Elia Kazan was a Greek-American film and theatre director, producer, screenwriter and actor, described by The New York Times as "one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway and Hollywood history".
Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. Known for her headstrong independence and spirited personality, Hepburn's career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned more than 60 years. She cultivated a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly played strong-willed, sophisticated women. Her work came in a range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and she received four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any performer. In 1999, Hepburn was named by the American Film Institute the greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema.
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American actor, known for his natural performing style and versatility. One of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, Tracy won two consecutive Academy Awards for Best Actor from nine nominations.
Henry Warren Beatty is an American actor, director, producer and screenwriter whose career spans over six decades. He has been nominated for 15 Academy Awards, including four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, three for Original Screenplay, and one for Adapted Screenplay – winning Best Director for Reds (1981). Beatty is the only person to have been nominated for acting in, directing, writing, and producing the same film, and he did so twice: first for Heaven Can Wait, and again with Reds.
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner is a 1967 American comedy-drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, and written by William Rose. It stars Spencer Tracy, Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn, and features Hepburn's niece Katharine Houghton.
Splendor in the Grass is a 1961 American Technicolor period drama film that tells a story of a teenage girl navigating her feelings of sexual repression, love, and heartbreak. Written by William Inge, who appears briefly as a Protestant clergyman and who won an Oscar for his screenplay, the film was directed by Elia Kazan and features a score by jazz composer David Amram.
East of Eden is a 1955 drama film, directed by Elia Kazan, and loosely based on the fourth and final part of the 1952 novel of the same name by John Steinbeck. It is about a wayward young man who, while seeking his own identity, vies for the affection of his deeply religious father against his favored brother, thus retelling the story of Cain and Abel.
Charles Goodnight, also known as Charlie Goodnight, was an American cattle rancher in the American West, perhaps the best known rancher in Texas. He is sometimes known as the "father of the Texas Panhandle." Essayist and historian J. Frank Dobie said that Goodnight "approached greatness more nearly than any other cowman of history." In 1955, he was inducted into the Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Conrad Michael Richter was an American novelist whose lyrical work is concerned largely with life on the American frontier in various periods. His novel The Town (1950), the last story of his trilogy The Awakening Land about the Ohio frontier, won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His novel The Waters of Kronos won the 1961 National Book Award for Fiction. Two collections of short stories were published posthumously during the 20th century, and several of his novels have been reissued during the 21st century by academic presses.
Earth and High Heaven was a 1944 novel by Gwethalyn Graham. It was the first Canadian novel to reach number one on The New York Times bestseller list and stayed on the list for 37 weeks, selling 125 000 copies in the United States that year.
The Unforgiven is a 1960 American romantic Western film directed by John Huston. Filmed in Durango, Mexico, it stars Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy, Charles Bickford and Lillian Gish. The story is based upon the 1957 novel by Alan Le May.
The Arrangement is a 1967 novel by Elia Kazan, narrated by a successful Greek-American advertising executive and magazine writer living in an affluent Los Angeles suburb who suffers a nervous breakdown due to the stress of the way in which he has lived his life – the "arrangement" of the title. In 1969 Kazan made it into a film. The Arrangement was a best-seller and garnered generally favorable reviews but it has been out of print since the 1980s.
Barbara Ann Loden was an American actress and director of film and theater. Richard Brody of The New Yorker described Loden as the "female counterpart to John Cassavetes".
The Sea of Grass is a 1947 Western drama film set in the American Southwest. It was directed by Elia Kazan and based on the 1936 novel of the same name by Conrad Richter. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, and Melvyn Douglas.
Peter Bernhard Kyne was an American novelist who published between 1904 and 1940. He was born and died in San Francisco, California. Many of his works were adapted into screenplays starting during the silent film era, particularly his first novel, The Three Godfathers, which was published in 1913 and proved to be a huge success. More than 100 films were adapted from his works between 1914 and 1952, many of the earliest without consent or compensation. Kyne also created the character of Cappy Ricks in a series of novels.
Gene Callahan was an American art director as well as set and production designer who contributed to over fifty films and more than a thousand TV episodes. He received nominations for the British Academy Film Award and four Oscars, including two wins.
Richard Sylbert was an American production designer and art director, primarily for feature films.
Ten North Frederick is a 1958 American drama film in CinemaScope written and directed by Philip Dunne and starring Gary Cooper. The screenplay is based on the 1955 novel of the same name by John O'Hara.
Arthur Eugene "Gene" Milford was an American film and television editor with about one hundred feature film credits. Among his most noted films are Lost Horizon, On the Waterfront, A Face in the Crowd, and Wait Until Dark.
Katharine Hepburn (1907–2003) and Spencer Tracy (1900–1967) were a legendary cinematic couple, both on- and off-screen. They starred in nine films together, and had an affair - an open secret in Hollywood - that lasted 26 years, ending only with Tracy's death.
