Paul Muni was an American stage and film actor from Chicago. He started his acting career in the Yiddish theater and during the 1930s, he was considered one of the most prestigious actors at the Warner Bros. studio and was given the rare privilege of choosing his own parts.
The Last Picture Show is a 1971 American coming-of-age drama film directed and co-written by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from the semi-autobiographical 1966 novel The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry. The film's ensemble cast includes Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, and Cybill Shepherd. Set in a small town in northern Texas from November 1951 to October 1952, it is a story of two high-school seniors and long-time friends, Sonny Crawford (Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Bridges).
The Defiant Ones is a 1958 American drama film which tells the story of two escaped prisoners, one white and one black, who are shackled together and who must co-operate in order to survive. It stars Tony Curtis and Sidney Poitier.
Earl Cyril Palmer was an American drummer. Considered one of the inventors of rock and roll, he is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The year 1959 in film involved some significant events, with Ben-Hur winning a record 11 Academy Awards.
Strother Douglas Martin Jr. was an American character actor who often appeared in support of John Wayne and Paul Newman and in Western films directed by John Ford and Sam Peckinpah. Among Martin's memorable performances is his portrayal of the warden or "captain" of a state prison camp in the 1967 film Cool Hand Luke, in which he utters the line, "What we've got here is failure to communicate." The line is number 11 on the American Film Institute list of 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes.
William December Williams Jr. is an American actor, novelist and painter. He has appeared in over 100 films and television roles over six decades. He is most known for portraying Lando Calrissian in the Star Wars franchise and has also appeared in critically acclaimed and popular titles such as Mahogany (1975), Scott Joplin (1977), and Nighthawks (1981), as Harvey Dent in Batman (1989) and The Lego Batman Movie (2017), The Last Angry Man (1959), Carter's Army, The Out-of-Towners (1969), The Final Comedown and Lady Sings the Blues, Hit! (1973), Fear City and Terror in the Aisles, Alien Intruder (1993) or The Visit (2000).
Charles Van Dell Johnson was an American film, television, theatre and radio actor. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II.
Whitner Nutting Bissell was an American character actor.
Henry George Carey Jr. was an American actor. He appeared in more than 90 films, including several John Ford Westerns, as well as numerous television series.
Jerome Palmer Cowan was an American stage, film, and television actor.
Ross Hunter was an American film and television producer and actor. He is best known for producing light comedies such as Pillow Talk (1959), and the glamorous melodramas Magnificent Obsession (1954), Imitation of Life (1959), and Back Street (1961).
North to Alaska is a 1960 American comedy Western/Northern film directed by Henry Hathaway and John Wayne (uncredited). The picture stars Wayne along with Stewart Granger, Ernie Kovacs, Fabian, and Capucine. The script is based on the 1939 play Birthday Gift by Ladislas Fodor and is set during the Nome gold rush.
Li'l Abner is a 1959 musical comedy film based on the comic strip of the same name created by Al Capp and the successful Broadway musical of the same name that opened in 1956. The film was produced by Norman Panama and directed by Melvin Frank. It was the second film to be based on the comic strip, the first being RKO's 1940 film, Li'l Abner.
Peter Paul Fix was an American film and television character actor who was best known for his work in Westerns. Fix appeared in more than 100 movies and dozens of television shows over a 56-year career between 1925 and 1981. Fix portrayed Marshal Micah Torrance, opposite Chuck Connors's character in The Rifleman from 1958 to 1963. He later appeared with Connors in the 1966 Western film Ride Beyond Vengeance.
Let's Do It Again is a 1975 American action crime comedy film, starring Sidney Poitier and co-starring Bill Cosby and Jimmie Walker among an all-star black cast. The film, directed by Poitier, is about blue-collar workers who decide to rig a boxing match to raise money for their fraternal lodge. The song of the same name by The Staple Singers was featured as the opening and ending theme of the film, and as a result, the two have become commonly associated with each other. The production companies include Verdon Productions and The First Artists Production Company, Ltd., and distributed by Warner Bros. The movie was filmed in two cities, Atlanta, Georgia and New Orleans, Louisiana, where most of the plot takes place. This was the second film pairing of Poitier and Cosby following Uptown Saturday Night, and followed by A Piece of the Action (1977). Of the three, Let's Do It Again has been the most successful both critically and commercially. Calvin Lockhart and Lee Chamberlin also appeared in Uptown Saturday Night. According to the American Film Institute, Let's Do It Again is not a sequel to Uptown Saturday Night.
Robert Frank Simon was an American character actor.
Scott Joplin is a 1977 biographical film directed by Jeremy Kagan and based on the life of African-American composer and pianist Scott Joplin. It stars Billy Dee Williams and Clifton Davis. Its script won an award from the Writers Guild of America in 1979. The only other composers mentioned as worthy equals in the film are John Philip Sousa and Jelly Roll Morton. Eubie Blake makes an appearance in the movie.
Tammy and the Doctor is a 1963 Eastmancolor romantic comedy film directed by Harry Keller and starring Sandra Dee as Tambrey "Tammy" Tyree and Peter Fonda as Dr. Mark Cheswick. It is the third of the four Tammy films.
Fred Aldrich was an American character actor of both film and television. Born in New York. He would break into the film industry in 1939, appearing in two films that year in small roles: My Son Is Guilty, and the notable, Confessions of a Nazi Spy, which starred Edward G. Robinson and George Sanders. In the course of his thirty-year career he would appear in over 170 films, in small and bit roles. With the advent of television, Aldrich would work in that medium as well, making his first small screen appearance on I Love Lucy, on which he would appear multiple times over the life of the series.
