25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Ernest Borgnine

October 25, 2019

Ernest Borgnine is an American actor of television and the big screen. His career has spanned nearly six decades. He was an unconventional lead in many films of the 1950s, including his Academy Award-winning turn in the 1955 film Marty. On television, he is best known for playing Quinton McHale in the 1962-66 series McHale’s Navy, costarring in the mid-1980s action series Airwolf, and voicing the character Mermaid Man in the animated series, SpongeBob SquarePants. Borgnine earned an Emmy nomination at age 92 for his work on the series ER. In August 2009 at age 92 he earned the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

Borgnine was born Ermes Effron Borgnino in Hamden, Connecticut, the son of Anna, who immigrated to the US from Carpi, and Camillo Borgnino, who immigrated to the US from Ottiglio. His parents separated when he was two years old, and he and his mother went to live in Italy. By 1923, his parents had reconciled, and the family name was changed from Borgnino to Borgnine. The family had settled in North Haven, Connecticut, where he attended public schools. His mother also had the passion to develop her own dance. Anna gave her son a lot of moral support and he stood closely by her at all times. Second only to his father, Ernest had a hot temper, but his wit and charm helped him win over his staunchest detractors.

Borgnine joined the United States Navy in 1935, after graduation from James Hillhouse High School in New Haven, Connecticut. He was discharged in 1941, but re-enlisted when the United States entered World War II and served until 1945, reaching the rank of Gunner’s Mate 1st Class. He served aboard the destroyer USS Lamberton. His military decorations included the American Campaign Medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the American Defense Service Medal with Fleet Clasp, and the World War II Victory Medal.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Recording Permalink

Ernest Gold

October 25, 2019

Ernest Gold, born Ernst Sigmund Goldner, was an American composer. Born in Vienna, Austria; Gold wrote nearly 100 film and television scores between 1945 and 1992. Among his credits are Too Much, Too Soon, Exodus, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, On the Beach, A Child is Waiting, Fun with Dick and Jane, and Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff.

Gold's contributions were recognized with four Academy Award nominations and three Golden Globe nominations. He won a Golden Globe in 1960 for Best Motion Picture Score for 1959's On the Beach, and won an Academy Award a year later for Best Music: Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, for Exodus. His work on On the Beach also won Gold a Grammy Award. The Hollywood Walk of Fame has also recognized Gold with a star on famed Hollywood Boulevard. Gold's classical works also included a piano concerto, a string quartet, and a piano sonata.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Ernest Torrence

October 25, 2019

Ernest Torrence was a Scottish born film character actor who appeared in many Hollywood films, including Mantrap with Clara Bow, and Fighting Caravans with Gary Cooper and Lili Damita. A towering figure, Torrence frequently played cold-eyed and imposing villains.

He was born Ernest Torrance-Thomson on June 26, 1878, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and as a child was an exceptional pianist and operatic baritone and graduated from the Stuttgart Conservatory, Edinburgh Academy before earning a scholarship at London’s Royal Academy of Music. He toured with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company in such productions as The Emerald Isle and The Talk of the Town before disarming vocal problems set in and he was forced to abandon this career path. Sometime prior to 1900, he changed the spelling of Torrance to Torrence and dropped the name Thomson. Both Ernest and his actor brother David Torrence went to America, in March 1911, directly from Scotland prior to World War I. Focusing instead on a purely acting career, Ernest and his brother developed into experienced players on the Broadway New York stage. Ernest received significant acclaim with Modest Suzanne in 1912 and a prominent role in The Night Boat in 1920 brought him to the attention of Hollywood filmmakers.

Torrence played the despicable adversary Luke Hatburn in Tol’able David opposite Richard Barthelmess, and immediately settled into films for the rest of his career and life. He played an old codger in the acclaimed classic western The Covered Wagon and gained attention from his roles in The Hunchback of Notre Dame as Clopin, king of the beggars, and Betty Bronson in Peter Pan as the dastardly Captain Hook. In an offbeat bit of casting he paired up with Clara Bow in Mantrap, unusually as a gentle, giant type backwoodsman in search of a wife. He appeared in other silent film classics such as The King of Kings and Steamboat Bill Jr. as Buster Keaton’s steamboat captain father. During the course of his twelve year film career, Ernest made 49 films, both silent and “talkies”.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Television Permalink

Ernest Truex

October 25, 2019

Ernest Truex was an American actor of stage and film.

He started acting at age five and was toured through Missouri at age nine as “The Child Wonder in Scenes from Shakespeare”. His Broadway debut came in 1908 and he performed in several David Belasco plays and portrayed the titled role in the 1915 musical Very Good Eddie.

He made his film debut in 1913, but did not work in film full time for another twenty years. He tended to play “milquetoast” characters and in The Warrior’s Husband he played a “nance”. In the 1939 The Adventures of Marco Polo, he played Marco Polo’s comical assistant, opposite Gary Cooper.

In later life, he became known for playing elderly men on television in works such as Mr. Peepers, and had the main role in the Kick the Can episode of Rod Serling’s original The Twilight Zone. In another Twilight Zone episode, What You Need, he played a traveling peddler who just happened to have what people needed to buy.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Ernest Tubb

October 25, 2019

Ernest Dale Tubb, nicknamed the Texas Troubadour, was an American singer and songwriter and one of the pioneers of country music. His biggest career hit song, “Walking the Floor Over You”, marked the rise of the honky tonk style of music. In 1948, he was the first singer to record a hit version of “Blue Christmas”, a song more commonly associated with Elvis Presley and his mid-1950s version. Another well-known Tubb hit was “Waltz Across Texas”, which became one of his most requested songs and is often used in dance halls throughout Texas during waltz lessons. In the early 1960s, he recorded duets with up-and-coming Loretta Lynn, including their hit “Sweet Thang”. Tubb is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame.

Tubb was born on a cotton farm near Crisp, Texas. His father was a sharecropper, so Tubb spent his youth working on farms throughout the state. He was inspired by Jimmie Rodgers and spent his spare time learning to sing, yodel, and play the guitar. At age 19, he took a job as a singer on a San Antonio radio station. The pay was low, so Tubb also dug ditches for the Works Progress Administration and then clerked at a drug store. In 1939 he moved to San Angelo, Texas and was hired to do a 15-minute afternoon live show on radio station KGKL-AM. He drove a beer delivery truck in order to support himself during this time, and during World War II he wrote and recorded a song titled “Beautiful San Angelo”.

In 1936, Tubb contacted Jimmie Rodgers?s widow to ask for an autographed photo. A friendship developed and she was instrumental in getting Tubb a recording contract with RCA. His first two records were unsuccessful. A tonsillectomy in 1939 affected his singing style, so he turned to songwriting. In 1940, he switched to Decca records to try singing again and it was his sixth Decca release with the single “Walking the Floor Over You” that brought Tubb to stardom.

Tubb joined the Grand Ole Opry in February 1943 and put together his band, the Texas Troubadours. Tubb’s first band members were from Gadsden, Alabama. They were, Vernon “Toby” Reese, Chester Studdard and Ray “Kemo” Head. He remained a regular on the radio show for four decades, and hosted his own Midnight Jamboree radio show each Saturday night after the Opry. In 1947, Tubb headlined the first Grand Ole Opry show presented in Carnegie Hall in New York City. In 1965, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and in 1970, Tubb was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Emil Jannings

October 25, 2019

Emil Jannings was a German actor. He was not only the first actor to win the Academy Award for Best Actor, but also the first person to be presented an Oscar.

He was christened as Theodor Friedrich Emil Janenz in Rorschach, Switzerland, the son of a German mother and an American father. He grew up in Switzerland and in Germany, mainly in Leipzig and Dresden.

Jannings was a theater actor who went into films. He starred in the 1922 film version of Othello and in F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh, as a proud but aged hotel doorman who is demoted to a restroom attendant. Jannings worked with Murnau on two other films, playing the title character in Herr Tartüff and Mephistopheles in Faust. He eventually started a career in Hollywood. In 1929 he won the Oscar for two films, The Way of All Flesh and The Last Command.

His Hollywood career came to an end with the advent of talkies; his thick German accent was difficult to understand, and his dialogue was dubbed by another actor in the part-talkie The Patriot, although after Jannings objected, his voice was restored. He returned to Europe, where he starred opposite Marlene Dietrich in the 1930 film The Blue Angel, filmed in English simultaneously with its German version Der blaue Engel.

25 Oct 2019
Radio, Recording Permalink

Emilio Estefan, Jr.

October 25, 2019

Emilio Estefan, Jr. is a Cuban-American of Lebanese ancestry who is a musician and producer. Estefan’s first taste of celebrity came as a member of the Miami Sound Machine, but he is also recognized as the producer of many famous singers. He is the husband of singer Gloria Estefan. He is also the uncle of Spanish-language television personality Lili Estefan.

Gloria Estefan became romantically involved with Estefan, who was the Miami Sound Machine’s band leader, in 1976. She and Emilio married on September 2, 1978.

They have two children: Nayib and Emily Marie and live on Star Island in Miami Beach, Florida.

In 1995, one student from Howard University was killed and another was injured when their personal water craft collided with the Estefan’s pleasure boat.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Emma Thompson

October 25, 2019

Emma Thompson Honored with 2,416th Star on The Hollywood Walk Of Fame for her Motion Picture Career
Emcee Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, President/CEO Leron Gubler
Guest speakers: Hugh Laurie and Maggie Gyllenhaal
At 6714 Hollywood Boulevard in front of The Pig 'n Whistle British Pub
Friday, August 6, 2010

Emma Thompson is one of the world's most respected talents for her versatility in acting as well as screenwriting. On August 20, her current global hit, Universal Pictures' Nanny McPhee Returns, comes to the U.S. and Canada.

In 1992, Thompson caused a sensation with her portrayal of Margaret Schlegel in the Merchant-Ivory adaptation of E.M. Forster's Howards End. Sweeping the Best Actress category wherever it was considered, the performance netted her a BAFTA, a Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award, a New York Film Critics Circle Award, a Golden Globe and an Academy Award®. She earned two Oscar® nominations the following year for her work in The Remains of the Day and In the Name of the Father. In 1995, Thompson's adaptation of Jane Austen's "Sense and Sensibility," directed by Ang Lee, won the Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay as well as the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and Best Screenplay awards from the Writers Guild of America and the Writers Guild of Great Britain, amongst numerous others. For her performance in the film, she was honored with BAFTA for Best Actress and was nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award®.

In 2008, Thompson starred with Dustin Hoffman in director Joel Hopkins' charming romance, Last Chance Harvey, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture—Comedy or Musical. In 2006, Thompson co-starred, to critical acclaim, with Dustin Hoffman, Will Ferrell and Maggie Gyllenhaal in Stranger Than Fiction, directed by Marc Forster, and produced by Nanny McPhee Returns producer, Lindsay Doran. Gyllenhaal also stars in in Nanny McPhee Returns.

In 2004, Thompson brought to the screen J.K. Rowling's character of Sybil Trelawney in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, for director Alfonso Cuarón, and in 2007, she reprised the role in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, for director David Yates. Also in 2004, Thompson appeared in her own adaptation of Nanny McPhee, directed by Kirk Jones.

Thompson is currently writing a new film version of My Fair Lady for Sony Pictures and starring, with Alan Rickman, in a flagship production of the poem "The Song of Lunch," by Christopher Reid, for the BBC.

Thompson was born in London to Eric Thompson, a theater director and writer, and Phyllida Law, an actress. She read English at Cambridge and was invited to join the university's long-standing Footlights comedy troupe, which elected her vice president. Hugh Laurie was president. While still a student, she co-directed Cambridge's first all-women revue (Women's Hour), made her television debut on BBC Television's Friday Night, Saturday Morning as well as her radio debut on BBC Radio's Injury Time.

Throughout the 1980s, Thompson frequently appeared on British television, including widely acclaimed recurring roles on the Granada TV series Alfresco, BBC's Election Night Special and The Crystal Cube (the latter written by fellow Cambridge alums Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie), and a hilarious one-off role as upper-class twit Miss Money Sterling on The Young Ones. In 1985, Channel 4 offered Thompson her own TV special, Up for Grabs, and in 1988, she wrote and starred in her own BBC series called Thompson. She worked as a stand-up comic when the opportunity arose, and earned £60 in cash on her 25th birthday in a stand-up double bill with Ben Elton at the Croydon Warehouse. She says it's the best money she's ever earned.

Thompson continued to pursue an active stage career concurrently with her television and radio work, appearing in A Sense of Nonsense and touring England in 1982, the self-penned Short Vehicle at the Edinburgh Festival in 1983, Me and My Girl at Leicester and then London's West End in 1985, and Look Back in Anger at the Lyric Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue in 1989.

Thompson's feature film debut came in 1988, starring opposite Jeff Goldblum, in the comedy The Tall Guy. She then played Katherine in Kenneth Branagh's film-directing debut, Henry V, and went on to star opposite Branagh in three of his subsequent directorial efforts—Dead Again (1991), Peter's Friends (1992) and Much Ado About Nothing (1993).

Thompson's other film credits include Junior (1994), Carrington (1995) and The Winter Guest (1997). She has also starred in three projects directed by Mike Nichols—Primary Colors (1998) and the HBO telefilms Wit (2001, in a Golden Globe-nominated performance) and Angels in America (2002, for which she received Screen Actors Guild and Emmy Award nominations). Also in 2002, she starred in Imagining Argentina, for director Christopher Hampton, and Love Actually, for director Richard Curtis. The latter film netted Thompson a number of accolades, including Best Actress in a Supporting Role at the 2004 Evening Standard Film Awards, a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the 2004 BAFTAs, Best Supporting Actress at the 2004 London Critics Circle Film Awards and Best British Actress at the 2004 Empire Film Awards.

Thompson is involved with several charities including: The Teaching Awards, of which she is President and she is the Chair of the Helen Bamber Foundation which fights against human trafficking and forced labor, a vastly overlooked scourge that affects more than 12 million people around the world.

About The Hollywood Walk of Fame: It began with the installation of a few demonstration stars in August 1958, the first of which was dedicated to actor Preston Foster. Officially dedicated in November 1960, the Walk now features more than 2,400 stars in the categories of television, radio, live theatre, motion pictures and recording. The Walk of Fame ceremonies draw international media attention and throngs of people to catch a glimpse of a favorite celebrity or Hollywood industry leader. It is one of the top tourist draws in Los Angeles and most recognizable images of Hollywood, along with The Hollywood Sign. Follow the Walk of Fame 50th Anniversary plans, news of upcoming star ceremonies and video clips from the ceremonies at www.WalkOfFame.com

25 Oct 2019
Recording Permalink

Engelbert Humperdinck

October 25, 2019

Engelbert Humperdinck is a popular music singer who became famous internationally during the 1960s and 1970s, after adopting the name of the famous German opera composer Engelbert Humperdinck as his own stage name.

As Arnold Dorsey, Humperdinck was one of ten children born in Madras, India, to British Army officer Mervyn Dorsey and his wife Olive. His mother and father were themselves both British. His family moved to Leicester, England, when he was 10, and a year later he showed an interest in music and began learning the saxophone. He started work as an apprentice engineer and by the early 1950s he was playing the instrument in nightclubs, but he is believed not to have tried singing until he was 17 and friends coaxed him into entering a pub contest. His impression of Jerry Lewis prompted friends to begin calling him "Gerry Dorsey," a name he worked under for almost a decade.

Though Dorsey's music career was interrupted by his national service in the British Army Royal Corps of Signals during the middle 1950s, he got his first chance to record in 1958 with the Decca Records label after his discharge. His first single, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again," was not a hit, but Dorsey recorded for the same company almost a decade later with much different results. Dorsey continued working the nightclubs until 1961, when he was stricken with tuberculosis. He regained his health and returned to nightclub work with, unfortunately, little success. However, in 1965, he teamed with his former roommate, Gordon Mills, who had become a music impresario and the manager of Tom Jones.

He had his first real success during July 1966, in Belgium where he and four others represented England in the annual Knokke song contest, and in October he was on stage in Mechelen. In that period, Dorsey was already No. 1 in the Belgian charts, six months before the release of "Release Me". Belgian Television then made a video clip in the harbour of Zeebrugge.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Enrico Caruso

October 25, 2019

Enrico Caruso was an Italian tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and North and South America. Caruso also made approximately 290 commercial recordings of his voice, beginning as early as 1902 in Italy and continuing from 1904 until 1920 in the United States. All of his known surviving recordings are available today on remastered CDs.

Caruso’s 25-year career, stretching from 1895 to 1920, included 863 appearances at the New York Metropolitan Opera before he died from an infection at the age of 48. His fame has lasted to the present day despite the limited marketing and promotional vehicles available during Caruso’s era. Publicity in Caruso’s time relied on newspapers, particularly wire services, along with magazines, photography and relatively instantaneous communication via the telephone and the telegraph, to spread a message and raise a performer’s profile.

Caruso biographers Pierre Key, Bruno Zirato and Stanley Jackson attribute Caruso’s fame not only to his voice and musicianship but also to a keen business sense and an enthusiastic embrace of commercial sound recording, then in its infancy. Many well-known opera singers of Caruso’s time rejected the phonograph due to the low fidelity of early discs. Their voices have been lost as a result. But other singers, including Adelina Patti, Francesco Tamagno and Nellie Melba, exploited the new technology once they became aware of the financial returns that Caruso was reaping from his initial recording sessions.

Caruso made more than 260 extant recordings in America for the Victor Talking Machine Company from 1904 to 1920, and he earned millions of dollars in royalties from the retail sales of the resulting 78-rpm discs. He was also heard live from the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House in the first public radio broadcast in 1910.