25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

John Lennon

October 25, 2019

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE was an English singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, and together with Paul McCartney formed one of the most successful songwriting partnerships of the 20th century.

Born and raised in Liverpool, Lennon became involved in the skiffle craze as a teenager, his first band, The Quarrymen, evolving into The Beatles in 1960. As the group began to undergo the disintegration that led to their break-up towards the end of that decade, Lennon launched a solo career that would span the next, punctuated by critically acclaimed albums, including John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Imagine, and iconic songs such as "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine".

Lennon revealed a rebellious nature and acerbic wit in his music, his writing, on film, and in interviews, and became controversial through his work as a peace activist. He moved to New York City in 1971, where his criticism of the Vietnam War resulted in a lengthy attempt by Richard Nixon's administration to deport him, while his songs were adapted as anthems by the anti-war movement. Disengaging himself from the music business in 1975 to devote time to his family, Lennon reemerged in 1980 with a comeback album, Double Fantasy, but was murdered three weeks after its release.

Lennon's solo album sales in the United States alone stand at 14

25 Oct 2019
Television Permalink

John Lithgow

October 25, 2019

John Arthur Lithgow is an American actor, musician, and author. Presently, he is involved with a wide range of media projects, including stage, television, film, and radio. He also has written and published several books of poetry and children’s literature.

He appeared in the films The World According to Garp and Terms of Endearment, receiving the Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for each. Lithgow is known for his roles as the Reverend Shaw Moore in Footloose, Dick Solomon on the NBC sitcom 3rd Rock from the Sun, the voice of Lord Farquaad in Shrek, and The Trinity Killer on Showtime’s Dexter for which he won Golden Globe and Emmy awards.

On the stage, he appeared in the musical adaptation of Sweet Smell of Success, winning the Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. He again appeared in a musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, receiving the Tony nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Musical.

He has also recorded music, such as the 1999 album of children’s music, Singin’ in the Bathtub, and has written poetry and short stories for children, such as Marsupial Sue.

25 Oct 2019
Television Permalink

John Lupton

October 25, 2019

John Rollin Lupton was an American film and television actor.

Upon graduation from New York’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts, Lupton secured immediate stage work. Then he was signed as a contract player at MGM in Hollywood. Lupton was lanky and handsome like James Stewart or Henry Fonda, but never achieved similar fame.

In the 1954-1955 television season, Lupton appeared in several episodes as a college student in the CBS sitcom, The Halls of Ivy. In 1957, he was cast in the ABC western series, Broken Arrow, which ran for two seasons.

Lupton also co-starred in 1956 with Fess Parker in The Great Locomotive Chase. He guest starred on several television series, including ABC’s 1961-1962 crime drama with Stephen McNally.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

John M. Stahl

October 25, 2019

John Malcolm Stahl was an American film director and producer.

Born in New York City, New York, he began working in the city's growing motion picture industry at a young age and directed his first silent film short in 1914. In the early 1920s Stahl signed on with Louis B. Mayer Pictures in Hollywood and in 1924 was part of the Mayer team that became MGM Studios.

In 1927, John Stahl was one of the thirty-six founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. With the industry's transition to talkies and feature-length films, John Stahl successfully made the adjustment and for Universal Pictures he directed the 1934 film Imitation of Life which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture. The following year, he directed Magnificent Obsession, starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor.

John Stahl continued to produce and direct major productions as well filler shorts right up to the time of his death. Some of his other notable directorial work was with The Keys of the Kingdom in 1944 and the 1945 film noir, Leave Her to Heaven with Gene Tierney who was nominated for Best Actress.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording, Television Permalink

John Payne

October 25, 2019

John Payne was an American film actor who is mainly remembered as a singer in 20th Century Fox musical films, as well as his leading role in Miracle on 34th Street.

Payne was born in Roanoke, Virginia. His mother, Margie Payne, graduated from the Virginia Seminary in Roanoke and became the bride of George Washington Payne, a developer of Roanoke. They lived at Ft. Lewis, an antebellum mansion that became a state historical property. It was destroyed by fire in the late 1950s. Payne went to Roanoke College then enrolled at Columbia University in the fall of 1930. He studied drama at Columbia and voice at Juilliard School. To support himself, he took on a variety of odd jobs, including wrestling and singing in vaudeville. In 1934, he was spotted by a talent scout for the Shubert theaters and was given a job as a stock player.

Payne toured with several Shubert Brothers shows, and frequently sang on New York-based radio programs. In 1936, he was offered a contract by Samuel Goldwyn, and he left New York for Hollywood. He worked for various studios until 1940, when he signed with 20th Century Fox. Fox made him a star, in 1940s musicals like Tin Pan Alley, Sun Valley Serenade, and Hello, Frisco, Hello. In these films, he was usually cast as somewhat of a supporting player in love with the likes of Sonja Henie, Betty Grable, and Alice Faye. A highlight during this period was co-starring with Gene Tierney and Tyrone Power in The Razor’s Edge. Payne’s most popular role may be in his final film for Fox, that of attorney Fred Gailey in Miracle on 34th Street. It is almost certainly his most visible role, as it typically receives frequent airplay during the Christmas season.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

John Green

October 25, 2019

John Newton “Jack” Green A.S.C., often credited as Jack N. Green, is an American cinematographer.

Green was born in San Francisco, California. A frequent collaborator with Clint Eastwood, he was nominated for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for best cinematography for the 1992 western, Unforgiven. He was also a nominee for the ASC Award for the 1995 film, The Bridges of Madison County.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

John Hart

October 25, 2019

John Hart was an American motion picture and television actor, born in Los Angeles, California. In his early career, he appeared mostly in Westerns. Although he played mostly minor roles in some fairly well-known films, he was probably best-known for replacing Clayton Moore in 1952 for one season of the television show The Lone Ranger when Moore demanded a higher salary.

Based on the assumption that the masked character, rather than the actor was the true star of The Lone Ranger, the program producers fired Moore and replaced him with Hart, who was of a similar build and had a comparable background in westerns. However, the public never truly accepted Hart as "The Ranger," and by 1954 the owners acquiesced to Moore's demands and returned him to the role. According to Clayton Moore's autobiography, I Was That Masked Man, Moore never knew why he was replaced with John Hart. He also stated that he had not sought a pay increase to portray "The Lone Ranger".

Though terminated, Hart continued to act in films for over two more decades on a fairly regular basis. He appeared in films of several genres, almost always in supporting roles.

In 1955, he starred in The Adventures of Captain Africa, which was originally intended to be a new movie about famous comic book hero The Phantom. However, licencing issues made Columbia re-film the entire serial and re-christen the hero "Captain Africa".

25 Oct 2019
Radio Permalink

John Hodiak

October 25, 2019

John Hodiak was an American actor who worked in Radio and Film.

He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Walter Hodiak and Anna Pogorzelec. He was of Ukrainian and Polish descent. He grew up in Hamtramck, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit.

Hodiak had his first smell of greasepaint at age eleven, acting in Ukrainian and Russian plays at the Ukrainian Catholic Church. From the moment he first appeared on the stage, he resolved to become an actor. He was not even swayed when as a third baseman on his local high school baseball team, he was offered a contract with a St. Louis Cardinals farm club. He turned the offer down.

When Hodiak first tried out for a radio acting job, he was turned down because of his accent. He became a caddy at a Detroit golf course, then worked at a Chevrolet automobile factory ? and practiced his diction. When he conquered the diction hurdle, he became a radio actor and moved to Chicago. There he created the role of the comic strip character Li’l Abner on radio.