- Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn (July 23, 1891-February 27, 1958), sometimes nicknamed King Cohn, was president and production director of Columbia Pictures. Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage. After working for a time as a streetcar conductor, and then as a promoter for a sheet music printer, he got a job with Universal Pictures, where his brother, Jack Cohn, was already employed. - David Slade
David Slade (born September 26, 1969) is a British film director who began his career making music videos. His work includes videos for artists such as Aphex Twin ("Donkey Rhubarb"), Rob Dougan ("Clubbed to Death"), Stone Temple Pilots ("Sour Girl"), Tori Amos ("Strange Little Girl"), as well as four videos for Muse (Hyper Music, Feeling Good, Bliss, and New Born). - Ann Miller
Ann Miller was an American dancer, singer and actress, who was christened Johnnie Lucille Collier. Born in Chireno, Texas (some sources cite Houston, where she was raised), her father insisted on the name Johnnie because he had wanted a boy, but she was often called Annie. She took up dancing to exercise her legs to help her rickets. She was considered a child dance prodigy. - Akio Morita
Akio Morita was a co-founder of Sony Corporation. - Jules White
Jules White (born Jules Weiss on 17 September 1900 in Budapest, Hungary, died 30 April 1985 in Van Nuys, California) was a movie director and producer. He is best known for his short-subject comedies starring The Three Stooges. White began working in motion pictures in the 1910s, as a child actor, for Pathé Studios. By the 1920s his brother Jack White had become a successful comedy producer at Educational Pictures, … - Peter Guber
Howard Peter Guber (b. 2 March 1942 in Newton, Massachusetts) is an American film producer and executive. One of Hollywood's most accomplished producers, Peter Guber was formerly the studio chief at Columbia Pictures and chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures. He is now chairman of Mandalay Entertainment, which he founded in 1995. The films he has produced -- including Midnight Express, The Color Purple, Rain Man, and Batman, … - Marc Lawrence
Marc Lawrence (February 17, 1910 - November 28, 2005) was an American character actor who specialized in underworld types. Lawrence was born Max Goldsmith in the Bronx to a Russian Jewish father and a Polish Jewish mother. He participated in plays in school, then attended the City College of New York. In 1930, Lawrence befriended another young actor, John Garfield. - David Puttnam
David Terence Puttnam, Baron Puttnam, CBE, FRSA, (born 25 February 1941) is a film producer and politician. He sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords. - Sherry Lansing
Sherry Lansing (born July 31, 1944 in Chicago, Illinois as Sherry Lee Heimann) is the former CEO of Paramount Pictures and the first woman to head a major studio. In 2001 she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal. Her mother fled from Nazi Germany at age 17, and spoke no English when she arrived in the United States. Lansing attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and graduated in 1962. - Burnett Guffey
Burnett Guffey (May 26, 1905 - May 30, 1983 in Del Rio, Tennessee) was an American cinematographer. The Academy Award-winning lensman began as an assistant cameraman in the early 1920 while still a teenager. Guffey was hired as a Director of Photography for Columbia Pictures in 1944. He won Academy Awards for "From Here to Eternity" (1953) and "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967) while working for Warner Brothers. - Tom McGrath
Thomas B. McGrath (born 1956, married, 2 children) though little known outside Hollywood, has been an important, behind-the-scenes player in reshaping modern media throughout his entertainment career. - Sam Jaffe
Sam Jaffe (May 21, 1901 - January 10, 2000) was, at different points in his career in the motion picture industry, an agent, a producer and a studio executive. Jaffe began as an office boy for Paramount-Famous Players-Lasky Company where he worked his way up through the ranks to become the executive in charge of production. In the early 1930s he worked at Columbia Pictures briefly before leaving to start his own talent agency. - Janet Blair
Janet Blair (April 23 1921 - February 19 2007) was an American film and television actress. Born as Martha Jane Lafferty (she took her acting surname from Blair County, Pennsylvania) in Altoona, Pennsylvania, she began her acting career on film in 1942. She left films for many years after she was dropped by her studio, Columbia Pictures, and disliked the roles she was offered. - Robert Riskin
Robert Riskin (March 30, 1897-September 20, 1955) was an American screenwriter and playwright, best known for his collaborations with director-producer Frank Capra. Riskin began his career as a playwright, writing for many local New York City playhouses. Two of his plays, "Bless You, Sister" and "Many a Slip", managed to have successful runs on Broadway. He moved to Hollywood in 1931 after Columbia Pictures bought the screen rights to several of his plays. - Don Beddoe
Don Beddoe (July 1, 1903 - January 19, 1991) was an American character actor. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Beddoe made his Broadway acting debut in 1929. After a decade of stage work and bit parts in films, Beddoe began more prominent film roles in the late 1930s. He was usually cast as fast talking reporters and the like. His acting career was put on hold when he served in World War II in the Army Air Corps, but then returned to films playing small character roles. - Budd Boetticher
Budd Boetticher (July 29, 1916 - November 29, 2001) was a film director during the classical period in Hollywood most famous for the series of low-budget Westerns he made in the late 1950s starring Randolph Scott. Known for their sparse style, dramatic rocky locations near Lone Pine, California, and recurring stories of a lone man seeking vengeance amidst a brutal and abstract landscape, the films have, decades after their release, … - Del Lord
Del Lord (October 7, 1894 - March 23, 1970) was a film director and actor best known as a director of Three Stooges films. Lord was born in the small town of Grimsby, Ontario, Canada. Interested in the theatre, he traveled to New York City then when fellow Canadian, Mack Sennett offered him a job at his new Keystone Studios, Lord went on to work in Hollywood, California. There, he played the driver of the Keystone Kops police van, … - Joseph H. Lewis
Joseph H. Lewis (April 6, 1907-August 30, 2000), was an American B-movie director. Although he worked with both Bela Lugosi ("The Invisible Ghost") and Lionel Atwill in early 1940s horror, he is best known for his work in film noir from the late 40s and the 1950s. His most acclaimed feature, "Gun Crazy" (1949), is a dark romance about gun-obsession, and notable for its use of location photography. - Charles Starrett
Charles Starrett (March 28 1903 - March 22 1986) was an American actor best known for his starring role in the "Durango Kid" Columbia Pictures western series. He was born in Athol, Massachusetts. A graduate of Worcester Academy in 1922, Starrett went on to study at Dartmouth College. While on the Darmouth football team, he was hired to play a football extra in the 1926 film "The Quarterback". In 1930 he played the romantic lead in "Fast and Loose", … - Smiley Burnette
Lester Alvin (Smiley) Burnette (born March 18, 1911, Summum, Illinois - February 16, 1967, Encino, California), an American singer-songwriter who could play as many as 100 different musical instruments, was a successful comedy actor in Western films over three decades. Burnette began singing in childhood and learned to play a variety of instruments while still a boy. In his teens, he worked in vaudeville and at a local radio station. - Steve Tisch
Steven "Steve" Tisch is the chairman, executive vice president, and co-owner of the New York Giants, as well as a movie and television producer. He is the son of former Giants co-owner Bob Tisch. Tisch was born born February 2, 1949 in Lakewood, New Jersey. He attended Tufts University, during which he began his filmaking career. During his youth, Tisch created a number of small movies with backing by Columbia Pictures. - Jack Holt
Jack Holt (May 31, 1888 - January 18, 1951) was an American motion picture actor. - Ray Stark
Ray Stark was an Academy Award-nominated American film producer and powerbroker known for his Machiavellian ways. While putting together the Broadway musical "Funny Girl" - the highly fictionalized account of the life of his mother-in-law, Fanny Brice - its producer David Merrick took Stark and his wife to see an unknown singer perform at the Bon Soir in Greenwich Village. At first, the Starks balked at using Barbra Streisand, … - Sid Ganis
Sidney Ganis (born January 8, 1940 in Brooklyn, New York City) is an American motion picture executive and producer who has produced such films as "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo", "Big Daddy", "Mr. Deeds", "The Master of Disguise" and "Akeelah and the Bee". On August 23, 2005 he was elected President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Ganis began his film career in marketing and publicity at several studios, … - Jerome Cowan
Jerome Cowan (born October 6, 1897 in New York, New York; died January 24, 1972 in Encino, California) appeared in over 100 films but is probably best remembered for two roles in classic films: He played Miles Archer, the doomed private eye partner of Sam Spade, in "The Maltese Falcon"; he was also the hapless district attorney, Thomas Mara, who is forced to cross-examine his own son about the existence of Santa Claus, in "Miracle on 34th Street". - Vernon Dent
Vernon Bruce Dent (February 16, 1895, in San Jose, CA - November 5, 1963, in Hollywood, CA) was a comic actor who co-starred in many short films for Columbia Pictures. He was frequently cast as the irascible foil to the Three Stooges' comic antics. In the early 1920s Dent was a fixture at the Mack Sennett studio, working with comedians Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, and especially Harry Langdon. - Dianne Foster
Dianne Foster is a Canadian actress. Of Ukrainian descent, Foster began her acting career at the age of 13 in a stage adaptation of James Barrie's "What Every Woman Knows". At 14 she began a radio career and subsequently moved to Toronto and became one of Canada's top radio stars. In 1951 she went to London, England for a holiday and after meeting and marrying Andrew Allen, drama supervisor for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, she decided to stay. - Larry Parks
Larry Parks (13 December 1914, Olathe, Kansas - 13 April 1975, Studio City, California), was an American stage and movie actor. His career was virtually ended when he admitted to having once been a member of a Communist party cell, an admission that led to his blacklisting by all Hollywood studios. Parks grew up in Joliet, Illinois, and graduated from Joliet Township High School in 1932. He attended the University of Illinois as a pre-med student, … - Sidney Lanfield
Sidney Lanfield (April 20, 1898-June 20, 1972) was a film director known for directing comedy films and later television programs. The one-time musician's first directing job was for the Fox Film Corporation in 1930; he went on to direct a number of films for 20th Century Fox. In 1941, he directed the Fred Astaire film "You'll Never Get Rich" for Columbia Pictures, then moved to Paramount Pictures. There Lanfield worked on a number of film comedies. - Warren William
Warren William (December 2 1894 - September 24 1948) was a Broadway and Hollywood actor, born Warren William Krech in Aitkin, Minnesota. He attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. After moving from Broadway to Hollywood in the silent period, he reached his peak as a leading man in early 1930s pre-Production Code films. He was a contract player at the Warner Bros. studio and was known for portraying amoral businessmen, lawyers, … - Jo Swerling
Jo Swerling (April 8, 1897 - October 23, 1964) was an American theatre writer and lyricist and a screenwriter. Born in Bardichov, Russia, Swerling was a refugee of the Czarist regime who grew up on New York City's lower East Side, where he sold newspapers to help support his family. He worked as a newspaper and magazine writer in the early 1920s, then launched a playwriting career, including "Street Cinderella," an early comedy for the Marx Brothers. - George Sidney
George Sidney (October 4 1916 - May 5 2002) was a prolific American film director, who directed many notable films, mostly for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio. He was born in Long Island City, New York. Sidney got his start as an assistant at MGM until being assigned to direct the "Our Gang" comedies, which MGM had just acquired from Hal Roach, in 1938. Sidney, then age 21, was the youngest "Our Gang" senior director ever, … - William Campbell
William Campbell (b. October 30, 1926 in Newark, New Jersey) is an American actor. He has appeared in supporting roles in major film productions, but also starred in several low-budget b-movies, including two cult horror films. His movie career began in 1950, with a small part in the John Garfield film, "The Breaking Point". After several years of similar supporting performances in a variety of titles, … - Bob Murawski
Bob Murawski is the American film editor who often works with film director Sam Raimi (of the Spider-Man and Evil Dead series of films). Bob Murawski has edited all three of Columbia Pictures' blockbuster Spider-Man films. Murawski was born in Detroit, Michigan and grew up in the northeast "Thumb" area of the state. Bob Murawski was the valedictorian at his high school in Bad Axe, Michigan. He graduated from Michigan State University, having majored in Telecommunications. - Edward Bernds
Edward Bernds (July 12, 1905 - May 20, 2000) was an American film director born in Chicago, Illinois. While in his junior year in Lake View High School, he and several friends formed a small radio clique and obtained amateur licenses. In the early 1920s there was considerable prestige for an amateur operator to have commercial radio licenses, and Bernds was in a good position to get into broadcasting when he graduated in 1923, … - Mario Kassar
Mario Kassar (born Beirut, Lebanon, 10 October 1951) is a movie-industry executive whose projects are frequently in association with Andrew Vajna. Working for Columbia Pictures and TriStar Pictures he was executive producer of several movies starting with "Escape to Victory" in 1981. In 1984, together with Vajna, he founded Carolco Pictures where he was executive producer of a large number of movies starting with "Rambo: First Blood Part II", … - Michael Ovitz
Michael S. Ovitz (b. December 14 1946, Los Angeles, California) is a former talent agent and Hollywood powerhouse who served as the head of the Creative Artists Agency from 1975 to 1995. After graduating from UCLA with a degree in theater, film and television, Ovitz began his career at the William Morris Agency, but left with four other agents in 1975 to found Creative Artists Agency. While at CAA, he was responsible for pioneering the practice of "packaging" writers, … - Phil Silvers
Phil Silvers (May 11, 1911 - November 1, 1985) was an American entertainer and comedy actor. His best-known work is "The Phil Silvers Show", a 1950s sitcom set on a US Army post in which he played Sergeant Bilko; the show was also often referred to by this name. The show's chief writer, Nat Hiken, was TV's first writer-producer, and Hiken helped set a high comic tone for the show through his inventive plots and snappy comedic repartee for the characters. - Billy Gilbert
Billy Gilbert (September 12, 1894 - September 23, 1971) was an American comedian and actor most known for his comic sneeze routines. Born William Gilbert Barron in Louisville, Kentucky, the child of singers with the Metropolitan Opera, he began working in vaudeville at the age of twelve and was 35 years old before he appeared in his first film for the Fox Film Corporation in 1929. Gilbert broke into comedy short subjects with producer Hal Roach, … - Van Johnson
Van Johnson (born Charles Van Johnson on August 25, 1916, in Newport, Rhode Island) is an American film and television actor and dancer. Johnson was born to parents Charles E. Johnson (who was born in Sweden) and Loretta, who was of Pennsylvania Dutch ancestry. His acting career began in earnest in 1936 in the Broadway revue "New Faces of 1936".
|
| |