Gregory Harrison was born in California in 1950. He is best known for two iconic television series “North Shore” and “Trapper John M.D.”. In 1996he starred with Eric Roberts in “It’s My Party”.
TCM overview:
Handsome, likable leading man, almost exclusively on TV, best known as the playful Dr. G. Alonzo ‘Gonzo’ Gates on the long-running dramatic series, “Trapper John, M.D.” Besides trying his hand at several other series, the athletic, curly-haired Harrison has also kept busy in many “Battles of the Network Stars”, TV-movies and miniseries, including “Centennial” (1978-79), “For Ladies Only” (1981, as a male stripper), “Picnic” (1986) and “Breaking the Silence” (1992). He has also played leading roles in such feature films as “Razorback” (1984), “Dangerous Pursuit” (1990) and “It’s My Party” (1996). In 1997, he made his Broadway musical debut as the disreputable emcee of a marathon dance in the Kander and Ebb musical “Steel Pier”.
Michael Ontkean was born in 1946 in Vancouver. He is best known for his film performances in “Slap Shot” with Paul Newman in 1977, “Making Love” in 1982 and for the cult television series “Twin Peaks”.
TCM Overview:
A former child actor with the National Shakespeare Festival Ontkean first came to prominence in the TV series “The Rookies” (ABC, 1972-74).
He has appeared in several films, notably opposite Paul Newman in “Slap Shot” (1977) and in the tame homosexual love story “Making Love” (1982), which reunited him with his TV wife Kate Jackson.
He is best known to contemporary audiences as straight-arrow police chief Harry S. Truman in David Lynch’s TV soap-opera-with-a-twist, “Twin Peaks” (1990). He reprised the role in Lynch’s 1992 feature “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me”.
Ontkean also has appeared in many TV movies including opposite Jodie Foster in the WWII thriller “The Blood of Others” (HBO, 1984) and memorably as an accused murderer in “In a Child’s Name” (CBS, 1991).
Michael Ontkean. Wikipedia.
Michael Ontkean is a retired Canadian actor. Born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Ontkean relocated to the United States to attend the University of New Hampshire on a hockey scholarship before pursuing a career in acting in the early 1970s.
Ontkean was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, the son of Muriel (néeCooper), an actress, and Leonard Ontkean, a boxer and actor. He was a child actor in Vancouver, appearing on the Canadian television series Hudson’s Bay (1959). His family later relocated to Toronto, where he attended St. Michael’s Choir School and Holy Rosary Catholic School before attending St. Michael’s College School. He grew up playing hockey and he earned a hockey scholarship to the University of New Hampshire, a Division I program playing in the ECAC. In his three years on the varsity program, Ontkean scored 63 goals and 111 points in 85 games played. He led the team in goal scoring his junior year with 30 goals, and was second behind fellow Canadian Louis Frigon his senior year.
Ontkean began in Hollywood by guest starring in The Partridge Family in 1971, and he was a television guest player on such shows as Ironside and Longstreet, but his break was in the ABC series The Rookies (1972–1976),[1] in which he played Officer Willie Gillis for the first two seasons.[citation needed] Ontkean’s hockey skill played a large role in his landing the role of Ned Braden in Slap Shot (1977),[1] as he performed all of his on-ice shots himself. In 1979, he appeared in the first episode of Tales of the Unexpected.
Making Love (1982) is about a married man who discovers his homosexuality. Ontkean was not the director’s first choice for the film: Arthur Hiller had previously approached Tom Berenger, Michael Douglas, Harrison Ford, William Hurt and Peter Strauss to play the lead, before finally approaching Ontkean. According to Hiller, the reaction of most actors was to tell him not to even consider them for the role. The film reunited Ontkean with Kate Jackson; the two had previously co-starred together in The Rookies.
Ontkean had a recurring role on Fox’s short-lived series North Shore in 2004, and also appeared in the 2008 comedy TV show Sophie. He was featured in the 2011 film The Descendants, which was his last role before he decided to retire from acting.
Ontkean was approached to reprise his role as Sheriff Truman for the 2017 revival of Twin Peaks. At first, Ontkean was excited about returning to the role, and enlisted Twin Peaks authority Brad Dukes to help him find the jacket which his character once wore on the show. Dukes located a suitable replica, bought it and sent it to Ontkean.
However, in 2015, Ontkean officially dropped out of the Twin Peaks revival, for reasons which were never made public. Dukes recalled: “We last spoke in August and he informed me he wasn’t going to Washington after all. I told him I was heartbroken to hear that. Aside from being heartbroken, I am puzzled. Twin Peaks is not Twin Peaks without Michael Ontkean as Sheriff Harry S. Truman.”
Ontkean’s role was replaced by Robert Forster, playing Sheriff Truman’s brother Frank.
He is married to Jamie Smith Jackson, an actress and design director and owner of Jamie Jackson Design, and they reside in Hawaii. Together they have two daughters, Jenna Millman and Sadie Sapphire Ontkean.
Peter Coyote was born in 1941 in New York City. He started his career with the San Francisco Mime Troupe. He has become one of the most popular character actors on American film. His movies include “Souther Comfort”, “E.T.”, “Cross Creek” , “Jagged Edge”, and “Erin Brockovich”.
TCM Overview:
A handsome actor who has made a career playing dark, seductive, often intellectually complex characters, Peter Coyote also has leant his distinctive voice–which sounds as if it has been delicately scratched with sand–as narrator of numerous documentary programs. As a leading man and screen villain, Coyote is best recalled as the object of the competition between Shelley Long and Bette Midler in “Outrageous Fortune” (1987) and as the emotionally abusive expatriate in Roman Polanski’s “Bitter Moon” (1994), a role considered by some to be based on Polanski himself.
Peter Coyote
A self-styled nonconformist who has eschewed the commercial, Coyote (born Peter Cohon) has had three bouts with hepatitis brought on by the intravenous drug use he has conquered. Born in New York and raised in suburban New Jersey and on his family’s Pennsylvania farm, he moved to San Francisco in 1963 to attend college, but dropped out of the Masters Degree writing program to pursue work with a radical mime group and in the theater. Coyote had his first taste of show business for real in 1967 when he directed “The Minstrel Show” with Dick Gregory. The show originated in San Francisco, toured the USA and eventually played Off-Broadway where it earned an OBIE Award. Despite this flush of success, Coyote dropped out of both show business and urban life for a 10-year period, during which he traveled cross-country, supporting himself by killing birds and selling their feathers. He also assisted his mother in the operation of the family farm.
Peter Coyote
After kicking his drug habit and adopting Zen Buddhism, Coyote returned to acting in 1975 with Paul Sills’ San Francisco production of “Story Theatre”. He continued to act onstage and was appointed by then-governor Jerry Brown to the California Council for the Arts. Within a year he was named co-chair and fought hard to raise its budget from $1 million to $13 million. Coyote finally broke into films with a bit part in “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” (1978), but it was not until 1982 that he had a part of note–playing the scientist, Keys, in Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. The Extraterrestrial”. He was then in demand as a leading man in Hollywood, but seemed awkward opposite Mary Steenburgen in “Cross Creek” (1983). Coyote hit a new stride playing the tenacious prosecutor in “Jagged Edge” (1985) and finally seemed to have found his screen persona, that of the antagonist who may be right. He had such a role alongside Dustin Hoffman and Sharon Stone in Barry Levinson’s “Sphere” (1998), played against Robin Williams in the dramedy “Patch Adams” (1998) and opposite Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas in “Random Hearts” (1999).
Coyote first began appearing in TV-movies and miniseries with “Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story” (NBC, 1980), but found better roles as a bizarre, murderous teacher in “Ech s of the Darkness” (CBS, 1987) and as Buffalo Bill Cody in “Buffalo Girls” (CBS, 1995). He played against type as the almost milquetoast husband married to manipulative psychotic Ann-Margret in “Seduced By Madness: The Diane Borchardt Story” (NBC, 1996). Coyote began doing narration and voice work in the 80s, often for projects with adventure, outdoor, wildlife, or Western themes, like the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC specials “The Grizzlies” (PBS, 1987) and “African Odyssey” (PBS, 1989). An accomplished writer, Coyote had his short fiction “Carla’s Story” published in the award-winning “Pushcart Prize” literary anthology in 1993 and has posted other chapters of his work-in-progress, “The Freefall Chronicles”, on the Internet at www.diggers.org.
Coyote developed a lucrative side-career as a voiceover artist for many commercials and a narrator for several documentaries. Perhaps his best-known voice work was as the official television announcer for the Academy Awards telecast. But Coyote continued to appear in visible roles in major motion pictures, including “Erin Brokovich” (2002). He was very effective as Mandy Moore’s overprotective father in the teen sleeper hit “A Walk to Remember” (2002) and was recruited to play Rebecca Romijn-Stamos’ ideal husband in Brian De Palma’s neo-noir “Femme Fatale” (2002). After playing the father of a dancer (Larisa Oleynik) who wants to attend Julliard despite having cancer in “A Time for Dancing”(2002), Coyote co-starred in the made-for-TV, “Phenomenon II” (ABC, 2003), the sequel to the feature film starring John Travolta. In “Northfork” (2003), the enchanting and mythic drama from the Polish brothers, Coyote played an FBI man sent to remove hangers-on from a town emptied of its citizens to make room for a massive hydr lectric plant.
Coyote hammed it up in “The Hebrew Hammer” (2003), playing the eye-patch-wearing head of the Jewish Justice League who recruits a private investigator (Adam Goldberg) to track down Santa Claus’ evil son (Andy Dick) before he destroys Hanukkah forever. After playing a famous American director who arrives in Paris looking for the lead role in his Yiddish adaptation of The Merchant of Venice in the French-subtitled comedy “Le Grand Role” (2003), he was seen in the comedic war epic “Bon Voyage” (2003), also dubbed in French. Segueing back into television, Coyote appeared on episodes of “Deadwood” (HBO, 2004- ), “The 4400” (USA, 2004- ) and “Law & Order: Trial By Jury” (NBC, 2004-2005) before landing a regular part on “The Inside” (Fox, 2004-2005) as the boss of an FBI profiler (Rachel Nichols) who is part of a secret rogue division of the bureau.
Coyote went on to narrate the three-part miniseries “Guns, Germs and Steel (PBS, 2005), a historical documentary based on Jared Diamond’s book about how geographical advantage and developed immunity to disease-not race-contributed to Europeans conquering large parts of the world. He also narrated “Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room” (2005), a documentary that probed the business scandal involving Enron, the energy behemoth that used favorable deregulation laws to bilk California out of billions of dollars only to crumble under the weight of enormous debt hidden in numerous offshore accounts and the hubris of its corporate leadership. Coyote landed another regular television role on “Commander In Chief” (ABC, 2005- ), playing the new vice president of a female president (Geena Davis) sworn into the highest office in the land after her predecessor died in office.
The above TCM overview can be accessed online here.
Rita Moreno has had an amazingly long career winninh an Oscar, Tony, Emmy and Grammy. She was born in 1931 in Puerto Rico. In 1951 she was featured in “The Toast of New Orleans” with Mario Lanza and “Singin in the Rain”. She was featured as one of the young lovers in “The King and I” in 1956. She played the fiery Anita in “Wst Side Story” in 1961. Other film roles “The Ritz”, “The Night of the Following Day”, “Carnal Knowledge” and “The Four Seasons”. On television she played the nun Sister Peter Marie from 1997 until 2003 in “Oz”. She published her autobiography
IMDB entry:
U.S. actress Rita Moreno has had a thriving acting career for the better part of six decades. Moreno, one of the very few (and very first) performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony, and a Grammy, was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December eleventh, 1931. She moved to New York City in 1937 along with her mother, where she began a professional career before reaching adolescence. The eleven-year-old Rosita got her first movie experience dubbing Spanish-language versions of U.S. films. Less than a month before her fourteenth birthday on November eleventh, 1945, she made her Broadway debut in the play “Skydrift” at the Belasco Theatre, costarring withArthur Keegan and the young Eli Wallach. Although she would not appear again on Broadway for almost two decades, Rita Moreno, as she was billed in the play, had arrived professionally.
The cover of the March first, 1954 edition of “Life Magazine” featured a three-quarters, over-the-left-shoulder profile of the young Puerto Rican actress/entertainer with the provocative title “Rita Moreno: An Actresses’ Catalog of Sex and Innocence.” It was sex-pot time, a stereotype that would plague her throughout the decade. If not cast as a Hispanic pepper pot, she could rely on being cast as another “exotic”, such as her appearance on Father Knows Best (1954) as an exchange student from India. Because of a dearth of decent material, Moreno as an actress had to play roles in movies that she considered degrading. Among the better pictures she appeared in were the classic Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and The King and I (1956).
Filmmaker Robert Wise, who was chosen to codirect the movie version of the smash hit Broadway musical West Side Story (1961) (a retelling of Shakespeare’s “Romeo & Juliet” with the warring Venetian clans the Montagues and Capulets reenvisioned as Irish/Polish and Puerto Rican adolescent street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks), cast Moreno as “Anita”, the Puerto Rican girlfriend of Sharks’ leader Bernardo, whose sister Maria is the piece’s Juliet.
However, despite her proven talent, roles commensurate with that talent were not forthcoming in the 1960s. The following decade would prove kinder, possibly as the beautiful Moreno had aged and could now be seen by film-makers, T.V. producers and casting directors as something other than the spit-fire/sex-pot that Hispanic women were supposed to conform to. Ironically, it was in two vastly diverging roles — that of a $100 hooker in director Mike Nichols brilliant realization of Jules Feiffer‘s acerbic look at male sexuality, Carnal Knowledge (1971) (1971) and that of Milly the Helper in the children’s T.V. show The Electric Company (1971) (1971) — that signaled a career renaissance.
During the seventies, Moreno won a 1972 Grammy Award for her contribution to “The Electric Company” soundtrack album, following it up three years later with a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for The Ritz (1976), a role she would reproduce on the Big Screen. She then won Emmy Awards for “The Muppet Show” and “The Rockford Files”.
Thereafter, she has continued to work steadily on screen (both large and small) and on-stage, solidifying her reputation as a national treasure, a status that was officially ratified with the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in June 2004.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Cattle Town, poster, US poster art, from left: Dennis Morgan, Rita Moreno, 1952. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)EL ALAMEIN, US poster, Scott Brady center left bottom right inset: Scott Brady, Rita Moreno, 1953 Courtesy Everett Collection ACHTUNG AUFNAHMEDATUM GESCHÄTZT PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xCourtesyxEverettxCollectionx MCDELAL EC0011st October 1955: Puerto Rican actress, dancer and singer Rita Moreno is featured for the cover of Picture Post magazine. Original Publication: Picture Post Cover – Vol 69 No 01 – pub. 1955. (Photo by IPC Magazines/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Steven Bauer was born in Havana, Cuba in 1956. He was featured in the 1980 miniseries of “From Here to Eternity”. He had a major role in “Scarface” with Al Pacino in 1983. Other films include “Running Scared” with Melanie Griffith, “Raising Cain” and “The Learning Curve”.
TCM overview:
A darkly handsome, swarthy actor, Steven Bauer made an auspicious feature debut as Al Pacino’s right hand man and short-lived brother-in-law in Brian De Palma’s “Scarface” (1983). But, due to personal difficulties and seemingly bad career choices, he was not able to parlay that role into leading man status.
Born in Havana, Cuba, Bauer moved with his family to the US as a toddler in 1959. Originally intending to become a musician, he turned to acting while attending junior college. While studying, Bauer, then billed as Rocky Echevarria, won his first TV role on the PBS series “Que Pasa U.S.A.?” He was signed by Columbia TV, moved to the West Coast and began appearing in guest shots on shows like “One Day at a Time”. In 1980, he landed the regular role of Private Ignacio Carmona on the NBC series “From Here to Eternity”.
Moving to NYC, Bauer studied under famed acting teacher Stella Adler and appeared in off-Broadway productions, including a revival of Clifford Odets’ “Waiting for Lefty”. He changed his name again to Rocky Bauer and landed roles in TV-movies and busted pilots like “She’s in the Army Now” (ABC, 1981) and “An Innocent Love” (CBS, 1982). By late 1982, now known as Steven Bauer, he landed the showy role of Manny Ray in “Scarface”. Attempting to move into leading roles, he played the title character in Douglas Day Stewart’s “Thief of Hearts” (1984), a slick thriller that was not a box-office hit.
Most of his subsequent features have been uneven and relatively unsuccessful. Bauer gave a strong performance as an Afghan rebel in Kevin Reynolds’ “The Beast” (1988) and reteamed with Brian De Palma as the unwitting victim of a frame-up in “Raising Cain” (1992). He was again cast as an underworld figure in Gregory Hoblit’s “Primal Fear” (1996).
Bauer has also continued to amass small screen credits, notably as a one-season replacement for Ken Wahl in “Wiseguy” (CBS, 1990-91). He earned praise as a US drug enforcement agent whose death exposes the South American underworld and government corruption in the Emmy-winning miniseries “Drug Wars: The Camarena Story” (NBC, 1990). He has often played detectives in various TV-movies, ranging from “False Arrest” (ABC, 1991) to “Stranger by Night” (HBO, 1994).
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Paul Koslo was born in 1944 in Germany. He has been featured in many U.S. films including “Nam’s Angels”, “Mr Majestyk” in 1974, “Vanishing Point”, and “Joe Kidd”.
IMDB entry:
Lean-faced, intense-looking, German-born, Canada-raised Paul Koslo was at his busiest during the 1970s, usually playing shifty, untrustworthy and often downright nasty characters. He first broke into films at age 22 in the low-budget Little White Crimes(1966), and then appeared in a rush of movies taking advantage of his youthful looks, including cult favorites Vanishing Point (1971) and The Omega Man (1971), and the western Joe Kidd (1972), martial arts blaxploitation flick Cleopatra Jones (1973) and crime thriller The Stone Killer (1973). After working alongside such stars as John Wayne,Clint Eastwood, Walter Matthau and Charles Bronson, Koslo’s career drifted towards television, and in the 1980s he regularly guest-starred on such TV series as The Incredible Hulk (1978), The A-Team (1983), Matlock (1986), MacGyver (1985) and The Fall Guy (1981). Unfortunately, most of his film work in the 1990s and beyond was “straight-to-video” fare, such as Chained Heat II (1993) and Desert Heat (1999). Koslo is well remembered by many as smart-mouthed small-time hood Bobby Kopas, trying to shake down melon grower Charles Bronson in Mr. Majestyk (1974).
– IMDb Mini Biography By: firehouse44
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
The family of actor, director and producer Paul Koslo is deeply saddened to announce that he died January 9, 2019, at home in Lake Hughes from pancreatic cancer. Koslo was 74.
Koslo leaves behind his daughter, Chloe; his wife, actress Allaire Paterson Koslo; sister Karin, brother Georg, nephews, nieces, cousins, a very loving family and a wonderful body of work as an actor.
Born Manfred Koslowski on June 27, 1944, in Germany, Koslo became a dad, husband, actor, director, producer and mentor. He co-founded the MET Theatre in Hollywood. His latest producing credit was the 2015 JFK documentary “A Coup in Camelot.”
“He was very passionate about that project,” Allaire Koslo said.
Koslo was also the owner of Lake Hughes’ historic Rock Inn. He purchased the landmark in 1975 but leased it out in 1995.
As a character actor, Koslo played an assortment of mostly nefarious characters, with more than 100 film and television credits to his name.
Not so in “The Omega Man,” the 1971 Cold War-style sci-fi film starring Charlton Heston as one of the few survivors of biological warfare between China and the Soviet Union, based on the 1954 novel “I Am Legend” by Richard Matheson.
Koslo played Dutch, the wild-haired, motorcycle-riding former med student who saved Heston’s Army colonel character, Dr. Robert Neville, from being burned at the stake in Dodger Stadium by a band of hooded, nocturnal, albino mutants.
Dutch, carrying two pearl-handed pistols, rushes to save Neville. While filming the scene, Koslo accidentally hit Heston in the head with one of the guns, breaking the skin and causing the star to bleed.
“But I didn’t stop,” Koslo said in a 2014 interview with the Antelope Valley Press. Heston uttered an un-Moses-like expletive and later praised the apologetic Koslo for his professionalism.
Dutch was one of Koslo’s favorite characters.”I like Dutch, he’s kind of a cool guy,” Koslo said in the interview.
Koslo later starred in three films with Charles Bronson: “Mr. Majestyk” (1974), “The Stone Killer” (1973) and “Love and Bullets” (1979). Additional film credits include “Rooster Cogburn” (1975) with John Wayne, “Heaven’s Gate” (1980), “Vanishing Point” (1971) and “Cleopatra Jones” (1973).
“I’ve been so fortunate to work with some of the greatest actors in the world, from Oskar Werner to Max von Sydow to Orson Welles,” Koslo said in the interview.
His TV credits include “The Incredible Hulk,” “MacGyver,” “The A-Team,” the original “Hawaii Five-O,” “Mission: Impossible” and “The Rockford Files.”
Shirley Knight is a lovelyactress of the 1960’s who had matured into a powerhouse character actress to-day. She was born in 1936 in Kansas. One of her first films was “Ice Palace” in 1960 with Richared Burton, Robert Ryan, Carolyn Jones and Ray Danton. She starred opposite Paul Newman in “Sweet Bird of Youth” and was one of “The Group” in 1966. Francis Ford Coppola directed her in “The Rain People” in 1969. She continues to appear regularly on television in shows such as “Law & Order”.
TCM Overview:
Kansas-born Shirley Knight originally intended to be an opera singer until she saw a touring company of “The Lark” starring Julie Harris and switched to acting. In 1957, she headed west to study at the Pasadena Playhouse where she made her stage debut the following year in “Look Back in Anger”. Knight was put under contract by Warner Bros. and the petite blonde earned critical acclaim and a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination as an Oklahoman in love with a Jew in the screen adaptation of William Inge’s “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs” (1960). She picked up a second nod in the same category as Heavenly Finley, the woman seduced and abandoned by Chance Wayne, in “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1962). In “The Group” (1966), her character found seeming happiness with James Broderick while later that same year she delivered a strong turn as a sluttish white woman who confronts a young black male passenger in “The Dutchman”. After a strong turn as a pregnant woman who runs off with a football player in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Rain People” (1969), Knight moved to England with her second husband, British playwright John Hopkins and did not act on screen for five years, returning in “Juggernaut” (1974). Her subsequent film roles have generally cast her in maternal roles as in “Endless Love” (1981), “Stuart Saves His Family” (1995) and “As Good As It Gets” (1997).
While she found almost immediate success in films, Knight has a stated preference for stage work. Spurning an offer to play Ophelia to Richard Burton’s “Hamlet”, she opted to co-star with Geraldine Page and Kim Stanley in an Actors Studio production of Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” (1964). She acquired a Tony as Featured Actress in a Play for her turn as a floozy in “Kennedy’s Children” (1975) and has appeared in several classics including twice playing Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire”, Lola in “Come Back, Little Sheba” and Amanda Wingfield in “The Glass Menagerie”. More recently, Knight returned to Broadway and netted a Tony nomination for her turn as a woman who refuses to accept that her son committed suicide in Horton Foote’s Pulitzer-winning “The Young Man From Atlanta” in 1997.
The small screen has also provided the actress with challenging roles. She made her first appearance in the medium in a live broadcast in 1959 and amassed numerous guest credits in the 60s and 70s. Knight co-starred opposite Jason Robards in a “Hallmark Hall of Fame” presentation of “The Country Girl” (NBC, 1974) and Alan Arkin in the above average CBS movie “The Defection of Simas Kudirka” (1978). She offered a strong turn and earned her first Emmy nomination as a concentration camp inmate in the acclaimed “Playing for Time” (CBS, 1980) before picking up the award for a guest appearance as the mother of Mel Harris’ Hope in a 1987 episode of ABC’s “thirtysomething”.
Knight had her first regular series role in the short-lived 1993 CBS drama “Angel Falls”. At the 1995 Emmy Awards, she picked up two statuettes, one for her guest appearance as the mother of a murder victim in an episode of “NYPD Blue” and the second as day care center owner Peggy Buckley who was accused of and tried for child molestation in the fact-based HBO drama “Indictment: The McMartin Trial”. Knight has continued to be a powerful presence in the medium, offering effective supporting turns in such made-for-television fare as “Stolen Memories: Secrets From the Rose Garden” (Family Channel, 1996), “Mary & Tim” (CBS, 1996) and “The Wedding” (ABC, 1998). She returned to regular series work cast as the mother of the titular “Maggie Winters” in the short-lived 1998 CBS sitcom starring Faith Ford. The actress’s schedule remained packed with continual roles in feature films–including “Angel Eyes” (2001), “The Salton Sea” (2002) and “The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” (2002).
Knight became a regular fixture on the small screen with guest appearances on such series as “Ally McBeal,” “ER,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Crossing Jordan,” and “Cold Case” and “House,” and in 2005 she began a recurring stint on “Desperate Housewives” as Phyllis Van De Kamp, the meddling mother-in-law of tightly wound Bree (Marcia Cross). The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Los Angeles Times obituary in April 2020.
Shirley Knight, the Kansas-born actress who was nominated for two Oscars early in her career and went on to play an astonishing variety of roles in movies, TV and the stage, has died. She was 83.
Knight died Wednesday at her daughter’s home in San Marcos, Texas, according to her daughter Kaitlin Hopkins.
Knight’s career carried her from Kansas to Hollywood and then to the New York theater and London and back to Hollywood. She was nominated for two Tonys, winning one. In recent years, she had a recurring role as Phyllis Van de Kamp (the mother-in-law of Marcia Cross’ character) in the long-running ABC show “Desperate Housewives,” gaining one of her many Emmy nominations.
Knight’s first Academy Award nomination for supporting actress came in just her second screen role, as an Oklahoman in love with a Jewish man in the 1960 film version of William Inge’s play “The Dark at the Top of the Stairs.”
She was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar two years later for her performance as the woman seduced and abandoned by Paul Newman in the 1962 film “Sweet Bird of Youth,” based on the Tennessee Williams play.
As success beckoned in 1960, she told columnist Hedda Hopper that she was struggling to keep on an even keel and continue bettering herself as an actress.
“So many actors, once they became famous, lose some beautiful inner thing, something they should try hard to keep,” she said. “They begin to think too highly of themselves and success.”
For a time, she lived in New York, where she studied with Lee Strasberg. She turned down an offer to play Ophelia to Richard Burton’s Hamlet, preferring to appear on Broadway in 1964 with Geraldine Page and Kim Stanley in Anton Chekhov’s “The Three Sisters,” directed by Strasberg.
Her beauty helped bring her roles in such films as “The Group” (1966), based on Mary McCarthy’s novel about the lives of a group of college girls, and “Dutchman” (1967), from Amiri Baraka’s explosive one-act play about a middle-class black man and a sexually provocative white woman. After playing a pregnant woman who runs off with a football player in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Rain People,” released in 1969, Knight wearied of the Hollywood routine, terming the studio bosses “blockheads.”
Knight moved to England with her second husband, British playwright John Hopkins, with whom she had a daughter, Sophie. (Her first husband was producer Gene Persoff, father of her older daughter, Kaitlin.)
Over the next few years, she raised her daughters and did needlework. But “I decided that acting is what I do best,” she said. The family moved back to the U.S. and Knight returned to films in “Beyond the Poseidon Adventure.” She also appeared in such films as “Endless Love” (as Brooke Shields’ mother), “As Good as It Gets” (as Helen Hunt’s mother) and “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood.”
Meanwhile, she thrived onstage and in television. She won a Tony award in 1976 as featured actress in a play for “Kennedy’s Children.” Knight played, in the words of the New York Times review, “a very tart tart with an ambition of gold.”
She was nominated for another Tony in 1997 for best actress in Horton Foote’s “The Young Man From Atlanta.” As the Times put it, “The splendid Ms. Knight, who doesn’t waste a single fluttery gesture, brings an Ibsenesque weight to a woman frozen in the role of petulant, spoiled child bride.”
Knight became active in television starting in the 1950s and was nominated for Emmys eight times from 1981 to 2006. She won a guest actress Emmy in 1988 for playing Mel Harris’ mother in “Thirtysomething,” and then won two Emmys in the same year, 1995: for a supporting actress role in the TV drama “Indictment: The McMartin Trial” and for a guest actress role as a murder victim in “NYPD Blue.”
She was born Shirley Enola Knight on July 5, 1936, in the Kansas countryside, 10 miles from the town of Lyons. Her family was musical and she learned to sing, tap dance and play various instruments.
She was the first in her family to enter college, winning a scholarship to a church college in Enid, Okla., then moved to Wichita State University. She appeared in 32 plays in two years and did two seasons of summer stock.
She aimed to become an opera singer, then switched to acting when she saw Julie Harris in a touring company of “The Lark.” She traveled west to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse. Warner Bros. signed her to a contract.
Knight is survived by her daughters, Kaitlin and Sophie C. Hopkins.
Norman Lloyd was born in 1914 in Jersey City. He was a memorable villian in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Saboteur” in 1942. He was also featured by Hitchcock in “Spellbound”. In the 1980’s he starred in the very popular medical drama “St. Elsewhere” which ran from 1983 to 1988.
TCM Overview:
One of the most respected figures in entertainment history, actor-producer-director Norman Lloyd’s résumé read like a roll call of 20th century icons. Among his collaborative partners and directors were Charlie Chaplin, Alfred Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Jean Renoir, Lewis Milestone and John Houseman; each of whom employed his crisp, professional screen and stage presence in such efforts as “Saboteur” (1942), “Spellbound” (1945), “A Walk in the Sun” (1945) and “Limelight” (1952). The Communist witch hunt of the 1950s briefly hampered Lloyd’s career, but Hitchcock brought him back into the limelight as the producer of his acclaimed anthology series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents (CBS/NBC, 1955-1962). Modern audiences best knew him as the sage Dr. Auschlander on “St. Elsewhere” (NBC, 1982-88), but his career was thriving long before it, and for decades after its cancellation. A legend in the film and television field, and one of the oldest working actors in show business history, Lloyd represented the pinnacle of accomplishment and endurance for generations of fans.
Born Nov. 8, 1914 in Jersey City, NJ, he moved with his family to Manhattan and then Brooklyn shortly after his birth. Though he showed considerable talent at tennis while a boy, his mother hoped that he would blossom into a child star, so she began enrolling him in acting classes. Several years on the amateur vaudeville circuit followed, but Lloyd did not truly embrace performing until a student in high school, where he participated in numerous plays. After graduating from college, Lloyd joined Eva Le Gallienne’s Civic Repertory Theatre in New York, which began a decade of appearances in off-Broadway and Broadway plays. In 1937, Lloyd was one of the original players in Orson Welles’ and John Houseman’s Mercury Theatre, as well as appeared as Cinna the Poet in its historic modern dress production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” The following year, his performance as Johnny Appleseed in “Everywhere I Roam” drew rave reviews. Lloyd’s onscreen debut came in “The Streets of New York” (NBC, 1939), an experimental televised play directed by Anthony Mann and starring Jennifer Jones and George Colouris. In 1940, he followed Welles to Los Angeles to appear in a film version of Joseph Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness.” The project never got off the ground, but it did grant Lloyd a new home base in Hollywood.
John Houseman introduced Lloyd to Alfred Hitchcock, who was looking for an unknown actor to play a dastardly Nazi spy in his thriller “Saboteur” (1942). The film’s closing sequence, which pits hero Robert Cummings against Lloyd in a fight atop the Statue of Liberty before the latter plunges to his death, was among the most iconic scenes in Hitchcock’s career. The film also served as a beginning of a three-decade partnership and friendship between Lloyd and the director, who would subsequently cast him in “Spellbound” (1945) as a patient of psychiatrist Ingrid Bergman. Lloyd worked as a character actor for some of the most significant film directors of the 1940s and 1950s. He was a churlish henchman for J. Carrol Naish’s misguided farmer in Jean Renoir’s Oscar-nominated “The Southerner” (1945), then segued to the philosophical Army scout in Lewis Milestone’s “A Walk in the Sun” (1945), largely regarded as one of the best films about World War II combat. In 1951, he played Bodalink the choreographer in Charlie Chaplin’s last great film, “Limelight.” Lloyd and Chaplin later co-owned the film rights for Horace McCoy’s novel, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? which they hoped to make into a film after “Limelight.” Sadly, Chaplin became persona non grata in the United States due to his alleged Communist sympathies, which prevented them from making the film. It was eventually purchased by ABC, which produced a version directed by Sydney Pollack in 1969.
The specter of Communism loomed largely over Lloyd’s career in the early 1950s. Many of his significant collaborators suffered mightily at the hands of the government witch hunt, including Joseph Losey, who directed him in the 1951 remake of “M,” as well as John Garfield, his co-star in the thriller “He Ran All The Way” (1951), which marked the end of the actor’s career after being blacklisted along with its director, John Berry, and writers Dalton Trumbo and Hugo Butler. Lloyd himself found himself targeted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities in the early 1950s, just as he was segueing into directing for television. A frequent stage director at the La Jolla Playhouse in San Diego, CA, Lloyd was approached by Jay Kantor at MCA about getting involved in the company’s initial launch into this new genre. He helmed episodes for several live theater productions, including the legendary “Omnibus” (ABC/CBS/NBC, 1952-1961) before reteaming with Hitchcock as his associate producer and occasional director for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (CBS/NBC, 1955-1962). Among his most memorable turns as director for the series were “Man from the South,” with Steve McQueen as a callous gambler who bet a depraved Peter Lorre that he could ignite his lighter 10 times in a row or lose a finger, and “The Jar,” based on a story by Ray Bradbury about a down-on-his-luck hillbilly (Pat Buttram) who bought a mysterious container that changed his life for the worse.
Lloyd worked primarily as a producer and director on television throughout the 1960s and 1970s, most notably on “The Name of the Game” (NBC, 1968-1971), an offbeat anthology series about the adventures of three publishing company employees, and the UK suspense anthology “Journey to the Unknown” (ITV, 1968-69) for Hammer Films. He also produced and/or directed several well-regarded television adaptations of great Broadway plays, including Lillian Hellman’s “Another Part of the Forest” (PBS, 1972) with Barry Sullivan and Andrew Prine, Clifford Odets’ “Awake and Sing!” (PBS, 1972) with Walter Matthau, and Bruce Jay Friedman’s “Steambath” (PBS, 1973) with Bill Bixby and Valerie Perrine; the latter earned Lloyd a 1974 Emmy nomination. His final efforts as producer and director came with “Tales of the Unexpected” (ITV, 1979-1983), which was largely based on the short stories of Roald Dahl.
As the stigma of the blacklist began to dissipate in the 1960s and 1970s, Lloyd began to resume his acting career. Guest roles on episodic television gave way to TV and theatrical feature turns, including “Audrey Rose” (1977) as a therapist who aided a little girl plagued by the reincarnated spirit of a dead child, and as the sympathetic owner of a radio station who backed his DJs during a protest over advertising in cinematographer John Alonzo’s sole directorial effort, “FM” (1978). In 1982, he took on the role that, for many television viewers, he would remain best known: that of Dr. Daniel Auschlander on “St. Elsewhere.” A kindly mentor to its large cast of doctors and interns, Auschlander suffered from metastatic liver cancer, and was expected to pass away soon after the first few seasons. However, intensive chemotherapy put his illness in remission and he remained a vital member of the show until its final episode, when he was felled by a massive stroke. However, the finale’s legendary twist – in which the entire show was revealed as the figment of an autistic boy’s imagination – revealed him as the boy’s grandfather.
Lloyd remained active in television and the occasional feature in the years after “St. Elsewhere.” He was the authoritarian head of the boys’ school who butted heads with freethinking teacher Robin Williams in “Dead Poets Society” (1989), and the senior partner at Daniel Day-Lewis’ law firm in Martin Scorsese’s “The Age of Innocence” (1993). He reunited with his “St. Elsewhere” producers for the short-lived series “Home Fires” (NBC, 1992), and he played Dr. Isaac Mentnor, a scientist who created a time travel device using the alien spacecraft that landed in Roswell, New Mexico, in “Seven Days” (UPN, 1998-2001). Notable guest turns included a recurring role on “The Practice” (ABC, 1997-2004) as Asher Silverman, a district attorney and practicing rabbi who challenged Dylan McDermott’s Bobby Donnelly on ethical issues. In 2000, he co-starred as the Secretary of Defense in a live TV remake of “Fail Safe” (CBS) that starred George Clooney, and in 2005 – well into his ninth decade – he received rave reviews as a former English professor, now a resident at a retirement home, who bonds with Cameron Diaz’s fading wild child over poetry in Curtis Hansen’s comedy-drama, “In Her Shoes.” In 2007, Lloyd’s storied career was the subject of a documentary, “Who Is Norman Lloyd,” a gentle valentine to the actor’s life and accomplishments, as well as his lengthy marriage to actress Peggy Lloyd, whom he wed in 1936. As he approached his 100th birthday, he was still performing, most notably in a 2010 episode of “Modern Family” (ABC, 2009- ).
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
She was born in Montreal, Quebec, the daughter of Laurette (née Cavanagh), a maid, and Joseph Firmin Bujold, a bus driver. She is of French Canadian descent, with distant Irish ancestry.
Bujold received a strict convent education for twelve years, which she disliked. She was expelled from the convent for reportedly reading Fanny by Marcel Pagnol. She entered the Montreal Conservatory of Dramatic Art,[5][6] where she was trained in the classics of French theatre.
Two months before she was to graduate she made her stage debut as Rosine in Le Barbier de Séville in 1961 with Theâtre de Gesù. She quit the school and was rarely out of work, being in demand for radio, stage, TV and film. Bujold made her TV debut with Le square (1963), a 60-minute TV film based on a play by Marguerite Duras, co-starring Georges Groulx. She was in episodes of Jeudi-théâtre (“Atout… Meurtre”) and Les belles histoires des pays d’en haut (“La terre de Bidou”) and guest starred on Ti-Jean caribou. Her Canadian feature film debut was in Amanita Pestilens (1963). She was then in an international co production La fleur de l’âge, ou Les adolescentes (1964) and had a lead role in La terre à boire(1964), the first Quebec feature to be privately financed. Bujold starred in two 30 minute shorts, La fin des étés (1964) and Geneviève (1964). She toured Canada performing plays also worked steadily in radio and was voted actress of the year in Montreal.
In 1965, she toured Russia and France with the company of the Théâtre du Rideau Vert. While in Paris, Bujold was in a play A House… and a Day when she was seen by renowned French director Alain Resnais. He selected her for a role in his film The War Is Over, opposite Yves Montand and Ingrid Thulin. She returned home briefly to appear in “Romeo and Jeannette” by Jean Anouilh alongside Michael Sarrazin, for a Canadian TV show Festival. Also for that show she did productions of The Murderer and A Doll’s House.
She stayed in France to make two more films: Philippe de Broca‘s King of Hearts (1966), with Alan Bates, and Louis Malle‘s The Thief of Paris (1967), with Jean-Paul Belmondo. Bujold won the Prix Suzanne as the Discovery of the Year and Elle magazine called her The Girl of the Day. Despite having established herself in France, however, she returned to Canada.
Upon her return to Canada, Bujold married film director Paul Almond in 1967. He directed her in “The Puppet Caravan” for Festival in 1967. She appeared in Michel Brault‘s film Between Salt and Sweet Water (1967), then went to New York to play the title role in a production of Saint Joan (1967) for Hallmark Hall of Fame on American TV. Although she said she preferred film most and television least out of all the mediums, she received great acclaim for this including an Emmy nomination.
In Canada she starred in Isabel (1968), written and directed by Almond. It was one of the first Canadian films to be picked up for distribution by a major Hollywood studio.
Back in Canada, she did a second feature with her husband, The Act of the Heart (1970), co starring Donald Sutherland, which earned her a Best Actress at the Canadian Film Awards. She wrote and starred in a short film, Marie-Christine (1970), directed by Claude Jutra. Wallis and Universal wanted Bujold to star in Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) but she refused so they sued her for $450,000.
She settled the lawsuit with Universal, agreeing to a three-picture film contract starting with Earthquake (1974), starring with Charlton Heston. In 1973, after her marriage to Paul Almond ended, she relocated to Los Angeles.
Bujold went to France to make Incorrigible (1975) with de Broca and Belmondo. For Hallmark Hall of Fame and the BBC she appeared in Caesar and Cleopatra (1975) alongside Alec Guinness.
At Universal Studios, she was the lead in Swashbuckler (1976) alongside Robert Shaw. In an interview she said, “Robert Shaw is a man worth knowing.”[17]
Bujold returned to Canada to play a key role in the Sherlock Holmes film Murder by Decree (1979), which won her a Best Supporting Actress Award at the Canadian Film Awards.
Bujold starred in Choose Me (1984), directed and written by Alan Rudolph. She promptly made two more films for Rudolph: Trouble in Mind (1985) and The Moderns (1988), the latter set in Paris in the 1920s. She was part of his informal company of actors that he repeatedly used in his films, including Keith Carradine.
After a long absence from Quebec, she returned to appear in two more films by Michel Brault: The Paper Wedding (1989), and My Friend Max (1994). In between she went to France to make Rue du Bac (1991), and did another film with Almond, The Dance Goes On (1991), the latter featuring their son, Matthew (born in 1968). She had support roles in Oh, What a Night (1993), and An Ambush of Ghosts (1993).
In 1994, Bujold was chosen to play Captain Elizabeth Janeway (subsequently renamed Kathryn Janeway),[20] lead character in the ensemble cast of the American television series Star Trek: Voyager. However, she left the project after just two days of filming, because of the demanding work schedule. Kate Mulgrew was subsequently cast in the role.
Bujold was in Dead Innocent (1997) and was in a short Matisse & Picasso: A Gentle Rivalry (2001).
Bujold was back in Quebec to star in Chaos and Desire (2002), directed by Manon Briand. That year she said “I like doing studio films, independent films. I want to step up to the plate and do it. The role doesn’t have to be long, but it has to be essential to the film. And it’s got to be truthful to me. I defend my characters. They’re like my babies.”
In 2012, Bujold played a woman battling dementia in the sleeper romantic drama Still Mine. Stephen Holden of The New York Times commented: “Ms. Bujold imbues Irene with a starchy tenacity and a sharp sense of humor”, while The Washington Post called her performance “superb” and “remarkably detailed”.
