Marlon Brando Jr. was an American actor. Considered one of the most influential actors of the 20th century, he received numerous accolades throughout his career, which spanned six decades, including two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, one Cannes Film Festival Award and three British Academy Film Awards. Brando was also an activist for many causes, notably the civil rights movement and various Native American movements. Having studied with Stella Adler in the 1940s, he is credited with being one of the first actors to bring the Stanislavski system of acting, and method acting, to mainstream audiences.
Richard Charles Rodgers was an American composer who worked primarily in musical theater. With 43 Broadway musicals and over 900 songs to his credit, Rodgers was one of the most well-known American composers of the 20th century, and his compositions had a significant influence on popular music.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is a three-act play written by Tennessee Williams. The play, an adaptation of his 1952 short story "Three Players of a Summer Game", was written between 1953 and 1955. One of Williams's more famous works and his personal favorite, the play won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1955. Set in the "plantation home in the Mississippi Delta" of Big Daddy Pollitt, a wealthy cotton tycoon, the play examines the relationships among members of Big Daddy's family, primarily between his son Brick and Maggie the "Cat", Brick's wife.
I Remember Mama is a 1948 American drama film directed by George Stevens from a screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen, whose work was adapted from John Van Druten's stage play. Druten, in turn, had based his play on Kathryn Forbes' novel Mama's Bank Account, which was originally published by Harcourt Brace in 1943. The story in all its variant forms recounts the everyday life and economic struggles of a Norwegian immigrant family in San Francisco in the early 20th century. The film stars Irene Dunne as the mother, as well as Barbara Bel Geddes, Oscar Homolka, Ellen Corby and Philip Dorn. Homolka portrays Uncle Chris in the film, a role he had performed earlier in the Broadway production.
Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican actress, dancer, and singer. She is noted for her work on stage and screen in a career spanning over seven decades. Moreno is one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Among her numerous accolades, she is one of a few performers to have been awarded an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony (EGOT) and the Triple Crown of Acting, with individual competitive Academy, Emmy and Tony awards. She has also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, the National Medal of Arts in 2009, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2013, the Kennedy Center Honor in 2015, and a Peabody Award in 2019.
Cloris Leachman was an American actress and comedian whose career spanned nearly eight decades. She won many accolades, including eight Primetime Emmy Awards from 22 nominations, making her the most nominated and, along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, most awarded performer in Emmy history. She won an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Daytime Emmy Award.
John William Van Druten was an English playwright and theatre director. He began his career in London, and later moved to America, becoming a U.S. citizen. He was known for his plays of witty and urbane observations of contemporary life and society.
Lois Maureen Stapleton was an American actress. She received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, in addition to a nomination for a Grammy Award.
Oskar Homolka was an Austrian film and theatre actor, who went on to work in Germany, Britain and America. Both his voice and his appearance fitted him for roles as communist spies or Soviet officials, for which he was in regular demand. By the age of 30, he had appeared in more than 400 plays; his film career covered at least 100 films and TV shows.
Juanita Moore was an American film, television, and stage actress.
Ellen Hansen Corby was an American actress and screenwriter. She played the role of Esther "Grandma" Walton on the CBS television series The Waltons, for which she won three Emmy Awards. She was also nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award for her performance as Aunt Trina in I Remember Mama (1948).
Beatrice Whitney Straight was an American theatre, film and television actress and a member of the prominent Whitney family. She was an Academy Award and Tony Award winner as well as an Emmy Award nominee.
Mama was a weekly CBS Television comedy-drama series that ran from July 1, 1949 until March 17, 1957. The series was based on Mama's Bank Account by Kathryn Forbes, which was also adapted for the John Van Druten play (1944) and the subsequent film I Remember Mama (1948), and told the ongoing story of a loving Norwegian family living in San Francisco in the 1910s through the eyes of the elder daughter, Katrin Hansen. Katrin would be seen looking through the pages of the family album at the start of each episode with the opening narration:
This old album makes me remember so many things in the past. San Francisco and the house on Steiner Street where I was born. It brings back memories of my cousins, aunts and uncles; all the boys and girls I grew up with. And I remember my family as we were then. My big brother Nels, my little sister Dagmar, and of course, Papa. But most of all, when I look back to those days so long ago, most of all, I remember ... Mama.
Barbara Bel Geddes was an American stage and screen actress, artist, and children's author whose career spanned almost five decades. She was best known for her starring role as Miss Ellie Ewing in the television series Dallas. Bel Geddes also starred as Maggie in the original Broadway production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1955. Her notable films included I Remember Mama (1948) and Vertigo (1958). Throughout her career, she was the recipient of several acting awards and nominations.
Jerry Adler is an American theatre director, producer, and film and television actor. He is perhaps best known for his films Manhattan Murder Mystery, The Public Eye, In Her Shoes, and Prime, and for his television work as Herman "Hesh" Rabkin on The Sopranos, Howard Lyman on The Good Wife and The Good Fight, building maintenance man Mr. Wicker on Mad About You, Bob Saget's father Sam Stewart on Raising Dad, Fire Chief Sidney Feinberg on Rescue Me, Moshe Pfefferman on Transparent, Saul Horowitz on Broad City, and Hillston on Living with Yourself with Paul Rudd.
I Remember Mama is a musical with a book by Thomas Meehan, lyrics by Martin Charnin and Raymond Jessel, and music by Richard Rodgers. The musical ran on Broadway in 1979.
Kathryn McLean, best known by her pen name Kathryn Forbes, was an American writer and memoirist.
Joan Margaret Tetzel was an American actress.
Mary, Mary is a play by Jean Kerr. After two previews, the Broadway production opened on March 8, 1961, at the original Helen Hayes Theatre, where it ran for nearly three years and nine months before transferring to the Morosco, where it closed on December 12, 1964, after 1572 performances, making it the longest-running non-musical Broadway play of the 1960s.
The Donaldson Awards were a set of theatre awards established in 1944 by the drama critic Robert Francis in honor of W. H. Donaldson (1864–1925), the founder of The Billboard magazine.
