1.
Jackie Gleason
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John Herbert Jackie Gleason was an American comedian, actor, and musician who developed a style and characters in his career from growing up in Brooklyn, New York. He was known for his visual and verbal comedy style. By filming the episodes with Electronicams, Gleason later could release the series in syndication and he also developed The Jackie Gleason Show, which maintained high ratings from the mid-1950s until its cancellation in 1970. After originating in Hollywood, filming moved to Miami, Florida, John Herbert Gleason was born in 1916 at 364 Chauncey Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He grew up at 328 Chauncey, named Herbert Walton Gleason, Jr. at birth, he was baptized John Herbert Gleason. His parents were Herbert Walton Herb Gleason, an Irish-American insurance auditor, Gleason was one of two children, his brother, Clement J. died of meningitis at age 14. Gleason remembered him and his father having a beautiful handwriting, and he used to watch him work at the kitchen table. Once it became evident that he was not coming back, Mae went to work as an attendant for the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation. With the disappearance of his father, young Gleason began hanging around with a gang, hustling pool. 73 Elementary School in Brooklyn, John Adams High School in Queens, Gleason became interested in performing after being part of a class play, he quit school before graduating and got a job that paid $4 per night as master of ceremonies at a theater. Other jobs he held at that time included working in a hall, as a stunt driver. He performed the same duties twice a week at the Folly Theater, Gleason was raised by his mother. When she died in 1935 of sepsis from a large neck carbuncle, Gleason was 19, he had nowhere to go, and he had 36 cents to his name. The family of his first girlfriend, Julie Dennehy, offered to him in, Gleason, however, was headstrong. His friend Sammy Birch made room for him in the room he shared with another comedian. Birch also told him of a gig in Reading, Pennsylvania. The booking agent advanced him bus fare for the trip against his salary and this was Gleasons first job as a professional comedian, henceforth, he would always have regular work in small clubs. Gleason worked his way up to a job at New Yorks Club 18, Gleason greeted noted skater Sonja Henie by handing her an ice cube and saying, Okay, now do something
2.
Mac Davis
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Morris Mac Davis, known as Mac Davis, is a country music singer, songwriter, and actor, originally from Lubbock, Texas, who has enjoyed much crossover success. His early work writing for Elvis Presley produced the hits Memories, In the Ghetto, Dont Cry Daddy, a subsequent solo career in the 1970s produced hits such as Baby, Dont Get Hooked on Me, making him a well-known name in pop music. He also starred in his own variety show, a Broadway musical, Davis graduated at 16 from Lubbock High School in Lubbock, Texas. Davis describes his father, who was divorced from Davis mother, as religious, very strict. Though Davis was physically small, he had a penchant for getting into fistfights, in those days, it was all about football, rodeo, and fistfights. Oh, man, I got beat up so much while I was growing up in Lubbock, Davis said in a March 2,2008, I was 5 feet,9 inches, and weighed 125 pounds. I joined Golden Gloves, but didnt do good even in my division, after he finished high school, Davis moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where his mother lived, to get out of Lubbock. Once he was settled in Atlanta, he organized a rock and roll group called the Zots, Davis also worked for the Vee Jay record company as a regional manager, and later also served as a regional manager for Liberty Records. Davis became famous as a songwriter and got his start as an employee of Nancy Sinatras company, Boots Enterprises, during his time there, he played on many of Sinatras recordings, and she worked him into her stage shows. Davis left Boots Enterprises in 1970 to sign with Columbia Records, One of the songs he wrote in 1968, called A Little Less Conversation, was recorded by Elvis Presley. Shortly after, Presley recorded Davis song In the Ghetto in his sessions in Memphis, Davis, the only Caucasian man in the room at the time, eventually told Bowen, I dont know whether to thank ya, or to kill ya. Davis eventually recorded the tune after Presleys version became a success and it was later released on a campy Rhino Records Golden Throats compilation in 1991. The song became a success for Presley and he continued to more of Davis material, such as Memories. Bobby Goldsboro also recorded some of Daviss songs, including Watching Scotty Grow, other artists who recorded his material included Vikki Carr, O. C. Smith, and Kenny Rogers and The First Edition, I Believe in Music, often considered to be Daviss signature song, was recorded by several artists before it finally became a success in 1972 for the group Gallery. Later, he became known as a country singer. Also, during the 1970s, he was active as an actor, appearing in several movies. Davis soon decided to pursue a career of his own in country music, after several years of enriching the repertoires of other artists, his big success came two years after signing with Columbia
3.
Teri Garr
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Terry Ann Garr —known as Teri Garr—is an American actress, singer, comedian, dancer, and voice artist. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for the 1982 film and she notably appeared on television as Phoebe Abbott in three episodes of the sitcom Friends, and had a starring guest appearance in the 1968 Star Trek episode Assignment, Earth. Garr was born in Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. Her father, Eddie Garr, was a performer, comedian. He changed his surname before Teris birth and her mother, Phyllis Lind, was a dancer, a Rockette, wardrobe mistress, and model. Her father was of Irish descent and her grandparents were Austrian immigrants. Early in her career she was credited as Terri Garr, Terry Garr, Teri Hope and her movie debut was as an extra in A Swingin Affair. Winters cast her in many of his movies and projects. Garr began as a dancer in uncredited roles for youth-oriented films and TV shows choreographed by Winters, including Pajama Party. Hullabaloo, Movin with Nancy, and nine Elvis Presley features, so he was chosen to do Viva Las Vegas. Her first speaking role in a picture was a brief appearance as a damsel in distress in the Monkees film Head. She landed her first significant motion picture role in Francis Ford Coppolas The Conversation and her career breakthrough came in the Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein as Inga. She appeared in a string of successful films, including Close Encounters of the Third Kind as the wife of Richard Dreyfusss character, Oh. Garr was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as Dustin Hoffmans characters actress friend in Tootsie. She also appeared frequently on television and she began as a go-go dancer on several musical variety shows, along with friend Toni Basil, such as Shindig. and Hullabaloo. In 1966 Garr made one appearance on Batman, in 1968 she appeared in both The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R. F. D. and was in two episodes of It Takes a Thief. In 1968 she was featured as secretary Roberta Lincoln in the Star Trek episode Assignment, Earth, in the early 1970s, she was a regular cast member on The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, dancing and acting in comedy sketches. She had a role on McCloud, and appeared on M*A*S*H, The Bob Newhart Show, The Odd Couple, Maude, Barnaby Jones
4.
Karl Malden
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Karl Malden was an American actor. Malden was also President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, Karl Malden, the eldest of three sons, was born Mladen Sekulovich in Chicago, Illinois on March 22,1912, he was born on his mothers 20th birthday and was raised in Gary, Indiana. His Bosnian Serb father, Petar Sekulović, worked in the mills and as a milkman. The Sekulovich familys roots trace back to Podosoje near Bileća, Bosnia, Malden only spoke Serbian until he was in kindergarten and was fluent in the language until his death. Maldens father had a passion for music, and organized a choir, as a teenager, Malden joined the Karageorge Choir at Saint Sava Serbian Orthodox Church. His father then produced Serbian plays at his church and taught acting, a young Malden took part in many of these plays, which included a version of Jack and the Beanstalk but mostly centered on the communitys Serbian heritage. In high school, he was a student and the star of the basketball team. He participated in the department and was narrowly elected senior class president. Among other roles, he played Pooh-Bah in The Mikado, from 1931 until 1934, he worked in the steel mills, as had his father. He changed his name from Mladen Sekulovich to Karl Malden at age 22 and he anglicized his first name by swapping its letters l and a and used it as his last and taking his grandfathers first name as his own. This was because the first theatre company he was in wanted him to shorten his name for its marquee. He thought that they wanted to him and were using his name as an excuse, although that was not the case. Malden often found ways to say Sekulovich in films and television shows in which he appeared, for example, as General Omar Bradley in Patton, as his troops slog their way through enemy fire in Sicily, Malden says Hand me that helmet, Sekulovich to another soldier. In Dead Ringer, as a detective in the squad room, Malden tells another detective, Sekulovich. In Fear Strikes Out, Malden, playing Jimmy Piersalls father John, in Birdman of Alcatraz, as a prison warden touring the cell block, Malden recites a list of inmates names, including Sekulovich. In On the Waterfront, in which Malden plays the priest, among the names of the officers of Local 374 called out in the scene is Mladen Sekulovich. Perhaps the most notable usage of his name, however, was in the television series The Streets of San Francisco. In September 1934, Malden decided to leave his home in Gary, Indiana, to pursue formal training at the Goodman School
5.
Oliver Reed
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Robert Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his upper-class, macho image, hellraiser lifestyle, and tough guy roles. Notable films include The Trap, Oliver, Women in Love, Hannibal Brooks, The Devils, The Three Musketeers, Tommy, Lion of the Desert, Castaway, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and Funny Bones. For Gladiator, his film, Reed was posthumously nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. At the peak of his career, in 1971, British exhibitors voted Reed 5th most popular star at the box office, Reed was born at 9 Durrington Park Road, Wimbledon, to sports journalist Peter Reed and his wife Marcia. He was the nephew of film director Sir Carol Reed, and grandson of the actor-manager Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and his mistress, Reed claimed to have been a descendant of Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia. Reed attended Ewell Castle School in Surrey, olivers brother Simon Reed, a sports journalist, works for British Eurosport. In 1959–1960, Reed married Kate Byrne, the couple had one son, Mark, before their divorce in 1969. While filming his part of Bill Sikes in Oliver and he met Jacquie Daryl, a classically trained dancer who was also in the film. They became lovers and subsequently had a daughter named Sarah, in 1985, he married Josephine Burge, to whom he was still married at the time of his death. In his last years, Reed and Burge lived in Churchtown, County Cork, Reeds face was scarred in a 1963 bar fight, after which he received 63 stitches and was in danger of losing his film career over his facial damage. He claimed to have turned down roles in two Hollywood movies, including The Sting. When the UK government raised taxes on income, Reed initially declined to join the exodus of major British film stars to Hollywood. In the late 1970s Reed finally relocated to Guernsey as a tax exile and he had sold his large house, Broome Hall, between the villages of Coldharbour and Ockley some years earlier and initially lodged at the Duke of Normandie Hotel in Saint Peter Port. In 2013, the writer Robert Sellers published What Fresh Lunacy Is This, – The Authorised Biography of Oliver Reed. Reed was known for his alcoholism and binge drinking. Numerous anecdotes exist, such as Reed and 36 friends of his drinking in one evening,60 gallons of beer,32 bottles of scotch,17 bottles of gin, four crates of wine, and a bottle of Babycham. Steve McQueen told the story that in 1973 he flew to the UK to discuss a project with Reed and suggested the two men visit a London nightclub. They ended up on a pub crawl during which Reed got so drunk he vomited on McQueen
6.
Ron Rifkin
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Ron Rifkin is an American actor. A. Rifkin was born Saul M. Rifkin in New York City, New York, to Miriam and Herman Rifkin and he is the oldest of three children. He was raised as an Orthodox Jew and remained Orthodox until age 32, Rifkin is married to Iva, who operates a fashion design business. In 2001, his association with Touchstone Television began when he played an intelligence agent Arvin Sloane in Alias. Until 2011, he played second-in-command businessman Saul Holden on Brothers & Sisters and he also played Bonnie Franklins second boyfriend on One Day at a Time. Rifkin has enjoyed a long and distinguished career in film, on stage and his association with writer Jon Robin Baitz has been especially fruitful. In 1991, his performance in Baitzs play The Substance of Fire won him the Obie, Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, the following year he performed in Baitzs Three Hotels, for which he received a second Lucille Lortel and Drama Desk nomination. Rifkin received a 1998 Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor for the Broadway revival of Cabaret, additional theatre credits include David Hirsons Wrong Mountain, Arthur Millers Broken Glass, Ivan Turgenevs A Month in the Country, and Neil Simons Proposals. Hal Lantry in the season, Soap, Hill Street Blues. Rifkin is the reader for a number of audiobooks including The Giver by Lois Lowry, Sang Spell by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and he currently portrays Defense Attorney Marvin Stan Exely on Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, as a recurring character. He also starred in Limitless as Brian Finchs father Dennis Finch, Ron Rifkin at the Internet Broadway Database Ron Rifkin at the Internet Movie Database
7.
John Hancock (actor)
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John Hancock was an American film and television actor. Born in Hazen, Arkansas, Hancock is possibly best remembered for his role as Scotty in the ABC miniseries Roots, The Next Generations. His large size and distinctive bass voice allowed him to establish a niche playing authority figures and he was working with Susan Dey on the CBS sitcom Love & War as the bartender Ike Johnson in 1992, when he died of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles. Hancocks characters death was written into the series and he was replaced by actor Charlie Robinson. Hancock was interred in the Devotion section, at Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, John Hancock at the Internet Movie Database John Hancock at Memory Alpha
