James Dalton Trumbo was an American screenwriter who scripted many award-winning films, including Roman Holiday (1953), Exodus, Spartacus, and Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944). One of the Hollywood Ten, he refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee's investigation of alleged Communist influences in the motion picture industry.
Homer Jay Simpson is the protagonist of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared, along with the rest of the Simpsons, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987. Homer was created by the cartoonist Matt Groening while he was waiting in the lobby of producer James L. Brooks's office. Groening had been called to pitch a series of shorts based on his comic strip Life in Hell but instead created a new set of characters. He named the character after his father, Homer Groening. After appearing for three seasons on The Tracey Ullman Show, the Simpsons received their own series on Fox, which debuted on December 17, 1989.
Chinatown is a 1974 American neo-noir mystery film directed by Roman Polanski from a screenplay by Robert Towne. The film stars Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway. It was inspired by the California water wars: a series of disputes over southern California water at the beginning of the 20th century that resulted in Los Angeles securing water rights in the Owens Valley. The Robert Evans production, released by Paramount Pictures, was Polanski's last film in the United States and features many elements of film noir, particularly a multi-layered story that is part mystery and part psychological drama.
Malcolm A. Morley was a British-American visual artist and painter. He was known as an artist who pioneered in various styles, working as a photorealist and an expressionist, among many other genres. In 1984, he won the inaugural Turner Prize.
Jonathan Seth Kellerman is an American novelist, psychologist, and Edgar- and Anthony Award–winning author best known for his popular mystery novels featuring the character Alex Delaware, a child psychologist who consults for the Los Angeles Police Department.
Nathanael West was an American writer and screenwriter. He is remembered for two darkly satirical novels: Miss Lonelyhearts (1933) and The Day of the Locust (1939), set respectively in the newspaper and Hollywood film industries.
The culture of Los Angeles is rich with arts and ethnically diverse. The greater Los Angeles metro area has several notable art museums including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), the J. Paul Getty Museum on the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking the Pacific, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), and the Hammer Museum. In the 1920s and 1930s Will Durant and Ariel Durant, Arnold Schoenberg and other intellectuals were the representatives of culture, in addition to the movie writers and directors. As the city flourished financially in the middle of the 20th century, culture followed. Boosters such as Dorothy Buffum Chandler and other philanthropists raised funds for the establishment of art museums, music centers and theaters. Today, the Southland cultural scene is as complex, sophisticated and varied as any in the world. Los Angeles is strongly influenced by Mexican American culture due to California formerly being part of Mexico and, previously, the Spanish Empire.
"Bart Gets an Elephant" is the seventeenth episode of the fifth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on March 31, 1994. In this episode, Bart wins a radio contest and is awarded a full-grown African elephant that he names Stampy. After Stampy wrecks the Simpsons' house and eats all the food, Homer decides to sell Stampy to an ivory dealer. Bart runs away with Stampy to save his pet, but the family finds the two at a museum exhibit, where Homer sinks into a tar pit. Homer is saved by Stampy, and so gives the elephant away to an animal refuge instead.
Charles Henry Pywell Daniell was an English actor who had a long career in the United States on stage and in cinema. He came to prominence for his portrayal of villainous roles in films such as Camille (1936), The Great Dictator (1940), Holiday (1938) and The Sea Hawk (1940). Daniell was given few opportunities to play sympathetic or 'good guy' roles; an exception was his portrayal of Franz Liszt in the biographical film of Robert and Clara Schumann, Song of Love (1947). His name is sometimes spelled "Daniel".
Julia Faye Maloney, known professionally as Julia Faye, was an American actress of silent and sound films. She was known for her appearances in more than 30 Cecil B. DeMille productions. Her various roles ranged from maids and ingénues to vamps and queens.
The Day of the Locust is a 1975 American satirical historical drama film directed by John Schlesinger. It stars Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, William Atherton, Burgess Meredith, Richard Dysart, John Hillerman and Geraldine Page.
Musso & Frank Grill is a restaurant located at 6667-9 Hollywood Boulevard in the Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles. The restaurant opened in 1919 and is named for original owners Joseph Musso and Frank Toulet. It is the oldest restaurant in Hollywood and has been called "the genesis of Hollywood".
I Stole a Million is a 1939 film noir crime film starring George Raft as a cab driver turned small-time crook who makes a big score and lives to regret it. The supporting cast includes Claire Trevor, Dick Foran, and Victor Jory. The movie was written by Nathanael West based on a story idea by Lester Cole, which in turn was based on the life story of bank robber Roy Gardner. It was directed by Frank Tuttle, and released by Universal Pictures.
Hans Habe was a Hungarian and American writer and newspaper publisher. From 1941, he held United States citizenship. He was also known by such pseudonyms as Antonio Corte, Frank Richard, Frederick Gert, John Richler, Hans Wolfgang, and Alexander Holmes.
Frank Edgington Fenton was an American writer of screenplays, short stories, magazine articles, and novels.
The Pacific Coast Professional Football League (PCPFL), also known as the Pacific Coast Football League (PCFL) and Pacific Coast League (PCL) was a professional American football minor league based in California. It operated from 1940 through 1948. One of the few minor American professional sports leagues that competed in the years of World War II, the PCPFL was regarded as a minor league of the highest level, particularly from 1940 to 1945, at a time in which the National Football League (NFL) did not extend further west than Chicago and Green Bay. It was also the first professional football league to have a team based in Hawaii.
John Sanford or John B. Sanford, born Julian Lawrence Shapiro, was an American screenwriter and prose writer who wrote 24 books. The Cambridge Companion to Jewish American Literature describes him as, "Perhaps the most outstanding neglected novelist." A one-time member of the Communist Party, after he and his wife Marguerite Roberts refused to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee, they were blacklisted and unable to work in Hollywood for nearly a decade.
Stanley Rose was an American bookseller, literary agent, and raconteur, whose eponymous Hollywood bookshop, located adjacent to the famous Musso & Frank Grill restaurant, was a gathering place for writers working or living in and around Hollywood. Rose's most notable literary associates were William Saroyan, to whom he was variously a friend, a drinking and hunting companion, and a literary representative; and Nathanael West, whose 1939 novel The Day of the Locust owed much of its “local color” to its author's acquaintance with Rose.
Faye Denise Resnick is an American television personality, author, and interior designer. She is best known for her involvement in the O.J. Simpson murder trial and for her appearance on the reality television series The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.
