1.
Sidney Lumet
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Sidney Arthur Lumet was an American director, producer and screenwriter with over 50 films to his credit. He was nominated for the Academy Award as Best Director for 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, and The Verdict. The Encyclopedia of Hollywood states that Lumet was one of the most prolific filmmakers of the modern era and he was noted by Turner Classic Movies for his strong direction of actors, vigorous storytelling and the social realism in his best work. Film critic Roger Ebert described him as having one of the finest craftsmen. Lumet was also known as an director, having worked with the best of them during his career. Sean Connery, who acted in five of his films, considered him one of his directors. A member of the cohort of New Yorks Actors Studio, Lumet began his directorial career in Off-Broadway productions. His first movie was typical of his best work, a well-acted, tightly written, as a result of directing 12 Angry Men, he was also responsible for leading the first wave of directors who made a successful transition from TV to movies. In 2005, Lumet received an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement for his brilliant services to screenwriters, performers, two years later, he concluded his career with the acclaimed drama Before the Devil Knows Youre Dead. A few months after Lumets death in April 2011, a celebration of his work was held at New Yorks Lincoln Center with the appearance of numerous speakers. In 2015, Nancy Buirski directed By Sidney Lumet, a documentary about his career, Lumet was born in Philadelphia to parents of Jewish descent. He studied theater acting at the Professional Childrens School of New York, Lumets parents, Baruch and Eugenia Lumet, were both veterans of the Yiddish theatre. His father, who was an actor, director, producer and writer, was a Polish Jewish emigrant to the United States who was born in Warsaw, Lumets mother, who was a dancer, died when he was a child. He made his debut on radio at age four and stage debut at the Yiddish Art Theatre at age five. As a child he appeared in many Broadway plays, including 1935s Dead End. In 1935, aged 11, he appeared in a Henry Lynn short film, Papirossen, the film was shown in a theatrical play with the same title, based on a hit song, Papirosn. The play and short film appeared in the Bronx McKinley Square Theatre, in 1939, he made his only feature-length film appearance, at age 15, in. One Third of a Nation. In 1939, World War II interrupted his acting career
2.
David Brown (producer)
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David Brown was an American film and theatre producer and writer who was best knowed for coproducing the 1975 film Jaws. He was born in New York City, New York, the son of Lillian, Brown was a graduate of Stanford University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He began his career as a journalist, contributing to magazines including The Saturday Evening Post, Harpers and Colliers. He was an editor of Cosmopolitan before his wife, Helen Gurley Brown. In 1951, the producer Darryl F. Zanuck hired Brown to head the department at Zanucks studio. Brown eventually rose to executive vice president of creative operations. He and Richard D. Zanuck, Darryls son, left Fox in 1971 for Warner Bros. the caper film The Sting starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford was a Zanuck/Brown presentation. Driving Miss Daisy won four Academy Awards, including the Best Picture award, without Zanuck, Brown went on to produce films including the drama Angelas Ashes and the romance Chocolat. Brown produced various Broadway musicals, including Sweet Smell of Success, The Musical, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, and he bought the film and stage rights to the drama play A Few Good Men, written by playwright Aaron Sorkin. The play opened November 1989 and ran for 500 performances, the film of the same name stars Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson. From 1959, for years, until his death, Brown was the husband of Helen Gurley Brown, editor of Cosmopolitan magazine for 32 years, and author of Sex. Brown had one son, Bruce, from a marriage, who predeceased him. He was known equally for his mannerliness, fine wardrobe, distinctive mustache and he had strong connections with publishers and agents. Brown wrote Browns Guide to the Good Life, Tears, Fears and Boredom and he also wrote Let Me Entertain You, an anecdotal autobiography. He died, age 93, at his home in Manhattan from renal failure on February 1,2010 and his widow, Helen, died on August 13,2012, age 90. Mr. and Mrs. Brown were laid to rest in late November 2012 in adjacent graves at Sisco Cemetery, Helens maternal family cemetery just south of the village of Osage in Carroll County, Arkansas
3.
Richard D. Zanuck
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Richard Darryl Zanuck was an American film producer. His 1989 film Driving Miss Daisy won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Richard Darryl Zanuck was born in Los Angeles, to actress Virginia Fox and Darryl F. Zanuck, then head of production for 20th Century-Fox. While studying at Stanford University, he began his career in the industry working for the 20th Century Fox story department. In 1959, Zanuck had his first shot at producing with the film Compulsion, in the 1960s, Zanuck became the president of 20th Century Fox. One year of his tenure was chronicled by John Gregory Dunne in The Studio, after failures like 1967s Doctor Dolittle, he was fired by his father and joined Warner Bros. as Executive Vice President. In 1972, Zanuck joined with David Brown to form an independent production company called the Zanuck/Brown Company at Universal Pictures, the two men produced a pair of Steven Spielbergs early films, The Sugarland Express and Jaws. They subsequently produced such box office hits as Cocoon and Driving Miss Daisy before dissolving their partnership in 1988 and they were jointly awarded the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1990. He and Burton connected immediately, and Zanuck was Burtons producer of choice, in a May 2012 interview, Zanuck told Variety, A producer should contribute from the very beginning until the very end, in all aspects. Im there at the set every day, on every shot, not that the director, particularly Tim, needs me, but just in case. On January 14,1958, he married Lili Charlene Gentle, an actress from Birmingham, Alabama, the marriage, which produced two daughters, Virginia and Janet, was dissolved in 1968. The marriage became difficult after Harrison failed to garner the role of the wife in Zanucks production of Jaws, in a 1985 interview, Zanuck said that career problems contributed to his two failed marriages. Both girls were actresses, and neither one was well established, as head of 20th Century Fox, It was tough to try to be fair to the project and also try to help them in their careers. If I didnt give them the role, then I had to explain why they werent right for it and it wasnt the major problem in the marriages, but it was an underlying source of discomfort. When the Zanucks won the Best Picture Oscar in 1989 for Driving Miss Daisy, Richard Zanuck died on July 13,2012, of a heart attack at his home in Beverly Hills. The Beverly Park home he had lived in until his death was sold for $20. 1M in July 2012, on February 25,2014, Twentieth-Century Fox opened the Richard D. Zanuck Production Building at its Los Angeles studios. Richard was a giant of our industry for over five decades, Fox Chairman. He was family, and a part of our legacy. We couldnt find a building worthy of him, so we built one, the ceremony was attended by Zanucks widow, Lili Fini Zanuck, his sons, Harrison and Dean, and four of his nine grandchildren, Jack, Darryl, Kyler, and Luke Zanuck
4.
David Mamet
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David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and film director. As a playwright, Mamet has won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for Glengarry Glen Ross, Mamet first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976, The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. His play Race opened on Broadway on December 6,2009, Mamets 2017 play The Penitent previewed off-Broadway on February 8,2017. Feature films that Mamet both wrote and directed include Redbelt, The Spanish Prisoner, House of Games, Spartan, Heist, State and Main, The Winslow Boy, and Oleanna. This was accompanied by Homicide, Things Change, and most recently the 2013 HBO film Phil Spector, starring Al Pacino as Spector with Helen Mirren and Jeffrey Tambor. His drama Glengarry Glen Ross, in 1992, was adapted by Mamet into a version which also received an Academy Award nomination. Mamet was also the producer and frequent writer for the TV show The Unit. As a screenplay writer, Mamet received Oscar nominations for The Verdict, Mamet was born in 1947 in Chicago to Jewish parents, Lenore June, a teacher, and Bernard Morris Mamet, an attorney. One of his first jobs was as a busboy at Chicagos The Second City and he was educated at the progressive Francis W. Parker School and at Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont. At the Chicago Public Library Foundation 20th anniversary fundraiser in 2006, though, I got what little educational foundation I got in the third-floor reading room, under the tutelage of a Coca-Cola sign. Mamet is a member of the Atlantic Theater Company, he first gained acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976, The Duck Variations, Sexual Perversity in Chicago. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross and his play Race, which opened on Broadway on December 6,2009 and featured James Spader, David Alan Grier, Kerry Washington, and Richard Thomas in the cast, received mixed reviews. His play The Anarchist, starring Patti LuPone and Debra Winger, in her Broadway debut and his 2017 play The Penitent previewed off-Broadway on February 8,2017. In 2002, Mamet was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame, Mamet later received the PEN/Laura Pels International Foundation for Theater Award for Grand Master of American Theater in 2010. His latest feature-length film, a thriller titled Blackbird, is slated for release in 2015, Mamets first produced screenplay was the 1981 production of The Postman Always Rings Twice, based upon James M. Cains novel. He received an Academy Award nomination one year later for his first script, The Verdict and he also wrote the screenplay for The Untouchables. In 1987, Mamet made his directing debut with House of Games, starring his then-wife, Lindsay Crouse. He uses friends as actors, especially in one scene in the movie
5.
Paul Newman
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Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor. Newmans other films include The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as Butch Cassidy, The Sting, and The Verdict. Despite being colorblind, Newman won several championships as a driver in Sports Car Club of America road racing. He was a co-founder of Newmans Own, a company from which he donated all post-tax profits. As of 2016, these donations have totaled over US$460 million and he was also a co-founder of Safe Water Network, a nonprofit that develops sustainable drinking water solutions for those in need. In 1988, Newman founded the SeriousFun Childrens Network, a family of summer camps. Newman was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, the son of Theresa and Arthur Sigmund Newman. Newmans father was Jewish, and was the son of Simon Newman and Hannah Cohn, immigrants from Hungary, Newman had no religion as an adult, but described himself as a Jew, saying its more of a challenge. Newmans mother worked in his fathers store, while raising Paul and his brother, Arthur. Newman showed an early interest in the theater, his first role was at the age of seven, playing the court jester in a school production of Robin Hood. At age 10, Newman performed at the Cleveland Play House in a production of Saint George and the Dragon, graduating from Shaker Heights High School in 1943, he briefly attended Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where he was initiated into the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity. Newman served in the United States Navy in World War II in the Pacific theater, initially, he enrolled in the Navy V-12 pilot training program at Yale University, but was dropped when his colorblindness was discovered. Boot camp followed, with training as a radioman and rear gunner, qualifying in torpedo bombers in 1944, Aviation Radioman Third Class Newman was sent to Barbers Point, Hawaii. He later flew as a gunner in an Avenger torpedo bomber. As a radioman-gunner, his unit was assigned to the USS Bunker Hill along with other replacements shortly before the Battle of Okinawa in the spring of 1945, the pilot of his aircraft had an ear infection which kept their plane grounded. The rest of their squadron flew to the Bunker Hill, days later, a kamikaze attack on the vessel killed a number of service members, including the other members of his unit. After the war, Newman completed his Bachelor of Arts in drama and economics at Kenyon College in Gambier, shortly after earning his degree, he joined several summer stock companies, most notably the Belfry Players in Wisconsin and the Woodstock Players in Illinois. He toured with them for three months and developed his talents as a part of Woodstock Players and he later attended the Yale School of Drama for one year, before moving to New York City to study under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio
6.
Charlotte Rampling
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Tessa Charlotte Rampling, OBE is an English actress, model and chanteuse, known for her work in European arthouse films in three languages, English, French, and Italian. An icon of the Swinging Sixties, she began her career as a model and later became a fashion icon and she was cast in the role of Meredith in the 1966 film Georgy Girl, which starred Lynn Redgrave. She soon began making French and Italian arthouse films, most notably during this time in Luchino Viscontis The Damned and Liliana Cavanis The Night Porter. She went on to star in Zardoz, Farewell, My Lovely, Woody Allens Stardust Memories, opposite Paul Newman in The Verdict, Long Live Life, Max, Mon Amour, Angel Heart and The Wings of the Dove. In 2002 she released an album of recordings in the style of cabaret, in the 2000s, she became the muse of French director François Ozon, appearing in his films Under the Sand, Swimming Pool and Angel. On television, she is known for her role as Evelyn Vogel in Dexter, in 2012 she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, both for her performance in the miniseries Restless. Other television roles include work in Broadchurch and London Spy, for the latter of which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, a four-time César Award nominee, she received an Honorary César in 2001 and Frances Legion of Honour in 2002. She was made an OBE in 2000 for her services to the arts, in 2015, she released her autobiography, which she wrote in French, titled Qui Je Suis, or Who I Am. She later worked on an English translation, which was due to be published in March 2017, Rampling was born in Sturmer, Essex, the daughter of Isabel Anne, a painter, and Godfrey Rampling, an Olympic gold medalist and British Army officer. She grew up and spent most of her childhood in Gibraltar, France and she attended Académie Jeanne dArc in Versailles and St. Hildas School, a boarding school in Bushey, Hertfordshire, England. She had one sister, Sarah, who committed suicide in 1966 and she and Sarah had had a close relationship, and they had performed in a cabaret act together during their teenage years. She began her career as a model and first appeared in a Cadbury advertisement and she was noticed by a casting agent while walking down a street in London. Her first screen appearance, which was uncredited, was as a skier in Richard Lesters film The Knack. She also appeared as an extra in the Beatles film A Hard Days Night, in 1965, she was cast in the role of Meredith in the film Georgy Girl and was given a role by John Boulting in the comedy Rotten to the Core. In 1967, she starred opposite Yul Brynner in the adventure film The Long Duel and she also appeared alongside Franco Nero in the Italian film Sardinia Kidnapped, directed by Gianfranco Mingozzi. On television, Rampling played the gunfighter Hana Wilde in The Superlative Seven, after this, her acting career blossomed in both English and French cinema. Despite an early flurry of success, she told The Independent and it was a nightmare, breaking the rules and all that. Everyone seemed to be having fun, but they were taking so many drugs they wouldnt know it anyway, in 1969, in Luchino Viscontis The Damned, she played a young wife sent to a Nazi concentration camp
7.
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
8.
James Mason
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James Neville Mason was an English actor. He was nominated for three Academy Awards and three Golden Globes, Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to Mabel Hattersley and John Mason. His father was a textile merchant. He was educated at Marlborough College, and earned a first in architecture at Peterhouse, Mason had no formal training in acting and initially embarked upon it for fun. After Cambridge he made his debut in Aldershot in The Rascal in 1931. He joined The Old Vic theatre in London under the guidance of Tyrone Guthrie, in 1933 Alexander Korda gave Mason a small role in The Private Life of Don Juan but sacked him three days into shooting. From 1935-38, he starred in many British quota quickies, Mason became hugely popular for his brooding anti-heroes in the Gainsborough series of melodramas of the 1940s, including The Man in Grey and The Wicked Lady. He also starred with Deborah Kerr and Robert Newton in Hatters Castle and he then took the lead role in the popular The Seventh Veil, which set box office records in post-war Britain and raised him to international stardom. He followed it with a role as a mortally wounded IRA bank robber on the run in Odd Man Out and his first Hollywood film, exhibitors voted him the most popular star in Britain in each year between 1944 and 1947. They also thought he was the most popular star in 1946. He was the most popular star in Canada in 1948. Masons languid but impassioned vocal talent enabled him to play a villain as easily as his good looks assisted him as a leading man. His roles include Brutus in Julius Caesar, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel in The Desert Fox, The Story of Rommel and The Desert Rats, in the 1950s, Mason was host of Lux Video Theatre on CBS television. In 1963 he settled in Switzerland, and embarked on a transatlantic career, one of his last roles, that of corrupt lawyer Ed Concannon in The Verdict, earned him his third and final Oscar nomination. Mason had been a neighbour and friend of the comedian. Having completed playing the role in Dr. This was to be Masons final screen performance, in the late 1970s, Mason became a mentor to up-and-coming actor Sam Neill. Mason was a lover of animals, particularly cats
