James Grover Thurber was an American cartoonist, writer, humorist, journalist and playwright. He was best known for his cartoons and short stories, published mainly in The New Yorker and collected in his numerous books.
Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland was a British-American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films and was one of the leading actresses of her time. At the time of her death in 2020 at age 104, she was the oldest living and earliest surviving Academy Award winner and was widely considered as being the last surviving major star from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Her younger sister was Oscar-winning actress Joan Fontaine.
The year 1978 in film involved some significant events.
Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland, known professionally as Joan Fontaine, was a British-American actress who is best known for her starring roles in Hollywood films during the "Golden Age". Fontaine appeared in more than 45 films in a career that spanned five decades. She was the younger sister of actress Olivia de Havilland. Their rivalry was well-documented in the media at the height of Fontaine's career.
George Brent was an Irish-American stage, film, and television actor. He is best remembered for the eleven films he made with Bette Davis, which included Jezebel and Dark Victory.
This Gun for Hire is a 1942 American film noir crime film directed by Frank Tuttle and starring Veronica Lake, Robert Preston, Laird Cregar, and Alan Ladd. It is based on the 1936 novel A Gun for Sale by Graham Greene.
Donald John DeFore was an American actor. He is best known for his roles in the sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet from 1952 to 1957 and the sitcom Hazel from 1961 to 1965, the former of which earned him a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
John Elmer Carson, known as Jack Carson, was a Canadian-born American film actor. Carson often played the role of comedic friend in films of the 1940s and 1950s, including The Strawberry Blonde (1941) with James Cagney and Arsenic and Old Lace (1944) with Cary Grant. He appeared in such dramas as Mildred Pierce (1945), A Star is Born (1954), and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958). He worked for RKO and MGM, but most of his notable work was for Warner Bros.
They Died with Their Boots On is a 1941 American Biographical western film from Warner Bros. Pictures, produced by Hal B. Wallis and Robert Fellows, directed by Raoul Walsh, that stars Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland.
Thank Your Lucky Stars is a 1943 American musical comedy film made by Warner Brothers as a World War II fundraiser, with a slim plot involving theater producers. The stars donated their salaries to the Hollywood Canteen, which was founded by John Garfield and Bette Davis, who appear in this film. It was directed by David Butler and stars Eddie Cantor, Dennis Morgan, Joan Leslie, Edward Everett Horton and S.Z. Sakall.
Herbert Anderson was an American character actor from Oakland, California, probably best remembered for his role as Henry Mitchell, the father, on the CBS television sitcom Dennis the Menace.
Elliott Nugent was an American actor, playwright, writer, and film director.
Ketti Frings was an American writer, playwright, and screenwriter who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1958.
Princess O'Rourke is a 1943 American romantic comedy film directed and written by Norman Krasna, and starring Olivia de Havilland, Robert Cummings and Charles Coburn. Krasna won the 1944 Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.
George Melville Cooper was an English actor. His many notable screen roles include the High Sheriff of Nottingham in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Mr. Collins in Pride and Prejudice (1940) and the wedding-rehearsal supervisor Mr. Tringle in Father of the Bride (1950).
One Sunday Afternoon is a 1948 American Technicolor musical comedy film directed by Raoul Walsh, and starring Dennis Morgan, Janis Paige and Dorothy Malone.
Government Girl is a 1943 American romantic-comedy film, produced and directed by Dudley Nichols and starring Olivia de Havilland and Sonny Tufts. Based on a story by Adela Rogers St. Johns, and written by Dudley Nichols and Budd Schulberg, the film is about a secretary working in Washington for the war administration during World War II who helps her boss navigate the complex political machinations of government in an effort to build bomber aircraft for the war effort.
She's Working Her Way Through College is a 1952 American comedy film produced by Warner Bros. A musical comedy in Technicolor, it is directed by H. Bruce Humberstone and stars Virginia Mayo and Ronald Reagan. The screenplay is based on the 1940 Broadway play The Male Animal by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent, although the play's title is not mentioned in the screen credits.
This filmography lists the film appearances of British-American actress Olivia de Havilland (1916–2020), as well as her television, stage, and radio credits. De Havilland's career spanned fifty-three years, from 1935 to 1988. During that time, she appeared in forty-nine feature films, and was one of the leading movie stars during the golden age of Classical Hollywood. She is best known for her early screen performances in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Gone with the Wind (1939), and her later award-winning performances in To Each His Own (1946), The Snake Pit (1948), and The Heiress (1949). De Havilland made her screen debut in Reinhardt's film adaptation A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1935. She began her career playing demure ingénues opposite popular leading men of that time, including Errol Flynn, with whom she made her breakout film Captain Blood in 1935. They would go on to make seven more feature films together, and became one of Hollywood's most popular romantic on-screen pairings.
"The Male Animal" was an American television play broadcast on March 13, 1958, as part of the second season of the CBS television series Playhouse 90. Helene Hanff wrote the teleplay, as an adaptation of the play by James Thurber and Elliott Nugent. Andy Griffith, Gale Gordon, Ann Rutherford, and Edmond O'Brien starred.
