Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 76 of 125

Peter Graves

Peter Graves was born in 1926 in Minnesota. His older brother was the “Gunsmoke” star, James Arness. One of his first major film roles was in the World War Two drama “Stalag 17”. He starred in the very popular television series “Mission Impossible” and also starred in the 1980 cult classis “Airplane”. Peter Graves died in 2010.

Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:

Despite his long career as a serious actor in dozens of films and television shows, Peter Graves, who has died aged 83, might be most remembered for a role that lampooned his square-jawed, stolid screen persona. As the captain of a plane heading for disaster in the spoof movie Airplane! (1980), Graves got laughs by playing it as straight as his other roles. (Although his roles in a number of trashy, low-budget science fiction movies in the 1950s had produced unintentional laughs.)

Audiences around the world were also familiar with Graves as the tall, gruff, deep-voiced, silver-haired Jim Phelps, head of the IMF (Impossible Missions Force), an elite American espionage group, in the TV series Mission: Impossible (1967-73). He won a Golden Globe in the role in 1971.

The show famously opened with the words: “Your mission, Jim, should you decide to accept it, is …” Following the briefing, Phelps was told: “As usual, should you or any member of your IM Force be captured or killed, the secretary will disavow any knowledge of your existence. This tape will self-destruct in five seconds. Good luck, Jim.” After the puff of smoke cleared, Phelps always accepted the mission, usually involving some un-American foreign power.

Graves was very proud of – and proprietorial towards – Phelps, and when the big-screen version of Mission: Impossible (1996), starring Tom Cruise, was released, Graves was aggrieved that the character played by Jon Voight used the same name. “I am sorry that they chose to call him Phelps. They could have solved that very easily by either having me in a scene in the very beginning, or reading a telegram from me saying, ‘Hey boys, I’m retired, gone to Hawaii. Thank you, goodbye, you take over now’,” Graves remarked.

Born Peter Aurness in Minnesota, of Norwegian-German stock, he was the son of Rolf Cirkler Aurness, a businessman, and Ruth Duesler, a journalist. His older brother, the actor James Arness, also made his name in a TV series (Gunsmoke). After two years in the US air force, Graves studied drama at the University of Minnesota.

His first credited film roles were as a confused youngster in Rogue River (1951) and as Dane Clark’s blind brother in the western Fort Defiance (1951). In 1952, Graves featured in The Congregation, produced by the Protestant Film Commission, an evangelical organisation, and had the leading role in Red Planet Mars, a McCarthyite tract in the guise of a Christian science fiction film. Graves played a scientist who gets messages from Mars, which pretends to be a utopian society but is controlled by Soviet agents, setting out to destroy the freedom of the US. As a result, Christian revolutionaries overthrow the communist government in Russia.

Graves’s blond, rather bland good looks were brilliantly used by Billy Wilder in Stalag 17 (1953), revolving around a German informer masquerading as an American PoW. The director’s brother, W Lee Wilder, who churned out low-grade science fiction movies, then cast Graves in Killers from Space (1954) as a nuclear scientist captured by aliens (kitted out in hooded sweatshirts, mittens and eyes made out of ping-pong balls), who manages to save Earth from them.

In It Conquered the World (1956) and Beginning of the End (1957), Graves battled against a Venusian and giant (back-projected) grasshoppers. He then reverted to treachery in a series of B-westerns: War Paint (1953), The Yellow Tomahawk (1954), Robbers’ Roost (1955) and Canyon River (1956).

But, in 1955, Graves did manage to work in four excellent movies, though in minor roles. In Jacques Tourneur’s Wichita, he played Morgan Earp, brother of Wyatt (Joel McCrea), and he appeared as military men in John Ford’s The Long Gray Line and Otto Preminger’s The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell. He also had a small but key role in Charles Laughton’s haunting The Night of the Hunter. As Ben Harper, who shares a prison cell with a “fire and brimstone” preacher (Robert Mitchum), he talks in his sleep about the hidden $10,000 he has stolen from a bank, thus setting the evil preacher on the scent of the money.

In the 1960s, Graves’s stern face was seldom off the TV screen. He started the decade with 34 episodes of an Australian western series called Whiplash, in which he played an American, Christopher Cobb, who established the first stagecoach line in Australia in the 1850s. He continued mostly in TV westerns, and the odd film, until he hit the jackpot with Mission: Impossible.

Jim Abrahams, who wrote, directed and produced Airplane! with the Zucker brothers, David and Jerry, thought that Mission: Impossible “was just so stupid and was great to send up”. They had the wit to cast the straight-as-a-die Graves as Captain Oveur – much corny play is made of the character’s name and that of his co-pilot, Roger Murdock, such as “Roger, Roger” and “Over, Oveur.” Oveur is also at the helm with a young boy, Joey, whom he asks questions such as: “You ever seen a grown man naked?”; “Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?”; and “Have you ever been to a Turkish prison?”

It’s hard to believe that audiences ever took Graves seriously again, but they did and he returned to a new series of Mission: Impossible from 1988 to 1990. He also hosted more than 50 episodes (between 1994 and 2006) of Biography, in which he sounded like an authority on every subject, whether they were artists, politicians, generals or film stars.

From 1997 to 2007, Graves made a number of guest appearances as John “The Colonel” Camden, the grandfather in the squeaky-clean Christian family in the TV series 7th Heaven. A devout Christian himself, Graves is survived by Joan, his wife since 1950, and by three daughters.

• Peter Graves, actor, born 18 March 1926; died 14 March 2010

The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.

James Best was born in 1926 in Kentucky. He has appeared in many Westerns including “Winchester 73” in 1950 and “Kansas Raiders”. He is though perhaps best remembered for his part in the long running television series “Dukes of Hazzard”. He died in April 2015.

His “Independent” obituary:

longside the country soundtrack, cut-off jeans and car stunts that crowded the amiably silly TV series The Dukes of Hazzard (1979-85), a constant was the character actor James Best. His performance as the bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane, constantly confounded in his attempts to run in the Duke boys, was enjoyably over the top.

Round-faced, sometimes squinting, and with a distinctive Southern twang, Best achieved his greatest prominence as Rosco, but it was an atypical performance for him. In his years as a sturdy support, frequently in Westerns and often in uniform, he could be fiery, impassive and sometimes sinister, doing some of his best work in episodes of dramatic anthology series.

He was born in the Kentucky city of Powderly; one of nine children, his real name was Jewel Franklin Guy. His mother’s maiden name was Everly, and the Everly Brothers were his cousins. Following his mother’s death, and time spent in an orphanage, he was adopted by a couple from Indiana named Best. In the latter part of the Second World War, he enlisted in the US Army Air Corps, eventually becoming a military policeman, and developing an interest in acting via productions by the Special Services.

His stage debut, under the auspices of the military and while stationed in Germany, was as a drunk in My Sister Eileen. The director was Arthur Penn, who subsequently cast Best as a friend and fellow outlaw of Billy the Kid (Paul Newman) in The Left Handed Gun (1958), based on a play by Gore Vidal that Newman had previously performed on live TV. A contract with Universal followed, where he was unsurprisingly cast in Westerns, including Winchester ’73 (1950), starring a friend and mentor, James Stewart, and Seminole (1953) with fellow contractee Rock Hudson.

Leaving Universal, Best had top-billing in a low-budget sci-fi horror, The Killer Shrews (1959), in which the close-ups of the nominal creatures were actually hand puppets. More reputable, and uncompromising, was Raoul Walsh’s film of Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead (1958). He found a kindred spirit in Samuel Fuller, for whom he relived his wartime continental experiences in Verboten! (1959), later appearing in the abrasive director’s Shock Corridor (1963). Best thereafter concentrated on television, where many series still had southern or Midwest settings, especially the then proliferating Westerns.

Twice he played a would-be pop star on The Andy Griffith Show (1960 and 1961), rural Americana much loved in its homeland, but never shown in Britain. After supporting in three segments of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1958-61), he appeared in an eerie, well-remembered 1964 episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, bringing home a mysterious jar that horrifies and fascinates his fellow backwoods folks. Still in the supernatural anthology mode were three rural-themed segments of The Twilight Zone (1961-63), the first with Lee Marvin and the second involving Best awakening to find himself at his own funeral.

His first recurring role in a Western series was in Temple Houston (1963-64), as a horse thief who redeems himself by helping out the eponymous attorney (Jeffrey Hunter). When Jerry Lewis directed and played a (largely) straight part in the medical drama Ben Casey, he cast Best as a fellow doctor, then used him again the following year, with “Introducing” billing despite Best already being a familiar face, in his big screen comedy Three on a Couch (1966).

He was back in the saddle in 1963 and 1964 for Gunsmoke, before playing the title role of a racist outlaw in the episode “Charlie Noon” (1969). At the time of the first two episodes, the series’ supporting regulars included Burt Reynolds, with whom Best acted again in a TV movie, Run, Simon, Run (1970), made just before Reynolds’ elevation to the big screen.

The star subsequently called on Best again when he directed The End (1978), in which Best directed Reynolds’ acting scenes, and when he played the stuntman title character in Hooper (1978). Best worked on the script of the latter as well as appearing as part of Hooper’s coterie. Ode to Billy Joe (1976), derived from the Bobbie Gentry song, posited that the title character jumped off the bridge due to guilt over experimental sex with an older man, who was played by Best.

Sometimes spluttering a verbal tic that can be roughly transcribed as “gee-gee-goo-gee-got ’em now!”, a regular feature of his performances as Rosco were the verbal slanging matches with his equally dubious but slightly smarter superior – the bald, obese Boss Hogg. Boss was played by Sorrell Booke, with whom Best particularly enjoyed working, later averring that many of their exchanges were improvised.

The series was popular in Britain. It was shown on BBC1 between 1979 and 1986 at a time when the channel was particularly reliant on US imports, and originally aired at 9pm before shuttling between early evenings on Saturdays and Mondays, better to reach a young audience.

Best also taught an acting and film technique course at the University of Central Florida, where students ranged from Glen Campbell to, startlingly, Quentin Tarantino.

His wife, son, two daughters and three grandchildren survive him.

Gavin Gaughan

Jewel Franklin Guy (James Best), actor, director and teacher: born Powderly, Kentucky 26 July 1926; married 1986 Dorothy Collier (two daughters, one son); died Hickory, North Carolina 6 April 2015.

The above obituary can also be accessed online here.

Meg Tilly was born in California in 1960. She is the sister of actress Jennifer Tilly. Meg debuted on film in “The Big Chill” in 1983. Her other major movie credits include “Agnes of God” with Jane Fonda and Anne Bancroft in 1985, “Valmont” and “The Two Jakes”.

TCM Overview:

One of the most promising actresses of the 1980s, Academy Award-nominated actress Meg Tilly won the hearts and minds of critics with her sensitive portrayals in such films as “The Big Chill” (1983) and “Agnes of God” (1985). The younger sister of flamboyant actress Jennifer Tilly, Meg Tilly semi-retired from acting in the mid 1990s to focus on other creative endeavors; most notably, her writing. Tilly’s first novel, a well-received compilation of vignettes entitledSinging Songs, was published in 1994, followed by the tragically autobiographical, Gemma, in 2006.

Born in Long Beach, CA on Valentine’s Day, 1960, Meg Tilly (neé Margaret Chan) was the third of four children born to Chinese-American businessman, Harry Chan, and his schoolteacher wife, Patricia Tilly. Following her parents’ divorce when she was three, Tilly and her siblings moved to British Columbia, Canada, where they were raised by her mother and stepfather. Eager to escape a tumultuous and poverty-ridden life at home, Tilly began taking dance lessons at the age of 12. A highly gifted ballerina by her mid-teens, Tilly left home at age 16, returning to the States with the intention of becoming a professional dancer. In the mid-to-late seventies, Tilly joined the Connecticut Ballet Company and later toured with the international Throne Dance Theatre. Unfortunately, Tilly’s dancing career was cut short after a serious back injury in 1979.

Forced her to give up her dancing, the ever vigilant Tilly re-focused her attention to the craft of acting instead. In 1980, Tilly made her screen debut, ironically enough, as an auditioning dancer in the 1980 musical-drama, “Fame.” Though only a bit part, the role helped open doors to more work; most notably the movie, “Tex” (1982). Based on the novel by famed teen angst writer, S.E. Hinton, the Disney-produced coming-of-age drama starred Tilly and rising teen idol, Matt Dillon, in their first starring roles. Despite impressive performances all around, “Tex” died a lonely death at the box office.

Tilly’s belated stardom came a year later, however, with roles in two of the year’s most talked-about films. The first, and definitely least of the two, was “Psycho II” (1982), an ill-advised sequel to the 1960 Hitchcock masterpiece. The film opened to lukewarm reviews, but did well financially, spawning two further sequels. While many critics hated the movie, most were in uniform agreement about Tilly’s effective performance as Mary Loomis. Ironically enough, Tilly was allegedly nearly fired before the end of shooting due to backstage tensions with the star of the original Hitchcock thriller, Anthony Perkins.

Tilly’s more notable work that year was as the girlfriend of the deceased in Lawrence Kasdan’s ensemble classic, “The Big Chill” (1983). One of the most influential films of the decade, “The Big Chill” heavily influenced television writing and, in effect, spawned the modern genre known as “dramedy.” The story of seven college friends who reunite at the funeral of one of their own, “The Big Chill” starred a veritable who’s who of fresh-faced baby boomer actors – many of whom would go on to major stardom soon after; among them: Kevin Kline, Glenn Close, Tom Berenger, Mary Kay Place, Jeff Goldblum, and an uncredited Kevin Costner. Nominated for three Oscars, including Best Picture, “The Big Chill” gave Tilly’s career the critical boost it needed.

In 1985, Tilly won the coveted role of the title character in Norman Jewison’s gripping “Agnes of God.” Adapted from the prestigious John Pielmeier stage play of the same name, “Agnes” starred Jane Fonda, Anne Bancroft, and Tilly as the novitiate nun who claims to have been party to an immaculate conception. In the performance of her career, Tilly delivered a magnificent portrayal of a tormented young woman experiencing the ultimate crisis of faith. Nominated for three Academy Awards, “Agnes of God” earned Tilly glowing critical praise and a nod for Best Supporting Actress. Though she did not win the Oscar, Tilly did take home a Golden Globe Award for the role in 1986.

Tilly’s next most notable project was as the prudish Madame de Tourvel, in Milos Forman’s opulent period piece, “Valmont” (1989). Based on the classic 1782 French novel, “Les Liaisons dangereuses,” “Valmont” was the second adaptation of the book to be released within the same time period (The first, the Stephen Frears directed “Dangerous Liaisons,” which was released just one year prior). While “Valmont” earned mostly positive reviews, it was mainly significant for introducing Tilly to her future longtime beau, co-star Colin Firth. In 1990, Tilly gave birth to their only child, Will. The union between Tilly and Firth, however, did not last and the two went their separate ways in 1994. Tilly continued to land roles, including a part in Abel Ferrara’s remake “Body Snatchers,” where she excelled as a zombie. On TV, Tilly could be found on “Winnetka Road” (1994), a short-lived steamy serial set in the angst-filled suburb of Oak Bluff. Playing a sad-eyed married woman given to the kind of attractive despair that arouses the men around her, Tilly contributed to the series’ intelligent scripting when she penned the show’s fifth episode. Perhaps armed with a new-found confidence from her writings, in 1995, Tilly stunned Hollywood and her fans by announcing her retirement from acting. Apart from the occasional guest-starring role on television, Tilly remained more or less low-key into the new millennium.

As it turned out, Tilly was toiling away at the computer, writing her first novel, Singing Songs in 1994. The freshman effort disturbingly depicted an incest survivor’s progress. Although it took 12 years, Tilly returned to the spotlight with the publication of her second novel, Gemma. After reading the novel, it was not hard to see why. The story of a 12-year-old girl who is kidnapped and sexually abused, Gemma pulled no punches as a stark, harrowing tale. Narrated by the victim herself, the novel’s theme was, ironically, an empowering one of survival. Though Tilly initially claimedGemma was only a work of fiction, she eventually came clean during book promo rounds and confessed the novel was autobiographically-based.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Ruta Lee was born in 1932 in Montreal, Canada. Among her films are “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” in 1954, “Funny Face” with Audrey Hepburn in 1957 and “Witness for the Prosecution” with Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich. In 1995 she was featured in the wonderful “Funny Bones”.

IMDB entry:

Ruta Lee was born on May 30, 1935 in Montréal, Québec, Canada as Ruta Mary Kilmonis. She is an actress, known for Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Funny Face (1957). She has been married to Webster B. Lowe Jr. since February 13, 1976. Speaks Lithuanian fluently.

Lee is chairman of The Thalians, an organization for the treatment of mental health at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Debbie Reynolds is the president. Both have been actively involved in building this celebrity run organization for over 30 years.

She loves it when fans remember her Twilight Zone (1959) episode, Twilight Zone: A Short Drink from a Certain Fountain (1963).

She and her husband own several houses scattered across the US. In her acting travels, she stays at these different houses for varied periods of time. About her house-hopping travels she jokes, “I sleep around.”.

1957 Deb Star.

Received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on October 10, 2006 in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where she once worked as an usher and candy girl. Her friends Debbie Reynolds and Alex Trebek were in attendance.

Katharine Ross.

Katharine Ross was born in 1940 in Hollywood. In the 1960’s she had iconic roles in “The Graduate” with Dustin Hoffman and “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” with Paul Newman and Robert Redford in 1969. Her film appearances became intermittent from the mid-1970’s. She is married to actor Sam Elliott since 1984.

TCM overview:

A promising star of the mid-to-late 1960s, Katharine Ross first attracted attention as Anne Bancroft’s daughter in Mike Nichols’ “The Graduate” (1967). With her luxuriously long hair and delicate features, she perfectly embodied the dream girl image the role required.

Ross added impressive credits to her resume as the female lead in George Roy Hill’s blockbuster “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” (1969). As Etta Place, the woman in love with Redford’s Sundance Kid, she skillfully negotiated the film’s seriocomic tone.

She and Redford worked together in “Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here” (also 1969), Abraham Polonsky’s period drama about an American Indian (Robert Blake) who kidnaps his white lover (Ross) and is reluctantly pursued by the local sheriff (Redford). While her character was perhaps the least defined in the piece, Ross delivered a fine performance. avoiding cliche. While much of her subsequent film work was in sub-standard features, she gave strong performances in the modern whodunit “They Only Kill Their Masters” (1972) and the scary “The Stepford Wives” (1975).

Perhaps her most notable performance may have been her award-winning supporting turn as the hooker daughter of Jewish refugees in “Voyage of the Damned” (1976). She was paired with future husband Sam Elliott in the misfire “The Legacy” (1979), after which her big screen career seemed to peter out. More recently, Ross was cast as the overly proper, somewhat fragile aunt of a young girl whose mother has attempted suicide in “Home Before Dark” (1997).

After reprising one of her best feature roles in the above average TV-movie “Wanted: The Sundance Woman” (ABC, 1976), Ross accepted the regular role of the much married socialite Francesca Scott Colby Hamilton on the ABC primetime soap opera “The Colbys” (1985-87).

She has frequently worked on the small screen opposite her husband, notably as the second wife of a Houston plastic surgeon (Elliott) who may have been involved in the death of his first wife in “Murder in Texas” (NBC, 1981).

The pair have also starred together in the likable Western “Louis L’Amour’s ‘The Shadow Riders'” (CBS, 1982) and the biopic “Houston: The Legend of Texas” (CBS, 1986). Most recently, they co-wrote and co-starred in the 1991 TNT movie “Conagher”, based on another Louis L’Amour novel.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here

Don Burnett was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1929.His film career was based in the U.S. His movie debut was in 1955 in “Hell’s Horizon”. His other film credits include”Gaby”, “Untamed Youth”, “Tea and Sympathy” and “Jailhouse Rock”. He was married for a time to the lovely actress Gia Scala. Since 1971 he has been married to actress Barbara Anderson of “Ironside” fame.

IMDB entry:

Delivered the eulogy at the 1989 memorial service for his friend and Damon and Pythias(1962) (aka “Damon and Pythias”) co-star, Guy Williams. Married actress Gia Scala (whom he met while filming Don’t Go Near the Water (1957)) in 1957. They divorced in 1970. In 1971, he married actress Barbara Anderson who played the blonde cop on TV’s Ironside (1967) series. After his ex-wife Gia Scala committed suicide with a drug overdose in 1972, he attended the funeral with his parents but left quickly before being spotted by photographers. Later became a successful stockbroker. Appeared in Italian pictures. He starred as the legendary hero in Il trionfo di Robin Hood(1962) [The Triumph of Robin Hood] and later co-starred with actor and good friend Guy Williams in Damon and Pythias (1962) [Damon and Pythias] as Pythias. His actress/wife Gia was originally set for a co-starring role in the film but was replaced.

After several separations and reconciliations, he broke up with actress wife Gia Scala on grounds of incompatibility and divorced her in September of 1970.

Singer and actor Tommy Sands was born in Chicago in 1937. His films include “Mardi Gras” in 1958, “Babes in Toyland” with Annette Funicello and “Ensign Pulver” in 1964.

IMDB entry:

Always a country music fan, Tommy Sands’ mother gave him a guitar for Christmas when he was seven. He taught himself to play and, at age eight, got a job at radio station KWKH in Shreveport, Louisiana, performing twice a week. Later, he and his mother moved to Houston where, in 1951, he cut his first record for Freedom Records. By 1952,Tom Parker, Elvis Presley‘s manager, signed Sands with RCA Records, where he recorded seven forgettable songs between 1953 and 1955. In January of 1957, he landed the lead in Kraft Theatre: The Singin’ Idol (1957), an episode of Kraft Theatre (1947). A song he sang in that production, “Teenage Crush”, shot to #3 on the Billboard and Cashbox charts, and Sands’ career as a teen idol was off and running. He sang the Oscar-nominated song, “Friendly Persuasion”, at the 1957 Academy Award ceremonies and, the next year, played the lead in a thinly-disguised biography of his career, Sing Boy Sing(1958). Several years later, he appeared with his former father-in-law, Frank Sinatra (he had married Sinatra’s daughter Nancy Sinatra), in None But the Brave (1965). Sands later moved to Hawaii, where he had a nightclub and a clothing business. He sang in a rock festival in England in 1990.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: S. Salazar, Salazar@ix.netcom.com

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here:

Barbara Luna was born in New York City in 1939. She was a child actress on the Broadway stage and appeared as the daughter of Ezio Pinza in “South Pacific” in 1949. She made her film debut as Frank Sinatra’s love interest in “The Devil at 4 O’Clock” in 1961. Other films include “Five Weeks in a Balloon” and “Ship of Fools”. She has had an extensive career on television including guest starring roles on “Star Trek”, “Hawaii-5-0” and “Charlie’s Angels”.

IMDB entry:
Barbara Ann Luna was born on March 2, 1939 in Manhattan and virtually grew up on Broadway. Her Italian, Hungarian, Spanish, Portuguese and Filipino background has led her to portray a variety of roles. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II cast her in the Broadway hit musical “South Pacific”, as Ngana, which was spoken entirely in French. When she outgrew her sarong, Luna, as she prefers to be called, was cast again by Rodgers and Hammerstein in “The King and I”. When the show was closing after many years, Luna auditioned for the understudy role of Lotus Blossom in “Teahouse of the August Moon”. Not only was she hired, but she was given the starring role–which was spoken entirely in Japanese–in the first national touring company for three years. While she was appearing with “Teahouse” in Los Angeles, she was seen by producer/directorMervyn LeRoy, who cast her as Camille, a blind girl who was the love interest for Frank Sinatra in The Devil at 4 O’Clock (1961), also starring Spencer Tracy.

This led to other films, such as Firecreek (1968) with James Stewart and Henry Fonda,Ship of Fools (1965) with Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret and Oskar Werner, and the prison drama The Concrete Jungle (1982) portraying Cat, the queen bee of the prison. Her exotic beauty and timeless look, along with her talent, has afforded her the opportunity to have a lengthy television career, as well. She is remembered by Star Trek(1966) fans for her portrayal of Lt. Marlena Moreau in the all-time classic episode “Mirror, Mirror” from the original series. She has guest-starred on nearly 500 television series. Some of her favorites are Aaron Spelling productions such as Fantasy Island (1977). Other favorites are Dallas (1978), The Bill Cosby Show (1969), Hunter (1984), Mission: Impossible (1966) (and its 1988 reincarnation, Mission: Impossible (1988)), Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979), The Outer Limits (1963) and many others.

Luna continued to keep one foot on Broadway; in between film commitments, she appeared in a revival of “West Side Story” as Anita, at Lincoln Center in New York City. This was followed by the role of Morales in “A Chorus Line”, where she got to sing the beautiful Marvin Hamlisch tune, “What I Did For Love”. This inspired the multi-talented Luna to meet with Oscar nominee Marc Shaiman to have him write a nightclub act for her, and that he did: “An Evening with BarBara Luna”. A New York reviewer, after her first engagement, said, “Ms. Luna can take the cabaret scene by storm”. This review was noticed by agent Lee Solomon of the William Morris Agency office. He called and booked Luna to open for Bill Cosby at the Concord Hotel in the Catskills and Caesars Palace in Atlantic City, New Jersey. While she was singing at Freddies in New York City, she was offered a role in a soap opera.

After a six-month stint as Anna Ryder (a role she created) on Search for Tomorrow(1951), she was then offered a two-year contract to play Maria Roberts on One Life to Live (1968). This character very quickly became notorious and extremely popular as the “character everyone loved to hate”. Spelling then hired Luna for her to play Sydney Jacobs, a jewelry fence, on Sunset Beach (1997). Luna loves to travel, so she co-hosted “The Alpen Tour”, a television special for the Travel Channel sponsored by TWA airlines that was filmed throughout Europe. When she returned to Los Angeles, Luna performed her club act to sold-out crowds at Tom Rolla’s Gardenia Cabaret and the Cine-grill at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. Recently, Luna made her first trip to the Philippines to film a movie for Showtime, Noriega: God’s Favorite (2000), starring Bob Hoskins. Luna is a member of “The Thalians”, a charity foundation at Cedars-Sinai Hospital. She is an avid sports fan, loves playing golf, tennis and dancing on roller skates.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: A. Nonymous

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Mickey Hargitay

Mickey Hargitay was born in 1926 in Budapest, Hungary. He was an underground fighter during World War Two. He came to the U.S. after the end of the war. He won the “Mr Universe” bodybuilding title in 1955. Mae West used him in her nightclub act. His first major film role was “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter” in 1957. The film starred his future wife Jayne Mansfield. His other film credits include “The Love of Hercules” in 1960 and “Promises, Promises” in 1963. He died in Los Angeles in 2006. The actress Mariska Hargitay is the daughter of Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield.

Tom Vallance’s “Independent” obituary:

A champion body-builder, the Hungarian-born Mickey Hargitay won the Mr Universe title in 1955, and became one of the muscle-men backing Mae West in her renowned night-club act, but he is best remembered as the actor husband of Jayne Mansfield.

Mansfield was the buxom blonde who made a career out of parodying Marilyn Monroe, notably in the George Axelrod’s Broadway satire on Hollywood Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? The year after her sensational début in the play, she married Hargitay, who appeared with her in the film version.

The son of an acrobat, he was born Miklos Hargitay in Budapest in 1926. Raised as an athlete, he took part in his father’s stage act, and also became a fine soccer player and a champion speed-skater. After fighting with the resistance in the Second World War, he emigrated to the United States and settled in Indianapolis, working as a plumber and carpenter while attending gym and pursuing his body-building activities. He also performed an adagio act in night-clubs with his first wife, Mary Birge, from whom he was divorced in 1956.

He started competing in “body beautiful” competitions at the start of the Fifties, and won local events (Mr Indianapolis, Mr Eastern America) before becoming “Mr Universe”. His victory in the competition was described by Arnold Schwarzenegger as inspirational:

Body-building was dominated by American champions; there was no hope for anyone else.

That someone from central Europe became Mr Universe gave hope for someone like myself and others to dream about.

Hargitay is credited with stimulating the enormous interest in physical culture prevalent in the US of the Fifties. He became a pin-up in fitness magazines, and, shortly after he won the title, Hargitay’s photograph was noticed by the ageing, legendary vamp Mae West on the cover of Strength and Health magazine, and she asked him to join her troupe of muscle-men in her Las Vegas night-club act, The Mae West Revue.

The act, in which West was backed by a line of muscular young men clothed only in leopard-skin loincloths, provoked derision from many critics, but the public loved it. It went on to break attendance records at the Latin Quarter in New York, Variety commenting,

The femme ringsiders give blushing gasps of admiration to the muscle-men, while their paunchy

and/or anaemic escorts cringe before the displays of physical excellence.

Hargitay was spotted in the show by Jayne Mansfield, who, when asked what she would like to have, reputedly answered, “I’ll have a steak and the man on the left.” Their subsequent romance attracted publicity when Hargitay claimed that West had jealously taken away his lines of dialogue in the show, and a fist fight between Hargitay and one of West’s other muscle-men ensued. Hargitay and Mansfield were married in 1958, lived in a Beverly Hills mansion with a heart-shaped swimming pool and 13 bathrooms, and had three children before divorcing in 1964.

The couple also appeared in four films together, notably the sparkling screen version of Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1957), substantially rewritten by the director Frank Tashlin, in which Hargitay was Mansfield’s boyfriend, a television star of jungle adventures. When Mansfield’s career was fading, they appeared in less distinguished films, including a witless comedy about wife-swapping on a cruise, Promises! Promises! (1963). Several films that they made in Italy included two in which they appeared together, The Loves of Hercules (1960) and Primitive Love (1966), while Hargitay alone starred as the sadistic owner of a castle complete with torture chamber in Bloody Pit of Horror (1965), supposedly based on the writings of the Marquis de Sade. Hargitay made over a dozen more films – westerns and horror movies – in Italy until 1973.

Mansfield died in a car crash in 1967, and in 1980 the couple were the subject of a television movie, The Jayne Mansfield Story (1980), with Loni Anderson as Mansfield and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Hargitay. Now Governor of California, Schwarzenegger said this week:

Mickey was such an inspiration and always had such a positive attitude. He was a role model of mine for being a successful immigrant who came to this country and pursued his dreams.

In recent years Hargitay had a new career in real estate. His actress daughter Mariska received an Emmy Award last month for her recurring role as Detective Olivia Benson in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit, and in 2003 Hargitay acted with her in an episode of the show.

“I enjoyed my career,” he recently said. “I never wanted to be any more than what I was, and I had fun doing it.”

Tom Vallance

The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

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Mickey Hargitay

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