Performers recognized by Oscar in other categories
There have been numerous performers who have won or were nominated for Oscars in categories other than acting.
Note: The first six names listed are individuals who have won at least 2 Oscars, with one win for acting while the other was in another category.
This list is far from complete and not necessarily in order of preference.
Note: The first six names listed are individuals who have won at least 2 Oscars, with one win for acting while the other was in another category.
This list is far from complete and not necessarily in order of preference.
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- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. She was adopted by Canadian-born parents Noreen Eloise (Nickleson), a nurse from Ontario, and Rev. Vernon Weir McDormand, a Disciples of Christ minister from Nova Scotia, who raised her in the suburbs of Pittsburgh. She earned a BA in theater from Bethany College in 1979 and an MFA from Yale University in 1982. Her career after graduation began onstage, and she has retained her association with the theater throughout her career. She soon obtained prominent roles in movies as well, first starring in Blood Simple (1984), in which she worked with filmmaker Joel Coen, whom she married that year. She frequently collaborated with Coen and his brother, Ethan Coen, in their films.
McDormand's skilled and versatile acting has been recognized by both the critics and the Academy, and in addition to many critics' awards, she has been nominated for an Academy Award six times - Supporting in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), and Lead in Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020), winning the Oscar for the latter three. She also won a Best Picture Oscar as co-producer of "Nomadland." Keenly intelligent and possessed of a sharp wit, McDormand is the antithesis of the Hollywood starlet - rather than making every role about Frances McDormand, she dissolves into the characters she plays. Accordingly, she has expressed some reservations about the iconic recognition she has gained from her touching and amusing portrayal of Police Chief Marge Gunderson, the quintessential Minnesota Scandinavian, in Fargo (1996).
McDormand and Coen adopted a son, Pedro McDormand Coen, who was born in Paraguay, in 1994. They live in New York.Oscar winner:
Picture, Nomadland (co-producer)
Oscar nominee:
Picture, Women Talking (co-producer)
Three Oscars for Best Actress:
Fargo, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Nomadland- Actor
- Producer
- Director
George Timothy Clooney was born on May 6, 1961, in Lexington, Kentucky, to Nina Bruce (née Warren), a former beauty pageant queen, and Nick Clooney, a former anchorman and television host (who was also the brother of singer Rosemary Clooney). He has Irish, English, and German ancestry. Clooney spent most of his youth in Ohio and Kentucky, and graduated from Augusta High School. He was very active in sports such as basketball and baseball, and tried out for the Cincinnati Reds, but was not offered a contract.
After his cousin, Miguel Ferrer, got him a small role in a feature film, Clooney began to pursue acting. His first major role was on the sitcom E/R (1984) as Ace. More roles soon followed, including George Burnett, the handsome handyman on The Facts of Life (1979); Booker Brooks, a supervisor on Roseanne (1988); and Detective James Falconer on Sisters (1991). Clooney had his breakthrough when he was cast as Dr. Doug Ross on the award-winning drama series ER (1994), opposite Anthony Edwards, Noah Wyle and Julianna Margulies.
While filming "ER" (1994), Clooney starred in a number of high profile film roles, such as Robert Rodriguez's From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), and One Fine Day (1996), opposite Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1997, Clooney took on the role of Batman in Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robin (1997). The film was a moderate success in the box office, but was slammed by critics, notably for the nipple-laden Batsuit. Clooney went on to star in Steven Soderbergh's Out of Sight (1998), Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line (1998), and David O. Russell's Three Kings (1999).
In 1999, Clooney left "ER" (1994) (though he would return for the season finale) and appeared in a number of films, including O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000), The Perfect Storm (2000) and Ocean's Eleven (2001). Collaborating once again with Steven Soderbergh, Ocean's Eleven (2001) received critical acclaim, earned more than $450 million at the box office, and spawned two sequels: Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007).
In 2002, Clooney made his directorial debut with Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002), an adaptation of TV producer Chuck Barris' autobiography. This was the first film under the banner of Section Eight Productions, a production company he founded with Steven Soderbergh. The company also produced many acclaimed films, including Far from Heaven (2002), Syriana (2005), A Scanner Darkly (2006) and Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005). Clooney won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Syriana (2005), and was nominated for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
In 2006, Section Eight Productions was shut down so that Soderbergh could concentrate on directing, and Clooney founded a new production company, Smokehouse Productions, with his friend and longtime business partner, Grant Heslov.
Clooney went on to produce and star in Michael Clayton (2007) (which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor), directed and starred in Leatherheads (2008), and took leading roles in Burn After Reading (2008), The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009), Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009), and Jason Reitman's Up in the Air (2009). Clooney received critical acclaim for his performance in Up in the Air (2009) and was nominated for several awards, including a Golden Globe Award and Academy Award. He didn't win that year, but took home both Best Actor awards (as well as countless nominations) for his role as a father who finds out his wife was unfaithful as she lays in a coma in Alexander Payne's The Descendants (2011). Through his career, Clooney has been heralded for his political activism and humanitarian work. He has served as one of the United Nations Messengers of Peace since 2008, has been an advocate for the Darfur conflict, and organized the Hope for Haiti telethon, to raise money for the victims of the 2010 earthquake. In March 2012, Clooney was arrested for civil disobedience while protesting at the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C.
Clooney was married to actress Talia Balsam, from 1989 until 1993. After their divorce, he swore he would never marry again. Michelle Pfeiffer and Nicole Kidman bet him $10,000 that he would have children by the age of 40, and sent him a check shortly after his birthday. Clooney returned the funds and bet double or nothing he wouldn't have children by the age of 50. Although he has remained a consummate bachelor, Clooney has had many highly publicized relationships, including with former WWE wrestler Stacy Keibler. In 2014, he married lawyer and activist Amal Clooney, with whom he has two children, twins.Oscar winner:
Picture, Argo (co-producer)
Oscar nominee:
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
for: The Ides of March (2011).
Shared with:
Grant Heslov
Beau Willimon
Best Achievement in Directing
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
Best Writing, Original Screenplay
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
Shared with:
Grant Heslov
Four acting nominations including one win as Best Supporting Actor for Syrianna- Actor
- Producer
- Director
A legendary actor with 50 celebrated years of film, television and producing experience, Michael Douglas is known for his era-defining roles and enduring cultural impact.
In addition to his career accomplishments, Douglas has remained a steadfast public servant, activist and philanthropist dedicated to peace and human welfare, democracy, gun control advocacy, support of the arts and support of nuclear disarmament. In 1998, former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Douglas as a Messenger of Peace for his commitment on disarmament issues, including nuclear non-proliferation and halting the illicit trade in small arms and light weapons.
Since his earliest acting work on Hail, Hero! (1969) and The Streets of San Francisco (1972) Douglas has played some of the most memorable and enigmatic American anti-heroes of the last half century. He is most known for his iconic screen roles, like his Academy Award-winning turn as Gordon Gekko Wall Street (1987) as well as the critically and commercially acclaimed films Fatal Attraction (1987), The American President (1995), Basic Instinct (1992), Traffic (2000) and Romancing the Stone (1984). He is also a prolific producer with credits on politically relevant and socially influential motion pictures like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), The China Syndrome (1979), Traffic (2000) the television series: The Kominsky Method (2018) and an upcoming limited series where Douglas portrays Benjamin Franklin (2024) during his nine years in France lobbying for French aid for the American Revolution.
With a passion for complex protagonists and darkly humorous undercurrents, Douglas has received numerous accolades for his work, including two Academy Awards, five Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, AFI Life Achievement Award, two French César Awards for Career Achievement and, most recently, the Palme d'or d'honneur for lifetime achievement at the 76th Annual Festival de Cannes as well as the Satyajit Ray Lifetime Achievement Award for Excellence in Cinema at the Goa Film Festival in India.
Michael Douglas was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, to actors Diana Douglas (Diana Love Dill) and Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch). His paternal grandparents were Belarusian Jewish immigrants, while his mother was born in Bermuda, the daughter of a local Attorney General, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Melville Dill; Diana's family had long been established in both Bermuda and the United States. Douglas's parents divorced when he was six, and he went to live with his mother and her new husband. Only seeing Kirk on holidays, Michael attended Eaglebrook School in Deerfield, Massachusetts, where he was about a year younger than all of his classmates.
Douglas attended the elite preparatory Choate School and spent his summers with his father on movie sets. Although accepted at Yale, Douglas attended the University of California, Santa Barbara. Deciding he wanted to be an actor in his teenage years, Michael often asked his father about getting a "foot in the door" Kirk was strongly opposed to Michael pursuing an acting career, saying that it was an industry with many downs and few ups, and that he wanted all four of his sons to stay out of it. Michael, however, was persistent, and made his film debut in his father's film Cast a Giant Shadow (1966).
After receiving his B.A. degree in 1968, Douglas moved to New York City to continue his dramatic training, studying at the American Place Theatre with Wynn Handman, and at the Neighborhood Playhouse, where he appeared in workshop productions of Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author (1976) and Thornton Wilder's Happy Journey (1963). A few months after he arrived in New York, Douglas got his first big break, when he was cast in the pivotal role of the free-spirited scientist who compromises his liberal views to accept a lucrative job with a high-tech chemical corporation in the CBS Playhouse production of Ellen M. Violett's drama, The Experiment, which was televised nationwide on February 25, 1969.
Douglas' convincing portrayal won him the leading role in the adaptation of John Weston's controversial novel, Hail, Hero! (1969), which was the initial project of CBS's newly organized theatrical film production company, Cinema Center Films. Douglas starred as a well-meaning, almost saintly young pacifist determined not only to justify his beliefs to his conservative parents but also to test them under fire in the jungles of Indochina. His second feature, Adam at Six A.M. (1970) concerned a young man's search for his roots. Douglas next appeared in the film version of Ron Cowen's play Summertree (1971), produced by 'Kirk Douglas'' Bryna Company, and then Napoleon and Samantha (1972), a sentimental children's melodrama from the Walt Disney studio.
In between film assignments, he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway productions, among them "City Scenes," Frank Gagliano's surrealistic vignettes of contemporary life in New York, John Patrick Shanley's short-lived romance "Love is a Time of Day" and George Tabori's "Pinkville," in which he played a young innocent brutalized by his military training. He also appeared in the made-for-television thriller, "When Michael Calls," broadcast by ABC-TV on February 5, 1972 and in episodes of the popular series "Medical Center" and "The F.B.I."
Impressed by Douglas' performance in a segment of The F.B.I. (1965), producer 'Quinn Martin' signed the actor for the part of Karl Malden's sidekick in the police series "The Streets of San Francisco", which premiered in September 1972 and became one of ABC's highest-rated prime-time programs in the mid-1970s. Douglas earned three successive Emmy Award nominations for his performance and he directed two episodes of the series.
During the annual breaks in the shooting schedule for The Streets of San Francisco (1972), Douglas devoted most of his time to his film production company, Big Stick Productions, Ltd., which produced several short subjects in the early 1970s. Long interested in producing a film version of Ken Kesey's grimly humorous novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Douglas purchased the movie rights from his father and began looking for financial backing. After a number of major motion picture studios turned him down, Douglas formed a partnership with Saul Zaentz, a record industry executive, and the two set about recruiting the cast and crew. Douglas still had a year to go on his contract for "The Streets of San Francisco," but the producers agreed to write his character out of the story so that he could concentrate on filming "Cuckoo's Nest."
A critical and commercial success, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) won five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor and Best Actress, and went on to gross more than $180 million at the box office. Douglas suddenly found himself in demand as an independent producer. One of the many scripts submitted to him for consideration was Mike Gray's chilling account of the attempted cover-up of an accident at a nuclear power plant. Attracted by the combination of social relevance and suspense, Douglas immediately bought the property. Deemed not commercial by most investors, Douglas teamed up with Jane Fonda and her own motion picture production company, IPC Films.
A Michael Douglas-IPC Films co-production, The China Syndrome (1979) starred Jack Lemmon, Jane Fonda, and Michael Douglas and received Academy Award nominations for Lemmon and Fonda, as well as for Best Screenplay. The National Board of Review named the film one of the best films of the year.
Despite his success as a producer, Douglas resumed his acting career in the late 1970s, starring in Michael Crichton's medical thriller Coma (1978) with Genevieve Bujold, Claudia Weill's feminist comedy It's My Turn (1980) starring Jill Clayburgh, and Peter Hyams' gripping tale of modern-day vigilante justice, "The Star Chamber" (1983). Douglas also starred in Running (1979), as a compulsive quitter who sacrifices everything to take one last shot at the Olympics, and as Zach the dictatorial director/choreographer in Richard Attenborough's screen version of the Broadway's longest running musical A Chorus Line (1985).
Douglas' career as an actor/producer came together again in 1984 with the release of the tongue-in-cheek romantic fantasy "Romancing the Stone." Douglas had begun developing the project several years earlier, and with Kathleen Turner as Joan Wilder, the dowdy writer of gothic romances, Danny DeVito as the feisty comic foil Ralphie and Douglas as Jack Colton, the reluctant soldier of fortune. "Romancing the Stone" was a resounding hit and grossed more than $100 million at the box office. Douglas was named Producer of the Year in 1984 by the National Association of Theater Owners. Douglas, Turner and DeVito teamed up in 1985 for the successful sequel The Jewel of the Nile (1985).
It took Douglas nearly two years to convince Columbia Pictures executives to approve the production of Starman (1984), an unlikely tale of romance between an extraterrestrial, played by Jeff Bridges, and a young widow, played by Karen Allen. Starman (1984) was the sleeper hit of the 1984 Christmas season and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Actor for Jeff Bridges. In 1986 Douglas created a television series based on the film for ABC which starred Robert Hays.
After a lengthy break from acting, Douglas returned to the screen in 1987 appearing in two of the year's biggest hits. He starred opposite Glenn Close in the phenomenally successful psychological thriller, "Fatal Attraction," which was followed by his performance as ruthless corporate raider Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987), earning him the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Douglas next starred in Ridley Scott's thriller Black Rain (1989) and then teamed up again with Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito in the black comedy The War of the Roses (1989).
In 1988, Douglas formed Stonebridge Entertainment, Inc., which produced Flatliners (1990), directed by Joel Schumacher and starred Kiefer Sutherland, Julia Roberts, Kevin Bacon and William Baldwin and Radio Flyer (1992) starring Lorraine Bracco and directed by Richard Donner. Douglas followed with David Seltzer's adaptation of Susan Isaacs' best-selling novel, "Shining Through," opposite Melanie Griffith. In 1992 he starred with Sharon Stone in the erotic thriller from Paul Verhoeven Basic Instinct (1992), one of the year's top grossing films.
Douglas gave one of his most powerful performances opposite Robert Duvall in Joel Schumacher's controversial drama Falling Down (1993). That year he also produced the hit comedy "Made in America" starring Whoopi Goldberg, Ted Danson and Will Smith. In 1994-95 he starred with Demi Moore in Barry Levinson's "Disclosure," based on the best seller by Michael Crichton. In 1995, Douglas portrayed the title role in Rob Reiner's romantic comedy The American President (1995) opposite Annette Bening, and in 1997, starred in The Game (1997) directed by David Fincher and co-starring Sean Penn.
Douglas formed Douglas/Reuther Productions with partner Steven Reuther in May 1994. The company, under the banner of Constellation Films, produced The Ghost and the Darkness (1996), starring Douglas and Val Kilmer, and John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997), based on John Grisham's best selling novel, directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starring Matt Damon,Claire Danes, Danny DeVito, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke, Mary Kay Place, Virginia Madsen, Andrew Shue, Teresa Wright, Johnny Whitworth and Randy Travis.
Michael Douglas and Steve Reuther also produced John Woo's action thriller Face/Off (1997) starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage, which proved to be one of '97's major hits.
In 1998, Michael Douglas starred with Gwyneth Paltrow and Viggo Mortensen in the mystery thriller A Perfect Murder (1998), and formed a new production company, Furthur Films. 2000 was a milestone year for Douglas. "Wonder Boys" opened in February 2000 to much critical acclaim. Directed by Curtis Hanson and co-starring Tobey Maguire, Frances McDormand, Robert Downey Jr. and Katie Holmes, Douglas starred in the film as troubled college professor Grady Tripp. Michael was nominated for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA Film Award for his performance.
"Traffic" was released by USA Films on December 22, 2000 in New York and Los Angeles and went nationwide in January 2001. Douglas played the role of Robert Wakefield, a newly appointed drug czar confronted by the drug war both at home and abroad. Directed by Steven Soderbergh and co-starring Don Cheadle, Benicio del Toro, Amy Irving, Dennis Quaid and Catherine Zeta-Jones, "Traffic" was named Best Picture by New York Film Critics, won Best Ensemble Cast at the SAG Awards, won four Academy Awards (Best Screenplay, Best Editing, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro) and has been recognized on more than 175 top ten lists.
In 2001, Douglas produced and played a small role in USA Films' outrageous comedy "One Night at McCool's" starring Liv Tyler, Matt Dillon, John Goodman and Paul Reiser and directed by Harald Zwart. "McCool's" was the first film by Douglas' company Furthur Films. Also in 2001, Douglas starred in "Don't Say A Word" for 20th Century Fox. The psychological thriller, directed by Gary Fleder, also starred Sean Bean, Famke Janseen and Brittany Murphy.
In 2002, Douglas appeared in a guest role on the hit NBC comedy "Will & Grace," and received an Emmy Nomination for his performance.
Douglas starred in two films in 2003. MGM/BVI released the family drama "It Runs in the Family," which Douglas produced and starred with his father Kirk Douglas, his mother Diana Douglas his son Cameron Douglas, Rory Culkin and Bernadette Peters. He also starred in the Warner Bros. comedy "The-In Laws," with Albert Brooks, Candice Bergen and Ryan Reynolds.
In 2004, Douglas, along with his father Kirk, filmed the intimate HBO documentary "A Father, A Son... Once Upon a Time in Hollywood". Directed by award-winning filmmaker Lee Grant, the documentary examines the professional and personal lives of both men, and the impacts they each made on the motion picture industry.
In 2005, Douglas produced and starred in "The Sentinel", which was released by 20th Century Fox in April 2006. Based on the Gerald Petievich novel and directed by Clark Johnson, "The Sentinel" is a political thriller set in the intriguing world of the Secret Service. Douglas stars with Keifer Sutherland, Eva Longoria and Kim Bassinger. Douglas then filmed "You, Me & Dupree," starring with Owen Wilson, Kate Hudson and Matt Dillon. The comedy, directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, was released by Universal Pictures during the summer of 2006. In 2007 Douglas made "King of California," co-starring Evan Rachel Wood and is written and directed by Michael Cahill, and produced by Alexander Payne and Michael London.
Michael had two films released in early 2009, "Beyond A Reasonable Doubt" directed by Peter Hyams and "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past" starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Garner and directed by Mark Waters. He followed with the drama "Solitary Man" directed by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, co-starring Susan Sarandon, Danny DeVito, Mary Louise-Parker, and Jenna Fischer, produced by Paul Schiff and Steven Soderbergh. In 2010, Douglas reprised his Oscar-winning role as Gordon Gekko in "Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps," earning a Golden Globe for his performance. Again directed by Oliver Stone, he co-starred with Shia Labeouf, Cary Mulligan, Josh Brolin, Frank Langella and Susan Sarandon.
In 2011, Douglas had a cameo role in Steven Soderbergh's action thriller "Haywire."
"Behind the Candelabra," based on the life of '70's/80's musical icon Liberace and his partner Scott Thorson, directed by Steven Soderbergh and costarring Matt Damon, premiered on HBO in May 2013. Douglas won an Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award for Best Actor in a television movie or mini series for his performance as the famed entertainer. He followed with the buddy comedy "Last Vegas," directed by John Turtletaub co-starring Robert DeNiro, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline and the romantic comedy "And So It Goes," co-starring Diane Keaton directed by Rob Reiner.
Douglas recently starred in and produced the thriller "Beyond The Reach," directed by Jean-Baptiste Leonetti and costarring Jeremy Irvine. He and portrayed Dr. Hank Pym in Marvel's Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023) opposite Paul Rudd. The franchise was his first venture into the realm of comic book action adventure.
In 2017, he starred in the spy thriller "Unlocked" starring with Noomi Rapace, Orlando Bloom, John Malkovich and directed by Michael Apted.
In 1998 Douglas was made a United Nations Messenger of Peace by Kofi Annan. His main concentrations are nuclear non-proliferation and the control of small arms. He is on the Board of Ploughshares Foundation and The Nuclear Threat Initiative.
Michael Douglas was recipient of the 2009 AFI Lifetime Achievement as well as the Producers Guild Award that year. In Spring '10 he received the New York Film Society's Charlie Chaplin Award.
Douglas has hosted 11 years of "Michael Douglas and Friends" Celebrity Golf Event which has raised over $6 million for the Motion Picture and Television Fund. Douglas is very passionate about the organization, and each year he asks his fellow actors and to come out and show that "we are an industry that takes care of own".
Douglas is married to Catherine Zeta-Jones. The couple has one son, Dylan, and one daughter, Carys. Douglas also has one son, Cameron, from a previous marriage.Oscar winner:
Best Picture, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
(co-producer)
Oscar winner:
Best Actor, Wall Street- Producer
- Actor
- Executive
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt was born on December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma and raised in Springfield, Missouri to Jane Etta Pitt (née Hillhouse), a school counselor & William Alvin "Bill" Pitt, a truck company manager. At Kickapoo High School, Pitt was involved in sports, debating, student government and school musicals. Pitt attended the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism with a focus on advertising. He occasionally acted in fraternity shows. He left college two credits short of graduating to move to California. Before he became successful at acting, Pitt supported himself by driving strippers in limos, moving refrigerators and dressing as a giant chicken while working for El Pollo Loco.
Pitt's earliest credited roles were in television, starting on the daytime soap opera Another World (1964) before appearing in the recurring role of Randy on the legendary prime time soap opera Dallas (1978). Following a string of guest appearances on various television series through the 1980s, Pitt gained widespread attention with a small part in Thelma & Louise (1991), in which he played a sexy criminal who romanced and conned Geena Davis. This led to starring roles in badly received films such as Johnny Suede (1991) & Cool World (1992).
But Pitt's career hit an upswing with his casting in A River Runs Through It (1992), which cemented his status as an multi-layered actor as opposed to just a pretty face. Pitt's subsequent projects were as quirky and varied in tone as his performances, ranging from his unforgettably comic cameo as stoner roommate Floyd in True Romance (1993) to romantic roles in such visually lavish films as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) and Legends of the Fall (1994), to an emotionally tortured detective in the horror-thriller Se7en (1995). His portrayal of frenetic oddball Jeffrey Goines in 12 Monkeys (1995) won him a Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role.
Pitt's portrayal of Achilles in the big-budget period drama Troy (2004) helped establish his appeal as an action star and was closely followed by a co-starring role in the stylish spy-versus-spy flick Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005). It was on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith that Pitt, who married Jennifer Aniston in a highly publicized ceremony in 2000, met Angelina Jolie. Pitt left Aniston for Jolie in 2005, a break-up that continues to fuel tabloid stories years after its occurrence.
He continues to wildly vary his film choices, appearing in everything from high-concept popcorn flicks such as Megamind (2010) to adventurous critic-bait like Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Tree of Life (2011). He has received two Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Moneyball (2011). In 2014, he starred in the war film Fury (2014), opposite Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Peña.
Pitt and Jolie have 6 children, 3 adopted & 3 biological.Oscar Winner:
Picture, 12 Years a Slave (co-producer)
Oscar nominees:
Best Motion Picture of the Year
The Big Short (2015)
(co-producer)
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Moneyball (2011).
(co-producer)
Four acting nominations including one win.
Once Upon a Time...In Hollywood (2019)
Supporting Actor- Music Artist
- Actress
- Producer
Barbra Streisand is an American singer, actress, director and producer and one of the most successful personalities in show business. She is the only person ever to receive all of the following: Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy, Golden Globe, Cable Ace, National Endowment for the Arts, and Peabody awards, as well as the Kennedy Center Honor, American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement honor and the Film Society of Lincoln Center Chaplin Award.
She was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1942 to Diana Kind (née Ida Rosen), a singer turned school secretary, and Emanuel Streisand, a high school teacher. Her father died when she was 15 months old. She has a brother, Sheldon, and a half-sister, Roslyn Kind, from their mother's remarriage. As a child she attended the Beis Yakov Jewish School in Brooklyn. She was raised in a middle-class family and grew up dreaming of becoming an actress (or even an actress / conductor, as she happily described her teenage years at one of her concerts).
After a period as a nightclub singer and off-Broadway performer in New York City she began to attract interest and a fan base, thanks to her original and powerful vocal talent. She debuted on Broadway in the 1962 musical comedy "I Can Get It For You Wholesale" by Harold Rome, receiving a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and a New York Drama Critics Poll award. The following year she reached great commercial success with her first Columbia Records solo releases, "The Barbra Streisand Album" (multiple Grammy winner, including "Best Album of the Year") and "The Second Barbra Streisand Album" (her first RIAA Gold Album); these albums, mostly devoted to composer Harold Arlen, brought her critical praise and, most of all, public acclaim all over the US. In 1964 she had another smash Broadway hit when she portrayed legendary Broadway star Fanny Brice in "Funny Girl" by Jule Styne and Bob Merrill; the show's main song, "People", became her first hit single and she appeared on the cover of Time magazine. After many TV appearances as a guest on various music and variety shows (such as an episode of The Judy Garland Show (1963), for which she was nominated for an Emmy), she signed an exclusive contract with CBS for a series of annual TV specials. My Name Is Barbra (1965) (which won an Emmy) and Color Me Barbra (1966) were extremely successful.
After a brief London stage period and the birth of her son Jason Gould (with then-husband Elliott Gould), in summer 1967 she gave a memorable free concert in New York City, "A Happening in Central Park", that was filmed and later broadcast (in an edited version) as a TV special; then she flew to Hollywood for her first movie, Funny Girl (1968), a filming of her stage success. The picture, directed by William Wyler, opened in 1968 and became a hit in the US and abroad, making her an international "superstar" and multiple award winner, including the Best Actress Oscar. After a series of screen musicals, such as Gene Kelly's Hello, Dolly! (1969) and Vincente Minnelli's On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1970), she wanted to try comedies, resulting in such films as The Owl and the Pussycat (1970) and What's Up, Doc? (1972). She turned to dramas and turned out Up the Sandbox (1972) and the classic The Way We Were (1973), directed by Sydney Pollack and co-starring Robert Redford. The song "The Way We Were" (written by Marvin Hamlisch and Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman) became one of her biggest hits and most memorable and famous songs.
She returned to TV for a new special conceived as a musical journey covering many world musical styles, Barbra Streisand and Other Musical Instruments (1973), then returned (for contractual reasons) to her Fanny Brice role in a sequel to her hit "Funny Girl" film, Funny Lady (1975), and the next year turned out one of her most personal film projects, A Star Is Born (1976), one of the biggest hits of the year for which she won a Golden Globe for Best Actress and her second Oscar, for the song "Evergreen". Always extremely busy on the discography side, averaging one album a year throughout the '70s and '80s, she had a string of successful singles and albums, such as "You Don't Bring Me Flowers" (duet with Neil Diamond), "Enough is Enough" (with Donna Summer), "The Main Event" (from her film The Main Event (1979) with her friend Ryan O'Neal) and the album "Guilty", written for her by The Bee Gees' Barry Gibb, which sold more than 10 million copies worldwide.
She debuted as a director with the musical drama Yentl (1983), in which she also portrayed a Jewish girl who is forced to pass herself off as a man to pursue her dreams. The movie received generally positive reviews and the beautiful score by Michel Legrand and lyricists Marilyn Bergman and Alan Bergman stands up as one of Streisand's finest musical works. The film received several Oscar nominations, winning in two categories, but she was not nominated as Best Director, which disappointed both her and her fans, many of whom consider this the Academy's biggest "snub".
In 1985 her album "The Broadway Album" was an unexpected runaway success, winning a Grammy Award and helping to introduce a new generation to the world of American musical theater. In 1986 she performed in a memorable concert, after 19 years of stage silence, "One Voice". She returned to the screen in Nuts (1987), a drama directed by Martin Ritt, in the role of a prostitute accused of murder who fights to avoid being labeled "insane" at her trial. In 1991 she appeared in The Prince of Tides (1991), which many consider to be the pinnacle of her screen career, playing a psychiatrist who tries to help a man (Nick Nolte) to find the pieces of his past life. The film received seven Oscar nominations (but again NOT for Best Directing), but she did receive a nomination from the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Best Director. In 1994 she returned to the stage after 27 years for a series of sold-out concerts (for the televised version of one of these, she won another Emmy).
In the 1990s she broke several personal records: with two #1 albums ("Back to Broadway" in 1993 and "Higher Ground" in 1997) and became the only artist to achieve a #1 album on the Billboard charts in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s (she extended this record into the 21st century in 2009 with the jazz album "Love is the Answer"). In 1996 she starred in her third picture as director, The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), with Jeff Bridges and Lauren Bacall. The film had a "the girl got the guy" ending, and the same happened to her in real life--the next year she married well known TV actor James Brolin.
In 2000 she focused her career again on concerts ("Timeless") and in 2006-07 with a European tour. She made only two more films--a supporting role as a sex therapist mother in the Ben Stiller comedy Meet the Fockers (2004) and its sequel, Little Fockers (2010), alongside Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro. She published a book, "Passion for Design", in 2010 and celebrated her friendship with the Bergmans with an entire album of their songs, "What Matters Most" (2011), that debuted in the top 10.
After a long break from filming, she returned in a starring role for the 2012 holiday season with The Guilt Trip (2012), a mother/son picture co-starring Seth Rogen and directed by Anne Fletcher, and is working on putting together a film version of the well-known Jule Styne musical "Gypsy". In almost 50 years of career, Streisand has contributed to the show business industry in a personal and unique way, collecting a multi-generational fan base; she has a powerful and recognize vocal range, and a raucous and often self-deprecating sense of humor, which doesn't prevent her from showing the serious and dramatic sides of her personality. Her strong political belief in social justice infuses her professional career and personal life, and she makes no bones about what she believes; her willingness to put her money where her mouth is has resulted in some truly vicious attacks by many who hold opposite political views, but that hasn't stopped her from acting on her beliefs. She has been honored with the Humanitarian Award from the Human Rights Campaign, an Honorary Doctorate in Arts and Humanities from Brandeis University in 1995, an Honorary Doctorate of Philosophy from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2013 and the bestowing by the government of France the title of Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. She supports many humanitarian causes through the Streisand Foundation and has been a dedicated environmentalist for many years; she endowed a chair in environmental studies in 1987 and donated her 24-acre estate to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. In addition, she was the lead founder for the Clinton Climate Change Initiative. This effort brought together a consortium of major cities around the world to drive down greenhouse gas emissions. She is a leading spokesperson and fund-raiser for social and political causes close to her heart and has often dedicated proceeds from her live concert performances to benefit programs she supports.Oscar Winner:
Best Song "Evergreen" (with co-writer Paul Williams) for A Star is Born.
Oscar nominees:
Best Picture, The Prince of Tides (Co-producer)
Best Song "I've Finally Found Someone" for The Mirror Has Two Faces.
Two acting nominations which includes a Best Actress win for Funny Girl.- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Emma Thompson was born on April 15, 1959 in Paddington, London, into a family of actors - father Eric Thompson and mother Phyllida Law, who has co-starred with Thompson in several films. Her sister, Sophie Thompson, is an actor as well. Her father was English-born and her mother is Scottish-born. Thompson's wit was cultivated by a cheerful, clever, creative family atmosphere, and she was a popular and successful student. She attended Cambridge University, studying English Literature, and was part of the university's Footlights Group, the famous group where, previously, many of the Monty Python members had first met.
Thompson graduated in 1980 and embarked on her career in entertainment, beginning with stints on BBC radio and touring with comedy shows. She soon got her first major break in television, on the comedy skit program Alfresco (1983), writing and performing along with her fellow Footlights Group alums Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. She also worked on other TV comedy review programs in the mid-1980s, occasionally with some of her fellow Footlights alums, and often with actor Robbie Coltrane.
Thompson found herself collaborating again with Fry in 1985, this time in his stage adaptation of the play "Me and My Girl" in London's West End, in which she had a leading role, playing Sally Smith. The show was a success and she received favorable reviews, and the strength of her performance led to her casting as the lead in the BBC television miniseries Fortunes of War (1987), in which Thompson and her co-star, Kenneth Branagh, play an English ex-patriate couple living in Eastern Europe as the Second World War erupts. Thompson won a BAFTA Award for her work on the program. She married Branagh in 1989, continued to work with him professionally, and formed a production company with him. In the late 80s and early 90s, she starred in a string of well-received and successful television and film productions, most notably her lead role in the Merchant-Ivory production of Howards End (1992), which confirmed her ability to carry a movie on both sides of the Atlantic and appropriately showered her with trans-Atlantic honors - both an Oscar and a BAFTA award.
Since then, Thompson has continued to move effortlessly between the art film world and mainstream Hollywood, though even her Hollywood roles tend to be in more up-market productions. She continues to work on television as well, but is generally very selective about which roles she takes. She writes for the screen as well, such as the screenplay for Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995), in which she also starred as Elinor Dashwood, and the teleplay adaptation of Margaret Edson's acclaimed play Wit (2001), in which she also starred.
Thompson is known for her sophisticated, skillful, though her critics say somewhat mannered, performances, and of course for her arch wit, which she is unafraid to point at herself - she is a fearless self-satirist. Thompson and Branagh divorced in 1994, and Thompson is now married to fellow actor Greg Wise, who had played Willoughby in Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility (1995). Thompson and Wise have one child, Gaia, born in 1999. She was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire at the 2018 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to drama.Oscar winner:
Screenplay Adaptation, Sense and Sensibility
Four acting nominations including a Best Actress win for Howards End.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Benjamin Géza "Ben" Affleck-Boldt was born on August 15, 1972 in Berkeley, California and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to mother Chris Anne (Boldt), a school teacher, and father Timothy Byers "Tim" Affleck, a social worker. Ben has a younger brother, actor Casey Affleck, who was born in 1975. He is of mostly English, Irish, German, and Scottish ancestry. His middle name, Géza, is after a Hungarian family friend who was a Holocaust survivor.
Affleck wanted to be an actor ever since he could remember, and his first acting experience was for a Burger King commercial, when he was on the PBS mini-series, The Voyage of the Mimi (1984). It was also at that age when Ben met his lifelong friend and fellow actor, Matt Damon. They played little league together and took drama classes together. Ben's teen years consisted of mainly TV movies and small television appearances including Hands of a Stranger (1987) and The Second Voyage of the Mimi (1988). He made his big introduction into feature films in 1993 when he was cast in Dazed and Confused (1993). After that, he did mostly independent films like Kevin Smith's Mallrats (1995) and Chasing Amy (1997) which were great for Ben's career, receiving renowned appreciation for his works at the Sundance film festival. But the success he was having in independent films didn't last much longer and things got a little shaky for Ben. He was living in an apartment with his brother Casey and friend Matt, getting tired of being turned down for the big roles in films and being given the forgettable supporting ones. Since Matt was having the same trouble, they decided to write their own script, where they could call all the shots. So, after finishing the script for Good Will Hunting (1997), they gave it to their agent, Patrick Whitesell, who showed it to a few Hollywood studios, finally being accepted by Castle Rock. It was great news for the two, but Castle Rock wasn't willing to give Ben and Matt the control over the project they were hoping for. It was friend Kevin Smith who took it to the head of Miramax who bought the script giving Ben and Matt the control they wanted and, in December 5, 1997, Good Will Hunting (1997) was released, making the two unknown actors famous. The film was nominated for 9 Academy Awards and won two, including Best Original Screenplay for Ben and Matt. The film marked Ben's breakthrough role, in which he was given for the first time the chance to choose roles instead of having to go through grueling auditions constantly.
Affleck chose such roles in the blockbusters Armageddon (1998), Shakespeare in Love (1998), and Pearl Harbor (2001). In the early years of the 2000s, he also starred in the box office hits Changing Lanes (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), and Daredevil (2003), as well as the disappointing comedies Gigli (2003) and Surviving Christmas (2004). While the mid 2000s were considered a career downturn for Affleck, he received a Golden Globe nomination for his performance in Hollywoodland (2006). In the several years following, he played supporting roles, including in the films Smokin' Aces (2006), He's Just Not That Into You (2009), State of Play (2009), and Extract (2009). He ventured into directing in 2007, with the thriller Gone Baby Gone (2007), which starred his brother, Casey Affleck, and was well received. He then directed, co-wrote, and starred in The Town (2010), which was named to the National Board of Review Top Ten Films of the year. For the political thriller Argo (2012), which he directed and starred in, Affleck won the Golden Globe Award and BAFTA Award for Best Director, and the Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, and BAFTA Award for Best Picture (Affleck's second Oscar win).
In 2014, Affleck headlined the book adaptation thriller Gone Girl (2014). He starred as Bruce Wayne/Batman in the superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016), and Justice League (2017). He reprised the role in Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) and he will next appear as Batman in Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023) and The Flash (2023).
Recently he has given praise-worthy performances in The Way Back (2020) as a recovering alcoholic, The Last Duel (2021) (notably he also co-wrote the script), and a scene-stealing golden globe nominated performance in The Tender Bar (2021).Oscar Winner:
Original Screenplay
Good Will Hunting
Picture
Argo (co-producer)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Riz Ahmed (born 1 December 1982), also known by his stage name Riz MC and birth name Rizwan Ahmed, is a British Pakistani actor, rapper, and activist. As an actor, he has won one Emmy Award, out of two Emmy nominations, and was also nominated for a Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild Award, and three British Independent Film Awards.Best Live Action Short Film
The Long Goodbye (2021) (co-producer) (winner)
1 acting nomination - Sound of Metal (2019)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Richard Attenborough, Baron Attenborough of Richmond-upon-Thames, was born in Cambridge, England, the son of Mary (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council, and Frederick Levi Attenborough, a scholar and academic administrator who was a don at Emmanuel College and wrote a standard text on Anglo-Saxon law. The family later moved to Leicester where his father was appointed Principal of the university while Richard was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School for Boys in Leicester and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
His film career began with a role as a deserting sailor in In Which We Serve (1942), a part that contributed to his being typecast for many years as a coward in films like Dulcimer Street (1948), Operation Disaster (1950) and his breakthrough role as a psychopathic young gangster in the film adaptation of Graham Greene's novel, Brighton Rock (1948). During World War II, Attenborough served in the Royal Air Force.
He worked prolifically in British films for the next 30 years, and in the 1950s appeared in several successful comedies for John Boulting and Roy Boulting, including Private's Progress (1956) and I'm All Right Jack (1959). Early in his stage career, Attenborough starred in the London West End production of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap", which went on to become one of the world's longest-running stage productions. Both he and his wife were among the original cast members of the production, which opened in 1952 and (as of 2007) is still running.
In the 1960s, he expanded his range of character roles in films such as Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964) and Guns at Batasi (1964), for which he won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the regimental Sergeant Major. He appeared in the ensemble cast of The Great Escape (1963), as Squadron Leader "Roger Bartlett" ("Big X"), the head of the escape committee.
In 1967 and 1968, he won back-to-back Golden Globe Awards in the category of Best Supporting Actor, the first time for The Sand Pebbles (1966), starring Steve McQueen, and the second time for Doctor Dolittle (1967), starring Rex Harrison. He would win another Golden Globe for Best Director, for Gandhi (1982), in 1983. Six years prior to "Gandhi", he played the ruthless "Gen. Outram" in Indian director Satyajit Ray's period piece, The Chess Players (1977). He has never been nominated for an Academy Award in an acting category.
He took no acting roles following his appearance in Otto Preminger's The Human Factor (1979), until his appearance as the eccentric developer "John Hammond" in Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park (1993). The following year, he starred as "Kris Kringle" in Miracle on 34th Street (1994), a remake of the 1947 classic. Since then, he has made occasional appearances in supporting roles, including the historical drama, Elizabeth (1998), as "Sir William Cecil".
In the late 1950s, Attenborough formed a production company, "Beaver Films", with Bryan Forbes and began to build a profile as a producer on projects, including The League of Gentlemen (1960), The Angry Silence (1960) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961), also appearing in the first two of these as an actor.
His feature film directorial debut was the all-star screen version of the hit musical, Oh! What a Lovely War (1969), and his acting appearances became more sporadic - the most notable being his portrayal of serial killer "John Christie" in 10 Rillington Place (1971). He later directed two epic period films: Young Winston (1972), based on the early life of Winston Churchill, and A Bridge Too Far (1977), an all-star account of Operation Market Garden in World War II. He won the 1982 Academy Award for Directing for his historical epic, Gandhi (1982), a project he had been attempting to get made for many years. As the film's producer, he also won the Academy Award for Best Picture. His most recent films, as director and producer, include Chaplin (1992), starring Robert Downey Jr. as Charles Chaplin, and Shadowlands (1993), based on the relationship between C.S. Lewis and Joy Gresham. Both films starred Anthony Hopkins, who also appeared in three other films for Attenborough: "Young Winston", "A Bridge Too Far" and the thriller, Magic (1978).
Attenborough also directed the screen version of the hit Broadway musical, "A Chorus Line" (A Chorus Line (1985)), and the apartheid drama, Cry Freedom (1987), based on the experiences of Donald Woods. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director for both films. His most recent film as director was another biographical film, Grey Owl (1999), starring Pierce Brosnan.
Attenborough is the President of RADA, Chairman of Capital Radio, President of BAFTA, President of the Gandhi Foundation, and President of the British National Film and Television School. He is also a vice patron of the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund.
He is also the patron of the UWC movement (United World Colleges), whereby he continually contributes greatly to the colleges that are part of the organization. He has frequented the United World College of Southern Africa(UWCSA) Waterford Kamhlaba. His wife and he founded the "Richard and Sheila Attenborough Visual Arts Center". He also founded the "Jane Holland Creative Center for Learning" at Waterford Kamhlaba in Swaziland in memory of his daughter, who died in the Tsunami on Boxing Day, 2004. He passionately believes in education, primarily education that does not judge upon color, race, creed or religion. His attachment to Waterford is his passion for non-racial education, which were the grounds on which Waterford Kamhlaba was founded. Waterford was one of his inspirations for directing Cry Freedom (1987), based on the life of Steve Biko.
He was elected to the post of Chancellor of the University of Sussex on 20 March 1998, replacing the Duke of Richmond and Gordon. A lifelong supporter of Chelsea Football Club, Attenborough served as a director of the club from 1969-1982 and, since 1993, has held the honorary position of Life Vice President. He is also the head of the consortium, "Dragon International", which is constructing a film and television studio complex in Llanilid, Wales, often referred to as "Valleywood".
In 1967, he was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE). He was knighted in 1976 and, in 1993, he was made a life peer as Baron Attenborough, of Richmond-upon-Thames in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
On 13 July 2006, Attenborough and his brother, David Attenborough, were awarded the titles of Distinguished Honorary Fellows of the University of Leicester "in recognition of a record of continuing distinguished service to the University". Lord Attenborough is also listed as an Honorary Fellow of Bangor University for his continued efforts to film making.
Attenborough has been married to English actress Sheila Sim, since 1945. They had three children. In December 2004, his elder daughter, Jane Holland, as well as her daughter Lucy and her mother-in-law, also named Jane, were killed in the tsunami caused by the Indian Ocean earthquake. A memorial service was held on 8 March 2005, and Attenborough read a lesson at the national memorial service on 11 May 2005. His grandson, Samuel Holland, and granddaughter, Alice Holland, also read in the service.
Attenborough's father was principal of University College, Leicester, now the city's university. This has resulted in a long association with the university, with Lord Attenborough a patron. A commemorative plaque was placed on the floor of Richmond Parish Church. The university's "Richard Attenborough Centre for Disability and the Arts", which opened in 1997, is named in his Honor.
His son, Michael Attenborough, is also a director. He has two younger brothers, the famous naturalist Sir David Attenborough and John Attenborough, who has made a career in the motor trade.
He has collected Pablo Picasso ceramics since the 1950s. More than 100 items went on display at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery in Leicester in 2007; the exhibition is dedicated to his family members lost in the tsunami.Oscar winner:
Gandhi (Director and Producer)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Since starring in his first film, Splendor in the Grass (1961), Warren Beatty has been said to have demonstrated a greater longevity in movies than any actor of his generation. Few people have taken so many responsibilities for all phases of the production of films as producer, director, writer, and actor, and few have evidenced so high a level of integrity in a body of work.
In Rules Don't Apply (2016), he writes, produces, directs and stars in. Only Beatty and Orson Welles (Citizen Kane) have been nominated by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences as an actor, a director, a writer, and a producer for the same film. Beatty is the only person ever to have done it twice, for Heaven Can Wait (1978) and again for Reds (1981). Beatty has been nominated 15 times by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and 8 films he has produced have earned 53 Academy nominations. In 1982 he won the Academy Award for Directing and in 2000 was given the Academy's highest honor, the Irving G. Thalberg Award.
He was awarded Best Director from the Directors Guild of America and Best Writer three times from the Writers Guild of America. He has received the Milestone Award from the Producers Guild, the Board of Governors Award from the American Society of Cinematographers, the Directors Award from the Costume Designers Guild, the Life Achievement Award from the Publicists Guild, and the Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award from the Art Directors Guild. The National Association of Theater Owners has honored him as Director of the Year, as Producer of the Year and as Actor of the Year.
He has won 16 awards from the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics, the National Board of Review, and the Golden Globes. In 1992, he was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France; in Italy he received the David di Donatello award in 1968 and again in 1981 and its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1998; in 2001, he received the Donostia Lifetime Achievement Award from the San Sebastian International Film Festival; in 2002, he received the British Academy Fellowship from BAFTA; and in 2011, he was awarded the Stanley Kubrick Britannia Award for Excellence in Film.
In December 2004, Beatty received The Kennedy Center Honor in Washington, D.C. In addition, he is the recipient of the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, the HFPA Cecile B. DeMille Award and many others. Politically active since the 1960's, Beatty campaigned with Robert F. Kennedy in his 1968 presidential campaign. That same year he traveled throughout the United States speaking in favor of gun control and against the war in Vietnam. In 1972 he took a year off from motion pictures to campaign with George McGovern.
In 1981, Beatty was a founding board member of the Center for National Policy. He is a founding member of The Progressive Majority, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and has participated in the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland.
Beatty serves on the Board of Directors of the Motion Picture and Television Fund Foundation. He previously served on the Board of Trustees of The Scripps Research Institute for several years. He has received the Eleanor Roosevelt Award from the Americans for Democratic Action, the Brennan Legacy Award from the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, and the Philip Burton Public Service Award from The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.
In multiple forums he has addressed campaign finance reform, the increasing disparity of wealth, universal health care and the need for the Democratic Party to return to its roots.
In March of 2013, he was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.
Beatty was born in Richmond, Virginia. He and his wife, Annette Bening, live in Los Angeles and have four children.
His mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from Nova Scotia, Canada, and his father, Ira Owens Beaty, a professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. His sister is actress Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty). His ancestry is mostly English and Scottish.Oscar Winner:
Director "Reds"
Thirteen additional Oscar nominations:
Picture (4 nominations)
Actor (4 nominations)
Director: (1 nomination with Buck Henry)
Screenwriting: (4 nominations)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
He graduated in 1962 from the University of Notre Dame with majors in English and Art. Tony began his career in the film industry as an actor. His acting years were distinguished by the quality of the directors who chose him for their films, including Steven Spielberg and Francis Ford Coppola. Tony wanted to become a filmmaker, however, and made the transition to producer in 1971. In 1973, his feature The Sting (1973) became one of the highest grossing films in history and brought him an Academy Award for Best Picture. Tony made his directorial debut in 1980 with My Bodyguard (1980). He has since directed a number of other pictures, as well as numerous commercials and episodes of television series. Tony has shared his unique experience by teaching and lecturing at various universities. He has served on the Motion Picture Association of America's Board of Governors and Board of Trustees and on the board of the Public Justice Foundation, while also remaining active in many community services. He is married to 'Helen Bartlett', his producer/partner in Barnstorm Films, and has two daughters, Madeline and Daphne.Oscar Winner:
The Sting (co-producer)- Actress
- Producer
Lisa Blount was an actress who appeared in numerous films and television shows, most notably as Lynette Pomeroy in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award. Along with her husband, actor Ray McKinnon, she received an Academy Award for the 2002 short film The Accountant (2001).
Lisa Suzanne Blount was born in Fayetteville (Washington County) to Glen Roscoe Blount and Louise Martin Blount, natives of Floral (Independence County); she had one brother, Greg. The family moved to Jacksonville (Pulaski County). Blount graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1975 and attended the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville, beginning classes there when she was sixteen; she left UA before graduating in order to pursue an acting career.
Blount's movie career began in earnest at age nineteen when she was chosen to play a lead role in September 30, 1955 (1977), which was shot in Conway (Faulkner County) and released in 1977. Written and directed by James Bridges, it starred Richard Thomas, Dennis Quaid, and Tom Hulce. Though surrounded by accomplished actors, Blount's vivid portrayal of a James Dean-obsessed girl named Billie Jean stood out among her more well-known co-stars.
Blount married cinematographer actor Christopher Tufty on March 19, 1982; they later divorced. She married Ray McKinnon in 1998. She had no children.
Blount is best remembered for her 1982 role in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). The movie won two Academy Awards and was nominated for four others. Her screen character-the ambitious, cynical, and insecure Lynette Pomeroy-is the best friend of Paula Pokrifki (Debra Winger). As a result of her performance in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), Blount was voted "Favourite Female Newcomer" in 1983 by a US magazine readers' poll.
Blount added television roles to her repertoire. She received critical plaudits for her appearance in the second season of Moonlighting (1985) in the episode Sleep Talkin' Guy (1986). She played a high-class call girl named Toby, whose client talked in his sleep, revealing details of planned murders. Another memorable role was that of Jim Profit's outrageous stepmother Bobbi Stakowski in the short-lived but critically acclaimed Fox series Profit (1996). She appeared in eight episodes in 1996 and 1997.
Blount was given a key role in director John Carpenter's horror film Prince of Darkness (1987), in which she appeared as the love interest to Jameson Parker. As a result of her appearance in this and a few other horror movies, she was sometimes referred to by the press as a "scream queen" star.
Blount and McKinnon received an Academy Award in 2002 for a live-action short film she produced and he directed titled The Accountant, which concerned the plight of American family farms. Many critics believe that Blount's most poignant role was in the 2004 movie Chrystal (2004), which was written, directed, and co-produced by McKinnon, who also played the character Snake in the film. The movie co-starred fellow Arkansan Billy Bob Thornton and was shot in the Eureka Springs (Carroll County) area.
Following the making of Chrystal (2004), Blount and McKinnon moved back to her home state of Arkansas after several years of living in Los Angeles, California. This was in part due to Blount's failing health. She continued to be active and was working on several projects. She shot a pilot for the FX television network series Outlaw Country (2012) with fellow Arkansan Mary Steenburgen, recorded demos for a music project on which she had been working, performed on stage with Eddie Vedder at a rally for the West Memphis Three, and continued the work of designing and remodelling her historic home in Little Rock (Pulaski County). Her last big-screen appearance was as Charlotte Pearson in Randy and the Mob (2007), her husband's crime comedy shot in Atlanta, Georgia.
Blount died at her home in Little Rock after spending seventeen years fighting a chronic illness called idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP). She is buried at Cedar Grove Cemetery in Floral. She had been inducted into the Arkansas Entertainers Hall of Fame on September 9, 2010, shortly before her death.Oscar winner:
Live Action Short-Subject:
The Accountant
(Co-producer)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Kenneth Charles Branagh was born on December 10, 1960, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, to parents William Branagh, a plumber and carpenter, and Frances (Harper), both born in 1930. He has two siblings, William Branagh, Jr. (born 1955) and Joyce Branagh (born 1970). When he was nine, his family escaped The Troubles by moving to Reading, Berkshire, England. At 23, Branagh joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he took on starring roles in "Henry V" and "Romeo and Juliet". He soon found the RSC too large and impersonal and formed his own, the Renaissance Theatre Company, which now counts Prince Charles as one of its royal patrons. At 29, he directed Henry V (1989), where he also co-starred with his then-wife, Emma Thompson. The film brought him Best Actor and Best Director Oscar nominations. In 1993, he brought Shakespeare to mainstream audiences again with his hit adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing (1993), which featured an all-star cast that included, among others, Denzel Washington, Michael Keaton and Keanu Reeves. At 30, he published his autobiography and, at 34, he directed and starred as "Victor Frankenstein" in the big-budget adaptation of Mary Shelley's novel, Frankenstein (1994), with Robert De Niro as the monster himself. In 1996, Branagh wrote, directed and starred in a lavish adaptation of Hamlet (1996). His superb film acting work also includes a wide range of roles such as in Celebrity (1998), Wild Wild West (1999), The Road to El Dorado (2000), Valkyrie (2008) and his stunning portrayal of Laurence Olivier in My Week with Marilyn (2011), where once again he offered a great performance that was also nominated for an Academy Award.Oscar nominees:
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Hamlet (1996).
Best Short Film, Live Action
Swan Song (1992).
Best Director
Henry V (1989).
Best Director
Best Original Screenplay (winner)
Best Motion Picture of the Year (co-producer)
Belfast (2021)
Two acting nominations.- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Mel Brooks was born Melvin Kaminsky on June 28, 1926 in Brooklyn, New York. He served in WWII, and afterwards got a job playing the drums at nightclubs in the Catskills. Brooks eventually started a comedy act and also worked in radio and as Master Entertainer at Grossinger's Resort before going to television.
He was a writer for, Your Show of Shows (1950) Caesar's Hour (1954) and wrote the Broadway show Shinbone Alley. He also worked in the creation of The 2000 Year Old Man (1975) and Get Smart (1965) before embarking on a highly successful film career in writing, acting, producing and directing.
Brooks is famous for the spoofs of different film genres that he made such as Blazing Saddles (1974), History of the World: Part I (1981), Silent Movie (1976), Young Frankenstein (1974), Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993), High Anxiety (1977), Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995), and Spaceballs (1987).Oscar Winner:
Original Screenplay, The Producers (1968)
EGOT Winner- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Peter Capaldi was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to Nancy (Soutar) and Gerald John Capaldi. His parents owned an ice cream business. He is of Italian (from his paternal grandfather), Scottish, and Irish descent. Capaldi attended drama classes and was accepted into the Glasgow School of Art. After graduating he secured his breakthrough role in Local Hero (1983). Prior to becoming an actor he also worked as a graphic designer for BBC Scotland TV.
Peter was announced as the Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who (2005) on 4th August 2013 on a BBC special programme. He had to hide it from his daughter who remarked to him why it is his name never came up during the buzz. It was a huge relief not to have to keep the secret anymore. His agent called and said "Hello Doctor" when informing him he had gotten the part.Oscar Winner:
Best Short Film, Live Action
Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life (1995)
Shared with:
Ruth Kenley-Letts- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Actress, singer, songwriter, and producer Irene Cara was destined for a life of accomplishments that millions strive for but very few actually attain. From being able to play the piano by ear at age five to earning an Oscar, multiple Grammys, a Golden Globe, and a People's Choice Award, Irene's rise to stardom was paved with experiences of a lifetime.
Beginning shortly after realizing their daughter's natural talent, Irene was quickly enrolled in music, acting, and dance classes. Shortly before that, her mother entered her into multiple competitions and at the age of three, Irene was a finalist in the "Little Miss America" pageant.
Her professional career began on Spanish-language television singing and dancing before performing on shows including 'The Original Amateur Hour', 'The Ed Sullivan Show', and 'The Tonight Show' with Johnny Carson. Her talent was also showcased On and Off Broadway in various productions including 'Ain't Misbehavin'', the Obie Award-winning musical 'The Me Nobody Knows', 'Maggie Flynn' starring Shirley Jones and Tony Award-nominated actor Jack Cassidy, and 'Via Galactica' opposite Raul Julia.
Having performed on the stage, the next natural progression seemed to be series television. She would find a home on the daytime drama 'Love of Life' and the educational series 'The Electric Company' where she participated as a member of the group 'The Short Circus', teaching children about grammar through music. 'The Electric Company's' cast was made up of veteran actors Bill Cosby, Rita Moreno, and Morgan Freeman.
Continuing the pursuit of excellence, Irene recorded her first Spanish-language album at the age of eight and released an English-speaking holiday album shortly thereafter. Her career already blossoming, she would receive the honor of becoming the youngest member to perform in an all-star concert tribute for the legendary Duke Ellington. Held at Madison Square Garden, Irene performed along with music greats Stevie Wonder, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Roberta Flack.
With Broadway, television, and recording firmly tucked under her belt, Irene's next stop was the big screen. Before she entered her teenage years, she had won the title role in the film Aaron Loves Angela. Her performance in the movie was so outstanding that she was cast as the lead in the now cult classic musical drama 'Sparkle'. Proving that she was a tremendously versatile actress, Irene received international acclaim for her roles in 'Roots: The Next Generation' starring alongside James Earl Jones and Diahann Carroll among others, and 'The Guyanna Tragedy: The Jim Jones Story' where she would again work with James Earl Jones as well as LeVar Burton. As much as she had already accomplished, nothing could have prepared her for the super-stardom that would come with her next role.
In 1980, Irene would portray the character Coco Hernandez in a movie-musical titled 'Fame', a story about a group of students auditioning for acceptance into New York's High School for the Performing Arts. The film follows the students from their first to final days at the school and served to shine a light on the film's inspiration, LaGuardia High, and its counterpart Julliard. Irene's massive solo vocal talent was showcased through the title song 'Fame' as well as 'Out Here on My Own'. They and Irene would make Academy Awards history as it marked the first time two songs from the same film were nominated in the same category, and both performed by Irene. The title track won the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
The impact of 'Fame' would catapult Irene Cara into a household name and earn her two Grammy nominations for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal Artist, as well as a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture Actress in a Musical. Billboard Magazine named her the Top New Single Artist and Cashbox Magazine awarded her with the Most Promising Female Vocalist and Top Female Vocalist honors.
In 1982, Irene was awarded the NAACP Image Award for Best Actress for the NBC movie-of-the-week Maya Angelou's 'Sister, Sister' also starring Diahann Carroll and Rosalind Cash. She would garner another NAACP Image Award nomination for the title role in the PBS film 'For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story'. When it seemed her professional life couldn't get any better, Irene set the world on fire again.
Composer Giorgio Moroder approached Irene in 1983 to collaborate on the theme to a film he was attached to titled 'Flashdance'. Irene agreed and actually wrote the lyrics to the title song 'Flashdance...What a Feeling' in a car with producer Keith Forsey while on the way to the studio to record it. Those lyrics would reinforce Irene's already solid place in Hollywood history. The film was nominated for four Academy Awards with Irene taking home the coveted Oscar for Best Original Song. She would also add a Golden Globe to her already impressive collection of honors for Best Original Song in a Motion Picture in addition to two Grammys, a People's Choice Award, and an American Music Award. On a personal level, as a woman of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent, her Academy Award win is even more special as she was the first bi-racial woman to ever win in any category other than acting and only the second to be nominated outside of an acting category.
In 1984/85, Irene was back on the big screen in the film 'City Heat' opposite Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds. She co-wrote the theme as well as performed the classic standards 'Embraceable You' and 'Get Happy'. Irene also starred opposite Tatum O'Neal in the film 'Certain Fury', voiced "Snow White" in the animated film 'Happily Ever After', and toured as "Mary Magdalene" in the Andrew Lloyd Webber production 'Jesus Christ Superstar'.
Not having sat on her laurels, in between winning Oscars, Grammys, and touring, she released the albums 'Anyone Can See' and 'What a Feeling' in 1982 and 1983 respectively which spawned the additional hits 'Breakdance', 'The Dream', 'You Were Made for Me', and 'Why Me', and in 1985 collaborated and sang with Placido Domingo. 'Breakdance' and 'Why Me' would both become Top 10 hits. In 1987, the release of the album 'Carasmatic' was shelved in the United States because of legal issues with the label, but it was issued in limited quantities in the United Kingdom, immediately making the album a collector's piece for anyone lucky enough to have gotten a copy.
Still feeling the love of audiences everywhere, the 90s were spent living out of a suitcase on multiple European concert tours. After finally getting a little breathing space, Irene formed the group Hot Caramel in 1999 and returned to performing to the delight of eager audiences clamoring to hear her unmistakable voice.
In 2004, Irene was awarded the Prestige Award for Lifetime Achievement. She was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Fort Lauderdale Film Institute in 2005, and in 2006, was awarded the Honorary Lifetime Achievement for outstanding contribution in the African-American community by the Columbus Times of Georgia, the country's oldest black newspaper. In 2007, the Reel Sisters of the Disapora Film Festival presented her with the Trailblazer Award, and the Council of the City of New York honored her for her outstanding contributions as a performer. Perhaps one her most pleasurable moments was the 2011 unveiling of her name on a street sign in the Grand Concourse of the Bronx Walk of Fame. That same year, she released a new album titled Irene Cara Presents Hot Caramel. Now semi-retired from the industry that filled every corner of her life for decades, Irene is now enjoying entertaining audiences via her YouTube podcast 'The Irene Cara Show' where she shares videos and talks about the acting and music industry's backstory.
While the outpouring of love from fans still makes her happy, Irene continues to be touched by the knowledge that she and her roles have inspired others within the acting/music industry as well.
Mariah Carey: "Around the same time, my mother entered me in a talent competition in the city, and I sang one of my favorite songs, 'Out Here on My Own', by Irene Cara. I felt 'Out Here on My Own' described my entire life, and I loved singing that way - singing to reveal a piece of my soul. And I won doing it. At that age. I lived for the movie 'Fame', and Irene Cara was everything to me."
Celine Dion: "Whether it's 'Titanic' and the unsinkable 'My Heart Will Go On', 'Michael's Song' and 'Listen to the Magic Man' (in English and French) for 'The Peanut Butter Solution', or 'Deadpool 2's' unexpected 'Ashes', she presides over movie theme songs as if taking up the baton from Irene Cara herself."
Whitney Houston: "'Sparkle' was especially important to because she'd been trying to get the film made for 15 years, having fallen in love with the 1976 original (starring Irene Cara, who went on to appear in Fame) as a teenager, seeing it every Saturday for three months straight."
The two most memorable lines from the title song 'Fame' are "I'm gonna live forever," and "Baby, remember my name". From "Little Miss America" to Carson, 'The Electric Company', 'Flashdance' and beyond, Irene Cara's legacy is guaranteed. Everyone will remember her name.Oscar Winner:
Best Song
"Flashdance: What a Feeling" from the movie Flashdance
(Co-writer)- Actor
- Music Department
- Producer
It seems the second generation of acting Carradines -- David, Keith and Robert -- are proudly continuing the family tradition and begetting a third generation of talent. The dynasty began with veteran Hollywood patriarch John Carradine, the son of a surgeon and a correspondent for the Associated Press. Keith was a child, born of John's second marriage to actress Sonia Sorel.
Lanky, laid-back and highly likable, Keith Ian Carradine was born in San Mateo, California, on August 8, 1949. His parents divorced when Keith was six. Following in the footsteps of older half-brother and mentor David Carradine, Keith studied theater arts at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, but dropped out after only one semester to pursue his career. Soon after, he auditioned for "Hair" in Los Angeles and made his Broadway debut in the 1969 rock musical, playing the role of Claude for an extended period of time. Keith next appeared with his father in a stage production of "Tobacco Road" (1970) in Florida.
The following year Keith broke into films with a part in the Kirk Douglas/Johnny Cash western A Gunfight (1971). Legendary director Robert Altman was quite taken by Keith's work in the film and gave him a part in his own movie McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), which sparked the first of many endeavors together. Keith also made a strong showing on TV, making his mini-movie debut with Man on a String (1972), and appearing with brother David in the TV movie pilot and various episodes of the cult series Kung Fu (1972) as the teenage version (seen in flashbacks) of David's character Kwai Chang Caine.
Keith continued to impress in Altman's films. He played one of three convicts in the critically-acclaimed movie Thieves Like Us (1974), but scored Oscar gold with his next Altman film, Nashville (1975) -- not with his acting but with his songwriting. His composition "I'm Easy" won both the Oscar and Golden Globe for "Best Song". Keith also earned a Grammy nomination in 1976 for his contribution to "Nashville" in the "Best Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television Special" category.
Keith first association with Altman's protégé, Alan Rudolph, occurred filming Welcome to L.A. (1976), to which he again contributed his music talent. Keith's rangy handsomeness and low-keyed acting style were on full display as he increased his popularity with appearances in such films as Ridley Scott's The Duellists (1977); Louis Malle's first American film, the visually-striking Pretty Baby (1978), that made a controversial star out of young Brooke Shields; and the comedy/romance An Almost Perfect Affair (1979). One acting trick that worked was pairing all three Carradine brothers in The Long Riders (1980), which recalled the infamous lives of brothers Cole, Jim and Bob Younger, and boasted three other sets of acting brothers (Keach, Quaid and Guest) as various other outlaw siblings.
Keith's acting reviews throughout much of his career would be decidedly mixed -- some would find his unassuming, introspective acting too listless while others found it beautifully realized and understated. Many of his best notices came from the Altman and Rudolph films, appearing in two of Rudolph acclaimed 80s works -- Choose Me (1984) and The Moderns (1988). He also persevered on TV with award-worthy work. His role in the mini-series Chiefs (1983) netted an Emmy nomination, while his recurring role as Wild Bill Hickok in Deadwood (2004) earned a Golden Satellite nomination and his work in the made-for-TV-film Half a Lifetime (1986) scored a CableACE nomination. Regular series work came late in his career, starring in Fast Track (1997), Outreach (1999) and Complete Savages (2004), all of which were short-lived.
Keith's career was revitalized on the 80s and 90s stage. In addition to strong roles in "Another Part of the Forest" (1982) and "Detective Story" (1984), he won the Outer Critics Circle Award for his excellent work in 1982's "Foxfire" opposite Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn_ and then roped a Tony and Drama Desk nomination as humorist Will Rogers in the Broadway musical "The Will Rogers Follies" (1991). Most recently (2005) he starred in the American premiere of David Hare's satire "Stuff Happens" as none other than George W. Bush while expounding on the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Keith continues to write and compose. Hosting The History Channel's Wild West Tech (2003) and appeared on a season of the hit cable series Dexter (2006) and had a recurring role on the hit sitcom Charity, Dr. Finlay (1965). More recently he played the role of President Conrad Dalton in Madam Secretary (2014) starring Téa Leoni's Secretary of State Elizabeth McCord.
Millennium films include Wooly Boys (2001), a top-billed role in Falcons (2002), The Adventures of Ociee Nash (2002), Our Very Own (2005), Bobby Z (2007), Cowboys & Aliens (2011), The Family Tree (2011), After the Fall (2014), Dakota's Summer (2014), Bereave (2015), A Quiet Passion (2016) and The Old Man & the Gun (2018).
Keith has been married twice. Of his two children born from his first union to actress Sandra Ann Will Carradine, who played opposite him in the film Choose Me (1984), son Cade Carradine recently portrayed Lord Oxford in the film Richard III (2007) and daughter Sorel Carradine has been seen on TV. Keith and Sandra eventually divorced and he married actress Hayley DuMond in 2006; they met while appearing in the film The Hunter's Moon (1999). Keith's daughter Martha Plimpton, a highly gifted actress on her own, was a child from his relationship to actress Shelley Plimpton, whom he met when both were cast members in "Hair" back in 1969.Oscar Winner
Best Song ("I'm Easy" from the film Nashville)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Kevin Michael Costner was born on January 18, 1955 in Lynwood, California, the third child of Bill Costner, a ditch digger and ultimately an electric line servicer for Southern California Edison, and Sharon Costner (née Tedrick), a welfare worker. His older brother, Dan, was born in 1950. A middle brother died at birth in 1953. His father's job required him to move regularly, which caused Kevin to feel like an Army kid, always the new kid at school, which led to him being a daydreamer. As a teen, he sang in the Baptist church choir, wrote poetry, and took writing classes. At 18, he built his own canoe and paddled his way down the rivers that Lewis & Clark followed to the Pacific. Despite his present height, he was only 5'2" when he graduated high school. Nonetheless, he still managed to be a basketball, football and baseball star. In 1973, he enrolled at California State University at Fullerton, where he majored in business. During that period, Kevin decided to take acting lessons five nights a week. He graduated with a business degree in 1978 and married his college sweetheart, Cindy Costner. He initially took a marketing job in Orange County. Everything changed when he accidentally met Richard Burton on a flight from Mexico. Burton advised him to go completely after acting if that is what he wanted. He quit his job and moved to Hollywood soon after. He drove a truck, worked on a deep sea fishing boat, and gave bus tours to stars' homes before finally making his own way into the films. After making one soft core sex film, he vowed to not work again if that was the only work he could do. He didn't work for nearly six years, while he waited for a proper break. That break came with The Big Chill (1983), even though his scenes ended up on the cutting room floor -- he was remembered by director Lawrence Kasdan when he decided to make Silverado (1985). Costner's career took off after that.Oscar winner:
Director, Co-Producer
Dances with Wolves
One acting Oscar nomination for Dances with Wolves.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Matthew Paige Damon was born on October 8, 1970, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Kent Damon, a stockbroker, realtor and tax preparer, and Nancy Carlsson-Paige, an early childhood education professor at Lesley University. Matt has an older brother, Kyle, a sculptor. His father was of English and Scottish descent, and his mother is of Finnish and Swedish ancestry. The family lived in Newton until his parents divorced in 1973, when Damon and his brother moved with his mother to Cambridge. He grew up in a stable community, and was raised near actor Ben Affleck.
Damon attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School and he performed in a number of theater productions during his time there. He attended Harvard University as an English major. While in Harvard, he kept on skipping classes to pursue acting projects, which included the TNT original film, Rising Son (1990), and prep-school drama, School Ties (1992). It was until his film, Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), was expected to be a big success that he decided to drop out of university completely. Arriving in Hollywood, Matt managed to get his first break with a part in the romantic comedy, Mystic Pizza (1988). However, the film did not do too well and his film career failed to take off. Not letting failure discourage him from acting, he went for another audition, and managed to get a starring role in School Ties (1992). Up next for Matt was a role as a soldier who had problems with drug-addiction in the movie, Courage Under Fire (1996). Matt had, in fact, lost forty pounds for his role which resulted in health problems.
The following year, he garnered accolades for Good Will Hunting (1997), a screenplay he had originally written for an English class at Harvard University. Good Will Hunting (1997) was nominated for 9 Academy Awards, one of which, Matt won for Best Original Screenplay along with Ben Affleck. In the year 1998, Matt played the title role in Steven Spielberg's film, Saving Private Ryan (1998), which was one of the most acclaimed films in that year. Matt had the opportunity of working with Tom Hanks and Vin Diesel while filming that movie. That same year, he starred as an earnest law student and reformed poker player in Rounders (1998), starring opposite Edward Norton and John Malkovich. The next year, Matt rejoined his childhood friend, Ben Affleck and fellow comedian, Chris Rock, in the comedy Dogma (1999).
Towards the end of 1999, Matt played "Tom Ripley", a working-class young man who tastes the good life and will do anything to live it. Both Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow also starred in the movie. The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) earned mixed reviews from critics, but even so, Matt earned praise for his performance. Matt lent his voice to the animated movie, Titan A.E. (2000) in the year 2000, which also earned mixed reviews from the public. He also starred in two other movies, All the Pretty Horses (2000) and the golf comedy-drama, The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000), starring alongside Will Smith. In the year 2003, he signed on to star in The Informant! (2009) by Steven Soderbergh and the Farrelly Brothers' Stuck on You (2003). He also starred in Gerry (2002), a film he co-wrote with his friends, Gus Van Sant and Casey Affleck. One of Matt's most recognizable work to date is his role in the "Bourne" movie franchise. He plays an amnesiac assassin, "Jason Bourne", in The Bourne Identity (2002), The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007). Another praised role is that as "Linus Caldwell" in the "Ocean's" movie franchise. He had the opportunity to star opposite George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts and Don Cheadle in Ocean's Eleven (2001). The successful crime comedy-drama eventually had two other sequels, Ocean's Twelve (2004) and Ocean's Thirteen (2007). Among other highly acclaimed movies that Matt has been a part of are Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm (2005), George Clooney's Syriana (2005), Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) and Robert De Niro's The Good Shepherd (2006).
In his personal life, Matt is now happily married to Argentine-born Luciana Barroso, whom he met in Miami, where she was working as a bartender. They married in a private civil ceremony on December 9, 2005, at the Manhattan Marriage Bureau. The couple have four daughters Alexia, Luciana's daughter from a previous relationship, as well as Isabella, Gia and Stella. Matt is a big fan of the Boston Red Sox and he tries to attend their games whenever possible. He has also formed great friendships with his Ocean's co-stars, George Clooney and Brad Pitt, whom he works on charity projects with. He and actor Ben Affleck have remained lifelong friends and collaborators.Oscar Winner:
Original Screenplay
Good Will Hunting
Oscar Nominee:
Best Picture
Manchester by the Sea
(Co-producer)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Clinton Eastwood Jr. was born May 31, 1930 in San Francisco, to Clinton Eastwood Sr., a bond salesman and later manufacturing executive for Georgia-Pacific Corporation, and Ruth Wood (née Margret Ruth Runner), a housewife turned IBM clerk. He grew up in nearby Piedmont. At school Clint took interest in music and mechanics, but was an otherwise bored student; this resulted in being held back a grade. In 1949, the year he is said to have graduated from high school, his parents and younger sister Jeanne moved to Seattle. Clint spent a couple years in the Pacific Northwest himself, operating log broncs in Springfield, Oregon, with summer gigs life-guarding in Renton, Washington. Returning to California in 1951, he did a two-year stint at Fort Ord Military Reservation and later enrolled at L.A. City College, but dropped out to pursue acting.
During the mid-1950s he landed uncredited bit parts in such B-films as Revenge of the Creature (1955) and Tarantula (1955) while digging swimming pools and driving a garbage truck to supplement his income. In 1958, he landed his first consequential acting role in the long-running TV show Rawhide (1959) with Eric Fleming. Although only a secondary player the first seven seasons, he was promoted to series star when Fleming departed--both literally and figuratively--in its final year, along the way becoming a recognizable face to television viewers around the country.
Eastwood's big-screen breakthrough came as The Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's trilogy of excellent spaghetti westerns: A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965), and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966). The movies were shown exclusively in Italy during their respective copyright years with Enrico Maria Salerno providing the voice of Eastwood's character, finally getting American distribution in 1967-68. As the last film racked up respectable grosses, Eastwood, 37, rose from a barely registering actor to sought-after commodity in just a matter of months. Again a success was the late-blooming star's first U.S.-made western, Hang 'Em High (1968). He followed that up with the lead role in Coogan's Bluff (1968) (the loose inspiration for the TV series McCloud (1970)), before playing second fiddle to Richard Burton in the World War II epic Where Eagles Dare (1968) and Lee Marvin in the bizarre musical Paint Your Wagon (1969). In Two Mules for Sister Sara (1970) and Kelly's Heroes (1970), Eastwood leaned in an experimental direction by combining tough-guy action with offbeat humor.
1971 proved to be his busiest year in film. He starred as a sleazy Union soldier in The Beguiled (1971) to critical acclaim, and made his directorial debut with the classic erotic thriller Play Misty for Me (1971). His role as the hard edge police inspector in Dirty Harry (1971), meanwhile, boosted him to cultural icon status and helped popularize the loose-cannon cop genre. Eastwood put out a steady stream of entertaining movies thereafter: the westerns Joe Kidd (1972), High Plains Drifter (1973) and The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976) (his first of six onscreen collaborations with then live-in love Sondra Locke), the Dirty Harry sequels Magnum Force (1973) and The Enforcer (1976), the action-packed road adventures Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) and The Gauntlet (1977), and the prison film Escape from Alcatraz (1979). He branched out into the comedy genre in 1978 with Every Which Way But Loose (1978), which became the biggest hit of his career up to that time; taking inflation into account, it still is. In short, The Eiger Sanction (1975) notwithstanding, the 1970s were nonstop success for Eastwood.
Eastwood kicked off the 1980s with Any Which Way You Can (1980), the blockbuster sequel to Every Which Way but Loose. The fourth Dirty Harry film, Sudden Impact (1983), was the highest-grossing film of the franchise and spawned his trademark catchphrase: "Make my day." He also starred in Bronco Billy (1980), Firefox (1982), Tightrope (1984), City Heat (1984), Pale Rider (1985) and Heartbreak Ridge (1986), all of which were solid hits, with Honkytonk Man (1982) being his only commercial failure of the period. In 1988, he did his fifth and final Dirty Harry movie, The Dead Pool (1988). Although it was a success overall, it did not have the box office punch the previous films had. About this time, with outright bombs like Pink Cadillac (1989) and The Rookie (1990), it seemed Eastwood's star was declining as it never had before. He then started taking on low-key projects, directing Bird (1988), a biopic of Charlie Parker that earned him a Golden Globe, and starring in and directing White Hunter Black Heart (1990), an uneven, loose biopic of John Huston (both films had a limited release).
Eastwood bounced back big time with his dark western Unforgiven (1992), which garnered the then 62-year-old his first ever Academy Award nomination (Best Actor), and an Oscar win for Best Director. Churning out a quick follow-up hit, he took on the secret service in In the Line of Fire (1993), then accepted second billing for the first time since 1970 in the interesting but poorly received A Perfect World (1993) with Kevin Costner. Next was a love story, The Bridges of Madison County (1995), where Eastwood surprised audiences with a sensitive performance alongside none other than Meryl Streep. But it soon became apparent he was going backwards after his brief revival. Subsequent films were credible, but nothing really stuck out. Absolute Power (1997) and Space Cowboys (2000) did well enough, while True Crime (1999) and Blood Work (2002) were received badly, as was Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997), which he directed but didn't appear in.
Eastwood surprised again in the mid-2000s, returning to the top of the A-list with Million Dollar Baby (2004). Also starring Hilary Swank and Morgan Freeman, the hugely successful drama won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Eastwood. He scored his second Best Actor nomination, too. His next starring vehicle, Gran Torino (2008), earned almost $30 million in its opening weekend and was his highest grosser unadjusted for inflation. 2012 saw him in a rare lighthearted movie, Trouble with the Curve (2012), as well as a reality show, Mrs. Eastwood & Company (2012).
Between acting jobs, he chalked up an impressive list of credits behind the camera. He directed Mystic River (2003) (in which Sean Penn and Tim Robbins gave Oscar-winning performances), Flags of Our Fathers (2006), Letters from Iwo Jima (2006) (nominated for the Best Picture Oscar), Changeling (2008) (a vehicle for Angelina Jolie), Invictus (2009) (again with Freeman), Hereafter (2010), J. Edgar (2011), Jersey Boys (2014), American Sniper (2014) (2014's top box office champ), Sully (2016) (starring Tom Hanks as hero pilot Chesley Sullenberger) and The 15:17 to Paris (2018). Back on screens after a considerable absence, he played an unlikely drug courier in The Mule (2018), which reached the top of the box office with a nine-figure gross, then directed Richard Jewell (2019). At age 91, Eastwood made history as the oldest actor to star above the title in a movie with the release of Cry Macho (2021).
Away from the limelight, Eastwood has led an aberrant existence and is described by biographer Patrick McGilligan as a cunning manipulator of the media. His convoluted slew of partners and children are now somewhat factually acknowledged, but for the first three decades of his celebrity, his personal life was kept top secret, and several of his families were left out of the official narrative. The actor refuses to disclose his exact number of offspring even to this day. He had a longtime relationship with similarly abstruse co-star Locke (who died aged 74 in 2018, though for her entire public life she masqueraded about being younger), and has fathered at least eight children by at least six different women in an unending string of liaisons, many of which overlapped. He has been married only twice, however, with a mere three of his progeny coming from those unions.
His known children are: Laurie Murray (b. 1954), whose mother is unidentified; Kimber Eastwood (b. 1964) with stuntwoman Roxanne Tunis; Kyle Eastwood (b. 1968) and Alison Eastwood (b. 1972) with his first ex-wife, Margaret Neville Johnson; Scott Eastwood (b. 1986) and Kathryn Eastwood (b. 1988) with stewardess Jacelyn Reeves; Francesca Eastwood (b. 1993) with actress Frances Fisher; and Morgan Eastwood (b. 1996) with his second ex-wife, Dina Eastwood. The entire time that he lived with Locke she was legally married to sculptor Gordon Anderson.
Eastwood has real estate holdings in Bel-Air, La Quinta, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Cassel (in remote northern California), Idaho's Sun Valley and Kihei, Hawaii.Four-time Oscar Winner:
Unforgiven (Directing and Producing)
Million Dollar Baby (Directing and Producing [co-producer])
Oscar nominee:
Best Picture of the Year
American Sniper (co-producer)
Best Achievement in Directing
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006).
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Letters from Iwo Jima (2006).
Shared with:
Steven Spielberg
Robert Lorenz
Best Director
Mystic River (2003).
Best Picture
Mystic River (2003).
Shared with:
Robert Lorenz
Judie Hoyt
Two acting nominations (Unforgiven, Million Dollar Baby).- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Emerald Lilly Fennell is an English actress, filmmaker, and writer. She has received many awards and nominations, including an Academy Award, two British Academy Film Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award, and nominations for three Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. Fennell first gained attention for her roles in period drama films, such as Albert Nobbs (2011), Anna Karenina (2012), The Danish Girl (2015), and Vita and Virginia (2018). She went on to receive wider recognition for her starring roles in the BBC One period drama series Call the Midwife (2013-17) and for her portrayal of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall in the Netflix period drama series The Crown (2019-20).
Promising Young Woman (2020)
Best Picture (co-producer)
Best Director
Best Original Screenplay [Win]- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956 in Peekskill, New York, USA, as the sixth of eleven children of Hutton Gibson, a railroad brakeman, and Anne Patricia (Reilly) Gibson (who died in December of 1990). His mother was Irish, from County Longford, while his American-born father is of mostly Irish descent.
Mel and his family moved to Australia in the late 1960s, settling in New South Wales, where Mel's paternal grandmother, contralto opera singer Eva Mylott, was born. After high school, Mel studied at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, performing at the National Institute of Dramatic Arts alongside future film thespians Judy Davis and Geoffrey Rush.
After college, Mel had a few stints on stage and starred in a few TV shows. Eventually, he was chosen to star in the films Mad Max (1979) and Tim (1979), co-starring Piper Laurie. The small budgeted Mad Max made him known worldwide, while Tim garnered him an award for Best Actor from the Australian Film Institute (equivalent to the Oscar).
Later, he went on to star in Gallipoli (1981), which earned him a second award for Best Actor from the AFI. In 1980, he married Robyn Moore and had seven children. In 1984, Mel made his American debut in The Bounty (1984), which co-starred Anthony Hopkins.
Then in 1987, Mel starred in what would become his signature series, Lethal Weapon (1987), in which he played "Martin Riggs". In 1990, he took on the interesting starring role in Hamlet (1990), which garnered him some critical praise. He also made the more endearing Forever Young (1992) and the somewhat disturbing The Man Without a Face (1993). 1995 brought his most famous role as "Sir William Wallace" in Braveheart (1995), for which he won two Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director.
From there, he made such box office hits as The Patriot (2000), Ransom (1996), and Payback (1999). Today, Mel remains an international superstar mogul, continuously topping the Hollywood power lists as well as the Most Beautiful and Sexiest lists.Two-time Oscar Winner
Braveheart (Directing and Producing [co-producer])
Oscar nominee:
Best Director
Hacksaw Ridge- Producer
- Actor
- Director
Grant Heslov was born on 15 May 1963 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is a producer and actor, known for Argo (2012), Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005) and The Ides of March (2011). He is married to Lysa Heslov. They have two children.Oscar Winner:
Picture (2012)
Argo (co-producer)
Oscar Nominee:
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
for: The Ides of March (2011).
Shared with:
Grant Heslov
Beau Willimon
Best Writing, Original Screenplay
Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005).
Shared with:
Grant Heslov
Best Picture
Good Night, and Good Luck.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ron Howard is one of this generation's most popular directors. From the critically acclaimed dramas A Beautiful Mind (2001) and Apollo 13 (1995) to the hit comedies Parenthood (1989) and Splash (1983), he has created some of Hollywood's most memorable films.
Howard made his directorial debut in 1978 with the comedy Grand Theft Auto (1977). He began his career in film as an actor. He first appeared in The Journey (1959) and The Music Man (1962), then as Opie on the long-running television series The Andy Griffith Show (1960). Howard later starred in the popular series Happy Days (1974) and drew favorable reviews for his performances in American Graffiti (1973) and The Shootist (1976).
Howard and long-time producing partner Brian Grazer first collaborated on the hit comedies "Night Shift" and "Splash." The pair co-founded Imagine Entertainment in 1986 to create independently produced feature films.
Howard's portfolio includes some of the most popular films of the past 20 years. In 1991, Howard created the acclaimed drama "Backdraft", starring Robert De Niro, Kurt Russell and William Baldwin. He followed it with the historical epic Far and Away (1992), starring Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. Howard directed Mel Gibson, Rene Russo, Gary Sinise and Delroy Lindo in the 1996 suspense thriller Ransom (1996). Howard worked with Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Ed Harris, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise and Kathleen Quinlan on "Apollo 13," which was re-released recently in the IMAX format.
Howard's skill as a director has long been recognized. In 1995, he received his first Best Director of the Year award from the DGA for "Apollo 13." The true-life drama also garnered nine Academy Award nominations, winning Oscars for Best Film Editing and Best Sound. It also received Best Ensemble Cast and Best Supporting Actor awards from the Screen Actor's Guild. Many of Howard's past films have received nods from the Academy, including the popular hits Backdraft (1991), "Parenthood" and Cocoon (1985), the last of which took home two Oscars.
Howard directed and produced Cinderella Man (2005) starring Oscar winner Russell Crowe, with whom he previously collaborated on "A Beautiful Mind," for which Howard earned an Oscar for Best Director and which also won awards for Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress. The film garnered four Golden Globes as well, including the award for Best Motion Picture Drama. Additionally, Howard won Best Director of the Year from the Directors Guild of America. Howard and producer Brian Grazer received the first annual Awareness Award from the National Mental Health Awareness Campaign for their work on the film.
Howard was honored by the Museum of Moving Images in December 2005, and by the American Cinema Editors in February 2006. Howard and his creative partner Brian Grazer, were honored by the Producers Guild of America with the Milestone Award in January 2009, NYU's Tisch School of Cinematic Arts with the Big Apple Award in November 2009 and by the Simon Wiesenthal Center with their Humanitarian Award in May 2010. In June 2010, Howard was honored by the Chicago Film Festival with their Gold Hugo - Career Achievement Award. In March 2013, Howard was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. In December 2015, Howard was honored with a star in the Motion Pictures category, making him one of the very few to have been recognized with two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Howard also produced and directed the film adaptation of Peter Morgan's critically acclaimed play Frost/Nixon (2008). The film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, and was also nominated for The Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures by the PGA.
Howard has also served as an executive producer on a number of award-winning films and television shows, such as the HBO miniseries From the Earth to the Moon (1998), Fox's Emmy Award winner for Best Comedy, Arrested Development (2003), a series which he also narrated, Netflix's release of new episodes of "Arrested Development," and NBC's "Parenthood."
Howard's recent films include the critically acclaimed drama Rush (2013), staring Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Brühl, written by Peter Morgan; and Made in America (2013), a music documentary he directed staring Jay-Z for Showtime.
Howard's other films include In the Heart of the Sea (2015), based on the true story that inspired Moby Dick; his adaptation of Dan Brown's best-selling novels Angels & Demons (2009), and The Da Vinci Code (2006) staring Oscar winner Tom Hanks; the blockbuster holiday favorite "Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)" starring Jim Carrey; "Parenthood" starring Steve Martin; the fantasy epic Willow (1988); Night Shift (1982) starring Henry Winkler, Michael Keaton and Shelley Long; and the suspenseful western, The Missing (2003), staring Oscar winners Cate Blanchett and Tommy Lee Jones.
Recently, Howard directed Inferno (2016), the third installment of Dan Brown 's Robert Langdon franchise and The Beatles: Eight Days a Week - The Touring Years (2016), a documentary about the rock legends The Beatles. He also produced the second season of Breakthrough (2015), Mars (2016), and directed the first episode of Genius (2017), based on the life of Albert Einstein, all for NatGeo.Oscar nominee:
Best Achievement in Directing
Frost/Nixon (2008).
Best Motion Picture of the Year
for: Frost/Nixon (2008).
(co-producer)
Oscar Winner:
Best Director
A Beautiful Mind (2001).
Best Picture
A Beautiful Mind (2001).
(co-producer)- Actress
- Director
- Soundtrack
Christine Lahti was born April 4, 1950 in Birmingham, Michigan, to Elizabeth Margaret (Tabar), a painter and nurse, and Paul Theodore Lahti, a surgeon. She is of half Finnish and half Austro-Hungarian descent. She studied fine arts at Florida State University and received a bachelors degree in drama from the University of Michigan. In New York, Christine worked as a waitress and did commercials before she found her breakthrough role in And Justice for All (1979) with Al Pacino. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Swing Shift (1984) and won an Academy Award for Best Short Film, Live Action for Lieberman in Love (1995) in which she starred and directed. Throughout her acting career, Christine primarily focused on television, with performances in Chicago Hope (1994), and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999).Oscar Winner:
Live Action Short Subject: Lieberman In Love
Supporting Actress nominee for Swing Shift.- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Tom McCarthy is an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is best known for direct and write The Station Agent (2003), The Visitor (2007), Win Win (2011), and Spotlight (2015), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, and was nominated for Best Director.
McCarthy co-wrote the film Up (2009) with Bob Peterson and Pete Docter, for which they received an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He also served as a director and executive producer for the Netflix television series 13 Reasons Why (2017).Oscar Winner
Original Screenplay, "Spotlight" (2015) (co-writer)
Oscar Nominee
Director, "Spotlight" (2015)
Original Screenplay, "Up" (2009) (co-writer)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Ray McKinnon is a writer, actor, director and producer. He served from 2012 through 2016 as creator, showrunner, writer and director of the Peabody Award winning, Sundance TV series, "Rectify."
As an actor, McKinnon has created a canon of unforgettable, offbeat and richly textured characters. In a career spanning two decades, McKinnon steadily built an impressive resume, including memorable roles on FX's critically acclaimed "Sons of Anarchy" (as Lincoln Potter) and the award winning HBO series "Deadwood" (as Reverend H.W. Smith). He has also appeared in series such as "NYPD Blue," "X Files" and "Matlock." Big screen credits include "Mud", "O Brother, Where Art Thou?", "Take Shelter", "The Blind Side", "Footloose", "Apollo 13", and "Bugsy".
As a filmmaker, in 2008, he produced and starred in the critically praised indie feature, "That Evening Sun", and garnered an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his work as Lonzo Choat, opposite Hal Holbrook.
McKinnon has complemented his work in front of the camera with other notable turns as a writer, director and producer. He has frequently collaborated with his friend Walton Goggins and his late wife, actress Lisa Blount, under their Ginny Mule Pictures banner. Their debut film, the McKinnon-penned and titular played, "The Accountant", won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short in 2002. Their first feature, "Chrystal" (written and directed by McKinnon and starring Ms. Blount), was selected for the Sundance Film Festival's prestigious Dramatic Film Competition in 2004.Oscar winner:
Live Action Short-Subject:
The Accountant
(Co-producer)- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Jordan Peele is an Oscar- and Emmy-winning director, writer, actor, producer, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions. Peele's first feature film, "Get Out," was a critically acclaimed blockbuster, recognized with four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. The film would earn Peele the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. His second feature, "Us," broke numerous box-office records, becoming the biggest opening for an R-rated original film in history when released in March of 2019 to widespread critical praise. Peele's third feature, the original horror epic, "Nope," opened in the summer of 2022 to rave reviews, the No. 1 slot at the box office, and once again becoming a widely discussed cultural phenomenon. Five years in the making, Peele produced and co-wrote Henry Selick's stop-motion animated feature, "Wendell & Wild," to which he also lent his voice as one of the title characters. Under the Monkeypaw banner, Peele co-wrote and produced Nia DaCosta's "Candyman" which made history as the first film helmed by a Black woman director to open at No. 1 at the box office. He also produced Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman," which earned a nomination for Best Picture and won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. He has also served as executive producer for numerous television series, including "Hunters" (Amazon), "Lovecraft Country" (HBO), and "The Twilight Zone" (CBS). Prior to becoming a filmmaker, Peele was a celebrated comedian who was the co-star and co-creator of "Key & Peele" on Comedy Central.
Oscar Winner:
Get Out (2017)
Original Screenplay
Oscar nominee
Get Out (2017)
Director, Picture (co-producer)- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Sarah Polley is an actress and director renowned in her native Canada for her political activism. Blessed with an extremely expressive face that enables directors to minimize dialog due to her uncanny ability to suggest a character's thoughts, Polley has become a favorite of critics for her sensitive portraits of wounded and conflicted young women in independent films.
She was born into a show business family: her stepfather, Michael Polley, appeared with her in the movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and on the television series Avonlea (1990); and her mother, Diane Polley, was an actress and casting director. It was her mother's connections that launched Sarah, at her own insistence, on an acting career at the age of four, following in the footsteps of her older half-brother Mark Polley. A second half-brother, John Buchan, is a casting director and producer.
Her career as a child actress shifted into high gear when she was cast as the Cockney waif Jody Turner in Lantern Hill (1989), for which she won a Gemini Award, the Canadian equivalent of the Emmy, in 1992. Produced by Kevin Sullivan, the film was based on the book by Lucy Maud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables (1985). When Sullivan created a television series based on Montgomery's work, he cast Polley in the lead role of Sara Stanley in Avonlea (1990). The series propelled Polley into the first rank of Canadian TV stars and made her independently wealthy by the age of fourteen.
Her personal life was deeply affected by the death of her mother Diane from cancer shortly after her 11th birthday, a development that ironically paralleled the fictional life of her character Sara. Highly intelligent and politically progressive at a young age, Polley eventually rebelled against what she felt was the Americanization of the series after it was picked up by the Disney Channel for distribution in the US, eventually dropping out of the show. Though she does not blame her parents, she remains publicly disenchanted over the loss of her childhood and, in October 2003, said she is working on a script about a twelve-year-old girl on a TV show.
Polley, who picked up a second Gemini Award for her performance in the TV series Straight Up (1996), subsequently quit acting and high school to turn her attention to politics, positioning herself on the extreme left of Canada's left-of-center New Democratic Party. The publicity ensuing from her losing some teeth after being slugged by an Ontario policeman during a protest against the Conservative provincial government, plus the stinging cynicism from some other activists unimpressed by her celebrity, led her to lower her political profile temporarily and return to acting in Atom Egoyan's film The Sweet Hereafter (1997). It was her appearance as Nicole, the teenage girl injured in a school bus accident who serves as the conscience of the small town rent by the tragedy, that first brought her to the attention of critics in the US. In Canada, the role was heralded by critics as her successful breakthrough to adult roles. It was her second film with Egoyan, who wrote the part with her in mind when he adapted the novel by Russell Banks, who, ironically, is American. Predictions of an Academy Award nomination and future stardom were part of the critical consensus, and she received her first Best Actress Genie nomination from Canada's Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television and the Best Supporting Actress award from the Boston Society of Film Critics. It was the buzz created at the Sundance Festival, where her starring role in the film Guinevere (1999) was showcased, when the entertainment media crowned her the it-girl of 1999.
Intensely private and extremely ambivalent about the personal cost of celebrity and the Hollywood ethos Fame is the Name of the Game, Polley could be seen as rebelling against the expectations of mainstream cinema when she embarked on a career path that took her out of the spotlight thrown by the harsh lights of the Hollywood hype/publicity machine after shooting the film Go (1999). She dropped out of Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous (2000), the US$60 million mega-hyped vehicle that was supposed to make her a mainstream star in the US, choosing to return to Canada to make the CDN$1.5 million The Law of Enclosures (2000) for Genie Award-winner John Greyson, a director she admires greatly. The film grossed poorly in Canada and was not released in the US, but it did garner Polley her second Genie nomination for Best Actress. While her replacement in Almost Famous (2000) went on to win an Oscar nomination and a career above the title in glossy Hollywood films, she took a wide variety of parts, large and small, in independent films, including significant roles in the ensemble pieces The Claim (2000) and The Weight of Water (2000); bit parts in eXistenZ (1999) and Love Come Down (2000); and the lead in No Such Thing (2001). Her choice of projects showed her to be a questing spirit more focused on learning the art of her craft than on stardom.
She has said that her choice of film roles, eschewing mainstream Hollywood movies for chancier, non-commercial independent fare, was the result of an ethical decision on her part to make films with social importance. A less-observant viewer might think that the rebel Polley played in her political life that had previously manifested itself in her profession was now driving her to the verge of career suicide in terms of popularity, marketability, and choice of future roles. However, that interpretation does not recognize the extraordinary talent that will always keep her in demand by directors, if not casting agents, with an eye on the opening weekend box office. One must understand Polley's career progression in light of her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre's directors program and her production of short films, including Don't Think Twice (1999) and the highly praised I Shout Love (2001). Polley is a cinema artist. This woman wants to make, and will make films. Thus, we can understand her career choices as a desire to work with and understand the technique of some of the best directors in film, including David Cronenberg, Michael Winterbottom, and Hal Hartley.
Polley is as renowned for her intelligence as for her remarkable talent. The problem of the intelligent person in the acting field is that the actor, as artist, in not ultimately in control of their medium, and it is artistic control that is the hallmark of the great artist. The controlling intelligence on a movie set is the director, and her attendance at the Canadian Film Centre has given her a new perspective on acting. The actor, she says, should not try to give a complete performance for the camera (that is, control the representation on film) but must remember that the function of the actor is to give the director as much coverage as possible as a film, as well as a performance, is made in the editing room. According to Polley, this realization, that the film actor exists to serve the director, has given her new enthusiasm for acting. Thus, her career, and her career choices, can be seen as a quest for knowledge about the art of cinema, a journey whose fruition we will see in her future feature work as both actor and director.Oscar Nominee:
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Away from Her (2006).
Winner:
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Women Talking (2022)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jim Rash was born on 15 July 1971 in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Way Way Back (2013), Community (2009) and The Descendants (2011).Oscar Winner:
Screenplay Adaptation, The Decendents
(Co-writer)- Producer
- Actor
- Director
Born on August 18, 1936, in Santa Monica, California, to Charles Robert Redford, an accountant for Standard Oil, and Martha Redford, Charles Robert Redford, Jr. was a scrappy kid who stole hubcaps in high school and lost his college baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of drunkenness. However, as a high school student, he had displayed a certain aptitude as a caricaturist and this contributed to his decision to seriously study art. Redford then enjoyed a year-long sojourn travelling around Europe, hitchhiking, living in youth hostels and generally living the painter's life. Eventually, he came to realise that his work was unoriginal and not very good. He therefore returned to New York to pursue studies in theatrical design at the Pratt Institute of Art. He subsequently enrolled in acting classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.
By the end of 1960, he was on Broadway in a series of plays including Barefoot in the Park, which launched him to fame. TV and stage experience coupled with all-American good looks led to movies and a breakthrough role in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), when the actor was 33. The Way We Were (1973) and The Sting (1973), both in 1973, made Redford No. 1 at the box office for the next three years. Redford used his clout to advance environmental causes and his riches to acquire Utah property, which he transformed into a ranch and the Sundance ski resort. In 1980, he established the Sundance Institute for aspiring filmmakers. Its annual film festival has become one of the world's most influential. Redford's directorial debut, Ordinary People (1980), won him the Academy Award for Best Director in 1981. He waited eight years before getting behind the camera again, this time for the screen version of John Nichols' acclaimed novel of the Southwest, The Milagro Beanfield War (1988). He scored with critics and fans in 1992 with the Brad Pitt film A River Runs Through It (1992), and again, in 1994, with Quiz Show (1994), which earned him yet another Best Director nomination.
Redford married Lola Van Wagenen on August 9, 1958; they divorced in 1985 after having four children, one of which died of sudden infant death syndrome. Daughter Shauna Redford, born November 15, 1960, is a painter who married Eric Schlosser on October 5, 1985, in Provo, Utah; her first child, born in January 1991, made Redford a grandfather. Son James Redford, a screenwriter, was born May 5, 1962. Daughter Amy Redford, an actress, was born October 22, 1970. Redford has a half-brother named William, who worked in medical research.Oscar winner:
Best Director, Ordinary People
Oscar nominee:
Quiz Show
(Co-producer)
Acting nominee for "The Sting".- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Fisher Stevens moved from his native Chicago to New York at the age of 13 to pursue an acting career. He tried, unsuccessfully, to get any kind of job and was, he recalls, even rejected as extra for a Crest commercial.
When his acting teacher, Dan Fauci, lost the lease to his teaching studio, he rented Fisher's loft and built a stage in the living room. He later studied with Uta Hagen. His first professional theatrical production was playing Tiny Tim's brother, Harry, in the musical version of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" in the basement of an off-off-off Broadway theatre when he was 14. Since then he has performed in more than 20 stage productions including 544 performances in Harvey Fierstein's "Torch Song Triology", both on and off Broadway. He also played Eugene in Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memories". Most recently, he played the leads in Thomas Babe's "Carrying School Children", "Almost Romance" opposite Helen Slater and Jules Feiffer's "Little Murders" with Christine Lahti. He also sang and danced in the musicals "Miami" by Wendy Wasserstein and the late Michael Bennett's Broadway production of "Scandal" with Swoosie Kurtz and Treat Williams. He also appeared in the recent New York City Shakespeare Festival production of "A Midsummer Nights Dream".
Fisher made his motion picture debut getting his fingers chopped off in the horror film The Burning (1981) when he was 16-years-old. After that he appeared in Baby It's You (1983) and The Brother from Another Planet (1984). He co-starred with Matt Dillon in the hit comedy film The Flamingo Kid (1984) where he met the then fledgling producer Gary Foster. He appeared as sidekick to Steve Guttenberg's character in Short Circuit (1986).
In television he has performed in ABC's Ryan's Hope (1975), Showtime's Tall Tales & Legends (1985) and CBS' Early Edition (1996).
Despite having lived in New York City for more than a decade, where, with some other actors, Stevens has started an off-off-off Broadway theatre company called Naked Angels, he insists that he is still a fan of the Chicago Cubs.Oscar Winner:
Best Feature Documentary, The Cove
(co-producer)- Actor
- Writer
- Director
His father, Richard Head Welles, was a well-to-do inventor, his mother, Beatrice (Ives) Welles, a beautiful concert pianist; Orson Welles was gifted in many arts (magic, piano, painting) as a child. When his mother died in 1924 (when he was nine) he traveled the world with his father. He was orphaned at 15 after his father's death in 1930 and became the ward of Dr. Maurice Bernstein of Chicago. In 1931, he graduated from the Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois. He turned down college offers for a sketching tour of Ireland. He tried unsuccessfully to enter the London and Broadway stages, traveling some more in Morocco and Spain, where he fought in the bullring.
Recommendations by Thornton Wilder and Alexander Woollcott got him into Katharine Cornell's road company, with which he made his New York debut as Tybalt in 1934. The same year, he married, directed his first short, and appeared on radio for the first time. He began working with John Houseman and formed the Mercury Theatre with him in 1937. In 1938, they produced "The Mercury Theatre on the Air", famous for its broadcast version of "The War of the Worlds" (intended as a Halloween prank). His first film to be seen by the public was Citizen Kane (1941), a commercial failure losing RKO $150,000, but regarded by many as the best film ever made. Many of his subsequent films were commercial failures and he exiled himself to Europe in 1948.
In 1956, he directed Touch of Evil (1958); it failed in the United States but won a prize at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. In 1975, in spite of all his box-office failures, he received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award, and in 1984, the Directors Guild of America awarded him its highest honor, the D.W. Griffith Award. His reputation as a filmmaker steadily climbed thereafter.Oscar Winner
Original Screenplay, Citizen Kane (co-writer)
Oscar Nominee
Director, Citizen Kane
(also Best Actor nomination, Citizen Kane)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Steven Wright was born on 6 December 1955 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Natural Born Killers (1994), So I Married an Axe Murderer (1993) and Reservoir Dogs (1992).Oscar Winner
Best Short Film, Live Action
The Appointments of Dennis Jennings- Actor
- Producer
- Director
One of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in Manhattan, New York City, to artists Virginia (Admiral) and Robert De Niro Sr. His paternal grandfather was of Italian descent, and his other ancestry is Irish, English, Dutch, German, and French. He was trained at the Stella Adler Conservatory and the American Workshop. De Niro first gained fame for his role in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), but he gained his reputation as a volatile actor in Mean Streets (1973), which was his first film with director Martin Scorsese. He received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Godfather Part II (1974) and received Academy Award nominations for best actor in Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978) and Cape Fear (1991). He received the Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980).
De Niro has earned four Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in New York, New York (1977), opposite Liza Minnelli, Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000). Other notable performances include Brazil (1985), The Untouchables (1987), Backdraft (1991), Frankenstein (1994), Heat (1995), Casino (1995) and Jackie Brown (1997). At the same time, he also directed and starred in such films as A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). De Niro has also received the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010.
As of 2022, De Niro is 79-years-old. He has never retired from acting, and continues to work regularly in mostly film.Oscar Nominee
Best Picture
The Irishman (2019) (co-producer)- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Few actors in the world have had a career quite as diverse as Leonardo DiCaprio's. DiCaprio has gone from relatively humble beginnings, as a supporting cast member of the sitcom Growing Pains (1985) and low budget horror movies, such as Critters 3 (1991), to a major teenage heartthrob in the 1990s, as the hunky lead actor in movies such as Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997), to then become a leading man in Hollywood blockbusters, made by internationally renowned directors such as Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan.
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Irmelin DiCaprio (née Indenbirken) and former comic book artist George DiCaprio. His father is of Italian and German descent, and his mother, who is German-born, is of German, Ukrainian and Russian ancestry. His middle name, "Wilhelm", was his maternal grandfather's first name. Leonardo's father had achieved minor status as an artist and distributor of cult comic book titles, and was even depicted in several issues of American Splendor, the cult semi-autobiographical comic book series by the late 'Harvey Pekar', a friend of George's. Leonardo's performance skills became obvious to his parents early on, and after signing him up with a talent agent who wanted Leonardo to perform under the stage name "Lenny Williams", DiCaprio began appearing on a number of television commercials and educational programs.
DiCaprio began attracting the attention of producers, who cast him in small roles in a number of television series, such as Roseanne (1988) and The New Lassie (1989), but it wasn't until 1991 that DiCaprio made his film debut in Critters 3 (1991), a low-budget horror movie. While Critters 3 (1991) did little to help showcase DiCaprio's acting abilities, it did help him develop his show-reel, and attract the attention of the people behind the hit sitcom Growing Pains (1985), in which Leonardo was cast in the "Cousin Oliver" role of a young homeless boy who moves in with the Seavers. While DiCaprio's stint on Growing Pains (1985) was very short, as the sitcom was axed the year after he joined, it helped bring DiCaprio into the public's attention and, after the sitcom ended, DiCaprio began auditioning for roles in which he would get the chance to prove his acting chops.
Leonardo took up a diverse range of roles in the early 1990s, including a mentally challenged youth in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993), a young gunslinger in The Quick and the Dead (1995) and a drug addict in one of his most challenging roles to date, Jim Carroll in The Basketball Diaries (1995), a role which the late River Phoenix originally expressed interest in. While these diverse roles helped establish Leonardo's reputation as an actor, it wasn't until his role as Romeo Montague in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) that Leonardo became a household name, a true movie star. The following year, DiCaprio starred in another movie about doomed lovers, Titanic (1997), which went on to beat all box office records held before then, as, at the time, Titanic (1997) became the highest grossing movie of all time, and cemented DiCaprio's reputation as a teen heartthrob. Following his work on Titanic (1997), DiCaprio kept a low profile for a number of years, with roles in The Man in the Iron Mask (1998) and the low-budget The Beach (2000) being some of his few notable roles during this period.
In 2002, he burst back into screens throughout the world with leading roles in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002), his first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. With a current salary of $20 million a movie, DiCaprio is now one of the biggest movie stars in the world. However, he has not limited his professional career to just acting in movies, as DiCaprio is a committed environmentalist, who is actively involved in many environmental causes, and his commitment to this issue led to his involvement in The 11th Hour, a documentary movie about the state of the natural environment. As someone who has gone from small roles in television commercials to one of the most respected actors in the world, DiCaprio has had one of the most diverse careers in cinema. DiCaprio continued to defy conventions about the types of roles he would accept, and with his career now seeing him leading all-star casts in action thrillers such as The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010) and Christopher Nolan's Inception (2010), DiCaprio continues to wow audiences by refusing to conform to any cliché about actors.
In 2012, he played a mustache twirling villain in Django Unchained (2012), and then tragic literary character Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby (2013) and Jordan Belfort in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
DiCaprio is passionate about environmental and humanitarian causes, having donated $1,000,000 to earthquake relief efforts in 2010, the same year he contributed $1,000,000 to the Wildlife Conservation Society.Oscar nominee:
The Wolf of Wall Street
Picture (co-producer)
Five acting nominations, one win (The Revenant, 2015)- Actor
- Producer
- Additional Crew
This remarkable, soft-spoken American began in films as a diffident juvenile. With passing years, he matured into a star character actor who exemplified not only integrity and strength, but an ideal of the common man fighting against social injustice and oppression. He was born in Grand Island, Hall, Nebraska, the son of Herberta Elma (Jaynes) and William Brace Fonda, who was a commercial printer, and proprietor of the W. B. Fonda Printing Company in Omaha, Nebraska. His distant ancestors were Italians who had fled their country and moved to Holland, presumably because of political or religious persecution. In the mid-1600s, they crossed the Atlantic and settled in upstate New York where they founded a community with the Fonda name.
Growing up, Henry developed an early interest in journalism after having a story published in a local newspaper. At the age of twelve, he helped in his father's printing business for $2 a week. Following graduation from high school in 1923, he got a part-time job in Minneapolis with the Northwestern Bell Telephone Company which allowed him at first to pursue journalistic studies at the University of Minnesota. As it became difficult to juggle his working hours with his academic roster, he obtained another position as a physical education instructor at $30 a week, including room and board. By this time, he had grown to a height of six foot one and was a natural for basketball.
In 1925, having returned to Omaha, Henry reevaluated his options and came to the conclusion that journalism was not his forte, after all. For a while, he tried his hand at several temporary jobs, including as a mechanic and a window dresser. Then, despite opposition from his parents, Henry accepted an offer from Gregory Foley, director of the Omaha Playhouse, to play the title role in 'Merton of the Movies'. His father would not speak to him for a month. The play and its star received fairly good notices in the local press. It ran for a week, after which Henry observed "the idea of being Merton and not myself taught me that I could hide behind a mask". For the rest of the repertory season, Henry advanced to assistant director which enabled him to design and paint sets as well as act. A casual trip to New York, however, had already made him set his sights on Broadway.
In 1928, he headed east and briefly played in summer stock before joining the University Players, a group of talented Princeton and Harvard graduates among whose number were such future luminaries as James Stewart (who would remain his closest lifelong friend), Joshua Logan and Kent Smith. Before long, Henry played leads opposite Margaret Sullavan, soon to become the first of his five wives. Both marriage and the players broke up four years later. In 1932, Henry found himself sharing a two-room New York apartment with Jimmy Stewart and Joshua Logan. For the next two years, he alternated scenic design with acting at various repertory companies. In 1934, he got a break of sorts, when he was given the chance to present a comedy sketch with Imogene Coca in the Broadway revue New Faces. That year, he also hired Leland Hayward as his personal management agent and this was to pay off handsomely.
It was Hayward who persuaded the 29-year old to become a motion picture actor, despite initial misgivings and reluctance on Henry's part. Independent producer Walter Wanger, whose growing stock company was birthed at United Artists, needed a star for The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935). With both first choice actors Gary Cooper and Joel McCrea otherwise engaged, Henry was the next available option. After all, he had just completed a successful run on Broadway in the stage version. The cheesy publicity tag line for the picture was "you'll be fonder of Fonda", but the film was an undeniable hit. Wanger, realizing he had a good thing going, next cast Henry in a succession of A-grade pictures which capitalized on his image as the sincere, unaffected country boy. Pick of the bunch were the Technicolor outdoor western The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936), the gritty Depression-era drama You Only Live Once (1937) (with Henry as a back-to-the-wall good guy forced into becoming a fugitive from the law by circumstance), the screwball comedy The Moon's Our Home (1936) (with ex-wife Sullavan), the excellent pre-civil war-era romantic drama Jezebel (1938) and the equally superb Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), in which Henry gave his best screen performance to date as the 'jackleg lawyer from Springfield'. Henry made two more films with director John Ford: the pioneering drama Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and The Grapes of Wrath (1940), with Henry as Tom Joad, often regarded his career-defining role as the archetypal grassroots American trying to stand up against oppression. It also set the tone for his subsequent career. Whether he played a lawman (Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine (1946)), a reluctant posse member (The Ox-Bow Incident (1942), a juror committed to the ideal of total justice in (12 Angry Men (1957)) or a nightclub musician wrongly accused of murder (The Wrong Man (1956)), his characters were alike in projecting integrity and quiet authority. In this vein, he also gave a totally convincing (though historically inaccurate) portrayal in the titular role of The Return of Frank James (1940), a rare example of a sequel improving upon the original.
Henry rarely featured in comedy, except for a couple of good turns opposite Barbara Stanwyck -- with whom he shared an excellent on-screen chemistry -- in The Mad Miss Manton (1938) and The Lady Eve (1941). He was also good value as a poker-playing grifter in the western comedy A Big Hand for the Little Lady (1966). Finally, just to confound those who would typecast him, he gave a chilling performance as one of the coldest, meanest stone killers ever to roam the West, in Sergio Leone's classic Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Illness curtailed his work in the 1970s. His final screen role was as an octogenarian in On Golden Pond (1981), in which he was joined by his daughter Jane. It finally won him an Oscar on the heels of an earlier Honorary Academy Award. Too ill to attend the ceremony, he died soon after at the age of 77, having left a lasting legacy matched by few of his peers.Oscar Nominee
Best Picture
12 Angry Men (1957)
(co-producer)
Oscar Winner
Best Actor: On Golden Pond (1981)- Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
When Ruth Gordon convinced her father, a sea captain, to let her pursue acting she came to New York and studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. She acted in a few silents made at Fort Lee, New Jersey, in 1915. She made her Broadway debut in "Peter Pan" as Nibs the same year. The next 20 years she spent on stage, even appearing at the Old Vic in London in the successful run of "The Country Wife" in 1936. Nearly 25 years after her film debut, she returned to movies briefly. Her most memorable role during this period in the early 1940s was as Mary Todd in Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940).
She left Hollywood to return to theater. Back in New York, she married Garson Kanin in 1942 (her first husband Gregory Kelly, a stage actor, died in 1927). She began writing plays, and, later, her husband and she collaborated on screenplays for Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, whose screen relationship was modeled on their own marriage. She returned to film acting during the 1960s. It is during this last period of her career that she became a movie star, with memorable roles in Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Harold and Maude (1971). She wrote several books during the mid-1970s and appeared on TV. She won an Emmy for her role on Taxi (1978) in 1979.Oscar nominations:
Original Screenplay:
A Double Life (1947)
Adam's Rib (1950)
Pat and Mike (1952)
Two acting nominations, 1 win
Supporting Actress
Inside Daisy Clover (1965)
Rosemary's Baby (1968) [Win]- Actor
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Alec Guinness was an English actor. He is known for his six collaborations with David Lean: Herbert Pocket in Great Expectations (1946), Fagin in Oliver Twist (1948), Col. Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor), Prince Faisal in Lawrence of Arabia (1962), General Yevgraf Zhivago in Doctor Zhivago (1965), and Professor Godbole in A Passage to India (1984).
Guinness is really most remembered for his portrayal of Obi-Wan Kenobi in George Lucas' original Star Wars trilogy for which he receive a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
In 1959, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. In the 1970s, Guinness made regular television appearances in Britain, including the role of George Smiley in the serialisations of two novels by John le Carré: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979) and Smiley's People (1982). In 1980 he received the Academy Honorary Award for lifetime achievement.
Guinness was also one of three British actors, along with Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, who made the transition from Shakespearean theatre in England to Hollywood blockbusters immediately after the Second World War.
Guinness died on 5 August 2000, from liver cancer, at Midhurst in West Sussex.Oscar Nominee:
Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium
The Horse's Mouth (1958).
Four acting nominations including a win as Best Actor for The Bridge on the River Kwai- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Shirley MacLaine was born Shirley MacLean Beaty in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from Nova Scotia, Canada, and her father, Ira Owens Beaty, a professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. Her brother, Warren Beatty, was born on March 30, 1937. Her ancestry includes English and Scottish.
Shirley was the tallest in her ballet classes at the Washington School of Ballet. Just after she graduated from Washington-Lee High School, she packed her bags and headed for New York. While auditioning for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Me and Juliet", the producer kept mispronouncing her name. She then changed her name from Shirley MacLean Beaty to Shirley MacLaine. She later had a role in "The Pajama Game", as a member of the chorus and understudy to Carol Haney. A few months into the run, Shirley was going to leave the show for the lead role in "Can-Can" but ended up filling in for Haney, who had broken her ankle and could not perform. She would fill in for Carol, again, three months later, following another injury, the very night that movie producer Hal B. Wallis was in the audience. Wallis signed MacLaine to a five-year contract to Paramount Pictures. Three months later, she was off to shoot The Trouble with Harry (1955). She then took roles in Hot Spell (1958) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956), completed not too long before her daughter, Sachi Parker (born Stephanie), was born. With Shirley's career on track, she played one of her most challenging roles: "Ginny Moorhead" in Some Came Running (1958), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She went on to do The Sheepman (1958) and The Matchmaker (1958). In 1960, she got her second Academy Award nomination for The Apartment (1960). Three years later, she received a third nomination for Irma la Douce (1963). In 1969, she brought her friend Bob Fosse from Broadway to direct her in Sweet Charity (1969), from which she got her "signature" song, "If My Friends Could See Me Now". After a five-year hiatus, Shirley made a documentary on China called The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975), for which she received an Oscar nomination for best documentary.
In 1977, she got her fourth Best Actress Oscar nomination for The Turning Point (1977). In 1979, she worked with Peter Sellers in Being There (1979), made shortly before his death. After 20 years in the film industry, she finally took home the Best Actress Oscar for Terms of Endearment (1983). After a five-year hiatus, Shirley made Madame Sousatzka (1988), a critical and financial hit that took top prize at the Venice Film Festival. In 1989, she starred with Dolly Parton, Sally Field and Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias (1989). She received rave reviews playing Meryl Streep's mother in Postcards from the Edge (1990) and for Guarding Tess (1994). In 1996, she reprised her role from "Terms of Endearment" as "Aurora Greenway" in The Evening Star (1996), which didn't repeat its predecessor's success at the box office. In mid-1998, she directed Bruno (2000), which starred Alex D. Linz. In February 2001, Shirley worked with close friends once again in These Old Broads (2001), and co-starred with Julia Stiles in Carolina (2003) and with Kirstie Alley in Salem Witch Trials (2002).
MacLaine as her own website which includes her own radio show and interviews, the Encounter Board, and Independent Expression, a members-only section of the site. In the past few years, Shirley starred in a CBS miniseries based on the life of cosmetics queen Mary Kay Ash--Hell on Heels: The Battle of Mary Kay (2002), and wrote two more books, "The Camino" in 2001, and "Out On A Leash" in 2003. After taking a slight hiatus from motion pictures, Shirley returned with roles in the movies that were small, but wonderfully scene-stealing: Bewitched (2005) with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, In Her Shoes (2005) with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, in which Shirley was nominated for a Golden Globe in the best supporting actress category, and Rumor Has It... (2005) with Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner. Shirley completed filming of Closing the Ring (2007), directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, in 2007. Her latest book is entitled "Sage-ing While Ag-ing"; Shirley's latest film is Valentine's Day (2010), which debuted in theaters on February 12, 2010.Oscar nominee: Documentary Feature (1976): The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975)
Five nominations for Best Actress, winning for Terms of Endearment (1983)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Screen legend, superstar, and the man with the most famous blue eyes in movie history, Paul Leonard Newman was born on January 26, 1925, in Cleveland, Ohio, the second son of Arthur Sigmund Newman (died 1950) and Theresa Fetsko (died 1982). His elder brother was Arthur S. Newman Jr., named for their father, a Jewish businessman who owned a successful sporting goods store and was the son of emigrants from Poland and Hungary. Newman's mother (born Terézia Fecková, daughter of Stefan Fecko and Mária Polenak) was a Roman Catholic Slovak from Homonna, Pticie (former Austro-Hungarian Empire), who became a practicing Christian Scientist. She and her brother, Newman's uncle Joe, had an interest in the creative arts, and it rubbed off on him. He acted in grade school and high school plays. The Newmans were well-to-do and Paul Newman grew up in affluent Shaker Heights. Before he became an actor, Newman ran the family sporting goods store in Cleveland, Ohio.
By 1950, the 25-year-old Newman had been kicked out of Ohio University, where he belonged to the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity, for unruly behavior (denting the college president's car with a beer keg), served three years in the United States Navy during World War II as a radio operator, graduated from Ohio's Kenyon College, married his first wife, Jacqueline "Jackie" Witte (born 1929), and had his first child, Scott. That same year, his father died. When he became successful in later years, Newman said if he had any regrets it would be that his father was not around to witness his success. He brought Jackie back to Shaker Heights and he ran his father's store for a short period. Then, knowing that wasn't the career path he wanted to take, he moved Jackie and Scott to New Haven, Connecticut, where he attended Yale University's School of Drama.
While doing a play there, Newman was spotted by two agents, who invited him to come to New York City to pursue a career as a professional actor. After moving to New York, he acted in guest spots for various television series and in 1953 came a big break. He got the part of understudy of the lead role in the successful Broadway play "Picnic". Through this play, he met actress Joanne Woodward (born 1930), who was also an understudy in the play. While they got on very well and there was a strong attraction, Newman was married and his second child, Susan, was born that year. During this time, Newman was accepted into the much admired and popular New York Actors Studio, although he did not actually audition.
In 1954, a film Newman was very reluctant to do was released, The Silver Chalice (1954). He considered his performance in this costume epic to be so bad that he took out a full-page ad in a trade paper apologizing for it to anyone who might have seen it. He had always been embarrassed about the film and reveled in making fun of it. He immediately wanted to return to the stage, and performed in "The Desperate Hours". In 1956, he got the chance to redeem himself in the film world by portraying boxer Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), and critics praised his performance. In 1957, with a handful of films to his credit, he was cast in The Long, Hot Summer (1958), co-starring Joanne Woodward.
During the shooting of this film, they realized they were meant to be together and by now, so did his then-wife Jackie, who gave Newman a divorce. He and Woodward wed in Las Vegas in January 1958. They went on to have three daughters together and raised them in Westport, Connecticut. In 1959, Newman received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). The 1960s would bring Newman into superstar status, as he became one of the most popular actors of the decade, and garnered three more Best Actor Oscar nominations, for The Hustler (1961), Hud (1963) and Cool Hand Luke (1967). In 1968, his debut directorial effort Rachel, Rachel (1968) was given good marks, and although the film and Woodward were nominated for Oscars, Newman was not nominated for Best Director. However, he did win a Golden Globe Award for his direction.
1969 brought the popular screen duo of Newman and Robert Redford together for the first time when Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) was released. It was a box office smash. Through the 1970s, Newman had hits and misses from such popular films as The Sting (1973) and The Towering Inferno (1974) to lesser known films as The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972) to a cult classic Slap Shot (1977). After the death of his only son, Scott, in 1978, Newman's personal life and film choices moved in a different direction. His acting work in the 1980s and on is what is often most praised by critics today. He became more at ease with himself and it was evident in The Verdict (1982) for which he received his sixth Best Actor Oscar nomination and, in 1987, finally received his first Oscar for The Color of Money (1986), almost thirty years after Woodward had won hers. Friend and director of Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), Robert Wise accepted the award on Newman's behalf as the actor did not attend the ceremony.
Films were not the only thing on his mind during this period. A passionate race car driver since the early 1970s (despite being color-blind), he was co-founder of Newman-Haas racing in 1982, and also founded "Newman's Own", a successful line of food products that has earned in excess of $100 million, every penny of which Newman donated to charity. He also started The Hole in the Wall Gang Camps, an organization for children with serious illness. He was as well known for his philanthropic ways and highly successful business ventures as he was for his legendary actor status.
Newman's marriage to Woodward lasted a half-century. Connecticut was their primary residence after leaving Hollywood and moving East in 1960. Renowned for his sense of humor, in 1998 he quipped that he was a little embarrassed to see his salad dressing grossing more than his movies. During his later years, he still attended races, was much involved in his charitable organizations, and in 2006, he opened a restaurant called Dressing Room, which helps out the Westport Country Playhouse, a place in which Newman took great pride. In 2007, while the public was largely unaware of the serious illness from which he was suffering, Newman made some headlines when he said he was losing his invention and confidence in his acting abilities and that acting was "pretty much a closed book for me". A smoker for many years, Newman died on September 26, 2008, aged 83, from lung cancer.Oscar Nominee:
Best Picture
Rachel, Rachel (1968)
(producer)
8 acting nominations/1 win (Best Actor: The Color of Money)
2 honorary awards- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Born in West Covina, California, but raised in New York City, Tim Robbins is the son of former The Highwaymen singer Gil Robbins and actress Mary Robbins (née Bledsoe). Robbins studied drama at UCLA, where he graduated with honors in 1981. That same year, he formed the Actors' Gang theater group, an experimental ensemble that expressed radical political observations through the European avant-garde form of theater. He started film work in television movies in 1983, but hit the big time in 1988 with his portrayal of dimwitted fastball pitcher "Nuke" Laloosh in Bull Durham (1988). Tall with baby-faced looks, he has the ability to play naive and obtuse (Cadillac Man (1990) and The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)) or slick and shrewd (The Player (1992) and Bob Roberts (1992)).Oscar Nominee:
Best Director, "Dead Man Walking" (1995)
Supporting Actor Oscar Winner for "Mystic River" (2003)- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
Willard Carroll "Will" Smith II (born September 25, 1968) is an American actor, comedian, producer, rapper, and songwriter. He has enjoyed success in television, film, and music. In April 2007, Newsweek called him "the most powerful actor in Hollywood". Smith has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy Awards.
In the late 1980s, Smith achieved modest fame as a rapper under the name The Fresh Prince. In 1990, his popularity increased dramatically when he starred in the popular television series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The show ran for six seasons (1990-96) on NBC and has been syndicated consistently on various networks since then. After the series ended, Smith moved from television to film, and ultimately starred in numerous blockbuster films. He is the only actor to have eight consecutive films gross over $100 million in the domestic box office, eleven consecutive films gross over $150 million internationally, and eight consecutive films in which he starred open at the number one spot in the domestic box office tally.
Smith is ranked as the most bankable star worldwide by Forbes. As of 2014, 17 of the 21 films in which he has had leading roles have accumulated worldwide gross earnings of over $100 million each, five taking in over $500 million each in global box office receipts. As of 2014, his films have grossed $6.6 billion at the global box office. He has received Best Actor Oscar nominations for Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness.
Smith was born in West Philadelphia, the son of Caroline (Bright), a Philadelphia school board administrator, and Willard Carroll Smith, Sr., a refrigeration engineer. He grew up in West Philadelphia's Wynnefield neighborhood, and was raised Baptist. He has three siblings, sister Pamela, who is four years older, and twins Harry and Ellen, who are three years younger. Smith attended Our Lady of Lourdes, a private Catholic elementary school in Philadelphia. His parents separated when he was 13, but did not actually divorce until around 2000.
Smith attended Overbrook High School. Though widely reported, it is untrue that Smith turned down a scholarship to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); he never applied to college because he "wanted to rap." Smith says he was admitted to a "pre-engineering [summer] program" at MIT for high school students, but he did not attend. According to Smith, "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college."
Smith started as the MC of the hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, with his childhood friend Jeffrey "DJ Jazzy Jeff" Townes as producer, as well as Ready Rock C (Clarence Holmes) as the human beat box. The trio was known for performing humorous, radio-friendly songs, most notably "Parents Just Don't Understand" and "Summertime". They gained critical acclaim and won the first Grammy awarded in the Rap category (1988).
Smith spent money freely around 1988 and 1989 and underpaid his income taxes. The Internal Revenue Service eventually assessed a $2.8 million tax debt against Smith, took many of his possessions, and garnished his income. Smith was nearly bankrupt in 1990, when the NBC television network signed him to a contract and built a sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, around him.
The show was successful and began his acting career. Smith set for himself the goal of becoming "the biggest movie star in the world", studying box office successes' common characteristics.
Smith's first major roles were in the drama Six Degrees of Separation (1993) and the action film Bad Boys (1995) in which he starred opposite Martin Lawrence.
In 1996, Smith starred as part of an ensemble cast in Roland Emmerich's Independence Day. The film was a massive blockbuster, becoming the second highest grossing film in history at the time and establishing Smith as a prime box office draw. He later struck gold again in the summer of 1997 alongside Tommy Lee Jones in the summer hit Men in Black playing Agent J. In 1998, Smith starred with Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State.
He turned down the role of Neo in The Matrix in favor of Wild Wild West (1999). Despite the disappointment of Wild Wild West, Smith has said that he harbors no regrets about his decision, asserting that Keanu Reeves's performance as Neo was superior to what Smith himself would have achieved, although in interviews subsequent to the release of Wild Wild West he stated that he "made a mistake on Wild Wild West. That could have been better."
In 2005, Smith was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records for attending three premieres in a 24-hour time span.
He has planned to star in a feature film remake of the television series It Takes a Thief.
On December 10, 2007, Smith was honored at Grauman's Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard. Smith left an imprint of his hands and feet outside the world-renowned theater in front of many fans. Later that month, Smith starred in the film I Am Legend, released December 14, 2007. Despite marginally positive reviews, its opening was the largest ever for a film released in the United States during December. Smith himself has said that he considers the film to be "aggressively unique". A reviewer said that the film's commercial success "cemented [Smith's] standing as the number one box office draw in Hollywood." On December 1, 2008, TV Guide reported that Smith was selected as one of America's top ten most fascinating people of 2008 for a Barbara Walters ABC special that aired on December 4, 2008.
In 2008 Smith was reported to be developing a film entitled The Last Pharaoh, in which he would be starring as Taharqa. It was in 2008 that Smith starred in the superhero movie Hancock.
Men in Black III opened on May 25, 2012 with Smith again reprising his role as Agent J. This was his first major starring role in four years.
On August 19, 2011, it was announced that Smith had returned to the studio with producer La Mar Edwards to work on his fifth studio album. Edwards has worked with artists such as T.I., Chris Brown, and Game. Smith's most recent studio album, Lost and Found, was released in 2005.
Smith and his son Jaden played father and son in two productions: the 2006 biographical drama The Pursuit of Happyness, and the science fiction film After Earth, which was released on May 31, 2013.
Smith starred opposite Margot Robbie in the romance drama Focus. He played Nicky Spurgeon, a veteran con artist who takes a young, attractive woman under his wing. Focus was released on February 27, 2015. Smith was set to star in the Sci-Fic thriller Brilliance, an adaptation of Marcus Sakey's novel of the same name scripted by Jurassic Park writer David Koepp. But he left the project.
Smith played Dr. Bennet Omalu of the Brain Injury Research Institute in the sports-drama Concussion, who became the first person to discover chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in a football player's brain. CTE is a degenerative disease caused by severe trauma to the head that can be discovered only after death. Smith's involvement is mostly due to his last-minute exit from the Sci-Fi thriller-drama Brilliance. Concussion was directed by Peter Landesman and-bead filmed in Pittsburgh, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It received $14.4 million in film tax credits from Pennsylvania. Principal photography started on October 27, 2014. Actress Gugu Mbatha-Raw played his wife. Omalu served as a consultant.
As of November 2015, Smith is set to star in the independent drama Collateral Beauty, which will be directed by David Frankel. Smith will play a New York advertising executive who succumbs to an deep depression after a personal tragedy.
Nobel Peace Prize Concert December 11, 2009, in Oslo, Norway: Smith with wife Jada and children Jaden and Willow Smith married Sheree Zampino in 1992. They had one son, Trey Smith, born on November 11, 1992, and divorced in 1995. Trey appeared in his father's music video for the 1998 single "Just the Two of Us". He also acted in two episodes of the sitcom All of Us, and has appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show and on the David Blaine: Real or Magic TV special.
Smith married actress Jada Koren Pinkett in 1997. Together they have two children: Jaden Christopher Syre Smith (born 1998), his co-star in The Pursuit of Happyness and After Earth, and Willow Camille Reign Smith (born 2000), who appeared as his daughter in I Am Legend. Smith and his brother Harry own Treyball Development Inc., a Beverly Hills-based company named after Trey. Smith and his family reside in Los Angeles, California.
Smith was consistently listed in Fortune Magazine's "Richest 40" list of the forty wealthiest Americans under the age of 40.Best Picture of the Year
King Richard (2021)
(co-producer)
3 Acting nominations, win for King Richard- Actor
- Writer
- Director
Peter Ustinov was a two-time Academy Award-winning film actor, director, writer, journalist and raconteur. He wrote and directed many acclaimed stage plays and led numerous international theatrical productions.
He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, London, the son of Nadezhda Leontievna (née Benois) and Jona Freiherr von Ustinow. His father was of one-quarter Polish Jewish, one-half Russian, one-eighth Ethiopian, and one-eighth German descent, while his mother was of one-half Russian, one-quarter Italian, one-eighth French, and one-eighth German ancestry. Ustinov had ancestral connections to Russian nobility as well as to the Ethiopian Royal Family. His father, also known as "Klop Ustinov", was a pilot in the German Air Force during World War I. In 1919, Jona Freiherr von Ustinow joined his own mother and sister in St Petersburg, Russia, where he met his future wife, artist Nadia Benois, who worked for the Imperial Mariinsky Ballet and Opera House in St Petersburg.
In 1920, in a modest and discreet ceremony at a Russian-German church in St Petersburg, Ustinov's father married Nadia. In February 1921, when she was seven months pregnant with Peter, the couple emigrated from Russia in the aftermath of the Communist Revolution. Young Peter was brought up in a multilingual family. He was fluent in Russian, French, Italian and German, as well as English. He attended Westminster College (1934-37), took the drama and acting class under Michel St Denis at the London Theatre Studio (1937-39), and made his stage debut in 1938 at the Stage Theatre Club in Surrey. He wrote his first play at the age of 19. In 1939, he made his London stage debut in a revue sketch, then had regular performances with the Aylesbury Repertory Company. The following year, he made his film debut in Hullo, Fame! (1940).
From 1942-46, Ustinov served with the British Army's Royal Sussex Regiment. He was batman for David Niven, and the two became lifelong friends. Ustinov spent most of his service working with the Army Cinema Unit, where he was involved in making recruitment films, wrote plays and appeared in three films as an actor. At that time he co-wrote and acted in The Way Ahead (1944) (aka "The Immortal Battalion").
Ustinov had a stellar film career as actor, director, and writer. Among his numerous screen acting gems were his unparalleled, Academy Award-nominated interpretation of Nero in Quo Vadis (1951) and roles in Max Ophüls's masterpiece Lola Montès (1955), Barefoot in Athens (1966), The Comedians (1967), Robin Hood (1973) and Logan's Run (1976). He also wrote and directed such brilliant films as Billy Budd (1962), Lady L (1965) and Memed My Hawk (1984). He was awarded two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, one for his role in Spartacus (1960) and one for his role in Topkapi (1964), and received two more Oscar nominations as an actor and writer. His career slowed down a bit in the 1970s, but made a comeback as Hercule Poirot in Death on the Nile (1978) by director John Guillermin. In the 1980s, Ustinov recreated Poirot in several subsequent television movies and theatrical films, including Evil Under the Sun (1982) and Appointment with Death (1988), while his cinema work in the 1990s also includes his superb performance as Professor Gus Nikolais in George Miller's excellent dramatic film, Lorenzo's Oil (1992), a character partially inspired by Hugo Wolfgang Moser, a research scientist who had been director of the Neurogenetics Research Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.
His expertise in dialectic and physical comedy made him a regular guest of talk show hosts and late-night comedians. His witty and multidimensional humor was legendary, and he later published a collection of his jokes and quotations summarizing his wide popularity as a raconteur. He was also an internationally acclaimed TV journalist. Ustinov covered over 100,000 miles and visited more than 30 Russian cities during the making of his well-received BBC television series Russia (1986).
In his autobiographies, "Dear Me" (1977) and "My Russia" (1996), Ustinov revealed his observations on his life, career, and his multicultural and multi-ethnic background. He wrote and directed numerous stage plays, successfully presenting them in several countries. His drama, "Photo Finish", was staged in New York, London and St. Petersburg, Russia, where Ustinov directed the acclaimed production, starring Elena Solovey and Petr Shelokhonov. Ustinov also served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and a president of WFM, a global citizens movement. Ustinov served as Rector of Dundee University for six years. He was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Medal from the Royal Society of Arts in 1957 and was knighted in 1990.
From 1971 until his death in 2004, Ustinov's permanent residence was a château in Bursins, Vaud, Switzerland. He died of heart failure on March 28, 2004, in a clinic in Genolier, also in Vaud. His funeral service was held at Geneva's historic Cathedral of St. Pierre, and he was laid to rest in the village cemetery of Bursins. He was survived by three daughters (Tamara, Pavla, and Andrea) and one son (Igor). His epitaph may be gleaned from his comment, "I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World".Oscar Nominee
Best Writing, Story and Screenplay - Written Directly for the Screen
Hot Millions (co-writer).
Three acting nominations which includes two wins for Topkapi and Spartacus.- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Denzel Hayes Washington, Jr. was born on December 28, 1954 in Mount Vernon, New York. He is the middle of three children of a beautician mother, Lennis, from Georgia, and a Pentecostal minister father, Denzel Washington, Sr., from Virginia. After graduating from high school, Denzel enrolled at Fordham University, intent on a career in journalism. However, he caught the acting bug while appearing in student drama productions and, upon graduation, he moved to San Francisco and enrolled at the American Conservatory Theater. He left A.C.T. after only one year to seek work as an actor. His first paid acting role was in a summer stock theater stage production in St. Mary's City, Maryland. The play was "Wings of the Morning", which is about the founding of the colony of Maryland (now the state of Maryland) and the early days of the Maryland colonial assembly (a legislative body). He played the part of a real historical character, Mathias Da Sousa, although much of the dialogue was created. Afterwards he began to pursue screen roles in earnest. With his acting versatility and powerful presence, he had no difficulty finding work in numerous television productions.
He made his first big screen appearance in Carbon Copy (1981) with George Segal. Through the 1980s, he worked in both movies and television and was chosen for the plum role of Dr. Philip Chandler in NBC's hit medical series St. Elsewhere (1982), a role that he would play for six years. In 1989, his film career began to take precedence when he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Tripp, the runaway slave in Edward Zwick's powerful historical masterpiece Glory (1989).
Washington has received much critical acclaim for his film work since the 1990s, including his portrayals of real-life figures such as South African anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko in Cry Freedom (1987), Muslim minister and human rights activist Malcolm X in Malcolm X (1992), boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter in The Hurricane (1999), football coach Herman Boone in Remember the Titans (2000), poet and educator Melvin B. Tolson in The Great Debaters (2007), and drug kingpin Frank Lucas in American Gangster (2007). Malcolm X and The Hurricane garnered him Oscar nominations for Best Actor, before he finally won that statuette in 2002 for his lead role in Training Day (2001).
Through the 1990s, Denzel also co-starred in such big budget productions as The Pelican Brief (1993), Philadelphia (1993), Crimson Tide (1995), The Preacher's Wife (1996), and Courage Under Fire (1996), a role for which he was paid $10 million. He continued to define his onscreen persona as the tough, no-nonsense hero through the 2000s in films like Out of Time (2003), Man on Fire (2004), Inside Man (2006), and The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009). Cerebral and meticulous in his film work, he made his debut as a director with Antwone Fisher (2002); he also directed The Great Debaters (2007) and Fences (2016).
In 2010, Washington headlined The Book of Eli (2010), a post-Apocalyptic drama. Later that year, he starred as a veteran railroad engineer in the action film Unstoppable (2010), about an unmanned, half-mile-long runaway freight train carrying dangerous cargo. The film was his fifth and final collaboration with director Tony Scott, following Crimson Tide (1995), Man on Fire (2004), Déjà Vu (2006) and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. He has also been a featured actor in the films produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and has been a frequent collaborator of director Spike Lee.
In 2012, Washington starred in Flight (2012), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He co-starred with Ryan Reynolds in Safe House (2012), and prepared for his role by subjecting himself to a torture session that included waterboarding. In 2013, Washington starred in 2 Guns (2013), alongside Mark Wahlberg. In 2014, he starred in The Equalizer (2014), an action thriller film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Richard Wenk, based on the television series of same name starring Edward Woodward. During this time period, he also took on the role of producer for some of his films, including The Book of Eli and Safe House.
In 2016, he was selected as the recipient for the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award at the 73rd Golden Globe Awards.
He lives in Los Angeles, California with his wife, Pauletta Washington, and their four children.Oscar nominee
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Fences
(co-producer)- Actor
- Producer
- Art Department
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Iowa, to Mary Alberta (Brown) and Clyde Leonard Morrison, a pharmacist. He was of English, Scottish, Ulster-Scots, and Irish ancestry.
Clyde developed a lung condition that required him to move his family from Iowa to the warmer climate of southern California, where they tried ranching in the Mojave Desert. Until the ranch failed, Marion and his younger brother Robert E. Morrison swam in an irrigation ditch and rode a horse to school. When the ranch failed, the family moved to Glendale, California, where Marion delivered medicines for his father, sold newspapers and had an Airedale dog named "Duke" (the source of his own nickname). He did well at school both academically and in football. When he narrowly failed admission to Annapolis he went to USC on a football scholarship 1925-7. Tom Mix got him a summer job as a prop man in exchange for football tickets. On the set he became close friends with director John Ford for whom, among others, he began doing bit parts, some billed as John Wayne. His first featured film was Men Without Women (1930). After more than 70 low-budget westerns and adventures, mostly routine, Wayne's career was stuck in a rut until Ford cast him in Stagecoach (1939), the movie that made him a star. He appeared in nearly 250 movies, many of epic proportions. From 1942-43 he was in a radio series, "The Three Sheets to the Wind", and in 1944 he helped found the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a Conservative political organization, later becoming its President. His conservative political stance was also reflected in The Alamo (1960), which he produced, directed and starred in. His patriotic stand was enshrined in The Green Berets (1968) which he co-directed and starred in. Over the years Wayne was beset with health problems. In September 1964 he had a cancerous left lung removed; in 1977 when Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope was being made, John Waynes archive voice was used for the character Garindan ezz Zavor, later in March 1978 there was heart valve replacement surgery; and in January 1979 his stomach was removed. He received the Best Actor nomination for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and finally got the Oscar for his role as one-eyed Rooster Cogburn in True Grit (1969). A Congressional Gold Medal was struck in his honor in 1979. He is perhaps best remembered for his parts in Ford's cavalry trilogy - Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and Rio Grande (1950).
Oscar nominee:
Best Picture
The Alamo (1960)
2 Acting nominations including Best Actor win for True Grit (1969)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Dark-haired, usually-mustachioed American actor with a cheeky grin, who achieved pop culture status through his portrayal of the kooky patriarch "Gomez Addams" in the hit TV series The Addams Family (1964), John Astin was born on March 30, 1930 in Baltimore, Maryland. He studied mathematics at Johns Hopkins University, but he discovered a passion for the theater and began to perform in minor plays and do voice-over work for commercials. He first got noticed thanks to a small role in West Side Story (1961), then appeared in several other films before being cast as "Gomez Addams". While "The Addams Family" was initially a huge hit, its popularity petered out after two years, and Astin moved on to other work including the offbeat Bunny O'Hare (1971), playing a grizzled but not- particularly-bright gunfighter in the Western spoof Evil Roy Slade (1972), an appearance in the Disney comedy Freaky Friday (1976) and dual roles in National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985).
He has since lent his comedic talents to numerous appearances as "Dr. Gangreen" in several corny "Killer Tomato" movies, and has contributed his voice to recreate "Gomez Addams" in the animated series The Addams Family (1992), then played "Grandpa Addams" in the successful TV series The New Addams Family (1998). In addition, Astin has contributed voices to several animated shows, and he still appears in films regularly.Oscar Nominee:
Best Short Subject, Live Action Subjects
Prelude (1968)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Sean Patrick Astin (né Duke; February 25, 1971) is an American actor, voice actor, screenwriter, director, producer, family man, author, marathon runner, political activist and philanthropist who is well known for his film debut portraying Mikey in Steven Spielberg's The Goonies (1985), for playing the title role in the critically acclaimed Rudy (1993), and for his role as the beloved Sam Gamgee in the Academy Award winning trilogy, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
Astin was born Sean Patrick Duke on February 25, 1971 in Santa Monica, California. His mother was actress Patty Duke. At the time of his birth, his biological father was believed to be entertainer Desi Arnaz Jr., but Astin discovered through a DNA test in the 1990s that his biological father is music promoter Michael Tell, who was married to Patty Duke in 1970. Sean was raised by his stepfather, actor John Astin, who married Patty Duke in 1972 and whose surname Sean took. Sean's mother was of Irish and more distant German ancestry, and Sean's biological father is of Austrian Jewish and Polish Jewish descent.
At age nine, Sean starred with his mother in the after-school special Please Don't Hit Me, Mom (1981). Followed by Sean's feature debut The Goonies (1985) and since then, he has had a steady stream of roles. Starring in Toy Soldiers (1991), Where the Day Takes You (1992), Rudy (1993) and Harrison Bergeron (1995). He directed and co-produced the short film Kangaroo Court (1994), which was nominated in the best short film category at The 67th Annual Academy Awards (1995). Sean's adoptive father John Astin was nominated for the same award in 1969.
Sean experienced another career breakthrough with his role as the epitome of loyal sidekicks, Samwise Gamgee, in Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, released in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Along with the many awards bestowed upon the trilogy (particularly its final installment The Return of the King), Sean received nominations for his own performance. He took home the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor, and awards from the Las Vegas Film Critics Society, the Seattle Film Critics, the Utah Film Critics Association, and the Phoenix Film Critics Society. As an ensemble, the Return of the King cast received awards from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and the Screen Actors Guild. In 2004, Sean authored the NY Times best seller "There and Back Again: An Actor's Tale," chronicling his acting career with emphasis on his experiences filming the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Sean has been a long-distance runner since his teens. His marathons include the 2014 Marine Corps Marathon in Washington, DC, where he had the honor of officially starting the race, the 2015 Boston Marathon as a member of charity fund-raising team MR8, and the New York City Marathon in 2016. He has done numerous half marathons and countless 5Ks, 10Ks, and races of other distances. He successfully completed the Ironman World Championship Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii, in October 2015; the grueling event consisted of a 2.4 mile open ocean swim, a 112 mile bike race and a 26.2 mile marathon.
In 2012, while training for the LA Marathon, he began a Twitter campaign using #Run3rd, a way to dedicate his runs to causes and ideas that mattered not just to him, but to others. The principle of #Run3rd is that Sean runs first for himself, since running is ultimately a solitary act, second for his ever-patient and supportive family, and third for others. #Run3rd has grown to include a team of runners, walkers, and others who dedicate their activities to the causes of others. A $25,000 grant from the Ironman Foundation will allow the charity to fund after school running programs for children in under-served school districts. More information on #Run3rd, including sponsored 5Ks, is available at run3rd.com.
Sean has served as a philanthropist on the board of several non-profit organizations, including the Creative Coalition, National Center for Family Literacy, and Los Angeles Valley College's Patrons Association and Arts Council. He is a vocal advocate on many issues including literacy, mental health awareness and civic engagement. After the passing of his mother in late March 2016, Sean began fund-raising to create a foundation to carry on her life's work as an advocate for mental health
Politically, Sean has been very active having served in two non-partisan Presidential appointments. Sean also hosts a live weekly 2 hour in-studio bi-partisan political radio talk show, 'Vox Populi Radio' which was made possible by a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2013. In 2004, Sean broke into the publishing world and authored the NY Times Best Selling release of There and Back Again a memoir of his film career (co-written with Joe Layden).
In addition to acting in live action films and television, Sean is also an accomplished voice actor. He has voiced several different characters in animated series, cartoons, animated movies, anime dubs and video games. His voice is also familiar to many. He narrated the Animal Planet series "Meerkat Manor" (2006-2007), and voiced the title characters in the animated Disney Channel series "Special Agent Oso" (2009-2012) and the animated feature film "Ribbit" (2014). He was the voice of Raphael in Nickelodeon's popular "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (2012-2017) as well as it's video games. He voiced the paranoid Siamese cat Chester in "Bunnicula" (2016-2018), a Warner Brothers produced series based on children's books by James Howe and narrates "The Epic Tales of Captain Underpants" (2018-2019) a series on Netflix, based on the Dav Pilkey's children's books. He can be heard in a plethora of other animated shows, anime dubs, video games, audio dramas and narrations. More recently, Sean was the Narrator of the Documentary called Remember the Sultana, which released on March 1st, 2018.
After four decades in front of camera or microphone, Sean has ventured in front of a theater audience, first as Joseph Stalin in a multimedia stage production of "Shostakovich and the Black Monk: A Fantasy," (2018-2019) and then as Dr. Moricet in "Bang Bang!" (2018), John Cleese's adaptation of a 19th century French farce.
Sean is also comfortable behind the camera, directing episodic TV and serving as producer on several films. He directed and co-produced with his wife Christine the short film "Kangaroo Court," nominated for an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1995. While working on "The Lord of the Rings," Sean made "The Long and Short of It." The film premiered at the 2003 Sundance Film Festival and appears on the DVD for "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," along with a making-of video. He is currently working to bring "Number the Stars," based on Lois Lowry's Newbery Award winning children's classic, to the big screen.
While maintaining a career as a professional actor (in live action films and television) and a voice actor for characters in animated series, cartoons, animated movies, anime dubs and video games, Sean is also a political activist. Sean has been actively engaged in the political world since early in his life. He served in two non-partisan Presidential appointments. In 1995, under President Bill Clinton, he became a Civilian Aide to the Secretary of the Army, serving for 10 years under six secretaries in two administrations. He was appointed by President George W. Bush to his Council on Service and Civic Participation, whose mission was to promote a culture of volunteerism and civic engagement. He campaigned for presidential candidates John Kerry in 2004, and Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016. He also served as campaign manager for his friend, Dan Adler, in a special election for California's 36th congressional district race in 2011.
Sean attended Crossroads High School for the Arts and studied with the famous Stella Adler. He graduated with honors from UCLA; B.A. in History & B.A. in English American Literature and Culture. Sean is married to Christine Astin, his co-producer on Kangaroo Court (1994). He resides in Los Angeles, CA with his wife Christine Louise and daughters Alexandra (Ali) Louise, Elizabeth Louise, and Isabella (Bella) Louise. All of his daughters attend Harvard University.Oscar Nominee:
Best Short Film, Live Action
Kangaroo Court (1994)
(Co-producer)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Bob Balaban was born on 16 August 1945 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Gosford Park (2001), A Mighty Wind (2003) and Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977). He has been married to Lynn Grossman since 1 April 1977. They have two children.Oscar Nominee:
Best Picture
Gosford Park (Co-Producer)- Actress
- Producer
A successful career as a film and TV actress in Los Angeles was followed by a move to New York where Nellie immersed herself in directing and producing plays. In 1998 she discovered a play called "The Man Who Was Peter Pan" written by fellow 42nd Street WorkShop member, Allan Knee. She saw it clearly as a film, and after optioning the play, found then unknown writer, David Magee, and commissioned him to write the screenplay. With the help of many people (Tracey Becker, Michelle Sy, Joan Scott, Marti Blumenthal) Nellie got it set up at Miramax Films, where Harvey Weinstein saw its potential. Thus, the film "Finding Neverland" was shot in London in 2002, starring Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet. It premiered in LA in late October, 2004 and was nominated for 7 Oscars and 11 BAFTA awards, among others. Since then, Nellie has produced "Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day", and after returning to Los Angeles in 2013 has 5 more features in development, among them "Road to Oz" (by Josh Golden) at New Line, in association with fellow producer, Beau Flynn.Oscar Nominee
Best Picture
Finding Neverland (2004) (co-producer)
Her filmography lists at least 12 titles as an actress between 1974-1983.- Music Artist
- Actress
- Music Department
Beyoncé Giselle Knowles was born on September 4, 1981 in Houston, Texas. Her mom, Tina Knowles designs their glittering costumes & her dad, Mathew Knowles manages Destiny's Child. Solange, her sister (they're 4 years apart) has released her debut album. She dances with her big sister during DC-3 concerts. Beyoncé's of Louisiana Creole & African descent.
She and her group were discovered by Whitney Houston. One of her favorite songs is "Lovefool" by The Cardigans. Her favorite item of clothing is a pair of path work metallic boots. She writes & produces many of the group's songs, including smash hits "Jumpin Jumpin", "Bootylicious", "Nasty Girl", "Independent Women", "Happy Face" and "Apple Pie a la mode".Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)
King Richard (2021)
"Be Alive" (co-writer: DIXSON)- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Mary J. Blige was born on 11 January 1971 in The Bronx, New York City, New York, USA. She is a music artist and actress, known for Mudbound (2017), Rock of Ages (2012) and The Help (2011). She was previously married to Kendu Isaacs.
Mudbound (2017)
Best Original Song ("Mighty River") (co-writer)
Best Supporting Actress- Actress
- Composer
- Music Department
Danielle Brisebois was born on 28 June 1969 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She is an actress and composer, known for Begin Again (2013), All in the Family (1971) and Archie Bunker's Place (1979). She has been married to Nick Lashley since 2 August 2008. They have two children.Oscar Nominee:
Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
Begin Again (2013)
Shared with: Gregg Alexander
For the song "Lost Stars"- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Dyan Cannon is the first woman in the history of the Motion Picture Academy to be nominated for Oscars both in front of and behind the camera. Her diligence and determination have been rewarded by many prestigious honors.
She received her first Academy Award nomination for her memorable role as Alice in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), opposite Natalie Wood and directed by Paul Mazursky. For her performance, she garnered the coveted New York Film Critics Award.
Dyan received her second Academy Award nomination in the category of Best Live Action Short for writing and directing the 48-minute film, Number One (1976), which she also produced, edited and scored. The New York Times commended the film as one of the best movies ever made concerning children's development.
She received her third Academy Award nomination for her comedic role as Julia Farnsworth, opposite Warren Beatty, in Heaven Can Wait (1978), for which she won the Golden Globe Award from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Later that year, she portrayed Sally Stanford in the Emmy Award-nominated biopic Lady of the House (1978) and starred in another comedy hit, Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978), opposite Peter Sellers and directed by Blake Edwards, and was named Female Star of the Year by the Hollywood Women's Press Club.
As the singular force behind the motion picture The End of Innocence (1990), Dyan undertook a triumvirate of tasks as writer, director and star. Dyan's work received amazing reviews from the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times.
Dyan has co-starred on two outstanding prime-time television shows. For several years, she brought her own brand of humor, class and sexiness to the role of Whipper Cone on the Emmy Award-winning series Ally McBeal (1997). She then starred as the vivacious and free-spirited Honey Bernstein-Flynn on NBC's comedy series Three Sisters (2001).
Her filmography is vast and includes TNT's remake of the Warner Bros. classic Christmas in Connecticut (1992), directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger; Author! Author! (1982) opposite Al Pacino; The Last of Sheila (1973), directed by Herbert Ross; two films directed by Sidney Lumet: Deathtrap (1982), co-starring Michael Caine and Christopher Reeve, and The Anderson Tapes (1971), starring Sean Connery; an adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's The Love Machine (1971); Such Good Friends (1971), directed by Otto Preminger; and Honeysuckle Rose (1980), in which she played Willie Nelson's wife and made her debut as a country music singer. She has starred on Broadway and in her own musical stage act at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas and Harrah's in Lake Tahoe. Dyan co-wrote the title song for Chaka Khan's album, The Woman I Am, with Brenda Russell.
Dyan wanted to take time off from her acting career to write. During the next nine years, she not only collaborated on a Broadway musical, but wrote her memoir, "Dear Cary," which was on the New York Times best seller list three different times spanning four years. A miniseries adaptation of the book, Archie (2023), starring Jason Isaacs and created by Jeff Pope, premiered on ITV and is available for streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
Dyan is recognized as an exceptional motivational speaker for prominent associations and corporations. Children are her passion and most of her work centers around the care and welfare of kids. She is the national spokesperson for the Hemangioma Treatment Foundation, an organization that provides treatment to children all over the world who are afflicted with vascular birthmarks. She is the international executive spokesperson for Operation Lookout, an organization dedicated to recovering missing and exploited children who have been kidnapped from their homes, schools, etc. She has also been national spokesperson for Martin Colette's Wildlife Waystation, an international refuge that rescues and rehabilitates wild and exotic animals, as well as national spokesperson for Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America
In addition, she devotes time and energy to several other charitable organizations such as California's Special Olympics for physically and mentally challenged athletes and also works with recovering addicts weekly.
Dyan is a permanent fixture at the Los Angeles Lakers basketball games.Nominee:
Best Short Film, Live Action
Number One (1976) (with Vince Cannon)
Two Supporting Actress Oscar nominations
Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)
Heaven Can Wait (1978)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
British actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was born in Hammersmith, London. He is the son of Daniella (Weiser), a movement instructor, and Gerald Baron Cohen, a clothing store owner. His father, born in England and raised in Wales, was of Eastern European Jewish descent, while his mother was born in Israel, to German Jewish parents. He was educated at a private school, Haberdashers' Aske's Boys' School in Hertfordshire, and went on to read History at Christ's College, Cambridge. Baron Cohen had an interest in performing from an early age, forming a breakdancing group as a teenager and acting in amateur plays with a Jewish youth group. While at university he joined the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club, and took part in such plays as "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Fiddler on the Roof".
Upon leaving University, Baron Cohen briefly worked as a model, before moving on to work as a host on a satellite TV station. In 1995, Channel 4 put out an open call for new presenters, and Baron Cohen sent in a tape featuring himself in character as an Albania TV reporter (an early prototype for Borat). He was hired and worked on various 'youth TV' projects before, in 1998, appearing in The 11 O'Clock Show (1998) which became a cult hit thanks to his character, Ali G. Ali G proved so popular that a spin-off show Da Ali G Show (2000) and film Ali G Indahouse (2002) where produced.
America soon beckoned with a stateside version of Da Ali G Show. Feature film work followed with Baron Cohen providing the voice of Julien in Madagascar (2005) and appearing as Jean Girard alongside Will Ferrell in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006). He followed this with the smash-hit Borat (2006), for which he won a Golden Globe and was nominated for a writing Oscar. His other film work includes supporting roles in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) and Hugo (2011), and starring in the title roles of Brüno (2009), The Dictator (2012), and The Brothers Grimsby (2016).
Nominations:
Borat (Adapted Screenplay) (co-writer)
Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (Adapted Screenplay) (co-writer)
Acting nomination:
The Trial of the Chicago 7 (Supporting Actor)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Steve Coogan was born on 14 October 1965 in Middleton, Manchester, England, UK. He is an actor and producer, known for Philomena (2013), Alan Partridge (2013) and 24 Hour Party People (2002). He was previously married to Caroline Hickman.Oscar nominee:
Philomena
Picture (co-producer)
Adapted Screenplay (co-writer)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Bradley Charles Cooper was born on January 5, 1975 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Gloria (Campano), is of Italian descent, and worked for a local NBC station. His father, Charles John Cooper, who was of Irish descent, was a stockbroker. Immediately after Bradley graduated from the Honors English program at Georgetown University in 1997, he moved to New York City to enroll in the Masters of Fine Arts program at the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University. There, he developed his stage work, culminating with his thesis performance as John Merrick in Bernard Pomerance's "The Elephant Man", performed in New York's Circle in the Square.
While still in school, Bradley began his professional career, appearing opposite Sarah Jessica Parker on Sex and the City (1998) and on the drama series The Beat (2000). His weekends were spent with LEAP (Learning through the Expanded Arts Program), a non-profit organization that teaches acting and movement to inner city school children. The summers took him all across the globe, from kayaking in British Columbia with Orca Whales to ice-climbing in the Peruvian Andes, while hosting Lonely Planet's Treks in a Wild World (2000) for the Discovery Channel. Bradley had to miss his graduation ceremony from the Actors Studio in order to star in his first feature Wet Hot American Summer (2001). After finishing his second feature Bending All the Rules (2002), his plans to relocate to Los Angeles were delayed when Darren Star hired him to star on the drama series The $treet (2000).
Bradley went on to win the role of young law student Gordon Pinella in Changing Lanes (2002), starring Ben Affleck and Samuel L. Jackson, and also played Travis Paterson in My Little Eye (2002). He finally decided that it was time to forgo his other New York projects and move to Los Angeles when he was cast on Alias (2001). After supporting roles in Wedding Crashers (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), The Comebacks (2007), The Rocker (2008) and Yes Man (2008), Cooper broke out with major roles in He's Just Not That Into You (2009), The Hangover (2009) and Valentine's Day (2010). He co-starred in the action film The A-Team (2010) and headlined the thriller film Limitless (2011).
Cooper received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor after starring opposite Jennifer Lawrence in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (2012). He then received two more consecutive Oscar nominations, Best Supporting Actor for playing Richie DiMaso in Russell's American Hustle (2013) (again opposite Lawrence, though their characters shared no significant screen time), and Best Actor for playing Navy SEAL Chris Kyle in Clint Eastwood's American Sniper (2014), the highest grossing film of 2014. During this time period, Cooper also reprised his role in The Hangover Part II (2011) and The Hangover Part III (2013), turned in another strong dramatic turn in The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), and voiced Rocket Raccoon in the third highest grossing film of 2014, Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).
In 2015, Bradley headlined two comedies, Cameron Crowe's Aloha (2015), set in Hawaii, and John Wells' Burnt (2015), set in London, and starred opposite Jennifer Lawrence again in David O. Russell's Joy (2015).
Bradley has a daughter (born 2017) with his former partner, model Irina Shayk.Oscar Nominee:
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Nightmare Alley (2021)
(co-producer)
Best Motion Picture of the Year
Joker (2019)
(co-producer)
Best Motion Picture of the Year
A Star is Born (2018)
(co-producer)
Best Adapted Screenplay
A Star is Born (2018)
(co-writer)
Best Motion Picture of the Year
American Sniper (2014)
Shared with:
Clint Eastwood
Robert Lorenz
Andrew Lazar
Peter Morgan
Acting nominations:
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
A Star is Born (2018)
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
American Sniper (2014)
Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
American Hustle (2013)
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
In 1976, if you had told fourteen-year-old Franciscan seminary student Thomas Cruise Mapother IV that one day in the not too distant future he would be Tom Cruise, one of the top 100 movie stars of all time, he would have probably grinned and told you that his ambition was to join the priesthood. Nonetheless, this sensitive, deeply religious youngster who was born in 1962 in Syracuse, New York, was destined to become one of the highest paid and most sought after actors in screen history.
Tom is the only son (among four children) of nomadic parents, Mary Lee (Pfeiffer), a special education teacher, and Thomas Cruise Mapother III, an electrical engineer. His parents were both from Louisville, Kentucky, and he has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Young Tom spent his boyhood always on the move, and by the time he was 14 he had attended 15 different schools in the U.S. and Canada. He finally settled in Glen Ridge, New Jersey with his mother and her new husband. While in high school, Tom wanted to become a priest but pretty soon he developed an interest in acting and abandoned his plans of becoming a priest, dropped out of school, and at age 18 headed for New York and a possible acting career. The next 15 years of his life are the stuff of legends. He made his film debut with a small part in Endless Love (1981) and from the outset exhibited an undeniable box office appeal to both male and female audiences.
With handsome movie star looks and a charismatic smile, within 5 years Tom Cruise was starring in some of the top-grossing films of the 1980s including Top Gun (1986); The Color of Money (1986), Rain Man (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). By the 1990s he was one of the highest-paid actors in the world earning an average 15 million dollars a picture in such blockbuster hits as Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), Mission: Impossible (1996) and Jerry Maguire (1996), for which he received an Academy Award Nomination for best actor. Tom Cruise's biggest franchise, Mission Impossible, has also earned a total of 3 billion dollars worldwide. Tom Cruise has also shown lots of interest in producing, with his biggest producer credits being the Mission Impossible franchise.
In 1990 he renounced his devout Catholic beliefs and embraced The Church of Scientology claiming that Scientology teachings had cured him of the dyslexia that had plagued him all of his life. A kind and thoughtful man well known for his compassion and generosity, Tom Cruise is one of the best liked members of the movie community. He was married to actress Nicole Kidman until 2001. Thomas Cruise Mapother IV has indeed come a long way from the lonely wanderings of his youth to become one of the biggest movie stars ever.Nominee:
Best Picture: Top Gun: Maverick (co-producer)
Acting Nominations:
Best Actor: Born on the 4th of July, Jerry Maguire
Best Supporting Actor: Magnolia- Actress
- Writer
- Producer
Julie Delpy was born in Paris, France, in 1969 to Albert Delpy and Marie Pillet, both actors.
She was first featured in Jean-Luc Godard's Detective (1985) at the age of fourteen. She has starred in many American and European productions since then, including Disney's The Three Musketeers (1993), Killing Zoe (1993), Three Colors: White (1994), and the "Before" series, alongside Ethan Hawke: Before Sunrise (1995), Before Sunset (2004), and Before Midnight (2013).
She graduated from NYU's film school, and wrote and directed the short film Blah Blah Blah (1995), which screened at the Sundance Film Festival. She is a resident of Los Angeles.Oscar Nominee:
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Before Sunset (2004)
(Co-writer)
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Before Midnight (2013)
(co-Writer)- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Danny DeVito has amassed a formidable and versatile body of work as an actor, producer and director that spans the stage, television and film.
Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. was born on November 17, 1944, in Neptune, New Jersey, to Italian-American parents. His mother, Julia (Moccello), was a homemaker. His father, Daniel, Sr., was a small business owner whose ventures included a dry cleaning shop, a dairy outlet, a diner, and a pool hall.
While growing up in Asbury Park, his parents sent him to private schools. He attended Our Lady of Mount Carmel grammar school and Oratory Prep School. Following graduation in 1962, he took a job as a cosmetician at his sister's beauty salon. A year later, he enrolled at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts so he could learn more about cosmetology. While at the academy, he fell in love with acting and decided to further pursue an acting career. During this time, he met another aspiring actor Michael Douglas at the National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Connecticut. The two would later go on to collaborate on numerous projects. Soon after he also met an actress named Rhea Perlman. The two fell in love and moved in together. They were married in 1982 and had three children together.
In 1968, Danny landed his first part in a movie when he appeared as a thug in the obscure Dreams of Glass (1970). Despite this minor triumph, Danny became discouraged with the film industry and decided to focus on stage productions. He made his Off-Broadway debut in 1969 in "The Man With the Flower in His Mouth." He followed this up with stage roles in "The Shrinking Bride," and "Lady Liberty." In 1975, he was approached by director Milos Forman and Michael Douglas about appearing in the film version of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), which would star Jack Nicholson in the leading role. With box office success almost guaranteed and a chance for national exposure, Danny agreed to the role. The movie became a huge hit, both critically and financially, and still ranks today as one the greatest movies of all time. Unfortunately, the movie did very little to help Danny's career. In the years following, he was relegated to small movie roles and guest appearances on television shows. His big break came in 1978 when he auditioned for a role on an ABC sitcom pilot called Taxi (1978), which centered around taxi cab drivers at a New York City garage. Danny auditioned for the role of dispatcher Louie DePalma. At the audition, the producers told Danny that he needed to show more attitude in order to get the part. He then slammed down the script and yelled, "Who wrote this sh**?" The producers, realizing he was perfect for the part, brought him on board. The show was a huge success, running from 1978 to 1983.
Louie DePalma, played flawlessly by Danny, became one of the most memorable (and reviled) characters in television history. While he was universally hated by TV viewers, he was well-praised by critics, winning an Emmy award and being nominated three other times. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Danny maintained his status as a great character actor with memorable roles in movies like Romancing the Stone (1984), Ruthless People (1986), Throw Momma from the Train (1987) and Twins (1988). He also had a great deal of success behind the camera, directing movies like The War of the Roses (1989) and Hoffa (1992). In 1992, Danny was introduced to a new generation of moviegoers when he was given the role of The Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot in Tim Burton's highly successful Batman Returns (1992). This earned him a nomination for Best Villain at the MTV Movie Awards. That same year, along with his wife Rhea Perlman, Danny co-founded Jersey Films, which has produced many popular films and TV shows, including Pulp Fiction (1994), Get Shorty (1995), Man on the Moon (1999) and Erin Brockovich (2000). DeVito has many directing credits to his name as well, including Throw Momma from the Train (1987), The War of the Roses (1989), Hoffa (1992), Death to Smoochy (2002) and the upcoming St. Sebastian.
In 2006, he returned to series television in the FX comedy series It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005). With a prominent role in a hit series, Devito's comic talents were now on display for a new generation of television viewers. In 2012, he provided the title voice role in Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (2012).
These days, he continues to work with many of today's top talents as an actor, director and producer.Oscar nominee:
Erin Brockovich (co-producer)- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Griffin Dunne was born on June 8, 1955 in New York City, the oldest child of Dominick Dunne, a producer, actor, and writer, and Ellen Beatriz (Griffin) Dunne, an activist. His sister was actress Dominique Dunne. He grew up mainly in Los Angeles, California and attended school in Colorado before moving back to New York in the late 1970s. As an actor, Dunne has the distinction of having starred in two 1980s cult favorites. First came the John Landis monster movie An American Werewolf in London (1981), then the Martin Scorsese black comedy After Hours (1985). After Hours is also among the movies that Dunne has produced with partner Amy Robinson through their company Double Play Productions. Other Double Play productions include Running on Empty (1988), White Palace (1990) and Once Around (1991). Dunne has continued to appear on both sides of the camera, taking supporting roles as an actor in films like My Girl (1991) and I Like It Like That (1994). He made his directorial debut with a short film, Duke of Groove (1995), which was nominated for an Oscar.
Dunne then made the leap to feature films with Addicted to Love (1997), Practical Magic (1998), Lisa Picard Is Famous (2000) and Fierce People (2005). Dunne produced and starred in the film Game 6 (2005), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005.
Griffin's ancestry is Irish (from his father) and Irish, English, German, Mexican, and Swedish (from his mother).Oscar nominee:
Best Short Film, Live Action
Duke of Groove (1996) (TV).
Shared with:
Thom Colwell- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Cynthia Erivo is an English actress, singer, and songwriter. She is the recipient of several accolades, including a Daytime Emmy Award, a Grammy Award, and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Erivo began acting in a 2011 stage production of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. She gained recognition for starring in the Broadway revival of The Color Purple from 2015 to 2017, for which she won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album. Erivo ventured into films in 2018, playing roles in the heist film Widows and the thriller Bad Times at the El Royale. For her portrayal of American abolitionist Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet (2019), Erivo received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress; she also wrote and performed the song "Stand Up" on its soundtrack, which garnered her a nomination in the Best Original Song category.
On television, Erivo had her first role in the British series Chewing Gum (2015). She went on to star in the crime drama miniseries The Outsider (2020), and received a nomination for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for her portrayal of American singer Aretha Franklin in National Geographic's anthology series Genius: Aretha (2021).Oscar Nominee
Best Song
"Stand Up" Harriet (2019) (co-writer)
Also, Best Actress nomination, Harriet (2019)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Peter Henry Fonda was born in New York City, to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario, Canada-born New York socialite Frances Brokaw (born Frances Ford Seymour). He was the younger brother of actress and activist Jane Fonda and the father of actress Bridget Fonda.
Fonda made his professional stage debut on Broadway in 1961 in Blood, Sweat and Stanley Poole, for which he received rave reviews from the New York Critics, and won the Daniel Blum Theater World Award and the New York Critics Circle Award for Best New Actor. He began his feature film career in 1963, playing the romantic lead in Tammy and the Doctor and joined the ensemble cast of the World War II saga, The Victors.
Shortly thereafter, Fonda began what would become a famous association with Roger Corman, starring in Wild Angels, as the ultra-cool, iron-fisted leader of a violent biker gang, opposite Nancy Sinatra, Bruce Dern, and Diane Ladd. Fonda starred in Corman's 1967 psychedelic film The Trip, also starring Dern and Susan Strasberg. His next project was the seminal 1969 anti-establishment film Easy Rider, which he produced and co-scripted, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay.
His acting credits included the feature films Outlaw Blues, an expose of the country music business; Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry; Race with the Devil; Robert Rossen's Lilith; Split Image; Robert Wise's Two People; and the cult films Love and a .45 and Nadja. He appeared in Grace of My Heart (directed by Alison Anders), and John Carpenter's Escape from L.A., starring Kurt Russell. He made a cameo appearance in Bodies, Heat & Motion, which starred his daughter Bridget Fonda.
Fonda won critical acclaim for his portrayal of Ulee Jackson, the taciturn beekeeper in the 1997 film Ulee's Gold, earning him both a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and the New York Film Critics Award, as well as an Oscar nomination. Following this, he published his autobiography, Don't Tell Dad, and was then seen in the NBC movie The Tempest, for which he had been nominated for another Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Mini-Series. Fonda then appeared with Helen Mirren in the Showtime telefilm The Passion of Ayn Rand, where he won the Golden Globe for outstanding supporting actor in a mini-series or movie made for television and was nominated for both an Emmy and SAG Award. He co-starred in Steven Soderbergh's 1997 film The Limey. Following this, he appeared in Thomas and the Magic Railroad for director Britt Allcroft, starring Alec Baldwin.
Fonda directed his first feature film, The Hired Hand, in 1971. A critically acclaimed western in which he also starred, the film debuted with a restored version at the 2001 Venice Film Festival; it then screened at the Toronto Film Festival before reopening in theaters in 2003. Other directing credits include the science fiction feature Idaho Transfer, starring as a gambler who wins Brooke Shields in a poker game.
Fonda co-starred in HBO's The Laramie Project, based on the true story of openly gay college student Matthew Shepard, killed in an act of senseless violence and cruelty, which attracted national attention. Fonda starred in The Maldonado Miracle, directed by Salma Hayek for Showtime Networks, and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for his role. Fonda also starred opposite Kris Kristofferson in Wooly Boys, which was released in March 2004, and the television drama Back When We Were Grownups, opposite Blythe Danner and Faye Dunaway. Fonda was seen in Soderbergh's Ocean's Twelve and appeared in Mark Steven Johnson's Ghost Rider, opposite Nicolas Cage.
Fonda's last projects included director Ron Maxwell's Civil War-era drama Copperhead, alongside Billy Campbell and Angus MacFadyen, The Ultimate Gift directed by Michael Landon Jr., and John McNaughton's The Harvest, with Samantha Morton and Michael Shannon.
Peter Fonda died on August 16, 2019, in Los Angeles.Oscar nominee
Best Writing, Story, and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced
Easy Rider (1969)
(co-writer)
Also, Best Actor nominee, Ulee's Gold- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Dan Futterman was born on 8 June 1967 in Silver Spring, Maryland, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Capote (2005), A Mighty Heart (2007) and The Birdcage (1996). He has been married to Anya Epstein since 23 September 2000. They have two children.Oscar nominee:
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Foxcatcher (2014)
Shared with: E. Max Frye
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Capote (2005).- Actress
- Writer
- Director
Greta Gerwig is an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and director. She has collaborated with Noah Baumbach on several films, including Greenberg (2010), Frances Ha (2012), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination, and Mistress America (2015). Gerwig made her solo directorial debut with the critically acclaimed comedy-drama film Lady Bird (2017), which she also wrote, and has also had starring roles in the films Damsels in Distress (2011), Jackie (2016), and 20th Century Women (2016).
Greta Celeste Gerwig was born in Sacramento, California, to Christine Gerwig (née Sauer), a nurse, and Gordon Gerwig, a financial consultant and computer programmer. She has German, Irish, and English ancestry. Gerwig was raised as a Unitarian Universalist, but also attended an all-girls Catholic school. She has described herself as "an intense child". With an early interest in dance, she intended to get a degree in musical theatre in New York. She graduated from Barnard College in NY, where she studied English and philosophy, instead. Originally intending to become a playwright, after meeting young film director Joe Swanberg, she became the star of a series of intellectual low budget movies made by first-time filmmakers, a trend dubbed "mumblecore".
Gerwig was cast in a minor role in Swanberg's LOL (2006) in 2006, while still studying at Barnard. She then appeared in many of Swanberg's films, and personally co-directed, co-wrote and co-produced one entitled Nights and Weekends (2008). She has worked with good quality directors such as Ti West (The House of the Devil (2009)), Whit Stillman (Damsels in Distress (2011)), or Woody Allen (To Rome with Love (2012)) but success and (international) recognition did not come until Frances Ha (2012), directed by Noah Baumbach, a film she also co-wrote. Both tall and immature, awkward and graceful, blundering and candid, annoying and engaging, Greta has won all hearts in the title role of Frances Ha(liday).
In 2017, she wrote and directed the highly acclaimed, semi-autobiographical teen movie Lady Bird (2017), set in 2002-2003, and starring Saoirse Ronan, Laurie Metcalf, and Timothée Chalamet.
In 2011, Gerwig received an award for Acting from the Athena Film Festival for her artistry as one of Hollywood's definitive screen actresses of her generation.Oscar Nominee
Little Women (2019)
Screenplay Adaptation
Oscar Nominee
Lady Bird (2017)
Director, Original Screenplay- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Jeffrey Lynn Goldblum was born October 22, 1952 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, one of four children of Shirley (Temeles), a radio broadcaster who also ran an appliances firm, and Harold L. Goldblum, a doctor. His father was of Russian Jewish descent and his mother was of Austrian Jewish ancestry.
Goldblum began his career on the New York stage after moving to the city at age seventeen. Possessing his own unique style of delivery, Goldblum made an impression on moviegoers with little more than a single line in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), when he fretted about having forgotten his mantra. Goldblum went on to appear in the remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) and co-starred with Ben Vereen in the detective series Tenspeed and Brown Shoe (1980) before a high-profile turn in the classic ensemble film The Big Chill (1983).
The quirky actor turned up in the suitably quirky film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984), which became a 1980s cult classic, starred in the modern-day film noir Into the Night (1985), then went on to a breakthrough role in the David Cronenberg remake The Fly (1986), which also featured actress Geena Davis, Goldblum's wife from 1987-1990 and co-star in two additional films: Transylvania 6-5000 (1985) and Julien Temple's Earth Girls Are Easy (1988).
Goldblum was the rather unlikely star of some of the biggest blockbusters of the 1990s: Steven Spielberg's dinosaur adventure Jurassic Park (1993) and its sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997), as well as the alien invasion film Independence Day (1996). These films saw Goldblum playing the type of intellectual characters he has become associated with. More recently, roles have included critically acclaimed turns in Igby Goes Down (2002) and Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004). In 2009, he returned to television to star in his second crime series Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001).Oscar nominee:
Best Short Film, Live Action
Little Surprises (1996) (TV).
(co-producer)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Born in New York, Larry Hankin took an industrial design degree from the University of Syracuse; multifaceted artist, in addition to being an actor, he is also a screenwriter, producer, director and singer. He began his career as an illustrator in the entertainment world, and studied acting at Syracuse University. He was in the same class with Frank Langella and Carl Gottlieb. He was also a member of two comedy improvisation groups, Second City (Chicago) and The Committee (San Francisco). Hankin continues today his work in Hollywood.Oscar nominee
Best Short Film/Live Action
"Solly's Diner" (1979)
(co-producer)- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Ethan Green Hawke was born on November 6, 1970 in Austin, Texas, to Leslie Carole (Green), a charity worker, and James Steven Hawke, an insurance actuary. His parents were students at the University of Texas at the time but divorced when Ethan was 5 years old. His mother raised him alone for the next five years, moving around the country, until she remarried in 1981 and the family settled in Princeton Junction, New Jersey.
He attended West Windsor-Plainsboro High School and then transferred to the Hun School of Princeton and it was while he was there that he began taking acting classes at the McCarter Theatre on the Princeton campus. His early ambition had been to be a writer, but as a result of the acting lessons and appearances in student productions he persuaded his mother to allow him to attend an audition for a role in a sci-fi adolescent adventure, Explorers (1985). He got the role (along with River Phoenix) but although the movie was favourably reviewed, it met with little commercial success which discouraged Hawke from pursuing further movie roles for several years.
He was admitted to the prestigious Carnegie-Mellon University to study theatre but his studies were interrupted when he won his break-through role opposite Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society (1989) and he did not complete his degree. He then appeared in numerous films before taking a role in the Generation X drama Reality Bites (1994) for which he received critical praise. He starred in the romantic drama Before Sunrise (1995), and its later sequels Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013).
His subsequent acting career was a mix of theatre work (earning a number of awards and nominations, including a Tony Award nomination for his role in "The Coast of Utopia" at the Lincoln Center in New York), and a mix of serious and more commercial movies, notably Gattaca (1997) (where he met his first wife, Uma Thurman) and Training Day (2001). His role as the father in the coming-of-age drama Boyhood (2014) earned him multiple award nominations, including the Academy, BAFTA, Golden Globe, and SAG Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Meanwhile, he also wrote two novels: "The Hottest State" (1996) and "Ash Wednesday" (2002).Oscar nominee:
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Before Sunset (2004).
(co-writer)
Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay
Before Midnight (2013)
(co-Writer)
Supporting Actor nominations for Training Day and Boyhood.- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Multi-talented and unconventional actor/director regarded by many as one of the true "enfant terribles" of Hollywood who led an amazing cinematic career for more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was born on May 17, 1936, in Dodge City, Kansas. The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a young age and first appeared in a slew of 1950s television shows, including Medic (1954), Cheyenne (1955) and Sugarfoot (1957). His first film role was in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), quickly followed by Giant (1956) and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). Hopper actually became good friends with James Dean and was shattered when Dean was killed in a car crash in September 1955.
Hopper portrayed a young Napoléon Bonaparte (!) in the star-spangled The Story of Mankind (1957) and regularly appeared on screen throughout the 1960s, often in rather undemanding parts, usually as a villain in westerns such as True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968). However, in early 1969, Hopper, fellow actor Peter Fonda and writer Terry Southern, wrote a counterculture road movie script and managed to scrape together $400,000 in financial backing. Hopper directed the low-budget film, titled Easy Rider (1969), starring Fonda, Hopper and a young Jack Nicholson. The film was a phenomenal box-office success, appealing to the anti-establishment youth culture of the times. It changed the Hollywood landscape almost overnight and major studios all jumped onto the anti-establishment bandwagon, pumping out low-budget films about rebellious hippies, bikers, draft dodgers and pot smokers. However, Hopper's next directorial effort, The Last Movie (1971), was a critical and financial failure, and he has admitted that during the 1970s he was seriously abusing various substances, both legal and illegal, which led to a downturn in the quality of his work. He appeared in a sparse collection of European-produced films over the next eight years, before cropping up in a memorable performance as a pot-smoking photographer alongside Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen in Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979). He also received acclaim for his work in both acting and direction for Out of the Blue (1980).
With these two notable efforts, the beginning of the 1980s saw a renaissance of interest by Hollywood in the talents of Dennis Hopper and exorcising the demons of drugs and alcohol via a rehabilitation program meant a return to invigorating and provoking performances. He was superb in Rumble Fish (1983), co-starred in the tepid spy thriller The Osterman Weekend (1983), played a groovy school teacher in My Science Project (1985), was a despicable and deranged drug dealer in River's Edge (1986) and, most memorably, electrified audiences as foul-mouthed Frank Booth in the eerie and erotic David Lynch film Blue Velvet (1986). Interestingly, the offbeat Hopper was selected in the early 1980s to provide the voice of "The StoryTeller" in the animated series of "Rabbit Ears" children's films based upon the works of Hans Christian Andersen!
Hopper returned to film direction in the late 1980s and was at the helm of the controversial gang film Colors (1988), which was well received by both critics and audiences. He was back in front of the cameras for roles in Super Mario Bros. (1993), got on the wrong side of gangster Christopher Walken in True Romance (1993), led police officer Keanu Reeves and bus passenger Sandra Bullock on a deadly ride in Speed (1994) and challenged gill-man Kevin Costner for world supremacy in Waterworld (1995). The enigmatic Hopper continued to remain busy through the 1990s and into the new century with performances in All the Way (2003), The Keeper (2004) and Land of the Dead (2005).
As well as his acting/directing talents, Hopper was a skilled photographer and painter, having had his works displayed in galleries in both the United States and overseas. He was additionally a dedicated and knowledgeable collector of modern art and had one of the most extensive collections in the United States. Dennis died of prostate cancer on May 29, 2010, less than two weeks after his 74th birthday.Oscar nominee
Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced
Easy Rider (1969)
(co-writer)
Best Supporting Actor nominee, Hoosiers- Actor
- Director
- Composer
McKean was born in New York City at Manhattan Women's Hospital, now part of the Mt. Sinai St. Luke's complex on Amsterdam Avenue. He is the son of Ruth Stewart McKean, a librarian, and Gilbert S. McKean, one of the founders of Decca Records, and was raised in Sea Cliff, New York, on Long Island. McKean is of Irish, English, Scottish, and some German and Dutch descent. He graduated from high school in 1965. In early 1967, he was briefly a member of the New York City "baroque pop" band The Left Banke and played on the "Ivy, Ivy" single (B-side: "And Suddenly").Oscar Nominee:
Best Song, "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow"
from A Mighty Wind (2003)
Co-written by Annette O'Toole- Actor
- Composer
- Music Department
Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote the first incarnation of "In the Heights" his sophomore year at Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Off-Broadway, "In The Heights" received nine Drama Desk nominations, including best music, best lyrics, and it won the award for outstanding ensemble performance; received the Lucille Lortel Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for best musical; received the Obie Award for outstanding music and lyrics; received a Theater World Award for outstanding debut Performance and the Clarence Derwent Award both for Mr. Miranda's performance. He is the recipient of the 2007 ASCAP Richard Rodgers New Horizons Award. He has appeared on The Sopranos (1999) and Sex and the City (1998), House (2004), and The Electric Company (2006). He is also a co-founding member of Freestyle Love Supreme, a hip-hop comedy group that tours comedy festivals all over the world.Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song)
Encanto (2021)
"Dos Oruguitas"
Moana (2016)
"How Far I'll Go"- Actress
- Writer
- Music Department
Annette O'Toole grew up in the Houston dance studio run by her mother. She made her television debut at the age of two, as a kid on The Don Mahoney Kiddie Trooper Show. When she was 13, with ten years of singing and dancing lessons behind her, she and her mother went to L.A. for a year to see if she could have a career in show business. Within two months, she got her first professional job: dancing with Danny Kaye on The Danny Kaye Show. "I've used my singing and dancing training in so many ways," she says. "The discipline you get from that is wonderful for an actor."
O'Toole's first acting role was in My Three Sons, followed by appearances in Gunsmoke, The Partridge Family, The Mod Squad, and Hawaii Five-O. Over the decades she has appeared in more than 40 series (among them Law & Order, Nash Bridges, and The Outer Limits), mini-series (Lonesome Dove, Dead by Sunset, Jewels) and TV movies, most notably playing (and singing as) Tammy Wynette in Stand By Your Man and Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy in The Kennedys of Massachusetts, for which she received an Emmy nomination.
Playing Beverly Marsh in Stephen King's It is one of her fondest memories. (O'Toole judges her favorites based on the filming experience.) In this century, she played a bounty hunter on The Huntress, Clark Kent's adoptive mom on Smallville (where she and John Glover became lifelong friends) and Jim Carrey's mom on Kidding. She is currently a regular on the Netflix series Virgin River, renewed for a fifth season.
Her film career began in 1975, playing a Young American Miss contestant in Michael Ritchie's Smile. She has since appeared in such iconic films as 48 Hrs., Cat People, and Superman III as Lana Lang. (She has played Superman's adoptive mother and, here, his girlfriend.) Her favorite - out of all the TV and films - is the 1987 movie Cross My Heart, in which she co-starred with Martin Short as a couple on their third date, both of whom are trying to figure out how to share their biggest secrets.
For all her success in film and television, O'Toole's deepest love is the theater. When her six-year run on Smallville ended, she decided to focus on theater, which she has been doing for the past decade. She went to New York and her first audition led to her being cast in The Sea Gull. She has appeared in several off-Broadway productions, among them Adam Rapp's Kindness, Tracy Letts' Man from Nebraska, and Tennessee Williams' A Lovely Sunday For Creve Couer. (Performing on Broadway is still her goal.) She has also appeared in many regional productions, including Wendy Wasserstein's Third, Regina Taylor's Magnolia, and Jane Anderson's The Quality of Life.
Her most rewarding theatrical role was in Southern Comfort at the Public Theater in 2016. She played transgender male Robert Eads, for which she received the Lucille Lortel Award. ("Today they'd hire a transgender male," she says. "As they should.")
O'Toole's most fortuitous casting was co-starring with Michael McKean in the Lifetime movie Final Justice. Having known each other casually, they became good friends as they filmed in Portland. Back in L.A., their first date was the 1997 UCLA concert with Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Van Morrison. Soon after that they were married, each bringing along two children from previous marriages. Prolific songwriters - they co-wrote the Academy Award-nominated song "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow" for the Christopher Guest film A Mighty Wind, which McKean starred in - they took their repertoire on the road in 2005, performing all around Los Angeles and at Feinstein's at the Regency in New York. They are currently working on a new musical called Harold and Lillian, based on a documentary of the same name.
"I'm really lucky because I found something that I love early on," O'Toole says, "and I love it even more now than I did then."Oscar Nominee:
Best Song, "A Kiss at the End of the Rainbow"
from A Mighty Wind (2003)
Co-written by Michael McKean- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Leslie Odom Jr. was born on 6 August 1981 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for Hamilton (2020), One Night in Miami... (2020) and Murder on the Orient Express (2017). He has been married to Nicolette Robinson since 1 December 2012. They have two children.One Night in Miami... (2020)
Best Original Song ("Speak Now") (co-writer)
Best Supporting Actor- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Quinn K. Redeker (frequently credited without his middle initial) is best remembered for his recurring roles on the long-running daytime soaps Days of Our Lives (1965) (as nefarious villain Alex Marshall -- in no less than 848 episodes!) and The Young and the Restless (1973) (as con man Rex Sterling). On screen from 1959, Redeker has also guested on many prime time series like Mannix (1967), The Virginian (1962),The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) and Barnaby Jones (1973), usually as authority figures or professional men. At one time, Redeker ran an industrial film company as a sideline to his acting. He also co-authored the screenplay for The Deer Hunter (1978) (including the iconic Russian roulette sequence) which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay. Redeker worked on several occasions with actor/director Robert Redford (The Candidate (1972), The Electric Horseman (1979), Ordinary People (1980)). He portrayed President Ronald Reagan in Big Miracle (2012), his penultimate appearance on the screen. Redeker retired from acting in 2012.Oscar Nominee
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
The Deer Hunter (1978)
(co-writer)- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Robert Reiner was born in New York City, to Estelle Reiner (née Lebost) and Emmy-winning actor, comedian, writer, and producer Carl Reiner.
As a child, his father was his role model, as Carl Reiner created and starred in The Dick Van Dyke Show. Estelle was also an inspiration for him to become a director; her experience as a singer helped him understand how music was used in a scene. Rob often felt pressured about measuring up to his father's successful streak, with twelve Emmys and other prestigious awards.
When Rob graduated high school, his parents advised him to participate in Summer Theatre. Reiner got a job as an apprentice in the Bucks County Playhouse in Pennsylvania. He went on to UCLA Film School to further his education. Reiner felt he still wasn't successful even having a recurring role on one of the biggest shows in the country, All in the Family. He began his directing career with the Oscar-nominated films This Is Spinal Tap, Stand By Me, and The Princess Bride.
In 1987, with these successful box-office movies under his belt, Reiner founded his own production company, Castle Rock Entertainment; along with Martin Shafer, Andrew Scheinman, Glenn Padnick, and Alan Horn. Under Castle Rock Entertainment, he went to direct Oscar-nominated films When Harry Met Sally, Misery, and A Few Good Men. Reiner has credited former co-star Carroll O'Connor in helping him get into the directing business, showing Reiner the ropes.
Reiner is known as a political activist, co-founding the American Foundation For Equal Rights, a group that was an advisory for same-sex-marriage. He has spoken at several rallies on several topics, an advocate for social change regarding such issues as domestic violence and tobacco use.
Reiner made cameo appearances on television shows 30 Rock, The Simpsons, and Hannah Montana, and in films The First Wives Club, Bullets Over Broadway, Primary Colors, and Throw Momma From The Train, among many others.Oscar Nominee:
A Few Good Men (co-producer)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Peter Riegert was born on 11 April 1947 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and director, known for The Mask (1994), National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and Local Hero (1983).Oscar Nominee:
Best Short Film, Live Action
By Courier (2000)- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Peter Frederick Weller was born in Stevens Point, Wisconsin, to Dorothy Jean (Davidson) and Frederick Bradford Weller, a federal judge and career helicopter pilot for the United States Army. He traveled extensively as his father literally flew around the world. Before he was out of his teens, he had attended high schools in Heidelberg, Germany and San Antonio, Texas, then enrolled the University of North Texas -- attracted by the chance of playing trumpet in one of the college's celebrated jazz bands. Music is in his family. Three generations on his mother's side were piano players and jazz is still his overriding interest. Ask him who his favorite performer in any art form is and he will say Miles Davis. It was with a B.A. in Theatre and a scholarship to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts that he left Texas for New York. Two weeks after graduating, he made his first appearance on Broadway as David in Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival production of David Rabe's "Sticks and Bones", a role he repeated on the London stage.
While a student of legendary actress and drama coach, Uta Hagen, Weller appeared on and off Broadway in works like William Inge's "Summer Brave", Thomas Babe's "Rebel Women" and "Full Circle", one of the last plays directed by Otto Preminger. He began garnering critical acclaim with his portrayal of Billie Wilson in "Streamers", directed by Mike Nichols for Joseph Papp at Lincoln Center. He continued that success with his performances as Cliff in "The Woolgatherer" and as Nick in the first American production of David Mamet's "The Woods". During this period, he became a member of the highly respected Actor's Studio, under the aegis of Elia Kazan and Lee Strasberg.
Weller's film debut was in Richard Lester's Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979). He then co-starred with Alan King and Ali MacGraw in Sidney Lumet's Just Tell Me What You Want (1980) and, with Albert Finney and Diane Keaton, in Alan Parker's Shoot the Moon (1982). Other film credits include Firstborn (1984) with Teri Garr, the HBO made-for-TV Apology (1986), co-starring Lesley Ann Warren, and Of Unknown Origin (1983), the film which won Weller the Best Actor award at the Paris International Film Festival for his performance as an upwardly mobile bachelor with a serious rat problem. That same film also marked his first association with Leviathan (1989) director George P. Cosmatos.Oscar Nominee
Best Short Film, Live Action
Partners (1993)- Actress
- Producer
- Director
The product of a musical family, (Margaret) JoBeth Williams was born on December 6, 1948, in Houston, Texas, to Frances Faye (Adams), a dietitian, and Fredric Roger Williams, a wire/cable company manager and opera singer. Her father encouraged her early interest in theater during high school.
She made her professional debut at age 18 in a Houston-based musical production, then studied at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, with the intentions of becoming a child psychologist. The acting bug hit her again, however, and she decided to pursue theater after receiving her B.A. in English in 1970. Working intensely to lose her Texas twang, her early training came as a member of the Trinity Repertory Company, where she stayed for two-and-a-half years.
In New York the lovely Jobeth became a daytime regular in the mid-1970s on both Somerset (1970) and in a vixenish role on Guiding Light (1952) before making a brief but memorable impact in a highly popular film at the end of the decade. In the Dustin Hoffman starring film Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Jobeth plays Hoffman's gorgeous sleepover who gets caught stark naked by his young, precocious son (Justin Henry) the following morning. She also impressed on the stage with major roles in "Moonchildren" and "A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking."
Her star maker would could in the form of the strong-willed mother of three who fights to save her brood from home-invading demons in Steven Spielberg's humongous critical and box-office hit Poltergeist (1982), which also made a major star out of movie husband Craig T. Nelson. Officially in the big leagues now, she joined the star ensemble cast of The Big Chill (1983), and appeared opposite Nick Nolte in Teachers (1984). Disappointing outcomes in the lackluster sequel Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986) and the intriguing but overlooked American Dreamer (1984) prodded her to search for more challenging work on TV.
It is the small screen, in fact, that has particularly shown off the range of Jobeth's talent over the years, particularly in domestic drama. Cast in some of the finest TV-movies served up, Jobeth won deserved Emmy nominations for her real-life mother of an ill-fated missing child in Adam (1983) and real-life surrogate mother in Baby M (1988). Other monumental mini-movie efforts include her nurse in the apocalyptic drama The Day After (1983); her magnetic performance opposite Terry Kinney as an adulterous worshiper and minister who carry out plans to kill their respective spouses in the gripping suspense show Murder Ordained (1987); alcoholic James Woods' long-suffering wife in My Name Is Bill W. (1989); a social worker trying to reach a deaf girl in Breaking Through (1996); and the overbearing mother whose son turns to drugs in Trapped in a Purple Haze (2000). She continues to balance both film and TV projects into the millennium.
Behind the scenes she was nominated for an Academy Award for her directorial debut of Showtime's On Hope (1994)and continues to seek out other directing projects. It doesn't hurt being married to a director for encouragement. She and John Pasquin, who directed her in the film Jungle 2 Jungle (1997) and on the short-lived TV series Payne (1999), have two children.
Into the millennium, Jobeth starred as a psychiatrist in the offbeat crime drama The Rose Technique (2002); then played a series of mom support roles -- Drew Barrymore's in Fever Pitch (2005), Reiko Aylesworth's in Crazylove (2005) and Adam Brody's in In the Land of Women (2007); plus roles in The Big Year (2011), Songs of Alchemy (2012), Barracuda (2017), Alex & The List (2017), SGT. Will Gardner (2019) and What the Night Can Do (2020). In addition to guest appearances on such popular program as "The Guardian," "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit," "Judging Amy," "Miss Match," "Numb3rs," "Criminal Minds," "The Nine," "Dexter," "NCIS," "The Good Doctor," and recurring roles on Private Practice (2007), Hart of Dixie (2011), Marry Me (2014) and Your Family or Mine (2015), she earned kudos as Sybil's mentally disturbed mother in a revived TV movie version of Sybil (2007).Oscar nominee:
Best Short Film, Live Action
On Hope (1994).
Shared with:
Michele McGuire- Actor
- Producer
- Writer
Self-proclaimed troublemaker Owen Cunningham Wilson was born in Dallas, to Irish-American parents originally from Massachusetts. He grew up in Texas with his mother, Laura (Cunningham), a photographer; his father, Robert Andrew Wilson, an ad exec; and his brothers, Andrew Wilson (the eldest) and Luke Wilson (the youngest). Expelled from St. Mark's School of Texas (Dallas, TX) in the tenth grade, Wilson finished his sophomore year at Thomas Jefferson School and then headed to a military academy in New Mexico. He then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he met his future mentor and friend, Wes Anderson. They wrote a screenplay, Bottle Rocket (1996), and sent it to their family friend, screenwriter L.M. Kit Carson, who sent it to producer Polly Platt, who gave it to James L. Brooks, who gave the Texans $5 million to make it into a feature film. Despite critical praise, Bottle Rocket (1996) only grossed one million dollars. After making the film, Wilson moved to Hollywood, setting up house with his two brothers and Anderson. Fairly quickly, Owen found himself acting in a series of big budget films, such as The Cable Guy (1996), The Haunting (1999), Anaconda (1997) and Breakfast of Champions (1999). This led to more work, such as Shanghai Noon (2000), Meet the Parents (2000) and Behind Enemy Lines (2001). He's known not only for his nose, which has been broken several times, but also for his 'free wheeling ways' with a script. He co-wrote the film The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) with his oft partner Wes Anderson.Oscar Nominee:
Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
The Royal Tenenbaums (2001)
Shared with:
Wes Anderson- Actor
- Producer
- Director
William Zabka was born on 20 October 1965 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and producer, known for The Karate Kid (1984), Back to School (1986) and Hot Tub Time Machine (2010). He has been married to Stacie Lynn Doss since 2008. They have two children.Nominee:
Best Short Film, Live Action (2003) "Most"
(with co-director Bobby Garabedian)