Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 88 of 125

Harold Russell

Harold Russell was born in Nova Scotia, Canada in 1914. He moved with his family to the U.S. in 1933. He served in the Army in World War Two and lost both of his hands in conflict. William Wyler cast him in a film about returning soldiers “The Best Year of Our Lives” in 1946 and he won an Oscar for his affecting performance opposite Cathy O’Donnell. His only other film was “Inside Moves” in 1980. He died in 2002 at the age of 88.

His “Guardian” obituary:

Brave actor whose artificial hands helped him win two Oscars

Ronald Bergan

Wednesday 6 February 2002 02.46 GMT

The ironic title of William Wyler’s multiple Oscar-winning film, The Best Years Of Our Lives (1946), refers to the fact that many servicemen had “the best years of their lives” in wartime. The picture focused on three second world war veterans returning to civilian life with severe disabilities. One of them, Homer Parrish, a young sailor, has had both hands, lost in combat, replaced with articulated hooks. The fact that Homer was played by Harold Russell, whose own hands were amputated after a wartime injury – and replaced with steel hooks – added to the poignancy of the performance.

As Homer, the boyish-looking Russell, who has died aged 88, revealed remarkable dexterity – he lifts a cigarette from a pack with his prosthetics, strikes a match and lights his companions’ cigarettes. “Boy, you ought to see me open a bottle of beer,” he boasts.

But he expresses fear and uncertainty about returning to his girlfriend. “I can dial telephones, I can drive a car, I can even put nickels in the jukebox. But Wilma’s only a kid. She’s never seen anything like these hooks.” As his friend remarks, “The navy couldn’t train him to put his arms around his girl to stroke her hair.”

In the justly celebrated sequence of Homer’s homecoming, he stands with his hands by his sides as Wilma hugs him. After overcoming many obstacles, the couple get married; she clasping his right hook during the ceremony, he skillfully sliding the ring onto her finger.

The role won Russell two Oscars, one for best supporting actor and a special second for “bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures”, making him the only person in academy history to win two awards for the same role. In August 1992, he created controversy by auctioning the best supporting actor statuette for $60,500 to an anonymous buyer, claiming that he needed the money for his wife’s medical bills. In response to criticism, he said: “My wife’s health is much more important than sentimental reasons.”

Russell, who was born in Nova Scotia, but moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, was working in a food market when Pearl Harbour was bombed. “I made a rush to the recruiting office, not out of patriotism but because I thought of myself a failure,” he explained in his autobiography, Victory In My Hands (1949). He became a demolition expert, and it was while teaching recruits that a defective fuse detonated TNT that he was holding. After choosing steel hooks rather than plastic hands, he became so adept at using them that he featured in a US army training film, Diary Of A Sergeant, made for soldiers who had lost both hands.

Wyler saw the film and, although Russell had no lines, cast him in The Best Years of Our Lives. Russell, who was then attending business school at Boston University, got $250 a week, and $100 a week for living expenses. After the movie became a box-office hit, the producer Sam Goldwyn gave him a weekly bonus of $120 for a year, asking that he make promotional tours. On Wyler’s advice, he then went back to college, “because there wasn’t much call for a guy with no hands in the motion picture industry”.

After graduating, Russell started a public relations business, but spent most of his time campaigning for the disabled, his main message being, “It’s not what you lost, but what you have left and how you use it.” He would joke that he could pick up anything with his hands except “a dinner cheque”.

In 1961, President Kennedy appointed Russell as vice chairman of the presidential committee on employment of disabled people. In 1964, Lyndon Johnson made him chairman, and Richard Nixon reappointed him. He briefly returned to acting, in Inside Moves (1980), about disabled people who meet in a bar to help each other, and in Dogtown (1997), where he played a cigar-store owner and war veteran. He also appeared in the Vietnam war television series, China Beach.

He is survived by a son and a daughter.

· Harold Russell, actor and campaigner, born January 14 1914; died January 29 2002

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

Mary Ann Mobley was born in 1939 in Mississippi. She was Miss America of 1959. She starred opposite Elvis Presley in two movies in 1965, “Girl Happy” and “Harum Scarum”. Gay Collins was born in 1938 in Venice, California. His film debut was in 1962 in “The Pigeon that took Rome” with Charlton Heston and Elsa Martinelli. His other films include “Angel in my Pocket” and “Killer Fish”. He and Mary Ann Mobley had been married since 1967. He died in 2012 aged 74.

“MailOnline” obituary:

Legendary TV actor and presenter, Gary Collins, has died.

The star passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning at the age of 74, and his death was said to be from natural causes.

The tragedy took place just before 1am at Biloxi Regional Medical Center in the American state of Missouri, according Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove.

He married former Miss America Mary Ann Mobley in 1967 and the couple – who separated last year although remained wedded – had one child together, Mary Clancy Collins, Senior Vice President of Development for MGM Television.

He was previously married to Susan Peterson with whom he had two other children, Guy William Collins and Melissa ‘Mimi’ Collins.

The master of ceremonies for the Miss America Pageant from 1985-1989 is also known for having appeared on episodes of programmes such as Fantasy Island, Charlie’s Angels, Alice, The Love Boat and Police Story.

Collins also hosted the talk show Hour Magazine from 1980-1988.

IMDB entry on Mary Ann Mobley:

Born on February 17, 1939 in Biloxi, Mississippi, Mary Ann Mobley is one of the few Miss Americas to have true success as an actress or television personality (the others areBarnaby Jones (1973) beauty Lee Meriwether, television hostess Phyllis George, Consumer advocate/game show panelist Bess Myerson and Eraser (1996) heroineVanessa Williams). After serving as Miss America 1959, Mobley soon became a sought-after guest star in episodic television of the 1960s, appearing on many hit series of that era – Perry Mason (1957), Mission: Impossible (1966), The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964),The Virginian (1962), to name a few. Her most important contribution to 1960s popular culture, though, was appearing opposite Elvis Presley in two films – Harum Scarum (1965) and Girl Happy (1965). Her success in film led to a 1965 Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer, an award she shared with Mia Farrow and Celia Milius. She also starred in a number of other B-movies of the 1960s, such as Get Yourself a College Girl (1964) andFor Singles Only (1968).

Her television and film output decreased in the 1970s as she raised her daughter, Clancy Collins White, with her husband, Gary Collins. During that decade, her television appearances were mostly guest roles on series such as the iconic series Love, American Style (1969), Fantasy Island (1977), The Love Boat (1977) and the game show Match Game 73 (1973), on which she was a frequent panelist alongside such other famous wiseacres as Betty White, Brett Somers, Patti Deutsch and Charles Nelson Reilly. She and Collins also appeared a number of times performing death-defying high-wire acts and other athletic, outrageous stunts on the annual television event Circus of the Stars(1977).

In the 1980s, she starred as stepmother “Maggie McKinney” in the final season ofDiff’rent Strokes (1978), appeared in a recurring role as alcoholism counselor “Dr. Beth Everdene” on the prime-time soap opera Falcon Crest (1981) and continued to pop-up as a guest star on series like Hotel (1983) and Matt Houston (1982) and game shows likeThe Hollywood Squares (1965) and Body Language (1984). She also acted as her husband’s frequent guest co-host on his successful talk shows Hour Magazine (1980) andThe Home Show (1988), as well as on installments of the Miss America Pageant. In the 1990s, she made guest appearances on the sitcoms Designing Women (1986), Hearts Afire (1992), Hardball (1994) and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1996). She and Collins were also hosts of an oft-run late 1990s television infomercial for “SelectComfort”, a specialty bed product. Also during the 1990s, she toured in the popular play, “Love Letters”, with her husband, and performed a cabaret act at the Cinegrill in Hollywood.

Mary Ann and other “Match Game”/”Hollywood Squares” regulars of the 1970s and 1980s (such as Charo, Nipsey Russell, Paul Lynde and Jo Anne Worley) were riotously spoofed on Saturday Night Live (1975) in a 2002 game show sketch called “Super Buzzers” withTina Fey playing Mary Ann. Mary Ann and her husband soon got a chance to demonstrate their own good humor, appearing as themselves in a satiric infomercial parody on the Showtime series Dead Like Me (2003) in 2003 (the fake infomercial was for a no-effort bodytoning contraption – which spontaneously com-busts!).

– IMDb Mini Biography By: blackie-

June Haver was born in 1926 in Rock Island, Illinois. She made her movie debut in the delightful “Home in Indiana” in 1944. Her other films included “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”, “The Dolly Sisters” with Betty Grable and “Look for the Silver Lining”. Disillusioned with Hollywood in 1953 she entered a convent intending to become a nun. However she left after some months. She did not return to acting but after a few years she married actor Fred MacMurray. She died in 2005.

“Guardian” obituary by Ronald Bergan:

Oh, You Beautiful Doll was the pre-feminist song and film title that best described the pretty, dimpled, petite (5ft 2in) blonde June Haver, who has died aged 79. Haver was in the long line of 20th Century Fox blondes: she had a pleasant singing voice and could keep up with the fancy steps of Gene Nelson, Dan Dailey and Ray Bolger. At one time, she was dubbed “Hollywood’s sweetest star”, and was known to be of such a sunny disposition that her friends asked her to “cheer down” on occasions.

She was also perfectly in tune with the rather bland, escapist, Technicolor 1940s Fox musicals. There was much more drama in her life than in any of her films.

Born Beverly Jean Stovenour in Rock Island, Illinois, she took “Haver” from her stepfather. Her typical stage mother had her performing at six. Five years later she had her own radio show, at 13 she was singing with big bands.

After moving to California with her mother, Haver debuted in four musical shorts at Universal, one of which, Trumpet Serenade (1942) was with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra. Then Fox offered her a contract. Her first feature appearance was as a hat-check girl in Busby Berkeley’s kitschy Alice Faye musical The Gang’s All Here (1943). She was then cast with two other newcomers, Jeanne Crain and Lon McCallister (obituary, July 9) in Home In Indiana (1944), losing out to Jeanne for Lon’s affections, though he seemed more interested in horses than girls.

Unable to coax Alice Faye out of retirement, Fox gave Haver, only 19, the role of Betty Grable’s younger sister in The Dolly Sisters (1945), a fictionalised account of the turn-of-the-century vaudeville siblings. Although the original duo were brunettes, Fox offered the public two blondes for the price of one. Less brassy than Grable, who uncharacteristically clashed offscreen with her younger rival, Haver went on to replay the Grable roles of a few years earlier such as The Daughter Of Rosie O’Grady (1950), a semi-sequel to Sweet Rosie O’Grady (1943).

Haver also starred in several fanciful biopics, including Irish Eyes Are Smiling (1944), I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now (1946) and Oh, You Beautiful Doll (1949), and as Broadway star Marilyn Miller in Look For The Silver Lining (1949), at Warner Bros. In all of them, she was as enchanting as the material allowed.

In 1947 Haver married trumpeter Jimmy Zito, whom she had met when he was in Ted Fio Rio’s band seven years earlier. She later called the marriage “the biggest mistake of my life”, and they separated after three months, getting divorced the following year. It was particularly traumatic as she had recently converted to Catholicism. But she picked up her film career, continuing into the 1950s with I’ll Get By (1950) and The Girl Next Door (1953), two other apt Haver titles.

After her divorce, Haver planned to marry a dentist, John Duzik, but he died of haemophilia. A few years later, she announced she was retiring – to become a nun. This decision coincided with the more explicit scripts coming into Hollywood, as well as her poor romantic luck. She was a novice at Sisters of Charity convent in Kansas for just seven months, citing “health reasons” as she quit, to take up interior decoration.

In 1954, she met the recently widowed Fred MacMurray, with whom she had appeared in Where Do We Go From Here? 10 years earlier. They married and adopted twin girls, who survive her. The marriage lasted until MacMurray’s death in 1991.

· June Haver (Beverly Jean Stovenour), actor, born June 10 1926; died July 4 2005

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

In her heyday June Allyson seemed just about the nicest thing on two legs.

June Allyson was born in 1917 in The Bronx, New York. She starred in many MGM musicals during the 1940’s including “Thousands Cheer”, “Music for Millions, Good News” and “Words and Music”. She also acted in dramas such as “The Three Musketeers” and “Little Women”.

Her career highpoint was opposite James Stewart in “The Glenn Miller Story” in 1953. She was long married to Dick Powell. June Allyson died in 2006 at the age of 88.

June Allyson obituary in “The Guardian” in 2006.

Hollywood star June Allyson, who has died aged 88, was the screen embodiment of sweetness and light, whether enlivening MGM movies in the 1940s with her sunny personality or playing the faithful, lip-quivering wife in the 1950s. In a less cynical age than today, audiences found her irresistible, particularly when she was teamed up as James Stewart’s wife, patiently waiting for him to return home: in The Stratton Story (1949), The Glenn Miller Story (1954) and Strategic Air Command (1955).

When Allyson was cast against type – as, for example, José Ferrer’s shrewish wife in The Shrike (1955) – 90% of the audience at a preview wrote on their cards that they would never accept her in a wicked role.

As a result, the film ending was re-shot with the character seeing the error of her ways, though it was not enough to appease the fans and the film flopped. After that she returned to more exemplary uxorial roles.

In her first three musicals, Allyson had to be content with speciality numbers, among them In a Little Spanish Town, sung with Gloria DeHaven in Thousands Cheer (1943), and Treat Me Rough, in Girl Crazy (1943), which also involved violently throwing Mickey Rooney around. The following year, she got her first top billing, in Two Girls and a Sailor (with DeHaven and Van Johnson), the movie that established her girl-next-door persona and gave her a historic jazz number, Young Man with a Horn, with trumpeter Harry James.

Allyson was born Ella Geisman in the Bronx, New York, the daughter of a building superintendent. Because of a bad fall at the age of eight, she was forced to wear a back brace for four years. She then took up swimming and dancing lessons to strengthen her limbs, and was soon good enough to enter dance competitions. “I used to cut school to go and see Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers,” she recalled. “I would brag that I could dance as well as them, so when an ad appeared in the papers for dancers, my friends dared me to audition.” Years later she missed her chance to star opposite Astaire in Royal Wedding (1951) because she was pregnant.

While still a teenager Allyson got work in the chorus of nightclub shows, on Broadway and in a few short films, the first of which was Swing for Sale (1937). In 1940 she understudied Betty Hutton in Two for the Show. When Hutton contracted measles, Allyson took over for a few performances and was seen by producer George Abbott, who put her in Best Foot Forward, which earned her a part in the 1943 movie version and an MGM contract.

This was followed by Music for Millions (1945) and Two Sisters from Boston (1946), in both of which she played the responsible older sister to Margaret O’Brien and Kathryn Grayson, respectively. She made notable guest appearances in two biopics, singing the Jerome Kern title song of Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), and Rogers and Hart’s Thou Swell, dwarfed between the rangy Blackburn twins in Words and Music (1947). By far her best role in a musical – and possibly her best film – was as a college girl in Charles Walters’ campus caper Good News (1947), teaching Peter Lawford in The French Lesson and smiling through the dance finale, The Varsity Drag. She was also effective in such non-musicals as High Barbaree (1947), opposite Van Johnson, and as Constance to Gene Kelly’s D’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (1948).

Allyson admitted to liking Louis B Mayer (a rare claim) because “my own father died when I was six months old, and I looked on him as a father”. None the less, in 1949, when she told him she was going to marry Dick Powell, a twice-divorced man 13 years her senior, Mayer threatened to suspend her, a position he moderated only when Allyson asked him to give her away at the wedding. In spite of that he would not loan her out to play the title role in All About Eve (1950) at 20th Century Fox.

Allyson co-starred with her new husband twice in 1950, in The Reformer and the Redhead and Right Cross, neither of which provided as many sparks as her work with James Stewart. After Strategic Air Command she looked up at the sky again in The McConnell Story (1955), as husband Alan Ladd tested jets, and exuded wifely support to Cornel Wilde in A Woman’s World (1954) and William Holden in Executive Suite (1954).

Curiously, Allyson appeared in more remakes than any other star in cinema history, and inevitably suffered by comparison with those who previously took the roles. Exceptions could be made for Good News, in the Bessie Love part, and in The Opposite Sex (1955), the musical remake of The Women, in which she was less anaemic than Norma Shearer. She was a spunky Jo in Little Women (1949); the runaway heiress in You Can’t Run Away from It (1956), a lame musical directed by Powell; the rich girl falling for her butler in My Man Godfrey (1957); and an American tourist involved in a doomed affair in Munich in the soppy Interlude (1957). But although she gave a good account of herself in all of them, she could not obliterate the memory of Katharine Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Carole Lombard and Irene Dunne.

During their 18-year marriage Allyson and Powell had several public breakups, but were reconciled before his death from cancer in 1963. Allyson soon remarried, though it lasted barely a year. Her third marriage, in 1976 to dentist David Ashrow, lasted until her death.

Nine years after retiring in 1963, she returned to the screen in They Only Kill Their Masters, a whodunit in which she delighted in playing a bitter murderess, the sort of role she would never have been allowed to take on in her younger days. She appeared in only one other film, Blackout (1978), as a woman terrorised by criminals during a power failure in New York.

Visiting England in 1985 to plug the reissue of The Glenn Miller Story, Allyson looked almost the same as in those MGM musicals. When asked why she gave up show business, she said that the only roles she was being offered were as psychologically disturbed older women wanting younger men. She is survived by her husband, her son and her daughter.

· June Allyson (Eleanor Geisman), actor, born October 7 1917; died July 8 2006

This article can also be accessed online here.

Harold Gould was born in 1923 in Schenectady, New York. He was originally a teacher before becoming an actor. His film debut came in “Two for the Seesaw” with Robert Mitchum and Shirley MacLaine. His other films include “The Yellow Canary” with Pat Boone, “The Satan Bug” with George Maharis and Anne Francis and “Harper”. His biggest success though was on television where he played the father of Valer Harper in the classic TV series “Rhoda”. Harold Gould died in 2010.

Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:

Harold Gould, who has died aged 86, was categorised as a character actor, usually a euphemism for an actor who did not quite make it to the top. But it would be more accurate to describe him as a supporting actor who made invaluable contributions to innumerable television shows and dozens of films. The elegantly dressed Gould, with his grey hair and natty moustache, “supported” many a star, often in the roles of kindly uncles, fathers and husbands as well as doctors, psychiatrists, lawyers, rabbis and teachers.

The five times Emmy-nominated Gould was probably most widely known as Martin Morgenstern, Valerie Harper’s handsome smoothie father in Rhoda (1974-78), and the college professor widower who courts Rose (Betty White) in the sitcom The Golden Girls (1985-92). In the latter, Gould played Miles Webber, a mild-mannered man who turns out to have been an accountant for the mafia, much to Rose’s surprise and excitement.

In 20 episodes of Rhoda, Gould had to put up with the kvetching of Rhoda’s pushy mother Ida (Nancy Walker), while lending his daughter a sympathetic ear. In one episode, The Marty Morgan Story (1976), he touchingly confesses to Rhoda that he no longer loves Ida, and retains a secret ambition to be a bar-room pianist.

From a very early age, Gould’s ambition was to become an actor. He was born Harold Vernon Goldstein in Schenectady, New York. After serving in France as a gunner in the army during the second world war, Gould studied theatre, gaining a PhD from Cornell University, where he taught drama, speech and literature from 1948 to 1953.

After a few more years of teaching drama, Gould decided, in his late 30s, to practise what he taught and take up acting. “All of my colleagues would say: ‘What are you doing? You’re crazy to leave teaching.’ I had to take the leap.”

After various roles off-Broadway, he started to get work on television, the medium which was to be his mainstay. From 1961, Gould popped up in almost every TV series one could name, but he had to wait 11 years before he was given a featured role. This was the first appearance of Martin Morgenstern, in The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1972), of which Rhoda was one of the spin-offs.

At this time Gould also appeared in a pilot for the TV series Happy Days, playing the role of Richie Cunningham’s father, Howard. A theatrical commitment prevented Gould from resuming the role when the series was commissioned. Tom Bosley was hired to play the character in the series, which ran from 1974 to 1984.

Instead, Gould appeared in dozens of TV movies, notably, in 1980, The Scarlett O’Hara War and The Silent Lovers, in both of which he played the MGM boss Louis B Mayer. In 1986, in Mrs Delafield Wants to Marry, he played a Jewish doctor whom Katharine Hepburn wishes to marry despite her children’s objections. A splendid chemistry was created between the two leads, with Gould doing more than just supporting his legendary co-star.

At the same time, Gould took supporting roles in several features, the most notable being the Oscar-winner The Sting (1973), starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford, in which he played a conman-gambler called Kid Twist. He makes a superb entrance into a gambling den, where his beautifully cut suit, homburg hat and grey kid gloves are strikingly contrasted with the other customers. At the finale, Gould is in on a great scam to deprive Robert Shaw’s Doyle Lonnegan of half a million dollars at a phony betting shop.

Among many comic cameos, Gould played a jealous lover who challenges a cowardly Woody Allen to a duel in the latter’s Love and Death (1975). Gould: “If you so much as come near the countess, I’ll see that you never see the light of day again.” Allen: “If a man said that to me, I’d break his neck.” Gould: “I am a man.” Allen: “Well, I mean a much shorter man.” The following year he played Engulf, a movie executive of Engulf and Devour (a sly reference to Gulf and Western), in Mel Brooks’s Silent Movie.

In his 70s, Gould appeared in films as different as the prison drama Killer: A Journal of Murder (1996) and the Robin Williams comedy Patch Adams (1998). In recent years, he gracefully moved into grandfather roles in films such as Stuart Little (1999), The Master of Disguise (2002), Freaky Friday (2003) and Nobody’s Perfect (2004).

Gould is survived by his wife, Lea, whom he married in 1950, a daughter, Deborah, and two sons, Joshua and Lowell.

• Harold Gould (Harold Vernon Goldstein), actor, born 10 December 1923; died 11 September 2010

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

Ken Scott was born in 1928 in Brooklyn, New York. He made his movie debut in 1956 in “Three Brave Men”. His other films include “The Way to the Gold” with Jeffrey Hunter, “This Earth is Mine” and “Desire in the Dust”. He died in 1986.

Joanna Cassidy was born in 1945 in New Jersey. She was featured in the 1976 film “Stay Hungary” and went on star in “Blade Runner” in 1982, “Under Fire” and “The Fourth Protocol”.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

The very lovely, vivacious and smart-looking Joanna Cassidy was born in Camden, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Haddonfield, a borough located in Camden County. She grew up in a creative environment as the daughter and granddaughter of artists. At an early age she engaged in painting and sculpture and went on to major in art at Syracuse University in New York. During her time there she married Kennard C. Kobrin in 1964, a doctor in residency, and found work as a fashion model to help work his way to a degree. The couple eventually moved to San Francisco, where her husband set up a psychiatric practice; Joanna continued modeling and gave birth to a son and daughter. Following their divorce ten years later, she decided to move to Los Angeles in a bid for an acting career.

In between modeling chores and occasional commercial gigs, the reddish-haired beauty found minor, decorative work as an actress in such action fare as Steve McQueen‘s thrillerBullitt (1968), the Jason Robards drama Fools (1970), The Laughing Policeman (1973) starring Walter Matthau and The Outfit (1973) with Robert Duvall. Her first co-starring role came opposite George C. Scott in the offbeat comedy caper Bank Shot (1974).

Television became an important medium for her in the late 1970s, with guest parts on all the popular shows of the time, both comedic and dramatic, including Dallas (1978).Trapper John, M.D. (1979), Taxi (1978), Starsky and Hutch (1975), Charlie’s Angels(1976), Lou Grant (1977) and a recurring role on Falcon Crest (1981). A regular on the sketch/variety show Shields and Yarnell (1977), which showcased the popular mime couple, Joanna languished in three failed series attempts–The Roller Girls (1978), 240-Robert (1979) and The Family Tree (1983)–before hitting the jackpot with the sitcomBuffalo Bill (1983) opposite Dabney Coleman, in which she finally had the opportunity to demonstrate her flair for offbeat comedy. The show became that’s season’s critical darling, with Coleman playing a vain, sexist, obnoxious talk show host (a variation of his popular Nine to Five (1980) film character) and Joanna received a Golden Globe for her resourceful portrayal of Jo Jo White, the director of his show and romantic foil for Coleman, who stood toe-to-toe with his antics.

The 1980s also brought about positive, critical reception for Joanna on film as well, especially in a number of showy portrayals, notably her snake-dancing replicant in the futuristic sci-fi thriller Blade Runner (1982), her radio journalist involved with Nick Nolteand Ed Harris in the political drama Under Fire (1983) and her co-starring role in a wacky triangle with Bob Hoskins and a hyperkinetic hare in the highly ambitious part toon/part fantasy film Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988). Back on the TV front she was seen in recurring roles on L.A. Law (1986), Diagnosis Murder (1993), The District (2000) andBoston Legal (2004).

Since then Joanna has juggled a number of quality film and TV assignments, a definitive highlight being her Emmy-nominated recurring role as a quirky, capricious mother/psychiatrist in the cult cable series Six Feet Under (2001). More recently she has taken part in more controversial film work that contain stronger social themes such asAnthrax (2001), a Canadian political thriller whose storyline feeds on the fear of terrorism; The Virgin of Juarez (2006), which chronicled the murders of hundreds of Mexican women; and the gay-themed pictures Kiss the Bride (2007) and Anderson’s Cross(2010).

Off-camera Joanna is devoted to her art (painting, sculpting) and is a dedicated animal activist as well as golfer and antique collector. She presently resides in the Los Angeles area with her dogs.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Jessica Harper was born in 1949 in Chicago. Her film debut came in “Phantom of Paradise” in 1974. Other films include “Inserts”, “Love and Death”, “Suspira” with Joan Bennett and Alida Valli in 1977 and “Stardust Memories”. Her last film was “Minority Report” in 2002.

Attractive, bright-eyed, and talented leading lady with a winning smile and a soothingly placid quality. Harper’s early roles had her playing nice girls surrounded and eventually impinged on by corruption in several diverse genre films of the 1970s. She sparkled in Brian De Palma’s initially underrated rock musical “Phantom of the Paradise” (1974) as Phoenix, an aspiring recording artist who willingly sells out to become a star. After a small part in Woody Allen’s “Love and Death” (1975), Harper won positive notices for her performance in the largely reviled erotic period film “Inserts” (1975), as the girlfriend of a porno backer during 1930s Hollywood. She proved a hardy and resourceful heroine in Italian horror meister Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” (1976) as a new student at a very odd school for girls.

Harper began appearing in TV-movies and miniseries in the late-70s, notably in period pieces (“Little Women” NBC, 1979 and “Studs Lonigan” NBC, 1979). She continued to appear regularly in features through the early 80s in films including Allen’s “Stardust Memories” (1980), as one of his neurotic objects of desire, and “Pennies From Heaven” (1981), a surreal musical set during the Depression, as the unhappy wife of a brutish Steve Martin. “My Favorite Year” (1982) would be her last major film credit for over a decade. Harper received her widest exposure as first the girlfriend and subsequently the wife of comic Garry Shandling on “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” (1990). She continued to appear on TV periodically and returned to features with a small role in the underperforming Matt Dillon vehicle “Mr. Wonderful” (1993) and as Lukas Haas’ mother in “Boyz” (1996).

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

TCM Overview:

Richard Chamberlain. TCM Overview.

Richard Chamberlain was born in 1934 in Beverly Hills. He came to public attention as “Dr Kildare” in the very popular television series which ran from 1961 until 1966. His films include “The Sectre of the Purple Reef” in 1960, “A Thunder of Drums”, “Twilight of Honour”, “Joy in the Morning”, “Petulia”, “Lady Caroline Lamb” and “The Three Musketeers”.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Richard Chamberlain became THE leading heartthrob of early 1960s TV. As the impeccably handsome Dr. Kildare, the slim, butter-haired hunk with the near-perfect Ivy-League charm and smooth, intelligent demeanor, had the distaff fans fawning unwavering over him throughout the series’ run. While this would appear to be a dream situation for any new star, to Chamberlain it brought about a major, unsettling identity crisis.

Born George Richard Chamberlain in Beverly Hills on March 31, 1934, he was the second son of salesman Charles and homemaker Elsa Chamberlain. Richard experienced a profoundly unhappy childhood and did not enjoy school at all, making up for it somewhat by excelling in track and becoming a four-year letterman in high school and college.

He also developed a strong interest and enjoyment in acting while attending Pomona College. Losing an initial chance to sign up with Paramount Pictures, the studio later renewed interest. Complications arose when he had to serve his military obligation in Korea for 16 months.

Chamberlain headed for Hollywood soon after his discharge and, in just a couple of years, worked up a decent resumé with a number of visible guest spots on such popular series as Gunsmoke (1955) and Mr. Lucky (1959).

But it was the stardom of the medical series Dr. Kildare (1961) that garnered overnight female worship and he became a huge sweater-vested pin-up favorite. It also sparked a brief, modest singing career for the actor.

The attention Richard received was phenomenal. True to his “Prince Charming” type, he advanced into typically bland, soap-styled leads on film befitting said image, but crossover stardom proved to be elusive. The vehicles he appeared in, Twilight of Honor(1963) with Joey Heatherton and Joy in the Morning (1965) opposite Yvette Mimieux, did not bring him the screen fame foreseen. The public obviously saw the actor as nothing more than a TV commodity.

More interested in a reputation as a serious actor, Chamberlain took a huge risk and turned his back on Hollywood, devoting himself to the stage. In 1966 alone he appeared in such legit productions as “The Philadelphia Story” and “Private Lives,” and also showed off his vocal talents playing Tony in “West Side Story”. In December of that year a musical version of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” starring Richard and Mary Tyler Moore in the sparkling George Peppard/Audrey Hepburn roles was headed for Broadway. It flopped badly in previews, however, and closed after only four performances. Even today it is still deemed one of Broadway’s biggest musical disasters.

An important dramatic role in director Richard Lester‘s Petulia (1968) led Richard to England, where he stayed and dared to test his acting prowess on the classical stage. With it, his personal satisfaction over image and career improved. Bravura performances as “Hamlet” (1969) and “Richard II” (1971), as well as his triumph in “The Lady’s Not for Burning” (1972), won over the not-so-easy-to-impress British audiences.

And on the classier film front, he ably portrayed Octavius Caesar opposite Charlton Heston‘s Julius Caesar (1970) and Jason Robards‘ Brutus; composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in Ken Russell‘s grandiose The Music Lovers (1970) opposite Glenda Jackson; and Lord Byron alongside Sarah Miles_ in Lady Caroline Lamb (1972).

While none of these three films were critical favorites, they were instrumental in helping to reshape Chamberlain’s career as a serious, sturdy and reliable actor.

With his new image in place, Richard felt ready to face American audiences again. While he made a triumphant Broadway debut as Reverend Shannon in “The Night of the Iguana” (1975), he also enjoyed modest box-office popularity with the action-driven adventure movies The Three Musketeers (1973) as Aramis and a villainous role in The Towering Inferno (1974), and earned cult status for the Aussie film The Last Wave (1977).

On the television front, he became a TV idol all over again (on his own terms this time) as the “King of 80s Mini-Movies”. The epic storytelling of The Count of Monte-Cristo (1975), The Thorn Birds (1983) and Shogun (1980), all of which earned him Emmy nominations, placed Richard solidly on the quality star list. He won Golden Globe awards for his starring roles in the last two miniseries mentioned.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

3919903 Richard II – theatre poster for production at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles; (add.info.: Richard II – theatre poster for production at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles. Play by William Shakespeare, directed by Jonathan Miller. Poster features photograph of Richard Chamberlain in the starring role.).

In later years the actor devoted a great deal of his time to musical stage tours as Henry Higgins in “My Fair Lady”, Captain Von Trapp in “The Sound of Music” and Ebenezer Scrooge in “Scrooge: The Musical”.

Since then, he has accepted himself and shown to be quite a good sport in the process, appearing as gay characters in the film I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry (2007), and in TV episodes of Will & Grace (1998), Desperate Housewives (2004) and Brothers & Sisters (2006).

Enormously private and having moved to Hawaii to avoid the Hollywood glare, at age 69 finally “came out” with a tell-all biography entitled “Shattered Love,” in which he quite candidly discussed the anguish of hiding his homosexuality to protect his enduring matinée idol image.