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1-6 of 6
- Actor
- Soundtrack
American leading man of the 1940s and 1950s, Dana Andrews was born Carver Dana Andrews on New Years Day 1909 on a farmstead outside Collins, Covington County, Mississippi. One of thirteen children, including fellow actor Steve Forrest, he was a son of Annis (Speed) and Charles Forrest Andrews, a Baptist minister.
Andrews studied business administration at Sam Houston State Teachers College in Texas, but took a bookkeeping job with Gulf Oil in 1929, aged 20, prior to graduating. In 1931, he hitchhiked to California, hoping to get work as an actor. He drove a school bus, dug ditches, picked oranges, worked as a stock boy, and pumped gas while trying without luck to break into the movies. His employer at a Van Nuys gas station believed in him and agreed to invest in him, asking to be repaid if and when Andrews made it as an actor. Andrews studied opera and also entered the Pasadena Community Playhouse, the famed theatre company and drama school. He appeared in scores of plays there in the 1930s, becoming a favorite of the company. He played opposite future star Robert Preston in a play about composers Gilbert and Sullivan, and soon thereafter was offered a contract by Samuel Goldwyn.
It was two years before Goldwyn and 20th Century-Fox (to whom Goldwyn had sold half of Andrews' contract) put him in a film, but the roles, though secondary, were mostly in top-quality pictures such as The Westerner (1940) and The Ox-Bow Incident (1942). A starring role in the hit Laura (1944), followed by one in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), made him a star, but no later film quite lived up to the quality of these. During his career, he had worked with with such directors as Otto Preminger, Fritz Lang, William Wyler, William A. Wellman, Jean Renoir, and Elia Kazan.
Andrews slipped into a steady stream of unremarkable films in which he gave sturdy performances, until age and other interests resulted in fewer appearances. In addition, his increasing alcoholism caused him to lose the confidence of some producers. Andrews took steps to curb his addiction and in his later years was an outspoken member of the National Council on Alcoholism, who decried public refusal to face the problem. He was probably the first actor to do a public service announcement about alcoholism (in 1972 for the U.S. Department of Transportation), and did public speaking tours. Andrews was one of the first to speak out against the degradation of the acting profession, particularly actresses doing nude scenes just to get a role.
Andrews was elected president of the Screen Actors Guild in 1963, serving until 1965. He retired from films in the 1960s and made, he said, more money from real estate than he ever did in movies. Yet he and his second wife, actress Mary Todd, lived quietly in a modest home in Studio City, California. Andrews suffered from Alzheimer's disease in his later years and spent his final days in a nursing facility. He died of congestive heart failure and pneumonia in 1992, aged 83.- Soji Yamakawa was born on 28 February 1908 in Koriyama, Fukushima, Japan. He was a writer, known for Seigi no kaidanji: Nakano Genji no bôken: Diamond no hihô (1955), Seigi no kaidanji: Nakano Genji no bôken: Shin'ya no senritsu (1955) and Seigi no kaidanji: Nakano Genji no bôken: Kanketsu-hen chika hôdai no kyôfu (1955). He died on 17 December 1992 in Japan.
- Janet Velie was born on 23 April 1895 in Denver, Colorado, USA. She was an actress, known for Yours Sincerely (1933). She died on 17 December 1992 in White Plains, New York, USA.
- Writer
- Director
- Art Director
Horst von Möllendorff was a German newspaper cartoonist and screenwriter. He was born on 26 April, 1906.
Möllendorf found success as a newspaper cartoonist in the 1930s, writing pantomime comic strips. They were eventually reprinted in book form, under the title "Das Kleine Schmunzelbuch".
During World War II, Möllendorf was practically drafted into Nazi Germany's animated short industry. Film director and animator Hans Fischerkoesen (1896-1973) had been producing animated shorts with then-modern animated techniques, but he was running out of ideas for scripts. He requested that someone else should work as a screenwriter and gag-man for his films, and his superiors recruited Möllendorff.
Möllendorf received screenwriting and/or directing credits for such notable films as "Weather-beaten Melody" (1942), "The Snowman" (1943), and "Wedding in the Coral Sea" (1944). The actual extent of his involvement is unclear, and "Wedding in the Coral Sea" is known to have been mostly produced by uncredited Czech animators. The German film industry simply needed a German to receive the official credit.
Following World War II, Möllendorff returned to newspaper cartooning. His most famous post-war comic strip was "Gewinne mit Kessi und Jan", which was published in the news magazine "Stern" (German for "Star") from the 1950s to 1960s.
Möllendorff died on 17 December 1992, at the age of 86.- Kristin Huggins was born on 7 January 1970 in Bristol, Pennsylvania, USA. She died on 17 December 1992 in Trenton, New Jersey, USA.
- Gustav Opocenský was born on 7 December 1920 in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He was an actor, known for O zatoulané princezne (1987), Dny zrady (1973) and Gottwald (1986). He died on 17 December 1992 in Karlovy Vary, Czechoslovakia.