- John Wayne
John Wayne (May 26, 1907 - June 11, 1979) was an iconic, Academy Award-winning, American film actor. He epitomized ruggedly individualistic masculinity, and has become an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive voice, walk and height. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Wayne thirteenth among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time. A Harris Poll released in 2007 placed Wayne third among America's favorite film stars, … - Peter Bart
Peter Bart, an American journalist and film producer born July 24, 1932 (some reports claim 1930), has been the editor-in-chief of "Variety" since 1989. Bart also serves as vice-president and editor-in-chief of Variety, Inc., and presides over its sister publications "Daily Variety" and "Daily Variety - The Gotham Edition". Bart also appears on a weekly AMC television program, "Sunday Morning Shootout", with film producer Peter Guber. - Kirk Kerkorian
Kerkor "Kirk" Kerkorian (born June 6, 1917) is an American billionaire, and president/CEO of Tracinda Corporation, his private holding company based in Beverly Hills, California. Kerkorian is known as one of the important figures in shaping the city of Las Vegas, Nevada and, with architect Martin Stern, Jr. the "father of the megaresort." Kerkorian splits his time between his residences in Beverly Hills and Nevada. One of the richest residents of Beverly Hills, … - Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo (September 18, 1905 - April 15, 1990) was a Swedish-born actress during Hollywood's silent film period and part of its Golden Age. Regarded as one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the Hollywood studio system, Garbo received a 1955 Honorary Oscar "for her unforgettable screen performances" and was ranked as the fifth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. - Ray Charles
Ray Charles (born Charles Raymond Offenberg, September 13, 1918 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, vocal arranger and conductor who is best- known as organizer and leader of The Ray Charles Singers. The Ray Charles Singers were featured on Perry Como's records, radio shows and television shows for 35 years. - Jean Harlow
Jean Harlow (b. Harlean Harlow Carpenter, March 3, 1911 - June 7, 1937) was an American film actress and top sex symbol of the 1930s. Known as the "Platinum Blonde" for her famous hair, Harlow starred in several films mainly designed to showcase her magnetic sex appeal and strong screen presence before transitioning to more developed roles and achieving massive fame under contract to MGM. Known as "The Baby" to family and close friends, … - 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. - Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron (born July 1, 1931) is an Academy Award-nominated, Golden Globe-winning film actress and dancer. Caron has said of herself: "I'm not a ballerina. I'm a hoofer." - 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". - Paula Wagner
Paula Wagner (born Paula Kauffman 12 December 1946 in Youngstown, Ohio) is an American film producer and film executive. Wagner earned her BA at Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She began her career as an actress, appearing in several Broadway and off-Broadway stage productions. Wagner also performed at the Yale Repertory Theatre. In addition to being an actress, she is also a published playwright, … - Betty Hutton
Betty Hutton was an American film actress and singer. - Frank Morgan
Frank Morgan (June 1, 1890 - September 18, 1949) was an American character actor best known for his portrayal of the title character in the film "The Wizard of Oz". Born Francis Phillip Wuppermann in New York City to the wealthy family which distributed Angostura bitters, he attended Cornell University where he was a member of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. He then followed his older brother Ralph Morgan into show business, … - Jane Powell
Jane Powell (born April 1, 1929) is an American singer, entertainer and actor. She was the petite blonde with an operatic singing voice in many MGM musicals in the 1940s and 1950s. - Mervyn Leroy
Mervyn LeRoy (October 15, 1900 - September 13, 1987) was an American film director, producer and sometime actor. - Richard Thorpe
Richard Thorpe (February 24, 1896 - May 1, 1991) was an American film director. Born Rollo Smolt Thorpe in Hutchinson, Kansas, he began his entertainment career performing in vaudeville and on the theatre stage. In 1921 he began in motion pictures as an actor and directed his first silent film in 1923. He went on to direct more than one hundred and eighty films. - John Boorman
John Boorman (born January 18, 1933 in Shepperton, Surrey), is an English filmmaker, currently based in Ireland, best known for his feature films such as "Point Blank, Deliverance, Excalibur", "The General" and "In My Country". - Van Heflin
Van Heflin (December 13, 1910 - July 23, 1971) was an Academy Award-winning American film and theater actor. - Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin (born Edna Mae Durbin on December 4, 1921, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to English immigrant parents) is a popular singer and actress in Hollywood films of the 1930s and 1940s. Changing her name to Deanna Durbin at the commencement of her career, Durbin signed a contract with MGM in 1935 and made her first film appearance in a short subject "Every Sunday" with another contractee, Judy Garland. - Clarence Brown
Clarence Brown (May 10, 1890 - August 17, 1987) was an American film director. Born in Clinton, Massachusetts, to a cotton manufacturer, Brown moved to the South when he was eleven. He attended the University of Tennessee, graduating at the age of 19 with two degrees in engineering. An early fascination in automobiles led Brown to a job with the Stevens Duryea Company, then to his own Brown Motor Car Company in Alabama. - Sam Wood
Samuel Grosvenor (Sam) Wood was a prolific Hollywood director, he also did some production, writing, and to a lesser extent, acting work. Born in Philadelphia, Wood worked for Cecil B. De Mille as an assistant in 1915. A solo director by 1919, Wood worked throughout the 1920s directing some of Paramount Pictures's biggest stars, among them Gloria Swanson and Wallace Reid. He began working for MGM in 1927, working with Marion Davies, Clark Gable, and Jimmy Durante. - Charles Walters
Charles Walters was a Hollywood director and choreographer most noted for his work in MGM musicals and comedies in from the 1940s to the 1960s. He was born in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, and educated at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles. He is notable for directing Esther Williams' musicals involving underwater swimming and diving sequences, such as "Dangerous When Wet," as well as several musicals starring Leslie Caron, … - Adolph Green
Adolph Green was an American lyricist and playwright who, with long-time collaborator Betty Comden, penned the screenplays and songs for some of the most beloved movie musicals, particularly as part of Arthur Freed's production unit at MGM, during the genre's heyday. Although many people thought they were, the pair were not married, … - Betty Comden
Betty Comden (May 3 1917 - November 23 2006) was born Basya Cohen in New York City on May 3 1917 (see ,,) although many sources cited 1915, 1918 and 1919 as possible years of birth. She died of heart failure following an undisclosed illness of several months at New York Presbyterian Hospital in Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006. Along with Adolph Green (1914 - 2002), Comden was one-half of the musical duo Comden and Green, … - Joel McCrea
Joel Albert McCrea, (November 5, 1905 - October 20, 1990) was an American film actor. Born in South Pasadena, California, McCrea became interested in films after graduating from Pomona College. He worked as an extra in films from 1927 before being cast in a major role in "The Jazz Age" (1929). A contract with MGM followed, and then another contract with RKO. - Jack Carson
Jack Carson (October 27 1910 - January 3 1963) was a Canadian-born U.S.-based film actor. Jack Carson was one of the most popular character actors during the golden age of Hollywood, with a film career which spanned the 30's, 40s and 50s. Primarily employed for comic relief, his work in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" proved he could also master dramatic material. During his career, he worked at RKO, MGM (cast opposite Myrna Loy and William Powell in "Love Crazy"), … - Dean Devlin
Dean Devlin (born August 27, 1962) is an American former actor and current screenwriter and producer. Devlin was born in New York City to Don Devlin and Pilar Seurat, both actors. He is Jewish on his father's side and Filipino on his mother's. He married actress Lisa Brenner after the two met while working on "The Patriot". As an actor, Devlin appeared on numerous television shows throughout the 1980s. He also appeared in films including "My Bodyguard", … - Val Lewton
Val Lewton was an American film producer and screenwriter, who is best known for a sequence of nine brooding horror films he produced for RKO Pictures in the 1940s. Lewton, originally named Vladimir Ivan Leventon, was born in what is now Yalta, Ukraine. He was a nephew of the actress Alla Nazimova. In 1909, he immigrated with his sister and mother to the USA (where his name was changed to Val Lewton). He was raised in suburban Port Chester, New York. - 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. - Jean Hagen
Jean Hagen (August 3, 1923 - August 29, 1977) was an Oscar-nominated American film actress. Hagen was born Jean Shirley Verhagen in Chicago, Illinois. She studied drama and worked as a theater usherette before making her film debut as a femme fatale in "Adam's Rib" (1949). "The Asphalt Jungle" (1950) provided Hagen with her first starring role, and excellent reviews. - Ann Sothern
Ann Sothern (January 22, 1909 - March 15, 2001) was an American film actress with a career spanning six decades. Born Harriette Arlene Lake in Valley City, North Dakota, Sothern left home very young and began her film career as an extra in "Broadway Nights" (1927), aged 18. During 1929 and 1930, she appeared as a chorus girl in such films as "The Show of Shows" and "Whoopee!" (as one of the "Goldwyn Girls"). - Joseph Ruttenberg
Joseph Ruttenberg (July 4, 1889 - May 1, 1983) was a photojournalist and Academy Award-winning cinematographer. Born into a Jewish family in St. Petersburg, Russia, Joseph Ruttenberg was ten years old when his family emigrated to the United States, settling in Boston, Massachusetts. As a young man he went to work at the Boston Globe newspaper as a photojournalist but left in 1915 to accept a job with the Fox Film Corporation in New York City to train as a cinematographer. - John Hodiak
John Hodiak (April 16, 1914 - October 19, 1955) was an American actor. He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Walter Hodiak (October 25, 1888-August 21, 1962) and Anna Pogorzelec (February 28, 1888-October 17, 1971). He was of Ukrainian and Polish descent. He grew up in Hamtramck, Michigan, a part of Detroit. Hodiak had his first smell of greasepaint at age eleven, acting in Ukrainian and Russian plays at the Ukrainian Catholic Church. - Nacio Herb Brown
Nacio Herb Brown (February 22, 1896 - September 28, 1964) was an American writer of popular songs, movie scores, and Broadway theatre music in the 1920s through the early 1950s. Brown was born as Ignacio Herb Brown in Deming, New Mexico. In 1901 his family moved to Los Angeles. He attended Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles, California. His music education started with instruction from his mother, Cora Alice (Hopkins) Brown. - Eddie Mannix
Edgar Joseph "Eddie" Mannix (b. 25 February 1891, Fort Lee, New Jersey - d. 30 August 1963, Beverly Hills, California) was an American film studio executive. Mannix became the Vice-President of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He allegedly had connections to gangs and the underworld; gossip purported that he murdered his first wife Beatrice Fitzmaurice (in a make-believe high speed car crash) in 1937. - Julie Harris
Julie Harris (born Julia Ann Harris on December 2, 1925) is a distinguished American stage, screen, and television actress. She has won five Tony Awards and three Emmy Awards, and was nominated for an Academy Award. She is a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame. - David Rose
David Rose (June 15, 1910 - August 23, 1990) was a British-born American songwriter, composer, arranger, and orchestra leader. His most famous compositions were "The Stripper," "Holiday for Strings," and "Calypso Melody." He also wrote music for the television series "Little House on the Prairie" and "Bonanza". In addition, Rose was musical director for the Red Skelton show during its 21-year-run on the CBS and NBC networks. - Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett (May 19 1906 - February 24 2007) was an American actor billed in his Tarzan films under his birth name of Herman Brix. - Frank Loesser
Frank Henry Loesser was an American composer and lyricist. He died of lung cancer at age 59. During World War II, he wrote 1942's "Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition". Formerly a successful lyricist in collaboration with other composers, this was the first song for which Loesser composed the melody in addition to the lyric. Loesser was awarded a Grammy Award in 1961 for Best Original Cast Show Album for "How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying". - Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler (born November 9, 1868; died July 28, 1934) was an Academy Award-winning Canadian actress. Born Leila Marie Koerber in Cobourg, Ontario to parents Alexander Rudolph Koerber (who was Austrian) and Anna Henderson. Being a rather overweight child, she spent a lot of time developing the defense mechanisms many overweight children become skilled at. The young Marie Dressler was able to hone her talents to make other people laugh, … - Joe E. Brown
Joseph Evans Brown was an actor and comedian from Holgate, Ohio. In 1902 at the age of 10, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvellous Astons which toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville circuits. He gradually added comedy into his act and transformed himself into a comedian. He moved to Broadway in the 1920s first appearing in the musical comedy "Jim Jam Jems". In late 1928, he began making films.
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