Burton Stephen Lancaster was an American actor and film producer. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in films and television series. He was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and he also won two BAFTA Awards and one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
William Clark Gable was an American film actor. Often referred to as the "King of Hollywood", he had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in a variety of genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.
Sidney Poitier was a Bahamian and American actor, film director, and diplomat. In 1964, he was the first Black actor and first Bahamian to win the Academy Award for Best Actor. He received two competitive Golden Globe Awards, a BAFTA Award, and a Grammy Award as well as nominations for two Emmy Awards and a Tony Award. In 1999, he ranked among one of the "American Film Institute's 100 Stars". Poitier was one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American romantic comedy-drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose. It stars Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn, and features Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton.
Raoul Walsh was an American film director, actor, founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), and the brother of silent screen actor George Walsh. He was known for portraying John Wilkes Booth in the silent film The Birth of a Nation (1915) and for directing such films as the widescreen epic The Big Trail (1930) starring John Wayne in his first leading role, The Roaring Twenties starring James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart, High Sierra (1941) starring Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart, and White Heat (1949) starring James Cagney and Edmond O'Brien. He directed his last film in 1964. His work has been noted as influences on directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jack Hill, and Martin Scorsese.
Margaret Yvonne Middleton, known professionally as Yvonne De Carlo, was a Canadian-American actress, dancer and singer. She became a Hollywood film star in the 1940s and 1950s, made several recordings, and later acted on television and stage.
Raymond Thomas Bailey was an American actor, and comedian on the Broadway stage, films, and television. He is best known for his role as greedy banker Milburn Drysdale in the television series The Beverly Hillbillies.
Sam Katzman was an American film producer and director. Katzman's specialty was producing low-budget genre films, including serials, which had disproportionately high returns for the studios and his financial backers.
Lucien Ballard was an American cinematographer. He worked on more than 130 films during his 50-year career, collaborating multiple times with directors including Josef von Sternberg, John Brahm, Henry Hathaway, Budd Boetticher, Raoul Walsh, Sam Peckinpah and Tom Gries. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Cinematography for The Caretakers (1963).
James Craig was an American actor. He is best known for appearances in films like Kitty Foyle (1940) and The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), and his stint as a leading man at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the 1940s where he appeared in films like The Human Comedy (1943).
The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw is a 1958 Western comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh, starring Kenneth More and Jayne Mansfield. Mansfield's singing voice is dubbed by Connie Francis. It was one of the first Westerns to be shot in Spain.
Rex Reason was an American actor best known for his role in This Island Earth (1955). He was the elder brother of actor Rhodes Reason.
The King and Four Queens is a 1956 American DeLuxe Color western adventure comedy/mystery film starring Clark Gable and Eleanor Parker and filmed in CinemaScope. Directed by Raoul Walsh, the film is based on a story written by Margaret Fitts, who also wrote the screenplay along with Richard Alan Simmons. This film was the first project from Clark Gable's own production company, GABCO. His partners in the project were movie star Jane Russell and her husband, Bob Waterfield, owners of Russ-Field Productions, and the film is often listed as a Russ-Field-GABCO production.
Charles Schnee was an American screenwriter and film producer. He wrote the scripts for the Westerns Red River (1948) and The Furies (1950), the social melodrama They Live by Night (1949), and the cynical Hollywood saga The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), for which he won an Academy Award.
Something of Value is a 1957 American drama film directed by Richard Brooks and starring Rock Hudson, Dana Wynter, and Sidney Poitier. The film was reissued under the title Africa Ablaze.
Robert Alan Aurthur was an American screenwriter, film director, and film producer. Many of his works examined race relations and featured In the Heat of the Night star Sidney Poitier.
Edge of the City is a 1957 American film-noir drama film directed by Martin Ritt in his directorial debut, and starring John Cassavetes and Sidney Poitier. Robert Alan Aurthur's screenplay was expanded from his original script, staged as the final episode of Philco Television Playhouse, A Man Is Ten Feet Tall (1955), also featuring Poitier.
Buck and the Preacher is a 1972 American Western film released by Columbia Pictures, written by Ernest Kinoy and directed by Sidney Poitier. Poitier also stars in the film alongside Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee.
I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009) is a novel by American writer Percival Everett. Originally published by Graywolf Press, in 2020, it was published by Influx Press in the UK. It explores the tumultuous life of a character named Not Sidney Poitier as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin color with his wealth.
