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Darren McGavin

Biography

Darren McGavin (born William Lyle Richardson; May 7, 1922 – February 25, 2006) was an American actor best known for playing the title role in the television horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker and his portrayal of the grumpy father given to bursts of profanity in the film A Christmas Story. He appeared as the tough-talking, funny detective in the 1950s television series Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer. From 1959-1961, McGavin starred in the NBC western series Riverboat, first with Burt Reynolds and then with Noah Beery, Jr. Description above from the Wikipedia article Darren McGavin, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Anthony Hopkins

Biography

Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE (born December 31, 1937) is a Welsh actor, film director, and film producer. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards and a British Academy Television Award. He has also received an honorary Golden Globe Award and the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts, and in 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements in the motion picture industry. After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, Hopkins trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was then spotted by Laurence Olivier who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre in 1965. Productions at the National included King Lear, his favourite Shakespeare play. His last stage play was a West End production of M. Butterfly in 1989. In 1968, Hopkins achieved recognition in film, playing Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in Winter. In the mid-1970s, Richard Attenborough, who directed five Hopkins films, called him "the greatest actor of his generation." In 1991, he portrayed Hannibal Lecter in the psychological horror film The Silence of the Lambs, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor. He reprised the role in its sequel Hannibal and the prequel Red Dragon. Other notable films include The Elephant Man (1980), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), Howards End (1992), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Shadowlands (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), Meet Joe Black (1998), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), and Thor: Ragnarok (2017). He received four more Academy Award nominations for The Remains of the Day (1993), Nixon (1995), Amistad (1997) and The Two Popes (2019) before winning a fourth BAFTA Award and a second Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of an elderly man diagnosed with dementia in The Father (2020), becoming the oldest Best Actor Oscar winner to date. Since making his television debut with the BBC in 1967, Hopkins has continued to appear on television. In 1973 he received a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his performance in War and Peace. In 2015, he starred in the BBC film The Dresser alongside Ian McKellen. In 2018, he starred in King Lear opposite Emma Thompson. In 2016 and 2018, he starred in the HBO television series Westworld, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
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Janet Leigh

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Janet Leigh (born Jeanette Helen Morrison; July 6, 1927 – October 3, 2004) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and author. Her career spanned over five decades. Raised in Stockton, California, by working-class parents, Leigh was discovered at 18 by actress Norma Shearer, who helped her secure a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Leigh appeared in radio programs before her first formal foray into acting, making her film debut in the drama The Romance of Rosy Ridge (1947). With MGM, she appeared in many films which spanned a wide variety of genres, which include the crime-drama Act of Violence (1948), the drama Little Women (1949), the comedy Angels in the Outfield (1951), the romance Scaramouche (1952) and the western drama The Naked Spur (1953). She played dramatic roles during the late 1950s, in such films as Safari (1956) and Orson Welles's film noir Touch of Evil (1958). With RKO Radio pictures she co-starred in the romantic comedy Holiday Affair (1949) with Robert Mitchum. Leigh achieved her biggest success starring as Marion Crane in Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller Psycho (1960). For her performance, Leigh won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress and earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Intermittently, she continued to appear in films, including Bye Bye Birdie (1963), Harper (1966), Night of the Lepus (1972), and Boardwalk (1979). She made her Broadway debut in 1975 in a production of Murder Among Friends. She would also go on to appear in two horror films with her daughter, Jamie Lee Curtis: The Fog (1980) and Halloween H20: 20 Years Later (1998). In addition to her work as an actress, Leigh also wrote four books between 1984 and 2002, two of which were novels. Leigh had two brief marriages as a teenager (one of which was annulled) before marrying actor Tony Curtis in 1951. The pair's highly publicized union ended in divorce in 1962, and after starring in The Manchurian Candidate that same year, Leigh remarried and scaled back her career. She died in October 2004 at age 77, following a year-long battle with vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels.
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Cliff Curtis

Biography

Clifford Vivian Devon Curtis (born July 27, 1968) is a New Zealand actor. His film credits include Once Were Warriors (1994), Three Kings (1999), Training Day (2001), Whale Rider (2002), Collateral Damage (2002), Sunshine, Live Free or Die Hard (both 2007), The Dark Horse (2014), for which he won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Performance by an Actor, Doctor Sleep (2019), Avatar, and Avatar: The Way of Water (2022). His television roles include NBC's Trauma, and ABC's Body of Proof and Missing. From 2015 to 2017, he portrayed Travis Manawa on the AMC horror drama series Fear the Walking Dead. He is the co-owner of the independent New Zealand production company Whenua Films.
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Sean Connery

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Sir Thomas Sean Connery (August 25, 1930 – October 31, 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer. He won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award. Connery was the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films (every film from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, plus Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again), between 1962 and 1983. In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His films also include Marnie (1964), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996), The Rock (1996), and Finding Forrester (2000). Connery was polled in a 2004 The Sunday Herald as "The Greatest Living Scot" and in a 2011 EuroMillions survey as "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". He was voted by People magazine as both the “Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century” in 1999. He received a lifetime achievement award in the United States with a Kennedy Center Honor in 1999. Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama. On October 31, 2020, Connery died at the age of 90.
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Davorka Tovilo

Biography

Tovilo emigrated to Germany at the age of twelve as the daughter of Croatian workers and lived first in Flörsheim am Main near Frankfurt am Main and later in Munich. After graduating from high school, Tovilo studied communication science and political science at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich and later also dubbing, moderation, singing and acting at the Deutsche POP Academy in Munich. In 2008 she was a European activist for the animal rights organization PETA and protested against bullfighting in front of the Spanish embassy in Berlin that same year. Tovilo describes American political and cultural history as her areas of expertise. Tovilo speaks Croatian, German, English and Italian. Tovilo appeared in German and Austrian television entertainment programs such as in the tabloids taff by Pro Sieben (2004-2006, 2008-2011) on the Niels Ruf Show (2008) and Das Sat.1- Magazine (2008) of the VOX - Program on reality TV The Perfect Celebrity Dinner (2009, 2011) and in the 4-star PINK magazine in the section Die Promicamper (2010). After small guest roles in German films, Davorka Tovilo was in the Hollywood film War Inc. - You order the war: We deliver 2008 in a short shot as John Cusack's partner. Tovilo was given an additional role in the film biography of Uwe Boll, Max Schmeling - Eine deutsche Legende (2010).
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Cree Summer

Biography

Cree Summer Francks (born July 7, 1969), best known as Cree Summer, is an African-Canadian Aboriginal actress, musician and voice actress. She is perhaps best known for her role as college student Winifred "Freddie" Brooks on the NBC sitcom A Different World. As a voice actress Summer is best known for voicing Astros Chamber on the reality dating show Cosmic Love, Penny in Inspector Gadget during Season 1, Elmyra Duff in Tiny Toon Adventures, Susie Carmichael in Rugrats and All Grown Up, Princess Kida in Atlantis: The Lost Empire, Valerie Gray in Danny Phantom, Foxxy Love in Drawn Together, Numbuh 5 and Cree Lincoln in Codename: Kids Next Door, and Cleo the Dog in Clifford the Big Red Dog. Description above from the Wikipedia article Cree Summer, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia .
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Kevin Pollak

Biography

Kevin Elliot Pollak (born October 30, 1957) is an American actor, impressionist, game show host, and comedian. He started performing stand-up comedy at the age of 10 and touring professionally at the age of 20. He has appeared in over 90 films including Willow (1988), A Few Good Men (1992), Grumpy Old Men (1993), The Usual Suspects (1995), Casino (1995), and The Whole Nine Yards (2000). On television, he had recurring or starring roles in Mom (2014 - 2020), Better Things (2017 - 2022), and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017 - 2023).
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John Gottowt

Biography

John Gottowt (born Isidor Gesang; 15 June 1881 – 29 August 1942) was an Austrian actor, stage director and film director for theatres and silent movies. Gottowt was born in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary (present-day Lviv, Ukraine) into a Jewish family. After his education in Vienna, he joined the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1905, working for Max Reinhardt as an actor and director. Gottowt was mainly active in different theatres in Berlin as a character actor and director. His first silent film appearance was in Paul Wegener’s Der Student von Prag ("The Student of Prague") (1913). In 1920 he appeared in Robert Wiene's Genuine and took the main role in the early science fiction film Algol. In 1921 he played Professor Bulwer (Abraham van Helsing) in the classic silent film Nosferatu directed by F.W. Murnau. Gottowt made also several films with his brother-in-law Henrik Galeen but, as a Jew, was banned in 1933 from working as a professional actor. After a few years in Denmark he moved to Kraków in Poland. He was murdered in 1942 by an SS officer while in hiding in Wieliczka, disguised as a Roman Catholic priest.
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Norman Alden

Biography

Norman Alden (né Adelberg; September 13, 1924 – July 27, 2012) was an American character actor. His career lasted nearly 50 years, including many diverse and memorable performances. Some of his notable roles include the voice of Sir Kay in The Sword in the Stone (1963), Dr. Linstrom in I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977), diner owner Lou in Back to the Future (1985), the voice of Kranix in The Transformers: The Movie (1986), the construction foreman in They Live (1988), and cameraman Bill in Ed Wood (1994). Alden also made numerous guest appearances in popular shows like Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, and The Twilight Zone. Alden first discovered his passion for acting while attending Texas Christian University, where he participated in on-campus theater productions. After serving in the United States Army during World War II, he pursued a career in acting, making his first television appearance in 1957 on The 20th Century Fox Hour. Alden continued to work steadily until his retirement in 2006.
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