Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 92 of 128

June Allyson

In her heyday June Allyson seemed just about the nicest thing on two legs.

June Allyson was born in 1917 in The Bronx, New York. She starred in many MGM musicals during the 1940’s including “Thousands Cheer”, “Music for Millions, Good News” and “Words and Music”. She also acted in dramas such as “The Three Musketeers” and “Little Women”.

Her career highpoint was opposite James Stewart in “The Glenn Miller Story” in 1953. She was long married to Dick Powell. June Allyson died in 2006 at the age of 88.

June Allyson obituary in “The Guardian” in 2006.

Hollywood star June Allyson, who has died aged 88, was the screen embodiment of sweetness and light, whether enlivening MGM movies in the 1940s with her sunny personality or playing the faithful, lip-quivering wife in the 1950s. In a less cynical age than today, audiences found her irresistible, particularly when she was teamed up as James Stewart’s wife, patiently waiting for him to return home: in The Stratton Story (1949), The Glenn Miller Story (1954) and Strategic Air Command (1955).

When Allyson was cast against type – as, for example, José Ferrer’s shrewish wife in The Shrike (1955) – 90% of the audience at a preview wrote on their cards that they would never accept her in a wicked role.

As a result, the film ending was re-shot with the character seeing the error of her ways, though it was not enough to appease the fans and the film flopped. After that she returned to more exemplary uxorial roles.

In her first three musicals, Allyson had to be content with speciality numbers, among them In a Little Spanish Town, sung with Gloria DeHaven in Thousands Cheer (1943), and Treat Me Rough, in Girl Crazy (1943), which also involved violently throwing Mickey Rooney around. The following year, she got her first top billing, in Two Girls and a Sailor (with DeHaven and Van Johnson), the movie that established her girl-next-door persona and gave her a historic jazz number, Young Man with a Horn, with trumpeter Harry James.

Allyson was born Ella Geisman in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of a building superintendent. Because of a bad fall at the age of eight, she was forced to wear a back brace for four years. She then took up swimming and dancing lessons to strengthen her limbs, and was soon good enough to enter dance competitions. “I used to cut school to go and see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” she recalled. “I would brag that I could dance as well as them, so when an ad appeared in the papers for dancers, my friends dared me to audition.” Years later she missed her chance to star opposite Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951) because she was pregnant.

While still a teenager Allyson got work in the chorus of nightclub shows, on Broadway and in a few short films, the first of which was Swing for Sale (1937). In 1940 she understudied Betty Hutton in Two for the Show. When Hutton contracted measles, Allyson took over for a few performances and was seen by producer George Abbott, who put her in Best Foot Forward, which earned her a part in the 1943 movie version and an MGM contract.

This was followed by Music for Millions (1945) and Two Sisters from Boston (1946), in both of which she played the responsible older sister to Margaret O’Brien and Kathryn Grayson, respectively. She made notable guest appearances in two biopics, singing the Jerome Kern title song of Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), and Rogers and Hart’s Thou Swell, dwarfed between the rangy Blackburn twins in Words and Music (1947). By far her best role in a musical – and possibly her best film – was as a college girl in Charles Walters’ campus caper Good News (1947), teaching Peter Lawford in The French Lesson and smiling through the dance finale, The Varsity Drag. She was also effective in such non-musicals as High Barbaree (1947), opposite Van Johnson, and as Constance to Gene Kelly’s D’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (1948).

Allyson admitted to liking Louis B Mayer (a rare claim) because “my own father died when I was six months old, and I looked on him as a father”. None the less, in 1949, when she told him she was going to marry Dick Powell, a twice-divorced man 13 years her senior, Mayer threatened to suspend her, a position he moderated only when Allyson asked him to give her away at the wedding. In spite of that he would not loan her out to play the title role in All About Eve (1950) at 20th Century Fox.

Allyson co-starred with her new husband twice in 1950, in The Reformer and the Redhead and Right Cross, neither of which provided as many sparks as her work with James Stewart. After Strategic Air Command she looked up at the sky again in The McConnell Story (1955), as husband Alan Ladd tested jets, and exuded wifely support to Cornel Wilde in A Woman’s World (1954) and William Holden in Executive Suite (1954).

Curiously, Allyson appeared in more remakes than any other star in cinema history, and inevitably suffered by comparison with those who previously took the roles. Exceptions could be made for Good News, in the Bessie Love part, and in The Opposite Sex (1955), the musical remake of The Women, in which she was less anaemic than Norma Shearer. She was a spunky Jo in Little Women (1949); the runaway heiress in You Can’t Run Away from It (1956), a lame musical directed by Powell; the rich girl falling for her butler in My Man Godfrey (1957); and an American tourist involved in a doomed affair in Munich in the soppy Interlude (1957). But although she gave a good account of herself in all of them, she could not obliterate the memory of Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard and Irene Dunne.

During their 18-year marriage Allyson and Powell had several public breakups, but were reconciled before his death from cancer in 1963. Allyson soon remarried, though it lasted barely a year. Her third marriage, in 1976 to dentist David Ashrow, lasted until her death.

Nine years after retiring in 1963, she returned to the screen in They Only Kill Their Masters, a whodunit in which she delighted in playing a bitter murderess, the sort of role she would never have been allowed to take on in her younger days. She appeared in only one other film, Blackout (1978), as a woman terrorised by criminals during a power failure in New York.

Visiting England in 1985 to plug the reissue of The Glenn Miller Story, Allyson looked almost the same as in those MGM musicals. When asked why she gave up show business, she said that the only roles she was being offered were as psychologically disturbed older women wanting younger men. She is survived by her husband, her son and her daughter.

· June Allyson (Eleanor Geisman), actor, born October 7 1917; died July 8 2006

This article can also be accessed online here.

Harold Gould was born in 1923 in Schenectady, New York. He was originally a teacher before becoming an actor. His film debut came in “Two for the Seesaw” with Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine. His other films include “The Yellow Canary” with Pat Boone, “The Satan Bug” with George Maharis and Anne Francis and “Harper”. His biggest success though was on television where he played the father of Valer Harper in the classic TV series “Rhoda”. Harold Gould died in 2010.

Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:

Harold Gould, who has died aged 86, was categorised as a character actor, usually a euphemism for an actor who did not quite make it to the top. But it would be more accurate to describe him as a supporting actor who made invaluable contributions to innumerable television shows and dozens of films. The elegantly dressed Gould, with his grey hair and natty moustache, “supported” many a star, often in the roles of kindly uncles, fathers and husbands as well as doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers, rabbis and teachers.

The five times Emmy-nominated Gould was probably most widely known as Martin Morgenstern, Valerie Harper’s handsome smoothie father in Rhoda (1974-78), and the college professor widower who courts Rose (Betty White) in the sitcom The Golden Girls (1985-92). In the latter, Gould played Miles Webber, a mild-mannered man who turns out to have been an accountant for the mafia, much to Rose’s surprise and excitement.

In 20 episodes of Rhoda, Gould had to put up with the kvetching of Rhoda’s pushy mother Ida (Nancy Walker), while lending his daughter a sympathetic ear. In one episode, The Marty Morgan Story (1976), he touchingly confesses to Rhoda that he no longer loves Ida, and retains a secret ambition to be a bar-room pianist.

From a very early age, Gould’s ambition was to become an actor. He was born Harold Vernon Goldstein in Schenectady, New York. After serving in France as a gunner in the army during the second world war, Gould studied theatre, gaining a PhD from Cornell University, where he taught drama, speech and literature from 1948 to 1953.

After a few more years of teaching drama, Gould decided, in his late 30s, to practise what he taught and take up acting. “All of my colleagues would say: ‘What are you doing? You’re crazy to leave teaching.’ I had to take the leap.”

After various roles off-Broadway, he started to get work on television, the medium which was to be his mainstay. From 1961, Gould popped up in almost every TV series one could name, but he had to wait 11 years before he was given a featured role. This was the first appearance of Martin Morgenstern, in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1972), of which Rhoda was one of the spin-offs.

At this time Gould also appeared in a pilot for the TV series Happy Days, playing the role of Richie Cunningham’s father, Howard. A theatrical commitment prevented Gould from resuming the role when the series was commissioned. Tom Bosley was hired to play the character in the series, which ran from 1974 to 1984.

Instead, Gould appeared in dozens of TV movies, notably, in 1980, The Scarlett O’Hara War and The Silent Lovers, in both of which he played the MGM boss Louis B Mayer. In 1986, in Mrs Delafield Wants to Marry, he played a Jewish doctor whom Katharine Hepburn wishes to marry despite her children’s objections. A splendid chemistry was created between the two leads, with Gould doing more than just supporting his legendary co-star.

At the same time, Gould took supporting roles in several features, the most notable being the Oscar-winner The Sting (1973), starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, in which he played a conman-gambler called Kid Twist. He makes a superb entrance into a gambling den, where his beautifully cut suit, homburg hat and grey kid gloves are strikingly contrasted with the other customers. At the finale, Gould is in on a great scam to deprive Robert Shaw’s Doyle Lonnegan of half a million dollars at a phony betting shop.

Among many comic cameos, Gould played a jealous lover who challenges a cowardly Woody Allen to a duel in the latter’s Love and Death (1975). Gould: “If you so much as come near the countess, I’ll see that you never see the light of day again.” Allen: “If a man said that to me, I’d break his neck.” Gould: “I am a man.” Allen: “Well, I mean a much shorter man.” The following year he played Engulf, a movie executive of Engulf and Devour (a sly reference to Gulf and Western), in Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie.

In his 70s, Gould appeared in films as different as the prison drama Killer: A Journal of Murder (1996) and the Robin Williams comedy Patch Adams (1998). In recent years, he gracefully moved into grandfather roles in films such as Stuart Little (1999), The Master of Disguise (2002), Freaky Friday (2003) and Nobody’s Perfect (2004).

Gould is survived by his wife, Lea, whom he married in 1950, a daughter, Deborah, and two sons, Joshua and Lowell.

• Harold Gould (Harold Vernon Goldstein), actor, born 10 December 1923; died 11 September 2010

The above “Guardian” obituary can be accessed online here.

Ken Scott was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. He made his movie debut in 1956 in “Three Brave Men”. His other films include “The Way to the Gold” with Jeffrey Hunter, “This Earth is Mine” and “Desire in the Dust”. He died in 1986.

Joanna Cassidy was born in 1945 in New Jersey. She was featured in the 1976 film “Stay Hungary” and went on star in “Blade Runner” in 1982, “Under Fire” and “The Fourth Protocol”.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

The very lovely, vivacious and smart-looking Joanna Cassidy was born in Camden, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Haddonfield, a borough located in Camden County. She grew up in a creative environment as the daughter and granddaughter of artists. At an early age she engaged in painting and sculpture and went on to major in art at Syracuse University in New York. During her time there she married Kennard C. Kobrin in 1964, a doctor in residency, and found work as a fashion model to help work his way to a degree. The couple eventually moved to San Francisco, where her husband set up a psychiatric practice; Joanna continued modeling and gave birth to a son and daughter. Following their divorce ten years later, she decided to move to Los Angeles in a bid for an acting career.

In between modeling chores and occasional commercial gigs, the reddish-haired beauty found minor, decorative work as an actress in such action fare as Steve McQueen‘s thrillerBullitt (1968), the Jason Robards drama Fools (1970), The Laughing Policeman (1973) starring Walter Matthau and The Outfit (1973) with Robert Duvall. Her first co-starring role came opposite George C. Scott in the offbeat comedy caper Bank Shot (1974).

Television became an important medium for her in the late 1970s, with guest parts on all the popular shows of the time, both comedic and dramatic, including Dallas (1978).Trapper John, M.D. (1979), Taxi (1978), Starsky and Hutch (1975), Charlie’s Angels(1976), Lou Grant (1977) and a recurring role on Falcon Crest (1981). A regular on the sketch/variety show Shields and Yarnell (1977), which showcased the popular mime couple, Joanna languished in three failed series attempts–The Roller Girls (1978), 240-Robert (1979) and The Family Tree (1983)–before hitting the jackpot with the sitcomBuffalo Bill (1983) opposite Dabney Coleman, in which she finally had the opportunity to demonstrate her flair for offbeat comedy. The show became that’s season’s critical darling, with Coleman playing a vain, sexist, obnoxious talk show host (a variation of his popular Nine to Five (1980) film character) and Joanna received a Golden Globe for her resourceful portrayal of Jo Jo White, the director of his show and romantic foil for Coleman, who stood toe-to-toe with his antics.

The 1980s also brought about positive, critical reception for Joanna on film as well, especially in a number of showy portrayals, notably her snake-dancing replicant in the futuristic sci-fi thriller Blade Runner (1982), her radio journalist involved with Nick Nolteand Ed Harris in the political drama Under Fire (1983) and her co-starring role in a wacky triangle with Bob Hoskins and a hyperkinetic hare in the highly ambitious part toon/part fantasy film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Back on the TV front she was seen in recurring roles on L.A. Law (1986), Diagnosis Murder (1993), The District (2000) andBoston Legal (2004).

Since then Joanna has juggled a number of quality film and TV assignments, a definitive highlight being her Emmy-nominated recurring role as a quirky, capricious mother/psychiatrist in the cult cable series Six Feet Under (2001). More recently she has taken part in more controversial film work that contain stronger social themes such asAnthrax (2001), a Canadian political thriller whose storyline feeds on the fear of terrorism; The Virgin of Juarez (2006), which chronicled the murders of hundreds of Mexican women; and the gay-themed pictures Kiss the Bride (2007) and Anderson’s Cross(2010).

Off-camera Joanna is devoted to her art (painting, sculpting) and is a dedicated animal activist as well as golfer and antique collector. She presently resides in the Los Angeles area with her dogs.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Jessica Harper was born in 1949 in Chicago. Her film debut came in “Phantom of Paradise” in 1974. Other films include “Inserts”, “Love and Death”, “Suspira” with Joan Bennett and Alida Valli in 1977 and “Stardust Memories”. Her last film was “Minority Report” in 2002.

Attractive, bright-eyed, and talented leading lady with a winning smile and a soothingly placid quality. Harper’s early roles had her playing nice girls surrounded and eventually impinged on by corruption in several diverse genre films of the 1970s. She sparkled in Brian De Palma’s initially underrated rock musical “Phantom of the Paradise” (1974) as Phoenix, an aspiring recording artist who willingly sells out to become a star. After a small part in Woody Allen’s “Love and Death” (1975), Harper won positive notices for her performance in the largely reviled erotic period film “Inserts” (1975), as the girlfriend of a porno backer during 1930s Hollywood. She proved a hardy and resourceful heroine in Italian horror meister Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” (1976) as a new student at a very odd school for girls.

Harper began appearing in TV-movies and miniseries in the late-70s, notably in period pieces (“Little Women” NBC, 1979 and “Studs Lonigan” NBC, 1979). She continued to appear regularly in features through the early 80s in films including Allen’s “Stardust Memories” (1980), as one of his neurotic objects of desire, and “Pennies From Heaven” (1981), a surreal musical set during the Depression, as the unhappy wife of a brutish Steve Martin. “My Favorite Year” (1982) would be her last major film credit for over a decade. Harper received her widest exposure as first the girlfriend and subsequently the wife of comic Garry Shandling on “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” (1990). She continued to appear on TV periodically and returned to features with a small role in the underperforming Matt Dillon vehicle “Mr. Wonderful” (1993) and as Lukas Haas’ mother in “Boyz” (1996).

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

TCM Overview:

Richard Chamberlain. TCM Overview.

Richard Chamberlain was born in 1934 in Beverly Hills. He came to public attention as “Dr Kildare” in the very popular television series which ran from 1961 until 1966. His films include “The Sectre of the Purple Reef” in 1960, “A Thunder of Drums”, “Twilight of Honour”, “Joy in the Morning”, “Petulia”, “Lady Caroline Lamb” and “The Three Musketeers”.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Richard Chamberlain became THE leading heartthrob of early 1960s TV. As the impeccably handsome Dr. Kildare, the slim, butter-haired hunk with the near-perfect Ivy-League charm and smooth, intelligent demeanor, had the distaff fans fawning unwavering over him throughout the series’ run. While this would appear to be a dream situation for any new star, to Chamberlain it brought about a major, unsettling identity crisis.

Born George Richard Chamberlain in Beverly Hills on March 31, 1934, he was the second son of salesman Charles and homemaker Elsa Chamberlain. Richard experienced a profoundly unhappy childhood and did not enjoy school at all, making up for it somewhat by excelling in track and becoming a four-year letterman in high school and college.

He also developed a strong interest and enjoyment in acting while attending Pomona College. Losing an initial chance to sign up with Paramount Pictures, the studio later renewed interest. Complications arose when he had to serve his military obligation in Korea for 16 months.

Chamberlain headed for Hollywood soon after his discharge and, in just a couple of years, worked up a decent resumé with a number of visible guest spots on such popular series as Gunsmoke (1955) and Mr. Lucky (1959).

But it was the stardom of the medical series Dr. Kildare (1961) that garnered overnight female worship and he became a huge sweater-vested pin-up favorite. It also sparked a brief, modest singing career for the actor.

The attention Richard received was phenomenal. True to his “Prince Charming” type, he advanced into typically bland, soap-styled leads on film befitting said image, but crossover stardom proved to be elusive. The vehicles he appeared in, Twilight of Honor(1963) with Joey Heatherton and Joy in the Morning (1965) opposite Yvette Mimieux, did not bring him the screen fame foreseen. The public obviously saw the actor as nothing more than a TV commodity.

More interested in a reputation as a serious actor, Chamberlain took a huge risk and turned his back on Hollywood, devoting himself to the stage. In 1966 alone he appeared in such legit productions as “The Philadelphia Story” and “Private Lives,” and also showed off his vocal talents playing Tony in “West Side Story”. In December of that year a musical version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” starring Richard and Mary Tyler Moore in the sparkling George Peppard/Audrey Hepburn roles was headed for Broadway. It flopped badly in previews, however, and closed after only four performances. Even today it is still deemed one of Broadway’s biggest musical disasters.

An important dramatic role in director Richard Lester‘s Petulia (1968) led Richard to England, where he stayed and dared to test his acting prowess on the classical stage. With it, his personal satisfaction over image and career improved. Bravura performances as “Hamlet” (1969) and “Richard II” (1971), as well as his triumph in “The Lady’s Not for Burning” (1972), won over the not-so-easy-to-impress British audiences.

And on the classier film front, he ably portrayed Octavius Caesar opposite Charlton Heston‘s Julius Caesar (1970) and Jason Robards‘ Brutus; composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Ken Russell‘s grandiose The Music Lovers (1970) opposite Glenda Jackson; and Lord Byron alongside Sarah Miles_ in Lady Caroline Lamb (1972).

While none of these three films were critical favorites, they were instrumental in helping to reshape Chamberlain’s career as a serious, sturdy and reliable actor.

With his new image in place, Richard felt ready to face American audiences again. While he made a triumphant Broadway debut as Reverend Shannon in “The Night of the Iguana” (1975), he also enjoyed modest box-office popularity with the action-driven adventure movies The Three Musketeers (1973) as Aramis and a villainous role in The Towering Inferno (1974), and earned cult status for the Aussie film The Last Wave (1977).

On the television front, he became a TV idol all over again (on his own terms this time) as the “King of 80s Mini-Movies”. The epic storytelling of The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975), The Thorn Birds (1983) and Shogun (1980), all of which earned him Emmy nominations, placed Richard solidly on the quality star list. He won Golden Globe awards for his starring roles in the last two miniseries mentioned.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

3919903 Richard II – theatre poster for production at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles; (add.info.: Richard II – theatre poster for production at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Play by William Shakespeare, directed by Jonathan Miller. Poster features photograph of Richard Chamberlain in the starring role.).

In later years the actor devoted a great deal of his time to musical stage tours as Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady”, Captain Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” and Ebenezer Scrooge in “Scrooge: The Musical”.

Since then, he has accepted himself and shown to be quite a good sport in the process, appearing as gay characters in the film I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007), and in TV episodes of Will & Grace (1998), Desperate Housewives (2004) and Brothers & Sisters (2006).

Enormously private and having moved to Hawaii to avoid the Hollywood glare, at age 69 finally “came out” with a tell-all biography entitled “Shattered Love,” in which he quite candidly discussed the anguish of hiding his homosexuality to protect his enduring matinée idol image.

Michael Beck. IMDB.

Michael Beck was born in Memphsis, Tennessee in 1949. He is best known for his role in “The Warriors” in 1979 and “Xanadu” with Oivia Newton-John.

IMDB entry:

Michael Beck was born on February 4, 1949 in Memphis, Tennessee, USA as John Michael Beck Taylor. He is an actor, known for The Warriors (1979), Xanadu (1980) and Houston Knights (1987). He has been married to Cari since September 1980. They have two children.Played quarterback for his college football team.

Originally from a tiny Delta city in eastern Arkansas surrounded by cotton fields – a small school powerhouse in football and basketball. Was nominated for two Razzie Awards, Worst Actor in 1981 for Xanadu (1980). And Worst Supporting Actor in 1983 for Megaforce (1982). His hobbies include reading, music and cooking. His stage credits, beginning with college, include: “Romeo & Juliet” (he was Tybalt); “Camelot” (he was King Arthur); and “Cat On a Hot Tin Roof.”.

His wife Cari is a songwriter. They have two children: son, Jesse; daughter, Ashley. The third of nine children, he has four brothers and four sisters. Was one of 30 (out of 2,500) applicants chosen for London’s Central School of Speech and Drama, following his college graduation. Went to Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, on a football scholarship. Graduated with a degree in Economics.Starred as Chance Wayne opposite Lauren Bacall in a production of “Sweet Bird of Youth” in London in 1985.

Not to be confused with another actor named Michael Beck, a New York-based stage actor who is a founding member of two theatre companies: 16 Tons Theater Company, a Brooklyn based ensemble which is devoted to creating original and multidisciplinary works, and the Ontik Ensemble, a Manhattan based theater company Tried out for, but did not get, the role of “Sir Lancelot of the Lake” in John Boorman‘s movie Excalibur (1981). Read (provided the voice for) the Books-On-Tape version of John Grisham‘s “Runaway Jury”.

The above entry can also be accessed online here.

Hector Elizondo was born in 1936 inNew York City. He studied dance at the Ballet Arts Company in Carnegie Hall in 1962/1963 and began acting on the stage. In 1974 he won critical acclaim for his performance in “The Taking Pelham, One, Two, Three”, Other films include “Pretty Woman”, “Runaway Bride” and “The Princess Diaries”.

IMDB entry:

Hector Elizondo was born in New York and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Elizondo, the name is Basque and means “at the foot of the church”. His lifestyle in his pre-acting days was as diverse as the roles he plays today. He was a conga player with a Latin band, a classical guitarist and singer, a weightlifting coach, a ballet dancer and a manager of a bodybuilding gym. In his teens, he played basketball and baseball and was scouted by the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Pirates farm teams. After a knee injury ended his dance career, he switched to drama. Since then, he has frequently appeared on Broadway, most notably with George C. Scott in Arthur Penn‘s production of “Sly Fox” for which he received a Drama Desk nomination and for his role as “God” in “Steambath”, which won him an Obie Award. Other theatre credits include; “The Prisoner of Second Avenue”; “The Great White Hope”; “Dance of Death” with Robert Shaw and “The Rose Tattoo” opposite Cicely Tyson. Countless starring roles in television include: Foley Square(1985); American Playhouse: Medal of Honor Rag (1982); Casablanca (1983) (in which he recreated the Claude Rains role of police chief “Capt. Renault”); Freebie and the Bean(1974); Popi (1975) and as Sophia Loren‘s husband in the CBS special Courage (1986). Guest appearances include: Kojak (1973); Kojak: Ariana (1989); Columbo: A Case of Immunity (1975); Baretta (1975); All in the Family (1971); The Rockford Files (1974) andBret Maverick (1981). In addition, he also directed a.k.a. Pablo (1984), the first show to utilise seven cameras instead of the usual four. On the big screen, he has been seen in, among others, American Gigolo (1980); The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974);Cuba (1979); Valdez Is Coming (1971) and in four films directed by Garry Marshall: Young Doctors in Love (1982); The Flamingo Kid (1984); Nothing in Common (1986) andOverboard (1987). Elizondo starred with Dan Aykroyd and Michelle Pfeiffer in PBS’ Great Performances: Tales from the Hollywood Hills: Natica Jackson (1987) (based on a collection of John O’Hara stories) and made his debut as a stage director with a production of “Villa!” starring Julio Medina. In addition, he performed in the 50th anniversary production of “War of the Worlds” co-starring Jason Robards and the TV-movie Addicted to His Love (1988) with Barry Bostwick.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous

The above entry can also be accessed online here.

Jeff Corey was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1914. He was developing a reputation as a first class character actor when his caree was curtailed by the witchhunt during the House of Un-American Activities Committee. During his blacklist he started an actors studio which was very successful. He then returned to movies in middle age. His films include “Home of the Brave”, “My Friend Flicka”, “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and “In Cold Blood”. He died in Santa Monica in 2002.

“The Guardian” obituary:

The reverberations that emanated from the House of Un-American Activities committee, which investigated so-called communist influence in Hollywood in the late 1940s and early 1950s, are still being felt. It affected the lives of many who worked in the film industry. Yet it could be argued that something positive emerged after Jeff Corey, who has died aged 88, was blacklisted in 1951.

Corey had appeared in more than 50 films in small, often uncredited, roles before he was forced to quit acting in films and television for 12 years. During that period, he became one of the most influential of acting teachers; his students included James Dean, Anthony Perkins, Jane Fonda, James Coburn, Leonard Nimoy, Barbra Streisand, Richard Chamberlain, Robin Williams and Jack Nicholson.

Nicholson, who came to Corey as a rebellious 18-year-old, recalled that Corey’s greatest help was stimulating his mind. But there was one occasion when Corey, asking the young actor to “show me more poetry”, received the rebuff, “maybe, Jeff, you don’t see the poetry I’m showing you.” On the whole, Corey, unlike the Method School, did not urge students to delve too deeply into their subconscious. Nevertheless, he created improvisational exercises that allowed actors to engage with their imagination.

His intelligent approach is exemplified by the advice he gave to Kirk Douglas on Spartacus. “Kirk was playing the great leader with a lot of panache, and I said: ‘You’re a slave from generations of slaves. What do you know about leading? You should be struggling to find a leader’s voice and actions’. And he said, ‘by God, you’re right’.”

Corey was born into a working-class Brooklyn family. After high school, he participated in the leftist Federal Theater Project and attended some Communist party meetings, but never joined. It was this activity that was dredged up by the HUAAC two decades later. In the 1930s, Corey worked as a sewing-machine salesman before getting the part of a spear carrier in Leslie Howard’s Broadway production of Hamlet and was promoted to play Rosencrantz on tour. Corey continued to do stage work after arriving in Hollywood in 1940, helping to establish the Actors Lab. He made a less than prestigious debut in films as a game-show contestant, who has to sing a song while stuffing his mouth full of crackers in the creaky Kay Kyser film You’ll Find Out (1940). More walk-ons in B films followed, before he joined the Navy in 1943 as a combat photographer assigned to the USS Yorktown. In October 1945 he received the following citation from the Secretary of the Navy: “His sequence of a Kamikaze attempt on the Carrier Yorktown, done in the face of grave danger, is one of the great picture sequences of the war in the Pacific.”

Back in Hollywood in 1946, Corey picked up where he left off with uncredited bits and occasional speaking parts. Gradually, his rodent features, bushy eyebrows and longish nose, got him bigger parts as sinister or craven characters. In Robert Siodmak’s The Killers (1946), he was a shady gangster, and in Jules Dassin’s prison drama Brute Force (1947), he was the informer who meets his end by being tied to the front of a truck and pushed into a hail of police bullets. In contrast, in Home of the Brave (1949), Corey played the sympathetic shrink who, while analysing a black soldier, uncovers a story of racial prejudice in the US army.

Although it is doubtful whether Corey would ever have had leading roles, the parts he was getting were becoming bigger and better when he was blacklisted at the age of 37 for refusing to name names in front of the committee. Because he had a wife and three daughters to support, he worked as a labourer for a while. The GI Bill then enabled him to take a degree in speech therapy at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Corey then converted his garage into a stage and started his acting classes. Word of mouth got him students and by the mid-1950s, he was the acting coach most in demand in Hollywood. Later, with the blacklist being eased, Corey returned to feature films and television, in both of which he was extremely active in supporting roles. Among his more memorable cinematic performances was the corrupt bishop acting out his sexual fantasies in The Balcony (1963), based on Jean Genet’s play; his wild-eyed wino menacing Olivia de Havilland in Lady in a Cage (1964); the counsellor who helps turn a middle-aged banker (John Randolph, another blacklisted actor) into Rock Hudson in John Frankenheimer’s Seconds (1966); the understanding sheriff in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), a role he reprised a decade later in Butch and Sundance: The Early Days; the nasty killer of Kim Darby’s father in True Grit (1969), and Wild Bill Hickock in Arthur Penn’s Little Big Man (1970).

Corey was even more active on television in the 1970s and 1980s, becoming a household face by turning up as a guest on almost any TV series one could mention from Bonanza to Lou Grant, and played a lawyer in Hell Town, with his former student, Robert Blake.

Corey is survived by his wife of 64 years, and his three daughters.

Jeff Corey, actor and teacher; born August 10 1914; died August 16 2002

The above “Guardian ” obituary can be also be accessed online here.

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

June Allyson

June Allyson obituary in “The Guardian” in 2006.

Harold Gould

Ken Scott

Joanna Cassidy

Jessica Harper

Richard Chamberlain

Richard Chamberlain. TCM Overview.

Michael Beck

Michael Beck. IMDB.

The above entry can also be accessed online here.

Hector Elizondo

Jeff Corey

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