1.
Woody Allen
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Heywood Woody Allen is an American actor, writer, director, comedian, playwright, and musician whose career spans more than six decades. He worked as a writer in the 1950s, writing jokes and scripts for television. In the early 1960s, Allen began performing as a stand-up comedian, as a comedian, he developed the persona of an insecure, intellectual, fretful nebbish, which he maintains is quite different from his real-life personality. In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Allen in fourth place on a list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians and he is often identified as part of the New Hollywood wave of filmmakers of the mid-1960s to late 1970s. Allen often stars in his films, typically in the persona he developed as a standup, some of the best-known of his over 40 films are Annie Hall, Manhattan, and Hannah and Her Sisters. In 2007 he said Stardust Memories, The Purple Rose of Cairo, critic Roger Ebert described Allen as a treasure of the cinema. Allen won four Academy Awards, three for Best Original Screenplay and one for Best Director and he also won nine British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards. His screenplay for Annie Hall was named the funniest screenplay by the Writers Guild of America in its list of the 101 Funniest Screenplays, in 2011, PBS televised the film biography Woody Allen, A Documentary on the American Masters TV series. Allen was born Allan Stewart Konigsberg in Brooklyn, New York and he and his sister, Letty, were raised in Midwood, Brooklyn. He is the son of Nettie, a bookkeeper at her familys delicatessen, and Martin Konigsberg and his family was Jewish, his grandparents immigrated from Russia and Austria, and spoke Yiddish, Hebrew, and German. His parents were born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His childhood was not particularly happy, his parents did not get along, Allen spoke German quite a bit in his early years. He would later joke that when he was young he was sent to inter-faith summer camps. While attending Hebrew school for eight years, he went to Public School 99 and to Midwood High School, at that time, he lived in an apartment at 968 East 14th Street. Unlike his comic persona, he was interested in baseball than school. He impressed students with his talent at card and magic tricks. To raise money, he wrote jokes for agent David O. Alber, at the age of 17, he legally changed his name to Heywood Allen and later began to call himself Woody Allen. According to Allen, his first published joke read, Woody Allen says he ate at a restaurant that had O. P. S and he was then earning more than both parents combined
2.
Denholm Elliott
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Denholm Mitchell Elliott, CBE was an English film, television and theatre actor with more than 120 film and television credits. His well-known roles included Dr Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones, Elliott earned critical acclaim in his later career. Film critic Roger Ebert described him as the most dependable of all British character actors, the New York Times called him a star among supporting players and an accomplished scene-stealer. Elliott was born in London, the son of Nina and Myles Laymen Farr Elliott and his elder brother Neil was land agent to Lady Anne Cavendish-Bentinck. Myles was a barrister who had read Law and Arabic at Cambridge before fighting with the Glosters at Gallipoli, in 1930 Myles Elliott was appointed Solicitor-General to the Mandatory Government in Palestine. Three years later, following a series of government prosecutions, he was assassinated outside the King David Hotel. Denholm Elliott attended Malvern College and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and he was asked to leave RADA after one term. As Elliott later recalled, They wrote to my mother and said, Much as we like the fellow, hes wasting your money. In the Second World War, he joined the Royal Air Force, training as a sergeant wireless operator/ air gunner, on the night of 23/24 September 1942, his Handley Page Halifax DT508 bomber took part in an air raid on the U-boat pens at Flensburg, Germany. The aircraft was hit by flak and subsequently ditched in the North Sea near Sylt, Elliott and two other crew members survived and he spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp in Silesia. While imprisoned he became involved in amateur dramatics, after making his film debut in Dear Mr. Elliott and Natasha Parry played the main roles in the 1955 television play, The Apollo of Bellac. Elliott made many appearances, notably in plays by Dennis Potter, including Follow the Yellow Brick Road, Brimstone and Treacle. He took over for an ill Michael Aldridge for one season of The Man in Room 17 and he also became familiar to a wider audience as the well-meaning but addlepated Dr. Marcus Brody in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. A photograph of his character appears in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, there is also a statue dedicated to Marcus outside of Marshall College, the school where Indy teaches. In 1988, Elliott was the Russian mole Povin, around whom the plot revolves, in the television miniseries Codename. But curiously, I never, ever saw any of the crew twice. Elliott had worked with Sindens father, Sir Donald Sinden, in the film The Cruel Sea and he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn and Harold Gould in the television film, Mrs. Delafield Wants to Marry and with Nicole Kidman in Bangkok Hilton. In 1988, Elliott was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for his services to acting and his career included many stage performances, including with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and a well acclaimed turn as the twin brothers in Jean Anouilhs Ring Round the Moon
3.
Mia Farrow
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María de Lourdes Mia Villiers Farrow is an American actress, activist and former fashion model. She first gained notice for her role as Allison MacKenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place. An early film role, as Rosemary in Roman Polanskis Rosemarys Baby, saw her nominated for a BAFTA and she went on to appear in films such as John and Mary, Follow Me. The Great Gatsby and Death on the Nile and her later film roles include Widows Peak, The Omen, Be Kind Rewind, Dark Horse and Luc Bessons Arthur series. Farrow is known for her work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. She is involved in activities in Darfur, Chad. In 2008, Time magazine named her one of the most influential people in the world and her eldest brother, Michael Farrow, died in a plane crash in 1958, at age 19, Patrick, a sculptor, committed suicide in 2009. Her fathers family was originally from England, Farrow grew up in Beverly Hills, California, where she occasionally put on performances with toy daggers and fake blood for passing celebrity tour buses. Aged two, she made her debut in a short documentary Unusual Occupations, Film Tot Holiday. She was raised Roman Catholic and had 13 years of convent education with nuns, when she was nine, she contracted polio during an outbreak in Los Angeles reportedly affecting 500 people. She was placed in a ward for three weeks and later said the experience marked the end of my childhood. Farrow screen-tested for the role of Liesl von Trapp in The Sound of Music, the footage has been preserved, and appears on the fortieth Anniversary Edition DVD of The Sound of Music. Farrow began her career by appearing in supporting roles in several 1960s films. In 1964, she achieved stardom on the primetime soap opera Peyton Place as naive. Farrow left the series in 1966 at the urging of Frank Sinatra whom she married on July 19,1966, before her acting career, Farrow worked as a fashion model for many years. Farrows first leading role was in Rosemarys Baby, which was a critical and commercial success at the time. Her performance garnered numerous awards, including the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year – Actress, Film critic and author Stephen Farber described her performance as having an electrifying impact. Film critic Roger Ebert called the brilliant, and noted, A great deal of the credit for this achievement must go to Mia Farrow
4.
Elaine Stritch
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Elaine Stritch was an American actress and singer, known for her work on Broadway. She made her stage debut in 1944 and appeared in numerous stage plays, musicals, feature films. She was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1995 and her one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty, won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Special Theatrical Event. Stritch relocated to London in the 1970s and starred in several West End productions, including Tennessee Williams Small Craft Warnings and she also starred with Donald Sinden in the ITV sitcom Twos Company, which earned her a 1979 BAFTA TV Award nomination. She won an Emmy Award in 1993 for her guest role on Law & Order and another for the 2004 television documentary of her one-woman show. From 2007 to 2012, she had a role as Colleen Donaghy on the NBC sitcom 30 Rock. Stritch was born on February 2,1925, in Detroit, Michigan, the youngest daughter of Mildred, a homemaker, and George Joseph Stritch and her Roman Catholic family was well-off. Her father was of Irish descent, while her mother had Welsh ancestry, samuel Stritch, Archbishop of Chicago from 1940 to 1958, was one of her uncles. She trained at the Dramatic Workshop of The New School in New York City under Erwin Piscator, alongside Marlon Brando, Stritch made her stage debut in 1944. Stritch understudied Ethel Merman for Call Me Madam, and, at the time, appeared in the 1952 revival of Pal Joey. Stritch later starred in the tour of Call Me Madam. She was the lead in the musical Goldilocks and she starred in Noël Cowards Sail Away on Broadway in 1961. During out-of-town tryouts in Boston, Coward was unsure about the talents of one of the leads. Joe Layton suggested What would happen if. we just eliminated role, the show was very old-fashioned, and the thing that was working was Elaine Stritch. Every time she went on stage was a sensation. The reconstructed Sail Away opened on Broadway at the Broadhurst Theatre on October 3,1961, with Stritch giving what Howard Taubman of The New York Times said “must be the performance of her career. ”In 1966, she played Ruth Sherwood in the musical Wonderful Town at New Yorks City Center, and appeared in an Off Broadway revival of Private Lives in 1968. Stritch became known as a singer with a brassy, powerful voice and she was the original performer cast in the role of Joanne in Stephen Sondheims Company on Broadway. After over a decade of successful runs in shows in New York, Stritch moved in 1972 to London, where she starred in the West End production of Company
5.
Jack Warden
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Jack Warden was an American character actor of film and television. He was twice nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for Shampoo and he received a BAFTA nomination for the former movie and won an Emmy for his performance in Brians Song. Warden was born John Warden Lebzelter Jr. in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Laura M. and John Warden Lebzelter and he was of Pennsylvania Dutch and Irish ancestry. Raised in Louisville, Kentucky, he was expelled from school for fighting. He fought in 13 bouts as a welterweight, but earned little money, Warden worked as a nightclub bouncer, tugboat deckhand and lifeguard before joining the United States Navy in 1938. He was stationed for three years in China with the Yangtze River Patrol, in 1944, on the eve of the D-Day invasion, Warden, now a Staff Sergeant, shattered his leg when he landed in a tree during a night-time practice jump in England. He spent almost eight months in the hospital recuperating, during which time he read a Clifford Odets play, ironically, Warden would later portray a paratrooper from the 101sts rivals – the 82nd Airborne Division – in That Kind of Woman. After leaving the military, he moved to New York City and he joined the company of the Dallas Alley Theatre and performed on stage for five years. In 1948 he made his debut on the anthology series, The Philco Television Playhouse. His first film role, uncredited, was in the 1951 film Youre in the Navy Now, Warden appeared in his first credited film role in the 1951 in The Man with My Face. From 1952 to 1955, Warden appeared in the television series Mister Peepers with Wally Cox, in 1953, Warden was cast as a sympathetic corporal in From Here to Eternity. Wardens breakthrough film role was his performance as Juror No,7, a salesman who wants a quick decision in a murder case, in 12 Angry Men. Warden was nominated for Academy Awards as Best Supporting Actor for his performances in Shampoo and his final film was The Replacements in 2000, opposite Gene Hackman and Keanu Reeves. Warden married French actress Vanda Dupre in 1958 and had one son, although they separated in the 1970s, the couple never divorced. Warden suffered from declining health in his last years which resulted in his retirement from acting in 2000 and he died of heart and kidney failure in a New York hospital on July 19,2006, at the age of 85. Jack Warden at the Internet Movie Database Jack Warden at the Internet Broadway Database Jack Warden at Find a Grave Cinema2000 obituary
6.
Sam Waterston
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Samuel Atkinson Sam Waterston is an American actor, producer and director. He has been nominated for multiple Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, BAFTA and Emmy awards, having starred in over eighty film and he has also starred in numerous stage productions. AllMovie historian Hal Erickson characterized Waterston as having cultivated a following with his quietly charismatic. Waterston received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010 and was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2012, Waterston, the third of four siblings, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His mother, Alice Tucker, a painter, was of English ancestry. His father, George Chychele Waterston, was an immigrant from Leith, Scotland, Waterston attended both the Brooks School, a boarding school in North Andover, Massachusetts, where his father taught, and the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. He entered Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on a scholarship in 1958, after graduating from Yale, he attended the Clinton Playhouse for several months. Waterston also attended the Sorbonne in Paris and the American Actors Workshop, the classically trained Waterston has numerous stage credits to his name. For example, he played an award-winning Benedick in Joseph Papps production of William Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing and he continues live theater work during the summers, often seen acting at places like Long Wharf Theatre and the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. Waterston made his debut in 1965s The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean. He starred as Tom in a 1973 television film adaptation of Tennessee Williams The Glass Menagerie, the film also featured Michael Moriarty, whom Waterston later replaced as the Executive Assistant District Attorney on Law & Order. One of his roles was opposite Jeff Bridges in the western comedy Rancho Deluxe in 1975. Other films include Savages, The Great Gatsby, Journey Into Fear, Capricorn One, Heavens Gate, Hopscotch, in 1985, he co-starred in Robert Prestons final television film with Mary Tyler Moore, Finnegan Begin Again. Also with Moore, Waterston played the role in Lincoln. Other roles include Assault at West Point with Samuel L. Jackson, Mindwalk, The Man in the Moon, Waterston is a six-time Emmy Award nominee, as well as a winner of the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Awards. Aside from Law & Order, other roles include D. A. Forrest Bedford in Ill Fly Away. He also had a role in an episode segment on the TV series Amazing Stories called Mirror Mirror. In 1994, Waterston debuted as Executive Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy in the season of the television series Law & Order
7.
Dianne Wiest
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Dianne Evelyn Wiest is an American actress. Wiest has won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress twice, for Hannah and Her Sisters and Bullets over Broadway and she appeared in three other of Allens films, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Radio Days and September. She also starred in Ron Howards Parenthood, for which she received her second Oscar nomination, Wiest also received two Screen Actors Guild Awards and one BAFTA Award nomination. For her work on television, she has won two Primetime Emmy Awards, Wiest was born in Kansas City, Missouri. Her mother, Anne Stewart, was a nurse and her father, Bernard John Wiest, was a college dean and former psychiatric social worker for the U. S. Army. Her mother was Scottish, while her father was an American of Croatian and German descent, Wiest has two brothers named Greg and Don. Her original ambition was to be a ballerina, but switched her goal to theatre in her year at Nurnberg American High School. Wiest graduated from the University of Maryland in 1969 with a degree in Arts, Wiest studied theatre at the University of Maryland, leaving after her third term to tour with a Shakespearean troupe. Later, she had a role in a New York Shakespeare Festival production of Ashes. She also acted at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven, CT and she was an understudy both off-Broadway and on Broadway, in Kurt Vonneguts Happy Birthday, Wanda June in 1970. She made her Broadway debut in Robert Andersons Solitaire/Double Solitaire, taking over in the role of the daughter in 1971 and she toured the USSR with the Arena Stage. In 1976, Wiest attended the Eugene ONeill National Playwrights Conference and starred in leading roles in Amlin Grays Pirates, at Joe Papps Public Theater she took over the lead in Ashes, and played Cassandra in Agamemnon, directed by Andrei Şerban. In 1979, she originated the role of Agnes in Agnes of God in its first production in Waterford and she appeared in two plays by Tina Howe, Museum and The Art of Dining. (She played opposite Lithgow again in the Herbert Ross film Footloose, as Wiest became established as a film actress through her work in Woody Allens films, she was less frequently available for stage roles. However, she did appear onstage during the 1990s, in In the Summer House, Square One, Cynthia Ozicks The Shawl, in 2003, she appeared with Al Pacino and Marisa Tomei in Oscar Wildes Salome. In 2005, she starred in Kathleen Tolans Memory House and she also starred in a production of Wendy Wassersteins final play Third at Lincoln Center. Her early screen roles include roles in Its My Turn and Im Dancing as Fast as I Can. In 1984, she starred in Footloose, as the reverends wife, under Woody Allens direction, Wiest won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Hannah and Her Sisters in 1987 and Bullets over Broadway in 1995
