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- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Colin Farrell is one of Ireland's biggest stars in Hollywood and abroad. His film presence has been filled with memorable roles that range from an inwardly tortured hit man, to an adventurous explorer, a determined-but-failing writer, and the greatest military leader in history.
Farrell was born on May 31, 1976 in Castleknock, Dublin, Ireland to Rita (Monaghan) and Eamon Farrell. His father and uncle were both professional athletes, and briefly it looked like Farrell would follow in their footsteps. Farrell auditioned for a part in the Irish boy band Boyzone, unsuccessfully. After dropping out of the Gaiety School of Acting, Farrell was cast in Ballykissangel (1996), a BBC television drama. "Ballykissangel" was not his first onscreen role. Farrell had previously been in The War Zone (1999), directed by Tim Roth and had appeared in the independent film Drinking Crude (1997). Farrell was soon to move on to bigger things.
Exchanging his thick Dublin accent for a light Texas drawl, Farrell acted in the gritty Tigerland (2000), directed by Joel Schumacher. Starring Farrell among a number of other budding young actors, the film portrays a group of new recruits being trained for the war in Vietnam. Farrell played the arrogant soldier Boz, drafted into the army and completely spiteful of authority. The film was praised by critics but made little money at the box office. It was Farrell's first big role on film, and certainly not his last. Farrell followed up with American Outlaws (2001), where he played the notorious outlaw Jesse James with Scott Caan, son of legendary actor James Caan, in the role of Cole Younger. The film was a box-office flop and a critical failure. Immediately, Farrell returned to the war drama film that had made him famous. Co-starring in the war film Hart's War (2002) opposite Bruce Willis, Farrell played the young officer captured by the enemy. The film was another failure. Farrell struck gold when he was cast in the Steven Spielberg film Minority Report (2002) that same year. Set in a futuristic time period, Farrell played the character Danny Witwer, a young member of the Justice Department who is sent after Tom Cruise's character. The film was a smash hit, and praised by critics.
Farrell continued this success when he reunited with Joel Schumacher on the successful thriller Phone Booth (2002). Farrell played the role of the victim who is harassed by an unseen killer (Kiefer Sutherland) and is made to reveal his sins to the public. 2003 was a big year for Farrell. He starred in the crime thriller The Recruit (2003) as a young CIA man mentored by an older CIA veteran (Al Pacino). Pacino later stated that Farrell was the best actor of his generation. Farrell certainly continued to be busy that year with Daredevil (2003), which actually allowed him to keep his thick Irish accent. The film was another success for Farrell, as was the crime film S.W.A.T. (2003) where Farrell starred opposite Samuel L. Jackson and LL Cool J. Farrell also acted in the Irish black comedy film Intermission (2003) and appeared another Irish film Veronica Guerin (2003) which reunited him with Joel Schumacher once again. The following year, Farrell acted in what is his most infamous film role yet: the title role in the mighty Oliver Stone film epic Alexander (2004), which is a character study of Alexander the Great as he travels across new worlds and conquers all the known world before him. Farrell donned a blond wig and retained his Irish accent, and gave a fine performance as Alexander. However, both he and the film were criticized. Despite being one of the highest grossing films internationally and doing a good job at the DVD sales, Farrell did not come out of the experience without a few hurts. Farrell attempted to rebound with his historical film The New World (2005). Reuniting with "Alexander" star Christopher Plummer, and also acting with Christian Bale, Farrell played the brave explorer John Smith, who would make first contacts with the Native peoples. The film did not do well at the box office, though critics praised the film's stunning appearance and cinematography.
Farrell returned to act in Michael Mann's film Miami Vice (2006) alongside Jamie Foxx. The film was a film adaptation of the famous television series, and did reasonably well at the box office. Farrell also acted in Ask the Dust (2006) with Salma Hayek and Donald Sutherland, though the film did not receive much distribution. The next year, Farrell acted alongside Ewan McGregor in the Woody Allen film Cassandra's Dream (2007) which received mixed reviews from critics. Farrell followed up with the hilarious black comedy In Bruges (2008). Written and directed by Irish theatre director Martin McDonagh, the film stars Farrell and Brendan Gleeson as two Irish hit men whose latest assignment went wrong, leaving them to hide out in Bruges, Belgium. The film has been one of Farrell's most praised work, and he was nominated for a Golden Globe. As well as In Bruges (2008), Farrell acted alongside Edward Norton in the crime film Pride and Glory (2008) which was not as successful as the former film. As well as working with charity, and speaking at the Special Olympics World Games in 2007, he has donated his salary for Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009) to Heath Ledger's little daughter (who was left nothing in a will that had not been updated in time). Ledger had originally been cast in the film and was replaced by Farrell, Johnny Depp and Jude Law. The film was a critical and financial success, and Farrell also played a small role in Crazy Heart (2009) which had the Dubliner playing a country singer. Farrell even sang a few songs for the film's soundtrack. As well as those small roles, Farrell took the lead role in the war film Triage (2009). Farrell incredibly lost forty-four pounds to play the role of a war photographer who must come to terms with what he has experienced in Kurdistan. While the film was finely made, with excellent performances from all involved, the film has received almost no distribution.
Farrell's other leading role that year was in Neil Jordan's Irish film Ondine (2009). In recent years, he co-starred in the comedy horror film Fright Night (2011), the science fiction action film Total Recall (2012), both remakes, and McDonagh's second feature, and the black comedy crime film Seven Psychopaths (2012). Since the mid-2000s, Farrell has cleaned up his act, and far from being a Hollywood hell raiser and party animal, he has shown himself to be a respectable and very talented actor.
He also starred in The Lobster (2015) and The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017), both directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. For The Lobster he was nominated for a Golden Globe.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.- Sobhita Dhulipala is an Indian actress with acting work across multiple regional film industries in India. She made her debut with Hindi film Raman Raghav 2.0 (Psycho Raman) that premiered at the Cannes film festival in 2016 where she earned a best supporting performance nomination. Sobhita's breakthrough came with her role as Tara Khanna in 'Made in heaven' followed by her role in 'The Night Manager', an official adaptation of its UK counterpart. Her work across Malayalam (Kurup), Telugu (Goodachari, Major) and Tamil (Ponniyin Selvan -1,2) was met with commercial success as well as critical acclaim. Her bi-lingual Indian film The elder one (Moothon) was lauded at its premiere at the Toronto International film festival in 2019. A trained classical dancer, she has been recognized for her work in Indian award shows
- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Justine Lupe-Schomp is an American actress. She is known for her roles on Mr. Mercedes, Succession, Cristela, and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Lupe grew up in Denver, Colorado. She is a 2007 graduate of Denver School of the Arts theater program and 2011 graduate of the Juilliard School in New York City. Her grandmother, Kay Schomp, has a theater named after her at the Denver School of the Arts. Her father, John Lupe, is an exhibition specialist at the Denver Art Museum.- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Archie is an Emmy Award winning British actress best known for her role as Kalinda Sharma in The Good Wife, for which she was nominated for an Emmy three times in a row and went on to to be honored with a Golden Globe Nomination. She made her film debut in the critically acclaimed East Is East which won a Bafta for Best Film. She then went onto star in the Bafta and Golden Globe nominated international hit Bend It Like Beckham. She appeared in John Le Carre's The Constant Gardener, which was nominated for 10 Bafta's and won an Oscar and went on to work alongside Angelina Jolie in the gut wrenching A Mighty Heart. Archie then went on to star in 2 Bafta winning Netflix/BBC series; The Fall, opposite Gillian Anderson as well as Shetland. She recently starred on the American TV hit Blindspot and in the International blockbuster earthquake movie San Andreas opposite Dwayne Johnson. The New Year will see Archie lead the highly anticipated 6 part drama Next Of Kin on ITV.- Actress
- Producer
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"Want to know what comes between me and my Calvins? Nothing." If you have not heard of Brooke Shields before, this tagline from her Calvin Klein Jeans ad had to grab your attention. Not that she has not had a previously noteworthy resume. She was born on May 31, 1965 in New York City, to Teri (Schmon) and Frank Shields. At age 12, she starred as a child prostitute in Pretty Baby (1978). Could this movie even be made today? It was considered risky and controversial in 1978. It was followed by another blockbuster, the romance adventure drama The Blue Lagoon (1980). Brooke has proved herself to be so much more than her early films. Her broad range of work as an adult would be quite an achievement for anyone, especially given how difficult transitioning from child actor to adult often is.
She has never stopped working, whether it be a Bob Hope Christmas special, her own sitcom Suddenly Susan (1996) or as an author. She also managed to work on a degree from Princeton University. She has received a number of awards during her career, most notably The People's Choice award for 1981 through 1984 in the category of Favorite Young Performer. In 1997, she was honored again with The People's Choice award for Favorite Female Performer in a New Television Series in 1997 for her work in Suddenly Susan (1996). In her personal life, she was married in 1997 to tennis player Andre Agassi and was devastated when they divorced two years later. She married for the second time in 2001 to Chris Henchy. She has been open about using fertility treatments to become pregnant with their daughter, Rowan, born in 2003.
When suffering debilitating depression after the birth of her daughter, she made the decision to put her feelings down on paper. Her book, "Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression," takes a hard, honest look at what she and many other women experience after childbirth. She still lives in New York City, and is still sought after for work in movies, television, and on stage. Pretty nice list of achievements for the once Calvin Klein jeans girl.- Actor
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Rising star Luke Arnold is a graduate from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. He began his acting career with Australian television, staring in the series McLeod's Daughters, Rush, Rescue: Special Ops, City Homicide, and Steven Spielberg's The Pacific.
His first feature film role was the lead in Broken Hill, in which he had the opportunity to work with Academy Award winner Timothy Hutton, Spy Kids star Alexa Vega, and fellow Aussie Rhys Wakefield. The film was produced by Chris Wyatt (Napoleon Dynamite) and Julie Ryan (Ten Canoes, Red Dog). Broken Hill, a film about an Australian high school boy with big dreams of leaving the remote outback and becoming a classical musician, won a collection of international festival awards, including Best Feature 13+ at the Giffoni Film Festival in Italy.
Following Broken Hill, Arnold stared in "The Tunnel", a thriller set in the dark tunnels of the Australian subway system.
Luke Arnold was also the lead in the 2011 Australian comedy "Dealing with Destiny" and returned to Italy to star in the thriller "Murder in the Dark."- Actress
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Lea Katherine Thompson was born May 31, 1961 in Rochester, Minnesota. She is the youngest of five children. Her parents are Barbara and Cliff Thompson. Since all her siblings were much older than her, Lea says it seemed like she had more than two parents. The family lived in the Starlight motel, all the kids sharing a room. Things began to look up for the family when Lea's father got a job in Minneapolis, where the family moved.
Lea's parents divorced when she was six, and her mother decided to maintain the family. This wasn't the easiest job, considering her mother was alcohol-addicted at the time. When she found the strength to quit drinking, she took a job playing the piano and singing in a bar to support Lea and her siblings. When Lea was seven, her mother remarried. Ever since Lea was little, she loved to dance -- ballet to be exact. She would practice three to four hours every day. Her first role was as a mouse in "The Nutcracker". After Lea turned fourteen, she had performed in more than 45 ballets on stages, such as The Minnesota Dance Theatre, The Pennsylvania Ballet Company, and The Ballet Repertory. She won scholarships to The American Ballet Theatre and The San Francisco Ballet. At age nineteen, she auditioned for Mikhail Baryshnikov, who later told her that she was "a beautiful dancer... but too stocky." Lea knew her dreams had been crushed. At that point, she decided to turn to acting. She began working as a waitress, also making 22 Burger King commercials and a few Twix commercials. She was perfect for these parts simply because she was the average girl-down-the-street, from the Midwest. Everyone who knows her can't believe she was and still is so completely different...trying to be independent and fight against the system. In 1982, Lea made some type of a computer game or interactive movie known as "Murder, Anyone."
Her first role was in the movie, Jaws 3-D (1983), as a water ski bunny, although she couldn't swim or ski, which she still can't! There, she met Dennis Quaid, who became her fiancée and acting coach. Her next role was in All the Right Moves (1983), where she acted opposite Tom Cruise. Director Michael Chapman was so disappointed with her performance, that he almost fired her. Between 1983 and 1984, Lea appeared in other "teen" movies, such as Red Dawn (1984), The Wild Life (1984), and Going Undercover (aka Going Undercover (1985)), and believes it was lucky that, in these movies, they were able to use anyone who could walk and talk! Lea's biggest known accomplishment, and her big break, came from the first Back to the Future (1985). It was the biggest hit of 1985, and Lea was suddenly the most wanted actress. She could have her pick of any role she wanted to take on. She chose Howard the Duck (1986). Although it was a George Lucas production, the critics turned the movie, and Lea, down. Afterwards, director Howard Deutch offered Lea a part in his movie, Some Kind of Wonderful (1987), but she refused. After he urged her to do it, she reconsidered. She won the Young Artist Award for best young actress. During filming, Howard and Lea fell in love, and she called it off with Dennis. She then went on to film The Wizard of Loneliness (1988), which was her first movie as a woman, rather than a youngster. Lea went on to film Back to the Future Part II (1989) and an episode of Tales from the Crypt (1989). She then married Howard Deutch. She continued filming Back to the Future Part III (1990), Montana (1990), and Article 99 (1992). Lea then took a break to stay home with her first born, Madelyn Deutch.
She jumped back into acting in Dennis the Menace (1993), where she says she just played herself. Then it was on to The Beverly Hillbillies (1993), Stolen Babies (1993), The Little Rascals (1994), and The Substitute Wife (1994). In 1994, she had her second child, Zoey Deutch. Lea then went into filming The Unspoken Truth (1995). It was then that she was first given the script of a new NBC sitcom, Caroline in the City (1995). It was probably the best decision Lea ever made. She won a People's choice Award for best actress in a new sitcom. Unfortunately, with all of NBC's problems, Caroline in the City (1995) kept being moved to a worse and worse time slot, giving it horrible ratings. The show ended after only four seasons. Bad ideas from the creators (Julia, etc.) didn't help, either.
Lea quickly went onto The Right to Remain Silent (1996), The Unknown Cyclist (1998), and A Will of Their Own (1998). She also guest-starred in the Friends (1994) episode, The One with the Baby on the Bus (1995), as "Caroline Duffy," and on The Larry Sanders Show (1992). Lea also did some stage work, including starring as "Sally Bowles" in "Cabaret." The show toured and also appeared on Broadway. She then did "The Vagina Monologues" in L.A. She had a stint in a dramatic role as a Chief Deputy Assistant District Attorney, "Camille Paris," on For the People (2002).
Thompson has starred in more than 30 films, 25 television movies, 4 television series, more than 20 ballets, and starred on Broadway in "Cabaret." Lea can currently be seen on ABC Family's Peabody Award winning hit show "Switched at Birth," where she acts and directs. Lea's movie credits include: "All the Right Moves," "Red Dawn," "Some Kind of Wonderful," "The Beverly Hillbillies," "Howard The Duck," (star and vocals) Clint Eastwood's "J. Edgar," the 2014 Sundance favorite Ping Pong Summer (2014), Fliegen (2005) starring Nicolas Cage, and The Year of Spectacular Men (2017), a film written by her daughter Madelyn Deutch. Thompson partnered with international Mirrorball Trophy holder Artem Chigvintsev on the 19th season of Dancing with the Stars (2005), placing sixth.
Lea lives in Los Angeles with her husband of over thirty years, film/television director Howard Deutch, and their two talented daughters, Madelyn and Zoey Deutch, along with many dogs, fish, horses, chickens, a cat, tortoise, and parrot. She supports and often performs for breast cancer, mental health, and Alzheimer's charities. Lea is currently writing her first book of essays.- Actor
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Jonathan is a film and television actor born in Boston, Massachusetts, May 31, 1982. While still in third grade, he was a part of a ballet production of "The Nutcracker." After High School he earned admittance to Columbia University in New York City, but instead elected to pursue his acting career. His first credited appearances were in Troublemakers (1994) (original title "Botte di Natale" and a.k.a. "The Troublemakers"), as Moses Junior and Two If by Sea (1996), as Todd.- Actor
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Born in Chicago, Oscar nominee and Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Tom Berenger was born Thomas Michael Moore and raised in a working class Roman Catholic family of Irish descent. His father was a printer for the Chicago Sun-Times. Tom attended the University of Missouri to study journalism. There, he first auditioned for a role in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" at the college theater on a whim and a bet with a roommate; he won the role of "Nick", the second male lead.
After several stints in regional theater, Berenger attended Herbert Berghof's Studio School for Acting in New York City. There, he pursued a professional acting. He selected "Berenger" as his professional name, after a school friend, as there was already a "Tom Moore" in Actors' Equity. His film debut was in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), followed by roles in such films as The Big Chill (1983), Eddie and the Cruisers (1983), Platoon (1986), Someone to Watch Over Me (1987), Shoot to Kill (1988), Betrayed (1988), Last Rites (1988), Major League (1989), Shattered (1991), Gettysburg (1993), The Substitute (1996), Sniper (1993), Rough Riders (1997), Inception (2010), Hatfields & McCoys (2012), among many others.- Actress
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Ellen Wong was born in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada. Her first role was on the award winning television series "This Is Wonderland". She is best known for her role as Knives Chau in "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World", starring alongside Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Jason Schwartzman. She auditioned against many hopefuls through an international talent search to fill the role of Knives Chau. Edgar Wright wanted to work with Ellen as she was able to showcase herself as a unique actress, with the ability to also take on intense fight choreography. During training for "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World", the on-set trainer nicknamed Ellen, The Ellen-nator.- Actor
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Christopher Nash Elliott is an American actor, comedian and writer. He appeared in comedic sketches on Late Night with David Letterman (1982-1988), created and starred in the comedy series Get a Life (1990-1992) on Fox, and wrote and starred in the film Cabin Boy (1994). His writing has won four consecutive Primetime Emmy Awards. His other television appearances include recurring roles on Everybody Loves Raymond (2003-2005) and How I Met Your Mother (2009-2014), starring as Chris Monsanto in Adult Swim's Eagleheart (2011-2014) and starring as Roland Schitt in Schitt's Creek (2015-2020). He also appeared in the films Groundhog Day (1993), There's Something About Mary (1998), Snow Day (2000) and Scary Movie 2 (2001).- Actor
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Gregory Harrison was born on 31 May 1950 in Avalon, Catalina Island, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Trapper John, M.D. (1979), Picnic (1986) and Razorback (1984). He has been married to Randi Oakes since 3 May 1981. They have four children.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Meredith Kathleen Hagner is an American actress. She began her career portraying Liberty Ciccone on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns (2008-2010), which earned her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Younger Actress in a Drama Series in 2009. Following her departure from As the World Turns, she appeared as a series regular on the FX drama Lights Out (2011) and the TBS sitcom Men at Work (2012-2014).- Actor
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Eric Christian Olsen was born on 31 May 1977 in Eugene, Oregon, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd (2003), Fired Up! (2009) and Not Another Teen Movie (2001). He has been married to Sarah Wright since 23 June 2012. They have three children.- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Phillipa Anne Soo is an American actress. Soo is best known for originating the role of Eliza Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton, a performance which earned her a nomination for a 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in the same year. She also originated the role of Natasha Rostova in the off-Broadway production of Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812 in 2012 and the title role in the Broadway production of Amélie in 2017.- Actress
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Merle was born in Okinawa, Japan to a mother of Korean and Japanese descent and an African-American father serving in the U.S. Air Force. After graduating high school in Papillion, Nebraska, she attended the Theatre Conservatory at Roosevelt University in Chicago on a full-ride scholarship and graduated with a BFA in Theatre. She starred on Broadway as The Lady of the Lake in the Mike Nichols-directed Spamalot, as Aida in Aida, Kala in Tarzan, Joanne in Rent and in Jesus Christ Superstar. She has toured the U.S. and Europe 5 times. And regionally, she has appeared at Williamstown Theatre Festival, La Jolla Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse, and Pasadena Playhouse.- Actress
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- Producer
Susie Essman was born on 31 May 1955 in Mount Vernon, New York, USA. She is an actress and writer, known for Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000), Bolt (2008) and Cop Out (2010). She has been married to Jim Harder since 13 September 2008.- Actress
- Writer
Sarah Goldberg is a Canadian actress. She is best known for her role as Sally Reed in the HBO dark comedy series Barry (2018-present), which earned her a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She also originated the dual role of Betsey/Lindsey in the Royal Court Theatre's production of Clybourne Park, for which she was nominated for a 2011 Olivier Award, and later performed it on Broadway.- Actor
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Don Ameche was a versatile and popular American film actor in the 1930s and '40s, usually as the dapper, mustached leading man. He was also popular as a radio master of ceremonies during this time. As his film popularity waned in the 1950s, he continued working in theater and some TV. His film career surged in a comeback in the 1980s with fine work as an aging millionaire in Trading Places (1983) and a rejuvenated oldster in Cocoon (1985).
Ameche was born Dominic Felix Amici in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to Barbara Edda (Hertel) and Felice Amici, a bartender.- Writer
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Director and screenwriter Paolo Sorrentino was born in Naples in 1970, and and became an orphan when he lost both of his parents at the age of 16. At the age of 25, after studying for a few years at the Faculty of Economics and Business in University of Naples Federico II, he decided to work in the film industry. His first full-length feature L'uomo in più, starring Toni Servillo and Andrea Renzi, was selected at the 2001 Venice Film Festival, achieved three nominations for the David di Donatello (the Italian Academy Awards) and won the Nastro d'Argento (the Italian cinema journalists Academy Award) for Best First Time Director. In 2004 he directed Le conseguenze dell'amore, selected in Competition at the Cannes Film Festival and acclaimed by both Italian and International critics. The film won many important Italian awards, including five David di Donatello awards: for Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Actor and Cinematography. Three years later his third film L'amico di famiglia was also selected in Competition at Cannes. In 2008 another collaboration with Toni Servillo, Il Divo, became his third film to be selected in Competition at Cannes. The film was nominated for Best Make-Up at the Academy Awards® and won seven David di Donatello, five Ciak d'Oro and five Nastri d'Argento awards. He has also published a novel Hanno tutti ragione (Everybody's Right) in 2010, and two collections of short stories: Tony Pagoda e i suoi amici (2012), and Gli aspetti irrilevanti (2016). Hanno tutti region was warmly received by both critics and public and was short-listed for the Premio Strega, the most prestigious Italian literature award. As of 2021, seven of his 9 films have been presented in Competition at the Festival de Cannes, where Il Divo won the Prix du Jury in 2008. In 2014, his film La Grande Bellezza won the Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film, as well as a BAFTA and five EFA Awards. In 2016, La Giovinezza gained an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song and two Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song. The film won three European Film Awards. In 2016, he made his first TV Series: The Young Pope. In 2021, È stata la mano di Dio won the Grand Jury Prize at the 78th Venice International Film Festival.- Actor
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Denholm entered RADA at the age of 17, but dropped out after a year having hated every minute being there. He joined the RAF in 1940, trained as a gunner/radio operator, and was shot down over Germany in 1942. In the POW camp he and his fellow prisoners staged various productions in a theatre constructed out of old packing cases. After the war he joined a London repertory company and his career took off particularly when Laurence Olivier chose him for the starring role in Venus Observed, for which he won a Clarence Derwent award. When another Olivier production Ring Around the Moon transferred to New York Denholm replaced Paul Schofield in what became a Broadway hit. Returning to Britain he was signed to a film contract and appeared in such movies as The Cruel Sea, The Sound Barrier, Alfie, King Rat, and others in addition to appearing on television and making countrywide theatre tours. In 1983 he won a BAFTA Award for his role as the butler in Trading Places and followed it with a Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in A Private Function. Prior to that he won an Evening Standard Best Actor award for Bad Timing.- Actress
- Producer
Few actresses have the distinction of being recognized and revered worldwide for multiple iconic roles in groundbreaking television shows. Sharon Gless is one of them.
Generations of TV viewers know and love the remarkable characters brought to life by this standout multi Emmy and Golden Globe winning actress: Christine Cagney (Cagney & Lacey), Debbie Novotny (Queer As Folk) and Madeline Westen (Burn Notice), among many others. With over four decades of indelible television, film, and stage roles to her credit, Gless continues to enchant her longtime followers and captivate new fans with every appearance.
In 1972, the head of Talent at Universal Studios perceived a take-notice quality in Sharon Gless and signed her as a contract player, a coveted breakthrough opportunity for any young actress. Gless remained under contract for the next decade, until the studio ended all talent contracts in 1982, earmarking her as the last contract player in the history of Hollywood.
During her contract years with Universal, Gless appeared in top-rated television series including: The Rockford Files, The Bob Newhart Show, Kojack, Adam-12, and Faraday and Company. After reoccurring guest-star spots on Marcus Welby, M.D., Gless was offered the role of Kathleen Faverty, a medical professional and James Brolin's first love interest. Robert Young appreciated the young rising star's talent and she was cast in two television movies to play his daughter. When the Marcus Welby, M.D. storyline changed, Gless' career advanced when she was chosen to play Maggie Philbin, the only female main character on Switch, an action series starring Robert Wagner and Eddie Albert, for all three seasons from 1975 to 1978.
L.A. Law creator, Steven Bocho, had earlier developed a situation comedy, Turnabout, (1979), in which a married couple, through magic, switch bodies. Loving the cross-gender acting challenge, Gless played Penny, who has embodied her husband, Sam. Noting her naturally husky and sultry voice and precise comic timing, Gless was next cast to play Carole Lombard in a successful TV movie directed by John Erman, The Scarlett O'Hara War (1980). It was during a screening of The Scarlett O'Hara War that television producer Barney Rosensweig discovered Gless and entreated her to star in his upcoming TV project, Cagney and Lacey. By the start of production, Gless had already been cast in the popular series, House Calls, as Jane Jeffries, making her unavailable for Cagney & Lacey's 2-hour pilot movie and first episodes.
Gless stepped in to the role of New York Police Detective Christine Cagney in 1982 and Cagney and Lacey made television history as the first hour-long drama to feature two females in the leading roles, who brought public awareness to serious cultural issues for women: date rape, breast cancer, addiction, sexism in the workplace, career choices, abortion, and moral dilemma. Over 30 million American viewers watched the show every week and Gless garnered two Emmy awards for Best Lead Actress in a Drama and six total nominations, along with a Golden Globe award and six nominations during the show's highly-rated run. After the show ended, Gless won an additional Golden Globe for her starring role in the drama series, The Trials of Rosie O'Neill, and two more Emmy nominations.
In popular demand, Gless, also costarred in a feature film with Michael Douglas, The Star Chamber, as well as telefilms: Honor Thy Mother, Hobson's Choice, Hard Hat & Legs, Separated by Murder, and the heartbreaker, Letting Go, with John Ritter.
From 1994 to 1996, Gless reunited with TV partner Tyne Daly for a quartet of critically acclaimed Cagney & Lacey television movies.
In 2000, Gless took a daring chance with a role that opened to viewers the underground lives of gay and lesbians in America, playing the outrageous and bold, yet tender, character Debbie Novotny in Queer as Folk. Her portrayal of a devoted mother to a gay son and confidant to his gay friends in this unexpected Showtime smash series, touched countless hearts and changed the definition of family for millions of viewers. In five seasons, Gless accomplished with her brilliant interpretation of Debbie what had previously taken decades in acceptance of gay and lesbian family members.
Now known for her ability to portray characters with multi-layered, startling and complex emotions, U.S.A. network cast her in their radical series, Burn Notice, (2007- 2013) as a chain-smoking persuasive woman, Madeline Westen, who helps her son establish a new life, by using an unpredictable mixture of heart and heat. Gless earned her 10th Emmy nomination for work in this series. Her 11th Emmy nomination was for Guest Actress in a Drama series, portraying Colleen Rose, an ambitious Hollywood agent harboring chilling secrets on FX's Nip / Tuck in 2008.
Recently, Gless also appeared in two independent features, Once Fallen, with Ed Harris and Amy Madigan, and Hannah Free, in the title role of Hannah.
In 2016, Gless became an intriguing surprise character, much talked about on social media, in four episodes of The Exorcist on Fox TV, sharing the screen with Geena Davis.
Throughout her TV and film career, Gless has also acted on stage to rave reviews in various productions, debuting with Oscar-winner Kim Hunter in Watch on the Rhine at Stage West in Massachusetts. She then starred in London's famed West End as Annie Wilkes in the adaptation of Misery alongside Bill Paterson, for an extended run. Her comedy chops were applauded in Neil Simon's Chapter Two with Tom Conti, and she returned to the West End to star in Jane Prowse's A Round-Heeled Woman in 2011-12 to standing ovations. Gless has also led the cast of Claudia Allen's Cahoots at Victory Gardens in Chicago and appeared in Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues at Madison Square Garden.
Gless has a star on the renowned Hollywood Walk of Fame, an award for Excellence in the Arts from DePaul University in Chicago, and has recorded radio plays, including 'Night, Mother, which earned her the International Sony Award.
Always the happiest when acting in a series or on screen, Gless also finds great fulfillment in lending her indomitable voice to issues involving human rights and LGBTQ causes and was honored by Norman Lear's People for the American Way for her unwavering dedication to helping others. 2017 finds Gless joining stars like Chita Rivera, Kelli O'Hara, and Ben Vereen in "Concert for America: Stand up, Sing Out," on Broadway and in Chicago, benefiting Planned Parenthood, NAACP, and the Sierra Club, and others.- Anna-Maria Sieklucka (pronounced Sie-kloo-tska) is a Polish actress, singer, and dancer who made her feature film debut in the multi-lingual Netflix drama 365 Days, based on the novel trilogy written by Blanka Lipinska. The plot follows a spirited young woman, "Laura (played by Sieklucka)," who is kidnapped by a Sicilian mobster that imposes a period of 365 days for her to fall in love with him. The film also stars Michele Morrone and was directed by Barbara Dialowas and Tomasz Mandes.
Sieklucka has an extensive background in theatre. Upcoming, she will play the role of "Death" in Margules. Ausencia, a biographical play about Ludwik Margules, a renowned Polish-born Mexican theatre, opera and film director. Lukasz Witt- Michatowski is directing and the play will have its premiere this Fall in Lublin at the Cultural Center.
Previously, Sieklucka also toured in Salzburg at the Sommerszene Festival and in Madrid at the Teatros Canal in Marta Gornicka/The Chorus of Women: Magnificat. Last year, she was asked with only two days notice to step in as a lead role in the play Valentine's Day, at the Norwid Theatre in Jelenia Góra. Her performance was simply flawless and garnered a standing ovation.
Anna-Maria is also set to reprise her role in the sequel to 365 Days. - Yael Grobglas is a French-Israeli actress based in Los Angeles.
She is known for her roles of Petra Solano and her twin sister Anezka in the critically acclaimed CW series "Jane the Virgin", the feature "Interview with God" and a number of recurring roles on television series including "Reign" and "Supergirl". Over the five seasons of Jane the Virgin, Yael's performance as Petra and Anezka have been praised in numerous publications, including The New York Times, Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, Cosmopolitan, Washington Post, TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. Time Magazine described her performance: "Grobglas...has turned Petra into one of television's most amusingly complex comic villains. Fans love to hate her, yet as Jane delves deeper into Petra's backstory - and shows off her lighter side - they're starting to love to love her as well."
Her talent and passion for performing arts became visible even as a young girl. As a teenager, Grobglas studied and performed in professional dance and ballet groups. She later lead a brief modeling career and participated in a number of runway shows and advertising campaigns. Eventually having realized a greater interest in acting, Grobglas graduated from the Yoram Loewenstein Performing Arts Studio in Tel Aviv.
Before transitioning to Hollywood, Yael had a successful TV, Film and Theater career in Israel. In 2007, Grobglas was cast to her first major role for the Israeli sci-fi series Ha'Yi ("The Island"), which made her popular among Israel's young adult audiences. Following two consecutive seasons of the show Grobglas enrolled in a full-time three-year acting program at the Yoram Loewenstein Performing Arts Studio. She completed the third season of Ha'Yi in 2010, and was cast for a number of major commercials during the course of her studies. In 2010, Grobglas gained international recognition when she starred in the first Israeli horror film Rabies ("Kalevet"). She was part of the main cast of the Israeli sitcom Ha-Shualim ("The Foxes"). Grobglas also played the role of Linda Christie in a Beersheba Theater adaptation of Play It Again, Sam. In 2012, Grobglas was cast to the Israeli comedy-drama series Tanuchi ("Chill").
In 2013, Grobglas made the move to Los Angeles and was promptly cast as the lead in the CW's The Selection pilot, described as a cross between The Bachelor and The Hunger Games, but it was ultimately not picked up to series. In the same year, her roles included the lead in an Israeli film "Jeruzalem", and the recurring role of Olivia D'Amencourt in the CW's series "Reign".
In 2014, Grobglas was cast as Petra, one of the main characters on the CW's "Jane the Virgin". When describing her experience as Petra to the New York Times, Grobglas said, "I'm usually cast for the more goofy and tomboyish characters. I'm having a wonderful time playing someone so complex and layered and funny." "She's calculating, resourceful and manipulative," she said. "But even though I don't agree with the decisions she makes, you have to admire her. It's been a blast playing such a mischievous character because she's so unlike me." In March 2016, TVLine gave Grobglas an honorable mention for her performance in Jane the Virgin Chapter 36: "Leave it to Jane the Virgin's unsung MVP Yael Grobglas to turn the painful process of giving birth - to twins, no less! - into a comedic tour de force ... After witnessing Grobglas' impeccable ability to mix humor and emotion, we can't wait to see what challenges (and laughs) motherhood will bring for her character."
Between 2016-2019, while filming Jane the Virgin, Yael had guest and recurring roles in the CWs "Crazy Ex Girlfriend" and "Supergirl" and starred in the 2018 Feature "Interview with God". - From a hit television drama to a medley of feature films, Roma Maffia graces the entertainment mediums with her trademark sophistication and charismatic appeal.
Roma portrays the smart, no-nonsense anesthesiologist, 'Dr. Liz Cruz,' on the hit FX drama, "Nip/Tuck." 'Liz' has earned the respect of her physician colleagues, plastic surgeons Dr. Sean McNamara (Dylan Walsh) and Dr. Christian Troy (Julian McMahon). Often the voice of reason in an otherwise unpredictable environment, 'Liz' is tough on the surface yet shows warmth and concern for her patients as well as for 'Sean' and 'Christian.' An out-and-proud lesbian, 'Liz' is the only female seen as a true equal in the life of 'Dr. Troy.'
The Warner Bros. Television-produced "Nip/Tuck" won the 2005 Golden Globe for Outstanding Drama series and received an American Film Institute Award. The show is now in its fifth season and has relocated its setting from Miami to Los Angeles.
Most recently, Roma wrapped production on writer/director Robert Celestino's feature film "Yonkers Joe," with Chazz Palminteri. She has also completed production on the crime story "Kingshighway," due out in 2008. Also in the can is the psychological thriller, "Ghost Image" for writer/director Jack Edward Snyder. In the later film, Roma plays the lead investigator who probes the mysterious occurrences involving a woman who begins to receive video messages from her deceased boyfriend.
Roma started her acting career performing off-Broadway, off-off Broadway and in regional productions ranging from Shakespeare to Sam Shephard. At a benefit reading for the New Group in New York, she was asked by casting director Jane Jenkins to audition for a role in director Ron Howard's feature film "The Paper," and found a career mentor: "Ron tells people he discovered me, which is absolutely true."
When "The Paper" opened in Los Angeles, Roma took her first trip to Hollywood and her career quickly flourished. She soon met television producer David E. Kelley, who cast her as Adam Arkin's secretary, 'Angela' in his new series, "Chicago Hope."
During her one season on "Chicago Hope," Roma landed a plum role in the Barry Levinson film, "Disclosure," in which she played Michael Douglas' tough sexual harassment lawyer, 'Katherine Alvarez.' Garnering rave reviews for her performance, Roma quickly landed feature film roles in director John Badham's "Nick of Time," playing a kidnapper opposite Christopher Walken and Johnny Depp; "Eraser" with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and "Double Jeopardy" opposite Ashley Judd.
Additional feature credits include "I Am Sam" with Sean Penn and Michelle Pfeiffer; "Kiss The Girls" with Morgan Freeman; "Holes," "Things You Can Tell Just By Looking At Her" with Glenn Close and Holly Hunter.
For television, Roma played the dedicated and intelligent 'Grace Alvarez,' forensic pathologist for the Violent Crimes Task Force, for four seasons on NBC's primetime series "Profiler." Her telefilm credits include "Consensual Relations" for NBC; HBO's "Mistrial" with Bill Pullman; and Showtime's "The Defenders." She had recurring roles on NBC's "Law & Order" and "ER," and she has guest-starred on numerous television shows, including CBS's "Ghost Whisperer," Lifetime's "Strong Medicine," NBC's "The West Wing" and HBO's "The Sopranos."
In her free time, Roma is actively involved with the non-profit organization, Artists for a New South Africa (ANSA) which dedicates itself to advancing democracy and equality in South Africa. Although she is happiest when acting, Roma also finds time to run on her treadmill, write, play ping-pong and hang out with her two dogs, Lou Lu and Lucky. - Actor
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Sebastian Koch is one of the most internationally sought-after German actors of his generation. After stage engagements in Berlin, Bochum and Darmstadt, the Karlsruhe native was twice awarded the "Grimme Prize" in 2002 for the title role in Peter Keglevic's "Der Tanz mit dem Teufel - Die Entführung des Richard Oetker" (Dance with the devil - The kidnapping of Richard Oetker) and for his acting performance as Klaus Mann in the family story "The Manns" by Heinrich Breloer. He also received the "Bavarian Television Award" for his portrayal of Klaus Mann. His international breakthrough came in 2006 with director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's Oscar-winning theatrical success "The Lives Of Others". For his outstanding portrayal of the GDR writer Georg Dreyman, Koch received numerous nominations and awards, including the 2007 Italian Foreign Press Award, the "Globo d'Oro" for Best European Actor.
He has since appeared in numerous international film productions. His performances in the historical drama "Napoleon" alongside Isabella Rossellini, Gérard Depardieu and John Malkovich, and alongside Catherine Deneuve in Benoît Jaquot's "Princesse Marie" (Marie Bonaparte, 2004) brought him great attention. He starred in Constantin Costa-Gavra's Hochhuth adaptation "Amen" (2002) and played the title role in Jo Baier's documentary "Stauffenberg". He received the "German Television Award" for his portrayal of Nazi criminal Albert Speer in Heinrich Breloer's multi-part series "Speer and Hitler".
Together with Paul Verhoeven, Sebastian Koch filmed the World War II drama "Black Book" (Zwartboek, 2006) and was nominated for an "Emmy Award" in 2008 for his portrayal of the title role in the international co-production "The Sea Wolf", based on Jack London's classic. He also appeared in Jaume Collet-Serra's "Unknown" (2011) with Liam Neeson, as well as Mike Figgis' "Suspension Of Disbelief" (2012). He assumed the lead role in the most successful Greek film of 2012, "God Loves Caviar" (O Theös Agapäei To Chaviäri), alongside John Cleese and Catherine Deneuve. Koch starred alongside Bruce Willis in John Moore's "A Good Day To Die Hard" (2013) and in the pilot of Ridley Scott's US series "The Vatican" (2014). He then co-starred with Daniel Auteuil in the German-French feature film "Kalinka" (Au Nom De Ma Fille, 2015) and with Oscar winners Eddie Redmayne and Tom Hooper in Hooper's Oscar-nominated bestselling adaptation "The Danish Girl" (2016). That same year, Sebastian Koch joined Tom Hanks in front of the camera for Steven Spielberg's "Bridge Of Spies", a story about brokering the first agent exchange in the Cold War - the film was nominated for an "Academy Award". Koch was lauded for his leading role in Kai Wessel's "Fog In August" (2016). In "Bel Canto" (2017), a film by Paul Weitz, he stars alongside Julianne Moore and Ken Watanabe. In the 5th and 6th seasons of the US series "Homeland", he played the German entrepreneur Otto Düring. The film "Never Look Away", yet another collaboration with director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, gained international attention after it premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in fall 2018 and was nominated for several Oscars and Golden Globes. Sebastian Koch received the "Bambi" in the category "Best Actor National" for the role of Prof. Seeband in 2018. In 2021, he was awarded the European film prize "Die Europa" at the Braunschweig International Film Festival. Most recently, Sebastian Koch starred in the German-Austrian thriller series "Euer Ehren" (Your Honor), which is set to air in spring 2022 on the German public broadcaster Das Erste. He was also involved in the creation of the scripts.
Sebastian Koch has been a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) since July 2019.
In addition to his acting work, he regularly delights audiences with symphonic-scenic readings, including "Paradise" with violinist Daniel Hope, "Dream Story" with the Hubert Nuss Jazz Quartet and recently "The Kreutzer Sonata" after L. Tolstoy, which Sebastian Koch dramaturgically adapted and conceived as a stage play with piano and violin.- Actor
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January 2020, Paramount Network ordered straight to series 'Mayor of Kingstown.' The series comes from co-creator and executive producer, Academy Award nominated director Taylor Sheridan, along with co-creator and executive producer Hugh Dillon. Executive produced by Antoine Fuqua, and co-starring Jeremy Renner, Dianne Wiest and Kyle Chandler, the series will start streaming November 2021.
Combining acting with a distinguished career as a singer songwriter, Dillon earned notoriety in his multi-platinum punk rock band. It was early in the band's success when Hugh caught the attention of filmmaker Bruce McDonald, who cast him in the 1996 film Hard Core Logo. Quentin Tarantino saw it at South by Southwest, deciding on the spot to distribute the movie through Rolling Thunder.
This caught the attention of Debra Granik (Winter's Bone), who cast Dillon to star opposite Vera Farmiga in the Sundance Film Festival award winning film, Down To The Bone.
Dillon's ability to capture honest and realistic portrayals of complicated characters has been his calling card. The award-winning actor starred in the dark and twisted serial Durham County, leading him to his breakout role in CBS/CTV co-production Flashpoint, which aired for five seasons.
Early 2013 saw Dillon join AMC's The Killing, simultaneously appearing on Showcase's drama Continuum. Dillon has been busy since then with various productions, more recently adding roles in 2017 in Twin Peaks and feature film Wind River, alongside Elizabeth Olsen and Jeremy Renner, with director Taylor Sheridan. Dillon also appears alongside Kevin Costner, in Sheridan's critically acclaimed Paramount Network show Yellowstone, set to air its fourth season in summer 2021.
Dillon has continued to push the boundaries of his creativity, taking a hands-on approach to developing and producing unique stories, such as short film The Offer, and Issues, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Following a celebrated return to the stage with the Headstones, Dillon has since been back in the studio to record the band's latest two full-length albums, and their first vinyl release. 2017 has seen the release of their latest album Little Army, where the band gave their fans an exclusive behind the scenes look into the making of the album, in real time, and includes the #1 hit single 'Devil's On Fire'. Late 2019 saw the release of the eagerly anticipated new album 'PEOPLESKILLS', and with Lead single, 'Leave It All Behind' hitting number 3 on the Billboard Rock Charts.- Writer
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Above all, Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a rebel whose life and art was marked by gross contradiction. Openly homosexual, he married twice; one of his wives acted in his films and the other served as his editor. Accused variously by detractors of being anticommunist, male chauvinist, antiSemitic and even antigay, he completed 44 projects between 1966 and 1982, the majority of which can be characterized as highly intelligent social melodramas. His prodigious output was matched by a wild, self-destructive libertinage that earned him a reputation as the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema (as well as its central figure.) Known for his trademark leather jacket and grungy appearance, Fassbinder cruised the bar scene by night, looking for sex and drugs, yet he maintained a flawless work ethic by day. Actors and actresses recount disturbing stories of his brutality toward them, yet his pictures demonstrate his deep sensitivity to social misfits and his hatred of institutionalized violence. Some find his cinema needlessly controversial and avant-garde; others accuse him of surrendering to the Hollywood ethos. It is best said that he drew forth strong emotional reactions from all he encountered, both in his personal and professional lives, and this provocative nature can be experienced posthumously through reviewing his artistic legacy.
Fassbinder was born into a bourgeois Bavarian family in 1945. His father was a doctor and his mother a translator. In order to have time for her work, his mother frequently sent him the movies, a practice that gave birth to his obsession with the medium. Later in life, he would claim that he saw a film nearly every day and sometimes as many as three or four. At the age of 15, Fassbinder defiantly declared his homosexuality, soon after which he left school and took a job. He studied theater in the mid-sixties at the Fridl-Leonhard Studio in Munich and joined the Action Theater (aka, Anti-Theater) in 1967. Unlike the other major auteurs of the New German Cinema (e.g., Schlöndorff, Herzog and Wenders) who started out making movies, Fassbinder acquired an extensive stage background that is evident throughout his work. Additionally, he learned how to handle all phases of production, from writing and acting to direction and theater management. This versatility later surfaced in his films where, in addition to some of the aforementioned responsibilities, Fassbinder served as composer, production designer, cinematographer, producer and editor. [So boundless was his energy, in fact, that he appeared in 30 projects of other directors.] In his theater years, he also developed a repertory company that included his mother, two of his wives and various male and female lovers. Coupled with his ability to serve in nearly any crew capacity, this gave him the ability to produce his films quickly and on extremely low budgets.
Success was not immediate for Fassbinder. His first feature length film, a gangster movie called Love Is Colder Than Death (1969) was greeted by catcalls at the Berlin Film Festival. His next piece, Katzelmacher (1969), was a minor critical success, garnering five prizes after its debut at Mannheim. It featured Jorgos, an emigrant from Greece, who encounters violent xenophobic slackers in moving into an all-German neighborhood. This kind of social criticism, featuring alienated characters unable to escape the forces of oppression, is a constant throughout Fassbinder's diverse oeuvre. In subsequent years, he made such controversial films about human savagery such as Pioneers in Ingolstadt (1971) and Whity (1971) before scoring his first domestic commercial success with The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972). This moving portrait of a street vendor crushed by the betrayal and his own futility is considered a masterpiece, as is his first international success Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) (Fear Eats the Soul). With a wider audience for his efforts, however, some critics contend that Fassbinder began to sell out with big budget projects such as Despair (1978), Lili Marleen (1981) and Lola (1981). In retrospect, however, it seems that the added fame simply enabled Fassbinder to explore various kinds of filmmaking, including such "private" works as In a Year with 13 Moons (1978) and The Third Generation (1979), two films about individual experience and feelings. His greatest success came with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) (The Marriage of Maria Braun), chronicling the rise and fall of a German woman in the wake of World War II. Other notable movies include The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975), Satan's Brew (1976) and Querelle (1982), all focused on gay and lesbian themes and frequently with a strongly pornographic edge.
His death is a perfect picture of the man and his legend. On the night of June 10, 1982, Fassbinder took an overdose of cocaine and sleeping pills. When he was found, the unfinished script for a version of Rosa Luxemburg was lying next to him. So boundless was his drive and creativity that, throughout his downward spiral and even in the moment of his death, Fassbinder never ceased to be productive.- Kyle is the youngest of three sons. His father was a salesman for Beechnut. He was avid basketball player in school, but his dreams of athletics and an Air Force career were ended because of extreme near-sightedness. After seeing a performance of "Hello Dolly," he immediately decided that he wanted to become an actor. He moved to Hollywood in 1981 to seek his break. It came in 1986, with a three-month stint as a former mental patient on the soap Santa Barbara (1984). He then got a recurring role as an AIDS patient on St. Elsewhere (1982).
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Enigmatic, dark-haired foreign import Alida Valli was dubbed "The Next Garbo" but didn't live up to postwar expectations despite her cool, patrician beauty, remote allure and significant talent. Born in Pola, Italy (now Croatia), on May 3, 1921, the daughter of a Tridentine journalist and professor and an Istrian homemaker, she studied dramatics as a teen at the Motion Picture Academy of Rome and Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia before snaring bit roles in such films as Il cappello a tre punte (1935) ["The Three-Cornered Hat"] and I due sergenti (1936) ["The Two Sergeants"]. She made a name for herself in Italy during WWII playing the title role in Manon Lescaut (1940), won a Venice Film Festival award for Piccolo mondo antico (1941) ["Little Old World"] and was a critical sensation in We the Living (1942) ["We the Living"]. She briefly abandoned her career, however, in 1943, refusing to appear in what she considered fascist propaganda, and was forced into hiding. The next year she married surrealist painter/pianist/composer Oscar De Mejo. They had two children, and one of them, Carlo De Mejo, became an actor. She divorced in 1955, then she came back to Italy,
Following her potent, award-winning work in the title role of Eugenie Grandet (1946), she was discovered and contracted by David O. Selznick to play the murder suspect Maddalena Paradine in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947). She was billed during her Hollywood years simply as "Valli," and Selznick also gave her top femme female billing in Carol Reed's classic film noir The Third Man (1949), but for every successful film--such as the ones previously mentioned--she experienced such failures as The Miracle of the Bells (1948), and audiences stayed away. In 1951 she bid farewell to Hollywood and returned to her beloved Italy. In Europe again, she was sought after by the best directors. Her countess in Luchino Visconti's Senso (1954) was widely heralded, and she moved easily from ingénue to vivid character roles. Later standout films encompassed costume dramas as well as shockers and had her playing everything from baronesses to grandmothers in such films as Eyes Without a Face (1960) ["Eyes Without a Face"], Le gigolo (1960), Oedipus Rex (1967) ["Oedipus Rex"], The Big Scare (1974), 1900 (1976), Suspiria (1977), Luna (1979), Inferno (1980), Aspern (1982), A Month by the Lake (1995) and, her most recent, Angel of Death (2001).- Described in the press as the heir apparent to James Stewart and Jack Lemmon, Jim Hutton broke out of the pack with his funny, awkward TV Thompson in Where the Boys Are (1960). Son of Col. Thomas R. Hutton and Helen Ryan, his parents divorced when he was an infant. Jim recalled seeing his father only twice before his death, and moved to Albany, New York, in 1938. A bright but troublesome child (claiming to have been in five high schools and a boarding school), he excelled as a writer and won a journalism scholarship when he began writing sports for his high school newspaper. At Syracuse University, he lost his position in the school of journalism (and scholarship) when he was bitten by the acting bug. He subsequently lost academic ambition and failed three classes as a freshman. He used his summers to train in summer stock, but his intentions to continue academic pursuits were ended when he was expelled from Syracuse as a sophomore and again at Niagara College as a junior.
He lived in Greenwich Village for almost a year to pursue a career on the stage, but when out of money and unable to pay his rent or buy food, he joined the army and was assigned to special services to act in training films. He was later stationed in Berlin, where he founded the American Community Theater, by renovating an abandoned theater for a GI production of the play "Harvey" (which he starred in). Receiving high praise from officers including official commendation, his superior officer agreed to assign Hutton to manage the theater as part of his official duties and he produced, directed, and acted in five productions over two years, receiving the European Theater Award for Best GI Theater. One of his productions, The Caine Mutiny (1954), received the attention of director Douglas Sirk, who offered him the significant role of "Hirschland" in A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958) as a young Nazi who commits suicide. Using his entire military leave to film for 22 days, Universal was so impressed they offered him a contract, but he still had 18 months of service. Within five days of his military discharge, he had married and moved to Hollywood to pursue a career, but by then the offer was off the table from Universal. He eventually landed at MGM. The first role of significance to get attention (and use his new stage name of Jim Hutton) was the first season The Twilight Zone (1959) episode, And When the Sky Was Opened (1959), which earned the newbie good notice within the industry. Eventually, he landed his breakout role of "TV Thompson" in Where the Boys Are (1960), paired with new-comer Paula Prentiss. He came in third in 1960's Golden Laurel Awards Top Male New Personality, was named one of Motion Picture Herald's Stars of Tomorrow, was a Photoplay Favorite Male Newcomer nominee, and Screen World Award winner for Most Promising Personality.
Prentiss and Jim Hutton were immediately paired into three other films, The Honeymoon Machine (1961), Bachelor in Paradise (1961), and The Horizontal Lieutenant (1962). But despite their likable personalities and on-screen chemistry, none of the films captured the magic of the first film. Frustrated, Hutton campaigned for the lead in Period of Adjustment and then refused jobs for 15 months until MGM agreed to give him better roles or dissolve their exclusive contract. He agreed to appear with Connie Francis in the film Looking for Love (1964) if he were let go to pursue work independently.
Once free from contracts, he was selected by Sam Peckinpah for the role of the young lieutenant in Major Dundee (1965). Dundee's turbulent production was the primary subject of reviews, yet the subsequent reassessment of the flawed film (particularly by Peckinpah scholars) has garnered Hutton posthumous praise for his youthful and exuberant performance. "Dundee" was followed by several acting veterans taking an interest in the underused actor's career, including Burt Lancaster in The Hallelujah Trail (1965), Cary Grant in Walk Don't Run (1966), and John Wayne in The Green Berets (1968). Like his later-appreciated performance in "Dundee", his role in The Green Berets (1968) was overlooked due to the film's controversial political stance on Vietnam. Yet, it has become common to see Hutton's performance as one of the bright spots in the film, thanks to his ability to incorporate his natural comic skills and cocky swagger into the role of wartime cynical scavenger who becomes the heroic adoptive father of a Vietnamese orphan. His work in these films, and leading roles in the underrated heist farce, Who's Minding the Mint? (1967), showed his growth as an actor. However, when all three of his 1965 releases flopped at the box office, his Hollywood stock took a major tumble, particularly when Gene Kelly dropped him from the lead in of A Guide for the Married Man (1967), one month before production started.
Film roles dried up and he was relegated to TV work, which coincided with what he called an eight-year depression. It wasn't until 1975 that he experienced a career comeback with the cult detective series Ellery Queen (1975), which coincided with an upturn of theater work and reunion with his son, actor Timothy Hutton, who moved in with him at this time at 15 years old. Tragically, his comeback didn't last long, as he died of liver cancer in 1979, two days after his 45th birthday. - Actress
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Barbara Pepper's signature roles were as worldly "dames" during the Hollywood's 1930s and 1940s Golden Era, fitting snugly alongside other flashy broads of that period such as Iris Adrian, Joan Blondell and Veda Ann Borg. Barbara patented her own unique, hard-boiled style, however, and should have gone further than she did. Most people who remember this fine character actress today as Doris Ziffel, the shrill, slovenly barnyard neighbor of Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor on TV's highly popular bucolic Green Acres (1965) series.
Barbara was born Marion Pepper in New York City in 1915. By age 16, her mind was already set for a show biz career. Within a short time, and against her parents' wishes, she nabbed a show girl spot in Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.'s Follies and changed her first name to Barbara. Here is where she met fellow chorine Lucille Ball and the two became lifetime, dedicated friends. After appearing as a member of the "George White's Scandals" on Broadway, Barbara soon integrated radio and film work as well, paying her dues primarily in bit parts as saloon girls, clerks, chippies, and the like. Her film debut was as a slave girl extra (along with Lucy) in Eddie Cantor's Roman Scandals (1933). A couple of movies gave her the chance for brassy stardom, including Our Daily Bread (1934) as a floozie named Sally, and a love interest role opposite comedian Bert Wheeler (of Wheeler and Woolsey) in Mummy's Boys (1936), but the roles were basically one-dimensional and she remained in the secondary ranks for the rest of her career. Her father, Dave Pepper, a non-professional, put together a brief, minor character career when he visited his daughter on the film set of Wanted! Jane Turner (1936) and was cast by director Edward Killy in the unbilled role of a detective. Father and daughter both also appeared in another movie the following year: The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1937).
Trained by acting guru Maria Ouspenskaya at one stage, she married actor Craig Reynolds (ne Harold Hugh Enfield) in 1943 and the marriage proved a loving one despite later financial hardships when both could only find sporadic work. On stage in 1944, they appeared together in a modern version of "Lady Chatterly's Lover" at the Geary Theater in San Francisco. They went on to have two sons, Dennis Michael and John Hugh Enfield.
In 1949, however, her husband died tragically in a motorcycle accident. Barbara was absolutely devastated. Overwhelmed with her loss and the prospect of raising two sons alone, severe depression and a debilitating alcohol problem set in and she was forced to find work as a laundress and waitress in between sparse acting parts. During this period she could only muster up tiny roles on film and TV as various comic snoops and harridans.
Friends like Lucy stepped in to help. Over the years, Barbara would be glimpsed several times on I Love Lucy (1951), including the classic episode "Friends of the Friendless" and as a frightened hospital nurse who is taken aback by Ricky Ricardo's severe voodoo make-up when Lucy gives birth to Little Ricky. Barbara also brightened up other TV comedies with small parts on Jack Benny's program as well as George Burns and Gracie Allen's popular show. She could also be found occasionally on the Perry Mason (1957) series playing minor but colorful characters.
In the 1960s, Barbara was glimpsed as a minor, plus-sized foil for Jerry Lewis in several of his slapstick film vehicles (Rock-a-Bye Baby (1958), Who's Minding the Store? (1963), The Patsy (1964) and Hook, Line and Sinker (1969), the last mentioned released posthumously). One bright respite from all her financial miseries during this time came with a steady paycheck and her semi-regular series role as "mother" to a TV-watching pig on the popular Green Acres (1965) series.
While Barbara was quite fun in her cranky bucolic role, the fun wouldn't last very long. Her health began to deteriorate rapidly during the run of this sitcom and she was eventually forced to relinquish the part during the 1968-1969 season, with actress Fran Ryan taking over the part. Plagued by a heart condition, Barbara died of a coronary in July, 1969, at the age of 54.- Actress
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Lynda Bellingham played many roles during her five-decade professional career, but became synonymous with one. "Being a mum making gravy was not quite how I had seen my career advancing," she said once. But between 1983 and 1999 that's what she did in 42 "episodes" of an award-winning TV ad. Since the early 1980s, her name was rarely mentioned in print without it being prefaced with "Oxo mum".
During her career, though, she starred on TV as the vet's wife Helen Herriot in All Creatures Great and Small in the 80s and as one of two divorcees trying to forge a relationship in the 90s sitcom Second Thoughts, opposite James Bolam. On stage she was best known for playing the lead in a touring production of Calendar Girls between 2008 and 2012. She was also, for four years between 2007 and 2011, a regular member of the team on Loose Women, the daytime TV chat show. She had few regrets about how her career turned out, summarizing its trajectory thus on her website: "Arrived in London at the Central School [for Speech and Drama] in 1966 and never looked back. I had a ball!"
Bellingham, though, knew that gravy, like Lady Macbeth's damned spot, left an indelible mark. "In many ways I was very proud of what we did, but there is no doubt that my credibility as an actress was knocked," she reflected. "Certain people in the industry would never employ me as a serious actress after it. On the other hand, it gave me the financial security to go off and work in the theatre for very little money." Her performances as Mrs Oxo were reportedly responsible for a 10% increase in stock cube sales.
But being typecast in the role of, as she put it in her autobiography, "the nation's favorite mum", wasn't the only reason she missed out on roles that could have sent her career in a different direction. Her friend the writer Lynda La Plante once rang to ask her if she was interested in playing a detective for television. Too busy with sitcom and advertising jobs, she turned down the chance to play DI Jane Tennison, later taken by Helen Mirren. Bellingham used her autobiography, Lost and Found (2010), to complain about the fact that she was never allowed to reprise her 1986 role as a time lord on Doctor Who during its revival under Russell T Davies.
She was born Meredith Lee Hughes in Montreal, Quebec. Her Canadian birth mother, Marjorie Hughes, gave her daughter up for adoption to an English couple. Her biological father, Carl Hutton, was a crewman whom Marjorie met on board ship as she sailed from Canada to New Zealand to meet the parents of her husband, a pilot who was missing in action during the second world war.
Her adoptive parents, Don and Ruth Bellingham, had been staying in Canada, where Don was training pilots for the British Overseas Airways Corporation. The couple returned to the UK and raised the girl they called Lynda on their farm near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, with their two biological daughters, Barbara and Jean. Lynda found out she was adopted only when she was in her teens. She recalled the revelation in her autobiography: "One day, when I skipped school to go to the pictures, my mother blurted out: 'The trouble is, Lynda, we just don't know who you are any more. God knows where you come from. We'll never know. We've dreaded this moment.'" In 1990, she met her birth mother in Canada and they stayed in touch until Marjorie's death.
She developed an enthusiasm for acting at school and in local theatre clubs, but gave her best early performance at the Central School, where, after receiving a rejection letter, she turned up in person and demanded of George Hall, head of stage, that he reconsider. Hall told her he would not but, when she returned home dejectedly, her parents told her that they had just got off the phone - he had changed his mind and given her a place. Why? Bellingham reported it was because Hall believed that "even if I was the worst actress in the world, I would always work because I was so pushy".
Bellingham proved just as dogged as Hall hoped. After graduating she worked in Frinton and Crewe, amassing the 40 weeks of theatre necessary to get an Equity card. Then, she believed, TV and cinema stardom would follow. She was rejected for a role on ITV's early 70s afternoon soap General Hospital because, as she put it, they were casting a pretty nurse and a fat nurse and "I fell into neither category". Undaunted, she put her hair in a bun, rouged her cheeks, sported flat shoes, and wore a dress that cut her legs across the calves, making them look twice their normal size. Thus attired, she demanded a second audition as the fat nurse - and got the part, as Nurse Hilda Price.
Her romantic life, which she detailed unflinchingly in her autobiography, included two disastrous marriages. She married the film producer Greg Smith in 1975. Shortly after the wedding, he cast her in the film Confessions of a Driving Instructor. "I had only been married a few weeks and my husband, the Big Producer, was screwing his way through all the female artists," she recalled. "Just not me." They divorced soon afterwards.
Her second marriage, in 1981, was to a Neapolitan restaurant owner, Nunzio Peluso, with whom she had two children, Michael and Robbie. This turned out worse. He submitted her to 15 years of physical and mental abuse and after their divorce in 1996 was subject to a restraining order. She wrote, with understatement: "Playing the nation's favorite mum on screen and going home to an unhappy and abusive relationship was extremely stressful."
On her 60th birthday, in 2008, she was married for a third time, to a mortgage broker Michael Pattemore, with whom she later ran a property business based in London.
Among the roles she was particularly proud of were playing opposite Janet Suzman and Maureen Lipman in the Old Vic's production of The Sisters Rosensweig at the Old Vic (1994-95) and in the Royal Court production of a drama about sex tourism, Sugar Mummies (2006). She also played the Empress Alexandra in Gleb Panfilov's Russian film The Romanovs: A Crowned Family (2000), about the last year and a half of the lives of Tsar Nicholas II and his family until their execution in July 1918. Her voice was dubbed into Russian. In 2009, she appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, and was eliminated in the fourth week. In 2012, she presented a daytime cookery series, My Tasty Travels, and in 2013 Country House Sunday.
In 2013, she disclosed on Twitter that she had been diagnosed with cancer.
She was made OBE in the 2014 New Year's honors list.
In 2014 she announced that the cancer had spread to her liver and lungs and that she had opted to stop having chemotherapy.
On 3 November 2014, her funeral took place at St Bartholomew's Church in Crewkerne, attended by family and friends. Afterwards, Bellingham was buried in Crewkerne Townsend Cemetery.
Bellingham was survived by her third husband and her two sons Michael and Robert.- Producer
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Phil has also written a book called 'No Opportunity Wasted' and produced a TV show with the same title.
The NOW philosophy is about making the most out of each moment and living each days as if it were your last.
Phil has also launched his own energy bar called NOW Energy Bar. It comes in three flavors. In addition to these bars, he has launched NOW Snack Bar, NOW Trail Bar and A3 bars.
Phil has a luggage line called NOW luggage; which includes a backpack, suitcases and a bag among others- Actor
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Lee Majdoub was born in Tripoli, Lebanon. He is an actor and writer, known for Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (2024), Assassin's Creed Mirage (2023) and Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (2022).- Actress
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Vivian M. Nixon is an African-American actress and dancer from Miami, Florida known for voicing Millie from Helluva Boss. She also acted in Hubie Halloween starring Adam Sandler, Marc Webb's 500 Days of Summer, Top Five, Grey's Anatomy, Glee and Christmas on the Square. She has a daughter, Shiloh Elizabeth Williams who was born in February 2019.- Actress
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Kayalar is a graduate of the Graphics Department of Bilkent University in Ankara. She later worked as an assistant in the Department of Cinema and Television at Istanbul Bilgi University.
In 2003, Kayalar produced the series Alacakaranlik with Ugur Yücel and in 2004, she co-produced the film Toss-Up. In 2013, she was a regular in the series 20 Dakika, and the following year, she had a recurring role in the teen drama Medcezir.
The same year, she married Ali Bilgin, the show's director. In 2015, she appeared in the Bilgin-directed film Delibal.
In 2020, Kayalar gained prominence with the role of the psychiatrist Peri in the Netflix series Ethos.- Visual Effects
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Mark Dindal is an American animation film director, writer and voice actor from Columbus, Ohio who is known for directing the comedy classic Disney film The Emperor's New Groove. He is also known for directing Warner Brothers' musical Cats Don't Dance and Disney's Chicken Little. He provided animation for The Rocketeer. He voiced a few minor characters in his films.- Actor
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Don Harvey was born in St. Clair Shores, Michigan, just twelve miles from the center of Downtown Detroit, the sixth of eight children. His father worked as an advertising executive for the Auto Industry and his mother was an elementary school teacher.
He started playing the drums at age four and picked up the guitar at six. He played in the Jazz Band at Lake Shore High School and won the Louis Armstrong award for the best soloist of the year, as a guitarist.
He started acting in school plays and musicals but gave that up when he attended the University of Michigan, because he thought the talent there would be way beyond his level. In his junior year, he was playing guitar in the orchestra pit for a musical, when one his classmates, Gregory Jbara, told him he should get up on stage and start acting again. That summer, he attended the Summer Training Congress at the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco.
While in his senior year at Michigan, he auditioned for the prestigious Yale School of Drama and was accepted as one of fifteen acting students out of thousands of applicants. Some of his schoolmates at Yale included Chris Noth, Patricia Clarkson, Dylan Baker, Jayne Atkinson, John Turturro, Charles Dutton, Courtney B. Vance, and Angela Bassett.
After graduation, he moved to New York and within a few months was hired to replace Aiden Quinn in the original production of Sam Shepard's epic drama "A Lie Of The Mind" at the Promenade Theatre on Broadway. The play was directed by Mr. Shepard, and starred Harvey Keitel, Geraldine Page, Amanda Plummer, Will Patton, James Gammon and Ann Wedgeworth. From there, he went on to a string of classic films including "The Untouchables," "Eight Men Out," "Casualties of War" and "The Thin Red Line."
He is proud to have worked with some of the greatest actors and directors of his generation including Brian DePalma, John Sayles, Kevin Reynolds, Terrence Malick, Michael Mann, Bruce Beresford, Spike Lee, Oliver Stone, Sean Penn, Michael J. Fox, Jeff Bridges, Kevin Costner, Bruce Willis, John Cusack, Charlie Sheen, James Franco, John Hawkes, Liam Neeson, David Caruso, Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Eddie Murphy, John C. Reilly, John Leguizamo, Willem Dafoe, Judd Hirsch, Tony Curtis, George Kennedy, Dorothy Lamour, Sharon Stone, Virginia Madsen, Patricia Arquette and many others.
He continues to pursue his first love, the Theatre, and has been blessed with some amazing opportunities. He played the title role in Aphra Behn's Restoration Comedy "The Rover" at The Guthrie Theatre, opposite Elizabeth Marvel and Viola Davis, directed by the great JoAnne Akalaitis. His other favorite theatrical performances include, Lenny in Harold Pinter's "The Homecoming," Lee in Sam Shepard's "True West," Teach in David Mamet's "American Buffalo" and Brutus and Macbeth in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Macbeth.
Most recently, he has appeared in some great television including HBO's "Luck," "The Night Of" and "The Deuce;" "The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair," "The Last Tycoon," "Better Call Saul," "Yellowstone," "Pam & Tommy," and the upcoming HBO Limited Series "We Own This City."
He was honored with a Daytime Emmy Award nomination in 2017 for his portrayal of Tom Baker on General Hospital.
He lives in Santa Monica with his wife Dyanne and his four-year-old daughter Ashley. He plays bass and sings in a band called "The Don."- Actor
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Karl Geary was born on 31 May 1972 in Dublin, Ireland. He is an actor and writer, known for The Burrowers (2008), Nadja (1994) and The Book of Stars (1999). He has been married to Laura Fraser since 2003. They have one child.- Actress
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Sandrine Bonnaire was born on 31 May 1967 in Gannat, Allier, France. She is an actress and director, known for La Cérémonie (1995), To Our Loves (1983) and Vagabond (1985). She was previously married to Guillaume Laurant.- Ravishing redhead Elaine Stewart came onto the film scene in the early 1950s and decorated a number of eastern and western films as well as crimers as a second-tier MGM star. Her striking, shapely beauty and "come hither" sensuality was on full display throughout the decade, often as a temptress or schemer. By the early 1960s, however, she had faded from view, prompted by her 1963 marriage to a game show producer. She then came out of her Beverly Hills retirement in the early 1970s made a modest return to TV in the 70s charming daytime audiences on the game show circuit.
Elaine was born Elsy Henrietta Maria Steinberg on May 31, 1930 in Montclair, N.J., the daughter of German immigrants, Maria Hedwig (Hänssler) and Ulrich Ernst Steinberg, a police sergeant, who was of Frisian background. A one-time usherette and cashier at her hometown movie theatre. Elaine developed very quickly into a beautiful young woman. After a brief stint as a medical assistant, and while still a teen, she was eventually taken on by the Conover Modeling Agency. Changing her name to the more glamorous-sounding Elaine Stewart, her whistle-worthy portfolio and beauty awards eventually caught the attention of Hollywood executives.
Movie mogul Hal B. Wallis offered the wannabe starlet the small, unbilled role of a nurse in the Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis slapstick comedy Sailor Beware (1952). MGM subsequently signed the glamour girl to a contract with the intention of building her up as a dark-haired Marilyn Monroe type. The build-up was gradual with window-dressing bits as a chorine, stewardess and the like in such MGM films as Singin' in the Rain (1952), You for Me (1952) and Everything I Have Is Yours (1952). She then moved up the movie ladder to more visible parts in Sky Full of Moon (1952) and, most pointedly, as Lila, the sexy lush and opportunist who has a marvelous "descending staircase" bit in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). During this time, she became a popular pin-up and made the cover of Life Magazine. She later appeared nude on the Playboy Magazine pages (September, 1959).
She hit sultry "B" co-star status the following year in the semi-documentary-styled police drama Code Two (1953) opposite Ralph Meeker, appeared briefly as the ill-fated queen "Anne Boleyn", mother to "Queen Elizabeth" in the Jean Simmons starrer Young Bess (1953); provided lovely distraction in the macho war film Take the High Ground! (1953) alongside Richard Widmark; played a princess-in-peril in The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954) and, co-starring with Gene Kelly and Van Johnson, glamoured up the musical Brigadoon (1954). She left MGM around 1956, and finished off the decade with the films Night Passage (1957), The Tattered Dress (1957) and Escort West (1959). In the early 1960s, she made a couple of films both here and abroad and her standard sultry allure could be witnessed on such TV dramas as Burke's Law (1963) and Perry Mason (1957).
Briefly married to actor Bill Carter in the early 1960s, she later wed Emmy Award-winning game show creator Merrill Heatter and left her career to raise two children. In 1972, she became a co-hostess of the Heatter-Quigley game show Las Vegas Gambit (1972) with perennial game show emcee Wink Martindale and later partnered in the dice-rolling gamer High Rollers (1975) with Alex Trebek.
Following an extended illness, the actress died in Beverly Hills at the age of 81 in June of 2011. She was survived by her second husband Merrill Heatter, son Stewart Heatter and daughter Gabrielle Heatter. - Justine Cotsonas was born in Mineola, Long Island, New York, USA. Justine is an actor, known for Sneaky Pete (2015), Tell Me a Story (2018) and The Code (2019).
- The son of a steel worker from Beaver Falls, Pa., Joseph William Namath (Joe Willie) came from the rich football tradition that is in Pennsylvania. After starring for Paul 'Bear' Bryant's Alabama Crimson Tide teams in the 1960s, Namath was drafted by both the National Football League's (NFL) St. Louis Cardinals and the rival American Football League's (AFL) New York Jets in 1965. Namath, known as a brash performer in college, signed with the Jets for a then-record $450,000 and gave the upstart, struggling AFL instant credibility in its war with the NFL. Although he didn't turn the Jets into instant winners, he did improve their fortunes his first three years in the league. Namath delivered on his promise as one of the most exciting players in the AFL, by becoming the first quarterback in history to pass for more than 4,000 yards. Namath was also popular off the field, especially with the ladies (which he indulged in, happily) and was known for his love of the New York nightlife. Because of this, he was dubbed "Broadway Joe" by the New York press. Namath gained his legend with not only his performance, but his mouth. After leading the Jets to the AFL championship over the Oakland Raiders, Namath, weary of all the press knocking him and his team and openly favoring the NFL champion Baltimore Colts, boldly lashed out and predicted victory for him and the Jets. He also showed his poise by talking his way out of a potentially explosive situation with Colts' Defensive Tackle, Lou Michaels. Namath and a teammate were in a restaurant talking about how the Jets were a better team than the Colts, when Michaels (who was in earshot) challenged Namath. The cocky QB, instead, bought Michaels dinner, drinks and gave him a ride home. In the game that many felt made the Super Bowl the spectacle it is today, Namath and the Jets were nearly flawless in beating the 17-point favorite Colts, 16-7. Namath became a household name and gave the Jets and the AFL the respectability they were so desperate to have. Namath continued his all-star performances in New York, although he never again played in the Super Bowl. For several years, he was the entertainer of the NFL (the AFL merged with the NFL in 1970) and even dabbled in movies and television (including a memorable performance in pantyhose for a commercial). He was traded to the Los Angeles Rams in 1977, but his failing knees finally gave out and he retired at the end of the season. Namath was elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985 and, for a few years, was a member of ABC's NFL Monday Night Football (1970) crew. Namath now lives in Florida.
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Stuart Graham was born on 31 May 1967 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. He is an actor and director, known for Hunger (2008), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) and The Good Word (2014).- Actor
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Tommy Hinkley was born on 31 May 1960 in El Centro, California, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Leatherheads (2008), The Little Vampire (2000) and Mad About You (1992). He has been married to Tracey Needham since 1 January 1995. They have one child.- Actor
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Lee Soo-hyuk was born on 31 May 1988 in Gwacheon, South Korea. He is an actor, known for High School King of Savvy (2014), Don't Look Back: The Legend of Orpheus (2013) and Runway Cop (2012).- Actor
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The Los Angeles Times listed Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine as one of the biggest breakout stars of Sundance 2020, and he was awarded (the coveted) Best Actor at the 2020 Durban International Film Festival for his lead performance in Ekwa Msangi's award-winning film "Farewell Amor." Mwine was also singled out in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter reviews of the film, with the latter stating that "Mwine stuns with his elegant pauses and piercing stares that seem to jump through the screen." Furthermore, the film was named Top Ten Independent Films by the National Board of Review.
Most recently Mwine starred opposite Rachel Weisz in "Dead Ringers," the critically acclaimed limited series on Amazon, based on David Cronenberg's 1988 thriller and also played Detective Raymond Griggs in the David E. Kelley/Ted Humphrey Netflix hit series (from A+E Studios) entitled "The Lincoln Lawyer," based on Michael Connelly's best selling novels. Next up: "Washington Black," where Mwine stars in the Sterling K. Brown produced series on Hulu. Mwine's extensive television credits include his critically acclaimed portrayal of Ronnie, the complex anti-hero in Lena Waithe's Showtime series "The Chi." Variety, The Boston Globe, Roger Ebert and The New York Times all singled out Mwine in their reviews with NY Times stating that "Mr. Mwine is especially remarkable as the precariously balanced Ronnie." Mwine played the lead role in the series finale of HBO's "Room 104" and previously portrayed recurring roles in Steven Soderbergh's Cinemax series "The Knick," David Simon and Eric Overmyer's HBO series "Treme," Eric Overmyer's Amazon series "Bosch," and Tim Kring's NBC series "Heroes."
Mwine also starred in Solomon Onita Jr.'s film "Tazmanian Devil," which premiered at ABFF 2020. Previous film acting credits include Mira Nair's "Queen of Katwe," opposite Lupita Nyong'o and "Blood Diamond" opposite Leonardo DiCaprio from director Ed Zwick. Mwine's work as a feature length and short film director has resulted in multiple awards. His short film "Kuhani," won the main prize for Best Achievement in Directing at the Oscar qualifying International Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Switzerland and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film at Slamdance. Mwine went in post production in late 2023 for his upcoming documentary "Memories of Love Returned" on Ugandan photographer Kibaate Aloysius Ssalongo, which Steven Soderbergh is Executive Producing.- Jack Gilpin was born on 31 May 1951 in Boyce, Virginia, USA. He is an actor, known for 21 (2008), Adventureland (2009) and Trouble with the Curve (2012). He has been married to Ann McDonough since 14 December 1985. They have three children.