- 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. - D. C. Fontana
Dorothy Catherine "D. C." Fontana (born March 25, 1939 in Sussex, New Jersey) is a novelist and screenplay writer, best known for her work in the "Star Trek" television franchise, produced by Paramount Studios. Originally Gene Roddenberry's secretary, she has written for "Star Trek" since the onset, starting with "Star Trek: The Original Series" (TOS) from 1966 through 1968. During that time she wrote such memorable episodes as "Tomorrow is Yesterday", … - Josef von Sternberg
Josef von Sternberg (29 May 1894 - 22 December 1969) was an Austrian-American film director. He is one of the earliest examples of auteur filmmakers, and performed many other duties on his films besides directing, including cinematographer, writer, and editor. Von Sternberg's style has had a vast influence on later directors, particularly during the "film noir" movement. His mastery of mise-en-scene, lighting and soft lense is unrivaled, … - Miriam Hopkins
Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an Oscar-nominated American actress. - Don Simpson
Donald Clarence Simpson (October 29, 1943 - January 19, 1996) was an American film producer. He is known for such hits as "Flashdance", "Beverly Hills Cop", "Top Gun" and "The Rock". In 1985 and again in 1988, he and his producing partner, Jerry Bruckheimer, were named Producers of the Year by the National Association of Theater Owners. Simpson was born in Seattle, Washington, grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, and attended the University of Oregon, … - Michael Okuda
Michael Okuda is a graphic designer who is best known for his work on "Star Trek". In the mid-1980s he designed the look of animated computer displays for the "Enterprise"-A bridge in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home". This led to a staff position on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" in 1987 as a scenic artist, adding detail to set designs and props. - Sterling Hayden
Sterling Hayden was an American actor and author. For most of his career as a leading man, he specialized in westerns and "film noir". He is most noted for his appearance as Gen. Jack D. Ripper in "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964). He also played the Irish policeman, Captain McCluskey, in Francis Ford Coppola's "The Godfather" in 1972. - Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan (February 21, 1915 - January 21, 1967) was an American film actress. Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas, she was a college student when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Studios. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a Paramount film. She abandoned college to pursue a career in Hollywood. She made her film debut in 1934, aged 19, in the film "Search For Beauty", … - Heidi Fleiss
Heidi Lynne Fleiss (born December 30 1965), known as the "Hollywood Madam", is a former American madam. She was convicted in connection with her prostitution ring with charges including pandering and tax evasion. Her ring had numerous famous and wealthy clients. She was sentenced to 37 months in prison for tax evasion, (pandering charges were dropped) but served just 21. Her father, Doctor Paul M. Fleiss is a famous Intactivist (one who opposes circumcision). - Carolyn Jones
Carolyn Jones was an American actress, she is best remembered for playing the role of Morticia Addams in the classic TV Series "The Addams Family". Carolyn Sue Jones was born in Amarillo, Texas, she was named after actress Carole Lombard, and after moving to California, joined the Pasadena Playhouse in 1947, learning her craft and acting under the stage name Carolyn Jones. She secured a contract with Paramount Studios and made her first film in 1952. - Roland Crandall
Roland C. "Doc" Crandall was an American animator. He is best known for his work at Fleischer Studio, especially on the Betty Boop version of "Snow White". Crandall was born in New Canaan, Connecticut, and attended the Yale School of Art. He was one of the first employees of Fleischer Studio, working on the early Koko the Clown shorts in the 1920s. Crandall's drawing ability was legendary; he provided nearly all the drawings for the 1933 Betty Boop animated short, … - Jean Delannoy
Jean Delannoy (born January 12, 1908 in Noisy-le-Sec, Île-de-France) is a French, actor, film editor, screenwriter and film director. Although Delannoy was born in a Paris suburb, his family is from Haute-Normandie in the north of France. He is a Protestant, a descendant of Huguenots, some of whom fled the country during the French Wars of Religion first to settle in Wallonia then, after their name became De la Noye and then Delano, … - Bernard Wolf
Bernard "Berny" Wolf (July 18, 1911 - September 7, 2006) was an American animator and television producer Wolf was in born in New York City. His career in animation started in 1924, when he began work as an inker on Paramount Studios' Krazy Kat silent shorts. He moved to Fleischer Studios shortly afterwards, providing artwork for both the Koko the Clown and Betty Boop series. It was at Fleischer Studios that he met Shamus Culhane and Al Eugster, … - Richard Cromwell
Richard Cromwell (January 8, 1910 - October 11, 1960) was an American actor, born LeRoy Melvin Radabaugh. His family and friends called him Roy, though he was also professionally known and signed autographs as Dick Cromwell. Cromwell was best known for his work in "Jezebel" (1938) with Bette Davis and Henry Fonda and in "The Lives of a Bengal Lancer" (1935) where he shared top billing with Gary Cooper and Franchot Tone. - Marsha Hunt
Marcia "Marsha" Virginia Hunt (born October 17, 1917 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American film, theater, and television actress who was blacklisted by Hollywood movie studio executives in the 1950s. With big, bright eyes, standing five-foot-six, and always very slender, Hunt was considered very attractive in her early career. She attended the Theodore Irving School of Dramatics during her high school years. - David Tendlar
David Benjamin Tendlar (August 8 1909 - September 9 1993) was an American animator. He is best known for his work with Fleischer Studio and its successor, Famous Studios. Tendlar was born in Dayton, Ohio. He joined Fleischer Studio in 1931, where he worked on Betty Boop, Popeye the Sailor, and many other shorts, as well as Fleischer's two feature-length animated films. - Virginia Weidler
Virginia Weidler (March 21, 1926 - July 1, 1968) was an American child actor, popular in Hollywood films during the 1930s and 1940s. Born as Virginia Inna Indelheid Weidler in Eagle Rock, California, Weidler made her first film appearance in 1933. Over the next few years she played minor roles in films for RKO and Paramount Studios. Neither studio made full use of her abilities, and when Paramount did not extend her contract, she was signed by MGM. - Ben Blue
Ben Blue (September 12,1901 - March 7, 1975), born Benjamin Bernstein, was a Canadian actor and comedian. Born to a Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, Bernstein emigrated to the United States where he became a dance instructor, a dance school owner, and a nightclub proprietor. He began his motion picture career doing short films for Warner Brothers Studios in 1926, and later worked at the Hal Roach Studios, Paramount Studios, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. - Howard W. Koch
Howard Winchel Koch (April 11, 1916 - February 16, 2001) was an American director and producer of motion pictures and television. Born in New York City, he attended Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey. He began his film career as an employee at Universal Studios office in New York then made his Hollywood filmmaking debut in 1947 as an assistant director. He worked as a producer for the first time in 1953 and a year later made his directing debut. - Lucien Ballard
Lucien Ballard was an American cinematographer and director of photography. Born in Miami, Oklahoma, Ballard began working on films at Paramount Studios in 1929. He later joked in an interview that it was a three day party at the home of actress Clara Bow that convinced him "this is the business for me". He began his career loading trucks at Paramount, and became a camera assistant, often working for director Josef von Sternberg. - Jeanie MacPherson
Jeanie MacPherson was educated at Madame de Facq's school in Paris, the Kenwood Institute in Chicago and took dancing from Theodore Kosloff. Her onstage experience started when she went to Chicago Musical College. In 1908, she made her screen debut in the D.W. Griffith directed dramatic short entitled "The Factual Hour" and would become a popular actress through the 1910s, appearing alongside such notable actors as Wallace Reid, Geraldine Farrar, … - Dan Rowan
Daniel Hale (Dan) Rowan (July 22, 1922 - September 22, 1987) was an American comedian. He was featured in the television show "Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In", where he played straight man to Dick Martin. Born in the small town of Beggs, Oklahoma, Rowan toured with his parents in a carnival in a singing and dancing act. He was orphaned at age 11 and adopted in Denver, Colorado. After graduating from high school, he moved to Los Angeles, … - George Melford
George H. Melford was an American stage and film actor and film director. Born in Rochester, New York, as George Henry Knauff, son of German immigrant Henrietta Knauff, the name Melford was an adopted stage name. George Knauff Melford had four sisters: Mary Knauff (Mrs. Godfrey Willis Wainwright); Henrietta Knauff; Alice Irene Knauff (Mrs. Edmond Francois Bernoudy) - all of Los Angeles, CA and Mrs. Frederick Kells/Keils of Ottawa, Canada. - Susanna Foster
Susanna DeLee Flanders Larson Foster (born December 6, 1924) is a former American film actress. Foster was born in Chicago, Illinois, and taken to Hollywood at the age of twelve by MGM, who sent her to school and groomed her for an acting and singing career. Two of her classmates at school were Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland. In fact MGM never used her, and she was signed to Paramount, where she made "The Great Victor Hebert" (1939). - Charles B. Middleton
Charles B. Middleton was an American stage and film actor. During a film career that began at age 46 and lasted almost 30 years, Charles Middleton appeared in nearly two hundred films as well as numerous plays including in the 1946 Broadway production, "January Thaw"." Born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky, Charles Middleton worked in a traveling circus, in vaudeville, and acted in live theatre before he turned to motion pictures in 1920. - John Sanford
John Sanford (1904 - March 5, 2003) was an American author. Born Julian Lawrence Shapiro in Harlem, New York City, he was a childhood friend of author Nathanael West. Young Julian studied law at Fordham University, but when West told him that he was writing a book, Julian decided that was what he wanted to do with his life. He had stories published in European literary journals, and in 1933 wrote his first novel, "The Water Wheel". - Boris Morros
Boris Morros (January 1, 1891 - January 8, 1963) was an American Communist Party member, Paramount Studios producer and Soviet agent. Morros was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and emigrated with his family to America in 1922. He was recruited as a Soviet spy in 1934, and Vasily Zarubin first became his contact in 1936. - Gavin Lowe
Gavin Lowe is an American gay pornographic film director. Born in Israel, Gavin moved to the United States to pursue a career in film after finishing his compulsory military service in 1991. He attended UCLA film school and after graduation worked for Paramount Studios/Cruise Wagner Productions. During this time he worked on movies such as "Mission Impossible 1" & "2", "Vanilla Sky", "Jerry Maguire" and others. - Kevyn Major Howard
Kevyn Major Howard is a Canadian actor best known for his role is Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket". After acting in high school Howard moved to Los Angeles and the Hollywood limelight in the late 70's. Kevyn became frustrated with LA's headshot industry and perceived that it was unable to create an actor's artistic expression through their head shot. As a result, he decided to take his own picture. Kevyn's new headshot was delivered to Paramount Studios, … - Jessica Dragonette
Jessica Dragonette was a singer who was born in India on St. Valentine's Day, 1900, according to the Social Security Death Index (although this is not otherwise independently confirmable and she was always reticent regarding her age), and later raised in a convent there as an orphan. She began singing on radio in 1926. Jessica received the title "Princess of Song", from an admiring press. That moniker would be utilized to publicize future concert events, … - Morris Stoloff
Morris Stoloff (born 1 August 1898, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, died April 1980, Los Angeles, California) was a musical composer. Stoloff worked as a musical director at Columbia Pictures from 1936 to 1962. Among space age pop fans, he is best remembered for his 1956 'Top Ten' hit that paired the swing era tune "Moonglow" with the love theme from the movie "Picnic". A child prodigy on the violin, Stoloff was taken under the wing of W. A. Clark. - George Handy
George Handy (January 17, 1920 - January 8, 1997) was a jazz music arranger, composer and pianist whose musical beginnings were fostered under the tutelage of pianist Aaron Copeland. While he had an impressive career as a pianist and arranger, he is best known in retrospect for his bebop arrangements. Handy first worked professionally as a swing pianist for Michael Loring in 1938, but soon was drafted into the United States Army in 1940. - Reg Hartt
Reg Hartt (born on June 12, 1946 in Rothwell, New Brunswick) is a Toronto film archivist well known in the city for his unique staging of old, important movies. Since 1992 he has shown the movies in his house on Bathurst Street. The screening room is his front parlour featuring a mismatched assortment of junk-shop seats. A neon sign reading "Cineforum" placed in the front window indicates his presence. - Robert Lehman
Robert Lehman was an American banker. Born in New York City, he was the son of Philip Lehman (1861-1947), head of Lehman Brothers investment bank. A 1913 graduate of Yale University, when his father retired in 1925 "Bobbie" Lehman assumed the leadership role of the family-owned business. He took over the bank during a time when, like competitors Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers was essentially a one-office firm. - David Malki
David Malki ! is a full-time movie trailer editor and the creator and author of Wondermark, a webcomic. As well as working for Walt Disney Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Studios, Paramount Studios, and many others, he volunteers as a search-and-rescue pilot for the Civil Air Patrol. He also runs a prop gun rental business out of his home in Los Angeles, called Deathmonkey Armourers. - Paul Iribe
Paul Iribe was a French designer, journalist, artist, and fashion illustrator. Born Paul Iribarnegaray in Angouleme, France in 1883, Iribe received his education in Paris. From 1908 to 1910 he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and the College Rollin, where his friends included the then-unknown illustrators George Barbier, Georges Lepape, George Martin, and Pierre Brissaud. In his early twenties he became an apprentice printer at Le Temps newspaper, and from 1900, … - Kalani
Michael "Kalani" Bruno, is an American percussionist who has toured and/or recorded with such artists as Kenny Loggins, David Sanborn, Max Roach, Barry Manilow, Vic Damone, John Mayall, Chante Moore, Dr. John, Michael Kamen, Melissa Manchester, and Yanni for whom he has completed five major concert tours and is the featured percussionist on the "Yanni Live at the Acropolis" video and CD. He is featured on recordings for Disney, Warner Bros. - Frank Pease
Major Frank Pease was president of the Hollywood Technical Director's Institute, an anti-communist and allegedly an anti-Semite activist organization during 1920s and 30s. His major claim to fame was his opposition of Sergei Eisenstein’s presence in America while the filmmaker was on contract with Paramount Studios. - Denman Thompson
Henry Denman Thompson (October 15, 1833 - April 14, 1911) was an American playwright and theatre actor. Denman Thompson's family moved from West Swanzey, New Hampshire, to Girard, Pennsylvania, in 1831 where he would be born two years later. In 1844 they returned to West Swanzey where he was educated and at age nineteen went to work as a bookkeeper in Lowell, Massachusetts. While there, he developed an interest in theatre and decided to make it his career. - Jipsi Kinnear
Jeremy Stuart Kinnear, better known as Jipsi Kinnear, is a Canadian film director and producer. Kinnear has been involved in the industry since the late 80's as a manager, promoter and producer. He has consulted to various companies such as Disney, Twentieth Century Fox, New Line Cinema, and Paramount Studios.
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