and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999) put Meloni, who seems to grow sexier with age, on the map and well on top, where he remains today.

Christopher Peter Meloni was born on April 2, 1961, in Washington, D.C., the son of Cecile (Chagnon) and Charles Robert Meloni, an endocrinologist. Of Italian and French-Canadian parentage, he attended St. Stephen's School and played quarterback for his high school team. Developing an interest in acting rather early in life, he attended the University of Colorado at Boulder following high school graduation. He initially majored in acting but wound up earning a degree in history in 1983. Acting won out in the long run, however, and Chris relocated to New York where he studied with acting guru Sanford Meisner at the renowned Neighborhood Playhouse. Supplementing his income during these lean years by taking advantage of his powerful physique (as construction worker, bouncer, personal trainer), Meloni worked his way up the acting ladder via parts in commercials.

With a full head of hair in the early days, he broke into series TV in 1989, the first being the already-established cable football comedy 1st & Ten (1984). In this sitcom, which was HBO's very first back in 1984, Chris played ex-con quarterback Vito Del Greco (aka "Johnny Gunn"). The series' star Delta Burke had already left the cast by the time Chris came aboard in its final season. A second sitcom arrived almost immediately with the stereotypical Italian family sitcom The Fanelli Boys (1990) featuring Chris as dim-eyed, skirt-chasing Frankie Fanelli, one of the four "dees, dem and dos" sons of Brooklynite widow Theresa Fanelli (Ann Morgan Guilbert). Despite a strong, boisterous cast, the show was painfully obvious and met an early demise. True to nature, Chris gave voice and added to the fun as a cocky, mooching high school teen who knows the "how to's" of attracting pretty girl dinos in the animated prehistoric series Dinosaurs (1991).

He also made a manly mark in mini-movies with co-starring roles in such "women" dramas as In a Child's Name (1991) starring Valerie Bertinelli, Something to Live for: The Alison Gertz Story (1992), which top-lined Molly Ringwald, Without a Kiss Goodbye (1993) as the caring husband of Lisa Hartman, and the Connie Sellecca starrer A Dangerous Affair (1995). An interchangeable ability to convey both heartfelt sympathy and virile menace did not go by unnoticed. After minor parts on the big screen with Clean Slate (1994), Junior (1994) and 12 Monkeys (1995), Chris drew strong notices in the featured role of gangster Johnnie Marzzone in the classic neo-noir Bound (1996), which earned cult status for its sexually-charged lesbian sub-storyline.

A tough recurring part on NYPD Blue (1993), a typical mafia role in the mini-series The Last Don (1997) and another short-lived comedic series lead (Leaving L.A. (1997)) finally led to a big payoff in the brutal and brilliant cable series Oz (1997). Christopher's introduction to the Oz prison as bisexual psychopath Chris Keller was powerhouse casting and he drew immediate notice and critical applause into the show's second season. Unflinching in its blood-soaked presentation of life behind bars, Chris' raw animal magnetism was unparalleled on the show and his steamy, erotic couplings with another male prisoner on screen promoted him swiftly to gay icon status. Undaunted by the possible career-damaging effects that could occur, Chris' frank acceptance and acknowledgment was admirable indeed and his outright support of human rights causes earned him high marks.

The father of two (daughter Sophia Eva Pietra (born March 23, 2001), and son Dante Amadeo (born January 2, 2004), he has been married since 1995 to production designer 'Sherman Williams' (The Dark Backward (1991)). Chris' sudden burst of cable notoriety earned him his own prime time NBC series. With the veteran "Law & Order" program developing a sister spin-off, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), Meloni raised the bar with his trenchant pairing with co-star Mariska Hargitay as partners of a special victims crime unit. Despite the show's reality-driven approach, Meloni and Hargitay's dynamite chemistry carried the show to a new level. Allowing their characters' more serious flaws to surface, Meloni, in particular, managed to convey Detective Stabler's private pain and personal turmoil with a raw poignancy. Both he and Hargitay have been honored with Emmy award nominations for their work here (she has won). Occasionally appearing on stage, Chris' theater credits include "The Rainmaker" (as Starbuck) (1998) and "Comers" (1998), both at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He earned standout reviews as Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge," which he performed at Dublin's Gate Theatre in 2005. In 2006 he joined the campy proceedings at an Actors' Fund of America Benefit of the soap opera spoof "Die, Mommie Die!" starring drag illusionist and "Oz" alumnus Charles Busch.

Going well over a decade's worth of service to the series that made him a household name, Meloni finally retired his TV detective in 2011. Throughout the show's run he continued to flaunt his humorous side, showing up on such parody shows as Mad TV (1995) and cracking up on the various night time TV haunts. On film he continues to shatter his dramatic image in such fare as The Souler Opposite (1998), Wet Hot American Summer (2001), Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle (2004) and its sequel Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008). While he has not found outright stardom on the big screen (he has nominally played "other man" roles in such popular films as Runaway Bride (1999) and Nights in Rodanthe (2008)), Chris has more than proved his staying power since he left the popular series.

More recently, he moved forward as a writer/producer/director/star of the comedy film Dirty Movie (2011), which also has in its cast "L&O: SVU" co-star Diane Neal. In addition, Chris supplied the voice of DC Comics classic character Hal Jordan (aka Green Lantern) in the animated movie Green Lantern: First Flight (2009). He also has held regular roles on the series True Blood (2008) in 2012 and Surviving Jack (2014) as well as strong cinematic parts in the Superman film Man of Steel (2013) and in Small Time (2014).

Madeleine Stowe was born in Los Angeles, California, to Mireya Maria (Mora Steinvorth) and Robert Alfred Stowe, a civil engineer. Her mother was a from a prominent political family in Costa Rica. Stowe grew up in Eagle Rock, a working-class neighborhood of Los Angeles. At age ten she started practicing for a career as a concert pianist and trained every day for hours. However, when her instructor died in 1976 she more or less quit playing.

She went to University of Southern California and studied cinema and journalism before taking up acting at Beverly Hills' Solaris Theater. She made a few appearances in TV and on film but her breakthrough came in 1987 with Stakeout (1987). Other major credits include The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and Short Cuts (1993).

When not filming, she spends her time at her ranch in Texas, which she shares with her husband Brian Benben.

Legendary actor Christopher Plummer, perhaps Canada's greatest thespian, delivered outstanding performances as Sherlock Holmes in Murder by Decree (1979), the chilling villain in The Silent Partner (1978), the iconoclastic Mike Wallace in The Insider (1999), the empathetic psychiatrist in A Beautiful Mind (2001), the kindly and clever mystery writer in Knives Out (2019), and as Leo Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009). It was this last role that finally brought him recognition from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, when he was nominated as Best Actor in a Supporting Role, one of three Academy Award nominations he received in the 2010s, along with All the Money in the World (2017) (as J. Paul Getty) and Beginners (2010); he won for the latter role. He will also likely always be remembered as Captain Von Trapp in the atomic bomb-strength blockbuster The Sound of Music (1965), a film he publicly despised until softening his stance in his autobiography "In Spite of Me" (2008).

Christopher Plummer was born Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer on December 13, 1929 in Toronto, Ontario. He was the only child of Isabella Mary (Abbott), a secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University, and John Orme Plummer, who sold securities and stocks. Christopher was a great-grandson of John Abbott, who was Canada's third Prime Minister (from 1891 to 1892), and a great-great-great-grandson of Presbyterian clergyman John Bethune. He had Scottish, English, Anglo-Irish, and Cornish ancestry. Plummer was raised in Senneville, Quebec, near Montreal, at his maternal grandparents' home.

Aside from the youngest member of the Barrymore siblings (which counted Oscar-winners Ethel Barrymore and Lionel Barrymore in their number), Plummer was the premier Shakespearean actor to come out of North America in the 20th century. He was particularly memorable as Hamlet, Iago and Lear, though his Macbeth opposite Glenda Jackson was -- and this was no surprise to him due to the famous curse attached to the "Scottish Play" -- a failure.

Like another great stage actor, Richard Burton, early in his career Plummer failed to connect with the screen in a way that would make him a star. Dynamic on stage, he didn't succeed as a younger leading man in films. Perhaps if he had been born earlier, and acted in the studio system of Hollywood's golden age, he could have been carefully groomed for stardom. As it was, he shared the English stage actors' disdain -- and he was equally at home in London as he was on the boards of Broadway or on-stage in his native Canada -- for the movies, which did not help him in that medium, as he has confessed. As he aged, Plummer excelled at character roles. He was always a good villain, this man who garnered kudos playing Lucifer on Broadway in Archibald Macleish's Pulitzer Prize-winning "J.B.".

Plummer won two Emmy Awards out of seven nominations stretching 46 years from 1959 and 2011, and one Genie Award in six nominations from 1980 to 2009. For his stage work, Plummer has racked up two Tony Awards on six nominations, the first in 1974 as Best Actor (Musical) for the title role in "Cyrano" and the second in 1997, as Best Actor (Play), in "Barrymore". Surprisingly, he did not win (though he was nominated) for his masterful 2004 performance of "King Lear", which he originated at the Stratford Festival in Ontario and brought down to Broadway for a sold-out run. His other Tony nominations show the wide range of his talent, from a 1959 nod for the Elia Kazan-directed production of Macleish's "J.B." to recognition in 1994 for Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land", with a 1982 Best Actor (Play) nomination for his "Iago" in William Shakespeare's "Othello".

Until the 2009 Academy Awards were announced, it could be said about Plummer that he was the finest actor of the post-World War II period to fail to get an Academy Award. In that, he was following in the footsteps of the late great John Barrymore, whom Plummer so memorably portrayed on Broadway in a one-man show that brought him his second Tony Award. In 2010, Plummer finally got an Oscar nod for his portrayal of another legend, Lev Tolstoy in The Last Station (2009). Two years later, the first paragraph of his obituary was written when the 82-year-old Plummer became the oldest person in Academy history to win an Oscar. He won for playing a senior citizen who comes out as gay after the death of his wife in the movie Beginners (2010). As he clutched his statuette, the debonaire thespian addressed it thus: "You're only two years older than me darling, where have you been all of my life?"

Plummer then told the audience that at birth, "I was already rehearsing my Academy acceptance speech, but it was so long ago mercifully for you I've forgotten it." The Academy Award was a long time in coming and richly deserved.

Plummer gave many other fine portrayals on film, particularly as he grew older and settled down into a comfortable marriage with his third wife Elaine. He continued to be an in-demand character actor in prestigious motion pictures. If he were English rather than Canadian, he would have been knighted. (In 1968, he was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada, the country's highest civilian honor and one which required the approval of the sovereign, Queen Elizabeth II.) If he lived in the company town of Los Angeles rather than in Connecticut, he likely would have several more Oscar nominations before winning his first for "The Last Station".

As it is, as attested to in his witty and well-written autobiography, Plummer was amply rewarded in life. In 1970, Plummer - then a self-confessed 43-year-old "bottle baby" - married his third wife Elaine Taylor, a dancer, who helped wean him off his dependency on alcohol. They lived happily with their dogs on a 30-acre estate in Weston, Connecticut. He thanked her from the stage during the 2012 Oscar telecast, quipping that she "deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for coming to my rescue every day of my life." Although he spent the majority of his time in the United States, he remained a Canadian citizen. He died in his Weston, Connecticut home on February 5, 2021 at age 91.

His daughter, with actress Tammy Grimes, is actress Amanda Plummer.

Terry Gilliam was born near Medicine Lake, Minnesota. When he was 12 his family moved to Los Angeles where he became a fan of MAD magazine. In his early twenties he was often stopped by the police who suspected him of being a drug addict and Gilliam had to explain that he worked in advertising. In the political turmoil in the 60's, Gilliam feared he would become a terrorist and decided to leave the USA. He moved to England and landed a job on the children's television show Do Not Adjust Your Set (1967) as an animator. There he met meet his future collaborators in Monty Python: Terry Jones, Eric Idle and Michael Palin. In 2006 he renounced his American citizenship.

David Morse, a 6' 4" tall blue-eyed blond who performed on stage for 10 years before breaking into film, has become established as a respected supporting, character actor and second lead.

He was born the first of four children of Charles, a sales manager, and Jacquelyn Morse, a schoolteacher, on October 11, 1953, in Beverly, Massachusetts. He grew up with three younger sisters. After graduating from high school, Morse studied acting at the William Esper Studio. In 1971, he began his professional acting career appearing in over 30 productions with the Boston Repertory Company from 1971 to 1977. In the late 1970s, Morse continued his stage career with the Circle Repertory Company in New York before moving into television and film. In the late 1990s, he returned to the Off-Broadway stage starring in Paula Vogel's Pulitzer Prize winning drama, "How I Learned to Drive" (1997), for which he won the Drama Desk Award and the Obie.

Morse made his big screen debut in 1980 co-starring as "Jerry Maxwell", a cheerful bartender turned basketball player, opposite John Savage and Diana Scarwid in Inside Moves (1980), written by Barry Levinson and directed by Richard Donner. Although Inside Moves (1980) was nominated for an Oscar, Morse had to wait a few years until his career took off. His big break came in 1982 when he was cast as Dr. Jack "Boomer" Morrison, a young doctor who struggles as a single parent after the death of his wife, in St. Elsewhere (1982), a medical drama that ran for six seasons. He co-starred as opposite Jodie Foster and young Jena Malone in the Oscar nominated Sci-Fi drama Contact (1997). In 1999, he appeared in Stephen King's The Green Mile (1999), with Tom Hanks. A year later, he played a supporting role as a kidnapped husband of Meg Ryan in Proof of Life (2000). In 2002, Morse became the first English-speaking actor nominated for the Golden Horse Award, the Chinese equivalent of the Oscars, for his superb performance as FBI expert "Kevin Richter" in Double Vision (2002). From 2002 to 2004, Morse had a regular gig starring as "Mike Olshansky", an ex-Philadelphia policeman turned cab driver, in the TV series Hack (2002) which ran three seasons and was filmed in Philadelphia, close to his home. In 2006-2007, he has a recurring role on season 3 of an Emmy award-winning medical drama House (2004).

David Morse has been married to fellow actress Susan Wheeler Duff since 1982. They have three children, one daughter and twin sons. In 1994, after the the Northridge earthquake destroyed his home in Sherman Oaks, Morse moved from LA to Philadelphia with his family, and resides in his wife's hometown.

Donald Faison was born on 22 June 1974 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Scrubs (2001), Clueless (1995) and Skyline (2010). He has been married to Cacee Cobb since 15 December 2012. They have two children. He was previously married to Lisa Askey.

Jon Seda's first passion was to be a championship boxer. After taking runner-up in the NJ Golden Gloves, the 1992 Olympics was the next goal. That's when fate stepped in; at his first audition, for Gladiator (1992), he was given a co-starring role! Since then he has branched off into numerous television and film roles. He has garnered critical acclaim for his roles in such films as I Like It Like That (1994), The Sunchaser (1996), Selena (1997), Undisputed (2002), and in television for his roles in Homicide: Life on the Street (1993), UC: Undercover (2001), Third Watch (1999), Oz (1997), NBC Chicago PD, and he also starred as Marine Sgt. John "Manila" Basilone in HBO's award-winning mini series The Pacific (2010).

Thomas Alan Waits was born in Pomona, California, to schoolteachers Alma Fern (Johnson) and Jesse Frank Waits. Described as one of the last beatniks of the contemporary music, Waits in fact has two separate careers. From 1973 (LP "Closing Time") to 1983 ("One From The Heart" soundtrack), he recorded nine LPs for Asylum Records, writing songs mainly in the manner of Tin Pan Alley, mixing them with jazz and blues. Extraordinarily, he never produced a hit, but he earned a cult following all over the world. In 1983, he signed with Island Records and released a series of albums that stunned the music world. Beginning with "Swordfishtrombones", he introduced a whole new orchestration, which included some of the instruments invented by Harry Partch. He found a new ground for his innovations, searching in sound fields that never before were searched. This second part of his career coincided with his marriage to Kathleen Brennan, a former writer for Francis Ford Coppola (Zoetrope (1999)). His LPs "Rain Dogs" (1985), "Big Time" (soundtrack) and "The Black Rider" are today what Kurt Weill's music was once. "The Black Rider" brings music written for the show directed by Bob Wilson and staged in Germany.

Matt Ross was born on 3 January 1970 in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Captain Fantastic (2016), American Psycho (2000) and Face/Off (1997).

Lisa's mother, Tina, is a retired social worker. Her late father, Ira, worked as an engineer and then went into business as a general contractor. A sister, Heidi, is a lawyer. Lisa started acting as a child and played Flip Wilson in a 3rd grade performance. During junior high, she started traveling by train to Manhattan for private acting lessons and acted in summer drama camps. Her principal interest initially was to act in Shakepearean drama. She earned her degree from theatre from New York University and followed it up with a second BFA from Julliard. In 1993, she got her first break at the New York Shakespearean festival playing Isabella opposite Kevin Kline in "Measure for Measure". She was later turned down to play the role of Hester Prynne in a production of "The Scarlet Letter" because of race. Upset, she wrote a letter to 'The Village Voice' to protest legal racism. The play's playwright, Phyllis Nagy, responded with a criticism of her acting, which obviously made things worse. She went on to have a successful career in theater. In 1995-96, her portrayal of a South African singer in Athol Fugard's Valley Song garnered an Obie Award and the Clarence Derwent Award. More recently, Hamilton earned critical acclaim, her second Obie, and a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for her role as Suzanne Alexander in Adrienne Kennedy's, "The Ohio State Murders." Besides appearing in over two dozen films, Hamilton directed the documentary film Beah: A Black Woman Speaks in 2003. This film, about pioneering black actress Beah Richards, dealt with Hamilton seeking out Richards, an African-American actress who had broken ground making inroads for black actresses.

Annie Golden was born on 19 October 1951 in Brooklyn, New York, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for Hair (1979), Orange Is the New Black (2013) and I Love You Phillip Morris (2009).

Frank John Gorshin, Jr. was born on April 5, 1933 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was a railroad worker and his mother, Frances (Preseren), was a seamstress. His family was originally from Novo Mesto, Slovenia. While in high school, young Frank worked as an usher at the Sheridan Square Theatre and began doing impressions of some of his screen idols: Al Jolson, James Cagney, Cary Grant and Edward G. Robinson. At age 17, he won a local talent contest. The prize was a one-week engagement at Jackie Heller's Carousel nightclub, where Alan King was headlining. It was young Frank's first paid job as an entertainer and launched his show business career. Frank attended local Catholic schools and, later, Carnegie-Mellon Tech School of Drama. He acted in plays and performed in nightclubs in Pittsburgh in his spare time.

In 1953, at age 19, he was drafted into the United States Army and was posted in Germany. Frank served for two years, 1953-1955, as an entertainer attached to Special Services. In the Army, Frank met Maurice A. Bergman, who would introduce Frank to a Hollywood agent when his hitch with Uncle Sam was up. Frank quickly landed a role in The Proud and Profane (1956) and other roles in television dramas followed.

In 1957, while visiting his family in Pittsburgh, his agent phoned him to rush back to Hollywood for an audition for Run Silent Run Deep (1958). For some odd reason, instead of catching a plane, Frank decided to drive his car to Los Angeles. Driving 39 consecutive hours, he fell asleep at the wheel, crashed, suffered a fractured skull and woke up in the hospital four days later. To add insult to injury, a Los Angeles newspaper reported he was killed, and the plum movie role of Officer Ruby went to Don Rickles.

Frank appeared in a number of lovable B-movies for American-International Pictures: Hot Rod Girl (1956) and Dragstrip Girl (1957), and everybody's favorite, Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957). Frank finally got a substantial role in the A-movie, Bells Are Ringing (1960), with Dean Martin and Judy Holliday. He did a thinly-disguised Marlon Brando impression. he also appeared in Hollywood nightclubs, including the Purple Onion. He did Las Vegas engagements, opening for Bobby Darin at The Flamingo. On television, Frank appeared on The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1956) and had a dozen guest shots on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948).

In 1966, he gave his breakout performance, performing what has become his best-known role: The Riddler on Batman (1966), for which he received an Emmy nomination. He also played The Riddler in the movie, Batman: The Movie (1966), based on the television series. "I could feel the impact overnight", he recalled later. Because of his nationwide recognition, he was given headliner status in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand, Sahara and Aladdin Hotels. He received more good reviews for his performance in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (1969).

In 1970, Frank made his Broadway debut as the star of "Jimmy", for which he got rave reviews. He also starred in many touring company productions, such as "Promises, Promises", "Peter Pan", "Prisoner of Second Street" and "Guys and Dolls". In the 1980s, Frank served as Honorary Chairman, Entertainment Division, for the American Heart Association. Perhaps recalling his early AIP films, Frank worked with the legendary Roger Corman, appearing as Clockwise on the television series Black Scorpion (2001) and on Corman's The Phantom Eye (1999). He had appeared in over 70 movies and made over 40 guest appearances in television series.

Gorshin died at age 72 in Burbank, California on May 17, 2005. He had suffered from lung cancer, emphysema and pneumonia.

Richard Stanley is the award-winning South African-born filmmaker, who made a name of himself with his first feature film, the sci-fi movie Hardware (1990). A low budget movie about a mad-dog android loose in an apartment was released in 1990. Critics slammed it as a Terminator rip-off, yet the film became a financial success. The 1.5 million dollar budget was paid back quite handsomely and continuation was imminent.

In 1992, Stanley followed Hardware with Dust Devil (1992), a story based on the myth of a Namibian serial killer. A fallout with the distributors led to the re-cutting of the US version, while the bankruptcy of the British-based production company Palace Pictures temporarily shut the post-production down in Europe and the film remained mauled or unfinished, depending how you look at it. Finally Stanley himself managed to finance a new, restored print from the original negative, which has later gained a cult following similar to Hardware.

His third feature was to be The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), an adaptation of the famed H.G. Wells novel. Unfortunately it ended up a victim of creative disputes, leading to him being sacked a few days after production began. The finished film, released in 1996, carries little to no resemblance to the version he was originally set to make, using only about two words of his original script.

This, however, hasn't beaten the visionary filmmaker down and horror movie fans are now waiting for him to come back... with a one mean vengeance.

Bart the Bear was perhaps one of Hollywood's most remarkable animal stars. The Alaskan brown bear was born in 1977 and was brought in by Utah animal trainer Doug Seus. Bart started to train in acting in 1980 and grew to 9 feet tall, the average for brown bears.

Bart starred in The Great Outdoors (1988), On Deadly Ground (1994) and The Edge (1997). Bart's co-stars included John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, Steven Seagal, Anthony Hopkins and Alec Baldwin, all of whom were very impressed with how well a bear could be trained to act, and enjoyed the experience of working with animals. Sadly, Bart died in 2000 of cancer at the age of 23 during filming of Animal Planet's Growing Up Grizzly (2001). His namesake is Little Bart. Little Bart's sister is named Honey Bump. Their mother was killed and Doug and Lynne Seus took them in. Doug and wife Lynne Seus started the Vital Ground Foundation in honor of Bart, who was the organization's 1st ambassador. The organization was begun to set up lands to preserve the great grizzlies and other wildlife.

Simon Jones was born on 27 July 1950 in Charlton Park, Wiltshire, England, UK. He is an actor, known for The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981), Brideshead Revisited (1981) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Radio Show Live (2016). He was previously married to Nancy Lewis.

The man behind the low woodwinds that open Citizen Kane (1941), the shrieking violins of Psycho (1960), and the plaintive saxophone of Taxi Driver (1976) was one of the most original and distinctive composers ever to work in film. He started early, winning a composition prize at the age of 13 and founding his own orchestra at the age of 20. After writing scores for Orson Welles's radio shows in the 1930s (including the notorious 1938 "The War of the Worlds" broadcast), he was the obvious choice to score Welles's film debut, Citizen Kane (1941), and, subsequently, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), although he removed his name from the latter after additional music was added without his (or Welles's) consent when the film was mutilated by a panic-stricken studio. Herrmann was a prolific film composer, producing some of his most memorable work for Alfred Hitchcock, for whom he wrote nine scores. A notorious perfectionist and demanding (he once said that most directors didn't have a clue about music, and he blithely ignored their instructions--like Hitchcock's suggestion that Psycho (1960) have a jazz score and no music in the shower scene). He ended his partnership with Hitchcock after the latter rejected his score for Torn Curtain (1966) on studio advice. He was also an early experimenter in the sounds used in film scores, most famously The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), scored for two theremins, pianos, and a horn section; and was a consultant on the electronic sounds created by Oskar Sala on the mixtrautonium for The Birds (1963). His last score was for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and died just hours after recording it. He also wrote an opera, "Wuthering Heights", and a cantata, "Moby Dick".

David Webb Peoples was born on 9 February 1940 in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. He is a writer and editor, known for Unforgiven (1992), Blade Runner (1982) and 12 Monkeys (1995). He is married to Janet Peoples.

Chris Marker was born on 29 July 1921 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was a writer and director, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Sans Soleil (1983) and Third Side of the Coin (1960). He died on 29 July 2012 in Paris, France.

Charles Roven is an American film producer who produced dozens of films made by Warner Brothers and Atlas Entertainment. His produced films include Scooby-Doo, The Dark Knight trilogy, Wonder Woman, James Gunn's The Suicide Squad, Batman v Superman, Wonder Woman 1984, Man of Steel, Suicide Squad, Zack Snyder's Justice League, 12 Monkeys, Justice League, Get Smart and American Hustle. He was married to Dawn Steel until her death in 1997.

Louis Armstrong grew up poor in a single-parent household. He was 13 when he celebrated the New Year by running out on the street and firing a pistol that belonged to the current man in his mother's life. At the Colored Waifs Home for Boys, he learned to play the bugle and the clarinet and joined the home's brass band. They played at socials, picnics and funerals for a small fee. At 18 he got a job in the Kid Ory Band in New Orleans. Four years later, in 1922, he went to Chicago, where he played second coronet in the Creole Jazz Band. He made his first recordings with that band in 1923. In 1929 Armstrong appeared on Broadway in "Hot Chocolates", in which he introduced Fats Waller's "Ain't Misbehavin', his first popular song hit. He made a tour of Europe in 1932. During a command performance for King George V, he forgot he had been told that performers were not to refer to members of the royal family while playing for them. Just before picking up his trumpet for a really hot number, he announced: "This one's for you, Rex."

Bill Raymond was born on 9 September 1938 in San Francisco, California, USA. He is an actor, known for 12 Monkeys (1995), Lincoln (2012) and Golden Years (1991). He has been married to Linda Ruth Hartinian since 1991. He was previously married to Peggy A Critchett.

Andrew Bernstein is known for The Outsider (2020), Foundation (2021) and The Nevers (2021).

David Acord is known for Licorice Pizza (2021), Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023) and Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker (2019).