Nicole Mary Kidman, AC is an American-born Australian actress, fashion model, singer and humanitarian. After starring in a number of small Australian films and TV shows, Kidman’s breakthrough was in the 1989 thriller Dead Calm. Her performances in films such as To Die For and Moulin Rouge! received critical acclaim, and her performance in The Hours brought her the Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award and a Golden Globe Award. Her other films include the box office hits Days of Thunder, Batman Forever, The Others, Cold Mountain, The Interpreter and Australia.
Nils Asther
Nils Anton Alfhild Asther was a Danish-born Swedish actor active in Hollywood from 1926 to the mid 1950s, known for his beautiful face and often called “the male Greta Garbo”. Between 1916 and 1963 he appeared in over 70 feature films, whereof 16 done in the silent era.
Born in Denmark in the Copenhagen suburb of Hellerup to unknown biological parents, Asther was adopted shortly after birth by a wealthy couple in Malmö, Sweden, where he grew up. As a young man he moved to Stockholm, where he received acting lessons from local star Augusta Lindberg, who also became his mistress, although almost 30 years older than him. Through her, he received his first theatrical engagement at Lorensbergsteatern in Gothenburg, and in 1916 Mauritz Stiller cast him in The Wings. This soon lead to a number of film roles in both Sweden, Denmark and Germany between 1918 and 1926.
In 1927 he left for Hollywood, where his first film was Topsy and Eva. The film also featured the Duncan Sisters, and in 1930 he married one of them, Vivian Duncan, who gave him a daughter, Evelyn.
By 1928 his good looks had made him into a leading man, playing opposite such stars as Pola Negri, Marion Davies, Joan Crawford and Greta Garbo, with whom he made two films. He grew a thin mustache which amplified his suave appearance.
Nancy Carroll
Nancy Carroll was an American actress. She was christened Ann Veronica Lahiff in New York City. Of Irish parentage, she and her sister once gave a dancing act in a local contest of amateur talent. This led her to a stage career and then to the screen. She began her acting career in Broadway musicals. She became a successful talkies actress because her musical background enabled her to play in the movie musicals of the 1930s. Her film debut was in Ladies Must Dress in 1927.
In 1928 she made eight films. One of them, Easy Come, Easy Go, co-starring Richard Dix, made her a star. In 1930 she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Devil’s Holiday. Among her films are Laughter, Paramount on Parade, Hot Saturday with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, The Kiss Before the Mirror directed by James Whale, and Broken Lullaby aka The Man I Killed directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
Under contract to Paramount Pictures, Carroll often balked at the roles being offered to her and earned a reputation as a recalcitrant and uncooperative actress. In spite of her ability to successfully tackle light comedies, tearful melodramas, and even musicals, and as well as garnering considerable praise by the critics and public, she was released by the studio. In the mid-1930s under a four-film contract with Columbia Pictures, she made four rather insignificant films and was no longer an A-list actress.
Carroll retired from films in 1938, returned to the stage, and starred in the early television series The Aldrich Family in 1950. In the following year, she guest starred in the television version of The Egg and I, starring her daughter, Patricia Kirkland.
Nancy Kelly
Nancy Kelly was an American actress, who was a major movie leading lady in the 1930s, making 36 movies between 1926 and 1977, including portraying Tyrone Power’s love interest in the classic Jesse James, which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone later that same year.
Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, Kelly was a child star, who had made so many movies by the time she was nine years old, that Film Daily called her “the most photographed child in America due to commercial posing.” She also played Dorothy Gale in a 1933 to 1934 radio show based on the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
As an adult actress, she was leading lady in a range of movies in the 1930s and ’40s, and was a two-time winner of the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre as well as a Tony Award winner for her performance in The Bad Seed, which she followed up by starring in the film version in 1956 and receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. She also starred on television, including leading roles in “The Storm” for Thriller in 1961 and ” “The Lonely Hour” for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour in 1963. In 1957 Kelly was nominated for the Emmy Awards for Best Single Performance by an Actress for TV episode “The Pilot” in Studio One.
She was the older sister of actor Jack Kelly, who played “Bart Maverick” alongside James Garner and Roger Moore in the television series Maverick. Nancy Kelly and Jack Kelly strongly resembled each other in their facial structures but never acted together in a film. Nancy Kelly’s acting career was much more successful than her younger brother’s, whose career gradually faded out after Maverick.
Nancy Sinatra
Nancy Sandra Sinatra is an American singer and actress. She is the daughter of singer/actor Frank Sinatra, and remains known for her 1966 signature hit “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” and her cover of Cher’s “Bang Bang “, which was used as the opening sequence theme in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.
Her other popular recordings include “Sugar Town”, “How Does That Grab You, Darlin’?” and the theme from the James Bond film, You Only Live Twice.
Sinatra began her career as a singer and actress in the early 1960s, but initially achieved success only in Europe and Japan. Then she had a transatlantic number-one hit with “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'”, which showed her provocative but good-natured style, and which popularized and made her synonymous with go-go boots. The promo clip featured a big-haired Sinatra and six young women in tight tops, go-go boots and mini-skirts. The song was written by Lee Hazlewood, who wrote and produced most of her hits and sang with her on several duets, including “Some Velvet Morning”. In 1966 and 1967, Sinatra charted with 13 titles, all of which featured Billy Strange as arranger and conductor.
In 1967 she paired with her father, Frank Sinatra, for her second number-one single, “Somethin’ Stupid”. She also co-starred with Elvis Presley in the movie Speedway.
Nancy Wilson
Nancy Wilson is an American singer with more than 70 albums, and three Grammy Awards. She has been labeled a singer of blues, jazz, cabaret and pop; a "consummate actress"; and "the complete entertainer." The title she prefers, however, is song stylist. She has received many nicknames including "Sweet Nancy", "The Baby", "Fancy Miss Nancy" and "The Girl With the Honey-Coated Voice".
On February 20, 1937, Nancy Wilson was the first of six children born to Olden Wilson and Lillian Ryan in Chillicothe, Ohio. Nancy's father would buy records to listen to at home. At an early age Nancy heard recordings from Billy Eckstine, Nat Cole, and Jimmy Scott with Lionel Hampton's Big Band. Nancy says: "The juke joint down on the block had a great jukebox and there I heard Dinah Washington, Ruth Brown, LaVerne Baker, Little Esther". Wilson became aware of her talent while singing in church choirs, imitating singers as a young child,and performing in her grandmother's house during summer visits. By the age of four, she knew she would eventually become a singer.
At the age of 15, while a student at West High School, she won a talent contest sponsored by local television station WTVN. The prize was an appearance on a twice-a-week television show, Skyline Melodies, which she ended up hosting. She also worked clubs on the east side and north side of Columbus, Ohio, from the age of 15 until she graduated from West High School, at age 17.
Unsure of her future as an entertainer, she entered college to pursue teaching. She spent one year at Ohio's Central State College before dropping out and following her original ambitions. She auditioned and won a spot with Rusty Bryant's Carolyn Club Big Band in 1956. She toured with them throughout Canada and the Midwest in 1956 to 1958. While in this group, Nancy made her first recording under Dots Records.
Nanette Fabray
In memory of actress and Walk of Famer Nanette Fabray, flowers were placed on her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Friday, February 23, 2018 at 3:30 p.m. The star in the category of Television is located at 6300 Hollywood Blvd. “Nanette you will be missed! Rest in peace. ”Ana Martinez, Producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame signed the card on behalf of the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.
Nanette Fabray is an American actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, and activist. She began her career performing in vaudeville as a child and then became a highly praised musical theatre actress during the 1940s and 1950s, winning a Tony Award in 1949 for her performance in Love Life. She became a household name during the mid 1950s as comedy partner to Sid Caesar on Caesar's Hour for which she won three Emmy Awards. From 1979-1984 she starred as Grandma Katherine Romano on One Day at a Time.
Fabray overcame a significant hearing impairment to pursue her career and has been a long-time advocate for the rights of the deaf and hard of hearing. Her honors representing the handicapped include the President's Distinguished Service Award and the Eleanor Roosevelt Humanitarian Award. She is the aunt of actress/singer Shelley Fabares.
Fabray was born as Ruby Bernadette Nanette Fabares in San Diego, California to Raul Bernard Fabares, a train conductor, and Lily Agnes McGovern, a housewife. The family resided in Los Angeles and Fabray's mother was instrumental in getting her daughter involved in show business as a young child. At a very young age she began studying tap dancing with Bill ?Bojangles? Robinson among other teachers. She made her professional stage debut as "Miss New Years Eve 1923" at the Million Dollar Theater at the age of 3. The following year she made her first film appearance as an extra in the Our Gang short Cradle Robbers. She spent much of her childhood appearing in vaudeville productions as mainly a dancer but also a singer. She appeared across such stars as Ben Turpin.
Fabray's parents divorced when she was nine years old but her parents continued to live together for financial reasons many years after. During the Great Depression, her mother turned their home into a boarding house which Fabray and her siblings helped her to run. In her early teenage years she attended the Max Reinhardt School of the Theatre on a scholarship. She also attended Hollywood High School where she graduated in 1939. She entered Los Angeles Junior College in the Fall of 1939 but withdrew after only a few months. She had always had difficulty as a student in school due to an undiagnosed hearing impairment which made learning significantly difficult for her. She eventually was diagnosed with a hearing problem in her 20s after an acting teacher encouraged her to get her hearing tested. Of the experience Fabray said, "It was a revelation to me. All these years I had thought I was stupid, but in reality I just had a hearing problem."
Nat King Cole
Nathaniel Adams Coles, known professionally as Nat “King” Cole, was an American musician who first came to prominence as a leading jazz pianist. Although an accomplished pianist, he owes most of his popular musical fame to his soft baritone voice, which he used to perform in big band and jazz genres. He was one of the first black Americans to host a television variety show, and has maintained worldwide popularity since his untimely death; he is widely considered one of the most important musical personalities in United States history.
Nathaniel Adams Coles was born in Montgomery, Alabama, on Saint Patrick’s Day in 1919. At the age of 4, his family moved to Chicago, Illinois. There his father, Edward Coles, became a Baptist minister. Cole learned to play the organ from his mother, Perlina Coles, the church organist. His first performance, at age four, was of “Yes! We Have No Bananas”. He began formal lessons at the age of 12, eventually learning not only jazz and gospel music but also European classical music, performing, as he said, “from Johann Sebastian Bach to Sergei Rachmaninoff”.
Cole had three brothers – Eddie, Ike, and Freddy. Cole’s half-sister, Joyce Cole, married Robert Doak, of Robert Doak & Associates, Inc., art supplier.
The family lived in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago. Cole would sneak out of the house and hang around outside the clubs, listening to artists such as Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines, and Jimmie Noone. He participated in Walter Dyett’s renowned music program at DuSable High School.
Natalie Cole
Natalie Maria Cole is an American singer, songwriter and performer. She achieved success in her early career as an R&B star, but smoothly changed her repertoire toward a more pop and jazz oriented musical style in the early 1990s. She has won nine Grammy Awards. Cole has been singing since she was 5 years old.
Natalie Maria Cole was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of crooner Nat King Cole and former Duke Ellington Orchestra singer Maria Cole. Raised in the affluent Hancock Park district of Los Angeles; regarding her childhood, Cole has referred to her family as “the black Kennedys” and was exposed to many great singers of jazz, soul, and blues. At the age of six Natalie sang on her father’s Christmas album and later began performing at age 11.
Cole grew up with older adopted sister Carole “Cookie” ; adopted brother Nat “Kelly” Cole, and younger twin sisters Timolin and Casey. Her paternal uncle Freddy Cole is a singer and pianist with numerous CDs and awards. Cole was 15 years old and attending an east coast boarding school, the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts, when her father died of lung cancer in February 1965. Soon afterwards she began having a difficult relationship with her mother. She enrolled in the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She briefly transferred to University of Southern California where she pledged the Epsilion Theta chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She later transferred back to the University of Massachusetts, where she majored in Child Psychology and minored in German graduating in 1972.
Natalie Wood
Natalie Wood was an American actress. Wood began acting in movies at the age of four and became a successful child actor in such films as Miracle on 34th Street. A well received performance opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and helped her to make the transition from a child performer. She then starred in the musicals West Side Story and Gypsy. She also received Academy Award nominations for her performances in Splendor in the Grass and Love with the Proper Stranger. Her career continued successfully with films such as Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice. After this she took a break from acting and had two children, appearing in only two theatrical films during the 1970s. She was married to actor Robert Wagner twice, and to producer Richard Gregson. She had one daughter by each: Natasha Gregson and Courtney Wagner. Her younger sister, Lana Wood, is also an actress. Wood starred in several television productions, including a remake of the film From Here to Eternity for which she won a Golden Globe Award.
Wood drowned near Santa Catalina Island, California at age 43. She had not yet completed her final film, the science fiction drama Brainstorm with Christopher Walken, which was released posthumously.
Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco, her parents, Maria Stepanova and Nikolai Zacharenko, immigrated from Russia. Her father was born in Vladivostok and the family fled Russia during the Revolution. He was sent to live with relatives in Canada, but later moved to San Francisco, where he worked as a day laborer and carpenter. Natalie's mother originally came from Siberia, but grew up in the Chinese city of Harbin. She described her family by weaving mysterious tales of being either gypsies or landowning aristocrats. In her youth her mother dreamed of becoming an actress or ballet dancer.