Hollywood Actors
Frederick Combs was born in 1935 in Virginia. His first television credit was in an episode of “The Defenders” in 1965. He acted in a major role in the play “The Boys in the Band” as ‘Donald’ and repeated his role in the film version in 1970. He did not though have a prolific screen career and died in 1992 at the age of 56.
David Hedison was born in 1928 in RhodeIsland. He is best known for the hit TV series “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” during the 1960’s. He also starred in 1959 in the cult “The Fly” with Patricia Owens.
IMDB entry:
David Hedison was born Albert David Hedison, Jr. in Providence, Rhode Island, where his father owned a jewelry enameling business. He decided he wanted to be an actor after seeing Blood and Sand (1941). He started out in the theater as “Al Hedison”, receiving a Theatre World Award for most promising newcomer after appearing in the play, “A Month in the Country”. He soon signed on with Twentieth Century-Fox and starred in several movies before going on to TV’s Five Fingers (1959) and a name change to David Hedison. He then appeared in the popular series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964). Hedison appeared in many made-for-TV films and TV series, including two James Bond films. He also was a regular on the soap opera, Another World (1964), from 1991-1995. More recently, he starred in theatrical productions with Juliet Mills and Lois Nettleton. Hedison appeared on the TV soap, The Young and the Restless (1973), in 2004. His most recent TV appearance was on Piers Morgan’s Life Stories (2009) in 2012.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: L.M. Adams
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Deborah Raffin was a popular actress in movies of the 1970’s and 80’s. She was born in 1953 in Los Angeles and is the daughter of actress Trudy Marshall. She made her movie debut in “40 Carets” in 1973 opposite Liv Ullmann and Gene Kelly. She then starred in “The Dove”, “Once Is Not Enough” and “The Sentinal” amongst others. In later years she established a very successful audio books business. She died in 2012.
Tom Vallance’s “Independent” obituary:
On screen, the tall, pretty actress with long fair hair and a wholesome quality will be remembered for her first starring role, in The Dove (1974), in which she portrayed the girl who proved an inspiration for yachtsman Robin Lee Graham as he sailed solo around the world, a trip that took five years.
In Charles Jarrott’s film, based on Graham’s autobiography, Joseph Bottoms played the sailor, who found support from Raffin as she followed him to Fiji, Australia, South Africa, Panama and the Galapagos Islands. Exquisitely photographed on exotic locations by Sven Nykvist, the film was also given a publicity boost by the participation of actor Gregory Peck as its producer. Raffin was later to name her publishing company Dove Books on Tape.
Born in 1953 in Los Angeles, she was the daughter of Trudy Marshall a model-turned-20th Century-Fox starlet who had small roles in such films as Springtime in the Rockies (1942), Heaven Can Wait (1943) and The Dolly Sisters (1945), and Phillip Jordan Raffin, a restaurateur. She studied drama at the age of 15 with Milton Katselas and in London with Kate Fleming at the National Theatre, but then followed in her mother’s footsteps by making her professional debut as a fashion model.
She made her first screen appearance in the comedy Forty Carats (1973), as the daughter of a divorcée (Liv Ullmann). While her mother is falling in love with a man much younger than herself (Edward Albert), Raffin is attracted to an older one (Billy Green Bush). Though critics praised Raffin’s radiant beauty, the movie’s focus was on its star, Ullmann, whose misjudged comedy timing was blamed for the film’s mild impact.
After The Dove, Raffin played a father-fixated rich girl surrounded by corruption in an opulent production of Jacqueline Susann’s steamy best-seller about the jet-set, Once Is Not Enough (1975). Kirk Douglas played her father, a former film producer who marries a bi-sexual millionairess (Alexis Smith) to maintain his daughter’s lifestyle. Raffin next starred in a television movie, Nightmare in Badham County (1976), which was released theatrically in mainland China, becoming such a hit there that Raffin became the first Western actress to make a promotional tour of the country, after which she became an unofficial ambassador helping China make deals with Hollywood.
Though Larry Cohen’s God Told Me To (1976) was a superior horror movie dealing with a religious cult and an anti-Christ, another horror film, but Michael Winner’s The Sentinel (1977), was cliché-ridden and tedious.
Two minor television films, Ski Lift to Death and How to Pick Up Girls! (both 1978) did not improve her stature, and she lost out on the role of Sandy in the film version of Grease when producer Allan Carr, who had decided to give her the part, went to a party at Helen Reddy’s at which a fellow guest was Olivia Newton-John, who captivated him and landed the part.
In 1980 Raffin starred in Touched by Love, the true story of a nurse, Lena Canada (Raffin) who persuaded a withdrawn cerebral palsy victim to write to her idol, Elvis Presley; it began a correspondence between the girl and the singer that lasted until her death. Raffin also won acclaim for her portrayal of the troubled actress Brooke Hayward in the television movie Haywire (1980), after which her acting career was mainly confined to television movies and mini-series, including the Hammer House of Horror episode “Last Video and Testament” (1984) and a Twilight Zone story, “Something in the Walls” (1989).
She starred as a business woman opposite Pierce Brosnan in the mini-series Noble House (1988) and her occasional feature films included Death Wish 3 (1985), in which she was a public defender tracking down the murderous vigilante (Charles Bronson), but after discovering his identity she falls in love with him.
In 1974 she married Michael Viner, a music producer, and in the mid-1980s the couple launched Dove Books on Tape as a hobby, working out of their garage. They soon had a bestseller with Stephen Hawkings’ A Brief History of Time, followed by Sidney Sheldon’s The Naked Face.
Raffin was responsible for persuading celebrities to provide voices for the tapes – among her recruits were Roger Moore, Ruby Dee, Burt Reynolds and Jason Robards Jr. She also compiled a book of celebrities’ Christmas anecdotes, Sharing Christmas (1990), for which she travelled to Calcutta to get a story from Mother Teresa, with other contributors including Margaret Thatcher and Kermit the Frog. The book’s profits went towards helping the homeless. The enterprise became a multi-million dollar business, though Viner was sometimes criticised for his more sensational projects (including two books by participants in the OJ Simpson case) and the couple sold the company in 1997. The pair, who had one daughter, were divorced in 2005, and Viner died in 2009. Raffin was diagnosed with leukaemia a year ago.
Deborah Raffin, actress and entrepreneur: born Los Angeles, California 13 March 1953; married 1974 Michael Viner (one daughter, divorced 2005); died Los Angeles, California 21 November 2012.
The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Linda Hunt won an Oscar for her astonishing performance as the male ‘Billy Kwan’ in 1982’s “The Year of Living Dangerously”. She was born in 1945 in Morristown, New Jersey. Her other movies include “The Bostonians” “Dune” and “Silverado”.
TCM overview:
Despite her diminutive 4-foot, 9-inch frame, actress Linda Hunt emerged as a prominent, Oscar-winning performer in only her second film, playing doomed Chinese-Australian photojournalist Billy Kwan in Peter Weir’s “The Year of Living Dangerously” (1982), which marked the first time in Academy Award history that an actor won for playing a character of the opposite sex. Her triumphant win led to a Tony-nominated performance in Arthur Kopit’s “End of the World” (1983) and a supporting role as a saloon keep in the revisionist Western, “Silverado” (1985), though opportunities later became few and far between. While she logged numerous film and television roles over the years, including a long-running recurring role as a judge on “The Practice” (ABC, 1996-2004), Hunt developed a second career as a busy voiceover artist. She lent her surprising baritone as a narrator on environmental specials, while voicing characters in both video games – most notably on the “God of War” series – and various animated projects like Disney’s “Pocahontas” (1995). By the time she was seen with regularity on such hit procedurals as “Without a Trace” (CBS, 2002-09) and “NCIS: Los Angeles” (2009- ), Hunt was a familiar presence in several different mediums; a testament to both her talent and her ability to overcome the odds.
Born on April 2, 1945, in Morristown, NJ, Hunt moved to Westport, CT with her family while still an infant. Burdened with a host of health problems since birth, Hunt was misdiagnosed with cretinism at six months of age. While in her teens, she was correctly diagnosed with hypo-pituitary dwarfism, a condition in which the pituitary gland fails to release enough growth hormone. Ironically, or perhaps consequently, Hunt grew up an unusual overachiever, undaunted by her condition. She took her first stab at acting at age 12 while performing in a production of “Flibbertigibbet” at Westport’s famed Silver Nutmeg Theater. Hunt moved to New York in the mid-1960s, where she found consistent work in summer stock theater. Concerned that her unusual physical type would limit her future as an actress, Hunt initially focused on becoming a stage director. But the lure of acting proved too powerful to resist, so in 1969, Hunt returned to Westport to study acting under dramatic coach, Robert Lewis.
In the early 1970s, Hunt began a longtime association with the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven. Her one-woman show based on the life of Joan of Arc won the actress rave reviews and even flickers of interest from Broadway. A year later, Hunt went to New York City and made her off-Broadway debut as the Player Queen in the New York Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Hamlet” in Central Park. This led to Hunt’s first major role as the Irish maid Nora in a 1973 production of Eugene O’Neill’s play, “Ah, Wilderness!” Originally directed by Arvin Brown for the Long Wharf Theatre, the play eventually moved to the Circle-in-the-Square Theatre along the Great White Way in New York, where it was taped for airing as a PBS special, “Theater In America” (1976). Hunt’s screen career began in the late 1970s, when she made her television debut in a “Hallmark Hall of Fame” presentation of Arthur Miller’s “Fame” (CBS, 1979). Adapted for the screen by the playwright himself, it was noteworthy that Miller specifically created Hunt’s role of Mona with the actress in mind.
The following year, Hunt made her official big screen debut in Robert Altman’s bloated and ultimately failed musical, “Popeye” (1980). Cast in a small supporting role as the feisty Mrs. Oxheart, Hunt’s appearance was a fortunately forgettable cameo lost in an even more forgettable film that dogged stars Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall for years to come. Her next film, however, permanently changed her career. Tapped to co-star in the controversial drama “The Year of Living Dangerously,” Hunt joined burgeoning young actors Mel Gibson and Sigourney Weaver in director Peter Weir’s complex drama. Based on a novel of the same name by Christopher Koch, the film told the complicated tale of an Australian journalist caught at the center of a foreign country’s political overthrow. Based on the real-life events of the attempted 1965 coup of Jakarta by Indonesia’s Communist party, “Dangerously” earned Hunt an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Eurasian photographer, Billy Kwan. The first actor to ever win an Oscar for playing a role of the opposite gender, Hunt’s record stood untouched until 1999, when Hilary Swank won an Oscar for “Boys Don’t Cry.”
Despite her formidable talent, however, Hunt hit the proverbial glass ceiling. Though she remained consistently employed on stage – even winning two Obies and a Tony nomination in the 1980s and 1990s – the pedigree of her film work had slipped. Still, Hunt’s presence in movies managed to endure throughout this period. Among her higher profile roles were supporting turns in such critical favorites as “Silverado” (1985), in which she played Stella, a genial saloon proprietor, and the blockbuster comedy, “Kindergarten Cop” (1990), portraying a school principle disapproving of a rough-and-tumble cop (Arnold Schwarzenegger) going undercover as a kindergarten teacher to capture a wanted fugitive. In 1993, Hunt briefly returned to television, starring in the ill-fated space opera, “Space Rangers” (CBS, 1993), which was cancelled after just six episodes. After a brief dormancy in the mid-to late 1990s, during which time she only appeared in the horror dud, “The Relic” (1997), Hunt’s career underwent something of a renaissance when she turned to television. In 1997, Hunt created the role of Judge Zoey Hiller on David E. Kelly’s long-running legal dramedy, “The Practice.” A favorite recurring character for the show’s fans, Hunt reprised the role more than two dozen times before the show finally adjourned its run.
In 2003, Hunt joined the cast of the HBO drama “Carnivale” (HBO, 2003-05) for a 10-episode run as the mysterious voice of Management. In 2005, actress Hunt added an unlikely new credit to her resume: video game icon. As the resonant, authoritative voice of the Narrator for the award-winning “God of War” video game series, Hunt gained a whole new generation of fans unfamiliar with her acting work. Hunt reprised the voiceover role for the game’s sequel, “God of War 2.” Following a long vacation away from features, Hunt finally returned to the big screen with the blended family comedy “Yours, Mine, and Ours” (2005), starring Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo. While her role was hardly much of a challenge for the actress, the movie did at least allow Hunt a rare opportunity to flex her comedic muscles. Her next project continued in the same vein, as Dr. Mittag-Leffler in director Marc Forster’s twisted comedy, “Stranger than Fiction” (2006) starring Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson. After building a second career voicing narration for numerous PBS specials, including “Secrets of the Ocean Realm” (1997), “Woodrow Wilson” (2002) and “Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State” (2004), Hunt joined the cast of the successful spin-off series, “NCIS: Los Angeles” (CBS, 2009- ), playing OSP Operations Manager Henrietta Lange.
Jeremy Northam was born in 1961 in Cambridge. He made his U.S. movie debut opposite
Sandra Bullock in “The Net”. His other films include “Carrington” and “Gosford Park” where he played ‘Ivor Novello’.
TCM overview:
Tall and slender with dark good looks and a rich, plummy voice, Jeremy Northam was already established as a stage and television performer in his native Britain when he landed his breakthrough screen role as the suavely seductive villain stalking Sandra Bullock in the cyber thriller “The Net” (1995). The son of a professor and a potter, he spent his formative years in Bristol and Cambridge. After completing his college education, Northam enrolled at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School but left before completing the three-year program when he began landing TV roles like the soldier in the WWI drama “Journey’s End” (1988). The following year, the limelight shone on him briefly when he understudied and then replaced Daniel Day-Lewis in the National Theatre production of “Hamlet”. Additional stage roles followed, including an award-winning turn in “The Voysey Inheritance” and a supporting role in “The Gift of the Gorgon” (1992), starring married couple Judi Dench and Michael Williams as well as additional work at the Royal Shakespeare Festival. As his stage presence increased, Northam lent his presence to other small screen roles before landing his first major feature role, as Hindley Earnshaw in the uneven remake of “Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights” (1992). That film met with a derisive critical reaction in England and was relegated to TV in America (it aired on TNT in 1994).
After his strong performance in “The Net”, Northam seemed on the verge of being typecast as cads when he portrayed Beacus Penrose who beds and abandons the titular artist played by Emma Thompson in the biopic “Carrington” (1995). Switching gears, however, he excelled in the real-life role of a man with dual personalities, the reclusive composer Peter Warlock and his bete noir, the dyspeptic music critic Philip Heseltine in “Voices/Voices From a Locked Room” (also 1995). Further demonstrating his range, Northam cut a dashing romantic figure as Mr. Knightly to Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Emma” (1996) before stumbling a bit in both “Mimic” (1997), as a scientist, and Sidney Lumet’s remake of “Gloria” (1999), as a gangster. While his onscreen roles offered little challenges to the actor, he found success as a buttoned-up real estate agent who falls in with some free spirits in the British telefilm “The Tribe” (1998) and in his return to the London stage playing a gay obstetrician in “Certain Young Men” (1999). In fact, 1999 would prove to be a key year for the actor, with high profile, critically-praised performances in three films. The Sundance favorite “Happy, Texas” cast him opposite Steve Zahn as a pair of escaped convicts who seek refuge in the titular town where they are mistaken for a gay couple. In David Mamet’s remake of “The Winslow Boy”, Northam anchored the film as the wily barrister defending the boy accused of theft who also harbored unexpressed romantic yearnings for the Winslow daughter (Rebecca Pidgeon). Rounding out the trio of movies was Oliver Parker’s period adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s “An Ideal Husband”, with the actor as a married politician who is haunted by a youthful indiscretion. Continuing to corner the market in period films, Northam joined the cast of the Merchant Ivory production “The Golden Bowl” (2000), playing an Italian prince. He followed up with a fine turn as actor-composer Ivor Novello in the Robert Altman-directed period mystery “Gosford Park” (2001) and as an 19th-century poet in Neil LaBute’s adapation of A S Byatt’s novel “Possession” (2002). After a much discussed stint playing Dean Martin opposite Sean Hayes as Jerry Lewis in the CBS biopic “Martin & Lewis” (2002) in which Northam ably captured the singer-actor’s suave charisma if not his naughty-boy appeal, Notham appeared in the Mel Gibson-produced adaptation of “The Singing Detective” (2003) and played a French army officer hounding Michael Caine in “The Statement” (2003). He next played Walter Hagen in the biopic “Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius” (2004), which told the story of the iconic golf champion (Jim Caviezel) who quit the sport on top at age 28.
The above TCM overview can be accessed online here.
Susan Sarandon has had a terrific career since her movie debut in 1969 in “Joe”. She won the Academy Award in 1996 for “Dead Man Walking” with Sean Penn. Her other major movies include “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, “The Other Side of Midnight”, “The Last of the Cowboys”, “Pretty Baby”, “The Hunger”, “Thelma & Louise”, “The Client” and “Little Women”.
IMDB entry:
It was after the 1968 Democratic convention and there was a casting call for a film with several roles for the kind of young people who had disrupted the convention. Two recent graduates of Catholic University in Washington DC, went to the audition in New York forJoe (1970). Chris Sarandon, who had studied to be an actor, was passed over. His wife Susan got a major role.
That role was as Susan Compton, the daughter of ad executive Bill Compton (Dennis Patrick). In the movie Dad Bill kills Susan’s drug dealer boyfriend and next befriends Joe (Peter Boyle)– a bigot who works on an assembly line and who collects guns.
Five years later, Sarandon made the film where fans of cult classics have come to know her as “Janet”, who gets entangled with transvestite “Dr. Frank ‘n’ Furter” in The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). More than 15 years after beginning her career Sarandon at last actively campaigned for a great role, Annie in Bull Durham (1988), flying at her own expense from Rome to Los Angeles. “It was such a wonderful script … and did away with a lot of myths and challenged the American definition of success”, she said. “When I got there, I spent some time with Kevin Costner, kissed some ass at the studio and got back on a plane”. Her romance with the Bull Durham (1988) supporting actor, Tim Robbins, had produced two sons by 1992 and put Sarandon in the position of leaving her domestic paradise only to accept roles that really challenged her. The result was four Academy Award nominations in the 1990s and best actress for Dead Man Walking (1995). Her first Academy Award nomination was for Louis Malle‘s Atlantic City (1980).
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Dale O’Connor
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Ron Masak was born in Chicago in 1936. He is best known for his part as ‘Sheriff Mort Mertzger” in the late 1980’s and 1990’s. he was Barbara Eden’s leading man in the movie “Harper Valley P.T.A.” in 1978.
IMDB entry:
Ron Masak (MAY-SACK) was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of a salesman/musician (Floyd L.), and a mother (Mildred), who was a merchandise buyer. Ron attended Chicago City College, and studied theater at both the CCC and the Drama Guild. He made his acting debut with the Drama Guild in Chicago in Stalag 17 in 1954.
During the course of his career, he has starred in 25 feature films and guest starred in some 350 television shows. Perhaps the most beloved character, and the one for which he is most famous, is that of Sheriff Mort Metzger on the hit television series, Murder, She Wrote. Given that he has also been seen and heard in hundred of television and radio commercials (he was named, “King of Commercials” by columnist James Bacon), it is no wonder that he is often introduced as one of America’s most familiar faces.
Trained in the classics, Ron has proved to be equally at home on stage or screen with Shakespeare or slapstick. He has played everything from Stanley in Streetcar Named Desire and Sakini in Teahouse of the August Moon to Will Stockdale in No Time For Sergeants and Antony in Julius Caesar. As more proof of his versatility, in one production of Mr. Roberts, he played Ensign Pulver and in another he portrayed Mr. Roberts himself. In his hometown of Chicago, Ron was resident leading man at The Candlelight Dinner Playhouse from 1962 to 1966, never missing a single performance. As with many performers, it was the Army that provided Ron with a platform from which to display his all-around talents for performing, writing and directing. In 1960-61, Ron toured the world doing vocal impressions in the all-Army show entitled Rolling Along. Once again, he never missed a show.
Never one to be pigeonholed, Ron continued to demonstrate his incredible range of talent in such films as Ice Station Zebra, Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Evel Knievel, A Time For Dying, Harper Valley PTA, Cops & Roberts and The Man From Clover Grove. It was during Clover Grove that Ron added credits as a lyric writer, as he wrote and sang the title song. He played his first big screen villain starring in No Code of Conduct. Among his many television roles, he starred as Charley Wilson in his own summer series, Love Thy Neighbor, Count Dracula on The Monkees and was submitted for an Emmy nomination for one of his ten starring roles on Police Story. He’s been seen on Magnum P.I., Webster and Columbo. His movies of the week include The Neighborhood, In the Glitter Palace, Pleasure Cove, Once An Eagle, The Law and Harry McGraw and Robert Altman’s Nightmare in Chicago.
Ron’s variety work includes emceeing hundreds of shows for, among others, Kenny Rogers, Diahann Carroll, Alabama, Billy Crystal, The Steve Garvey Classics, Tony Orlando, The Lennon Sisters, Trini Lopez, Connie Stevens, Billy Davis and Marilyn McCoo, The Michael Landon Classics and The Beau Bridges Classics.
Ron is also considered to be the most famous salesman since Willy Loman, as he starred in the four most successful sales motivational films of all time: Second Effort with Vince Lombardi, Time Management with James Whitmore, How to Control Your Time with Burgess Meredith and Ya Gotta Believe with Tommy Lasorda, which Ron wrote and directed. He is a sought after motivational speaker. He has traveled all over the country as spokesman for a major brewing company and for 15 years was the voice of the Vlasic Pickle stork. Ron played Lou Costello in commercials for Bran News, McDonald’s, and Tropicana Orange Juice.
Frequently seen on the talk and game show circuit, Ron has been a celebrity panelist on such game shows as Password, Tattletales, Crosswits, Liar’s Club, Showoffs and Match Game. He was a regular panelist on To Tell the Truth.
Ron’s private life is also one of varied interests and talents, devoting time and energy working with many charities. For eight years he was the LA host for the Jerry Lewis Telethon and recipient of MDA’s first Humanitarian of the Year Award. He has served as field announcer for the Special Olympics in support of retarded children, and was named Man of the Year by Volunteers Assisting Cancer Stricken Families. In addition, he contributes much time to work with Multiple Sclerosis, Cystic Fibrosis, Breast Cancer Awareness and hosts charity golf tournaments for among others, Childhelp USA, for whom he is a worldwide ambassador.
Relaxation for Ron includes time spent with friends on the golf course, tennis court, baseball diamond, ski slopes or at Dodger Stadium. A fine athlete, Ron was once offered a professional baseball contract with The Chicago White Sox.
Future projects include Ron starring as Mark Twain in the feature film, Mark Twain’s Greatest Adventure, which he will co-produce, and a one-man show he wrote on Twain called, At Home with Mark Twain. He created the role of Sam Belsky in the world premiere of Jay Kholo’s musical My Catskills Summer.
Ron’s favorite role remains that of husband to his lovely wife Kay, and father to their six children as well as grandfather to their nine grandchildren. They reside in Tarzana, California, where Ron has served for 35 years as, of course, its honorary sheriff.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Tami Zaccaro
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
From 1968 until around 1982 Barbra Streisand was a formidable screen presence. She won an Oscar for her first film “Funny Girl” and then starred in such movies as “Hello Dolly” with Walter Matthau, “The Way We Were” with Robert Redford, “What’s Up Doc” with Ryan O’Neal and “A Star Is Born” with Kris Kristofferson.
Extract from TCM overview:
An iconic entertainer with over 70 million albums sold and Grammy, Oscar, Tony, Emmy and Golden Globe awards for acting and directing, Barbra Streisand’s popularity and creative output spanned over four decades. The New York cabaret singer first hit big as a pop singer and Broadway star in the 1960s. By the 1970s, she was the No. 1 female box office draw with a succession of gold albums that symbolized a new potential success for women in the feminism era. On film, Streisand won over audiences as fast-talking, quick-witted dames in “Funny Girl” (1968) and “What’s Up Doc?” (1974), prior to maturing into an acclaimed film producer and director of “The Prince of Tides” (1991) and other stories of personal growth, like “Yentl” (1983). Streisand’s musical output evolved from its theater roots to contemporary songwriters and she charted No. 1 albums in every decade, from The Way We Were in 1973 to Love is the Answer in 2009. Due to a crippling phobia of signing live, she virtually disappeared from stage performing for 25 years, but remained in the public eye with her film career and status as an active philanthropist in liberal political and social causes, Streisand reigned supreme for her artistic legacy and overall cultural impact in the latter twentieth century.
Born Barbara Streisand on April 24, 1942, Streisand was raised in Brooklyn, NY. Her mother, Diana Rosen, was left to raise Streisand and her younger brother Sheldon when father Emanuel Streisand, an educator and scholar, died when his daughter was just three months old. With the exception of a brief and rocky remarriage that brought Streisand a half sister Rosyln, Streisand was raised largely by her single mother who worked for the New York school system. Streisand herself was an honor student at Erasmus Hall High School, where she had a bit of an oddball reputation and harbored ambitions for an acting career. While still a teenager, Streisand won a singing contest at a nightclub and began landing paid singing gigs around Greenwich Village. She found an acting coach, landed an agent and was still a teenager when she secured jobs in Chicago and San Francisco, though a two-week engagement in Canada was cut short when the audience did not understand Streisand’s bohemian personal style and choice of rather obscure older songs. The club’s owner famously advised the young singer that she would never make it in show business. Few shared his sentiment, though, and Streisand quickly gained widespread exposure with television appearances, including “The Tonight Show” (NBC, 1954- ) in 1961. Further nudging her to stardom was her 1962 Broadway debut in the musical comedy “I Can Get It for You Wholesale,” which confirmed Streisand’s promise as a song “belter” and earned the newcomer a Tony nomination.
Smelling a pop music goldmine, executives at Columbia Records signed the 20-year-old, who insisted on a clause giving her the right to choose her own material. In quick succession, Columbia released a pair of albums featuring Streisand’s interpretations of theater tunes and cabaret standards, with The Barbra Streisand Album taking home two Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year. In addition to her nearly overnight stardom, Streisand’s off-stage life blossomed with her marriage to actor Elliot Gould (who had yet to even make his screen debut) in 1963. She was nominated for a second Tony Award in 1964 for her portrayal of early Broadway star Fanny Brice in “Funny Girl,” which established her early persona as a sassy, take-no-guff dame. No mere stage gimmick, Streisand’s many late night talk show appearances showcased a confident, fearless young woman unlike any wilting-flower chanteuse that had come before, and her off-the-cuff banter with hosts like Mike Wallace and David Susskind bordered on the sort of confrontational generation gaps one would expect from Bob Dylan. Streisand’s youthful appeal led to her first No. 1Billboard album, People, and a deal with CBS. In 1965, Streisand brought her songbook to American television audiences in an Emmy Award-winning music special, “My Name Is Barbra” (CBS, 1965). The accompanying album earned Streisand another Grammy Award the following year; the same year she gave birth to her only child, Jason Gould.
After a well-received run on the London stage in “Funny Girl,” Streisand took the role to the big screen in a 1968 adaptation directed by Golden Age great, William Wyler. Audiences were charmed by Streisand’s wit and high-energy live performances, leading to an Academy Award for Best Actress for her film debut; an award she accepted wearing infamous see-through “pajamas.” Two more stage musical adaptations followed, with Streisand starring as a Victorian-era matchmaker in the classic “Hello, Dolly!” (1969), an enormous box office hit directed by Gene Kelly, but she fared less well in Vincente Minnelli’s fantastical “On A Clear Day You Can See Forever” (1970). Streisand put singing aside and took a stab at straight-up comedy in “The Owl and the Pussycat” (1970), co-starring as mismatched roommates with an aspiring writer (George Segal). Her off-screen pairing with Gould also proved a mismatch and the pair filed for divorce in 1971. The following year, the undisputed queen of the 1970s screwball comedy revival was born in earnest with “What’s Up, Doc?” (1972). The Peter Bogdanovich-helmed classic concerning mistaken luggage identity and jewel thieves paired Streisand for the first time with Ryan O’Neal, and their chemistry contributed to what became a wildly popular and well-regarded comic success. Meanwhile Streisand’s 13th album release, Stoney End, marked a shift in her musical career, with a focus on new material from contemporary songwriters ranging from Randy Newman to Joni Mitchell. The change in direction proved successful, and the album hit No. 10 and sold well over a million copies.
Streisand returned to No. 1 on the charts for the soundtrack to the film “The Way We Were,” her first challenge as a dramatic actress. Sydney Pollack helmed the nostalgic romance with political overtones, pairing Streisand and Robert Redford as star-crossed lovers to great success. The tearjerker brought another Oscar nomination for Streisand. The versatile actress followed with a comic performance in “For Pete’s Sake” (1974), a farcical misadventure about a Brooklyn housewife whose attempt to invest in the stock market goes sour. After reluctantly reprising her beloved Fanny Brice characterization in the sequel “Funny Lady” (1975), Streisand teamed with fellow musician and actor Kris Kristofferson in an updated version of the film, “A Star is Born” (1976). Streisand gave another standout performance as a rising cabaret singer taken under the wing (and into the bed) of a stadium rock star who is rapidly deteriorating from the excesses of fame. In addition to taking home a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress, Streisand won an Oscar and a Grammy for Song of the Year for the film’s mega-hit theme song, “Evergreen.” In 1977, Streisand enjoyed a significant musical accomplishment with the album Streisand Superman, returning to No. 1 on the charts in 1979 with the disco duet “No More Tears” (“Enough is Enough)” performed fellow diva, Donna Summer. She re-teamed with Ryan O’Neal in the wildly successful – though critically panned – romantic comedy, “The Main Event” (1979), which also spawned a gold-selling soundtrack, though nothing could compare to the 1980 album Guilty, a collaboration with Barry Gibb of the songwriting brothers The Bee Gees.
Guilty topped Streisand’s career record sales, reaching No. 1 on the charts in over a dozen countries and earning she and Gibb a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group for the title track. Meanwhile, the box office flop “All Night Long” (1981), starring Streisand as an untalented singer-songwriter married to a firefighter, broke her decade-long box office spell. Preferring to take more time between films and exercise more creative control, it was two years before she appeared on screen again in “Yentl” (1983), the story of a Jewish girl who disguises herself as a boy in order to pursue an education. “Yentl” was actually 15 years in the making, and upped Streisand’s status to that of the first woman to produce, direct, write and star in a major Hollywood motion picture. Her labor of love adaptation of the Isaac Bashevis Singer short story was a box office success and Streisand was honored with a Golden Globe for Best Director. In short order, she scored a No. 1 album with The Broadway Album, a collection of well-loved theatrical compositions that sold nearly six million copies and garnered Streisand another Grammy Award for Best Vocal Performance. The formation of the Streisand Foundation in 1986 added a new dimension to the powerful showbiz player’s career and through her tens of millions of dollars in future grants, she voiced strong support for issues related to the environment, women’s rights, voter education, and nuclear disarmament.
Streisand returned to theaters in 1987 as the producer and star of “Nuts,” for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination for starring as a woman who commits a self-defense murder and lands in a courtroom trying to prove her sanity. Two back-to-back album releases followed; the Top 10 Till I Loved You and One Voice, a career retrospective concert which was also released on DVD and raised millions for the Streisand Foundation. She returned to the film director’s chair to helm the 1991 film “The Prince of Tides” (1991), based on Pat Conroy’s best-selling novel. Again attracted by stories of personal growth and overcoming odds, Streisand’s three-hankie tearjerker dealt with overcoming childhood trauma and difficult family relationships, with Streisand as a sympathetic psychiatrist opposite romantic interest, Nick Nolte. Both critical and popular response to Streisand’s sensitive directorial work was notably improved; dismay being largely reserved for Streisand’s glamorized appearance and saintly self-casting. The film received seven Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and Streisand was also nominated for a Best Director Golden Globe. After 27 years away from the concert stage, Streisand began touring in 1994, amassing the top ticket sales of the year and exposing the staggering depths of her fan base. She was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammys, and performed some her best-loved material for the camera in “Barbra Streisand: The Concert” (HBO, 1995), which unsurprisingly earned multiple Emmy Awards, reunited her with Barry Gibb, and brought in top ratings for the cable network.
The 53-year-old’s energy level seemingly unaffected from seven months of touring, Streisand went on to produce, direct and star in “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996), a remake of a 1958 French film of the same name starring Streisand as a plain woman whose marriage to Jeff Bridges is rocked when she undergoes a personal transformation. While a popular box office draw, the film suffered at the hands of critics who were turned off by Streisand’s self-indulgent, soft-focus portrayal and broad, precious acting. Regardless, she was nominated for Golden Globe Awards for Best Actress and Best Original song for the theme, “I Finally Found Someone.” Public favor still staunchly in her favor, Streisand visited the top spot in the album charts in 1997 with the album, Higher Ground, which launched a top-selling duet with Celine Dion, “Tell Him.” Also during the 1990s, Streisand’s Barwood Productions earned positive notice for a number of television specials examining important social and cultural issues including “Serving In Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story” (NBC, 1995), which exposed harassment of gays serving in the military, and “Rescuers: Stories of Courage,” (Showtime, 1997-98), which profiled courageous people who helped save the lives of Jews during the Holocaust. In a personal development, Streisand met actor and director James Brolin in 1996 through mutual friends and the couple was happily married in 1998. Streisand spent the next several years working behind-the-scenes as the executive producer of the special “Reel Models: The First Women of Film” (AMC, 2000), the PBS series “The Living Century” (PBS, 2000), and the Lifetime original film, “What Makes a Family?” (Lifetime, 2001).
Following a five-city tour in 2000, Streisand returned to screens in 2001 in a filmed concert special, “Barbra Streisand: Timeless” (Fox, 2001), which brought in strong ratings and multiple Emmy wins. In a return to her long lamented career as a top notch comedienne, Streisand set aside her usual auteur role and took a role in the comedy sequel, “Meet the Fockers” (2004), playing the often embarrassing therapist mother of “Meet the Parents” (2000) main character Greg Focker (Ben Stiller). Teamed sublimely with Dustin Hoffman as her husband and sharing scenes with Robert De Niro, Streisand nearly walked away with the blockbuster, proving that her comedic skills were as sharp as ever. Her nostalgic return to comedy may have made Streisand nostalgic for her early music career, as she promptly re-teamed with Barry Gibb to record the gold-selling album, Guilty Pleasures, and hit the road on “Streisand: The Tour,” which took her across North America, Canada and Europe. Naturally an accompanying album was released –Streisand – Live In Concert 2006, which debuted at No. 7 on the Billboard Top 200, and whose sales contributed to Streisand’s status in Forbes magazine as the No. 2 highest earning female musician for the previous year; topped only by Madonna. The over-65 songstress beat that stat in 2009 when Love is the Answer, a collection of best-loved jazz standards, hit No. 1 on the album charts. The following year she reprised her role of Roz Focker in the sequel, “Little Fockers” (2010).
Eileen Brennan was born in 1932 in Los Angeles. She became very popular in films and TV in the 1970’s afer her performance in “The Last Picture Show” in 1971. In 1973 she was leading lady to Paul Newman in “The Sting” and in 1980 was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in “Private Benjamin” with Goldie Hawn. A car accident hampered her career in the 1980’s and after a gap she resumed her career. More recently she was seen to great effect as the acting coach ‘Zelda’ in the TV series “Will & Grace”. Sadly Eileen Brennan died in July 2013.
Eileen Brennan’s obituary by Ryan Gibney in the Guardian:
Eileen Brennan, who has died aged 80, had been a stage actor since the late 1950s, but it was as a largely comic presence in US cinema of the 1970s and early 1980s that she was most widely admired. As the pitiless Captain Doreen Lewis, putting a dippy new recruit – Goldie Hawn – through her paces in the hit military comedy Private Benjamin (1980), she wore her trademark look: a solid frizz of red hair, a clenched, sneering smile and an expression of withering incredulity. Then there was the gravelly voice: a heard-it-all whine to match that seen-it-all face. It sounded like bourbon on the rocks. Actual rocks, that is.
Captain Lewis epitomised the sort of role Brennan was best at – and which she was still playing as late as 2001, when she made the first in a run of appearances as a scabrous acting teacher on the popular sitcomWill & Grace. “I love meanies,” she said in 1988. “You know why? Because they have no sense of humour. If we can’t laugh at ourselves and the human condition, we’re going to be mean.”
She was born Verla Eileen Regina Brennan and raised in Los Angeles, daughter of Regina Menehan, a former silent film actor, and John Brennan, a doctor. She attended Georgetown University in Washington DC, where she excelled at comedy in the Mask and Bauble dramatic society, and later the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. She was briefly a singing waitress, but theatrical success was not long in coming. She won the title role in the off-Broadway parody Little Mary Sunshine in 1959, for which she was named a Theatre World Promising New Personality. She toured in The Miracle Worker, played Anna in The King and I and co-starred in the original 1964 Broadway production of Hello, Dolly!
Brennan branched out into television with an adaptation of Maxwell Anderson’s play The Star Wagon (1966), in which she appeared with Dustin Hoffman, and as part of the original cast of the zany sketch showRowan and Martin’s Laugh-In (alongside her future Private Benjamin co-star, Hawn). She made her film debut in 1967 in the comedy Divorce American Style and was chosen by the up-and-coming director Peter Bogdanovich to play a kindly but bored waitress in his masterful 1971 drama The Last Picture Show.
Bogdanovich also cast Brennan as a society matron in his Henry James adaptation Daisy Miller (1974) and as a singing maid in the reviled musical At Long Last Love (1975). She played the brassy madam of a brothel in the multiple Oscar-winning con-man comedy The Sting (1973). And she was one of a clutch of female character actors who brought unusual shading to Jerry Schatzberg’s Scarecrow (also 1973), which won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival.
Later in the 1970s, she gravitated toward comedy, including two films written by the playwright Neil Simon: the nutty whodunit spoof Murder By Death (1976) and the Bogart homage The Cheap Detective (1978). It was Private Benjamin, though, which gave her a career-defining role, as well as an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. Hawn’s comic fizz as the pampered Judy Benjamin was often delightful, and the film was a precision-tooled vehicle for her charms. But the key to that picture’s success was the rain that Brennan dumped on Hawn’s parade. When Private Benjamin was turned into a television sitcom, Brennan went with it, serving the same function opposite Hawn’s replacement, Lorna Patterson. Brennan’s sourness was the spoonful of medicine that helped the sugar go down. She was rewarded with two Emmy nominations and one award. (She received a further four Emmy nominations, for her work in Taxi, Newhart, Will & Grace and thirtysomething.)
Brennan left the Private Benjamin TV series prematurely in 1982, following an accident in Venice Beach, California, in which she was hit by a car. Her injuries included broken legs and a fragmented jaw; all the bones on the left side of her face were also broken. During her slow recovery, Brennan became addicted to painkillers. She returned to acting in 1984 in the sitcom Off the Rack but the show was cancelled after only six episodes and Brennan was admitted to the Betty Ford Centre for rehabilitation. “I had reached the stage where I was taking anything I could get my hands on,” she told People magazine. Poor health and injury became a recurring problem. While playing another comic tyrant – Miss Hannigan, in Annie – she fell from the stage and broke her leg. She also underwent treatment for breast cancer. Still Brennan continued to act, predominantly in television but with notable returns to theatre (the 1998 New York production of Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan) and to cinema.
She was in the underrated ensemble comedy Clue (1985); she reprised her Last Picture Show role in the film’s 1990 sequel, Texasville; and she starred in the drama White Palace (also 1990) as the fortune-telling sister of Susan Sarandon (with whom she had enjoyed theatrical success in 1980 in the two-woman play A Coupla White Chicks Sitting Around Talking). Later roles included the Francis Ford Coppola-produced horror Jeepers Creepers (2001) and the Sandra Bullock comedy sequel Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous (2005).
Brennan is survived by two sons, Patrick and Sam, from her marriage to David Lampson, which ended in 1974.
• Verla Eileen Regina Brennan, actor, born 3 September 1932; died 28 July 2013
For The Guardian obituary, please click here.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
It is the face of Eileen Brennan that will stay with me as much as any one of the performances the quintessential character actress packed into her very long career.
Not a classic beauty, her face was arresting for its very distinct abilities. The eyes alone were scene-stealers, so often carrying the weight of the world. Whether they were being called on to condemn or forgive, Brennan somehow left you feeling that she was handling the petty frustrations of life for the rest of us.
Her voice is what got her a start in the business — singing on stage — though what lingers is the sound of a gravelly alto that seemed stained by whiskey and cigarettes whether she smoked or drank a day in her life. You knew she could say “Hey, sailor,” and make it stick
The voice fit the generous features set off by a tangle of rich auburn hair. And the actress seemed destined for roles that were long on irritation and irony. You could feel it in so many scenes, in so many characters — it was as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was being asked to deal with at that particular moment.
One of those particular moments was as Genevieve, a bone-tired waitress in a rundown West Texas café, who finds a table of obnoxious teenagers on her hands in Peter Bogdanovich’s 1971 classic “The Last Picture Show.”
Though she had more than a few choice words over the years that she saturated with knowing sarcasm, Brennan could say more with her lips than most could with a dozen lines. The smile was always slightly off-center, it never came at you straight on or full out. And the sneer….
In the 1980 comedy “Private Benjamin,” she used it full throttle. I swear it lifted Goldie Hawn’s new recruit a few feet off the ground. After that, Brennan’s character, Capt. Doreen Lewis, needn’t have bothered to dress the private down, though she did, and with flair. The supporting role would earn Brennan her only Oscar nomination
Often the confidant, Brennan was a good listener on screen. Those roles allowed her to show exactly what she could do with that malleable face. Opposite Paul Newman’s con artist in “The Sting,” she always seemed one step ahead of any joke, and one behind any surprise. Moments of realization always striking with such eyes-wide clarity, the “ahhh, I get it” signaled by the nod of her head, would become something of a signature over the years.
Characters with fuses that were already lit seemed to gravitate Brennan’s way. Sometimes it burned long, sometimes short, but you were always braced for the actress to rock things at least a little. Not one to fade into the background, any project she worked on felt Brennan’s presence.
In later years, she spent most of her time on television in comedies like “Taxi,” “Will & Grace” and “Newhart.” She kept turning up like a bad penny on the family drama series “7th Heaven” as a long-time church member. Gladys Bink tended to provide a “teaching moment” for Rev. Camden to use in counseling his flock or his brood. She made sneaking a smoke despite an oxygen tank more fun than it should have been
One of Brennan’s great appeals was the way her characters seemed to embody the realities of working-class stiffs. It was in the slump of her shoulders, a random sigh, the way she could stand as if her feet hurt but making clear she would carry on just the same.
Carry on she did, working as much as Hollywood would let her nearly to the end. Her last credit was as Gram Malone in a film called “Naked Run” in 2011. The movie is not one I saw, but from the looks of it, the comedy was about as bare as its title — but cheeky, like Brennan, which somehow seems right
Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.
