1.
Neil Simon
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Marvin Neil Simon is an American playwright, screenwriter and author. He has written more than thirty plays and nearly the same number of movie screenplays and he has received more combined Oscar and Tony nominations than any other writer. Simon grew up in New York during the Great Depression, with his parents financial hardships affecting their marriage, giving him a mostly unhappy and he often took refuge in movie theaters where he enjoyed watching the early comedians like Charlie Chaplin. After a few years in the Army Air Force Reserve, and after graduating high school, he began writing comedy scripts for radio. Among them were Sid Caesars Your Show of Shows from 1950 and he began writing his own plays beginning with Come Blow Your Horn, which took him three years to complete and ran for 678 performances on Broadway. It was followed by two successful plays, Barefoot in the Park and The Odd Couple, for which he won a Tony Award. It made him a celebrity and the hottest new playwright on Broadway. During the 1960s to 1980s, he wrote original screenplays and stage plays, with some films actually based on his plays. His style ranged from comedy to farce to more serious dramatic comedy. Overall, he has garnered seventeen Tony nominations and won three and his comedies centred on subjects such as marital conflict, infidelity, sibling rivalry, adolescence, and fear of aging. Simons facility with dialogue gives his stories a rare blend of realism, humor, Neil Simon was born on July 4,1927 in The Bronx, New York, to Jewish parents. His father, Irving Simon, was a garment salesman, and his mother, Simon had one older brother by eight years, Danny Simon. Simons childhood was difficult and mostly due to his parents tempestuous marriage. He would sometimes block out their arguments by putting a pillow over his ears at night and his father often abandoned the family for months at a time, causing them further financial and emotional hardship. As a result, Simon and his brother Danny were sometimes forced to live with different relatives, or else their parents took in boarders for some income. During an interview with writer Lawrence Grobel, Simon stated, To this day I never really knew what the reason for all the fights, shed hate him and be very angry, but he would come back and she would take him back. It made me strong as an independent person, to escape difficulties at home he often took refuge in movie theaters, where he especially enjoyed comedies with silent stars like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Laurel and Hardy. Simon recalls, I was constantly being dragged out of movies for laughing too loud, I think part of what made me a comedy writer is the blocking out of some of the really ugly, painful things in my childhood and covering it up with a humorous attitude
2.
Blythe Danner
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Blythe Katherine Danner is an American actress of film, television and stage. She is known for her role as Marilyn Truman, mother of Will, on the sitcom Will & Grace and she is the mother of actress Gwyneth Paltrow and director Jake Paltrow. In 1970 she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in Butterflies Are Free and she won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama for her role as Izzy Huffstodt on Huff. Her other film work includes roles in 1776, The Great Santini, Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, The Prince of Tides, Husbands and Wives, Danner was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Katharine and Harry Earl Danner, a bank executive. She has a brother, opera singer/actor Harry Danner, a sister-in-law, performer-turned-director Dorothy Danner, Danner has Pennsylvania Dutch, and some English and Irish, ancestry, her maternal grandmother was a German immigrant, and one of her paternal great-grandmothers was born in Barbados. Danner graduated from George School, a Quaker high school located near Newtown, Bucks County and she began her Friends School experience in Kindergarten at Media-Providence Friends School, then known as Media Friends in Media, Pennsylvania. A graduate of Bard College, Danners first roles included the 1967 musical Mata Hari, and her early Broadway appearances included roles in Cyrano de Bergerac and The Miser. She won a Best Supporting Actress Tony playing a free-spirited divorcee in Butterflies Are Free, in 1972, Danner portrayed Martha Jefferson opposite Ken Howards Thomas Jefferson in the movie version of 1776. That same year, she played a wife whose husband has been unfaithful opposite Peter Falk and her earliest starring film role was opposite Alan Alda in To Kill a Clown. Danner appeared in the episode of M*A*S*H entitled The More I See You and she played lawyer Amanda Bonner in televisions Adams Rib, also opposite Ken Howard as Adam Bonner. She played Zelda Fitzgerald in F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Last of the Belles and she was the eponymous heroine in the film Lovin Molly. She appeared in Futureworld, playing Tracy Ballard with co-star Peter Fonda, in the 1982 TV movie Inside the Third Reich, she played the wife of Albert Speer. In the film version of Neil Simons semi-autobiographical play Brighton Beach Memoirs, Danner appeared opposite Robert De Niro in the 2000 comedy hit Meet the Parents, and its sequels, Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers. From 2001 to 2006, she appeared on Will & Grace as Will Trumans mother Marilyn. From 2004 to 2006, she starred in the TV series Huff, in 2005, she was nominated for three Emmy Awards, for her work on Will & Grace, Huff, and Back When We Were Grownups. Emmy host Ellen DeGeneres poked fun at Danner during the ceremony, saying that Danner should not be nervous because she was almost certain to win at least one Emmy. In July 2006, she won a second consecutive Emmy award for Huff, for 25 years, she has been a regular performer at the Williamstown Summer Theater Festival, where she also serves on the Board of Directors. In 2006, Danner was awarded an inaugural Katharine Hepburn Medal by Bryn Mawr Colleges Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center, in 2015, Danner was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame
3.
Universal Pictures
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Universal Pictures is an American film studio owned by Comcast through the Universal Filmed Entertainment Group division of its wholly owned subsidiary NBCUniversal. The company was founded in 1912 by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley and its studios are located in Universal City, California, and its corporate offices are located in New York City. Universal Pictures is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America and is one of Hollywoods Big Six studios. Universal Studios was founded by Carl Laemmle, Mark Dintenfass, Charles O. Baumann, Adam Kessel, Pat Powers, William Swanson, David Horsley, Robert H. Cochrane, one story has Laemmle watching a box office for hours, counting patrons and calculating the days takings. Within weeks of his Chicago trip, Laemmle gave up dry goods to buy the first several nickelodeons, for Laemmle and other such entrepreneurs, the creation in 1908 of the Edison-backed Motion Picture Trust meant that exhibitors were expected to pay fees for Trust-produced films they showed. Soon, Laemmle and other disgruntled nickelodeon owners decided to avoid paying Edison by producing their own pictures, in June 1909, Laemmle started the Yankee Film Company with partners Abe Stern and Julius Stern. Laemmle broke with Edisons custom of refusing to give billing and screen credits to performers, by naming the movie stars, he attracted many of the leading players of the time, contributing to the creation of the star system. In 1910, he promoted Florence Lawrence, formerly known as The Biograph Girl, the Universal Film Manufacturing Company was incorporated in New York on April 30,1912. Laemmle, who emerged as president in July 1912, was the figure in the partnership with Dintenfass, Baumann, Kessel, Powers, Swanson, Horsley. Eventually all would be out by Laemmle. Following the westward trend of the industry, by the end of 1912 the company was focusing its efforts in the Hollywood area. On March 15,1915, Laemmle opened the worlds largest motion picture production facility, Universal City Studios, studio management became the third facet of Universals operations, with the studio incorporated as a distinct subsidiary organization. Unlike other movie moguls, Laemmle opened his studio to tourists, Universal became the largest studio in Hollywood, and remained so for a decade. However, it sought an audience mostly in towns, producing mostly inexpensive melodramas, westerns. In its early years Universal released three brands of feature films — Red Feather, low-budget programmers, Bluebird, more ambitious productions, and Jewel, their prestige motion pictures. Directors included Jack Conway, John Ford, Rex Ingram, Robert Z. Leonard, George Marshall and Lois Weber, despite Laemmles role as an innovator, he was an extremely cautious studio chief. Unlike rivals Adolph Zukor, William Fox, and Marcus Loew and he also financed all of his own films, refusing to take on debt. Character actor Lon Chaney became a card for Universal in the 1920s
