Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn was an Australian actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland, and reputation for his womanising and hedonistic personal life. His most notable roles include Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which was later named by the American Film Institute as the 18th greatest hero in American film history, the lead role in Captain Blood (1935), Major Geoffrey Vickers in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and the hero in a number of Westerns such as Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail, Virginia City, and San Antonio (1945).
Dame Olivia Mary de Havilland was a British and 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.
Michael Curtiz was a Hungarian-American film director, recognized as one of the most prolific directors in history. He directed classic films from the silent era and numerous others during Hollywood's Golden Age, when the studio system was prevalent.
Harry Dean Stanton was an American actor. In a career that spanned more than six decades, Stanton played supporting roles in films including Cool Hand Luke (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), Alien (1979), Escape from New York (1981), Christine (1983), Repo Man (1984), One Magic Christmas (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Wild at Heart (1990), The Straight Story (1999), The Green Mile (1999), The Man Who Cried (2000), Alpha Dog (2006), and Inland Empire (2006). He had rare lead roles in Paris, Texas (1984) and in Lucky (2017).
Alan Walbridge Ladd was an American actor and film producer. Ladd found success in film in the 1940s and early 1950s, particularly in films noir and Westerns. He was often paired with Veronica Lake in films noir, such as This Gun for Hire (1942), The Glass Key (1942), and The Blue Dahlia (1946). Whispering Smith (1948) was his first Western and color film, and Shane (1953) was noted for its contributions to the genre. Ladd also appeared in ten films with William Bendix.
Dean Jagger was an American film, stage, and television actor who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Henry King's Twelve O'Clock High (1949).
Virginia Mayo was an American actress and dancer. She was in a series of popular comedy films with Danny Kaye and was Warner Bros. biggest box-office draw in the late 1940s. She also co-starred in the 1946 Oscar-winning movie The Best Years of Our Lives.
Rory Calhoun was an American film and television actor. He starred in numerous Westerns in the 1950s and 1960s, and appeared in supporting roles in films such as How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).
The Rebel Rousers is a 1970 American independent outlaw biker film starring Cameron Mitchell, Jack Nicholson, Diane Ladd, Bruce Dern, and Harry Dean Stanton. Filmed in 1967, it did not receive a release until 1970 following the success of Easy Rider. It is one of several motorcycle gang films of the period to feature Nicholson, Dern and Stanton. The film was co-written, produced and directed by Martin B. Cohen in his only directorial effort.
The Charge of the Light Brigade is a 1936 American historical adventure film from Warner Bros., starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and produced by Samuel Bischoff, with Hal B. Wallis as the executive producer. The film's screenplay is by Michael Jacoby and Rowland Leigh, from a story by Michael Jacoby, and based on the 1854 poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The music score was composed by Max Steiner, his first for Warner Bros., and the cinematography was by Sol Polito. Scenes were shot at the following California locations: Lone Pine, Sherwood Lake, Lasky Mesa, Chatsworth, and Sonora. The Sierra Nevada mountains were used for the Khyber Pass scenes.
The 16th Golden Globe Awards, honoring the best in film for 1958 films, were held on March 5, 1959.
Albert Zugsmith was an American film producer, film director and screenwriter who specialized in low-budget exploitation films through the 1950s and 1960s.
Family Classics is a Chicago television series which began in 1962 when Frazier Thomas was added to another program at WGN-TV. Thomas not only hosted classic films, but also selected the titles and personally edited them to remove those scenes which he thought were not fit for family viewing. After Thomas' death in 1985, Roy Leonard took over the program. The series continued sporadically until its initial cancellation in 2000.
David Alan Ladd is an American film and television producer and former actor.
The Cabin in the Cotton is a 1932 American pre-Code drama film directed by Michael Curtiz. The screenplay by Paul Green is based on the novel of the same title by Harry Harrison Kroll.
The Man in the Net is a 1959 American drama film starring Alan Ladd and Carolyn Jones, and directed by Michael Curtiz. The supporting cast features Diane Brewster.
Joseph Petracca was an American novelist, short story writer, screenwriter, and television writer of Italian descent. Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Petracca moved to Los Angeles after the end of World War II and worked a series of full-time jobs, mainly as a steam press operator for a laundry and linen rental service, while he pursued his writing in the evenings and began raising a family with his wife Lena. In the early fifties Petracca began publishing fiction in the popular magazines of the day. Throughout the fifties Petracca wrote and collaborated on numerous films for such studios as 20th Century Fox and Paramount Pictures and in the sixties wrote episodes for such television shows as The Untouchables, Rawhide and Route 66. Petracca is survived by a daughter, Frances Petracca, a neuroscientist and AIDS researcher, and a son, novelist and university Lecturer Emeritus Michael Petracca.
Gold is Where You Find It is a 1938 American Western Technicolor film that gives a fictionalized account of a true event — an ecological disaster whose effects are still felt in California today. Directed by Michael Curtiz and starring George Brent, Olivia de Havilland, and Claude Rains, with a screenplay by Warren Duff and Robert Buckner based on a story by Clements Ripley, the film is set 30 years after the first California Gold Rush, when hydraulic mining sends floods of muddy sludge into the Sacramento Valley, destroying crops and homes, ruining land and water sources and killing people caught in their path. The film highlights the conflict between the mining companies and the wheat farmers by adding a romance between a mining engineer and the daughter of a prominent farmer. She is herself dedicated to the idea that fruit can be raised in the valley. This Technicolor feature film was released on February 12, 1938, by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Beyond Glory is a 1948 American drama film directed by John Farrow and starring Alan Ladd and Donna Reed. Written by William Wister Haines, Jonathan Latimer, and Charles Marquis Warren, the film is about a former soldier who thinks he may have caused the death of his commanding officer in Tunisia. After visiting the officer's widow, they fall in love, and she encourages him to attend the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Jaguar Productions was a short-lived production company established by actor Alan Ladd in the 1953. It produced several movies, most of them starring Ladd. The majority of the films were distributed through Warner Bros.
