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Despite many a powerful performance, this actor's actor never quite achieved the stardom he deserved. Ultimately, Richard Basehart became best-known to television audiences as Admiral Harriman Nelson, commander of the glass-nosed nuclear submarine 'S.S.R.N Seaview' in Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964), shown on ABC from 1964 to 1968. Basehart's distinctively deep, resonant voice also provided narrations in feature films, TV mini-series and for documentaries.

Born in Zanesville, Ohio, on August 14 1914, Basehart was one of four siblings born to a struggling and soon-to-be widowed editor of a local newspaper. Upon leaving college, he worked briefly as a radio announcer and then attempted to follow in his father's journalistic footsteps as a reporter. Controversy over one of his stories led to his departure from the paper and cleared the path to pursue acting as a career. In 1932, Basehart made his theatrical bow with the Wright Players Stock Company in his home town and subsequently spent five years playing varied and interesting roles at the Hedgerow Theatre in Philadelphia. From 1938, he began to work in New York on and off-Broadway. Seven years later he received the New York Drama Critics Circle Best Newcomer Award for "The Hasty Heart", a drama by John Patrick, in which Basehart played a dying Scottish soldier. In 1945, he received his first film offers. When he heard director Bretaigne Windust was seeking an authentic Scot for the lead role in The Hasty Heart, Basehart not only effected an authentic enough burr to win the part, but won also the 1945 New York Critic's Award as the most promising actor of the year. His accent was so good that a visiting leader of a Scottish clan told the actor he knew his clan.

Basehart made his debut on the big screen with Repeat Performance (1947) at Eagle-Lion, a minor film noir with Joan Leslie, followed at Warner Brothers with the Gothic Barbara Stanwyck thriller Cry Wolf (1947). His third picture finally got him critical plaudits for playing a sociopathic killer, relentlessly hunted through drainage tunnels in He Walked by Night (1948), a procedural police drama shot in a semi-documentary style. Variety gave a positive review, commenting "With this role, Basehart establishes himself as one of Hollywood's most talented finds in recent years. He heavily overshadows the rest of the cast..."

It was the first of many charismatic performances in which Basehart would excel at tormented or introverted characters, portraying angst, foreboding or mental anguish. His gallery of characters came to include the notorious Robespierre, chief architect of the Reign of Terror (1949), set during the French Revolution. He was one of the feuding Hatfields in Roseanna McCoy (1949) and in Fourteen Hours (1951) (based on a real 1938 Manhattan suicide) had a tour de force turn as a man perched on the high ledge of an office building threatening to jump. For much of the film's duration, the camera was firmly focused on the actor's face. Basehart later recalled "It was an actor's dream, in which I hogged the camera lens, and the role called on me to act mostly with my eyes, lips and face muscles". The New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther called his performance 'startling and poignant'.

Eschewing conventional movie stardom, Basehart meticulously selected and varied his roles, avoiding, as he put it, "stereotyping at the expense of not amassing an impressive bank account.'' In the wake of the sudden death of his first wife, Basehart left the U.S. for Italy. In March 1951, he got married a second time (to the actress Valentina Cortese) and appeared in a succession of European movies, playing the ill-fated clown Il Matto in Federico Fellini's classic La Strada (1954); against type, essayed a swashbuckling nobleman reclaiming his titles and estate in Cartouche (1955), and (again for Fellini), played a member of a gang of grifters in The Swindle (1955). He was also ideally cast as the mild-mannered Ishmael in John Huston's excellent version of Moby Dick (1956) and as Ivan, one of The Brothers Karamazov (1958).

By 1960, Basehart's second marriage had ended in divorce and the actor returned to America where he found movie opportunities few and far between. The small screen to some extent reinvigorated his career with numerous series guest appearances and his lengthy stint in the popular Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. He also received critical praise for his role as Henry Wirtz, commandant of the Confederacy's most infamous prison camp, in the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning television drama The Andersonville Trial (1970).

Not only an active human rights campaigner, Basehart was also strongly opposed to the experimental use of animals. With his third wife Diana Lotery he set up the animal welfare charity, Actors and Others for Animals, in 1971. He died after suffering a series of strokes in Los Angeles on September 17 1984 at the age of 70.

Berkeley Harris was born on 17 January 1933 in Hamlet, North Carolina, USA. He was an actor, known for Shenandoah (1965), Bullet for a Badman (1964) and Route 66 (1960). He was married to Beverlee McKinsey and Susan Harris. He died on 17 September 1984 in New York, New York, USA.

Soviet songwriter (bard), film actor, journalist, writer, screenwriter, poet, one of the founders of the author's song genre, creator of the reportage song genre, author of more than 300 songs. In 1955 he graduated from the faculty of Russian language and literature of the Moscow Pedagogical Institute. In the same year, he wrote the text for his first song - Madagascar (the music was borrowed from the performance of Sergei Obraztsov "Under the rustle of your eyelashes"). While studying at the institute, he began to write songs - usually in his own poems. From 1950 to 1960 - composed about 40 songs. He worked as a teacher, served in the army. Since 1958 he worked on the All-Union Radio, in 1962 he initiated the creation of the youth radio station "Youth". Since 1964, together with a group of like-minded people, he published the magazine Krugozor, where he created the unique genre of "song-reporting". Since 1970, he worked as a screenwriter and editor of the cinema association "Screen" of the Central Television. The first role was played in the film "July Rain." Among the most interesting roles of Vizbor are Begounyok in the Red Tent, Sasha in You and Me, Balashov in the Belorussky Train Station, Borman in Seventeen Moments of Spring. More than forty documentaries, as well as the feature film "Year of the Dragon" and the television movie "Captain Frackass", have been delivered according to the scripts of Vizbor. Vizbor is considered one of the founders and the most prominent representatives of the author's song. He wrote a number of scripts and plays that were performed in many theaters in the country. The tales and stories of Vizbor were published mostly after his death. The book "I left my heart in the blue mountains" (1986-1989) had a circulation of 250 thousand copies. Passed away on September 17, 1984 from liver cancer in the Moscow Cancer Center on Kashirskoye Highway. He was buried at the Kuntsevsky cemetery of the capital.

Gian Carlo Fusco was born on 18 June 1915 in La Spezia, Liguria, Italy. He was a writer and actor, known for Bocche cucite (1970), La mano sul fucile (1963) and Le avventure di Pinocchio (1947). He died on 17 September 1984 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Jerzy Walden was born on 17 November 1903 in Warsaw, Poland, Russian Empire [now Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland]. He was an actor and writer, known for Dwa dni w raju (1936), Bohaterowie Sybiru (1936) and Mother Joan of the Angels (1961). He died on 17 September 1984 in Warsaw, Mazowieckie, Poland.