1.
William Goldman
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William Goldman is an American novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. He came to prominence in the 1950s as a novelist, before turning to writing for film and his other notable works include his thriller novel Marathon Man and comedy-fantasy novel The Princess Bride, both of which Goldman adapted for film. Author Sean Egan has described Goldman as one of the late twentieth century’s most popular storytellers. Goldman was born in Chicago and grew up in a Jewish family in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park, Illinois, the son of Marion and Maurice Clarence Goldman, who worked in business. Goldmans father initially was a businessman, working in Chicago and then in partnership. He came home to live and he was in his pajamas for the last five years of his life, Maurice Goldman killed himself while his son was still in high school. Marion Goldmans deafness increased the stress in the home, Goldman received a bachelor of arts degree from Oberlin College in 1952, then went into the army. He knew how to type, so was sent to the Pentagon and he then matriculated at Columbia University, where he earned a master of arts degree in 1956. Throughout all this, Goldman wrote short stories in the evenings, after graduating, Goldman received an offer to teach at a high school and also considered working in advertising. But he really wanted to write, according to his memoir, Adventures in the Screen Trade, Goldman began writing when he took a creative-writing course in college. His grades in the class were horrible and he did not originally intend to become a screenwriter. His main interests were poetry, short stories, and novels, in 1956 he completed an MA thesis at Columbia University on the comedy of manners in America. His brother, James Goldman, who died in 1998, was a playwright and they shared an apartment in New York with their friend John Kander and helped out Kander, a composer, by writing the libretto for his dissertation. All three later won separate Academy Awards, on 25 June 1956 Goldman started writing what became his first novel, The Temple of Gold. It was written in less than three weeks and was picked up for publication and it sold well enough to launch Goldman on his career. Goldman published five novels, and had three plays produced on Broadway, before he began to write screenplays and he wrote mostly serious literary works until the death of his first agent, when he started writing thrillers, the first of which was Marathon Man. Goldman began writing screenplays in his 30s when Cliff Robertson hired him to adapt Flowers for Algernon, later retitled Charly, Robertson then hired him to do some rewriting on Masquerade, which was Goldmans first screen credit. Goldman researched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid for eight years, after deciding he did not want to write a cowboy novel, he turned the story into his first original screenplay and sold it for a record $400,000 in the late 1960s
2.
Rod Steiger
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Rodney Stephen Rod Steiger was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. His performance in that film won him the Academy Award for Best Actor, Steiger was born in Westhampton, New York, the son of a vaudevillian. He had a childhood, with an alcoholic mother from whom he ran away at the age of 16. He made his debut in 1946, in a production of Curse you. At the Civic Repertory Theatre of Newark, and subsequently appeared in such as An Enemy of the People, Clifford Odetss Night Music, Seagulls Over Sorrento. Steiger made his debut in Fred Zinnemanns Teresa in 1951. Across the Bridge and Al Capone, the following year, he played a serial killer of many guises in No Way to Treat a Lady. During the 1970s, Steiger increasingly turned to European productions in his search for more demanding roles and he portrayed Napoleon Bonaparte in Waterloo, a Mexican bandit in Sergio Leones Duck, You Sucker. Benito Mussolini in Last Days of Mussolini, and ended the decade playing a disturbed priest in The Amityville Horror. By the 1980s, heart problems and depression took its toll on Steigers career, One of his final roles was as judge H. Lee Sarokin in the prison drama The Hurricane, which reunited him with In the Heat of the Night director Norman Jewison. Steiger was married five times, and had a daughter, opera singer Anna Steiger, and a son, Michael Steiger. He died of pneumonia and complications from surgery for a gall bladder tumor on July 9,2002, aged 77, in Los Angeles, and was survived by his fifth wife Joan Benedict Steiger. Steiger was born on April 14,1925 in Westhampton, New York, Rod was raised as a Lutheran. Biographer Tom Hutchinson describes him as a shadowy, fugitive figure, one who haunted Rod throughout his life and was an invisible presence, Hutchinson described Steigers mother as plump, energetic and small, with long auburn hair. She had a singing voice and nearly became a Hollywood actress. As a result, she quit show business and moved away from Westhampton to raise her son and they moved through several towns, including Irvington and Bloomfield, before settling in Newark, New Jersey. Her alcoholism caused Steiger much embarrassment, and the family was frequently mocked by other children, at the age of five he was sexually abused by a pedophile who lured him in with a butterfly collection. A loving, secure childhood in a New York minute, during the last 11 years of her life, Steigers mother stayed sober and regularly attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings
3.
Lee Remick
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Lee Ann Remick was an American actress. Remick made her debut in 1957 in A Face in the Crowd. Her other notable roles include Anatomy of a Murder, Wild River, The Detective, The Omen. She won Golden Globe Awards for the 1973 TV film The Blue Knight, for the latter role, she also won the BAFTA TV Award for Best Actress. In April 1991, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Lee Remick was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, the daughter of Gertrude Margaret, an actress, and Francis Edwin Frank Remick, who owned a department store. Her maternal great-grandmother, Eliza Duffield, was a born in England. Remick attended the Swaboda School of Dance, the Hewitt School and studied acting at Barnard College, Remick made her film debut in Elia Kazans A Face in the Crowd. While filming the movie in Arkansas, Remick lived with a local family, after appearing as Eula Varner, the hot-blooded daughter-in-law of Will Varner in 1958s The Long, Hot Summer, she appeared in These Thousand Hills as a dance hall girl. Remick came to prominence as a victim whose husband is tried for killing her attacker in Otto Premingers Anatomy of a Murder. In 1960, she made a film with Kazan, Wild River. In 1962 she starred opposite Glenn Ford in the Blake Edwards suspense-thriller Experiment in Terror and that same year she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as the alcoholic wife of Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses. Bette Davis, also nominated that year for Whatever Happened to Baby Jane. said Miss Remicks performance astonished me and they both lost to Anne Bancroft in The Miracle Worker. When Marilyn Monroe was fired during the filming of the comedy Somethings Got to Give, co-star Dean Martin refused to continue, however, saying that while he admired Remick, he had signed onto the picture strictly to be able to work with Monroe. Remick next appeared in the 1964 Broadway musical Anyone Can Whistle, written by Stephen Sondheim and Arthur Laurents, Remicks performance is captured on the original cast recording. This began a friendship between Remick and Sondheim, and she later appeared in the landmark 1985 concert version of his musical Follies. In 1966, she starred in the Broadway play Wait Until Dark and it was adapted into a successful film the following year starring Audrey Hepburn. She co-starred with Gregory Peck in the 1976 horror film The Omen, in which her characters adopted son, the film was both a critical and commercial success and was regarded as one of the best horror films ever made. Remick later appeared in several movies and miniseries, for which she earned a total of seven Emmy nominations
4.
George Segal
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George Segal, Jr. is an American actor and musician. Segal became popular in the 1960s and 1970s for playing both dramatic and comedic roles, some of his most acclaimed roles are in films such as Ship of Fools, King Rat, Whos Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The Hot Rock, Blume in Love, A Touch of Class, California Split, For the Boys, on television, he is best known for his roles as Jack Gallo on Just Shoot Me. and as Albert Pops Solomon on The Goldbergs. Segal is also a banjo player. He has released three albums and has performed the instrument in several of his acting roles and on late night television. Segal was born in Great Neck, New York, the son of Fannie Blanche Segal and George Segal, Sr. a malt, Segals family was Jewish, but he was raised in a secular household. A paternal great-grandfather ran for governor of Massachusetts as a socialist, when asked if he had a bar mitzvah, Segal stated, Im afraid not. I went to a Passover Seder at Groucho Marxs once and he kept saying, I went to a friends bar mitzvah, and that was the only time I was in Temple Beth Shalom. Jewish life wasnt happening that much at the time, peoples car tires were slashed in front of the temple. I was once kicked down a flight of stairs by some kids from the parochial school. All of Segals grandparents were immigrants from Russia and his maternal grandparents changed their surname from Slobodkin to Bodkin. He first became interested in acting at the age of nine and he states, I started off with the ukulele when I was a kid in Great Neck. A friend had a red Harold Teen model, it won my heart, when I got to high school, I realized you couldnt play in a band with a ukulele, so I moved on to the four-string banjo. When his father died in 1947, Segal moved to New York City with his mother and he graduated from George School in 1951, and attended Haverford College. He graduated from Columbia College of Columbia University in 1955 with a Bachelor of Arts in performing arts and he was drafted into the United States Army in 1956. He studied at the Actors Studio with Lee Strasberg and Uta Hagen, originally a stage actor and musician, Segal appeared in several minor films in the early 1960s in addition to the well-known World War II film The Longest Day. He was signed to a Columbia Pictures contract in 1961, making his debut in The Young Doctors. In 1965, he was a co-recipient of the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year for his role in The New Interns
5.
Eileen Heckart
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Eileen Heckart was an American actress of film, stage, and television. Primarily known as an actress, her career spanned nearly 60 years. She first became known for her role as schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney in the original 1953 cast of William Inges play Picnic on Broadway. In addition to her Academy Award, she won two Emmy Awards for Save Me a Place at Forest Lawn and Love & War. She also received a special Tony Award for lifetime achievement in 2000 and she made her final acting appearance in 2000 at age 80 in an off-Broadway production, The Waverly Gallery, in which she played the leading role of an elderly grandmother with Alzheimers disease. Heckart was born Anna Eileen Herbert in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Esther Stark, the child was soon after legally adopted by her maternal grandmothers wealthy second husband, J. W. Heckart, the surname by which she would be known her entire life. She had two stepsisters, Anne and Marilyn and she graduated from Ohio State University with a B. A. in drama. Heckart began her Broadway career as the assistant stage manager and an understudy for The Voice of the Turtle in 1943 and that same year, she was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame and received an honorary Tony Award for lifetime achievement. Other awards include the 1953 Theatre World Award for Picnic and her nominations include Tony Award nominations for Butterflies Are Free, Invitation to a March, and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs. She was granted three honorary doctorates by Sacred Heart University, Niagara University and Ohio State University, daigle in The Bad Seed, both of which were roles Heckart had originated on Broadway. She also appeared as a Vietnam War widow in the Clint Eastwood film and she played Diane Keatons meddling mother in the 1996 comedy film The First Wives Club. On television, Heckart had starring roles in The Five Mrs. Buchanans, Out of the Blue, Partners in Crime, in 1994, she won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her appearance as Rose Stein on Love & War. Her other guest spots included The Fugitive, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Love Story, Rhoda, Alice, Murder One, Hawaii Five-O, Gunsmoke, Cybill, The Cosby Show, Heckart played two unrelated characters on the daytime soap opera One Life to Live. During the early 1990s, she played the role of Wilma Bern, mother of upstate Pennsylvania mob boss Carlo Hesser and his meek twin and she appeared in the 1954 NBC legal drama Justice, based on case files of New Yorks Legal Aid Society. She appeared in an episode of the NBC medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour, Heckart was married to John Harrison Yankee, Jr. for 55 years from 1942 until his death in 1997. Her son Luke Yankee is the author of Just Outside the Spotlight, Growing Up with Eileen Heckart, on December 31,2001, Heckart died of lung cancer at her home in Norwalk, Connecticut at the age of 82. She was survived by her three children and her two stepsisters, the Eileen Heckart Collection was established at Ohio State Universitys Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute, with her notes, copies of scripts, and personal papers. In 2005, the Eileen Heckart Drama for Seniors Competition was established in her memory by Ohio States Department of Theatre and her sons also established a scholarship at Ohio State in her name
6.
Wizards (film)
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Wizards is a 1977 American animated post-apocalyptic science fantasy film written, produced, and directed by Ralph Bakshi. The film follows the battle between two wizards, one representing the forces of magic and one representing the forces of industrial technology. Earth has been devastated by a nuclear war instigated by five terrorists, only a handful of humans have survived, while the rest have changed into mutants who roam the radioactive wastelands. In the idyllic land of Montagar, the ancestors of man – fairies, elves and dwarves – have returned. During a celebration of 3,000 years of peace Delia, queen of the fairies, falls into a trance, puzzled, the fairies follow her to her home and discover that she has given birth to twin wizards. Blackwolf is excited, he believes he will take over her leadership, Avatar opposes his evil brother and forces him to fight for the kingship. Avatars magic is empowered by his grief, allowing him to defeat Blackwolf, Blackwolf leaves Montagar with a vow to return and make this a planet where mutants rule. Years later, Blackwolf has risen to lead the dark land of Scortch and he tries to attack Montagar twice, but is foiled both times when his mutant warriors become bored or sidetracked in the midst of battle. Blackwolf then discovers an old projector and reels of Nazi propaganda footage and he enhances the projector with magical power and uses it in battle to both inspire his own soldiers and horrify enemy troops. The mutants destroy the elf army, meanwhile, in Montagar, Avatar has become a tutor tasked with training the presidents daughter Elinore to become a full-fledged fairy. Suddenly, the president is assassinated by Necron 99, a robot sent by Blackwolf to kill believers in magic, Avatar confronts the robot and battles it using brain reading. Necron 99 loses the desire for war and changes his name to Peace, Avatar learns from the robot that the dream machine – the projector – is Blackwolfs secret weapon, inspiring his armies with images of ancient warfare. Avatar, Elinore, Peace, and the elf spy Weehawk set out to destroy the projector, in a forest inhabited by fairies, Peace has an intuition that something is amiss shortly before the group is accosted by the leader of the fairies, Sean. Weehawk realizes that Peace is missing, when an assassin kills Sean. Avatar and Weehawk begin to search for Elinore in the forbidden Fairy Sanctuary and he locates her, captured by fairies and small human-like creatures, just as she is about to be killed. Avatar attempts to explain that they did not kill Sean, but the fairies dont believe him, wounded in the shoulder, Avatar refuses to fight back, which impresses the fairy king. Instead of executing them, he merely teleports Avatar and Elinore to a snowy mountaintop, Avatar and Elinore resume their journey despite the poor conditions, but they soon realize they are wandering in circles. Weehawk and Peace finally find them and together they find their way out of the mountains, soon Avatar and the others encounter the encamped army of an elf General who is preparing to attack Scortch the following day, but Blackwolf launches a sneak attack that night
