Joan Crawford was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally known flapper by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison".
Trog is a 1970 British science fiction horror film directed by Freddie Francis, and starring Joan Crawford in a story about the discovery of a troglodyte in twentieth-century United Kingdom. The screenplay was written by Peter Bryan, John Gilling, and Aben Kandel. Trog marks Crawford's last movie appearance.
Big Top Pee-wee is a 1988 American comedy film directed by Randal Kleiser. A stand-alone sequel to Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), the film stars Paul Reubens as Pee-wee Herman with Susan Tyrrell, Kris Kristofferson, Penelope Ann Miller, and Valeria Golino in supporting roles. The original music score is composed by Danny Elfman. It was released on July 22, 1988, and grossed $15 million against a $20 million budget. A stand-alone sequel, Pee-wee's Big Holiday, was released in 2016.
Billy Smart Jr. was a British circus performer and impresario.
Judith Amanda Geeson is an English film, stage, and television actress. She began her career primarily working on British television series, with a leading role on The Newcomers from 1965 to 1967, before making her major film debut in To Sir, with Love (1967). She starred in a range of films throughout the 1970s, from crime pictures to thriller and horror films, including The Executioner (1970), Fear in the Night (1972), Brannigan (1975) and The Eagle Has Landed (1976).
Herman Cohen was an American producer of B-movies during the 1950s, and helped to popularize the teen horror movie genre with films like the cult classic I Was a Teenage Werewolf.
Our Dancing Daughters is a 1928 American silent drama film starring Joan Crawford and John Mack Brown about the "loosening of youth morals" that took place during the 1920s. The film was directed by Harry Beaumont and produced by Hunt Stromberg. Whilst the film has no audible dialog, it was released with a synchronized soundtrack and sound effects.
Joan Evans was an American film actress known for Roseanna McCoy, Skirts Ahoy! and co-starred with Audie Murphy in the movie, Column South. She was married to Kirby Weatherly in August 1952.
Strait-Jacket is a 1964 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by William Castle, written by Robert Bloch and starring Joan Crawford. Its plot follows a woman who, having murdered her husband and his lover decades prior, is suspected of a series of axe murders following her release from a psychiatric hospital.
Horrors of the Black Museum (1959) is a British-American horror film starring Michael Gough and directed by Arthur Crabtree.
Percy's Progress is a 1974 British comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas. It was written by Sid Colin, Harry H. Corbett and Ian La Frenais. It was released in the United States under the title It's Not the Size That Counts. The US version of the film includes several additional scenes shot by the American distributor, which include an opening scene of a penis transplant operation, and a scene in which a dwarf is seen jumping out of a woman's bed, leaving her to say the film's American title, "It's not the size that counts." The dwarf in question was Luis De Jesus, the star of the infamous Blood Sucking Freaks.
The Shining Hour is a 1938 American romantic drama film directed by Frank Borzage, based on the 1934 play The Shining Hour by Keith Winter, and starring Joan Crawford and Margaret Sullavan. The supporting cast of the MGM film features Robert Young, Melvyn Douglas, Fay Bainter and Hattie McDaniel.
Betty Miles was an American B-movie film actress and stuntwoman of the late 1930s and well into the 1940s, who later became an educator. Her father, George Henry T. Henninger, was a Texas cattleman, and had taught her to ride horses from an early age.
Adventures of a Taxi Driver is a 1976 British sex comedy film directed by Stanley Long and starring Barry Evans, Judy Geeson and Adrienne Posta. There were two sequels, Adventures of a Private Eye and Adventures of a Plumber's Mate.
Aben Kandel was an American screenwriter, novelist, and boxer. He was screenwriter on such classic B movies as I Was A Teenage Werewolf, Joan Crawford's final movie Trog, and one of Leonard Nimoy's first starring vehicles, Kid Monk Baroni. He is the father of poet Lenore Kandel and screenwriter Stephen Kandel.
Craze is a 1974 horror film directed by Freddie Francis. It stars Jack Palance as a psychotic antiques dealer who sacrifices women to the statue of Chuku, an African idol. Francis said it was "not that good."
Hammerhead is a 1968 British Eurospy thriller film directed by David Miller and starring Vince Edwards, Judy Geeson, and Diana Dors. Its plot concerns a criminal mastermind who attempts to steal NATO secrets, with an American agent hot on his trail. It is based on the 1964 novel of the same title by English novelist James Mayo, and produced by Irving Allen and written by Herbert Baker, who made the Matt Helm films for Columbia Pictures. It was filmed in London and Portugal.
Michelle Danner is an American acting coach at the Los Angeles Acting School who specializes in the Meisner, Strasberg, Adler, Hagen, Chekhov and Stanislavsky techniques. She is also the founding and artistic director of the Edgemar Center for the Arts.
The Executioner is a 1970 British cold war neo noir spy thriller film directed by Sam Wanamaker in Panavision and starring George Peppard as secret agent John Shay who suspects his colleague Adam Booth, played by Keith Michell, is a double agent. In the film, Peppard's character tries to prove the double role of his colleague to his spy-masters and when he fails to do so he kills him. It was produced by Charles H. Schneer for Columbia Pictures and filmed in Panavision and Eastmancolor.
Katherine Albert was an American screenwriter, playwright, and TV writer.
