Lorenzo Lamas is best known for two television series “Falcon Crest” and “Renegade”. In “Falcon Crest” he played Lance Curson the grandson of Jane Wyman. He was born in 1958 in Santa Monica and is the son of actors Arlene Dahl and Fernando Lamas. On film he was in “Grease” in 1978, “Midnight Man” and “The Rage”. To view interview with Lorenzo Lamas, please click here.
IMDB entry:
Lorenzo Lamas – the son of Arlene Dahl and Fernando Lamas – was raised in Pacific Palisades, California In 1968 his family moved to New York. He attended private school, graduating from Admiral Farragut Academy in 1975. He then moved back to California. With encouragement from his father, he enrolled in Tony Barr’s Film Actors Workshop and began his career with a small role in a television show in 1976. He also began to study karate and tae kwon do in 1979. He has starred in five television series and in over fifty movies. He is most known for his roles on television, notably as Lance Cumson on CBS’ Falcon Crest and Reno Raines in the syndicated hit show Renegade. Lorenzo also sustained a professional racing career while working successfully as a TV and Film actor in the 80’s and 90’s. He acts on stage and has a cabaret show that he tours with across the country. Some of the roles he has played onstage include the king in the musical The King and I as well as Zach in the musical A Chorus Line. He is an avid motorcyclist for over thirty years and has participated in the Love Ride, to benefit MDA and various charities since its inception in 1983. He is also on the board of directors. Lorenzo is a commercial helicopter and airplane pilot and he often flies disadvantaged children to summer camps and people too sick or financially challenged to travel normally on domestic flights. He just recently received his certification to become a helicopter flight instructor. In 2009, Lorenzo met his wife Shawna Craig who he asked to marry just three short months later. They are still happily married.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Anyonymous
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Anjelica Huston was born in 1951 in Santa Monica, California. Her grandfather was the wonderful actor Walter Huston who won an Academy Award for his performance in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” in 1948. Her father was the faamous film director Walter Huston. She was brought up in Galway in the West of Ireland. In her teens she moved with her mothert to London. Her father cast her when she was seventeen in the film “A Walk with Love and Death”. It is neither a critical or box office success and she turned to modelling as a career. In 1981 she had a part in “The Postman Always Rings Twice” with her then partner Jack Nicholson. In 1985 she won an Academy Award for her performance in “Prizzi’s Honor” which was directed by her father. Since then she has given many wonderful performances including “The Grifters” with John Cusack and Annette Bening and “The Royal Tenebaums” . I think her best performace was as Greta Conroy in “The Dead” which was the last film directed by her father and based on the wonderful James Joyce short story. John Cusack was born in 1966 in Evanston, Illnois to an Irish Catholic family. His sister is the actress Joan Cusack. His film credits include “Grosse Point Blank”, “The Sure Thing”, “Sixteen Candles” and “High Fidelity”. Annette Bening was born in 1958 in Topeka, Kanas. Her major film breakthrough came in 1989 for her performance in “Valmont” with Colin Firth. Her other films include “Julia”, “American Beauty” and “The Kids Are Alright”. She is married to the actor Warren Beatty by whom she has four children.
Andrew cCarthy was born in 1962 in Westfield, New Jersey. He is best known for his association with the ‘brat pack’. His best known films are “St Elmo’s Fire” and “Pretty in Pink”. His more recent films include “Snatched” and “Camp Hope”.
TCM Overview:
Always a good guy stand-out amidst the bad boys of the infamous 1980s cinematic “Brat Pack,” Andrew McCarthy’s down-to-earth appeal helped the handsome actor earn millions of teen fans during his eighties heyday. Hitting the ball out of the park time and again with roles in iconic Generation X films like “St. Elmo’s Fire” (1985), “Pretty in Pink” (1986) and “Mannequin” (1987), McCarthy often played the well-off yet unassuming romantic lead with a good heart, who always should get the girl in the end. Unbeknownst to many of his young fans, however, McCarthy was also an accomplished theater actor, who appeared in productions of Tennessee Williams’, Eugene O’Neill’s, and Horton Foote’s works both on and off-Broadway. After taking a turn toward the dark side in Bret Easton Ellis’ feature adaptation of his edgy novel “Less Than Zero” (1987) and defying logic with a role in the misfire “Weekend at Bernie’s” (1989), the actor watched his star – as well as those of most of his fellow Brat Packers – fall as their fans grew up and moved on to the next big thing. Keeping a low profile throughout the 1990s, McCarthy consistently worked, but remained under the radar for the most part, until regaining a more mature but no less potent sex symbol status as billionaire Joe Bennett in the popular but short-lived Brooke Shields’ drama, “Lipstick Jungle” (NBC, 2008-09). Like his peers Patrick Dempsey and Robert Downey, Jr., McCarthy reemerged as a mature leading man for a new generation of fans.
Born on Nov. 29, 1962 in Westfield, NJ, Andrew T. McCarthy attended Edison Intermediate School. When he was 16, McCarthy’s family moved to New York City, where he attended Pingry Prep School. While there, the star appeared in high school plays and musical productions, as well as played basketball. Two years later, McCarthy enrolled at New York University to major in theater and also studied at the Circle in the Square Theater School. The 18-year-old scored his first film role in 1983, playing opposite Rob Lowe and Jacqueline Bisset in the teen sex comedy “Class.” McCarthy had fallen ill the day of the audition, yet he forced himself to go anyway and won the role as Bisset’s younger lover. “It was so out of the blue,” he said. “One week I’m in school and the next week I’m in bed with Jacqueline Bisset. I thought, ‘I’m doing something right here.'”
Lowe and McCarthy worked together again in the 1985 drama “St. Elmo’s Fire,” about a group of friends who discover the complexities of relationships, love, and life after college. McCarthy played sulky writer Kevin who has an affair with his philandering best friend’s (Judd Nelson) needy wife (Ally Sheedy). The ensemble film starred what famously became known collectively as “the Brat Pack” – a group of actors who – in addition to McCarthy, Nelson and Sheedy – included Lowe, Demi Moore and Emilio Estevez, amongst others on the honorary fringe, such as Anthony Michael Hall and Jon Cryer. In addition to starring in each other’s movies – particularly those directed by John Hughes, such as “The Breakfast Club” (1985) – the young turks ruled the Hollywood scene, with much romancing and in-fighting amongst them. Of the core group of Brat Packers, McCarthy became known as the quiet one, taking on a more reclusive approach to his stardom compared to the infamous playboys and partiers he appeared alongside on the big screen.
A year after “St. Elmo’s Fire,” McCarthy joined forces with Hughes’ acting muse Molly Ringwald – also a Brat Packer, herself – in the romantic coming-of-age film “Pretty In Pink.” As rich boy Blaine, the dreamy and baby-faced actor charmed not only Ringwald’s character, but also millions of teenage filmgoers everywhere. His star status rose quickly, and the New Jersey native became a legitimate heartthrob. It was later revealed that director Hughes had McCarthy wear a wig for the famous last scene of “Pretty In Pink,” as the actor had already shaved his head for his next role in the NY-based play, “The Boys of Winter.” McCarthy and Ringwald reunited later on in the much darker drama “Fresh Horses” (1988), but this film lacked the innocence and their coupling, the chemistry, of their earlier classic.
Riding high on his film success, McCarthy delivered a one-two punch in 1987 with a blockbuster comedy and a powerhouse teen drama. The former – “Mannequin” – paired him with a pre-“Sex and the City” sexpot Kim Cattrall in a harmless comedy about a struggling artist who falls in love with a department store mannequin who then magically comes to life. While “Mannequin” left critics less than enthused, the same could not be said for McCarthy’s other offering that year, “Less Than Zero.” In his serious turn as Clay, a young man who juggles a romance with his high school sweetheart (Jami Gertz) as he helps his other friend (Robert Downey, Jr.) battle a cocaine addiction, while all three learn to navigate the concrete jungle of post-high school Los Angeles, McCarthy was spellbinding. The film – based on the disturbing novel by Bret Easton Ellis – was quite a departure from McCarthy’s previous work and was a high point in all of their careers. Film critic Roger Ebert described the three actors’ performances as “flawless.”
McCarthy’s theater career also blossomed in the late 1980s, with the actor often jumping back and forth between film and stage projects. The same year that “Less Than Zero” was released, he starred as Henry Hopper in the PBS American Playhouse production of “Waiting for the Moon,” a 1987 play based on the lives of Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. His other theater credits included “Boys of Winter,” “Psychopathic Sexualicious” and “Long Days Journey Into Night,” in which he played Edmond. The Hartford Stage Company, which produced “Long Days,” was so impressed by the actor that they offered him the lead in “Death of Papa,” a role that was originally written for theater wunderkind, Matthew Broderick. McCarthy was more than happy to take it. The success and praise for his performance won the actor the role of Clifford in the Tony Award-winning play, “Side Man.” In 2001, McCarthy returned to the Hartford Stage to play Tom in the Tennessee Williams classic, “The Glass Menagerie.”
In 1989, McCarthy teamed up with Jonathan Silverman in the unspeakably odd film, “Weekend at Bernie’s,” a screwball comedy about two friends who pretend – to great and preposterous lengths – that their murdered boss Bernie Lomax (Terry Kiser) is still alive. The film became a surprise hit, and the actors even reprised their roles in the 1993 sequel, “Weekend at Bernie’s II” which received less-than-stellar reviews and box-office haul. Despite the odd “Bernie” choices, McCarthy proved he was much more than a former teen heartthrob-turned-goofy comedic actor, by appearing in two critically acclaimed 1994 ensembles – as a dissatisfied husband in “The Joy Luck Club” and as Eddie Parker in “Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle.”
By the late nineties, McCarthy appeared in several independent film releases – from the crime drama “Mulholland Falls” (1996) to the action thriller “Stag” (1997). Though none of his work in the 1990s and into the next millennium reached either blockbuster or iconic status like his eighties work, McCarthy developed into a serious and highly employable actor – particularly on television. He guest-starred on episodes of “Law & Order” (NBC, 1990- ) and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” (NBC, 1999- ). The actor was set to guest star on the show’s third franchise “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (NBC, 2001- ), however, tensions on-set between him and star Vincent D’Onofrio forced creator Dick Wolf to decide against it. “I was fired because I refused to allow a fellow actor to threaten me with physical violence, bully me and try to direct me,” McCarthy later said of the highly volatile D’Onofrio.
In 2004, McCarthy was cast as surgeon Dr. Hook in “Kingdom Hospital” (ABC), a horror miniseries adapted by Stephen King and based on a series from Danish filmmaker, Lars von Trier. A year later, the actor joined Benjamin Bratt and Dennis Hopper on the short-lived series “E-Ring” (NBC, 2005-06), based on the people who work inside The Pentagon. McCarthy returned to film in 2008, playing Freddie Highmore’s dad in “The Spiderwick Chronicles.” That same year, he joined the cast of “Lipstick Jungle,” a series about three career women – Brooke Shields, Lindsay Price and Kim Raver – from the pen of “Sex and the City” (HBO, 1998-2004) scribe, Candace Bushnell. Audiences loved McCarthy as sexy billionaire Joe Bennett. “He’s one of these guys for whom anything goes,” McCarthy said about his character. “He’s not bound by any rules of society because money liberates you from all those constraints. The sky’s the limit.” In between his time on “Lipstick,” the actor squeezed in two films in during the Writer’s Strike of 2008 – the thriller “Camp Hope” with Dana Delany, and the romantic comedy “The Good Guy” (2009) with Alexis Bledel.
This TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.
Dominic Monaghan was born in Berlish of British parents in 1976. He first came to public attention as Jeffrey the teenage private detective in “Hetty Wainthorpe” starring Patricia Routledge. This wonderful series was set in the North of England and concerned a lady pensioner and her teenage assistant who solve mysteries and petty crimes. The series ran from 1996 to 1998. He gained further prominence for his roles in “Lord of the Rings” and in the series “Flash Forward” and “Lost”.
IMDB entry:
Dominic Monaghan is best known for his role in the movie adaptations of “Lord of the Rings”. Before that he became known in England for his role in the British television drama Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996). He was studying English Literature, Drama and Geography at Sixth Form College when he was offered the co-starring role in the series, which ran for four seasons. His other television credits include This Is Personal: The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper (2000) and a leading role in Monsignor Renard (2000), a series starring John Thaw.
On the stage Monaghan has performed in the world premiere UK production of The Resurrectionists, Whale and Annie and Fanny from Bolton to Rome. Since watching Star Wars when he was six years old, Dominic has been consumed by films. His other obsessions include writing, music, fashion, playing/watching soccer and surfing. Utilizing his writing skills, he and LOTR co-star Billy Boyd are collaborating on a script.
Born and raised in Berlin, Monaghan and his family moved to England when he was twelve. In addition to speaking fluent German, he has a knack at impersonations and accents. He frequently returns to his hometown of Manchester, England.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
This above entry can be accessed also online at IMDB here.
Viggo Mortensen was born in 1958 in New York City. His father is Dutch and his mother is American. He was raised in Europe and South America. He made his debut as an Amish farmer in Peter Weir’s “Witness”. His other films include “The Lord of the Rings” series, “Psycho” and “28 Days”.
TCM Overview:
Getting his start in forgettable grade-B movies and so-called “other man” roles, actor Viggo Mortensen made a slow, steady climb up the ranks to become one of Hollywood’s most reliable and in-demand talents. Though he had little trouble finding work, Mortensen spent a good deal of time looking for that one breakthrough that would catapult his career. That springboard came with a leading role in the epic “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (2001-03), in which he played a heroic, but displaced king in a fictional land beset by evil. Because of his being a central character in one of the biggest, most beloved trilogies in cinema history, Mortensen had a wealth of opportunities open up to him, including the critically acclaimed and award-nominated “History of Violence” (2005). Exceedingly humble about success and uncharacteristically un-Hollywood, Mortensen managed to stay somewhat reclusive and focused on other interests outside of acting, namely painting and writing poetry, despite becoming one of the most recognizable stars in the world.
Vinnie Jones was born in 1965 in Watford. He was a reknowned footballer and played for Leeds United and Chelseaamong others. In 1998 he made his feature film debut in “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” directed by Guy Ritchie. Other films include “Snatch”, “Gone in 60 Seconds” and “X-Men”.
TCM Overview:
One of the toughest of England’s “hard men” of football, Vinnie Jones parlayed his notoriety as a talented if ruthless player for championship teams into a career as a supporting actor and occasional lead in films on both sides of the Atlantic. Jones’ movie roles rarely asked him to do more than provide a physically imposing presence, but from time to time – most notably in Guy Richie’s “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1998) – he displayed a knack for comic delivery as well. He also successfully parodied his two-fisted soccer persona in a string of popular television ads in England, making him a bit of public treasure in his homeland.
Born Vincent Peter Jones in Watford, Hertfordshire, England on Jan. 5, 1965, Jones’ soccer career began with the semi-professional Wealdstone Football Club and the Swedish club IFK Holmsund, before joining the Wimbledon Football Club in 1986. Jones quickly earned a reputation as an aggressive player – he set a still-unbroken record of earning a yellow flag (which cites a second warning from an official and removal from the game) after only five seconds of play, and earned admirers and detractors alike for distracting an opposing player by grabbing his testicles. Despite these and numerous other offenses, Jones helped to earn the Wimbledon team the Football Association Cup – the highest honor in English football – in 1988.
Jones left Wimbledon in 1989 and played for several other teams, including Chelsea and Leeds, before returning to Wimbledon in 1992. During his tenure in Leeds, he proved that he was able to play at the top of his skill set without resorting to dirty tricks. However, after returning to Wimbledon, he solidified his image as a brawler by hosting “Soccer’s Hard Men,” a direct-to-video compilation of footage featuring Jones and other players getting tough on the field. The Football Association publicly excoriated Jones for his participation and fined him 20,000 pounds.
While completing his final stint with Wimbledon, Jones’s record of 384 games and 33 goals earned him a spot on the Wales International Team, for which he played from 1994 to 1997. He eventually brought his professional sports career to a close with a stint as player/coach for the Queens Park Rangers in 1998. He retired from the game a year later after being passed over as the team’s manager; instead focusing on the business of living up to his reputation.
First on the docket was an autobiography, Vinnie, which was published in 1998. He quickly followed this with a string of television commercials which played up to his sports persona to great effect. His film career got off to a rollicking start with Guy Ritchie’s crime caper romp “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels,” in which he played Big Chris, the stone-faced and brutal debt collector for porn magnate “Hatchet” Harry Lonsdale (P.H. Moriarty). Jones’s dry delivery was perfect for the offbeat character, which brought his equally taciturn son with him on collection jobs, and it brought him the first of two Empire Awards; the second came for his reunion with Ritchie on the more star-studded (Brad Pitt, Benecio Del Toro) but less clever “Snatch” (2001).
Jones made his Hollywood debut as a taciturn car thief named “The Sphinx” in Dominic Sena’s overblown remake of “Gone in Sixty Seconds” (2000), and quickly settled into a string of roles in mediocre American product that emphasized his imposing figure, including “Swordfish” (2001) and “The Big Bounce” (2004). In his native England, however, Jones got his first chance to play a lead in “Mean Machine” (2001), a remake of “The Longest Yard” (1974), which cast him as an imprisoned former soccer champ who organizes a team from his fellow cons to play against the jail’s guards. Jones also cut an album of blues and soul covers titled Respect in 2002, and began a long and lucrative collaboration with Bacardi in spots for UK television. These came to an end in 2003 after Jones was convicted of assaulting a crew member on board a Virgin Atlantic flight.
Jones manfully handled the crooks and cronies he was assigned in a handful of bland action and comedy pictures for most of 2004 and 2005; his sole notable character during this period was, appropriately enough, a berserk soccer hooligan in the otherwise dim teen sex comedy “Eurotrip” (2004), which again gave Jones a showcase for his comic skills. He later proved that he could capably handle a lead role (and even a smattering of romance) in the little-seen Irish crime drama “Johnny Was” (2005), which cast him as a crook attempting to stay straight, despite the temptations of his former mentor (Patrick Bergin) and his girlfriend (Samantha Mumba).
Jones enjoyed another comic turn as a hard-nosed soccer coach in “She’s the Man” (2006), a likable teen comedy about a female soccer prodigy (Amanda Bynes) who must dress as a boy in order to play for a prestigious team. That same year, Jones was used to excellent effect as Cain Marko, the unstoppable and flippant mutant known as Juggernaut in “X-Men: The Last Stand” (2006) who makes life difficult for Ellen Page’s Kitty Pride in one tense chase scene through walls. Jones reportedly made enough of an impression on the film’s producers that his character was spared in the film’s room-clearing final assault, and was signed to future related projects.
In 2006, Jones appeared in several UK television ads promoting greyhound racing for the bookmaker company Ladbrokes; Jones was a recognized figure in that sport as both a greyhound owner and racing enthusiast. On the film front, he remained remarkably busy, and if the projects rarely allowed him to show much range, he had established himself as a dependable “type,” capable of handling most genres. In his native country, he acquitted himself nicely opposite such acclaimed talents as Vanessa Redgrave and Derek Jacobi in “The Riddle” (2007), a mystery about a sports reporter (Jones) who sets out to solve a murder connected to an unpublished Charles Dickens manuscript. Hollywood, however, continued to cast Jones as pure muscle; he was the most villainous of a group of criminals dispatched to a private island to compete in a televised elimination match in “The Condemned” (2007), a lunkheaded if entertaining exploitation effort that featured World Wrestling Entertainment hero “Stone Cold” Steve Austin in his first starring role. Jones even took to American television to help Austin promote the movie at “No Way Out,” a 2007 pay-for-view wrestling event promoted by the WWE.
Jones’ schedule was booked solid for most of 2008 and 2009; he was cast as a subway serial killer in the gruesome horror film “The Midnight Meat Train” (2008), which was directed by Japanese cult filmmaker Ryuhei Kitamura and based on a short story by acclaimed novelist Clive Barker. True to form, he then shifted gears to play a Biblical heavy in “Year One” (2009), a Judd Apatow-produced comedy set in ancient times that reunited “Superbad” (2007) stars Michael Cera and Christopher Mintz-Plasse under director Harold Ramis.
TCH Overview on Vinnie Jones can also be accessed online here.
Brenda Vaccaro was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1939 to parents of Italian origin. She began her acting career on Broadway and starred in “Cactus Flower” with Lauren Bacall and Barry Nelson in 1965. She made an impact on film in 1969 along with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in the wonderful “Midnight Cowboy”. She went on to an impressive film career. Her films include “Summertree” with Michael Douglas, “Once is Not Enough” with Kirk Douglas and Alexis Smith in 1975 and more recently she gave a very sensitive performance in “The Boynton Beach Club”.
Her TCM Biography:
A husky-voiced actress who segued from beautiful leading lady to earthy character parts, Brenda Vaccaro enjoyed success in a variety of mediums. She earned three Tony nominations for her stage work in the 1960s, won a Golden Globe nomination for her role as a socialite paying Jon Voight for sex in “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), and an Oscar nomination for “Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough” (1975). Although she was an accomplished dramatic actress, audiences embraced her most as a wisecracking second banana to everyone from Faye Dunaway in “Supergirl” (1984) to Barbra Streisand in “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996), as well as an in-demand voiceover actress.
The Emmy-winning Vaccaro earned an impressive array of TV credits as well, but found it harder to book jobs as she grew older. She did earn excellent reviews with the lead role in the gentle romantic comedy “Boynton Beach Club” (2005) and for a brilliant supporting turn as Al Pacino’s sister in the Dr. Kevorkian biopic, “You Don’t Know Jack” (HBO, 2010). Even 50 years into her career, Vaccaro remained a vital, formidable actress with the training and talent to deliver award-caliber performances – if Hollywood would only give the veteran performer the chance.
Born Nov. 18, 1939 in Brooklyn, NY to Christine M. and Mario A. Vaccaro, a pair of Italian-American restaurateurs, Brenda Buell Vaccaro was raised in Texas, where her parents co-founded the nationally-renowned Mario’s Restaurant. After high school, Vaccaro returned to New York City to study acting, making her Broadway debut in the 1961 comedy, “Everybody Loves Opal,” for which she won the Theatre World Award. Pairing her unmistakable husky voice with her acting talent, Vaccaro immediately stood out to critics and fans alike, and she earned a long string of Broadway credits, including “Cactus Flower” in 1965, “How Now, Dow Jones” in 1967, and “The Goodbye People” in 1968 – earning a Tony nomination for each of those roles.
Already the owner of a lengthy television résumé, her breakthrough in film came with the controversial hit “Midnight Cowboy” (1969), for which she earned a Golden Globe nomination playing a sexually voracious socialite who helps Jon Voight start up his male hustling business. She also earned a Golden Globe nomination for Most Promising Newcomer with her role of a sharp-witted secretary in “Where It’s At” (1969).
She ably supported Robert Mitchum as his sweetheart in the powerful but downbeat “Going Home” (1971), then won an Emmy for her performance in the revue by and about women, “The Shape of Things” (1974). After four years away from the big screen, Vaccaro roared back with a Golden Globe-winning, Oscar-nominated turn as wisecracking magazine editor Linda Riggs in “Jacqueline Susann’s Once Is Not Enough” (1975).
She tackled the tough role of a woman battling a gang of Canadian punks intent on rape in the dark, but cerebral horror thriller, “Death Weekend” (1976) and then earned an Emmy nomination for the short-lived “Sara” (CBS, 1975-1976), about a frontier schoolteacher. Vaccaro played James Brolin’s wife in the NASA conspiracy thriller “Capricorn One” (1977) – for which she earned a Best Supporting Actress Saturn Award nomination – and a threatened passenger in the cheesy-but-effective disaster smash, “Airport ’77” (1977).
Vaccaro worked constantly and successfully in all genres, but comedy was her forte, and she marked memorable turns as a villain’s sexually frustrated wife in “Zorro, the Gay Blade” (1981) and as Faye Dunaway’s wisecracking fellow witch in “Supergirl” (1984). She impressed even in subpar material, perfecting the art of stealing a project from the supporting sidelines. She chewed up scenery to delightful effect as top teen model Nicollette Sheridan’s stage mother/manager in the campy Morgan Fairchild nighttime soap, “Paper Dolls” (ABC, 1984).
Fleshing out her résumé with impressive guest-starring TV credits, Vaccaro kept busy, earning an Emmy nomination for an appearance on “The Golden Girls” (NBC, 1985-1992), as the widow of Dorothy’s cross-dressing, never-seen brother. The actress continued to be an in-demand second banana, ably sparring with Valerie Harper in “Stolen: One Husband” (CBS, 1990) and Ann-Margret in “Following Her Heart” (NBC, 1994), before playing the mother of J y (Matt LeBlanc) in “The One with the Boobies” episode of “Friends” (NBC, 1994-2004).
Besides a small role in “Love Affair” (1994) with Warren Beatty, Annette Bening and Katharine Hepburn (in the latter’s last screen performance), Vaccaro continued to lend her trademark raspy voice to numerous animated TV projects. Whether or not they could identify her by name, millions of children had grown up hearing Vaccaro voice characters on everything from “Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey” (ABC, 1977), “The Smurfs” (NBC, 1981-89), “The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones” (syndicated, 1987), “Darkwing Duck” (ABC, 1991-92) to “The Critic” (ABC, 1994; FOX, 1995), “Johnny Bravo” (Cartoon Network, 1997-2004) and “American Dad!” (FOX, 2005- ). She essayed great humor and vulnerability on the big screen as Barbra Streisand’s frumpy best friend in the Oscar-nominated hit, “The Mirror Has Two Faces” (1996), in which she had to deal with feelings of abandonment when Streisand transforms from ugly duckling to swan.
A role that ech d her “Midnight Cowboy” success, Vaccaro earned good notices for a sweetly delusional customer of male prostitute James Franco in “Sonny” (2002), as well as for the lead role in the kind-hearted ensemble comedy, “Boynton Beach Club” (2005), which followed the lives and loves of a group of senior citizens in a Florida retirement community. Vaccaro played both tough and tender as a woman who is unexpectedly widowed when a neighbor (Renée Taylor) accidentally runs over her husband; she then must deal with her family and friends’ attempts to help her recover. Despite the vivid proof of her ability, Vaccaro, like many aging actresses, found it difficult find work in later years.
Although she was still able to notch the occasional prominent credit, like an episode of “Nip/Tuck” (FX, 2003-10), the offers slowed to a trickle, and she considered quitting show business completely and moving to France to be near her husband’s family. Luckily, fate conspired to put Vaccaro on the radars of the production team making “You Don’t Know Jack” (HBO, 2010), a pedigreed film about the life and career of controversial doctor-assisted-suicide advocate, Jack Kevorkian. Director Barry Levinson and star Al Pacino – who was an old theater buddy of the actress and at one time had shared a manager with her – were both fans of Vaccaro’s work, and she landed the role of Kevorkian’s protective sister, Margo Janus. Reviewers raved about the film, especially about Vaccaro’s performance, predicting she would be shortlisted for all the top awards. She was indeed nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie in 2010. Critics and fans alike hoped that it would be a turning point for the actress, and she would find herself as in-demand as her talent – regardless of her age – deserved.
The TCM biography can also be accessed online here.
Chris O’Dowd is a rising young Irish actor. He was born in Boyle, Co. Roscommon. He is a graduate of University College, Dublin. He began his acting career with the famed Druid Theatre in Galway. He also starred in the early seasons of Irish television series “The Clinic”. In the UK he was featured in “The IT Crowd” and “Roman Empire”. In 2009 he moved on to starring roles in “The Boat that Rocked” and “Hippie, Hippie, Shake”. Won rave reviews for his performance in “Bridesmaids” in 2011.
Chris O’Dowd interview in “The Telegraph”:
Here, pigeon! Pi-pi-pigeon, come on!” Chris O’Dowd is perched on a wall in the middle of a park in south London, attempting to entice a bunch of standard-issue, unkempt, cankerous-looking urban “rats-with-wings” by sprinkling muffin crumbs around him.
He’s complying with the wishes of theTelegraph photographer, but the tactic isn’t producing the Tippi Hedren-style shot he’s after.
The birds maintain discreet distance, possibly because O’Dowd’s dog Potato, a Jack Russell-cross, is straining at the leash and regarding the creatures with a canine gourmand’s eye. O’Dowd has another explanation. “I guess they’re just immune to my manifold charms,” he shrugs, aiming an ineffectual kick in the retreating pigeons’ direction.
If that’s the case, the birds are very much alone. The 31-year-old O’Dowd has spent the past five years honing his own particular brand of genial, loquacious slacker allure as Roy, the feckless computer geek, in four series of Graham Linehan’s Bafta-winning Channel 4 comedyThe IT Crowd.
Recently, he’s broadened his range, playing straight in the BBC’s period drama The Crimson Petal and the White. And now he’s hitting the Hollywood mainstream as one of the two specimens of male eye candy – the other being Jon Hamm, no less – in the comedy Bridesmaids, which stars Saturday Night Live alumnus and the film’s co-writer Kristen Wiig as Annie, whose maid-of-honour status, along with her life, unravels in the run-up to the wedding of her best friend.
“Yeah, there’s been some love, and some fun, and I don’t take any of it personally, even – or maybe especially – the positive stuff,” he says, as we settle down with cappuccinos at the park café.
“I know people are talking about the character, even if they’re saying my name. I like to think that when people meet me in real life, they go off me immediately.”
As if on counter-intuitive cue, O’Dowd’s girlfriend, the journalist and documentary-maker Dawn Porter, arrives to escort Potato home. There’s an exchange of “see you later honeys”, and O’Dowd settles into his chair.
He cuts a striking figure: 6ft 4in, somewhat leaner than the 15st he’s been known to attain, his off-duty-actor beard of a piece with his messy dark hair, dressed in jeans and Hawaiian shirt – the latter a variant on the ones he sported at the LA premiere of Bridesmaids and a recent slot on Conan O’Brien’s show. “I’m a Hawaiian shirt guy,” he says, with a grin. “I’ve made that life decision.”
O’Dowd is engaging company; with a default setting of convivial drollery. When informed that, at a screening of Bridesmaids the previous evening, the women present had reacted most emphatically to the most outré sexual scenes and jokes, he shakes his head: “Yup, if I know one thing about women, it’s that they’re filthy.”
He even responds to the news that attendees also had the chance to have their photo taken with a bow-tied, bare-chested hunk with near-equanimity. “In the US, they’re at pains to avoid the term ‘chick flick’ in connection with this film,” he laughs. “Here, they’re wheeling out the Chippendales.”
If “chick flick” is now on a par with “Mel Gibson vehicle” as a synonym for box-office morbidity, it’s because Bridesmaids arrives at a time when the debate over Hollywood’s “women problem” – the argument that “female-driven” films are a tough, if not impossible, sell to male moviegoers – has been reignited. Even the likes of Stacey Snider, the CEO of DreamWorks and one of the most powerful women in Hollywood, has opined that “girls revealing themselves as candid and raunchy doesn’t appeal to guys at all”.
For O’Dowd, the whole debate is specious. “Surely we’re past all this,” he says. “French and Saunders and Smack The Pony and Miranda Hart and a bunch of other people have killed this notion in the UK.
“I don’t think the public here buy this idea that women and men speak different comedic languages.” He takes a loud slurp of cappuccino. “I think Bridesmaids is a hoot, and I’m an alpha-male. So it’s clearly all ridiculous.”
The makers of Bridesmaids are pretty well-placed to tackle the conundrums. Wiig and her co-writer Annie Mumolo are graduates of the LA-based improv troupe The Groundlings, whose alumni include Will Ferrell and Lisa Kudrow. Director Paul Feig was the creator of the cherished-if-short-lived comedy/drama Freaks and Geeks.
Producer Judd Apatow meanwhile is the undisputed king of the bro-mance – The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up – with a company of stock players (Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Katherine Heigl) known to some as Apatown. His films, while undoubtedly manolescent-centric, have a little more EQ than most.
O’Dowd declares himself a “borderline fanboy” of the Apatow canon, even though “Judd had no idea who I was. But it turned out that Paul Feig was a big fan of The IT Crowd.”
O’Dowd has now become, if not a resident, then at least a non-dom of Apatown. Since Bridesmaids, he’s completed a film called Friends With Kids, which re-teams him with Wiig and Hamm. And he’s soon to start work on Apatow’s own new movie, This is Forty.
“It follows Paul Rudd and Lesley Mann’s characters from Knocked Up,” he says. “It’s an in-depth look at relationships, marriage and parenting in this kind of post-boomer generation.
“I can’t wait to get started on it, but they approach things very differently there; they’ll shoot until like three in the morning working on making the laughs better.”
O’Dowd puts it down to the tradition of rapid-fire improv troupes in which many of the principals cut their teeth. “Our only equivalent to that here is, unfortunately, panel shows,” he says. “Someone was interviewing me in the US recently and they said they had footage of me on game shows. I was like, what?
“It turned out they meant Never Mind the Buzzcocks. So that’s the difference – they have Chris Farley, we have Ian Hislop.”
Actors always downplay ambition, but O’Dowd makes his own progress sound more hapless than most: “I’ve gone up for loads of jobs in the past that I knew were going to be terrible, and I’ve done my best, and I still haven’t got them,” he says. “So I think I’ve been lucky in who’s decided I’d be worthy of their time.”
Still, he acknowledges that Bridesmaids has the potential to take things up a notch. “Though it’s hard to look at it in a rational, tangible way when you’re broke, which I am,” he says brightly.
“My last two jobs were indie movies that didn’t pay anything; I didBridesmaids a year ago, and the money wasn’t brilliant. So, yeah, it was a big moment to go on Conan O’Brien, but then I realised my cable was turned off because I couldn’t afford it. So I’m on a chat show I can’t afford to watch.”
Penury aside, he’s grateful that such recognition as he currently enjoys came gradually. “I mean, it must be f—— weird to be some 20 year-old heading up Thor or something, right?” he says.
“With The IT Crowd, it built slowly and got better as it went on; I was pretty bad in the first series.” A fifth season has been mooted, but Linehan is busy with a stage version of The Ladykillers, while Katherine Parkinson has just starred in The School for Scandal at the Barbican and Richard Ayoade enjoyed acclaim for Submarine, the coming-of-age movie he wrote and directed.
“Richard’s a genius, isn’t he?” beams O’Dowd, who comes over all bro-mantic when Ayoade’s name is mentioned. “That film left me reeling. I’m so proud of him.”
O’Dowd now seems ready for his own close-up, not least on the evidence of his appearance on O’Brien’s show, where he regaled the host by claiming to have “you know, actually penetrated” Wiig during their sex scene in Bridesmaids (at her express request, of course) and went on to recount his upbringing in Roscommon, where, as the youngest of five, his older sisters would hold him down and spit in his mouth. The latter story, he allows, is veracious: “But I left out the bit where they chased me with pokers.”
His father was a graphic designer and part-time guitarist, his mother a psychotherapist. It was an arty, permissive household, but acting didn’t factor in until he hightailed it to University College Dublin – “the choices back home were the fish factory or my dad’s business; I didn’t fancy the first and was useless at the second” – where his politics degree got increasingly short shrift as he immersed himself in the campus DramSoc.
He originally wanted to be a speech writer and continues to write; he’s currently developing a sitcom for Sky based on the short he made last year about a bullied 11 year-old with a morbid fear of Santa and a tall, bearded, 31-year-old imaginary friend who, he admits, is not a million miles from himself. And he has “a couple” of films in development in the US: “There are plenty of irons in the fire,” he says, “and we’ll see if any of them miraculously turn into silver coins.”
O’Dowd needs to go, but, in parting, he shares some final thoughts on Twitter – “It’s essentially the same as graffiti on the back of a toilet door, but I need a bump in followers, so can you say that I’m @BigBoyler?” – and Porter, who he’s heading home to. “She’s relaxed and bright and great,” he smiles. “Going out with other actors is never good; actresses are neurotic, and actors are horrendous egotists.”
So he’s as sorted as any hapless, spasmodically employed, horrendous egotist could be?
“I hope Bridesmaids leads to good stuff and I’ll have more opportunities to work with good people, but it’s more difficult than you’d imagine to say no sometimes. So don’t be surprised if I turn up in a pile of shite.”
And he lopes off, scattering disgruntled pigeons in his wake.
His “Telegraph” interview can also be accessed online here.
TCM overview:
Although most Americans know him for playing the affable Officer Rhodes in “Bridesmaids” (2011), Chris O’Dowd was already a major star in Britain prior to his breakthrough performance in the Judd Apatow-produced wedding comedy. As the star of the British sitcom, “The IT Crowd” (Channel 4, 2006-2010), O’Dowd played a socially awkward computer geek named Roy. The show made O’Dowd a household name in Britain, and before long he was being courted by Hollywood, appearing in brief but memorable roles in such films as “Pirate Radio” (2009), “Dinner for Shmucks” (2010) and “Gulliver’s Travels” (2010). But it was O’Dowd’s role as the love interest of Kristen Wiig’s character in “Bridesmaids” that made him a bona-fide Hollywood star. That film would go on to gross nearly $300 million at the box office in the summer of 2011, firmly minting Chris O’Dowd as one of the film world’s newest big-screen funnymen.
O’Dowd was born in Sligo, Ireland, and grew up in the small town of Boyle, which had a population of 3,000. A somewhat awkward youth — he was already 6 feet fall by his 11th birthday — O’Dowd played soccer all throughout his teens. Once high school was over, however, he hung up his cleats and enrolled at University College in Dublin. O’Dowd studied politics and sociology while attending the school (his mother was a psychotherapist), but quickly realized that college was not for him. He dropped out shortly after and moved to London to pursue acting. O’Dowd took a job at a charity call-in center to pay the bills, while frequently skipping out to attend auditions. He appeared in minor roles in British dramas such as “Conspiracy of Silence” (2003) and “Vera Drake” (2004), before landing the role of Roy Trenneman on “The IT Crowd.” O’Dowd appeared in all four seasons of the show, which revolved around several tech employees working at a London-based corporation. The show ended in 2010, making O’Dowd a major star in the process. However, with the release of “Bridesmaids” the following summer, the 31-year-old actor would show the world his career was only just beginning.
O’Dowd had an inkling that “Bridesmaids” would be a smash hit. Despite appearing in two major Hollywood movies the year prior, O’Dowd recalled a familial atmosphere on the set of “Bridesmaids” that was much different than his previous American filmmaking experiences. When “Bridesmaids” opened to glowing reviews in May of 2011, eventually earning two Academy Award nominations, O’Dowd’s suspicions proved correct. That same year he reteamed with several of his “Bridesmaids” cast members in the comedy “Friends With Kids,” before appearing in Apatow’s dramedy about married life, “This is 40” (2012). That film was a sequel to “Knocked Up” (2007), with O’Dowd playing a hipster record executive. In early 2013 O’Dowd appeared on the second season of the HBO series “Girls” (HBO, 2012); he reprised his role as a wealthy venture capitalist on the show’s second season.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Dean Jones spent a long time in supporting roles on film until the Disney Studios cast him in leading roles in a large number of films between 1965 and 1977. He was born in 1931 in Alabama. His first film role was in 1956 in “Somebody Up There Likes Me” with Paul Newman and Pier Angeli. His first Disney film was “That Darn Cat” with Hayley Mills and Dorothy Provine. Other films with the studio included “Blackbeard’s Ghost”, “The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit” and “The Love Bug”. His last Disney film was “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo”. His most screen appearance was “Mandie and the Secret Tunnel” in 2008. He died in 2015 at the age of 84.
His TCM biography:
Boyish-looking, squeaky-clean leading man of the 1960s and 70s who began his career as a blues singer before making his film debut in 1956. Jones gained prominence for his starring roles in a succession of Disney family comedies in the 1960s, most notably “That Darn Cat!” (1965), “The Love Bug” (1968), “Million Dollar Duck” (1971), “The Shaggy D.A.” (1976) and “Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo” (1977). Jones also starred briefly on Broadway in Stephen Sondheim’s sophisticated dissection of modern marriage, “Company” (1970) and received praise for the innocent, dopey quality he brought to the role of the bachelor Bobby. After a hiatus from major roles in the 1980s, Jones was featured as a pragmatic business manager whose company is about to be taken over by a liquidator in “Other People’s Money” (1991). Jones married second wife, actress-turned-screenwriter, Lory Basham in 1973. He died in w015.
The Shaggy D.a., poster, US poster, Dean Jones, 1976. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)THE UGLY DACHSHUND, US poster art, from left: Dean Jones, Suzanne Pleshette, 1966 ACHTUNG AUFNAHMEDATUM GESCHÄTZT PUBLICATIONxINxGERxSUIxAUTxONLY Copyright: xCourtesyxEverettxCollectionx MSDUGDA EC001
Obituary in “The Telegraph” in 2015.
Dean Jones, the actor, who has died aged 84, was best known for his roles in such light-hearted family films as The Love Bug (1968), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977) and Beethoven (1992).
Boyishly handsome and clean-cut, Jones could switch his expression from impish grin to confused grimace in an instant and he was an ideal hapless hero of the cheery Hollywood comedies of the late 1960s and 1970s. In The Love Bug – the first of the Disney films to feature “Herbie”, the Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own – he played Jim Douglas, an unsuccessful racing driver who finds himself landed with Herbie after visiting a showroom run by a crooked car dealer, Peter Thorndyke (David Tomlinson).
The wilful car soon takes over Douglas’s life, causing him endless frustrations and provoking outbursts of impotent rage. But Herbie’s high speed transforms Douglas’s fortunes on the race track and, ultimately, brings him together with Carole, the car showroom sales woman (played by Michele Lee).
The Love Bug went on to become one of the highest grossing films of that year and spawned four sequels, including Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, in which Jones reprised his role as Douglas.
Although Jones appeared in more than 40 other films, it was his roles in Disney productions which brought him stardom. “It was a fast-track life,” he recalled in 1997. “I was making $50,000 a week. I had the Ferraris and beautiful women and all the rest of what I thought would satisfy my life. And it was empty. Really empty.”
Dean Jones in The Love Bug (1968)
In 1973 Jones, who had suffered from depression for many years, became a born-again Christian. “One night,” his wife said, “he got down on his knees and prayed that God would free him from the miserable moods that he had always suffered. He told me that in an instant it was gone and he felt peace and joy flood into his heart.” Although he continued to work in Hollywood and on stage, Jones also appeared in several Christian films and had some success touring in the one-man show St John in Exile (1986) as the apostle reminiscing about his life while imprisoned on the Greek island of Patmos.
Dean Carroll Jones was born on January 25 1931 at Decatur, Alabama, and educated at the Riverside High School, Decatur, where he had his own radio show, Dean Jones Sings.
He went on to serve in the US Navy during the Korean War, after which he found work at the Bird Cage Theatre in Buena Park, California. Jones did not finish his studies at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, although in 2002 the university awarded him an honorary degree.
Jones’s first film role was in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956), which starred Paul Newman. This was followed by an appearance as DJ Teddy Talbot in Jailhouse Rock (1957). He made his Broadway debut (with Jane Fonda) in There Was a Little Girl (1960), which was followed in the same year by the Broadway comedy Under the Yum-Yum Tree, a role which he repeated in the 1963 film version starring Jack Lemmon.
Dean Jones as the villainous vet in Beethoven
In 1965 Jones was approached by Walt Disney himself, who had seen him in a sitcom. He was subsequently cast in the film That Darn Cat! (1965), in which he played an FBI agent with a cat assistant who helps him to catch armed robbers. Jones then tried to pitch a serious project to Walt Disney about the first sports car ever brought to America, but Disney suggested a comedy based on a Car, Boy, Girl, a story written in 1961 by Gordon Buford. This became The Love Bug.
His other films for Disney included Blackbeard’s Ghost (1968) with Peter Ustinov and The Million Dollar Duck (1971), which was mauled by the critics.
Jones went on to appear in numerous films including Beethoven (1992, in which he played a villainous vet) and Other People’s Money (1991), starring Danny DeVito and Gregory Peck. He also had a small role in the film adaptation of Tom Clancy’s Clear and Present Danger (1994), with Harrison Ford.
In 1982 Dean Jones published an autobiography, Under Running Laughter, which focused on how faith, not fame, had changed his life for the better.
His first marriage ended in divorce in 1970. In 1973 he married the actress Lory Patrick. She and his three children survive him..
Dean Jones, born January 25 1931, died September 1 2015
