25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Richard Dreyfuss

October 25, 2019

Richard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Stakeout, Always, What About Bob?, and Mr. Holland’s Opus.

Dreyfuss won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1977 for The Goodbye Girl, and was nominated in 1995 for Mr. Holland’s Opus. He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and was nominated in 2002 for Screen Actors Guild Awards in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries categories.

Dreyfuss was born Richard Stephen Dreyfus in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Norman, an attorney and restaurateur, and Geraldine, a peace activist. Dreyfuss is Jewish and his surname is of Yiddish origin, believed to originate in the German city of Trier, which had a large Jewish population in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. The Latin name for the city was “Treveris”, of which Dreyfuss is a variant. He commented that he “grew up thinking that Alfred Dreyfus and are of the same family.” His family moved to California when he was nine.

Dreyfuss’s acting career began during his youth at the Beverly Hills Jewish Center. He debuted in the TV production In Mama’s House when he was fifteen. He attended the San Fernando Valley State College for a year. He was a conscientious objector during the Vietnam War and worked in alternate service for two years as a clerk in a Los Angeles hospital. During this time, he acted in a few small TV roles on shows like Peyton Place, Gidget, Bewitched and The Big Valley. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he also performed on stage on Broadway, off-Broadway, repertory, and improvisational theater.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Richard Donner

October 25, 2019

Richard Donner and Lauren Shuler Donner were honored with a rare double ceremony for the 2,372nd and 2,373rd stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Leron Gubler, President and CEO of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce presided over the ceremony. Guests included Dakota Fanning, Bob Daly, Rene Russo, Steven Spielberg, Nate Parker, Tristan Wilds, Gina Prince Blythewood, Gavin Hood, and many others.

6712 Hollywood Boulevard on October 16, 2008.

BIOGRAPHY

Director/producer Richard Donner is the creative force behind some of the most popular movies of the last twenty years: “The Omen”, “Superman”, the “Lethal Weapon” series and “Maverick”.

After moving to Los Angeles, he won the assignment of directing his friend Steve McQueen for the television series “Wanted: Dead or Alive”. In 1961, he directed Charles Bronson in “X-15,” a melodrama about Air Force test pilots. He continued directing such television series as “The Twilight Zone,” “The Fugitive,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “Kojak”.

During the 1970’s, Donner directed several acclaimed movies-of-the-week, and in 1975 directed his first successful major feature, “The Omen”, which was released the following year to record-setting business. He next took on the task of transferring the adventures of the most popular pulp hero in five decades to film. Under his direction, “Superman -The Movie” became one of the all-time biggest international hits.

Four films followed the success of “Superman”: “Inside Moves”; “The Toy” starring Jackie Gleason and Richard Pryor; “Ladyhawke”, by far his favorite for many reasons, (most importantly because he fell in love with producer Lauren Shuler, who later became his wife) and “The Goonies”, produced with Steven Spielberg.

In “Lethal Weapon”, Donner introduced two cops who would become the Cinema’s most popular crime fighting duo, played by Danny Glover and Mel Gibson. “Lethal Weapon 2” proved even more successful, and the two stars teamed up for “Lethal Weapon 3”, released in May of 1992, which went on to become one of the highest-grossing pictures of all time, earning more than $150 million. “Lethal Weapon 4”, with all the favorites, Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Rene Russo and Joe Pesci, was released in July of 1998, this time introducing Chris Rock and Jet Li. The Lethal Weapon quartet has grossed close to a billion dollars.

Donner’s other films include: “Scrooged,” “Radio Flyer,” “Lost Boys,” “Maverick,” “Assassins,” “Timeline,” “Superman II, The Richard Donner Cut and Warner Bros.'”16 Blocks.”

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Richard Dix

October 25, 2019

Richard Dix was an American motion picture actor who achieved popularity in both silent and sound film. His standard on-screen image was that of the rugged and stalwart hero.

Born Ernst Carlton Brimmer on July 18, 1893, in St. Paul, Minnesota. There he was educated, and at the desires of his father, studied to be a surgeon. His obvious acting talent in his school dramatic club led him to leading roles in most of the school plays. At 6′ 0″ and 180 pounds, Dix excelled in sports, especially football and baseball. These skills would serve him well in the vigorous film roles he would go on to play. After a year at the University of Minnesota he took a position at a bank, spending his evenings training for the stage. His professional start was with a local stock company, and this led to similar work in New York City. The death of his father left him with a mother and sister to support. He went to Los Angeles, became leading man for the Morosco Stock Company and his success there got him a contract with Paramount Pictures.

After his move to Hollywood, where he began a career in Western movies. One of the few actors to successfully bridge the transition from silent films to talkies, Dix’s best-remembered early role was in Cecil B. Demille’s silent version of The Ten Commandments. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1931 for his performance as Yancey Cravat in Cimarron, in which he shared top-billing with Irene Dunne. Cimarron, based on the popular novel by Edna Ferber, took the Best Picture award. Dix starred in another RKO adventure, The Lost Squadron.

A memorable role for Dix was in the 1935 British futuristic film The Tunnel. An original poster for this film was catalogued with an estimated value of between $2000 – $3000 by Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas in the Summer of 2006. Dix starred in The Great Jasper and Blind Alibi in the late 1930s. His popular RKO Radio Pictures co-star in Blind Alibi was Ace the Wonder Dog. Dix’s human co-stars were Whitney Bourne, Eduardo Ciannelli; the film was directed by Lew Landers.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television 4 Comments Permalink

Richard Denning

October 25, 2019 4 Comments

Richard Denning, was an American actor who starred in such movies as Creature from the Black Lagoon and An Affair to Remember, and on radio with Lucille Ball as her husband George Cooper in My Favorite Husband, the forerunner of television’s I Love Lucy, for which Denning was replaced by Ball’s real-life husband, Desi Arnaz.

Denning was born as Louis Albert Heindrich Denninger, Jr. in Poughkeepsie, New York. He became an actor, best-known for his recurring role as Governor of Hawaii Paul Jameson in the CBS series Hawaii Five-O. He also starred as the title character in the detective series Michael Shayne and shared title billing with Barbara Britton in the detective series Mr. and Mrs. North. He appeared three times on the ABC anthology series Crossroads.

According to Denning, after his interrupting his career to enlist in the military during World War II, upon his return he experienced a full 18 months before Paramount Pictures put him back to work. During that time period, Denning and his famiy lived in a mobile home that he alternately parked at Malibu and Palm Springs. His period of unemployment ended when he was hired to star on the radio opposite Lucille Ball in My Favorite Husband.

Denning was already retired and living on the island of Maui with his wife, when producer Leonard Freeman telephoned him with an offer to appear as the Governor in the new series Hawaii Five-O. Freeman guaranteed Denning five-hour days and a four-day work week in order to snag him.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Recording Permalink

Richard Crooks

October 25, 2019

Richard Alexander Crooks was an American tenor and a leading singer at the New York Metropolitan Opera. He had a sweet-toned voice and many critics consider him to be the best lyric tenor ever produced by the United States.

After several busy concert seasons as an oratorio and song recital specialist, including the American premier of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Crooks traveled to Germany where he made his operatic debut in Hamburg as Cavaradossi in Puccini’s Tosca in 1927. After his tour in other European cities such as Berlin, Crooks returned to the United States and made his American debut in 1930 in Philadelphia. He became a star of the Metropolitan Opera, specializing in French and Italian operas. He participated in the farewell gala on March 29, 1936, for Italian soprano Lucrezia Bori, which was broadcast nationally and preserved on transcription discs.

From 1928 to 1945, Crooks was the host of “The Voice of Firestone” radio broadcasts, in which he sang operatic arias, patriotic songs, folk songs, and popular hits such as “People Will Say We’re in Love” from Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! in 1943. He also appeared on radio broadcasts with Bing Crosby, who remained a friend until Crooks’s death.

Serious health problems forced Crooks to retire in early 1945. He continued to sing, however, at his church and elsewhere. Some of his performances were taped. He had married his childhood sweeetheart and spent his later years in Portola Valley, California. An entire room in his house was devoted to framed, autographed photographs of singers, conductors, and U.S. presidents he had known. In conversations, he often praised two of the other great tenors he had heard in person: Enrico Caruso and Jussi Björling. Like other singers of his generation, he was not impressed with many of the opera singers in the 1950s and 1960s. He was diagnosed with cancer in the mid-1960s and battled the disease until his death.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Richard Barthelmess

October 25, 2019

Richard “Dick” Semler Barthelmess was an Oscar-nominated silent film star.

The son of an actress, Barthelmess was educated at Hudson River Military Academy at Nyack and Trinity College at Hartford, Connecticut. His father died when he was a baby and his mother earned her living on stage, so he worked in theatres in his early days, between schooling, doing “walk-ons”. This led to acting in college, doing amateur productions. Russian actress Alla Nazimova, a friend of the family, had been taught English by Barthelmess’s mother. Nazimova in return convinced Barthelmess to try acting professionally and he made his first film appearance in 1916 in the serial Gloria’s Romance as an extra. His next role, in War Brides opposite Alla Nazimova, attracted the attention of legendary director D. W. Griffith, who offered him several important roles, finally casting him opposite Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms and Way Down East. In the coming years, he was one of Hollywood’s highest paid performers, starring in such classics as The Patent Leather Kid and The Noose ; he was nominated for Best Actor at the first Academy Awards for his performance in both these films, and he won a Special Citation for producing The Patent Leather Kid. He also founded his own production company, Inspiration Film Company, together with Charles Duell and Henry King. One of their films, Tol’able David, in which Barthelmess starred as a teenage mailman who finds courage, was a major success, and is considered by many to be his finest performance.

With the advent of the sound era, Barthelmess’ fortunes changed. He made several films in the new medium, most notably Son of the Gods, The Dawn Patrol, The Last Flight, and The Cabin in the Cotton, Central Airport, and a supporting role as Rita Hayworth’s character’s husband in Only Angels Have Wings. However, he failed to maintain the stardom of his silent film days and gradually left entertainment. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve in World War II, served as a lieutenant commander, and never returned to film, preferring instead to live off his investments. He died of cancer in 1963 and was interred at the Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, Westchester County, New York, USA.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures Permalink

Richard Basehart

October 25, 2019

John Richard Basehart was an American actor. He starred in the 1960s television science fiction drama Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, in the role of Admiral Harriman Nelson.

One of his most notable film roles was the acrobat known as “the Fool” in the acclaimed Italian film La strada directed by Federico Fellini. He also appeared as the killer in the film noir classic He Walked by Night, as a psychotic member of the Hatfield clan in Roseanna McCoy, as Ishmael in Moby Dick, and in the drama Decision Before Dawn. He was married to Italian Academy Award-nominated actress Valentina Cortese, with whom he had one son before their divorce in 1960. Cortese and Basehart also costarred in Robert Wise’s The House on Telegraph Hill. Basehart was also noted for his deep, distinctive voice and was prolific as a narrator of many television and movie projects ranging from features to documentaries. In 1980, Basehart narrated the mini-series written by Peter Arnett called that covered Vietnam and its battles from the Japanese surrender on September 2, 1945 to the final American embassy evacuation on April 30, 1975. He appeared in the pilot episode of the television series Knight Rider as billionaire Wilton Knight. He is the narrator at the beginning of the show’s credits. In 1971, Basehart played “Captain Sligo”, a comical Irishman with a pet buffalo who negotiates a flawed but legal cattle purchase and unconventionally courts a widow with two children, played by Salome Jens, in CBS’s western series, Gunsmoke, with James Arness. Basehart appeared in an episode of The Twilight Zone, Hawaii Five-O, and as Hannibal Applewood, an abusive schoolteacher in Little House on the Prairie in 1976. In 1972, he appeared in the Columbo episode Dagger of the Mind in which he and Honor Blackman played a husband-and-wife theatrical team who were loose parodies of Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh. In the feature realm, he played a supporting role as a doctor in Rage, a theatrical feature starring and directed by George C. Scott.

Basehart had also done a few movies made for TV including Sole Survivor and The Birdmen. Both were based on true stories during World War II.

25 Oct 2019
Motion Pictures, Television Permalink

Richard Crenna

October 25, 2019

Richard Donald Crenna was an American motion picture, television, and radio actor and occasional television director. He starred in such motion pictures as The Sand Pebbles, Wait Until Dark, Body Heat, the first three Rambo movies, Hot Shots! Part Deux, and The Flamingo Kid. Crenna played “Walter Denton” in the CBS radio and CBS-TV network series Our Miss Brooks, and “Luke McCoy” in ABC’s TV comedy series, The Real McCoys, which moved to CBS-TV in September 1962. Crenna was in one of the few TV political dramatic series Slattery’s People on CBS. Crenna played “Colonel Trautman” in the first three Rambo movies. He also played “Frank Skimmerhorn” in the critically acclaimed mini-series Centennial

Crenna was born in Los Angeles, the son of Edith J. Pollette Crenna, who was a hotel manager in Los Angeles, and Dominick Anthony Crenna, a pharmacist, both of whom were of Italian ancestry. Crenna attended the Virgil Junior High School, followed by Belmont High School in Los Angeles, after which he enrolled in the University of Southern California.

Crenna got his acting start on radio, appearing in My Favorite Husband, Boy Scout Jamboree, A Date With Judy, The Great Gildersleeve, and Our Miss Brooks. He remained with the cast of the latter show when it moved to television.

He guest starred on I Love Lucy with Janet Waldo and on NBC’s 1955-1956 Frontier anthology series in the lead role of the episode entitled “The Ten Days of John Leslie”.

25 Oct 2019
Recording, Television Permalink

Richard Chamberlain

October 25, 2019

Richard Chamberlain is an American actor of stage and screen who became a teen idol in the title role of the television show Dr. Kildare. George Richard Chamberlain was born in 1934 in Beverly Hills, California, the son of Elsa W. and Charles Chamberlain, who was a salesman. Chamberlain's father was well known within Alcoholics Anonymous, having traveled for years speaking at A.A. conventions. In 1952, Richard Chamberlain graduated from Beverly Hills High School and later attended Pomona College. Chamberlain co-founded a Los Angeles-based theatre group, Company of Angels, and began appearing in TV series in the 1950s. In 1961 he gained widespread fame as the young intern, Dr. Kildare, in the MGM television series of the same name. His singing ability also led to some hit singles in the early 1960s. One of them was the "Theme from Dr. Kildare" entitled "Three Stars Will Shine Tonight", which hit number 10 according to the Billboard Hot 100 Charts. Dr. Kildare ended in 1966, after which Chamberlain began performing on the theatre circuit. In 1966, he was cast opposite Mary Tyler Moore in the ill-fated Broadway musical Breakfast at Tiffany's, co-starring Priscilla Lopez, which, after an out-of-town tryout period, closed after only four previews. Decades later he returned to Broadway in revivals of My Fair Lady and The Sound of Music.

In 1968 he went to England where he played in repertory theatre and in the BBC's Portrait of a Lady adaptation, becoming recognized as a serious actor. In 1969 he starred opposite Katharine Hepburn in the film The Madwoman of Chaillot. While in England he took vocal coaching and in 1969 performed the title role of Hamlet with the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, becoming the first American to play the role since John Barrymore in 1929. He received excellent notices and reprised the role for television, for The Hallmark Hall of Fame, in 1970.

25 Oct 2019
Television Permalink

Richard Carlson

October 25, 2019

Richard Carlson was an American actor, television and film director, and screenwriter.

Born in Albert Lea, Minnesota, Carlson graduated from the University of Minnesota with an M.A. degree, Summa Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa. He later appeared on the Broadway stage in the 1930s after studying and teaching drama in Minnesota. His first film role was in the 1938 David O. Selznick comedy The Young in Heart. He worked as a freelance actor, appearing in many different film studio works, beginning in 1939 when he moved to California. Before the war, he appeared mostly in comedies and dramas, including The Little Foxes and Too Many Girls with Lucille Ball in 1940.

Like many actors, Carlson served in World War II, interrupting his acting career. After returning he found it difficult to win new roles, and his future in Hollywood remained in doubt until 1948. In that year, Carlson was cast in two low-budget film noir releases, Behind Locked Doors and The Amazing Mr. X. Despite this, real success in Hollywood eluded him until 1950, when he co-starred with Deborah Kerr and Stewart Granger in the highly successful jungle adventure film King Solomon’s Mines, shot on location in Africa. Other films followed, including the World War II naval action film Flat Top.

Carlson slowly began to rebuild his career, finding work in the newly emergent science fiction and horror B films of the 1950s. He appeared in a number of horror and science fiction films, including three 3-D films: The Maze and the classics It Came from Outer Space with Barbara Rush, Creature from the Black Lagoon with Julia Adams, and The Magnetic Monster. His success in the genre led him to the director’s chair for the 1954 sci-fi film Riders to the Stars, in which he also starred.