Martha Ellen Scott was an American actress. She was featured in major films such as Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1956), and William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959), playing the mother of Charlton Heston's character in both films. She originated the role of Emily Webb in Thornton Wilder's Our Town on Broadway in 1938 and later recreated the role in the 1940 film version, for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress.
Ball of Fire is a 1941 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks and starring Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. The Samuel Goldwyn Productions film concerns a group of professors laboring to write an encyclopedia and their encounter with a nightclub performer who provides her own unique knowledge. The supporting cast includes Oscar Homolka, S. Z. Sakall, Henry Travers, Richard Haydn, Dana Andrews, and Dan Duryea.
Nancy Kelly was an American actress in film, theater, and television. A child actress and model, she was a repertory cast member of CBS Radio's The March of Time, and appeared in several films in the late 1920s. She became a leading lady upon returning to the screen in the late 1930s, while still in her teens, and made two dozen movies between 1938 and 1946, including portraying Tyrone Power's love interest in the classic Jesse James (1939), which also featured Henry Fonda, and playing opposite Spencer Tracy in Stanley and Livingstone, later that same year. After turning to the stage in the late 1940s, she had her greatest success in a character role, the distraught mother in The Bad Seed, receiving a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for the 1955 stage production and an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for the 1956 film adaptation, her last film role. Kelly then worked regularly in television until 1963, then took over the role of Martha in the original Broadway production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for several months. She returned to television for a handful of appearances in the mid-1970s.
Edmund Gwenn was an English actor. On film, he is best remembered for his role as Kris Kringle in the Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street (1947), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the corresponding Golden Globe Award. He received a second Golden Globe and another Academy Award nomination for the comedy film Mister 880 (1950). He is also remembered for his appearances in four films directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
Marsha Hunt was an American actress with a career spanning nearly 80 years. She was blacklisted by Hollywood film studio executives in the 1950s during McCarthyism.
Sidney Alderman Blackmer was an American Broadway and film actor active between 1914 and 1971, usually in major supporting roles.
They Knew What They Wanted is a 1940 film directed by Garson Kanin, written by Robert Ardrey, and starring Carole Lombard, Charles Laughton and William Gargan. It is based on the 1924 Pulitzer Prize winning play They Knew What They Wanted by Sidney Howard. For his performance Gargan was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
William Dennis Gargan was an American film, television and radio actor. He was the 5th recipient of the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 1967, and in 1941, was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Joe in They Knew What They Wanted. He acted in decades of movies including parts in Follow the Leader, Rain, Night Flight, Three Sons, Isle of Destiny and many others. The role he was best known for was that of a private detective Martin Kane in the 1949–1952 radio-television series Martin Kane, Private Eye. In television, he was also in 39 episodes of The New Adventures of Martin Kane.
Sarah, Plain and Tall is a children's book written by Patricia MacLachlan and the winner of the 1986 Newbery Medal, the 1986 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction, and the 1986 Golden Kite Award. It explores themes of loneliness, abandonment, and coping with change.
Rosemary Shirley DeCamp was an American radio, film, and television actress.
Bess Streeter Aldrich was an American author.
In Old Oklahoma is a 1943 American Western film directed by Albert S. Rogell starring John Wayne and Martha Scott. The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, one for Music Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture and the other for Sound Recording. The supporting cast features George "Gabby" Hayes, Marjorie Rambeau, Dale Evans, Sidney Blackmer as Theodore Roosevelt, and Paul Fix.
A Song Is Born, starring Danny Kaye and Virginia Mayo, is a 1948 Technicolor musical film remake of Howard Hawks' 1941 movie Ball of Fire with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. This version was also directed by Hawks, based on the story "From A to Z" by Billy Wilder and Thomas Monroe, adapted by Harry Tugend (uncredited) and produced by Samuel Goldwyn and released by RKO Radio Pictures.
Nazi Agent is a 1942 American spy film directed by Jules Dassin, in his first feature-length film for MGM. It stars Conrad Veidt playing identical twins, one loyal to the United States (U.S.), the other a dedicated German Nazi.
False Pretenses is a 1935 American romantic comedy film directed by Charles Lamont and starring Irene Ware.
Bewitched is a 1945 American film noir directed and written by Arch Oboler. The drama features Phyllis Thaxter and Edmund Gwenn.
The Feminine Touch is a 1941 American comedy film directed by W.S. Van Dyke, and starring Rosalind Russell and Don Ameche.
Pretty Baby is a 1950 American comedy film starring Dennis Morgan, Betsy Drake, Zachary Scott and Edmund Gwenn. A young woman's little white lie leads to unforeseen complications. Cary Grant aggressively promoted Drake, his wife, to Jack L. Warner for the lead in Pretty Baby.
Meet the Missus is an American comedy film released in 1940. The eighth in the 1938–41 nine-film Higgins Family series, this entry features Alan Ladd in a small role.
Lois Ranson was an American film actress from 1939 to 1943 who appeared in Western films and serials.
