Anne Bancroft was an American actress associated with the Method acting school, after studying it under Lee Strasberg.

She made her film debut in Don’t Bother to Knock with Marilyn Monroe and worked as a contract player in several films before returning to her native New York and appearing in several Broadway plays. She later won an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Miracle Worker, and received subsequent nominations for her roles in The Pumpkin Eater, The Graduate, The Turning Point, and Agnes of God. Later in her career, she played character roles in many theatrical films such as Honeymoon in Vegas, G.I. Jane, Great Expectations, Antz, and Heartbreakers. She also starred in several television productions, including The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone for which she received Emmy and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations.

Bancroft died of uterine cancer, age 73, in 2005. Among her survivors was her husband of 40 years, Mel Brooks, and their son Maximillian Brooks.

Bancroft was born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano in The Bronx, New York, the daughter of Mildred, a telephone operator, and Michael Italiano, a dress pattern maker. Her parents were both children of Italian immigrants. She was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Bancroft graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx in 1948, and attended HB Studio, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, the Actors Studio, and the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women at the University of California, Los Angeles. After appearing in a number of live television dramas under the name Anne Marno, she was told to change her surname for her film debut in Don’t Bother to Knock.

Anita Stewart was an American actress and film producer of the early silent film era.

Born in Brooklyn, New York as Anna May Stewart, she began her acting career in 1911 while still attending Erasmus High School in extra and bit parts for the Vitagraph film studios at their New York City location. Stewart was one of the earliest film actresses to achieve public recognition in the nascent medium of motion pictures and achieved a great deal of acclaim early in her acting career. Among her earlier popular roles were 1911’s enormous box office hit adaptation of A Tale of Two Cities, directed by William J.Humphrey, and having an all-star cast including Mabel Normand, Dorothy Kelly, Norma Talmadge and John Bunny, as well as roles in 1913’s The Forgotten Latchkey and The White Feather.

In 1917 she married Rudolph Cameron and became the sister-in-law of film director and actor Ralph Ince, who began giving the young actress more prominent roles in films for Vitagraph. Throughout the 1910s and into the early 1920s, Anita Stewart was one of the silent screen’s most popular actresses and was often paired in romantic roles with real-life husband, actor Rudolph Cameron. Stewart was also featured opposite such screen legends as Mae Busch, Barbara La Marr and Walt Whitman.

Stewart left her lucrative Vitagraph Studios career in 1918 to accept a contract with fledgling film mogul Louis B. Mayer by the terms of which she would head her own production company at the Mayer studios in Los Angeles. It was alleged that Stewart was recovering from an illness in a Los Angeles hospital when Mayer convinced her to leave Vitagraph for an undisclosed but exorbitant sum of money. Between 1918 and 1919 Stewart produced seven moderately successful vehicles, starring in all of them. Throughout the 1920s, Stewart continue to be featured in prominent roles in silent films. Following Stewart’s divorce from Cameron in 1928, Stewart married George Peabody Converse the following year.

See the Hollywood Walk of Fame Star Ceremony announcement
ANJELICA HUSTON HONORED WITH 2,398th STAR ON THE HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME at 6270 Hollywood Boulevard in front of the W Hotel on Friday, January 22, 2010

An award-winning actress and director, Anjelica Huston continues her renowned family’s legacy in film, which began with her grandfather, Walter, and her father, John.

Huston was born on July 8, 1951, to director and actor John Huston and Italian American (from New York) prima ballerina Enrica (Ricki) Soma. She spent most of her childhood overseas, in Ireland and England, and in 1969 dipped her toe into the acting profession, taking a few small roles in her father’s films. She relocated to the United States where she modeled for many years. While modeling, Huston had a few more small film roles, but decided to focus more on movies in the late 1970’s, studied acting and began to get roles.

Huston most recently starred in Clark Gregg’s directorial debut, “Choke,” opposite Sam Rockwell and Kelly MacDonald. The dark comedy won the Sundance Special Jury Prize (2008) for work by an ensemble cast. She also was seen recently in an acclaimed cameo in “The Darjeeling Limited,” directed by Wes Anderson and starring Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman. Huston’s most current role is in the Walt Disney Picture’s film WHEN IN ROME which opens January 29th.

Throughout her career, Huston has received a multitude of awards for her work, including multiple honors from the National Society of Film Critics, two Independent Spirit Awards, the Los Angeles and New York Film Critics Awards, and an honor from Women in Film. Huston received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar® for her role as Maerose Prizzi in the black comedy “Prizzi’s Honor,” in which she starred opposite Jack Nicholson and Kathleen Turner. In 2005, Huston received a Golden Globe Award® for her role in HBO’s original movie “Iron Jawed Angels,” in which she starred opposite Hilary Swank and Julia Ormond.

Huston’s additional credits include memorable turns in the hit “Addams Family” and “Addams Family Values” films as well as in Stephen Frears’ “The Grifters,” Wes Anderson’s “The Royal Tenenbaums” and “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou,” Nicholas Roeg’s “The Witches,” Woody Allen’s “Manhattan Murder Mystery” and “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” Paul Mazursky’s “Enemies: A Love Story,” Sean Penn’s “The Crossing Guard,” Frances Ford Coppola’s “Gardens of Stone,” Mira Nair’s “The Perez Family,” and her father’s final film, “The Dead.”

Her directorial debut was an unflinching adaptation of Dorothy Allison’s best-selling memoir, “Bastard Out of Carolina,” which garnered Huston critical acclaim. She received an Emmy® nomination for her work on the controversial drama as well as a Director’s Guild nomination. Huston directed, produced and starred in “Agnes Browne,” which was presented at the Directors’ Fortnight at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival.

Additional film credits include “Ever After,” “Seraphim Falls,” “The Golden Bowl,” “A Handful of Dust,” “Mr. North,” “Buffalo ’66,” “Art School Confidential” and Clint Eastwood’s “Blood Work.”

Her television credits include Robert Ludlum’s “Covert One: The Hades Factor,” as well as a recurring role on Showtime’s original series “Huff,” starring Hank Azaria. Huston received Emmy® nominations for her performance in the CBS miniseries “Buffalo Girls,” her performance opposite Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones in the miniseries “Lonesome Dove,” her performance opposite Sam Neill in the television film “Family Pictures,” and her work in the TNT miniseries “The Mists of Avalon.” Huston also starred on “Medium” opposite Patricia Arquette in a seven-episode arc that debuted in January 2008 for which she received an Emmy® nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series.

Huston currently serves on the Board of Directors at the National University of Ireland Galway’s John Huston School of Film and Digital Media. She is a member of the Film Foundation’s Artist’s Rights Council and is a recent spokesperson for PETA and the US Campaign for Burma. *Supports numerous charities, organizations and institutions including Homeboy Industries, Global Green USA, The Library Foundation, Amnesty International, Project Angel Food and the Thoroughbred Relief Foundation, among others.

Ann Harding was an American theatre, motion picture, radio, and television actress.

Born Dorothy Walton Gatley at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, to George G. Gatley and Elizabeth “Bessie” Crabb. The daughter of a career army officer, she traveled often during her early life. Her father was born in Maine and served in the American Expeditionary Force in World War I. He died in San Francisco, California in 1931. The family finally settled in New York; Harding attended Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, PA, on the Pennsylvania Main Line outside Philadelphia.

Following school, she found employment as a script reader. She began acting and made her Broadway debut in 1921. She soon became a leading lady, who kept in shape by using the services of Sylvia of Hollywood. In 1929, she made her film debut in Paris Bound, opposite Fredric March. In 1931, she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Holiday.

First under contract to Pathé, which was subsequently absorbed by RKO studio, Harding, co-starred with Ronald Colman, Myrna Loy, Herbert Marshall, Leslie Howard, Richard Dix, and Gary Cooper, often on loan out to other studios, such as MGM and Paramount. At RKO, Harding, along with Helen Twelvetrees and Constance Bennett, comprised a trio who specialized in the “women’s pictures” genre.