25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Yvonne De Carlo

October 25, 2019

Yvonne De Carlo was a Canadian-born American film and television actress, dancer and singer. She began her film career by starring in small film roles for Columbia Studios, Paramount Pictures, Universal International.

During her six-decade career, her most prolific appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as of Anna Marie in Salome Where She Danced, Anna in Criss Cross, Sephora the wife of Moses in The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston, and Amantha Starr in Band of Angels with Clark Gable. As her film career faded, De Carlo accepted an offer to play Lily Munster for CBS television series The Munsters, alongside with Fred Gwynne and Al Lewis.

The daughter of an aspiring actress, Marie De Carlo, and a salesman, William Middleton, De Carlo was born as Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia, and nicknamed ‘Peggy’. “I was named Margaret Yvonne – Margaret because my mother was very fond of one of the derivatives of the name. She was fascinated at the time by the movie star Baby Peggy, and I suppose she wanted a Baby Peggy of her own.” Her maternal grandfather, Michael de Carlo, was Sicilian-born, and her maternal grandmother, Margaret Purvis, was Scottish-born. Margaret’s mother ran away from home, when she was 16 to become a ballerina, after a couple of years working as a shop girl, she was finally married in 1924. Little Peggy was three years old when her father abandoned the family. She lived with her grandparents. By the time she entered grade school, she found that her strong singing voice brought her the attention she longed for. Although her mother recognized Peggy’s singing talent, she had already decided that her daughter would be a dancer. As a teenager Peggy was taken by her mother to Hollywood where she enrolled her in dancing school, also attending Le Conte Middle School in Hollywood. Margaret also lived in a downtown apartment, with her mother, where Marie took on odd jobs such as a waitress. Mother and daughter were uprooted when their visas expired, she would have to make three trips, the first from Los Angeles to Vancouver, within a few years, where they returned, unable to find work.

She attended and dropped out of Vancouver’s now-defunct King Edward High School, to focus more on her dance studies. She then attended the B.C. School of Dancing. It was there that Canadian dance instructor, June Roper, started her in a new direction, for which she was grateful and relieved. The following year at the Orpheum Theatre, Peggy appeared as a hula dancer in the famous revue Waikiki. A new nightclub, the Palomar, opened in Vancouver, and she acquired a week-long booking. Hoping to present more sophisticated image, she combined her middle name with her mother’s maiden name, which turned out to be “Yvonne De Carlo”.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Yul Brynner

October 25, 2019

Yul Brynner was a Russian-born actor of stage and film. He was best known for his portrayal of Mongkut, king of Siam, in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical The King and I on both stage and screen, as well as Rameses II in the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film The Ten Commandments and Chris Adams in The Magnificent Seven. Brynner was noted for his deep, rich voice and for his shaven head, which he maintained as a personal trademark after adopting it for his role in The King and I. He was also a photographer and the author of two books.

Yul Brynner was born Yuliy Borisovich Bryner in 1920. He exaggerated his background and early life for the press, claiming that he was born Taidje Khan of part-Mongol parentage, on the Russian island of Sakhalin. In reality, he was born at home in a four-story residence at #15 Aleutskaya Street, Vladivostok, Russian Far East, Russia. He also infrequently referred to himself as Julius Briner. A biography written by his son Rock Brynner in 1989 clarified these issues.

His father, Boris Julievich Bryner, was a mining engineer whose father, Jules Bryner, was Swiss and whose mother, Natalya Iosifevna Kurkutova, was a native of Irkutsk and was partly of Buryat Mongol ancestry.

His mother, Marousia Dimitrievna, came from the intelligentsia and studied to be an actress and singer; she was the daughter of a doctor who had converted from Judaism to the Russian Orthodox Church.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Yehudi Menuhin

October 25, 2019

Yehudi Menuhin, Baron Menuhin, OM, KBE was a Jewish American violinist and conductor who spent most of his performing career in the United Kingdom. He was born to Jewish parents in the United States, but became a citizen of Switzerland in 1970, and of the United Kingdom in 1985. He is commonly considered one of the twentieth century’s greatest violin virtuosi.

Yehudi Menuhin was born in New York City, New York, to Bielorussian Jewish parents from what is now Belarus. His sisters were the concert pianist and human rights worker Hephzibah Menuhin and the pianist, painter, and poet Yaltah Menuhin. Through his father Moshe Menuhin, a former rabbinical student and anti-Zionist writer, Menuhin was descended from a distinguished rabbinical dynasty.

Menuhin began violin instruction at age four under violinist Sigmund Anker; his parents had wanted Louis Persinger to be his teacher, but Persinger refused. He displayed extraordinary talents at an early age. His first solo violin performance was at the age of seven with the San Francisco Symphony in 1923. Persinger then agreed to take Menuhin as a student. When the Menuhins went to Paris, Persinger suggested Yehudi go to his own teacher, Eugène Ysaÿe. He did have one lesson with Ysaÿe, but did not like his method or the fact that he was very old. Instead, he went to the Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu, after which he made several recordings with his sister Hephzibah. He was also a student of Adolf Busch. In 1929 he played in Berlin, under Bruno Walter’s baton, three concerti by Bach, Brahms and Beethoven. In 1932, he recorded Edward Elgar’s Violin Concerto in B minor for HMV in London, with the composer himself conducting, and between 1934 and 1936 he made the first integral recording of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.

Yehudi Menuhin performed for allied soldiers during World War II, and went with the composer Benjamin Britten to perform for inmates of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, after its liberation in April 1945. He returned to Germany in 1947 to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler as an act of reconciliation, becoming the first Jewish musician to do so following the Holocaust. He said to critics within the Jewish community that he wanted to rehabilitate Germany’s music and spirit. After building early success on richly romantic and tonally opulent performances, he experienced considerable physical and artistic difficulties caused by overwork during the war as well as unfocused and unstructured early training. Careful practice and study combined with meditation and yoga helped him overcome many of these problems. His profound and considered musical interpretations are nearly universally acclaimed. When he finally resumed recording, he was known for practising by deconstructing music phrases one note at a time.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Zachary Scott

October 25, 2019

Zachary Scott was an American actor, most notable for his roles as villains and “mystery men”.

Born in Austin, Texas, he was a distant cousin of George Washington, and his grandfather had been a very successful cattle rancher.

Scott intended to be a doctor like his father, but after attending the University of Texas for a while, he decided to switch to acting. He signed on as a cabin boy on a freighter which took him to England, where he acted in repertory theatre for a while, before he returned to Austin, and began acting in local theater.

Alfred Lunt discovered Scott in Texas and convinced him to move to New York City, where he appeared on Broadway. Jack Warner saw him in a performance, and signed him to appear in a movie, The Mask of Dimitrios, in 1944.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Yma Sumac

October 25, 2019

Yma Sumac was a noted Peruvian soprano. In the 1950s, she was one of the most famous proponents of exotica music and became an international success, based on the merits of her extreme vocal range, which was said to be “well over four octaves” and was sometimes claimed to span even five octaves at her peak.

Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo was born on September 10, 1922, in Ichocán, Cajamarca, Peru. While one of her “official” websites says that the “official date” of her birth is September 10, the date on a different “official” website is given as September 13, 1922. Other dates mentioned in her various biographies range from 1921 to 1929. Some sources claim that she was not born in Ichocán, but in a nearby village, or possibly in Lima, and that her family owned a ranch in Ichocán where she spent most of her early life. Stories published in the 1950s claimed that she was an Incan princess, directly descended from Atahualpa. A story claiming that she was born Amy Camus?”Yma Sumac” backwards?in Brooklyn or Canada was fabricated while she was performing in New York City in the early 1950s.

Chávarri adopted the stage name of Imma Sumack before she left South America to go to the U.S. The stage name was based on her mother’s name, which was derived from Ima Shumaq, Quechua for “how beautiful!” although in interviews she claimed it meant “beautiful flower” or “beautiful girl”.

Imma Sumack first appeared on radio in 1942 and married composer and bandleader, on June 6 of the same year. She recorded at least eighteen tracks of Peruvian folk songs in Argentina in 1943. These early recordings for the Odeon label featured Moisés Vivanco’s group, Compañía Peruana de Arte, a group of forty-six Indian dancers, singers, and musicians.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Woody Woodpecker

October 25, 2019

Woody Woodpecker is an animated cartoon character, an anthropomorphic acorn woodpecker who appeared in theatrical short films produced by the Walter Lantz animation studio and distributed by Universal Pictures. Though not the first of the screwball characters that became popular in the 1940s, Woody is perhaps the most indicative of the type.

Woody was created in 1940 by storyboard artist Ben “Bugs” Hardaway, who had previously laid the groundwork for two other screwball characters, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, at the Warner Bros. cartoon studio in the late 1930s. Woody’s character and design would evolve over the years, from an insane bird with an unusually garish design to a more refined looking and acting character in the vein of the later Chuck Jones version of Bugs Bunny. Woody was originally voiced by prolific voice actor Mel Blanc, who was succeeded by Ben Hardaway and later by Grace Stafford, wife of Walter Lantz.

Lantz produced theatrical cartoons longer than most of his contemporaries, and Woody Woodpecker remained a staple of Universal’s release schedule until 1972, when Lantz finally closed down his studio. The character has been revived since then only for special productions and occasions, save for one new Saturday morning cartoon, The New Woody Woodpecker Show, for the Fox Network in the late 1990s/early 2000s.

Woody Woodpecker cartoons were first broadcast on television in 1957 under the title The Woody Woodpecker Show, which featured Lantz cartoons bookended by new footage of Woody and live-action footage of Lantz. Woody has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 7000 Hollywood Boulevard. He also made a cameo alongside many other famous cartoon characters in the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

William Steinberg

October 25, 2019

William Steinberg was a German-American conductor.

Steinberg was born Hans Wilhelm Steinberg in Cologne, Germany. He was an early protégé of Otto Klemperer. Steinberg left Germany in 1936 for the British Mandate of Palestine, which is now Israel, because the Nazis had removed him from the Frankfurt Opera in 1933 and had limited him to conducting all-Jewish orchestras. Eventually, with founder Bronislaw Huberman, Steinberg became the first conductor of the Palestine Symphony orchestra, which would later be known as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Steinberg was conducting the orchestra when Arturo Toscanini visited there in 1936. So delighted was Toscanini with Steinberg’s preliminary groundwork for his concerts that he chose him as his assistant in preparing for the NBC broadcasts. In 1930, in Frankfurt, he conducted the world premiere of Schönberg’s Von heute auf morgen.

Steinberg left for the United States in 1938. He conducted a number of concerts with the NBC Symphony from 1938 to 1940. He became music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1945 to 1952. He is best known for his tenure as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 1952 to 1976. From 1958 to 1960 he conducted the London Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1969 to 1972 he was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with whom he had achieved earlier success as guest conductor. He was also principal guest conductor of the New York Philharmonic from 1966 to 1968. Steinberg guest-conducted most of the major US orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, and Philadelphia Orchestra. Abroad he conducted the Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Montreal Symphony, and WDR Symphony of Cologne. In addition, Steinberg recorded Don Juan and his own suite from Der Rosenkavalier with Walter Legge’s Philharmonia Orchestra in the summer of 1957. The following year he conducted them in concerts at Lucerne before assuming the conductorship of the London Philharmonic. He recorded for Capitol Records, Command Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, Everest Records, Musicraft with the Buffalo Philharmonic – the premiere recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, and RCA Victor. Steinberg was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. He was also a member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music. He died in New York City.

William Steinberg was noted throughout his career for his straightforward yet expressive musical style, leading familiar works with integrity and authority such that they sounded fresh and vital. Despite the dynamic drive of his interpretations, his podium manner was a model of restraint. Referring to some of his more acrobatic colleagues, Steinberg remarked, “The more they move around, the quieter I get.”

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

William Wyler

October 25, 2019

William Wyler was a leading American motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter. He was regarded as second only to John Ford as a “master craftsman of cinema.”

Notable works included Ben-Hur, The Best Years of Our Lives, and Mrs. Miniver, all of which won Wyler Academy Awards for Best Director, and also won Best Picture. He earned his first Oscar nomination for directing Dodsworth in 1936, starring Walter Huston and Mary Astor, “sparking a 20-year run of almost unbroken greatness.”

Film historian Ian Freer calls Wyler a “bona fide perfectionist,” whose penchant for retakes and an attempt to hone every last nuance, “became the stuff of legend.” His ability to direct a string of classic literary adaptations into huge box-office and critical successes made him one of “Hollywood’s most bankable moviemakers” during the 1930s and 1940s.

Other popular films include Funny Girl, How to Steal a Million, The Big Country, Roman Holiday, The Heiress, The Letter, The Westerner, Wuthering Heights, Jezebel, Dodsworth, A House Divided, and Hell’s Heroes .

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Winnie the Pooh

October 25, 2019

The Boulevard was Buzzing as Winnie The Pooh Celebrated 80th Anniversary with 2,308th Star on The Hollywood Walk Of Fame
Honorary Mayor of Hollywood Johnny Grant presided over the ceremony
Guest included Robert Iger, President and CEO of The Walt Disney Company
6834 Hollywood Boulevard on Tuesday, April 11, 2006

BIOGRAPHY

For over 80 years, Winnie the Pooh has grown to be one of the most cherished characters within the world of entertainment. He was born in 1925 in the imagination of author A.A. Milne, who captured his son’s love of a stuffed bear in his first Pooh story published in the London Evening News. His first appearance on the big screen was in 1966 in the Disney featurette -“Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree.” Pooh’s popularity has only continued to touch the hearts and minds of children of all ages through films, books, DVD’s consumer products, live shows, theme park attractions and television around the world. No other character captures the true essence of childhood as much as the loveable bear who is a symbol to the child in all of us.

On the same day as the Walk of Fame ceremony, Walt Disney Home Entertainment will be releasing out of the fabled Disney Vault, “Pooh’s Grand Adventure-The Search for Christopher Robin,” for the first time ever, digitally re-mastered, on DVD.

Winnie the Pooh is one of a select few animated characters to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame-an honor that is perfectly timed to the global 18-month long Pooh anniversary celebration Disney kicked off in December 2005 which includes new entertainment and special-edition product in honor of Winnie the Pooh. Disney has also created Pooh Friendship Wishbands to benefit the Make-a-Wish Foundation and encourage the public to ” be a star in the life of a child.” The Wishbands help to spread the Pooh message of friendship and will be sold on WinniethePooh.com.

1960’s
Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966)
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968)

1970’s
Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too! (1974)
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)

1980’s
Winnie the Pooh and a Day for Eeyore (1983)
“Welcome to Pooh Corner” (1983)
“The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh” (1988)
Winnie the Pooh Friendship: Tigger-ific Tales (1988)

1990’s
Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue (1990) (TV)
Winnie the Pooh & Christmas Too (1991) (TV)
Winnie the Pooh Playtime: Pooh Party (1994)
Winnie the Pooh Playtime: Cowboy Pooh (1994)
Winnie the Pooh Playtime: Detective Tigger (1994)
Winnie the Pooh Un-Valentine’s Day (1995)
Boo to You Too! Winnie the Pooh (1996) (TV)
Winnie the Pooh Learning: Growing Up (1996)
Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin (1997)
Winnie the Pooh Learning: Helping Others (1997)
Winnie the Pooh Learning: Making Friends (1998)
The Making of ‘Winnie the Pooh’ (1998)
A Winnie the Pooh Thanksgiving (1998)
Winnie the Pooh Learning: Sharing & Caring (1998)
Winnie the Pooh Playtime: Fun ‘N Games (1998)
Winnie the Pooh Playtime: Happy Pooh Day (1998)
Winnie the Pooh: A Valentine for You (1999) (TV)
“History’s Lost & Found” (1999)
Winnie the Pooh Friendship: Clever Little Piglet (1999)
Winnie the Pooh Friendship: Pooh Wishes (1999)
Winnie the Pooh Learning: Working Together (1999)
Winnie the Pooh: Imagine That, Christopher Robin (1999)
Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving (1999)
Winnie the Pooh Franken Pooh (1999)

2000’s
The Tigger Movie (2000)
Winnie the Pooh Spookable Pooh (2001)
When Winnie the Pooh Was Very Very Young (2001)
“The Book of Pooh” (2001)
Winnie the Pooh: A Very Merry Pooh Year (2002)
The Story Behind the Masterpiece (2002)
Kingdom Hearts (2002)
Cialo (2003)
A Bear Named Winnie (2004) (TV)
Winnie the Pooh: Springtime with Roo (2004)
Pooh’s Heffalump Movie (2005)
Pooh’s Heffalump Halloween Movie (2005)

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Winona Ryder

October 25, 2019

Winona Laura Horowitz, better known under her professional name Winona Ryder, is an American actress. She made her film debut in the 1986 film Lucas. Ryder’s first significant role came in Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice as a goth teenager, which won her critical and commercial recognition. After making various appearances in film and television, Ryder continued her career with the cult film Heathers, a controversial satire of teenage suicide and high school life, which drew Ryder further critical and commercial attention.

After playing diverse roles in numerous well-received films, Ryder won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and an Academy Award nomination in the same category for her role in The Age of Innocence in 1993, as well as another Academy Award nomination for Little Women the following year for Best Actress. In 2000, Ryder received a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, California.

Ryder’s personal life has been widely reported by the media. Her relationship with actor Johnny Depp in the early 1990s was highly publicized and received much scrutiny by the media and tabloid press. A much talked about 2001 shoplifting incident led to a four-year hiatus from acting. She has also revealed her personal struggle with anxiety and depression, briefly checking into a clinic. In 2006, Ryder returned to the screen, and some media outlets called her performance “a remarkable comeback” to acting.

Born Winona Laura Horowitz in Olmsted County, Minnesota, she was named after the nearby city of Winona. She was given her middle name, Laura, because of her parents’ friendship with Aldous Huxley’s wife, Laura Huxley. Her mother, Cynthia Palmer, is an author, as well as a video producer and editor. Her father, Michael Horowitz, is an author, editor, publisher and antiquarian bookseller. Ryder has described herself as Jewish. Her grandparents were immigrants from Russia and Romania; her father’s family was originally named “Tomchin”, but was wrongly assigned the surname “Horowitz” by U.S. immigration officials at Ellis Island. Ryder’s mother is a Buddhist and her father is an atheist. Ryder has one full sibling, a younger brother, Uri, an older half-brother, Jubal, and an older half-sister, Sunyata. Ryder’s family friends included her godfather, LSD guru Timothy Leary, beat poets Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and science fiction novelist Philip K. Dick.