25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

Sidney Poitier

October 25, 2019

Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat. He broke through as a star in acclaimed performances in American films and plays, which, by consciously defying racial stereotyping, gave a new dramatic credibility for black actors to mainstream film audiences in the Western world.

In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. The significance of this achievement was later bolstered in 1967 when he starred in three well-received films?To Sir, with Love; In the Heat of the Night; and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?making him the top box office star of that year. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Poitier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking 22nd on the list of 25.

Poitier has directed a number of popular movies such as A Piece of the Action; Uptown Saturday Night, and Let’s Do It Again, and Stir Crazy. In 2002, 38 years after receiving the Best Actor Award, Poitier was chosen by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to receive an Honorary Award, designated “To Sidney Poitier in recognition of his remarkable accomplishments as an artist and as a human being.”

Since 1997 he has been the Bahamian ambassador to Japan. On August 12, 2009, Sidney Poitier was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States of America’s highest civilian honor, by President Barack Obama.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Siegmund Lubin

October 25, 2019

Siegmund Lubin was an American businessman and motion picture pioneer.

Born Siegmund Lubszynski in Breslau, Silesia, Germany, to a German Jewish family, in 1876 he emigrated to the United States, where he became a successful optical shop owner in the city of Philadelphia. His business led to a fascination with Thomas Edison’s new motion picture invention, and eventually Lubin entered the film business. He started by making his own camera/projector combination, which he sold with reasonable success. However, in 1896 he began distributing films for Edison, including the famous The Kiss. The following year, Lubin started making films himself and in 1902 formed the Lubin Manufacturing Company, incorporating it in 1909. America’s insatiable appetite for film entertainment saw Lubin quickly build a massive filmmaking empire. By 1910 his company had constructed “Lubinville,” one of the largest and most modern film studios in the world. Headquartered in Philadelphia, the company had secondary studios around the United States and became a major force in the domestic and international film industry.

However, the company’s downfall came even faster than its meteoric rise. Its slowness relative to its competitors in shifting to quality feature-length films, plus a disastrous fire at its main studio in June 1914 that destroyed the negatives for a number of unreleased new films, severely hurt the business. When World War I broke out in Europe in September of that year, Lubin Studios, and other American filmmakers, lost a large source of income from these foreign sales. The dissolution of the Motion Picture Patents Company spelled the end of Lubin’s business, and after making more than a thousand motion pictures, on September

25 Oct 2019
Television Permalink

Sidney Sheldon

October 25, 2019

Sidney Sheldon was an Academy Award-winning American writer. His TV works spanned a 20-year period during which he created The Patty Duke Show, I Dream of Jeannie and Hart to Hart, but it was not until after he turned 50 and began writing best-selling novels such as Master of the Game, The Other Side of Midnight and Rage of Angels that he became most famous.

Sheldon was born Sidney Schechtel in Chicago, Illinois, to parents of Russian Jewish ancestry, Ascher “Otto” Schechtel, manager of a jewelry store, and Natalie Marcus. At 10, he made his first sale, $5 for a poem. During the Depression, he worked at a variety of jobs, and after graduating from Denver East High School, attended Northwestern University and contributed short plays to drama groups.

In 1937 he moved to Hollywood, California, where he reviewed scripts and collaborated on a number of B movies. Sheldon enlisted in the military during World War II as a pilot in the War Training Service, a branch of the Army Air Corps, However, his unit was disbanded before Sheldon could see any action. He then returned to civilian life and moved to New York where he began writing musicals for the Broadway stage while continuing to write screenplays for both MGM Studios and Paramount Pictures. He earned a reputation as a prolific writer; for example, at one time he had three musicals on Broadway: a rewritten The Merry Widow, Jackpot, and Dream with Music. His success on Broadway brought him back to Hollywood where his first assignment was The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay of 1947.

When television became the new hot medium, he decided to try his hand in it. “I suppose I needed money,” he remembered. “I met Patty Duke one day at lunch. So I produced The Patty Duke Show, and I did something nobody else in TV ever did. For seven years, I wrote almost every single episode of the series.” He also wrote for the series Hart to Hart and Nancy. Most famously he wrote the series I Dream of Jeannie, which he also created and produced, which lasted for five seasons from 1965?1970. It was “During the last year of I Dream of Jeannie, I decided to try a novel,” he said in 1982. “Each morning from 9 until noon, I had a secretary at the studio take all calls. I mean every single call. I wrote each morning – or rather, dictated – and then I faced the TV business.”

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Sidney Lanfield

October 25, 2019

Sidney Lanfield was a film director known for directing comedy films and later television programs.

The one-time musician’s first directing job was for the Fox Film Corporation in 1930; he went on to direct a number of films for 20th Century Fox. In 1941, he directed the Fred Astaire film You’ll Never Get Rich for Columbia Pictures, then moved to Paramount Pictures. There Lanfield worked on a number of film comedies. He is probably best remembered for directing actor Bob Hope in a number of films including My Favorite Blonde, Let’s Face It, Where There’s Life, and The Lemon Drop Kid. Lanfield’s most profitable film, however, was the first teaming of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson in 1939’s The Hound of the Baskervilles.

In the early 1950s the reputedly strict taskmaster-director moved to television where his vaudeville and comic background in films were put to use in television comedies including McHale’s Navy and The Addams Family.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Sidney Blackmer

October 25, 2019

Sidney Alderman Blackmer was an American actor.

Blackmer was born and raised in Salisbury, North Carolina. He started off in an insurance and financial business but gave up on it. While working as a builder’s labourer on a new building, he saw a Pearl White serial being filmed and immediately decided to go into acting. Blackmer went to New York hoping to act on the stage. While in the city, he took jobs and extra work at various film studios at the then motion picture capital, Fort Lee, New Jersey, including a bit part in the highly popular serial, The Perils of Pauline. He made his Broadway debut in 1917, but his career was interrupted by service in the U.S. military in World War I. After the war, he returned to the theatre and in 1929 returned to motion pictures and went on to be a major character actor in more than 120 films. He won the 1950 Tony Award for Best Actor for his role in the Broadway play, Come Back, Little Sheba.

In film, Blackmer is remembered for his more than a dozen portrayals of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and for his role in the Academy Award-winning 1968 Roman Polanski film about urban New York witches, Rosemary’s Baby, in which he played an over-solicitous neighbour.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Sid Grauman

October 25, 2019

Sidney Patrick Grauman was an American showman who created one of Southern California’s most recognizable and visited landmarks, Grauman’s Chinese Theater. He was the son of David Grauman who died in 1921 in Los Angeles, California and Rosa Goldsmith. A failed prospector in the Klondike gold rush, he had owned movie theaters in Alaska and Northern California, including San Francisco, before building three noteworthy Los Angeles movie palaces: the Million Dollar Theatre, the Egyptian Theatre, and finally the Chinese Theatre, noted for its extravagant exterior design and its forecourt containing celebrity hand- and footprints. Grauman’s Chinese Theatre is now one of the ten most visited places in Southern California. He died in Los Angeles on March 5, 1950.

Grauman was known far and wide among Hollywood’s leading stars and was considered to be a close friend to many, including Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. It was in Grauman’s office at the Million Dollar Theatre that Arbuckle called the San Francisco police to turn himself in.

Grauman received an honorary Academy Award in 1949 for raising the standard for film exhibition. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6379 Hollywood Blvd. He was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

25 Oct 2019
Live Performance Permalink

Siegfried & Roy

October 25, 2019

Siegfried & Roy are two German-American entertainers known for their long running show of illusions in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

The duo gave their final performance on February 28, 2009, after a hiatus of over five years.

Their show was famous for including white tigers, and due to their dependence on white tigers for their act, the duo started a tiger-breeding program.

Siegfried Fischbacher and Roy Horn were born and grew up in Germany. They emigrated to the United States and became naturalized citizens.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Sherwood Schwartz

October 25, 2019

Sherwood Schwartz was honored with the 2,356th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Hollywood Chamber of Commerce President and CEO, Leron Gubler, presided over the ceremony. Guests included Florence Henderson and Dawn Wells.

6541 Hollywood Boulevard on March 7, 2008.

BIOGRAPHY

Sherwood Schwartz started writing professionally on "The Bob Hope Radio Show" in 1939. After four years with Bob Hope, Sherwood joined the Armed Forces Radio Service (A.F.R.S.) for four years, writing various Army shows like "Command Performance," "Mail Call," etc., working with just about every major star in the entertainment world.

After the war, he went back to radio and "The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet." In radio he has also written for Danny Thomas, Alan Young and "The Beulah Show."

Then came television.

In his long career in TV (58 years), Sherwood Schwartz has written, re-written, and/or produced more than 700 TV shows, starting with "I Married Joan," "The Red Skelton Show," and "My Favorite Martian," before creating, writing, and producing series of his own.

Sherwood received the highest honor in television, the Emmy Award, in 1961 for "The Red Skelton Show," and the following year, another Emmy nomination.

His scripts have the unique distinction of receiving five consecutive nominations for awards from the Writers Guild of America in comedy, variety, and play adaptation, receiving the WGA award in the comedy category.

In 1963, Sherwood created, wrote and produced "Gilligan's Island," a TV series which has become a cult classic.

"Gilligan's Island" led to three two-hour TV movies. One of them, "Rescue from Gilligan's Island," was the first of the so-called "reunion shows" and was the highest rated movie-of-the-week in 1978.

In 1969, Sherwood created, wrote and produced "The Brady Bunch," television's first blended family show. It, too, has become a cult classic, leading to several reunion shows.

In 1988, Sherwood and his son Lloyd, wrote and produced a two-hour TV film, "A Very Brady Christmas," which was the highest rated TV film that year.

In 1994, Sherwood and his son, Lloyd, produced the feature film, "The Brady Bunch Movie," for Paramount.

On March 12, 2004, "Gilligan's Island" received the annual "Pop Culture" award from TV Land. That same week, Sherwood was awarded the prestigious William S. Paley Award with "A Salute to Sherwood Schwartz."

In 2007, "The Brady Bunch" was also awarded TV Land's "Pop Culture" award. That same year, along with his son, Lloyd, and his daughter, Hope Juber, Sherwood produced "Still Brady After All These Years: A Thirty-Five Year Anniversary Special" which won a daytime Emmy Nomination.

In addition to TV and films, Sherwood has written several produced plays. Among them, "Mr. and Mrs.," a comedy; "The Trial of Othello," a courtroom drama; "Gilligan's Island: The Musical," (with his son, Lloyd with music and lyrics by his daughter, Hope, and her husband, Laurence Juber.) His latest play, "Rockers," a comedy-drama had a production last year at Theatre West. This June, a new musical "A Very Brady Musical" with music and lyrics by Hope and Laurence Juber will have its world premiere at Theatre West.

Sherwood Schwartz co-wrote the theme song for "Gilligan's Island" with George Wyle and co-wrote the themes song for "The Brady Bunch" with Frank DeVol.

Sherwood is a member of the Writers Guild of America, the Dramatists Guild and A.S.C.A.P, the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Shirley Temple

October 25, 2019

In memory of Walk of Famer Shirley Temple, flowers were placed on a special Hollywood Walk of Fame star at the Gateway to the Walk of Fame on Tuesday, February 11, 2014 at 10:30 AM PST. The star is located at the center island at La Brea and Hollywood where the Tribute to Women in Film Gazebo sits.



Currently relocated for repairs, Shirley Temple star in the category of Motion Pictures will be placed at its original location at 1500 Vine St.
“Shirley, you brought smiles to our lives. Rest in peace, from the Hollywood Walk of Fame.” Leron Gubler, President &CEOof the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce signed the card on behalf of the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Shirley Temple is an American film and television actress, autobiographer, and public servant. She began her screen career in 1932 at the age of three, and, in 1934, skyrocketed to superstardom in Bright Eyes, a feature film designed specifically for her talents. She received a special Academy Award in February 1935, and blockbusting super hits such as Curly Top and Heidi followed year after year during the mid to late 1930s. Licensed merchandise that capitalized on her wholesome image included dolls, dishes, and clothing. Her box office popularity waned as she reached adolescence and she left the film industry at the age of twelve to attend high school. She appeared in a few films of varying quality in her mid to late teens, and retired completely from the silver screen in 1950 at the age of twenty-one. She was the top box-office draw four years in a row in a Motion Picture Herald poll.

In 1958, Temple returned to show business with a two-season television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations. She made guest appearances on various television shows in the early 1960s and filmed a sitcom pilot that was never released. She sat on the boards of many corporations and organizations including The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, and the National Wildlife Federation. In 1967, she ran unsuccessfully for United States Congress, and was appointed United States Ambassador to Ghana in 1974 and to Czechoslovakia in 1989. In 1988, she published her autobiography, Child Star. Temple is the recipient of many awards and honors including Kennedy Center Honors and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

In 1945, seventeen-year-old Temple married Army Air Corps sergeant John Agar, who, after being discharged from the service, entered the acting profession. The couple made two films together before Temple divorced him on the grounds of mental cruelty in 1949. She received custody of their daughter Linda Susan and the restoration of her maiden name in the process. In January 1950, Temple met the conservative scion of a patrician California family and United States Navy Silver Star recipient Charles Alden Black. She married him in December 1950 following the finalization of her divorce and retired from films the same day, to become a homemaker. Her son, Charles Alden Black, Jr. was born in 1952 and her daughter, Lori Alden Black was born in 1954.

Weighing six pounds eight ounces, Shirley Temple was delivered without complications on Monday April 23, 1928, at the Santa Monica Hospital in Santa Monica, California by Dr. Leonard John Madsen to George Francis Temple and his wife Gertrude Amelia Krieger Temple.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Radio Permalink

Shirley Booth

October 25, 2019

Shirley Booth was an American actress. Primarily a theatre actress, Booth’s Broadway career began in 1925. Her most significant success was as Lola Delaney, in the drama Come Back, Little Sheba, for which she received a Tony Award in 1950. She made her film debut, reprising her role in the 1952 film version, and won both the Academy Award for Best Actress and Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance. Despite her successful entry into films, she preferred stage acting, and made only four more films.

From 1961 until 1966, she played the title role in the sitcom Hazel, for which she won two Emmy Awards, and was acclaimed for her performance in the 1966 television production of

The Glass Menagerie. She retired in 1974.

Booth was born as Marjory Ford in New York City, the daughter of Albert James Ford and Virginia Martha Wright. By the time of the 1910 census in April 1910, aged 11, she was known as Thelma by her family. She had at least one sibling, a younger sister, Jean