Arthur Godfrey

Arthur Morton Godfrey was an American radio and television broadcaster and entertainer who was sometimes introduced by his nickname, The Old Redhead. No television personality of the 1950s enjoyed more clout or fame than Godfrey until an on-camera incident undermined his folksy image and triggered a gradual decline; the then-ubiquitous Godfrey helmed two CBS-TV weekly series and a daily 90-minute television mid-morning show through most of the decade but by the early 1960s found himself reduced to hosting an occasional TV special.

Arguably the most prominent of the medium's early master commercial pitchmen, he was strongly identified with many of his many sponsors, especially Chesterfield cigarettes and Lipton Tea. After many years for Chesterfield, he severed the relationship during one of his television programs, when his doctors convinced him that his cancer was due to smoking. Subsequently, he became a prominent spokesman for anti-smoking education.

Godfrey was born in New York City in 1903. His mother, Kathryn Morton Godfrey, was from a well-to-do Oswego, New York, family which disapproved of her marriage to an older Englishman, Arthur Hanbury Godfrey. The senior Godfrey was a sportswriter and considered an expert on surrey and hackney horses, but the advent of the automobile devastated the family's finances. By 1915, when Arthur was 12, the family had moved to Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey. Arthur, the eldest of five children, tried to help them survive by working before and after school, but at age 14 left home to ease the financial burden on the family. By 15 he was a civilian typist at Camp Merritt, New Jersey and enlisted in the Navy two years later.

Godfrey's father was something of a "free thinker" by the standards of the era. He didn't disdain organized religion but insisted his children explore all faiths before deciding for themselves which to embrace. Their childhood friends included Catholic, Jewish and every kind of Protestant playmates. The senior Godfrey was friends with the Vanderbilts, but was as likely to spend his time talking with the shoeshine man or the hotdog vendor about issues of the day. In the book, Genius in the Family, written about their mother by Godfrey's youngest sister, Dorothy Gene, with the help of their sister, Kathy, it was reported that the angriest they ever saw their father was when a man on the ferry declared the Ku Klux Klan a civic organization vital to the good of the community. They rode the ferry back and forth three times, with their father arguing with the man that the Klan was a bunch of "Blasted, bigoted fools, led 'round by the nose!"

Antonio Banderas

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José Antonio Domínguez Banderas, better known as Antonio Banderas, is a Spanish film actor, film director, film producer and singer. He began his acting career at age 19 with a series of films by director Pedro Almodóvar and then appeared in high-profile Hollywood films including Assassins, Evita, Interview with the Vampire, Philadelphia, Desperado, The Mask of Zorro, Spy Kids and the Shrek sequels.

Banderas was born in Málaga, Andalusia, in Spain, in 1960; he was the son of Ana Banderas, a school teacher, and José Domínguez, a police officer in the Guardia Civil. He also has one younger brother, Francisco. He took his mother’s surname as his stage name. He initially wanted to play soccer professionally, but his dream ended when he broke his foot at age 14.

Banderas’ acting career began at the age of 19, when he worked in small theatres during the Movida period. He first gained wide attention of the Spanish audience through starring on a set of films by director Pedro Almodóvar between 1982 and 1990. Labyrinth of Passion where he plays a gay man, Matador where he plays a troubled young man who is confused about his sexuality, Law of Desire where he plays a psychotic gay stalker, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, and Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!, in which he performed his breakthrough role as “Ricky”.

He began appearing in American films in the early nineties; some of his earlier roles there included the 1992 film, The Mambo Kings, as well as a supporting role in the Oscar-winning 1993 film, Philadelphia. He appeared in several major Hollywood releases in 1995, including a starring role in the Robert Rodriguez-directed film, Desperado. In 1996, he starred alongside Madonna in Evita, an adaptation of the musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice in which he played the narrator, Che, a role originally played on Broadway by Mandy Patinkin. He also made success with his role as the legendary Mexican masked swordsman, Zorro in the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro, for which he was the first Spanish actor to portray the character after over 80 years since Zorro’s creation. In 2000, Ridley Scott offered Banderas a part as a peasant in his film, Gladiator and he reluctantly accepted, but demanded exactly $50,000 for the role, which is currently the world record for the highest salary of an extra.

Antonio Moreno

Antonio “Tony” Moreno was a notable actor and film director of the silent film era and through the 1950s.

Born Antonio Garrido Monteagudo in Madrid, Spain, he emigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen and settled in Massachusetts, where he completed his education. After attending the Williston Seminary in Northampton, Massachusetts, he became a stage actor in regional theater productions. In 1912, he moved to Hollywood, California and he was signed to Vitagraph Studios and began his career in bit parts and as a movie extra.

In 1914, Moreno began co-starring in a series of highly successful serials opposite the enormously publicly popular silent film actress Pearl White. These appearances helped to increase Moreno’s popularity with the nation’s nascent film-goers. By 1915, Antonio Moreno was a highly regarded matinee idol and appearing opposite such successful actors as Tyrone Power, Sr., Gloria Swanson, Blanche Sweet, Pola Negri and Dorothy Gish. Moreno was often typecast in his earliest films as the “Latin Lover”, as were other actors of the era with Latin roots, such as Ramón Novarro and Rudolph Valentino.

By the early 1920s, Antonio Moreno joined film mogul Jesse Lasky’s Famous Players and became one of the company’s most highly paid performers. In 1926 Moreno starred opposite Swedish acting legend Greta Garbo in The Temptress and the following year followed up with a starring role in the enormous box-office hit Clara Bow vehicle It.

Archie Mayo

Archie Mayo was a movie director and stage actor who moved to Hollywood in 1915 and began working as a director in 1917.

His films include Is Everybody Happy? with Ted Lewis, Night After Night with Mae West, Convention City with Joan Blondell, The Petrified Forest with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, and The Adventures of Marco Polo with Gary Cooper.

Mayo retired in 1946, shortly after completing A Night in Casablanca with the Marx Brothers and Angel on My Shoulder with Paul Muni, Anne Baxter, and Claude Rains.

Aretha Franklin

In memory of Queen of Soul and Walk of Famer Aretha Franklin, flowers were placed on her star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, August 16, 2018 at 10:30 a.m. The star in the category of Recording is located at 6920 Hollywood Boulevard. “Aretha, you are the Queen of Soul and always will be. May you reign in the heavens above with much Respect.” Ana Martinez, Producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame signed the card on behalf of the Hollywood Historic Trust and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce.

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter and pianist commonly referred to as The Queen of Soul. Although renowned for her soul recordings, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B and gospel music. Rolling Stone magazine ranked Franklin No. 1 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time.

Aretha is one of the most honored artists by the Grammy Awards, with 18 competitive Grammys to date, and two honorary Grammys. She has scored a total of 20 No. 1 singles on the Billboard R&B Singles Chart, one of which also became her first No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100: “Respect”. “I Knew You Were Waiting “, a duet with George Michael, became her second No. 1 on the latter chart. Since 1961, Franklin has scored a total of 45 “Top 40” hits on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She also has the most million-selling singles of any female artist with 14. Between 1967 and 1982 Aretha had 10 #1 R&B albums – more than any other female artist.

In 1987, Franklin became the first female artist to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Aretha Franklin was the only featured singer at the 2009 presidential inauguration for Barack Obama.

Arlene Dahl

Arlene Carol Dahl is an American movie actress and former MGM contract star, who achieved notability during the 1950s. She is the mother of actor Lorenzo Lamas.

Dahl was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of Idelle and Rudolph S. Dahl, a Ford motor dealer and executive. She is of Norwegian descent. After graduating from Washburn High School, she held various jobs, including performing in a local drama group and briefly working as a model for department stores. Dahl’s mother was involved in the theatre. As a child she took elocution and dancing lessons and acted in local amateur theatre. She was active in theatrical events at Margaret Fuller Elementary School, Ramsey Junior High School and Washburn Senior High School. Dahl briefly attended the University of Minnesota.

Dahl was voted the Rheingold Beer Girl of 1946. She began her acting career in 1947. She reached the peak of her popularity and success in the 1950s. Some of her best films include: Reign of Terror, Three Little Words, Woman’s World, Slightly Scarlet, and Journey to the Center of the Earth. Dahl met actor Lex Barker in the early 1950s, and on April 16, 1951, Dahl and Barker wed. A year later she and Barker divorced, and Dahl would go on to marry another matinee idol, Fernando Lamas. Barker went on to marry Lana Turner. In 1958 Dahl and Lamas had their only son, Lorenzo Lamas. Shortly after giving birth to Lorenzo, Dahl slowed and eventually ended her career as an actress, although she still appeared in movies and on television occasionally. Dahl would go on to work as a beauty columnist and as a writer.

Arlene Francis

Arlene Francis was an American actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist. She is known for her long-standing role as a panelist on the television game show What’s My Line?, on which she regularly appeared for 25 years, from 1950 through the mid-1970s.

Francis was born on October 20, 1907 in Boston, Massachusetts, the daughter of Leah and Aram Kazanjian. Her Armenian father was studying art in Paris at age 16 when he learned that both his parents were dead in one of the Hamidian massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire in Anatolia between 1894 and 1896. He immigrated to the United States and became a portrait photographer, opening his own studio in Boston in the early 20th century. Later in life, Kazanjian painted canvases of dogwoods, “rabbits in flight,” and other nature scenes, selling them at auction in New York.

When Francis was seven years old, her father decided that opportunities were greater in New York and moved the family to a flat in Washington Heights, Manhattan. Francis remained a New Yorker until her son moved her to a San Francisco nursing home in 1995.

After attending Finch College, Francis had a broad and varied career as an entertainer. She was an accomplished actress, with 25 Broadway plays to her credit, from La Gringa in 1928 to Don’t Call Back in 1975. She also performed in many local theatre and off-Broadway plays.

Arlene Harris

Arlene Harris was a Canadian-born American radio, film, and television actress. Before her career in film, she was well-known as a comic actress on the radio program, The Chatterbox.

Harris played herself in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show on U.S. television in 1964 along with several other radio-era performers.

Army Archerd

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Armand Andre “Army” Archerd was a columnist for Variety for over fifty years before retiring his “Just for Variety” column in September 2005. In November 2005, Archerd began blogging for Variety and was working on a memoir when he died.

Archerd was born in The Bronx, New York, and graduated from UCLA in 1941. He was hired by Variety to replace columnist Sheilah Graham in 1953. His “Just for Variety” column appeared on page two of Daily Variety and swiftly became popular in Hollywood. Archerd broke countless exclusive stories, reporting from film sets, announcing pending deals, giving news of star-related hospitalizations, marriages, and births. In 1984, he was given a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, in front of Mann’s Chinese Theater, where he had emceed dozens of movie premieres.

One of his most significant scoops was in his July 23, 1985, column, when he printed that Rock Hudson, despite denials from the actor’s publicists and managers, was undergoing treatment for AIDS.

Archerd was Jewish and a strong proponent of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and Holocaust awareness. He was married to Selma Archerd, a former actress Selma Archerd from November 15 1969 until his death. They had one child and lived in Westwood, California.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger is an Austrian-American bodybuilder, actor, model, businessman, and politician, who is currently serving as the 38th Governor of California.

Schwarzenegger began weight-training at 15. He was awarded the title of Mr. Universe at age 20 and went on to win the Mr. Olympia contest a total of seven times. Schwarzenegger has remained a prominent face in the sport of bodybuilding long after his retirement, and has written several books and numerous articles on the sport.

Schwarzenegger gained worldwide fame as a Hollywood action film icon, noted for his lead role in such films as Conan the Barbarian and The Terminator. He was nicknamed the “Austrian Oak” and the “Styrian Oak” in his bodybuilding days, “Arnie” during his acting career, and more recently the “Governator”. As a Republican, he was first elected on October 7, 2003, in a special recall election to replace then-Governor Gray Davis. Schwarzenegger was sworn in on November 17, 2003, to serve the remainder of Davis’s term. Schwarzenegger was then re-elected on November 7, 2006, in California’s 2006 gubernatorial election, to serve a full term as governor, defeating Democrat Phil Angelides, who was California State Treasurer at the time. Schwarzenegger was sworn in for his second term on January 5, 2007.