Mark Strong

biography:
Mark Strong (born Marco Giuseppe Salussolia; 5 August 1963) is a British actor. He is best known for his film roles such as Prince Septimus in Stardust (2007), Archibald in RocknRolla (2008), Lord Henry Blackwood in Sherlock Holmes (2009), Frank D'Amico in Kick-Ass (2010), Jim Prideaux in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011), Sinestro in Green Lantern (2011), George in Zero Dark Thirty (2012), Major General Stewart Menzies in The Imitation Game (2014), Merlin in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014) and Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017), Dr. Thaddeus Sivana in Shazam! (2019), and John in Cruella (2021).

Description above from the Wikipedia article Mark Strong, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.


Scott Rudin

type: Profile

biography:
Scott Rudin (born July 14, 1958) is an American film and theatrical producer.

He started working as an assistant to theater producer Kermit Bloomgarden at the age of sixteen. Later, he worked for producers Robert Whitehead and Emanuel Azenberg. Rudin ended up starting his own company after he took a job as a casting agent In lieu of attending college.  In 1980, Rudin moved to Los Angeles, taking up employment at Edgar J. Scherick Associates, where he served as producer on a variety of films including I'm Dancing as Fast as I Can (1981), the NBC miniseries Little Gloria... Happy at Last (1982) and the Oscar-winning documentary He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin' (1983). Rudin later formed his own business, Scott Rudin Productions. His first film under that banner was Gillian Armstrong's Mrs. Soffel (1984). But, not long after, Rudin joined 20th Century-Fox as an executive producer. At Fox, he met Jonathan Dolgen, a higher-level executive, with whom he would be working once again at Paramount Pictures years later. Rudin swiftly rose through the ranks at Fox and became president of production by 1986 at the age of 29. His stint at the top of Fox was short lived though, and he soon left and entered into a producing deal with Paramount.

In early 2021, The Hollywood Reporter published a story covering a long term pattern of abusive behavior from Rudin, based on statements from former employees. In the article, he was accused of physical abuse, including smashing a computer monitor on the hand of an assistant and throwing objects at employees. Following this, Rudin announced he would be stepping away from a number of film, television, and Broadway projects he was involved in. His business relationship with A24 was also ended during this time.

Rudin lives in New York City with his husband John Barlow, a Broadway theatre publicist and former owner of Barlow/Hartman Public Relations.

place_of_birth: New York City, New York, USA

known_for_department: Production


Marshall Bell

biography:
Archibald Marshall Bell (born September 28, 1942) is an American actor. He has appeared in many character roles in movies and television. His best-known movies are probably A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1985), Stand by Me (1986), Twins (1988) and Total Recall (1990).

Description above from the Wikipedia article Marshall Bell, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Tulsa, Oklahoma, USA

known_for_department: Acting


Ewan McGregor

biography:
Ewan Gordon McGregor (born March 31, 1971) is a Scottish actor. His accolades include a Golden Globe Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2013, he was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to drama and charity.

While studying drama at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, McGregor began his career with a leading role in the British series Lipstick on Your Collar (1993). He gained international recognition for starring as drug addict Mark Renton in Trainspotting (1996) and as Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005). His career progressed with starring roles in the musical Moulin Rouge! (2001), action film Black Hawk Down (2001), fantasy film Big Fish (2003), and thriller Angels and Demons (2009). He gained praise for his performances in the thriller The Ghost Writer (2010) and romantic comedy Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011).

McGregor made his directorial debut with the crime film American Pastoral (2016), in which he also starred. For his dual role as brothers Ray and Emmit Stussy in the third season of the anthology series Fargo (2017), he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film. He voiced Lumière in Beauty and the Beast (2017), and played the title role in Christopher Robin (2018), Dan Torrance in Doctor Sleep (2019), and Black Mask in Birds of Prey (2020). He reprised his role as Kenobi in the 2022 miniseries Obi-Wan Kenobi, and won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor for his portrayal of fashion designer Halston in the miniseries Halston (2021).

McGregor has also starred in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls (2005–2007) and Othello (2007–2008). He has been involved in charity work and has served as an ambassador for UNICEF UK since 2004.

place_of_birth: Perth, Scotland, UK


Tilda Swinton

biography:
Katherine Matilda Swinton (born November 5, 1960) is an award-winning British actress of Scottish descent, known for her versatile roles in independent films and blockbusters. She is a recipient various accolades throughout her long career, including an Academy Award and two BAFTA Awards, in addition to being nominated for three Golden Globe Awards and five Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Swinton began her career by appearing in experimental films starting with Caravaggio (1986), followed by The Last of England (1988), War Requiem (1989), and The Garden (1990). She won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival for her portrayal of Isabella of France in Edward II (1991). She next starred in Sally Potter's Orlando (1992), for which she received a nomination for the European Film Award for Best Actress. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for her performance in The Deep End (2001), and followed this with appearances in Vanilla Sky (2001), Adaptation (2002), Constantine (2005), Julia (2008), and I Am Love (2009).

For the film Young Adam (2003), she won the British Academy Scotland Award for Best Actress. Her performance in Michael Clayton (2007) won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Additionally, she won the European Film Award for Best Actress and received a nomination for the BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role for the psychological thriller We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011). Swinton has also played the White Witch in The Chronicles of Narnia series (2005–2010) and the Ancient One in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise.

Swinton was awarded the Richard Harris Award by the British Independent Film Awards in recognition of her contributions to the British film industry. In 2013, she was given a special tribute by the Museum of Modern Art. In 2020, Swinton was awarded the British Film Institute Fellowship, the highest honour presented by the institution, for her "daringly eclectic and striking talents as a performer and film-maker and recognizes her great contribution to film culture, independent film exhibition and philanthropy." That same year, The New York Times ranked her thirteenth on its list of the greatest actors of the 21st century up to that point.

place_of_birth: London, England, UK


David Byrne

biography:
David Byrne (/bɜːrn/; born 14 May 1952) is a Scottish-American musician, writer, visual artist, and filmmaker. He was a founding member, principal songwriter, lead singer, and guitarist of the American new wave band Talking Heads.

Byrne has released solo recordings and worked with various media, including film, photography, opera, fiction, and non-fiction. He has received an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, a Special Tony Award, and a Golden Globe Award, and he is an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as part of Talking Heads.

Description above from the Wikipedia article David Byrne, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Dumbarton, Dunbartonshire, Scotland, UK

known_for_department: Sound


Diane Keaton

biography:
Diane Hall Keaton (born Diane Hall; January 5, 1946 – October 11, 2025) was an American actress, director and producer. Known for her idiosyncratic personality and fashion style, she received various accolades throughout her career spanning over six decades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and the AFI Life Achievement Award.

Keaton began her career on stage appearing in the original 1968 Broadway production of the musical Hair. The next year, she received a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play nomination for her performance in Woody Allen's comic play Play it Again, Sam. She then made her screen debut in a small role in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970). She rose to prominence with her first major film role as Kay Adams-Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972), a role she reprised in its sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990). The films that most shaped her career were those with director and co-star Woody Allen, beginning with the film adaptation of Play It Again, Sam (1972). Her next two films with Allen, Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975), established her as a comic actor. Her fourth, the romantic comedy Annie Hall (1977), won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.

To avoid being typecast as her Annie Hall persona, she appeared in several dramatic films, starring in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and Allen's Interiors (1978), and received three more Academy Award nominations for playing feminist activist Louise Bryant in Reds (1981), a woman with leukemia in Marvin's Room (1996), and a dramatist in Something's Gotta Give (2003). Her other popular films include Manhattan (1979), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride (1991), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), Father of the Bride Part II (1995), The First Wives Club (1996), The Family Stone (2005), Morning Glory (2010), Finding Dory (2016) and Book Club (2018).

place_of_birth: Los Angeles, California, USA


Valeria Golino

biography: Valeria Golino is an Italian actress and director. She is best known to English-language audiences for her roles in Rain Man, Big Top Pee-wee, and the two Hot Shots! movies, particularly the olive-in-the-belly-button scene. In addition to the awards David di Donatello, Silver Ribbon, Golden Ciak, and Italian Golden Globe, she is also one of the four actresses who has won the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival twice.

place_of_birth: Naples, Campania, Italy


Madonna

biography:
Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone; August 16, 1958) is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983. She followed it with a series of albums in which she found immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV. Throughout her career, many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including "Like a Virgin", "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer", "Vogue", "Frozen", "Music", "Hung Up", and "4 Minutes". Critics have praised Madonna for her diverse musical productions while at the same time serving as a lightning rod for religious controversy.

Her career was further enhanced by film appearances that began in 1979, despite mixed commentary. She won critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her role in Evita (1996), but has received harsh feedback for other film roles. Madonna's other ventures include being a fashion designer, children's book author, film director and producer. She has been acclaimed as a businesswoman, and in 2007, she signed an unprecedented US $120 million contract with Live Nation.

Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the world's top-selling female recording artist of all time by the Guinness World Records. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States, behind Barbra Streisand, with 64 million certified albums. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind only The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of the Billboard chart. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year. Considered to be one of the "25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century" by Time for being an influential figure in contemporary music, Madonna is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image, and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry.

On May 4, 2024, with a free concert which was live streamed at the Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in front of  1.6 million people, Madonna broke the record for the most attended stand-alone concert by any artist, and the all-time highest attended concert by a female artist.

place_of_birth: Bay City, Michigan, USA


Salma Hayek Pinault

biography:
Salma Valgarma Hayek Pinault is a Mexican and American actress and film producer. She began her career in Mexico by starring in the telenovela Teresa (1989–1991) and the romantic drama Midaq Alley (1995). She soon established herself in Hollywood, appearing in films such as Desperado (1995), From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), Wild Wild West(1999), and Dogma (1999).

Hayek's portrayal of painter Frida Kahlo in the biopic Frida (2002), which she also produced, made her the first Mexican actress nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress. In subsequent years, Hayek focused more on producing while starring in the action-centred pictures Once Upon a Time in Mexico(2003), After the Sunset (2004) and Bandidas(2006). She achieved further commercial success with the comedies Grown Ups (2010), Grown Ups 2 (2013) and The Hitman's Bodyguard (2017). She lent her voice to the animated Puss in Boots(2011), Sausage Party (2016) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish (2022). She also earned critical acclaim for her performances in the dramas Tale of Tales (2015), Beatriz at Dinner (2017) and House of Gucci (2021). She played Ajak in the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Eternals (2021), which emerged as her highest-grossing live-action film.

Hayek's directing, producing and acting work on television has earned her four Emmy Awards nominations. She won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing in a Children's Special for The Maldonado Miracle (2004). She received two Primetime Emmy Award nominations, one for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series and the other for Outstanding Comedy Series, for her work on the ABC television comedy-drama Ugly Betty (2006–2010). She also produced and played Minerva Mirabal in the Showtime film In the Time of the Butterflies (2001) and guest-starred on the NBC comedy series 30 Rock (2009–2013).

As a public figure, Hayek has been cited as one of Hollywood's most powerful and influential Latina actresses and one of the world's most beautiful women by various media outlets. Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2023. In 2021, she was honoured with a  Hollywood Walk of Fame star. She is married to business magnate François-Henri Pinault, with whom she has a daughter.

place_of_birth: Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico


Paul Calderon

biography:
He was born in Puerto Rico 1959. Calderon moved to New York with his family at the age of six, where he grew up on the streets of the Lower East Side and Spanish Harlem. Following some time in college, he enlisted in the United States Army and served overseas as an infantryman.  Returning to the States, Calderon set his sights on an acting career. Starting out on the New York stage, he won an Obie Award for his performance in Blade to the Heat at the Public Theatre. His most notable Broadway role was opposite Robert De Niro in Cuba and His Teddy Bear. Calderon also appeared off-Broadway in such plays as Requiem For A Heavyweight and Divine Horsemen, and played Achilles in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of Troilus and Cressida in Central Park. He is a founding member of the Touchstone Theatre, the American Folk Theatre and the Labyrinth Theatre Company.

Calderon was originally slated to portray the role of Jules Winnfield in Pulp Fiction; Samuel L. Jackson was subsequently given the role.

Correction Samuel Jackson told Tarantino he had messed up by not casting him in Reservoir Dogs. Tarantino agreed and told him he was writing a script and had a character that he had written specifically with Jackson in mind. Calderon had a better initial reading than Jackson and Tarantino gave serious consideration to casting him as Jules Winnfield.

Calderon portrays Paul the bartender in dialogue scene between Butch Coolidge and Marsellus Wallace.

Calderon also co-wrote Abel Ferrara's 1992 crime drama Bad Lieutenant, starring Harvey Keitel.

Calderon acted in The Last Castle and the critically acclaimed independent feature Girlfight. His more than three dozen film credits also include Out of Sight, Cop Land, Four Rooms, Pulp Fiction, Bad Lieutenant, The Firm, The Addiction, Q & A, Sea of Love, Clockers and King of New York. In addition, he has made numerous guest appearances on television series, including recurring roles on Dream Street, Law & Order and Miami Vice.

In 2010, Calderon is set to star as The Businessman in Sanzhar Sultanov's crime drama - The Story.

place_of_birth: Puerto Rico


Marilyn Monroe

biography:
Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) was an American actress. Famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s, as well as an emblem of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2021) by the time of her death in 1962. Long after her death, Monroe remains a major icon of pop culture. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her sixth on their list of the greatest female screen legends from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Multiple film critics and media outlets have cited Monroe as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in a total of 12 foster homes and an orphanage; she married at age sixteen. She was working in a factory during World War II when she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career, which led to short-lived film contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in late 1950. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. She faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photographs prior to becoming a star, but the story did not damage her career and instead resulted in increased interest in her films.

By 1953, Monroe was one of the most marketable Hollywood stars; she had leading roles in the film noir Niagara, which overtly relied on her sex appeal, and the comedies Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire, which established her star image as a "dumb blonde". The same year, her nude images were used as the centerfold and on the cover of the first issue of Playboy. She played a significant role in the creation and management of her public image throughout her career, but she was disappointed when she was typecast and underpaid by the studio. She was briefly suspended in early 1954 for refusing a film project but returned to star in The Seven Year Itch (1955), one of the biggest box office successes of her career.

When the studio was still reluctant to change Monroe's contract, she founded her own film production company in 1954. She dedicated 1955 to building the company and began studying method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Later that year, Fox awarded her a new contract, which gave her more control and a larger salary. Her subsequent roles included a critically acclaimed performance in Bus Stop (1956) and her first independent production in The Prince and the Showgirl (1957). She won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her role in Some Like It Hot (1959), a critical and commercial success. Her last completed film was the drama The Misfits (1961).


Jack Lemmon

biography: John Uhler "Jack" Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor and musician. He starred in more than 60 films including Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, Mister Roberts (for which he won the 1955 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award), Days of Wine and Roses, The Great Race, Irma la Douce, The Odd Couple, Save the Tiger (for which he won the 1973 Best Actor Academy Award), The Out-of-Towners, The China Syndrome, Missing (for which he won 'Best Actor' at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival), Glengarry Glen Ross, Grumpy Old Men and Grumpier Old Men.

place_of_birth: Newton, Massachusetts, USA


Nehemiah Persoff

biography:
Nehemiah Persoff was an American film and television actor. Persoff emigrated with his family from Palestine to the United States in 1929. He began to take an interest in acting in the 1940s, and after serving in the Army during World War II, he began to pursue his acting career in the New York Theater. In 1947, he was accepted into the Actor's Studio and eventually began appearing in films.

His film credits include: On the Waterfront, Some Like It Hot, Al Capone, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Voyage of the Damned, The Comancheros, Yentl (portraying Barbra Streisand's character's father), Twins and the American Tail (animated-film series) (voiced, "Papa Mousekewitz").

Persoff appeared in such television series as, Five Fingers ("The Moment of Truth"), The Big Valley ("Legend of a General", Parts I & II, episode), The Twilight Zone ("Judgment Night" episode), Alfred Hitchcock Presents ("Heart of Gold" episode), The Untouchables, Naked City, The Legend of Jesse James, Gunsmoke, The Wild Wild West, Hawaii Five-O, Ellery Queen ("The Adventure of the Pharaoh's Curse" episode), Mission: Impossible (3 episodes), Adam-12 ("Vendetta" episode), Charlie's Angels, Hunter, Columbo, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Magnum, P.I., Law & Order and Chicago Hope.

In the mid-1980s, Persoff began to pursue painting, specializing in watercolour. This was at a time when health problems forced him to decrease his acting workload.

place_of_birth: Jerusalem, Palestine Mandate


George E. Stone

biography:
George E. Stone (born Gerschon Lichtenstein; May 18, 1903 – May 26, 1967) was a Polish-born American character actor in movies, radio, and television.

Description above from the Wikipedia article George E. Stone, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Lódz, Poland, Russian Empire [now Lódz, Lódzkie, Poland]


Juliette Lewis

biography:
Juliette Lake Lewis (born June 21, 1973) is an American actress and singer. She is known for her portrayals of offbeat characters, often in films with dark themes. Lewis became an "it girl" of American cinema in the early 1990s, appearing in various independent and arthouse films. Her accolades include a Pasinetti Award, one Academy Award nomination, one Golden Globe nomination, and a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

The daughter of character actor Geoffrey Lewis, Lewis began her career in television at age 14 before being cast in her first major film role as Audrey Griswold in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989). She garnered international notice for her role in Martin Scorsese's remake of Cape Fear (1991), which saw Lewis nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, as well as the Golden Globe in the same category.

Following the success of Cape Fear, Lewis had a supporting role in Woody Allen's Husbands and Wives (1992), followed by the thriller Kalifornia (1993) in which she portrayed a childlike woman whose boyfriend is a serial killer. She appeared in the drama What's Eating Gilbert Grape (also 1993), playing a young drifter. Lewis gained further notice for her lead role as Mallory Knox in Oliver Stone's controversial satirical crime film Natural Born Killers (1994), which earned her the Pasinetti Award for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. She subsequently starred in Kathryn Bigelow's science fiction film Strange Days (1995), and Robert Rodriguez's vampire film From Dusk Till Dawn (1996). In 1999, Lewis had a leading role in the drama The Other Sister as a woman with mental disabilities.

The 2000s saw Lewis appearing in a series of supporting roles in independent features and studio films, and in 2003 she earned an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress for her role in Hysterical Blindness (2002). She went on to appear in supporting parts in such comedies as Old School (2003) and Starsky & Hutch (2004), and embarked on a musical career in 2003, forming the rock band Juliette and the Licks; in 2009, Lewis began releasing material as a solo artist. Subsequent film roles include the sports comedy Whip It (2009), the biographical crime film Conviction (2010), an American romantic comedy The Switch (2010) and the drama August: Osage County (2013). Starting in the later 2010s, Lewis worked more frequently in television, appearing in lead roles on the series The Firm (2012), Wayward Pines (2015), Secrets and Lies (2015–2016), The Act (2019), and Yellowjackets (2021).


Evan Handler

biography:
Evan Handler (born January 10, 1961) is an American actor who is best known for playing Harry Goldenblatt, a divorce attorney and later husband of Charlotte York on Sex and the City (2002–2004) and its revival series And Just Like That… (2021–present), and Charlie Runkle, Hank Moody's comically bumbling friend and agent, on Californication (2007–2014). Recently, he starred as Eastern District US Attorney Jacob Warner in the Starz drama Power.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Stephen Frears

biography:
Stephen Arthur Frears (born 20 June 1941) is an English director and producer. He has directed numerous acclaimed films since the early 1980s, including My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), Dangerous Liaisons (1988), The Grifters (1990), High Fidelity (2000), The Queen (2006), Philomena (2013), Florence Foster Jenkins (2016), and Victoria & Abdul (2017). He has received two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director.

Frears is also known for his work on various television programs, including Fail Safe (2000), The Deal (2003), Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight (2013), A Very English Scandal (2018), State of the Union (2019), and Quiz (2020). He has received four Primetime Emmy Award nominations, with one win.

In 2008, The Daily Telegraph named Frears among the 100 most influential people in British culture.

place_of_birth: Leicester, England, UK

known_for_department: Directing


Arliss Howard

biography:
Arliss Howard (born Leslie Richard Howard; October 18, 1954) is an American actor, writer and film director.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Arliss Howard, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Independence, Missouri, USA


Joan Cusack

biography:
Joanna "Joan" Mary Cusack is an American actress. An acclaimed character actress known for her distinctive voice and offbeat comedic timing, her portrayals of neurotic, endearing characters have earned her numerous accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards and five Primetime Emmy Awards, winning once in 2015.

Cusack received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her roles in the comedy-drama Working Girl (1988) and the romantic comedy In & Out (1997). Her other starring roles include those in Toys (1992), Addams Family Values (1993), Nine Months (1995), Cradle Will Rock (1999), Where the Heart Is (2000), Looney Tunes: Back in Action (2003), School of Rock (2003), and Kit Kittredge: An American Girl (2008). She has also provided the voice of Jessie in the Toy Story franchise (1999–present), for which she won an Annie Award, and Abby Mallard in Chicken Little (2005).

Cusack was a cast member on the comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live from 1985 to 1986. She starred on the Showtime hit drama comedy series Shameless (2011–2015) as Sheila Jackson, a role for which she received five consecutive Primetime Emmy Award nominations, winning for the first time in 2015. She is the sister of actress Ann Cusack and actor John Cusack.


Merian C. Cooper

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Merian Caldwell Cooper (October 24, 1893 – April 21, 1973) was an American aviator, United States Air Force and Polish Air Force officer, adventurer, screenwriter, film director, and producer. Cooper was the founder of the Kościuszko Squadron during the Polish–Soviet War and was a Soviet prisoner of war for a time. He was a notable movie producer, and got his start with film as part of the Explorers Club, traveling the world and documenting adventures. He was a member of the board of directors of Pan American Airways, but his love of film always took priority. During his film career, he worked for companies such as Pioneer Pictures, RKO Pictures, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He is also credited as co-inventor of the Cinerama film projection process. Cooper's most famous film was the 1933 movie King Kong. He was awarded an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement in 1952 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Merian C. Cooper, licensed under CC-BY-SA,full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Jacksonville, Florida, USA


Ernest B. Schoedsack

biography:
Ernest Beaumont Schoedsack (June 8, 1893 – December 23, 1979) was an American motion picture cinematographer, director, and producer.

Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Schoedsack is probably best remembered for being the co-director of the 1933 film, King Kong.

His eyesight was severely damaged in World War II, yet he continued to direct films afterwards. He directed Mighty Joe Young at RKO in 1949, which was a reunion film of the main King Kong creative team (Cooper, Rose, and O'Brien).

He married screenwriter, Ruth Rose. They are interred together at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Ernest B. Schoedsack, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Council Bluffs, Iowa, USA


Ruth Rose

biography:
Ruth Rose (January 16, 1896 – June 8, 1978) was an American screenwriter known for various adventure films produced by RKO Radio Pictures, including King Kong (1933), Son of Kong (1933), She (1935) and Mighty Joe Young (1949).

An academic writer and explorer before her career shift into film, she met her future husband, director Ernest B. Schoedsack, while on expedition through the Galapagos Islands in 1925; the couple would later marry in 1926 and collaborate on five films together during their time in Hollywood, remaining a couple until Rose's death at the age of 82 in 1978.

place_of_birth: Somerville, Massachusetts, USA

known_for_department: Writing


Fay Wray

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Fay Wray (born Vina Fay Wray; September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004) was a Canadian-American actress. Through an acting career that spanned 57 years, Wray attained international stardom as an actress in horror film roles, leading to many considering her as the first "scream queen".

After appearing in minor film roles, Wray gained media attention being selected as one of the "WAMPAS Baby Stars". This led to Wray being signed to Paramount Pictures as a teenager, where she made more than a dozen films. After leaving Paramount, she signed deals with various film companies, being cast in her first horror film roles. For RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., she starred in the film with which she is most identified, King Kong (1933). After the success of King Kong, Wray appeared in more minor film roles and on television, leading to her final role in 1980.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Fay Wray, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Cardston, Alberta, Canada


Robert Armstrong

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Robert Armstrong (November 20, 1890 – April 20, 1973) was an American film actor best remembered for his role as Carl Denham in the 1933 version of King Kong by RKO Pictures. He uttered the famous exit quote, "'Twas beauty killed the beast," at the film's end. Months later, he starred as Carl Denham again in the sequel, Son of Kong, released the same year.

In the late 1950s, Armstrong appeared as Sheriff Andy Anderson on Rod Cameron's syndicated western-themed television series, State Trooper.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Armstrong, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Saginaw, Michigan, USA


Bruce Cabot

biography:
Bruce Cabot (April 20, 1904 – May 3, 1972) was an American film actor. Tall and athletic looking, he is best remembered as Jack Driscoll in King Kong (1933). He is also well known for his roles in films such as the original Last of the Mohicans, Fritz Lang's Fury and the classic western Dodge City.

The character of "Bruce Baxter" in the 2005 remake of King Kong was based on Cabot. The 2005 remake includes a dedication to the other two lead actors in the 1933 original, but not to Cabot.

place_of_birth: Carlsbad, New Mexico, USA


Frank Reicher

biography:
Frank Reicher (December 2, 1875 – January 19, 1965) was a German-born American stage and film actor, director and producer. He is best known for playing Captain Englehorn in the 1933 film King Kong.

Reicher made his Broadway debut the year he came to America playing Lord Tarquin in Harrison Fiske's production of Becky Sharp, a comedy by Langdon Mitchell based on William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair. His early career was spent in legitimate theater on and off Broadway. He was head of the Brooklyn Stock Company when Jacob P. Adler performed The Merchant of Venice in Yiddish while the rest of the cast remained in English. Reicher was for a number of years affiliated with the Little Theatre on West Forty-Fourth Street as an actor and manager and would remain active on Broadway as actor, director or producer well into the 1920s. On stage, Reicher starred in such plays as the first Broadway production of Georg Kaiser's From Morning to Midnight (as the cashier), and the original production of Percy MacKaye's The Scarecrow (in the title role).

Frank Reicher is probably more familiar to modern audiences as a supporting character actor in films. He began his cinema career with an uncredited role in the 1915 film The Case for Becky and would go on to work in over two hundred motion pictures. He is probably best remembered for playing the character of Captain Englehorn in King Kong and The Son of Kong, and for his work in such films as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) and Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye (1950). His last Hollywood role was in the very first theatrical Superman movie, Superman and the Mole Men, in 1951.

Frank Reicher died at a hospital in Inglewood, California, aged 89. He was survived by his sister and a brother. His interment was at Inglewood Park Cemetery.

place_of_birth: Munich, German Empire [now Germany]


Sam Hardy

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sam B. Hardy (March 21, 1883 – October 16, 1935) was an American stage and film actor who appeared in feature films during the silent and early sound eras. He died of intestinal problems. He was also known as Samuel Hardy.

Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Hardy attended Yale but left there to become an actor on stage. He entered the world of film with Biograph Studios.

Hardy became ill while he was working in the film Shoot the Chutes, starring Eddie Cantor. He did not survive emergency surgery at a hospital.

place_of_birth: New Haven, Connecticut, USA


Noble Johnson

biography:
Noble Johnson (April 18, 1881 – January 9, 1978), later known as Mark Noble, was an American actor and film producer. He appeared in films such as The Mummy (1932), The Most Dangerous Game (1932), King Kong (1933) and Son of Kong (1933).

[biography (excerpted) from Wikipedia]

place_of_birth: Marshall, Missouri, USA


James Flavin

biography: American character actor whose career lasted nearly half a century. James Wilson Flavin Jr. was the son of a hotel waiter of Canadian-English extraction and a mother, Katherine, whose father was an Irish immigrant. (Thus Flavin, well-known in Hollywood as an "Irish" type, was only one-quarter Irish.) Flavin was born and raised in Portland, Maine (a fact that may have enrichened his later working relationship with director John Ford, also a Portland native). He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, but (contrary to some sources) did not graduate. Instead he dropped out and returned to Portland where he drove a taxi. Then as now, summer stock companies flocked to Maine each year, and in 1929 he was asked to fill in for an actor. He did well with the part and the company manager offered him $150 per week to go with the troupe back to New York. Flavin accepted and by the spring of 1930 was living in a rooming house at 108 W. 87th Street in Manhattan. Flavin didn't manage to crack Broadway at this time (his Broadway debut would not occur for another thirty-nine years, in the 1971 revival of "The Front Page," in which Flavin played Murphy and briefly took over the lead role of Walter Burns from star Robert Ryan). He worked his way across the country in stock productions and tours, arriving in Los Angeles around 1932. He quickly made the transition to movies, landing the lead in his very first film, a Universal serial, The Airmail Mystery (1932). He also landed his leading lady, marrying the serial's female star Lucile Browne that same year. However, the serial marked virtually the last time that Flavin would play the lead in a film. Thereafter, he was restricted almost exclusively to supporting characters, many of them without so much as a name. He specialized in uniformed cops and hard-bitten detectives, but played chauffeurs, cabbies, and even a 16th-century palace guard with aplomb. Flavin appeared in nearly four hundred films between 1932 and 1971, and in almost a hundred television episodes before his final appearance, as President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Francis Gary Powers: The True Story of the U-2 Spy Incident (1976). Flavin died of a heart ailment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles on April 23, 1976. His widow Lucile died seventeen days later. They were survived by their son, William James Flavin, subsequently a professor at the United States Army War College. James and Lucile Brown Flavin were buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

place_of_birth: Portland, Maine, USA


Joe Mantegna

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Joseph Anthony “Joe” Mantegna, Jr. (born November 13, 1947) is an American actor, producer, writer and director. He is best known for his roles in box-office hits such as Three Amigos (1986), The Godfather Part III (1990), Forget Paris (1995) and Up Close & Personal (1996). He currently stars in the CBS television series Criminal Minds as FBI Special Agent David Rossi.

Mantegna has gained Emmy Award nominations for his roles in three different miniseries, The Last Don (1997), The Rat Pack (1999) and The Starter Wife (2007). Mantegna served as executive producer for various movies and television movies, such as Corduroy (1984), Hoods (1998), and Lakeboat (2000), which he also directed.

On television, Mantegna starred in the short lived series First Monday (2002) and Joan of Arcadia (2003–2005). Since the 1991 episode "Bart the Murderer", Mantegna has had a recurring role on the animated comedy series The Simpsons as mob boss Fat Tony, reprising the role in The Simpsons Movie (2007). He also played Robert B. Parker's fictional detective Spenser in three made-for-TV movies between 1999 and 2001.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Joe Mantegna, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Chicago, Illinois, USA


George Sanders

biography: George Henry Sanders (3 July 1906 – 25 April 1972) was a British film and television actor, singer-songwriter, music composer, and author. His career as an actor spanned over forty years. His heavy upper-class English accent and smooth bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is perhaps best known as Jack Favell in Rebecca (1940), Scott ffolliott in Foreign Correspondent (1940, a rare heroic part), The Saran of Gaza in Samson and Delilah (1949), the most popular film of the year, Addison DeWitt in All About Eve (1950, for which he won an Oscar), Sir Brian De Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe (1952), King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), Mr. Freeze in a two-parter episode of Batman (1966), the voice of the malevolent man-hating tiger Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967), the suave crimefighter The Falcon during the 1940s (a role eventually bequeathed to his elder brother, Tom Conway), and Simon Templar, The Saint, in five films made in the 1930s and 1940s.

place_of_birth: Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire [now Russia]


James L. Brooks

biography:
James Lawrence Brooks (born May 9, 1940) is an American director, producer, screenwriter and co-founder of Gracie Films. He co-created the sitcoms The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, and The Simpsons and directed the films Terms of Endearment (1983), Broadcast News (1987), and As Good as It Gets (1997). He received numerous accolades, including three Academy Awards, 22 Emmy Awards, and a Golden Globe Award.

Brooks started his career as an usher at CBS, going on to write for the CBS News broadcasts. He moved to Los Angeles in 1965 to work on David L. Wolper's documentaries. He wrote for My Mother the Car and My Friend Tony and created the series Room 222. Grant Tinker hired Brooks and producer Allan Burns at MTM Productions to create The Mary Tyler Moore Show in 1970. Brooks and Burns then created two successful spin-offs from Mary Tyler Moore: Rhoda (a comedy) and Lou Grant (a drama). Brooks left MTM Productions in 1978 to co-create the sitcom Taxi (1978-1983).

Brooks moved into feature film work when he wrote and co-produced the 1979 film Starting Over. His next project was the critically acclaimed film Terms of Endearment, which he produced, directed and wrote, winning an Academy Award for all three roles. He earned acclaim for his films Broadcast News (1987) and As Good as It Gets (1997). He received mixed reviews for  I'll Do Anything (1994), Spanglish (2004), and How Do You Know (2010). Brooks also produced Cameron Crowe's Say Anything... (1989) and Wes Anderson's Bottle Rocket (1996).

In 1986, Brooks founded Gracie Films, a television and film company. Although he did not intend to do so, Brooks returned to television in 1987 as the producer of The Tracey Ullman Show. He hired cartoonist Matt Groening to create a series of shorts for the show, which led in 1989 to The Simpsons. The Simpsons won numerous awards and is still running after over 35 years. Brooks also co-produced and co-wrote the 2007 film adaptation of the show, The Simpsons Movie. Brooks has received 53 Emmy nominations, winning 21 of them.

Description above from the Wikipedia article James L. Brooks, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: North Bergen, New Jersey, USA


Kathleen Turner

biography:
Mary Kathleen Turner (born June 19, 1954) is an American actress. Known for her distinctive deep, husky voice, she receives two Golden Globes and nominations for an Academy Award, a Grammy, and two Tony Awards.

After debuting both off and on Broadway in 1977, followed by her television debut as Nola Dancy Aldrich on the NBC soap opera The Doctors (1978–1979), Turner rose to prominence with her portrayal of Matty Walker in Body Heat (1981), which brought her a reputation as a sex symbol. She worked solidly throughout the 1980s in films such as The Man with Two Brains (1983), Crimes of Passion, Romancing the Stone (both 1984), Prizzi's Honor, The Jewel of the Nile (both 1985), Switching Channels, The Accidental Tourist (both 1988), and The War of the Roses (1989). For her portrayal of the title character in Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), Turner was nominated for the 1987 Academy Award for Best Actress. Subsequent credits include V.I. Warshawski (1991), Serial Mom (1994), Baby Geniuses, The Virgin Suicides (both 1999), Beautiful (2000), Marley & Me (2008), and Dumb and Dumber To (2014).

Outside film, Turner guest-starred as Sue Collini on Showtime's Californication (2009) and Roz Volander on Netflix's The Kominsky Method (2019–2021). She also played Charles Bing, the drag queen father of Chandler Bing, on the seventh season of Friends (2001). Turner's voice work includes Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and Constance in Monster House (2006), as well as characters on television series such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, King of the Hill, and Rick and Morty.

In addition to her work on stage and screen, Turner has taught acting classes at New York University.

place_of_birth: Springfield, Missouri, USA


Jerry Zucker

biography:
Jerry Zucker (born March 11, 1950) is an American director, known for comedy spoof films, and the hit film Ghost.

Zucker was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Charlotte (d. 2007) and Burton Zucker, who was a real estate developer. He graduated from Shorewood High School.

Zucker's early career work started with Jim Abrahams and brother David Zucker at the Kentucky Fried Theatre on Pico Blvd in West Los Angeles where they honed their comedic skills doing skits in front of a live audience. From there the three went on and together co-directed Airplane! in 1980 and then went on to do Top Secret! in 1984, and Ruthless People in 1986. In 1990, he lent his directorial skills to the dramatic genre with Ghost, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. Recent directorial efforts of Zucker's include the 2001 film Rat Race (which re-teamed him with Ghost star Whoopi Goldberg).

Like his brother David Zucker, Jerry often cast his mother, Charlotte (who died in 2007), and his sister, Susan Breslau, in small roles in his films. Along with Jim Abrahams, the Zuckers constitute the "ZAZ" team of directors.

place_of_birth: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA


Demi Moore

biography:
Demi Gene Moore (née Guynes; November 11, 1962) is an American actress and producer. After rising to prominence in the early 1980s, Moore became the world's highest-paid actress by 1995. Her accolades include a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and an Emmy Award.

She began her career as a model and joined the cast of the soap opera General Hospital in 1981. After departing the show in 1983, she rose to prominence as a member of the Brat Pack, with roles in the films Blame It on Rio (1984), St. Elmo's Fire (1985), and About Last Night... (1986). She emerged a star with her portrayal of a grieving girlfriend in the romance film Ghost (1990), had further box office success in A Few Good Men (1992), Indecent Proposal (1993), and Disclosure (1994), and received a then-unprecedented $12.5 million to star in Striptease (1996). Her output decreased significantly after The Scarlet Letter (1995), The Juror (1996), and G.I. Jane (1997) fell below commercial expectations.

She has since held sporadic leading roles in arthouse films; supporting roles in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle (2003), Bobby (2006), Mr. Brooks (2007), and Margin Call (2011); as well as television credits in If These Walls Could Talk (1996), Empire (2017–2018), and Feud: Capote vs. The Swans (2024). She received renewed recognition for her performance as an aging celebrity in the body horror film The Substance (2024), which earned her a Golden Globe and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress.

place_of_birth: Roswell, New Mexico, USA


Tony Goldwyn

biography:
Anthony Howard 'Tony' Goldwyn (born May 20, 1960) is an American actor, singer, producer, director, and political activist. He's known for his roles as Carl Bruner in Ghost, President Fitzgerald Grant on ABC's drama Scandal, district attorney Nicholas Baxter on Law & Order, Gordon Gray in Oppenheimer, Paul Cohen in King Richard (2021), Andrew Prior in Divergent and Insurgent, Colonel Bagley in The Last Samurai,  Michael Drucker in The 6th Day, Dr. William 'Will' Rudolph in Kiss the Girls, Neil Armstrong in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon, Harold Nixon in Nixon (1995), Fletcher Cole in The Pelican Brief, and the voice of Tarzan in the Disney animated Tarzan.

He made his acting debut appearing as Darren in the slasher film Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986), and had his breakthrough for starring as Carl Bruner in the fantasy thriller film Ghost (1990), which earned him a nomination for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor. He went on to star as Harold Nixon in the biographical film Nixon (1995), which earned him a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination, and as Neil Armstrong in the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998).

He portrayed Paul Cohen in King Richard (2021), which earned him a second nomination for a Screen Actors Guild Award. He starred as President Fitzgerald Grant III in the ABC legal/political drama Scandal (2012–2018) and directed a number of episodes for the series, for which he won a Peabody Award.

He is the son of film producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. and actress Jennifer Howard. His paternal grandparents were film producer and movie studio mogul Samuel Goldwyn, a Polish Jewish immigrant from Warsaw, and actress Frances Howard, who was originally from Nebraska. His maternal grandparents were playwright Sidney Howard and actress Clare Eames. His brother John Goldwyn is a film producer, a former executive of Paramount Pictures and the executive producer of the series Dexter. His brother Peter is also a film producer and the current President of Samuel Goldwyn Films. His half-sister Liz Goldwyn is a filmmaker. His niece is writer/producer Emily Goldwyn (John's daughter - and her mother is actress Colleen Camp).

He has been married to production designer Jane Musky since 1987 and they have two daughters: Anna, a screenwriter, and Tess, an actress.

place_of_birth: Los Angeles, California, USA


Rick Aviles

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Rick Aviles (October 14, 1952 – March 17, 1995) was an American stand-up comedian and actor who is best remembered for the role of Willie Lopez in the movie Ghost.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Rick Aviles, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Manhattan, New York, USA


Nora Denney

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nora Denney (September 3, 1927 – November 20, 2005), also known and credited as Dodo Denney, was an American stage, television, and film actress.

Her show business career began in Kansas City when she was hired by the local television station Channel 5 (KCMO TV) to play Marilyn the Witch, an onscreen host for horror movies. She performed in many television series, including Green Acres, Petticoat Junction, Hart to Hart, Get Smart, Room 222 and That Girl, and her film credits included Who's Minding the Mint? (1967), I Walk the Line (1970), Do Not Fold, Spindle or Mutilate (1971), I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now? (1975), American Hot Wax (1978) and Truman (1995). She made her final film appearance in 1999, in Ang Lee's Ride with the Devil.

Perhaps her most notable film role was as Mrs. Teevee in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), starring Gene Wilder and Jack Albertson.

place_of_birth: Kansas City, Missouri, U.S.


Thomas Kretschmann

biography:
Thomas Kretschmann (born September 8, 1962) is a German actor best known for playing Leutnant Hans Von Witzland in the 1993 film Stalingrad, Hauptmann Wilm Hosenfeld in The Pianist, Hermann Fegelein in Der Untergang, and Captain Englehorn in the 2005 remake of King Kong.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Thomas Kretschmann, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Dessau, German Democratic Republic [now Germany]


Kyle Chandler

biography:
Kyle Martin Chandler (born September 17, 1965) is an American actor. He received critical acclaim for his performance as Eric Taylor in the NBC series Friday Night Lights(2006–2011), winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 2011.

Making his screen acting debut in the 1988 television film Quiet Victory: The Charlie Wedemeyer Story, Chandler's first regular television role was in the ABC drama Homefront (1991–1993). This was followed by the lead role of Gary Hobson in the series Early Edition (1996–2000). His well-received guest appearance on the medical drama Grey's Anatomy (2006–2007) earned Chandler his first Primetime Emmy Award nomination.

Chandler's film work has included notable supporting roles in King Kong (2005), The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), Super 8 (2011), Argo, Zero Dark Thirty (both 2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Carol (2015), Manchester by the Sea (2016), Game Night and First Man (both 2018), Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). Chandler has also starred in the Netflix thriller series Bloodline (2015–2017), for which he received further Primetime Emmy Award nominations.

place_of_birth: Buffalo, New York, USA


David Farmer

biography:
David Farmer is an American sound designer at Skywalker Sound. Raised on a farm in Gladys, Virginia, he developed an early interest in music as a guitarist and drummer before deciding to pursue a career in sound after seeing behind-the-scenes footage of sound designer Ben Burtt creating effects for the Star Wars films. He studied Recording Arts at Full Sail University in Florida before moving to Los Angeles, where he began his career as an intern at a Burbank post-production facility. He was inducted into the Full Sail Hall of Fame in 2011.

He is best known for his work as sound designer on Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy, creating sounds for Ringwraiths, the Balrog, and the Cave Troll. He returned to Middle-earth for the Hobbit trilogy, creating sounds for Smaug.

Outside his work, Farmer is an avid field recordist who has released ambient soundscape and white-noise recordings under the artist names Aural Escapes, Dream Candy and Hushaboo.


Timothy Bateson

biography: Timothy Dingwall Bateson was an English actor.

place_of_birth: London, England, UK


Alain Sarde

biography:
Alain Sarde, born March 28, 1952, in Boulogne-Billancourt, has been one of the most prolific French film and television producers since the 1970s. He has notably produced films by Andrzej Zulawski, Roman Polanski, Bertrand Tavernier, Diane Kurys, and Anne Fontaine.

In the 1990s, he was accused of sexual assault and rape against several women and implicated in the Brumark-Bourgeois Affair. In May 2024, nine women testified against him regarding these acts.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Alain Sarde, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.


Charles Bennett

biography: Born just before the century turned, Charles Bennett made his writing debut as a child in 1911, fought in France during World War I while still a teen and resumed his acting career after the war's end. In 1926 he dropped acting to concentrate on being a playwright, later turning one of his most famous plays, "Blackmail," into a screenplay for production under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock. The affiliation with "Hitch" continued into the early 1940s, by which time both Bennett and the director were working in Hollywood. He wrote for producers ranging from Cecil B. DeMille to Irwin Allen to the penny-pinching folks at AIP. "If I couldn't write, I wouldn't want to live," commented Bennett, who had projects (including a remake of "Blackmail") going right up to the time of his death.

place_of_birth: Shoreham-by-Sea, England


Elena Anaya

biography: Elena Anaya Gutiérrez (born July 17, 1975) is a Spanish actress whose career dates back to 1995. Anaya was born in Palencia, Spain on July 17, 1975. She is the youngest of 5 children. She first received international attention in 2001 for her role in the sexually explicit drama Lucía y el sexo (Sex and Lucía) and also appeared in Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con ella (Talk to Her). Her best-known Hollywood film role was as a vampire in 2004's Van Helsing, playing Dracula's bride, Aleera. She is also featured in Justin Timberlake's music video for his 2006 single, SexyBack. In 2004, she was named as one of European films' Shooting Stars by European Film Promotion.

place_of_birth: Palencia, Palencia, Castilla y León, Spain


Paz Vega

biography: Paz Campos Trigo (born January 2, 1976), better known as Paz Vega, is a Spanish actress. She became popular for her performance in the comedy television series, 7 Vidas. Her notable film credits include Sex and Lucia (2001), Spanglish (2004), and Rambo: Last Blood (2019)

place_of_birth: Seville, Andalusia, Spain


Koko Maeda

biography: Koko Maeda (前田 浩子, Maeda Kōko) is a Japanese producer.

place_of_birth: Japan


Sebastian Schipper

biography: Sebastian Schipper was born on May 8, 1968 in Hannover, Germany. He is a director, and sometimes actor, known mainly for his films Gigantic (1999), A Friend of Mine (2006), Victoria (2015) and Roads (2019).

place_of_birth: Hannover, Germany


Saul Rubinek

biography:
Saul Rubinek is a German-born Canadian actor, director, producer, and playwright. He is widely known for his television roles, notably Artie Nielsen on Warehouse 13, Donny Douglas on Frasier, Lon Cohen on A Nero Wolfe Mystery, and Louis B. Mayer on The Last Tycoon. He also starred in the films Against All Odds (1984), Wall Street (1987), The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), Unforgiven (1992), Nixon (1995), True Romance (1993), The Express (2008), Barney's Version (2010), and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs (2018).

Rubinek was born in Föhrenwald, Germany, in 1948. His parents were Polish Jews who had been hidden by Polish farmers during World War II. They immigrated to Canada after the war.

Rubinek began his acting career in theater, appearing in several productions with the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and Theatre Passe Muraille. He made his television debut in 1977, with a guest appearance on the series Baretta.

In 1984, Rubinek starred in the film Against All Odds. He followed that up with roles in the films Wall Street (1987), The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990), and Unforgiven (1992).

In 1995, Rubinek starred in the film Nixon. He received critical acclaim for his performance, and he was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture.

In 1998, Rubinek directed his first feature film, Jerry and Tom. The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival.

From 2009 to 2014, Rubinek starred as Artie Nielsen on the Syfy series Warehouse 13. The series was a critical and commercial success, and it ran for five seasons.

In 2013, Rubinek starred as Louis B. Mayer on the Amazon Prime series The Last Tycoon. The series was based on the novel of the same name by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Rubinek is a five-time Genie Award nominee, winning Best Supporting Actor for Ticket to Heaven (1981). He is also a two-time Gemini Award nominee.

Rubinek is married to Elinor Reid, a playwright and producer. They have two children.

place_of_birth: Wolfratshausen, Germany


Anthony James

biography: Anthony James (born James Anthony; July 22, 1942 – May 26, 2020) was an American character actor who specialized in playing villains in films and television, many of them Westerns.

place_of_birth: Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, USA


Bob Kane

biography:
Robert Kane (né Kahn /kɑːn/; October 24, 1915–November 3, 1998) was an American comic book writer, animator, and artist who created Batman and most early related characters for DC Comics. He was inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993 and into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1996.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Bob Kane, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: New York City, New York, USA


Javier Bardem

biography:
Javier Ángel Encinas Bardem (born 1 March 1969) is a Spanish actor. In a career spanning over three decades, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Critics' Choice Movie Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and seven Goya Awards, in addition to a Cannes Film Festival Award and two Volpi Cups.

Bardem is the son of actress Pilar Bardem. He first became known for such Spanish films as Jamón jamón (1992), Boca a boca (1995), Carne trémula (1997), Los lunes al sol (2002), and Mar adentro (2004). He received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing Reinaldo Arenas in Before Night Falls (2000), a criminal with cancer in Biutiful (2010), and Desi Arnaz in Being the Ricardos (2021). His portrayal of assassin Anton Chigurh in the Coen brothers' crime film No Country for Old Men (2007) won him the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Bardem has also starred in auteur driven films such as Woody Allen's romantic drama Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), Terrence Malick's drama To the Wonder (2013), Darren Aronofsky's horror film mother! (2017), and Asghar Farhadi's mystery drama Everybody Knows (2018). He also acted in blockbuster films such as Eat Pray Love (2010), the James Bond film Skyfall (2012), the swashbuckler film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), the science fiction epic films Dune (2021) and Dune: Part Two (2024), Disney's live-action remake The Little Mermaid (2023), and the sports action film F1 (2025). On television, he portrayed José Menendez in the Netflix crime anthology series Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story (2024), for which he earned two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie and Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series (as an executive producer).

Bardem married actress Penélope Cruz in 2010 and together they have two children. In January 2018, Bardem became the ambassador of Greenpeace for the protection of Antarctica.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Javier Bardem, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Gran Canaria, Canary Islands, Spain


Daniel Brühl

biography:
Daniel César Martín Brühl González (German: [ˈdaːni̯eːl ˈbʁyːl, -ni̯ɛl -]; Spanish: [daˈnjel ˈbɾul ɡonˈθaleθ]; born 16 June 1978) is a German-Spanish actor. He has received various accolades, including three European Film Awards and three German Film Awards, along with nominations for two Golden Globe Awards and a BAFTA Award. He received his first German Film Award for Best Actor for his roles in Das Weisse Rauschen (2001), Nichts Bereuen (2001), and Vaya con Dios (2002). His starring role in the German film Good Bye, Lenin! (2003) received widespread recognition and critical acclaim, and garnered him the European Film Award for Best Actor and another German Film Award for Best Actor.

He was introduced to mainstream international audiences through his breakthrough performance as Fredrick Zoller, a Nazi German war hero in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (2009), and appearances in films like The Bourne Ultimatum (2007), The Fifth Estate (2013), and A Most Wanted Man (2014). Brühl received widespread critical acclaim and further recognition for his portrayal of former Formula 1 driver Niki Lauda in the biographical film Rush (2013), for which he earned nominations including the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Critic's Choice Award for Best Supporting Actor, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.

In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Brühl portrays Helmut Zemo in Captain America: Civil War (2016) and the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021). He also starred as Dr. Laszlo Kreizler in the Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated period drama television series The Alienist (2018–2020), for which he earned a nomination for the Golden Globe Award as Best Actor in a Television Motion Picture at the 76th Golden Globe Awards in 2018.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Daniel Brühl, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain


Christian Bale

biography:
Christian Charles Philip Bale (born 30 January 1974) is an English actor. Known for his versatility and physical transformations for his roles, he has been a leading man in films of several genres. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and two Golden Globe Awards. Forbes magazine ranked him as one of the highest-paid actors in 2014.

Born in Wales to English parents, Bale had his breakthrough role at age 13 in Steven Spielberg's 1987 war film Empire of the Sun. After more than a decade of performing in leading and supporting roles in films, he gained wider recognition for his portrayals of serial killer Patrick Bateman in the black comedy American Psycho (2000) and the titular role in the psychological thriller The Machinist (2004). In 2005, he played superhero Batman in Batman Begins and again in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012), garnering acclaim for his performance in the trilogy, which is one of the highest-grossing film franchises.

Bale continued in starring roles in a range of films outside his work as Batman, including the period drama The Prestige (2006), the action film Terminator Salvation (2009), the crime drama Public Enemies (2009), the epic film Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014) and the superhero film Thor: Love and Thunder (2022). For his portrayal of boxer Dicky Eklund in the 2010 biographical film The Fighter, he won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Further Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations came for his work in the black comedy American Hustle (2013) and the biographical dramedies The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018). His performances as politician Dick Cheney in Vice and race car driver Ken Miles in the sports drama Ford v Ferrari (2019) earned him a second win and a fifth nomination respectively at the Golden Globe Awards.

place_of_birth: Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, Wales, UK


Katie Holmes

biography:
Kate Noelle "Katie" Holmes (born December 18, 1978) is an American actress and director. Born in Toledo, Ohio, teen modelling led to a supporting role in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm, before she found international fame as Joey Potter on the teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. She transitioned to film in her hiatuses between seasons, appearing in movies including Doug Liman's Go, Curtis Hanson's Wonder Boys, and Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth.

During promotion for her role in Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins, Holmes began a highly publicized relationship with actor Tom Cruise. The couple were engaged within two months of meeting, with Holmes converting from Roman Catholicism to the Church of Scientology, and Cruise flamboyantly professing his love for her during a controversial episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show. Months later, the couple produced a daughter, Suri, before marrying in November 2006.

Holmes went on to make her Broadway debut in a revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons, portray Jacqueline Kennedy in the Reelz mini-series The Kennedys, and launched a short-lived fashion line. Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise in July 2012, gaining custody of her daughter and moving to New York, where she returned to the Roman Catholic Church. While tabloids have long speculated on the circumstances of the couple's divorce, Holmes has declined to speak publicly on the matter.

Following her divorce, Holmes returned to film with roles in The Giver, Woman in Gold and Steven Soderbergh's Logan Lucky, and recurred on the Showtime series Ray Donovan. In 2016, she made her feature directorial debut with the mother-daughter drama All We Had.

place_of_birth: Toledo, Ohio, USA


Ken Watanabe

biography: Ken Watanabe (born October 21, 1959) is a Japanese stage, film, and television actor. To English-speaking audiences he is known for playing tragic hero characters, such as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi in Letters from Iwo Jima and Lord Katsumoto Moritsugu in The Last Samurai, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Among other awards, he has won the Japan Academy Prize for Best Actor twice, in 2007 for Memories of Tomorrow and in 2010 for Shizumanu Taiyō. He is also known for his roles in director Christopher Nolan's Hollywood blockbusters Batman Begins and Inception.

place_of_birth: Uonuma, Niigata, Japan


Richard Brake

biography: Richard Colin Brake (born 30 November 1964) is a Welsh actor. Following his film debut in Death Machine (1994), Brake had a supporting role as Joe Chill in Batman Begins (2005). He subsequently appeared in numerous horror films such as Doom (2005), Hannibal Rising (2007), Mandy (2018), and Barbarian (2022), as well as his first lead role in Perfect Skin (2018). A frequent collaborator of Rob Zombie, Brake has appeared in four of his films: Halloween II (2009), 31 (2016), 3 from Hell (2019), and The Munsters (2022).

place_of_birth: Ystrad Mynach, Hengoed, Wales


William H. Macy

biography: William H. Macy (born March 13, 1950) is an American actor and writer. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role as Jerry Lundegaard in Fargo. He is also a teacher and director in theater, film and television. His film career has been built mostly on his appearances in small, independent films, though he has appeared in summer action films as well. Macy gained widespread popularity for portraying Frank Gallagher in Showtime's comedy-drama series Shameless (2011–2021). Macy has described his screen persona as "sort of a Middle American, WASPy, Lutheran kind of guy... Everyman". He has won two Emmy Awards and a Screen Actors Guild Award, being nominated for nine Emmy Awards and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards in total. He is also a three-time Golden Globe Award nominee.

place_of_birth: Miami, Florida, USA


Frances McDormand

biography:
Frances Louise McDormand (born Cynthia Ann Smith; June 23, 1957) is an American film, stage and television actress. McDormand began her career on stage and made her screen debut in the 1984 film Blood Simple, having since appeared in several theatrical and television roles. McDormand has been recognized for her performances in 'Mississippi Burning' (1988), 'Short Cuts' (1993), 'Fargo' (1996), 'Wonder Boys' (2000), 'Almost Famous' (2000), 'North Country' (2005), 'Moonrise Kingdom' (2012), 'Hail, Caesar!' (2016), 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' (2017), 'Nomadland' (2020) and 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' (2021).

Throughout her career, she has been nominated for eight Golden Globes, five Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, and three Emmy Awards. She is one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting", winning an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award. She won her first Academy Award for Best Actress in 1997 for her role as Marge Gunderson in 'Fargo'.  She also won Best Supporting Actress from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, the Florida Film Critics Circle, and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association for her performance in 'Wonder Boys' (2000).  McDormand returned to the stage in the David Lindsay-Abaire play Good People on Broadway from February 8, 2011 to April 24, 2011. In 2017, McDormand starred in 'Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri' which earned her a second Academy Award for Best Actress.

McDormand has been married to filmmaker Joel Coen since 1984, they reside in New York City along with their adopted son Pedro.

place_of_birth: Gibson City, Illinois, USA


John Carroll Lynch

biography:
John Carroll Lynch (born August 1, 1963) is an American actor, known for his role as Drew Carey's cross-dressing brother on The Drew Carey Show, and for his role as Norm, the unassuming husband of Margie Gunderson (Frances McDormand) in Fargo.

In the fall of 2003, he starred in the CBS show The Brotherhood of Poland, New Hampshire, with Randy Quaid, Chris Penn, Mare Winningham, Elizabeth McGovern, and Ann Cusack. The show was cancelled after only a few episodes. He also had a recurring role in the HBO show Carnivàle, playing escaped convict Varlyn Stroud. Lynch appeared as a district attorney in the CBS series Close to Home and as NASA official Bob Gilruth in the HBO mini-series From the Earth to the Moon. Lynch appeared in the 2003 thriller Gothika and the 2007 biopic Zodiac.

place_of_birth: Boulder, Colorado, USA


Kate Beckinsale

biography:
Kathrin Romany Beckinsale (born 26 July 1973) is a British actress and model.

She first gained notice while a student at Oxford University for her debut in the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Throughout the 1990s, she worked on both film and television, most notably by portraying the title character in the 1996 BBC television series Emma.

She started film work in the United States in the late 1990s. She appeared in small-scale dramas The Last Days of Disco (1998) and Brokedown Palace (1999). In 2001, she garnered international recognition when she was cast as the romantic lead opposite Ben Affleck in her breakthrough film, Pearl Harbor (2001). She then starred in a number of films including the romantic comedy Serendipity (2001), Tiptoes (2003), The Aviator (2004), and Click (2006).

Since playing the role of Selene in the Underworld film series (2003–2016), she has become known for her work in action films, including Van Helsing (2004), Whiteout (2009), Contraband (2012), and Total Recall (2012).

In 2016, she received critical acclaim for her performance in the period comedy film Love & Friendship, for which she received a nomination for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress in a Comedy. She returned in action films with Jolt (2021). She also starred in two television projects with The Widow (2019) and Guilty Party (2021).

place_of_birth: Chiswick, London, England, UK


Michael Sheen

biography:
Michael Christopher Sheen (born 5 February 1969) is a Welsh actor and political activist. After training at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), he worked mainly in theatre throughout the 1990s and made notable stage appearances in Romeo and Juliet (1992), Don't Fool With Love (1993), Peer Gynt (1994), The Seagull (1995), The Homecoming (1997), and Henry V (1997). His performances in Amadeus at the Old Vic and Look Back in Anger at the National Theatre were nominated for Olivier Awards in 1998 and 1999, respectively. In 2003, he was nominated for a third Olivier Award for his performance in Caligula at the Donmar Warehouse.

He has become better known as a screen actor since the 2000s through his roles in various biographical films. He has starred in a trilogy of films as British politician Tony Blair: the television film The Deal (2003), followed by The Queen (2006) and The Special Relationship (2010). For the role, he was nominated for both a BAFTA Award and an Emmy. He was also nominated for a BAFTA as the troubled comic actor Kenneth Williams in BBC Four's 2006 Fantabulosa!, and was nominated for a fourth Olivier Award in 2006 for portraying the broadcaster David Frost in Frost/Nixon. He starred as the controversial football manager Brian Clough in The Damned United (2009).

In 2009, he appeared in two fantasy films, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans and The Twilight Saga: New Moon. He also appeared in the science-fiction film Tron: Legacy (2010), and Midnight in Paris (2011). He directed and starred in National Theatre Wales's The Passion (2011). He also played a lead role in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 in 2012. In 2013, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his role in Showtime's television drama Masters of Sex (2013–2016). He played an incarcerated serial killer surgeon in Fox's 2019 drama, Prodigal Son, an angel in the 2019 BBC/Amazon Studios miniseries Good Omens, and appeared as Chris Tarrant in Quiz in 2020.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

place_of_birth: Newport, Monmouthshire, Galler, Birleşik Krallık


Christine Ebersole

biography: Christine Ebersole is an acclaimed, two-time Tony Award-winning American actress and singer celebrated for her versatile career across Broadway, television and film. She has spent decades establishing herself as a powerhouse vocalist and comedic force on both stage and screen.

place_of_birth: Chicago, Illinois, USA


Jeffrey Jones

biography:
Jeffrey Duncan Jones (born September 28, 1946) is an American character actor, best known for his roles as Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus (1984), Edward R. Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Charles Deetz in Beetlejuice (1988), Dr. Skip Tyler in The Hunt for Red October (1990), Eddie Barzoon in The Devil's Advocate (1997), and A. W. Merrick in both Deadwood (2004–2006) and Deadwood: The Movie (2019).

Jones was born in Buffalo, New York, and studied acting at the Putney School, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and Lawrence University. He began his acting career in small parts in film and television in the 1970s. In his best-known roles as Emperor Joseph II in Amadeus, Charles Deetz in Beetlejuice, and Edward R. Rooney in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, his dead-pan expression and distinctive face bring a comic flavor to his characters through their reactions to the situations in which they find themselves, more so than the wit in their scripted lines.

Jones has also had a successful career on stage, appearing in productions of The Crucible, The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Glass Menagerie. He has been nominated for two Tony Awards, for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in The Crucible (1988) and Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his performance in The Secret Garden (1991).

In 2002, Jones was arrested on charges of child pornography. He pleaded guilty to one count of possession of child pornography and was sentenced to two years of probation.

place_of_birth: Buffalo, New York, USA


Paul W. S. Anderson

biography: Paul William Scott Anderson (born 4 March 1965), also known as Paul WS Anderson or Paul Anderson, is an English film director who regularly works in science fiction movies and video game adaptations.

place_of_birth: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, UK


Bob Gunton

biography:
Robert Patrick "Bob" Gunton, Jr. (born November 15, 1945) is an American actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters, with his best known roles as Warden Samuel Norton in the 1994 prison film The Shawshank Redemption, Chief George Earle in 1993's Demolition Man, and President Juan Peron in the original Broadway cast of Evita.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Bob Gunton , licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Santa Monica, California, USA


Trey Wilson

biography: Trey Wilson was a prolific American character actor best known for playing intense, loud and memorable authoritarian figures in iconic 1980s comedies. He built a distinctive career on stage and screen before his life was tragically cut short when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 40.

place_of_birth: Houston, Texas, USA


Katy Jurado

biography:
Katy Jurado (16 January 1924 – 5 July 2002), born María Cristina Estela Marcela Jurado García, was a Mexican stage and screen actress.

Jurado had already established herself as an actress in Mexico in the 1940s when she came to Hollywood becoming a regular in Western films of the 1950s and 1960s. She worked with many Hollywood legends, including Gary Cooper in High Noon, Spencer Tracy in Broken Lance, and Marlon Brando in One-Eyed Jacks, and such respected directors as Fred Zinneman (High Noon), Sam Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid) and John Huston (Under the Volcano).

Jurado made seventy one films during her career. She became the first Latina/Hispanic actress nominated for an Academy Award when she was nominated as Best Supporting Actress for her work in 1954's "Broken Lance" and was the first to win a Golden Globe. Like many Latin actors, she was typecast to play ethnic roles in American films. By contrast, she had a greater variety of roles in Mexican films; sometimes she also sang and danced.

place_of_birth: Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico


Lee Van Cleef

biography:
Clarence LeRoy "Lee" Van Cleef Jr. (January 9, 1925 – December 16, 1989) was an American actor best known for his roles in Spaghetti Westerns such as For A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Hatchet-faced with piercing eyes, he had declined to have his nose altered to play a sympathetic character in his film debut, High Noon, and was relegated to a non-speaking outlaw as a result. For a decade he was typecast as a minor villain, his sinister features overshadowing his acting skills. After suffering serious injuries in a car crash, Van Cleef began to lose interest in his apparently waning career by the time Sergio Leone gave him a major role in For a Few Dollars More. The film made him a box-office draw, especially in Europe.

Despite suffering from heart disease from the late 1970s and having a pacemaker installed in the early 1980s, Van Cleef continued to work in films until his death on December 16, 1989, at age 64. He was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, Hollywood Hills, California, with an inscription on his grave marker referring to his many acting performances as a villain: "BEST OF THE BAD".

place_of_birth: Somerville, New Jersey, USA


Shirley MacLaine

biography:
Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty; April 24, 1934) is an American actress, singer, author, activist, and former dancer. Known for her portrayals of quirky, headstrong, and eccentric women, MacLaine has received numerous accolades throughout her career spanning seven decades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, and six Golden Globe Awards.

Born in Richmond, Virginia, MacLaine made her acting debut as a teenager with minor roles in the Broadway musicals Oklahoma! and The Pajama Game. Following minor appearances as an understudy in various other productions, MacLaine made her film debut with Alfred Hitchcock's black comedy The Trouble with Harry (1955), winning the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress. She rose to prominence with starring roles in Around the World in 80 Days (1956), Some Came Running (1958), Ask Any Girl (1959), The Apartment (1960), The Children's Hour (1961), Two for the Seesaw (1962), Irma la Douce (1963), and Sweet Charity (1969). A six time Academy Award nominee, MacLaine won the Academy Award for Best Actress for the comedy-drama Terms of Endearment (1983). Her other prominent films include The Turning Point (1977), Being There (1979), Madame Sousatzka (1988), Steel Magnolias (1989), Postcards from the Edge (1990), The Evening Star (1996), Bewitched (2005), In Her Shoes (2005), Valentine's Day (2010), and The Little Mermaid (2018).

MacLaine has been the recipient of many honorary awards. She was awarded the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2012, Gala Tribute from the Film Society of Lincoln Center in 1995, and Kennedy Center Honor in 2013 for her contribution to American culture, through performing arts. In 1998, she was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award. Apart from acting, MacLaine has written numerous books regarding the subjects of metaphysics, spirituality, and reincarnation, as well as a best-selling memoir, Out on a Limb (1983).

place_of_birth: Richmond, Virginia, USA


David James Lewis

biography: David James Lewis is a prolific Canadian actor and writer. Based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, he has accumulated over 150 film and television credits throughout a career spanning more than two decades. He is widely recognized for his versatility across independent cinema, major Hollywood features, and popular television series.

place_of_birth: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada


Tom Skerritt

biography: Thomas Roy Skerritt (born August 25, 1933) is an American actor who has appeared in more than forty films and more than two hundred television episodes since 1962. He is known for his film roles in M*A*S*H, Alien, The Dead Zone, Top Gun, A River Runs Through It, Up in Smoke, and the television series Picket Fences. Skerritt has earned several nominations and awards, including a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1993 for Picket Fences.

place_of_birth: Detroit, Michigan, USA


Wayne Knight

biography:
Wayne Elliot Knight (born August 7, 1955) is an American actor. In television, he played Newman on Seinfeld (1992–1998) and Officer Don Orville on 3rd Rock from the Sun (1996–2001). He also voiced Igor on Toonsylvania (1998–1999), Mr. Blik on Catscratch (2005–2007) and Baron Von Sheldgoose on Legend of the Three Caballeros (2018).

In film, he played Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park (1993), which earned him a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor nomination. He also portrayed Pete "Piccolo" Dugan in Dead Again (1991), John Correli in Basic Instinct (1992), Stan Podolak in Space Jam (1996) and Zach Mallozzi in Rat Race (2001) and provided the voices of Tantor in Tarzan (1999), Al McWhiggin in Toy Story 2 (1999) and The Elf Elder in Tom and Jerry: The Lost Dragon (2014).

place_of_birth: New York City, New York, USA


Common

biography:
Lonnie Rashid Lynn (born March 13, 1972), known by his stage name Common (formerly Common Sense), is an American rapper and actor. He has received three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award.

He debuted in 1992 with the album Can I Borrow a Dollar?, and gained critical acclaim with his 1994 album Resurrection. He maintained an underground following into the late 1990s. He achieved mainstream success through his work with the Soulquarians.

His first major-label album Like Water for Chocolate (2000), received commercial success. In 2003, he won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Song for the Erykah Badu single "Love of My Life". His 2005 album Be was also a commercial success and was nominated for Best Rap Album at the 2006 Grammy Awards. Common received his second Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group for "Southside" (featuring Kanye West), from his 2007 album Finding Forever. His best-of album, Thisisme Then: The Best of Common, was released in late 2007. In 2011, Common launched Think Common Entertainment, his own record label imprint, having previously released music under various other labels including Relativity, Geffen, and GOOD Music.

Common won the 2015 Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and the Academy Award for Best Original Song, for his song, co-written and performed with John Legend, "Glory" from the 2014 film Selma, in which he co-starred as Civil Rights Movement leader James Bevel. Common's acting career also includes roles in the films Smokin' Aces, Street Kings, American Gangster, Wanted, Terminator Salvation, Date Night, Just Wright, Happy Feet Two, New Year's Eve, Run All Night, Being Charlie, Rex, John Wick: Chapter 2, Smallfoot and Hunter Killer. He also narrated the documentary Bouncing Cats, about one man's efforts to improve the lives of children in Uganda through hip-hop/b-boy culture. He starred as Elam Ferguson on the AMC western television series Hell on Wheels.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Common (rapper), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.


Wyclef Jean

biography:
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wyclef Jean (born October 17, 1969 in Croix-des-Bouquets) is a Haitian musician, record producer, and politician. At age nine, Jean moved to the United States with his family and has spent much of his life in the country. He first received fame as a member of the acclaimed New Jersey hip hop group the Fugees. Along with being a world famous and highly respected performing artist, he is now a visiting fellow at Brown University in the Department of Africana Studies.

On August 5, 2010, Jean filed for candidacy in the 2010 Haitian presidential election, although the Electoral Commission subsequently ruled him ineligible to stand as he had not met the requirement to have been resident in Haiti for five years.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Wyclef Jean, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti


Tony Shalhoub

biography: Tony Shalhoub is an American actor. His television work includes the role of Antonio Scarpacci on Wings and Adrian Monk on Monk. He has won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe for his work on Monk. He also has a successful career as a character actor, with roles in Spy Kids, Men in Black, Men in Black II, Galaxy Quest, 1408, Barton Fink, Big Night, The Siege, and The Man Who Wasn't There.

place_of_birth: Green Bay, Wisconsin, USA


Carlos Blanco

biography: Carlos Blanco is a Spanish actor from Galicia. He has worked extensively in theatre, film, television, and presenting, and became widely known in Galicia for his role as Ladislao in the TVG series Mareas Vivas. His screen credits include Volver, Heroína, O Apóstolo, Fariña, and The Asunta Case.

place_of_birth: Vilagarcía de Arousa, Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain


Federico Fellini

biography:
Federico Fellini, Knight Grand Cross (January 20, 1920 – October 31, 1993), was an Italian film director and screenwriter. Known for a distinct style that blends fantasy and baroque images, he is considered one of the most influential and widely revered filmmakers of the 20th century.

Personal and highly idiosyncratic visions of society, Fellini's films are a unique combination of memory, dreams, fantasy, surrealism and desire. The adjectives "Fellinian" and "Felliniesque" are "synonymous with any kind of extravagant, fanciful, even baroque image in the cinema and in art in general".

In a career spanning almost fifty years, Fellini won the Palme d'Or for La Dolce Vita, was nominated for twelve Academy Awards, and directed four motion pictures that won Oscars in the category of Best Foreign Language Film. In 1993, he was awarded an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement at the 65th Annual Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

place_of_birth: Rimini, Emilia-Romagna, Italy


Jim Jarmusch

biography: James Robert "Jim" Jarmusch (born January 22, 1953 in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio) is an American writer-director and musician. Jarmusch has been a major figure in American independent cinema since the 1980s. He is best known for his work on "Dead Man" (1995), "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" (1999), "Broken Flowers" (2005), and "Only Lovers Left Alive" (2013).

place_of_birth: Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, USA


Christopher McDonald

biography: Christopher McDonald (born February 15, 1955) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in Happy Gilmore and 61. Other notable starring roles for McDonald in film include "T-Birds" member Goose McKenzie in Grease 2 (1982), Darryl Dickinson opposite his former fiancée Geena Davis in Thelma & Louise (1991), Ward Cleaver in the film adaptation Leave It to Beaver (1997), and Tappy Tibbons in Requiem for a Dream (2000). Along with numerous independent and small-budget film roles, he played supporting characters in box-office hits Grumpy Old Men (1993), Flubber (1997), Rumor Has It (2005), The House Bunny (2008) and About Last Night (2014). On television, McDonald was a series regular on network TV shows Walter & Emily (1991–1992, NBC), Good Advice (1993–1994, CBS), Family Law (1999–2002, CBS), Cracking Up (2004-2006, FOX) and Harry's Law, (2011–2012, NBC). In 2022, McDonald was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role as casino CEO Marty Ghilain on the HBO Max show Hacks.


Thomas Vinterberg

biography:
Thomas Vinterberg (born 19 May 1969) is a Danish film director who, along with Lars von Trier, co-founded the Dogme 95 movement in filmmaking, which established rules for simplifying movie production. Thomas gained international acclaim for his film The Celebrtion (1998), which was awarded Jury Prize in Cannes. He is best known for the films The Celebration (1998), Submarino (2010), The Hunt (2012), Far from the Madding Crowd (2015), and Another Round (2020). For Another Round, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director and won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Thomas Vinterberg, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Frederiksberg, Danmark


Ulrich Thomsen

biography:
Ulrich Thomsen (born 6 December 1963) is a Danish actor and filmmaker known for his role of Christian in the 1998 film The Celebration and for the role of Kai Proctor in the Cinemax original series Banshee (2013–2016).

Ulrich Thomsen was born in (Næsby) Odense, Denmark and graduated from the Danish National School of Theatre and Contemporary Dance in 1993, after which he performed in several theatres in Copenhagen, such as Dr Dantes Aveny, Mungo Park and Østre Gasværks Teater.

His film debut was in 1994 in Nightwatch, directed by Ole Bornedal. Since then, he has starred in several roles, including, among others, Thomas Vinterberg's The Biggest Heroes (1996), Susanne Bier's Sekten (1997) and Anders Thomas Jensen's Flickering Lights (2000). The breakthrough in his career came in the 1998 film, Followed by an essential role in the James Bond film The World Is Not Enough (1999) portraying the part of henchman Sasha Davidov.

This established Thomsen as an international actor, famous outside his native Denmark. He played a part in the 2002 English film Killing Me Softly. In 2009, he played Jonas Skarssen, the lead villain in Tom Tykwer's The International. From 2013 to 2016, he starred as a series regular in Banshee, playing the primary antagonist, Kai Proctor. Aside from his native language, Danish, Thomsen is fluent in German and English. He is vegan.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Ulrich Thomsen, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Odense, Denmark


Thomas Bo Larsen

biography: Thomas Bo Larsen is a Danish actor who got his start in the Oscar nominated short film; Last Round (Sidste Omgang) directed by frequent collaborator, Thomas Vinterberg. Thomas Bo Larsen graduated from the Odense School of Theater in 1991 and has since become a mainstay in the Danish film and theater scene, with more than 50 films under his belt, including the Oscar nominated The Hunt and Another Round. Since his debut he has garnered accolades in his home country of Denmark as well as worldwide.

place_of_birth: Gladsaxe, Danmark


Trine Dyrholm

biography:
Trine Dyrholm (born April 15, 1972) is a Danish actress, singer and songwriter. Dyrholm received national recognition when she placed third in the Dansk Melodi Grand Prix as a 14-year-old singer. Four years later, she again achieved national recognition when she won the Bodil Award for Best Actress in her debut film: the teenage romance Springflod. Dyrholm has won the Bodil Award for Best Actress five times and a Bodil award for Best Supporting Actress twice as well as six Robert Awards in her acting career.

Description above from the Wikipedia article Trine Dyrholm, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

place_of_birth: Odense, Danmark


Jennifer Aniston

biography:
Jennifer Joanna Aniston (born February 11, 1969) is an American actress and producer. She rose to international fame for her role as Rachel Green on the television sitcom Friends from 1994 to 2004, for which she earned Primetime Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen Actors Guild awards. Since her career progressed in the 1990s, she has become one of the world's highest-paid actresses.

The daughter of actors John Aniston and Nancy Dow, she began working as an actress at an early age with an uncredited role in the 1988 film Mac and Me; her first major film role came in the 1993 horror comedy Leprechaun. She has since starred in a string of successful comedy films such as Office Space (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), The Break-Up (2006), Marley & Me (2008), Just Go with It (2011), Horrible Bosses (2011), We're the Millers (2013), Dumplin' (2018), Murder Mystery (2019) and its sequel Murder Mystery 2 (2023). Aniston also starred in the acclaimed independent films The Good Girl (2002), Friends with Money (2006), and Cake (2014). She returned to television in 2019, producing and starring in the Apple TV+ drama series The Morning Show, for which she received a Screen Actors Guild Award.

Aniston has been included in numerous magazines' lists of the world's most beautiful women. Her net worth is estimated as $300 million, and her box office gross is over $1.6 billion worldwide. She is the recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is the co-founder of the production company Echo Films, established in 2008. She has been married twice: first to actor Brad Pitt, to whom she was married for five years, and later to actor Justin Theroux, whom she married in 2015 and separated from in 2017.

place_of_birth: Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, California, USA


Philip Baker Hall

biography:
Philip Baker Hall (September 10, 1931 – June 12, 2022) was an American actor. Although known primarily as a prolific character actor, he starred in leading roles on films, such as Secret Honor, Hard Eight and Duck. Other films in supporting roles including Say Anything..., Boogie Nights, The Truman Show, Magnolia, The Contender, Zodiac and Argo.

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place_of_birth: Toledo, Ohio, USA