Hollywood Actors
Alfred Lunt & Lynn Fontanne
Alfred Lunt was one of the great figures on Broadway in the early part of the 2oth century. He formed a legendary acting legacy with his wife Lynn Fontanne. He was born in 1892 in Wisconsin. Among his Broadway shows are “The Guardsman” in 1924, “Design for Living” and “Idiot’s Delight”. His few films include “Backbone” in 1923 and film of his stage hit “The Guardsman” in 1931. He died in 1977.
Ron O’Neal was a very charismatic actor who starred in some successful movies in the 1970’s. He was born in New York City in 1937. He achieved fame on the stage and made his film debut in 1971 in “The Organisation”. He gained stardom with his performance as Youngblood Priest in “Superfly” in 1972. His other movies include “A Force of One” in 1979, “When A Stranger Calls” and “The Final Countdown” in 1980. He died in 2004.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Forever tagged as the super baaaaaaad “Super Fly,” actor Ron O’Neal has spent his entire post 70s career trying to break the chains of a stereotype that made him his fortune. Of tough, humble beginnings, Ron was the son of a wannabe jazz musician who became a factory worker in order to support the family, growing up in Cleveland’s black ghetto. He managed to attend Ohio State University for a single semester before developing an interest in theater and joining Cleveland’s Karamu House, an interracial acting troupe, training there for nine years (1957-1966). He arrived in New York in 1967 and taught acting in Harlem to support himself, jointly appearing in summer stock and off-Broadway shows at the same time. He received critical notice in 1970 in Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre production of “No Place to Be Somebody,” in which he won the Obie, Drama Desk, Clarence Derwent and Theatre World awards for his dynamite performance. The timing couldn’t have been more ‘right on’ for this dude with the tough, streetwise style and attitude to spare — perfect for Hollywood what with the arrival of the “blaxploitation” films that were taking over at the time. Ron became an overnight star as the hip, funky anti-hero in the action-driven flick Super Fly (1972), playing one cool drug dealer who wants out of the business, taking out the entire syndicate one by one (or two by two as need be). He made his debut as a director the following year with the equally violent sequel, Super Fly T.N.T. (1973), which again starred himself. But the genre soon turned to uncool parody and within a couple of years, O’Neal was struggling badly, playing support roles and even less by the end of the decade. Although he managed to co-star in the TV series “Bring ‘Em Back Alive” and “The Equalizer” in the 80s, it’s been an uphill battle all the way for him to obliterate this stubborn image of the supercool Priest with his fu-manchu like beard and dazzling white suit. He has appeared as both hero and villain in a number of action low budgets since, including Mercenary Fighters (1987), Trained to Kill (1988) and Up Against the Wall (1991), which he also directed. In 1996, he joined other former 70s black action stars, including Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Richard Roundtree and Pam Grier, in a revival of the violent genre entitled Original Gangstas (1996). He passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2004.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:
Ron O’Neal, who has died of pancreatic cancer aged 66, spent most of his professional life trying to live down his role of the bad-ass Youngblood Priest in Superfly (1972), one of the key blaxploitation movies of the decade. His interpretation of the long-haired, ultra-hip, ultra-violent cocaine dealer, who wore tight white suits and drove a customised Cadillac, made him into an instant star, mainly among the vast urban black movie-going public.
They delighted in seeing their people no longer treated on the screen as servants or saints, or as a “problem”. The blaxploitation movies would eventually lead to such films as Beverly Hills Cop and Lethal Weapon, and O’Neal, with Richard Roundtree (Shaft), Jim Brown (Slaughter), Pam Grier (Foxy Brown), Fred Williamson (Black Caesar) and Richard Pryor (The Mack), became a role model for the likes of Eddie Murphy, Danny Glover, Martin Lawrence and Halle Berry.
When voices were raised against the blaxploitation movies – for giving a stereotypical view of blacks, and glorifying crime – O’Neal protested that the point of the film was missed. He claimed that Youngblood Priest got into his drug-pushing life, not out of choice, but because of his social and economic position, and that he “actually wants out of the business after one last big score.”
In order to address some of the criticism levelled at Superfly, O’Neal directed and starred in the sequel Superfly T.N.T. (1973), transplanting Youngblood Priest from Harlem to a small African country, and getting him to fight for the greater good. It was no surprise, however, that the film was a box-office failure; everything that had made its predecessor so entertaining was jettisoned.
O’Neal’s career never fully recovered, and, after the 1970s, he found it difficult to make the transition from blaxploitation movies into more mainstream films. “Outside New York, people assumed I really was a hustler,” he told an interviewer in 1979. “Superfly took me from relative obscurity, but I haven’t been offered that many roles since.”
O’Neal was born in Utica, in New York state, and grew up in the Cleveland ghetto, the son of a wannabe jazz musician who became a factory worker to support the family. After one academically disastrous term at Ohio State University, the young O’Neal went to see an amateur production of the musical Finian’s Rainbow, in which a bigoted southern senator turns black. “It blew my mind,” he recalled. “I’d never seen a play before.”
He immediately joined Karamu House, an interracial theatre troupe, with whom, for the next six years, he played everything from Walter Lee, in A Raisin In The Sun, to Stanley Kowalski, in A Streetcar Named Desire. He earned money working as a house painter.
After moving to New York in the mid-1960s, he taught acting in Harlem, and performed in summer stock and off Broadway. He first gained recognition in 1970, starring in the Joseph Papp/Public Theatre production of Charles Gordone’s No Place To Be Somebody, as a pimp and barkeeper trying to take control of local rackets. The work earned him a number of awards, and caught the attention of the Superfly producers.
O’Neal’s subsequent film career was undistinguished, made up mainly of appearances in low-budget, violent thrillers, such as A Force Of One (1979).
On television, aside from guest appearances in series like Murder She Wrote and Hill Street Blues, he took leading roles in the mini-series Bring ‘Em Back Alive (1982-83) and The Equalizer (1985-89). In 1996, he joined blaxploitation stars Pam Grier, Fred Williamson, Jim Brown and Richard Roundtree in Larry Cohen’s Original Gangstas, but it was a pale copy of the films that made their reputations. His last movie was On The Edge (2002), in which he appeared with Williamson and the rapper Ice-T.
He is survived by his wife Audrey.
· Ron O’Neal, actor, born September 1 1937; died January 14 2004
The above “Guardian” obituary can be also accessed online here.
Creighton Hale was born Patrick Fitzgerald in Cork in 1882. He acheived US fame for his role in “Inian Summer” on Broadway. In 1914 he made his film debut in the silent “The Exploits of Elaine”. He starred opposite Lillian Gish in “Way Down East” in 1920 and “Orphans of the Storm” with Lillian and her sister Dorothy. His career survived the coming of sound and he was featured in films such as “The Maltese Falcon” in 1941 and “Casablanca”. He died in 1965.
Akim Tamiroff & Leonid Kinskey
The great character actor was born in Georgia, Russia in 1899. He came to the United States in 1923. His film debut came in 1932 in “Okay, America”. He developed a solid reputation as a supporting player and was featured in such movies as “The Lives of a Benal Lancer” in 1935, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” in 1943 and “The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek” amongst several others. He died in 1972. He was married to the actress Tamara Shayne.
TCM overview:
Flamboyant, husky character actor in the US from 1923, who acted with the New York Theatre Guild before entering films. Ubiquitous in Paramount productions of the late 1930s, he usually played eccentric Slavic types, though he had a rare leading role in “The Way of the Flesh” (1940). From the early 1950s Tamiroff appeared in many European productions, with memorably baroque performances in Jean-Luc Godard’s “Alphaville” (1965) and three Orson Welles films. (He also played the title character of Welles’ unfinished “Sancho Panza”.)
Patty Peterson was the younger sister of Paul Peterson and also acted with him in “The Donna Reed Show” from 1963 until 1966.
“Wikipedia” entry:
Petersen was born in Glendale, California, the youngest of three children. When her parents divorced in 1962, she and older brother Paul Petersen moved in with their mother, who later remarried. Paul Petersen costarred on ABC‘s The Donna Reed Show. Patty was written into the cast as Trisha, an adopted child after Shelley Fabares left the series. She stayed with the show until it ended in 1966.
After many commercials and industrial films, she semi-retired to marry and rear a family of her own. She was a country songwriter/singer for a while. Now known as Patti Petersen Mirkovich, she is a writer and founder of Internovel, an Internet company for novice authors. She is also a teacher of English and computer science at a Roman Catholic school and a volunteer coach for the girls’ softballteam. She has two children, Tim and Melissa.
Torin Thatcher was a very prolific character actor in British and U.S. films especially in the 1940’s and 50’s. he was born in Bombay, India in 1905. He began his career on the British stage and then was featured in a number of classics of the British cinema including “Major Barbara” in 1941 and “Great Expectations” in 1946. In the early 1950’s he settled in Hollywood and his credits there included “Blackbeard the Pirate”, “The Robe”, “The Black Shield of Falworth” and “Love Is a Many Splendoured Thing” with Jennifer Jones and William Holden in 1955. He died in 1981.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
Associated with gritty, flashy film villainy, veteran character actor Torin Thatcher was born in Bombay, India to British parents on January 15, 1905, and was educated in England at the Bedford School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. A former schoolteacher, he appeared on the London stage in 1927 before entering British films in 1934. During World War II he served with the Royal Artillery and achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was an extremely imposing, powerfully built specimen and it offered him a number of tough, commanding, often sinister roles over the years primarily in larger-than-life action sequences. He made a number of classic British films in the late 1930s and 1940s including Sabotage (1936), Major Barbara (1941), The Captive Heart(1946), Great Expectations (1946), in which he played Bentley (“The Spider”) Drummle, and The Fallen Idol (1948). In Hollywood from the 1950s on, his looming figure and baleful countenance were constantly in demand, gnashing his teeth in a slew of popular costumers such as The Crimson Pirate (1952), Blackbeard, the Pirate (1952) as reformed pirate Sir Henry Morgan, The Robe (1953), Helen of Troy (1956) as Ulysses, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958) as the evil, shaven-domed magician Sokurah who shrinks the princess to miniature size, Witness for the Prosecution (1957) as the prosecuting attorney, The Miracle (1959) as the Duke of Wellington, the Marlon Brando/’Trevor Howard’ remake of Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), and Hawaii (1966). Thatcher returned to the stage quite frequently, notably on Broadway, in such esteemed productions as “Edward, My Son” (1948), “That Lady” (1949) and “Billy Budd” (1951). In 1959 he portrayed Captain Keller in the award-winning play “The Miracle Worker” with Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke. Also a steady fixture on TV, he appeared in such made-for-TV films as the Jack Palance version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” and “Brenda Starr.” Thatcher died of cancer on March 4, 1981, in the near-by Los Angeles area.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Digges, (John) Dudley (1880–1947), actor, stage manager, and director, was born 9 June 1880, son of James Dudley Digges, clerk, of 16 Beechwood Avenue, Ranelagh, Dublin, and Catherine Digges (née Forsythe). He was educated by the Christian Brothers (1886–90), and at St Mary’s college, Rathmines (1890–93). After studying theatre methods under Frank Fay (qv), in 1898 he joined the Ormond Dramatic Company run by Frank and his brother William Fay (qv), performing in sketches such as ‘The comic tutor’ at St Theresa’s Hall, Clarendon St. He was a member of the Celtic Literary Society at the time of its merger with Cumann na nGaedhael (1900). A member from 1899 of William Fay’s Comedy Combination, he performed in W. Bayle Bernard’s farce ‘His last legs’ at the Coffee Palace Hall, Townsend St., in 1901. When William Fay formed the National Dramatic Company in 1902, Digges acted as Naisi in the first public production of ‘Deirdre’ byGeorge Russell (qv) (‘Æ’), and in ‘Kathleen ni Houlihan’ by William Butler Yeats (qv), at St Theresa’s Hall (2–4 April). A founding member of the Irish National Theatre Society (February 1903), Digges played the Wise Man in Yeats’s ‘The hour glass’ at the society’s premiere performance, in Dublin’s Molesworth Hall (14 March). After the controversial first performance of ‘In the shadow of the glen’ by J. M. Synge (qv) (10 October 1903), Digges walked out in protest along with Maud Gonne MacBride (qv) and Mary Quinn (the future Mary Digges (qv)), and resigned from the society. He directed a series of plays – including Henry Connell’s ‘Robert Emmet’, in which he played the title role – for the Cumann na nGaedhael Theatre Company at the 1903 Samhain theatre festival. He worked under Arthur Griffith (qv) as a secretary on the United Irishman in 1904, while performing with the Celtic Players at the Dublin Workman’s Club, York St.
In 1904 Digges travelled to America to perform with Quinn and P. J. Kelly at the St Louis world exhibition; involved in a fracas with the stage manager, Luke Martin, over supposed anti-Irish elements in one of the offerings, he was fired from the company, having appeared only in Russell’s ‘Deirdre’. Remaining permanently in America, in 1905 he performed at the Garrick Theatre, New York, in ‘John Bull’s other island’ by George Bernard Shaw (qv), and in 1906 acted with Ben Greet’s Shakespearean company. He married Mary Quinn in 1907; it is not recorded that they had children. Touring with the Fiske Theatre company, Digges became friendly with the noted English actor George Arliss. He collaborated with visiting Irish actors to perform ‘The rising of the moon’ by Lady Gregory (qv) at the Savoy Theatre, New York, in 1908, under the management of Charles Frohman, and he acted with his wife and Frank Fay in ‘The building fund’ by William Boyle (qv; 1853–1923) at Powers Theatre, Chicago. Over the next decade he worked primarily as a stage manager, with Frohman productions (1908–12) and for Arliss (1912–19). A founding member of the New York Theatre Guild in 1919, he performed in its first production, Jacinto Benavente’s ‘The bonds of interest’. His sensitive and highly praised acting as the unsavoury tradesman James Caesar in ‘John Ferguson’ by St John Greer Ervine (qv) at the Garrick Theatre (1919) won him star status, and helped establish the lasting reputation of the Theatre Guild. He appeared in over 3,500 performances for the guild, most notably as Mr Zero in Elmer Rice’s landmark expressionistic play ‘The adding machine’ (1923). He also directed plays with the guild, including Shaw’s ‘Pygmalion’, ‘Heartbreak house’, ‘The doctor’s dilemma’, and ‘Man’s estate’. He was a director of the Actors’ Theatre, New York (1924–5), and staged Shaw’s ‘Candida’ and Ibsen’s ‘The wild duck’. Moving to Hollywood in 1929, he embarked on a prolific film career, his roles including that of Casper Gutman in the first filmed version of The Maltese falcon(1931), and the ship’s surgeon in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935).
Presented with a gold medal by the American Irish Historical Society in New York for his defining role in the creation of the modern Irish theatre, Digges delivered an acceptance address entitled ‘A theatre was made’, dealing with his early theatrical experiences (1939). He was vice-president of Actor’s Equity, and belonged to the Lambs and Players clubs. In his last performance for the Theatre Guild, on Broadway in 1946, he played Harry Hope in Eugene O’Neill’s ‘The iceman cometh’ to wide critical acclaim. He died after suffering a stroke in his residence at 1 West Sixty-fourth St., New York, on 24 October 1947, survived by a sister and two brothers living in Ireland; his wife had died only two months earlier. An elegiac poem, ‘The dead player’, by Padraic Colum (qv), was published in the Dublin Magazine in 1953
Dudley Digges was born in Dublin in 1879. He came to the U.S. in 1904 and was in Hollywood by 1930. Among his movie credits are “Tess of the Storm Country” in 1932 and “The Light that Failed” in 1939. He died in 1947.
“Wikipedia” entry:
Michael North was born in 1916. He had a few leading roles in Hollywood movies of the 1940’s most notably “The Unsuspected” in 1947 and “The Devil Thumbs A Ride”.
IMDB entry:
American character actor of rather bizarre range, a member of the so-called “John Ford Stock Company.” Originally a New York stage actor of some repute, Whitehead entered films in the 1930s. He played a wide variety of character parts, often quite different from his own actual age and type. He is probably most familiar as Al Joad in ‘John Ford (I)”sThe Grapes of Wrath (1940). But twenty-two years later, in his fifth film for Ford, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962), Whitehead at 51 was playing a lollipop-licking schoolboy! He continued to work predominantly on the stage, appearing now and again in films or on television. In his last years, he suffered from cancer and died in 1998 in Dublin, Ireland, where he had lived in semi- retirement for many years.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
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.