Dustin Lancy Farnum was an American singer, dancer and an actor in silent movies during the early days of motion pictures. After a great success in a number of stage roles, in 1914 he landed his first film role in the movie ‘Soldiers of Fortune’, and later in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Squaw Man. Although he played a wide variety of roles, he tended toward Westerns and became one of the biggest stars of the genre. He was married to actress Winifred Kingston. He was the older brother of actor William Farnum and the lesser known silent film director Marshall Farnum. He also was the father of late radio actress Estelle “Dustine” Runyon.
Dwight Yoakam
Dwight David Yoakam is an American singer-songwriter, actor and film director, most famous for his pioneering country music. Popular since the early 1980s, he has recorded more than twenty-one albums and compilations, has charted more than thirty singles on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts, and sold more than 25 million records.
Yoakam was born in Pikeville, Kentucky, the son of Ruth Ann, a key-punch operator, and David Yoakam, a gas-station owner. Like many Kentucky families of the mid-20th century, the Yoakams moved to Ohio in hopes of creating a better life. However, Yoakam has always maintained a strong connection with his Kentucky roots, as evident by many of his songs, such as Readin’, Rightin’, Route 23, Bury Me, Floyd County, Louisville, Miner’s Prayer and I Sang Dixie.
He was raised in Columbus, Ohio, but his family would return to Kentucky on weekends, thereby maintaining a sense of “home.” Yoakam graduated from Columbus’ Northland High School on June 9, 1974. During his high school years, he excelled in both music and drama, regularly securing the lead role in school plays, such as “Charlie” in a stage version of Flowers for Algernon, honing his skills under the guidance of teacher-mentors Jerry McAfee and Charles Lewis. Outside of school, Yoakam sang and played guitar with local garage bands, and frequently entertained his friends and classmates as an amateur comedian, impersonating politicians and other celebrities, such as Richard Nixon, who, at that time, was heavily embroiled in the Watergate controversy.
Yoakam briefly attended Ohio State University, but dropped out and moved to Nashville in the late 1970s with the intent of becoming a recording artist. Eventually he headed West to California.
Dorothy Malone
Dorothy Malone is an American actress. Malone’s film career began in the mid 1940s, and in her early years she played small roles, mainly in B-movies. After a decade in films, she began to acquire a more glamorous image, particularly after her performance in Written on the Wind, for which she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her film career reached its peak by the beginning of the 1960s, and she achieved later success with her television role of Constance MacKenzie on Peyton Place from 1964 to 1968. Less active in her later years, Malone returned to film in 1992 as the friend of Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct.
Malone was born Dorothy Eloise Maloney in Chicago, Illinois. The family moved to Dallas, Texas, where she worked as a child model and began acting in school plays at Ursuline Convent and Highland Park High School. While performing at Southern Methodist University, she was spotted by a talent agent for RKO and was signed to a studio contract, making her film debut in 1943 in The Falcon and the Co-Eds.
Much of Malone’s early career was spent in supporting roles in B-movies, many of them Westerns, although on occasion she had the opportunity to play small but memorable roles, such as that of a brainy, lusty, bespectacled bookstore clerk in The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart, and the love interest of Dean Martin in the musical-comedy Artists and Models. By 1956, Malone had transformed herself into a platinum blonde and shed her good girl-image when she co-starred with Rock Hudson, Lauren Bacall, and Robert Stack in director Douglas Sirk’s melodrama Written on the Wind. Her portrayal of the dipso-nymphomaniac daughter of a Texas oil baron won her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. As a result, she was offered more substantial roles in Too Much, Too Soon, where she portrayed Diana Barrymore, Man of a Thousand Faces, and Warlock. Additional screen credits include The Tarnished Angels, The Last Voyage and The Last Sunset .
Dorothy McGuire
Dorothy Hackett McGuire was an American actress.
Born in Omaha, Nebraska, she began her acting career on the stage at the Omaha Community Playhouse. Eventually, she succeeded on Broadway, first appearing as an understudy to Martha Scott in Our Town, and subsequently starring in the domestic comedy, Claudia.
Brought to Hollywood by producer David O. Selznick on the strength of her stage performance, McGuire starred in her first film, a movie adaptation of her Broadway success, Claudia, and portrayed the character of a child bride who almost destroys her marriage through her selfishness. Her inaugural screen performance was popular with both the public and critics alike and was the catalyst for not only a sequel, Claudia and David, but also for numerous other film roles.
By 1943, at the age of 27, she was already playing mother roles, in such movies as A Tree Grows In Brooklyn. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1947 for Gentleman’s Agreement. Other notable films include Three Coins in the Fountain, Friendly Persuasion, Old Yeller, Swiss Family Robinson, The Greatest Story Ever Told, and The Dark At the Top of the Stairs” .
Dorothy Phillips
Dorothy Phillips was an American stage and film actress.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Phillips began her career as a stage actress. She made her film debut in 1911, and appeared in over 150 films during her career. Phillips’ career slowed after 1927, and she mainly appeared in uncredited bit roles for the rest of her career.
On March 1, 1980, Phillips died of pneumonia at the age of 97. She is buried in Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Los Angeles.
Dorothy Sebastian
Dorothy Sebastian was an American film and stage actress.
Sebastian was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama. In her youth she hoped to be a dancer and later a film actress. Her family frowned on both ambitions, however, so she fled to New York at the age of 15. Upon her arrival in New York City, Sebastian’s southern drawl was thick enough to “cut with a knife”. She followed around theatrical agents before returning at night to a $12-a-month room, after being consistently rejected.
Her first contact in Hollywood was Robert Kane, who gave her a film test at United Studios. She performed in George White’s Scandals with Joan Crawford and Anita Page for a popular series of MGM romantic dramas including Our Dancing Daughters and Our Blushing Brides. Sebastian also appeared in 1929’s Spite Marriage, wherein she was cast opposite her then-lover Buster Keaton.
Sebastian went into semi-retirement in the mid-1930s after marrying Hopalong Cassidy star William Boyd. They wed in Las Vegas, Nevada following a romance which began on a set at Pathe Pictures. After their divorce in 1935, Sebastian attempted a comeback, appearing in much smaller parts than years before. In 1947, Sebastian married Miami Beach businessman Harold Shapiro to whom she remained married until her death.
Doug McClure
Douglas Osborne “Doug” McClure was an American actor whose career in film and television extended from the 1950s to the 1990s. Born in Glendale, California, to Donald Reed McClure and the former Clara Clapp, he is best known for his appearances as Trampas in the NBC western series The Virginian.
McClure’s The Virginian co-stars were James Drury, Roberta Shore, Lee J. Cobb, Randy Boone, Gary Clarke, and Tim Matheson in the later seasons. Before The Virginian, McClure costarred in two other series: as Frank “Flip” Flippen on NBC’s western, Overland Trail, with co-star William Bendix, and as Jed Sills on the CBS detective series Checkmate opposite Anthony George as Don Corey and Sebastian Cabot as Dr. Carl Hyatt. In 1958 and 1959, McClure appeared in three episodes of the syndicated western series 26 Men, stories of the Arizona Rangers. He appeared as Adam Davis in 1959 in the episode “The Court Martial of Trooper Davis” of the syndicated series Mackenzie’s Raiders starring Richard Carlson. He was in the third episode of The Twilight Zone, “Mr. Denton on Doomsday”.
He starred in science fiction films such as At the Earth’s Core, The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, all three based on the novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs. In 1967, he played the Errol Flynn role in a re-make of Against All Flags titled The King’s Pirate. He played the lead in two World War II adventures, The Longest Hundred Miles and The Birdmen, set in the Philippines and at Colditz Castle respectively.
He co-starred on the sitcom Out of This World later in his career.
Doug Morris
MUSIC MOGUL DOUG MORRIS WAS HONORED WITH 2,399th STAR ON THE HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME with guest speakers including will.i.am and Mary J. Blige
at 6259 Hollywood Boulevard off of Vine Street on
Tuesday, January 26, 2010.
Doug Morris is the Worldwide Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Universal Music Group. In this position, he continues to be the most influential music executive in the industry, responsible for guiding the overall global activities of the world's largest music company. Universal Music Group encompasses the development, marketing, sales and distribution of recorded music through a network of subsidiaries, joint ventures and licensees in 77 countries around the world. Universal Music Group's businesses also include the industry's largest global music publishing operation, Universal Music Publishing Group.
Under his direction, UMG is rapidly evolving from a record company into a full-fledged music entertainment company, from simply being vendors to active partners with businesses looking to use music as the foundation of their products and services. Over the past several years, UMG has been an industry leader in effectively leveraging core assets to create lucrative new revenue streams, forging precedent-setting deals with YouTube, Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Nokia, MySpace, imeem, MOG, BuzzNet and Last.fm, among many others. Add to that UMG's over 30% market share for 2009, leading the market for the 12th consecutive year, with best-selling albums from such superstars as Lady Gaga, U2, Black Eyed Peas and Kanye West, along with successful newcomers Rihanna and Justin Bieber, and you can see why UMG is considered the music industry's most successful music company.
A graduate of Columbia University, Morris began his music career as a songwriter for music publisher Robert Mellin, Inc. His credits include the Chiffons' 1966 hit "Sweet Talkin' Guy" and producing such hit records as Brownsville Station's "Smokin' in the Boys Room." Morris joined Laurie Records in 1965 as a writer and producer and was eventually named Vice President and General Manager. Later, he launched his own label, Big Tree Records, which was distributed and eventually acquired by Atlantic Records in 1978. At this time Morris was named President of ATCO Records, beginning a 17-year association with Warner Music.
In 1980, Morris was appointed President of Atlantic Records and assumed the position of Co-Chairman and Co-CEO (with Ahmet Ertegun) of the Atlantic Recording Group in 1990. At Atlantic, Morris played a key role in transforming the label into the number one company within the Warner Music Group and the premier company within the music industry. As part of his strategy for growth, Morris revamped the division labels into completely autonomous units (each supporting a variety of imprints); established co-venture deals with such renowned labels as Interscope, Rhino, and Matador; and created Time Warner Audiobooks in partnership with Warner Books. He also established Atlantic Nashville, launched EastWest Records and created A*Vision Entertainment, a leading home entertainment unit. Morris was promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer of Warner Music U.S. in 1994 and, soon after, was named Chairman.
Morris began his association with the MCA Music Entertainment Group (now Universal Music Group) in July 1995 by forming the joint venture, Rising Tide Entertainment. Upon Morris' appointment as Chairman and CEO of Universal Music Group in November 1995, the joint venture became wholly owned by Universal Music Group and was re-named Universal Records. The full-service label, under the direction of Morris, quickly became one of the industry's most successful start-up recording companies.
Leading Universal Music Group, Morris has energized the company by attracting and recruiting many of the music industry's most talented executives. With the acquisition of PolyGram in 1998, Morris was directly involved with the restructuring and integration process to create the world's largest music company. Since then, Universal Music Group has continued to dominate the musical charts as the industry's leader, setting new records for revenues and market share in the U.S. and on a global basis.
Throughout his career, Morris has worked in many different capacities with some of the most popular and influential artists of the past four decades, including The Rolling Stones, Phil Collins, Pete Townsend, Led Zeppelin, Stevie Nicks, Bette Midler, Tori Amos, INXS, Mariah Carey, Jay-Z, Stevie Wonder and U2, among many others.
Under Morris' direction, UMG has recently garnered a 33% increase in digital sales, with overall revenues growing while much of the rest of the industry has declined. Bold acquisitions of BMG Music Publishing and Sanctuary have fueled growth in music publishing and merchandising, with digital sales and higher licensing fees off-setting the decline in physical sales. UMG is the market share leader in every major genre, including Latin, Rap, R&B, Soundtracks, Top-Sellers, Jazz, Classical, Country, Alternative, Deep Catalog, Catalog and Rock.
Morris' groundbreaking digital strategies led him to become the first media executive to monetize online music videos, essentially helping to create the music video-on-demand market online. By offering MP3s, UMG's leader helped launch both Amazon and Wal-Mart's new digital music stores. Under Morris' direction, UMG continues to lead the industry in digital albums and singles sold worldwide, with four of the top 5 digital albums to date, the most viewed YouTube channel, registering over 3.6 billion streams and growing, and the best-selling mastertone artist of all time in chart-topper Akon. Recently, Morris partnered with Google to launch VEVO, the new premium music video and entertainment service. Within its first month of launch, VEVO had an unprecedented 35,395,000 unique visitors, making it the #1 music destinations on the internet, according to comScore. In doing so, VEVO beat out such popular music sites as MySpace Music, AOL Music and MTV Networks Music.
Moreover, UMG's Universal Music Publishing Group is now the world's largest music publisher after its $2 billion acquisition of BMG Music Publishing, and Universal Music Group Distribution created a successful indie arm in Fontana and entered the filmed entertainment arena with Vivendi Entertainment, a full-service company that provides distribution services including theatrical releasing, home entertainment, digital delivery and television. Universal Music Latin Entertainment has become the biggest Latin music company since acquiring Univision Music Group, and UMG's acquisition of Sanctuary Group has provided the company with management and booking expertise, as well as a lucrative merchandising and artist service division in Bravado, which features products from such clients as Kanye West, Gwen Stefani, Beyonce, Elton John, Guns N' Roses, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Iron Maiden, Alicia Keys, Kelly Clarkson, Christine Aguilera and Eminem, among many others. UMG has also entered the burgeoning business of classical music artist management and production, forming Universal Music Classical Artists Management & Productions, in order to develop careers, create distinctive live events and build long-lasting brands
Morris serves on the Board of Directors of The Robin Hood Foundation and The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, as well as a Director of The Rock -N- Roll Hall of Fame. In 2003, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) awarded Morris with the President's Merit Award, honoring his consistent creative commitment to artistic and entrepreneurial excellence and longstanding support for the music and world communities. Morris also serves on the Vivendi Management Board, and is a member of the Board of Directors of CBS Corporation and leading gamer Activision Blizzard, the latter formed after Vivendi's acquisition of Activision. His latest honor is being named the City of Hope's Spirit of Life Award recipient for 2008.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.
Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr. KBE was an American actor and a highly decorated naval officer of World War II.
Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. was born in New York City, the son of actor Douglas Fairbanks, and his first wife, Anna Beth Sully. His parents divorced when he was nine years old. He lived with his mother in New York, California, Paris and London.
Fairbanks’ father was one of cinema’s first icons, noted for such swashbuckling adventure films as The Mark of Zorro, Robin Hood and The Thief of Bagdad. Largely on the basis of his father’s name, Fairbanks, Jr. was given a contract with Paramount Pictures at age 14. After making some undistinguished films, he took to the stage, where he impressed his father, his stepmother Mary Pickford, and Charlie Chaplin, who encouraged him to continue with acting.
He began his career during the silent film era. He initially played mainly supporting roles in a range of films featuring many of the leading female players of the day: Belle Bennett in Stella Dallas, Esther Ralston in An American Venus and Pauline Starke in Women Love Diamonds. In the last years of the silent period he was upped to star billing opposite Loretta Young in several pre-Code films and Joan Crawford in Our Modern Maidens. He supported John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in Woman of Affairs. Progressing to sound, he played opposite Katharine Hepburn in her Oscar-winning role in the film Morning Glory .
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr.
Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films such as The Thief of Bagdad, Robin Hood, and The Mark of Zorro. An astute businessman, Fairbanks was a founding member of United Artists. Fairbanks was also a founding member of The Motion Picture Academy and hosted the first Oscars Ceremony in 1929. With his marriage to Mary Pickford in 1920, the couple became Hollywood royalty with Fairbanks constantly referred to as “The King of Hollywood”, a nickname later passed on to actor Clark Gable.
Fairbanks was born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman in Denver, Colorado, the son of Hezekiah Charles Ullman and Ella Adelaide Marsh. He had a half-brother, John Fairbanks, and a full brother, Robert Payne Ullman. Fairbanks’ father, who was born in Pennsylvania to a Jewish family, was a prominent New York City attorney. His mother, a Roman Catholic, was born in New York, and had previously been married to a man named John Fairbanks until his death. She then married a man named Wilcox, who turned out to be abusive. Her divorce was handled by Ullman, who later became her third husband.
In about 1881, Charles Ullman purchased several mining interests in the Rocky Mountains and moved the family to Denver, where he re-established his law practice. Ullman abandoned the family when Douglas was five years old, and he and Robert were brought up by their mother, who gave them the family name Fairbanks, after her first husband.