Edward Davis Wood Jr. was an American filmmaker, actor, screenwriter, and pulp novel author.
In the Heat of the Night is an American police procedural crime drama television series loosely based on the 1967 film and 1965 novel of the same title that starred Carroll O'Connor as police chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins as police detective Virgil Tibbs and was broadcast on NBC from March 6, 1988-May 19, 1992 before moving to CBS, where it aired from October 28, 1992-May 16, 1995. Its executive producers were O'Connor, Fred Silverman and Juanita Bartlett. This series marked O'Connor's return to a series for the first time since the All in the Family spinoff Archie Bunker's Place ended in 1983.
Jerry Maguire is a 1996 American sports comedy-drama film directed, written, by Cameron Crowe. It was produced by Crowe and James L. Brooks for Gracie Films and distributed by TriStar Pictures. It stars Tom Cruise as the sports agent Jerry Maguire, alongside Cuba Gooding Jr., Renée Zellweger, Kelly Preston, Jerry O'Connell, Jay Mohr, Bonnie Hunt and Regina King. It was released in North American theaters on December 13, 1996.
Cuba Mark Gooding Jr. is an American actor. After his breakthrough role as Tre Styles in Boyz n the Hood (1991) he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor playing a football star in Jerry Maguire (1996). His other notable films include Outbreak (1995), As Good as It Gets (1997), What Dreams May Come (1998), Men of Honor (2000), Pearl Harbor (2001), Rat Race (2001), The Fighting Temptations (2003), Radio (2003), American Gangster (2007), Red Tails (2012), The Butler (2013), and Selma (2014). He voiced Buck the Horse in the animated feature film Home on the Range (2004).
The Dead End Kids were a group of young actors from New York City who appeared in Sidney Kingsley's Broadway play Dead End in 1935. In 1937, producer Samuel Goldwyn brought all of them to Hollywood and turned the play into a film. They proved to be so popular that they continued to make movies under various monikers, including the Little Tough Guys, the East Side Kids, and the Bowery Boys, until 1958.
Amistad is a 1997 American historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the events in 1839 aboard the Spanish slave ship La Amistad, during which Mende tribesmen abducted for the slave trade managed to gain control of their captors' ship off the coast of Cuba, and the international legal battle that followed their capture by the Washington, a U.S. revenue cutter. The case was ultimately resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1841.
William "Billie" Thomas Jr. was an American child actor best remembered for portraying the character of Buckwheat in the Our Gang short films from 1934 until the series' end in 1944. He was a native of Los Angeles.
The Mambo Kings is a 1992 musical drama film based on the 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos. The film was directed and produced by Arne Glimcher, and stars Armand Assante, Antonio Banderas, Cathy Moriarty and Maruschka Detmers. Set in the early 1950s, the story follows Cesar (Assante) and Nestor Castillo (Banderas), brothers and aspiring musicians who find success and stardom after fleeing from Havana, Cuba to New York City to escape danger. The film marks Glimcher's directing debut, and features Banderas in his first English-language role.
Route 66 is an American adventure crime drama television series that premiered on CBS on October 7, 1960, and ran until March 20, 1964, for a total of 116 episodes. The series was created by Herbert B. Leonard and Stirling Silliphant, who were also responsible for the ABC drama Naked City, from which Route 66 was an indirect spin-off. Both series employed a format with elements of both traditional drama and anthology drama, but the difference was where the shows were set: Naked City was set in New York City, while Route 66 had its setting change from week to week, with each episode being shot on location.
Lachy Hulme is an Australian actor and screenwriter. He has written several films and has appeared in a number of successful Australian and US film and television productions.
Thalmus Rasulala was an American actor with a long career in theater, television, and films. Noted for starring roles in blaxploitation films, he was also an original cast member of ABC's soap opera One Life to Live from its premiere in 1968 until he left the show in 1970.
The Incredible Melting Man is a 1977 American science fiction horror film directed and written by William Sachs. The plot concerns an astronaut whose body begins to melt after he is exposed to radiation during a space flight to Saturn, driving him to commit murders and consume human flesh to survive. During post-production, the producers reshot scenes without Sachs' participation. The film starred Alex Rebar as the main character, alongside Burr DeBenning as a scientist trying to help him and Myron Healey as a United States Air Force general seeking to capture him. While writing and shooting, Sachs was influenced by Night of the Living Dead. With the changes by the producers, the final film has been described as a remake of First Man into Space (1959), which in turn was directly influenced by The Quatermass Xperiment, even though Sachs had never seen either of those films.
Creature from the Haunted Sea is a 1961 horror comedy movie directed by Roger Corman. Written by Charles B. Griffith, the movie is a parody of spy, gangster, and monster movies, concerning a secret agent, XK150, who uses the name "Sparks Moran" in order to infiltrate a criminal gang commanded by Renzo Capetto, who is trying to transport an exiled Cuban general with an entourage and a large portion of the Cuban treasury out of Cuba. Filmgroup released the movie as a double feature with Devil's Partner.
The Tuskegee Airmen is a 1995 HBO television movie based on the exploits of an actual groundbreaking unit, the first African-American combat pilots in the United States Army Air Corps, that fought in World War II. The film was directed by Robert Markowitz and stars Laurence Fishburne, Cuba Gooding Jr., John Lithgow, and Malcolm-Jamal Warner.
Brother Orchid is a 1940 American crime/comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Edward G. Robinson, Ann Sothern and Humphrey Bogart, with featured performances by Donald Crisp, Ralph Bellamy and Allen Jenkins. The screenplay was written by Earl Baldwin, with uncredited contributions from Jerry Wald and Richard Macauley, based on a story by Richard Connell originally published in Collier's Magazine on May 21, 1938. Prior to the creation of the movie version of Connell's story, a stage adaptation was written by playwright/novelist Leo Brady. The script was originally produced at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC.
Mara Clara is a Philippine drama television series on ABS-CBN, which aired from August 17, 1992 to February 14, 1997, replacing Sebya, Mahal Kita and was replaced by Esperanza. The series stars Judy Ann Santos and Gladys Reyes. It was the longest running weekday drama on ABS-CBN and on Philippine television until July 10, 2020, when FPJ's Ang Probinsyano surpassed it upon airing its 1,176th episode. It was adapted into a feature film released by Star Cinema in 1996. Mara Clara was a first release from Dreamscape Entertainment.
A Few Good Men is a 1992 American legal drama film based on Aaron Sorkin's 1989 play. It was written by Sorkin, directed by Rob Reiner, and produced by Reiner, David Brown and Andrew Scheinman. It stars an ensemble cast including Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak, J. T. Walsh, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Kiefer Sutherland. The plot follows the court-martial of two U.S. Marines charged with the murder of a fellow Marine and the tribulations of their lawyers as they prepare a case. The film touches on several moral themes such as justice, blind loyalty, accountability, hazing, the questioning of authority, abuse of power, and corruption in the United States Armed Forces.
Van Nuys Blvd. is a 1979 comedy film written and directed by William Sachs and released by Crown International Pictures. It features 1974 Playboy Playmate of the Year Cynthia Wood. The film's tag line is: "The Greatest Cruisin' in the Land Takes Place on the Street -- Where it all Began ..."
A Fever in the Blood is a 1961 American courtroom drama, produced and distributed by Warner Brothers. The film features a roster of the studio's television contract players, often miscast according to the film's producer and screenwriter Roy Huggins in his Archive of American Television interview. In fact, Huggins later complained that the film's star, Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. was "too young for the role [of the judge] and I said so". The picture, based on the 1959 novel of the same name by a retired Colorado lawyer, William Pearson, also featured Angie Dickinson, Jack Kelly, Don Ameche, Ray Danton, Herbert Marshall, Rhodes Reason, Robert Colbert, Carroll O'Connor, Parley Baer, and Saundra Edwards. The film was directed by Vincent Sherman, with music by Ernest Gold, cinematography by J. Peverell Marley, and editing by William H. Ziegler.
William Sachs is an American film director/producer and writer. Besides his work as a writer and director, since working on Joe, Sachs has been particularly noted for successfully doctoring others' films prior to release in order to conform them to the producers' wishes for broader commercial appeal. His films have screened and received more than 25 awards at various festivals.
