Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 39 of 128

Richard Derr

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Born June 15, 1918 in Norristown, Pennsylvania, second lead Richard Derr made his first film appearance at age 23 as one of many suspects in Charlie Chan in Rio (1941) after signing with 20th Century-Fox. A second Chan film role would come with Castle in the Desert (1942). With staid good looks, he failed to stand out among the war-era hopefuls. He appeared typically in WWII-themed “B” films such as Man at Large (1941),Commandos Strike at Dawn (1942) and Tonight We Raid Calais (1943). Following the war he played the “other man” opposite June Allyson and Van Johnson in the comedy The Bride Goes Wild (1948) and took a lead professional role in the sci-fi classic When Worlds Collide (1951). He moved into character work and spent the remainder of his career in atmospheric authoritarian roles on film and TV. He died in 1992 of pancreatic cancer.

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

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

She was the archetypal brassy, bosomy, Brooklynesque bimbo with a highly distinctive scratchy voice. Barbara Nichols started life as Barbara Marie Nickerauer in Queens, New York on December 10, 1928, and grew up on Long Island. Graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School, the dame with the shapely frame changed her reddish-brown hair to platinum blonde and drew whistles as a post-war model and burlesque dancer. As a beauty contestant, she won the “Miss Long Island” title as well as the dubious crowns of “Miss Dill Pickle”, “Miss Mink of 1953” and “Miss Welder of 1953”, and also became a GI pin-up favorite. She began to draw early attention on stage (particularly in the musical “Pal Joey”) and in television drama.

Hardly leading lady material, Barbara found herself stealing focus in small, wisecracking roles, managing at times to draw both humor and pathos out of her cheesy, dim-witted characters — sometimes simultaneously. She seemed consigned for the long haul to playing strippers, gold-diggers, barflies, gun molls and other floozy types named Lola, Candy or even Poopsie. Barbara made the best of her stereotype, taking full advantage of the not-so-bad films that came her way. While most of them, of course, emphasized her physical endowments, she could be very, very funny when let loose. By far the best of her lot came out in one year: Pal Joey (1957), Sweet Smell of Success (1957) and The Pajama Game (1957). By the decade’s end, though, her film career had hit the skids and she turned more and more to television, appearing on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962),Adam-12 (1968), Twilight Zone (1959) (the classic “Twenty-Two” episode), The Untouchables (1959) and Batman (1966), to name a few.

Barbara landed only one regular series role in her career, the very short-lived situation comedy Love That Jill (1958) starring husband-and-wife team Anne Jeffreys and Robert Sterling. Barbara played a model named “Ginger”. She also co-starred on Broadway withGeorge Gobel and Sam Levene in the musical “Let It Ride” in 1961 and scraped up a few low-budget movies from time to time, including the campy prison drama House of Women (1962) and the science fiction film The Human Duplicators (1965) starring George Nader and Richard Kiel, who played “Jaws” in the James Bond film series.

A serious Long Island car accident in July 1957 led to the loss of her spleen, and another serious car accident in Southern California in the 1960s led to a torn liver. Complications would set in over a decade later and she was forced to slow down her career. Barbara eventually developed a life-threatening liver disease and her health deteriorated. In summer 1976, she was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, where she went into a coma. She awoke for a few days just before Labor Day, but sank back shortly after. She died at age 47 of liver failure on October 5 and was survived by her parents, George and Julia Nickerauer. She was interred at Pinelawn Memorial Park in Farmingdale, New York.

Looking back, you have to hand it to Barbara Nichols. As the song from “Gypsy” emphasizes, “You gotta have a gimmick”. Barbara did — and she worked it. Like such other lurid platinum blonde bombshells as Jayne Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, Joi Lansing, Barbara Payton, Cleo Moore, Beverly Michaels and Diana Dors, she rolled with the punches. Unlike those others, she had genuine talent.

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

Vivien Leigh is one of the truly most beloved actors on film. She is best remembered for her Oscar winning roles as ‘Scarlett O’Hara’ in “Gone With the Wind” in 1939 and ‘Blance Du Bois’ in Tennessee William’s “A Streetcar Bamed Desire” in 1951. I think her best performance was as ‘Myra’ in “Waterloo Bridge” in 1940. She was born in India in 1913 and died in the U.K. in 1967 at the age of 53.

TCM Overview:

British military family stationed in India. Despite her heritage, she remains best-known for her two most successful screen roles as American Southern belles.After a childhood traveling Europe, an apprenticeship at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and a brief marriage, Leigh began her career in 1935 with several small stage and screen roles. After making a hit onstage in “The Masque of Virtue” (1935), she was signed by Alexander Korda and appeared as a pretty ingenue in such films as “Fire Over England” (1937), opposite Laurence Olivier, and “Storm in a Teacup” (also 1937), with Rex Harrison. Korda loaned her to MGM for “A Yank at Oxford” (1938), which did more for Robert Taylor than Leigh. That same year, she displayed her screen charisma and charm as a Cockney petty thief who is befriended by street performer Charles Laughton and romanced by songwriter Rex Harrison in the frothy “Sidewalks of London/Saint Martin’s Lane”. While making her mark in features, Leigh continued to polish her talents onstage, notably as Ophelia to Olivier’s “Hamlet” in 1937.

By this time, Leigh and Olivier were romantically involved. When he went to the US in late 1938 to make “Wuthering Heights”, Leigh followed and won the much-coveted role of Scarlett O’Hara in “Gone With the Wind” (1939). Her Scarlett was a headstrong, willful and colorful portrayal. Despite much flack about a relatively unknown Brit taking the role of the quintessential Southern belle, Leigh was triumphant, won an Oscar and became a bigger star than Olivier (whom she married in 1940).

Leigh failed to immediately follow up on her tremendous promise. She starred onstage with Olivier in “Romeo and Juliet” (1940) and made two films. In the fine remake of “Waterloo Bridge” (1940), Leigh’s beauty heightened her portrayal of a ballerina in love with an upper-class soldier (Robert Taylor). Through a series of plot machinations, she is reduced to prostitution and has a bittersweet reunion with Taylor, whom she thought was killed during the war. The role was the first of many in which her character suffered mental collapse–ironically mirroring her own bouts with mental illness. She again was a woman of questionable virtue in the biopic of an historical tart in “That Hamilton Woman” (1941, opposite Olivier). Her subsequent career was slowed to fits and starts by the tuberculosis which eventually killed her, and by her own emotional instability.

For the rest of her career, Leigh alternated between the stage and screen, giving electrifying, emotional performances in both mediums. She appeared in six films after her initial bout with Hollywood, first in the British productions “Caesar and Cleopatra” (1946), opposite Claude Rains, and as “Anna Karenina” (1948). Her next huge hit was recreating her stage role as the fragile, emotionally unstable Blanche Du Bois in Elia Kazan’s film of Tennessee Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951). Her performance as the outsider is enhanced by playing off her Method-trained co-stars, notably Marlon Brando’s stunning Stanley, Kim Hunter’s torn Stella and Karl Malden’s gentle Mitch. Leigh earned a second Best Actress Oscar playing this damaged woman trailing the tattered threads of her sanity behind her, a role some felt was eerily close to Leigh’s own personality at times. Her last films consisted of stellar performances as emotionally unstable women in less than stellar films: “The Deep Blue Sea” (1955), as a frustrated, suicidal wife; “The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone” (1961), based on a Tennessee Williams’ story, as an elegant, middle-aged actress who is ample bait for Warren Beatty’s gigolo; and Stanley Kramer’s all-star “Ship of Fools” (1966), as an embittered, flirtatious divorcee.

Leigh was, perhaps, happier onstage. She and Olivier toured with the Old Vic company in the late 1940s and early 50s, in such plays as “The School for Scandal”, “Anthony and Cleopatra”, “Caesar and Cleopatra”, “Richard III” and “Antigone.” She was directed by Olivier in “The Skin of Our Teeth” (1945) and “The Sleeping Prince” (1954) and scored successes with “Duel of Angels” (1958) and “Look After Lulu” (1959), directed by Noel Coward. In 1963, she made her American musical stage debut in “Tovarich”, winning a Tony Award. But health problems began to interfere with her ability to sustain a long run and she frequently missed performances. Her last stage appearance was in “Ivanov” in 1966.

Leigh’s private life was as stormy as any of her roles. After twenty tempestuous years, she and Olivier divorced in 1960, and her mental illness often transformed her intelligent and sweet nature, making professional and personal relationships problematic at times. By the time she died, a ravaged 53 years old, Vivien Leigh had become one of the broken butterflies she had so often played on stage and screen.

IMDB entry:

One of the most indispensable of character actors, Leo G. Carroll was already involved in the business of acting as a schoolboy in Gilbert & Sullivan productions. Aged 16, he portrayed an old man in ‘Liberty Hall’. In spite of the fact, that he came from a military family, and , perhaps, because of his experience during World War I, he decided against a military career in order to pursue his love of the theatre. In 1911, he had been a stage manager/actor in ‘Rutherford and Son’ and the following year took this play to America. Twelve years later, Leo took up permanent residence in the United States. His first performance on Broadway was in ‘Havoc’ (1924) with Claud Allister, followed by Noel Coward‘s ‘The Vortex’ (1925, as Paunceford Quentin). Among his subsequent successes on the stage were ‘The Green Bay Tree’ (1933) as Laurence Olivier‘s manservant, ‘Angel Street’ (aka ‘Gaslight’,1941) as Inspector Rough, and the ‘The Late George Apley’ (title role). The latter, a satire on Boston society, opened in November 1944 and closed almost exactly a year later. A reviewer for the New York times, Lewis Nichols, wrote “His performance is a wonderful one. The part of Apley easily could become caricature but Mr.Carroll will have none of that. He plays the role honestly and softly.” The play was filmed in 1947, with Ronald Colman in the lead role. Leo’s film career began in 1934. He was cast, to begin with, in smallish parts. Sometimes they were prestige ‘A pictures’, usually period dramas, such as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) and Wuthering Heights (1939).

Leo was a consummate method actor who truly ‘lived’ the parts he played, and, as a prominent member of Hollywood’s British colony, attracted the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. Indeed, the famous director liked him so much, that he preferred him to any American actor to play the part of a U.S. senator in Strangers on a Train (1951). A scene stealer even in supporting roles, Leo G. Carroll lent a measure of ‘gravitas’ to most of his performances, point in case that of the homicidal Dr. Murchison in Spellbound (1945) (relatively little screen time, but much impact !) and the professor in North by Northwest(1959). On the small screen, Leo lent his dignified, urbane presence and dry wit to the characters of Cosmo Topper and Alexander Waverly, spymaster and boss of Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964), the part for which he is chiefly remembered.

Leo G. Carroll appeared in over 300 plays during his career and the stage remained his preferred medium. He once remarked “It’s brought me much pleasure of the mind and heart. I owe the theatre a great deal. It owes me nothing” (NY Times, October 19,1972).

– IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

1735860 Affiche du film Tennessee Partner d\’Allan Dwan avec John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Ronald Reagan, 1955.; (add.info.: Affiche du film Le Mariage est pour demain Tennessee\’s Partner de Allan Dwan avec John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, Ronald Reagan, 1955.).

TCM overview:

An affable Midwesterner, Ronald Reagan parlayed his athletic good looks and undeniable charisma into a middling career in the movies, but it was the smaller screen that he would eventually master on his way to two terms as governor of California and ultimately as the 40th President of the United States. In that role of a lifetime, the ‘Great Communicator’ displayed constant optimism and a jaunty self-confidence, both of which endeared him to millions, despite revelations of wrongdoing by aides or occasional failures in foreign policy. Reagan acquired almost mythic status leading the charge John Wayne-style to vanquish the Evil Empire, but detractors would say, “At what cost?” An opponent of Big Government on one hand, he reduced government expenditures through massive domestic budget cuts while feeling no compunction about the huge federal deficits that piled up due to unprecedented peacetime military spending. True, he brought the Soviet Union to its knees, but there is also a legacy of social Darwinism evident in the ever-widening gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots.”

‘Dutch’ Reagan began his career as a sportscaster in Iowa, broadcasting the games of the Chicago Cubs, before a screen test earned him a contract at Warner Bros. (at whose insistence he dropped the nickname). Debuting as a radio announcer in “Love Is on the Air” (1937), he went on to appear in more than 50 films over the next two decades, proving a popular romantic lead in B pictures and a reliable support and/or a hero’s stolid pal in the studio’s A-list features. He was certainly memorable as George Gipp, Notre Dame’s dying football star, in “Knute Rockne–All American” (1940), and most TV prints have restored his “win just one for the Gipper” speech, cut because Pat O’Brien’s second-hand delivery of the line seemed enough exhortation to victory. He turned in what is almost universally considered his finest performance in “King’s Row” (1942), playing a character who has just had both legs amputated. Waking up from the anesthesia, he laments, “Where’s the rest of me?” (Reagan used the line as the title of his 1965 autobiography). He was also terrific as a compassionate but forceful American soldier in “The Hasty Heart” (1947), a stand-out in the midst of some box office bombs for him, but that film really belonged to Oscar nominee Richard Todd as the tragic Scotsman.

After serving as a captain in the US Air Force during WWII, Reagan became immersed in Hollywood politics and commenced his transformation from liberal New Deal Democrat to conservative Republican. As president of the Screen Actors Guild, he became embroiled in disputes about Communism in the film industry, and his conviction that Communist infiltration was undermining the nation’s institutions inspired the radical shift in his philosophy. Despite SAG’s affiliation with the American Federation of Labor, he negotiated contracts that greatly favored producers, but his flair for leadership helped him get elected to six one-year terms as the union’s president. His first marriage to Jane Wyman ended in part because of his increased political involvement (and what she perceived as his dullness), clearing the way for a later marriage to actress Nancy Davis, his biggest asset when he set his sights on higher office. Though his big-screen star had faded (his most notable film of the 50s, the schlocky “Bedtime for Bonzo” 1951, cast him opposite a chimp), he revived his popularity on TV as host of CBS’ “General Electric Theater” (1954-62) and traveled the nation as the company’s spokesman, preaching the fiery gospel of the Far Right.

Reagan recognized that TV was the perfect podium. During his eight-year run as goodwill ambassador for GE, the audience for any one episode rivaled the total number of people who had seen all of his movies. Having supported Richard M. Nixon in the 1960 race for President against John F. Kennedy, he then officially registered as a Republican in 1962, stumping for Nixon’s unsuccessful stab at the California governorship. His wife’s parents were intimates of Barry Goldwater, so it came as no surprise that he backed the Arizona senator’s bid for President in 1964. His conservative rhetoric honed to a razor’s edge, he went before the camera a week before the election and gave his stirring “A Time of Choosing” speech, a ringing defense of free enterprise and an attack on Communism cast in apocalyptic terms. Nearly $1 million flooded Republican coffers, and Reagan emerged as the GOP’s new star, despite Goldwater’s resounding defeat. Washington columnist David S. Broder declared it “the most successful national political debut since William Jennings Bryan electrified the 1896 Democratic convention with his ‘Cross of Gold’ speech.” Encouraged by friends to run for governor of California, the undeclared candidate and his wife took to the road and built grassroots support.

Reagan was twice the underdog in the 1966 election, first in the Republican primary, then against the Democratic incumbent Pat Brown (whose refusal to take his opponent seriously until it was too late doomed him to finish second by almost a million votes). Always quick with a quip, Reagan once remarked that a student demonstrator “had a haircut like Tarzan, walked like Jane, and smelled like Cheetah”, but his hard line approach to handling student unrest in the late 60s cost him votes, contributing to a much closer race in 1970. Many observers have noted that Reagan’s record as Governor was not as good as he claimed but not as bad as his critics maintained. In general, his eight-year record reflected a willingness to compromise in order to achieve his goals, such as his work with Democratic Speaker of the Assembly Bob Moretti to pass the nation’s first Welfare Reform Act in 1971. Though Reagan had initially reduced university funding, once the student protest movement had subsided, the higher education system began to receive large funding increases. He left office high in the popularity polls, no longer seen as an amateur politician from Hollywood, though few considered him a major statesman.

After his unsuccessful bid for the 1976 Republican presidential nomination, Reagan established a political action committee that raised and distributed money to Republican candidates at all levels during the 1978 mid-term election, creating a national network of loyal partisans for his 1980 campaign. He easily defeated his only competition in the primary, George Bush, then attacked incumbent President Jimmy Carter’s “failed” economic policies that had resulted in 12 percent inflation and eight million people unemployed, winning the November election overwhelmingly. (The fiasco of the hostages in Iran provided the final nail in the Carter coffin.) Early in his first year in office, he survived an assassin’s bullet and achieved a certain inviolability for the rest of his Presidency. Though it seemed that Reagan brought unemployment and inflation under control, he may have just been in the right place at the right time, his economic program benefiting more from a change in Federal Reserve Board policy than from the vaunted supply-side (“voodoo”) economics at its center.

His mastery of the TV medium made Reagan one of our most beloved Presidents. When those little red lights on the cameras lit up, he glowed like a man welcoming his best friend, and somehow he made you feel like you were his best friend, elevating the Mr. Nice Guy role learned at his mother’s knee and refined in the Hollywood crucible into high art. Reagan never shied away from his Hollywood history and often made it work to his advantage: his friendships with celebrated liberals-turned-conservative stars such as Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, and James Stewart bolstered his populist appeal; his speeches frequently cribbed lines from popular movies, such as Clint Eastwood’s famous “Go ahead, make my day” dialogue; and he often invoked his own sometimes-less-than-stellar film career with an appealing and self-depricating air. His example would continue to influence after his presidency: presidential successor Bill Clinton most cannily used his celebrity connections to define his political image, while another generation of movie-star-turned-Republican-politician, Arnold Schwarzenegger, drew inspiration from Reagan’s example and managed to follow in his footsteps as Governor of California.

In Showtime’s controversial cable film, “The Reagans” (2003), a nice guy did finish first and got the girl too, for no examination of the man can ignore his leading lady. Without Nancy, it is safe to say he would have never been President. Together they stepped from the cinema screen, her social contacts helping to start and keep him on the road to the White House. Once there, she wielded tremendous power as the self-effacing half of a very successful team. It was a perfectly scripted celluloid love story, except for the sad twist that had her standing by him at the end as he succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease, a condition which plagued the former president in the final decade of his life before his death at age 93 in 2004. Their romance remains the best part of the Reagan legacy because, unlike in the movies, their actions effected the entire world. It will be up to history to record just how positive an effect they had.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Tilly Losch

“Streetswing” article:

Tilly Losch was an established dancer and actress, she was titled the ‘Countess of Carnarvon.’ Danced in many children’s parts in all repertory ballets and Operas. She studied her dancing at the Vienna Imperial Opera ballet school at the age of six. Tilly became a full member of the ballet corps at the unusually young age of fifteen. She also studied modern dance with Grete Wiesenthal and Mary Wigman.

Tilly made her professional debut in Vienna Waltzes and her first dramatic role was in ‘Leonce and Lena’ at Vienna’s Burg theater. Her first solo appearance was at the Opern Theatre in Vienna in the 5/9/1924 ballet ‘Schlagobers,’ and by the time she was twenty was one of Vienna’s most popular dancers. Made her London debut with ‘This Year of Grace’ in 1928.

Losch stayed with the Vienna Opera untill she came to the U.S. (1927/1928) and gave various dance recitals in Central Europe. She met Harold Kreutzberg that same summer and would work for him many times. Later she meet George Ballanchine and danced as a Ballerina in his 1933 Balle.

. Also danced with Fred Astaire but she was never the exhibitionist, she was always shy, on-stage and off. Tilly’s first marriage ended in divorce due to numerous infidelities on her part.

Following a bout of depression, Tilly discontinued her dancing career, but soon felt the need for expression in another artistic medium. Having first tried her hand at watercolors, she began to paint seriously. The first one-person exhibition of her paintings, held at New York’s Bignou Gallery in the spring of 1944. Tilly’s second marriage was to the son of the world famous discoverer of King Tutankhamen’s tomb, Earl of Carnarvon and almost overnight became Lady Carnarvon, an English Countess.

While in New York in 1975 She died from cancer.

Te above “Streetswing” article can also be accessed online here.

IMDB entry:

A future in movies for this fair-haired, fresh-faced young adult of the 1930s was by no means certain at the time of his untimely death in a mid-air plane collision. Hints of the All-American leading man promise Phillips Holmes managed to convey during the early to mid decade, particularly in the film adaptation of Theodore Dreiser ‘s novel An American Tragedy (1931), had faded significantly. In the meantime he was maintaining with stage work and had just graduated from Air Ground School as an aircraftsman when he suddenly died at age 35 on August 12, 1942.

Phillips, his sister Madeline and their youngest brother, Ralph Holmes (pronounced “Rafe,” who later became an actor as well) came from ripe acting stock. Character actorTaylor Holmes was a well-established character player in vaudeville and on the stage and screen. He and actress wife Edna Phillips met during a production of “Hamlet” and first-born Phillips’ odd first name was bestowed upon him courtesy of his Canadian-born mother. The children were often shunted about to live with various relatives while their parents were on the road. Phillips attended many different schools growing up and graduated from Newman Prep School in New Jersey. He traveled to Europe for his college education, attending Cambridge University in England and (later) Grenoble University in France. His natural ability at athletics led to solid respect as a member of the rowing team during his college years. He eventually returned to the US and decided upon Princeton.

An inherent interest in acting (Princeton’s The Triangle Club) led to his stage debut in the Princeton Triangle Show “Napoleon Passes” at the Metropolitan Opera House in 1927. While at college he, by luck and via certain connections, also managed to make his film debut with Varsity (1928) and was offered a Paramount contract as a result. After a number of false starts, bit parts, bad pictures and a major bout with nervous exhaustion, Phillips began to score some early first impressions with juvenile leads in the films The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929), Pointed Heels (1929), the Gary Cooper starrer Only the Brave (1930) and, more notably, The Devil’s Holiday (1930) and Stolen Heaven(1931), both opposite established star Nancy Carroll.

It all led to the role of his career in Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1931) the ill-fated story of a wanderlust young man who falls hard for a beautiful socialite (Frances Dee) while trying to find a way to extricate himself from the clutches of a drab, maudlin girl from the wrong side of the tracks he had met earlier and impregnated (Sylvia Sidney). In the same part that would later establish Montgomery Clift as a archetypal tortured romantic in A Place in the Sun (1951), Holmes equipped himself admirably in a difficult role and was seemingly on his way to Hollywood stardom.

Firmly on the Paramount roster list, the handsome blue-eyed blond co-starred as both vulnerable, weak-willed gents and feistier men in comedy and melodrama, includingBroken Lullaby (1932) and Two Kinds of Women (1932). He then signed with MGM and appeared in more of the same standard filming — Night Court (1932), The Secret of Madame Blanche (1933) and Men Must Fight (1933). A huge chance for major attention turned bleak after being heavily promoted in the film Nana (1934) opposite beauteous Russian import Anna Sten. Touted as the “next Garbo”, the movie tanked badly with his performance cited as bland and wooden, and the equally stiff Ms. Sten lost all hope for stardom. Phillips provided a bit more dash and élan in Caravan (1934) opposite Loretta Young but it was not enough to turn his career around. From then on he freelanced both here and abroad in mostly “B” fodder that included the “Our Gang” feature-length misfireGeneral Spanky (1936) and the British programmers The Dominant Sex (1937) and (his swan song) Housemaster (1938), both with “tea rose” beauty Diana Churchill.

Phillps had to make do on stage at this point with his participation in such plays as “The Petrified Forest”, “Golden Boy”, “The Male Animal” and “The Philadelphia Story”. Along with his career decline, he suffered upsets in his personal life. A fractured romance with scandalized millionaire chanteuse Libby Holman led to her marrying brother Ralph on the rebound. That 1939 marriage fell apart within a few years and Ralph would subsequently commit suicide in his NY apartment from a barbiturate overdose in 1945, three years after Phillips’ death.

With WWII now a harsh reality, both brothers enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force toward the end of 1941. While Ralph became a pilot officer, Phillips attended the Air Ground School at Winnipeg. Following graduation, he and six of his aircraftsmen classmates were transferred but the plane carrying the men en route to their new destination (Ottawa) collided with another in Ontario killing all aboard.

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

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

George Peppard

David Shipman’s “Independent” obituary:

George Peppard, actor, director, producer: born Detroit 1 October 1928; six times married (two sons, one daughter); died Los Angeles 8 May 1994

BREAKFAST at Tiffany’s seemed a sophisticated piece when it came out in 1961, directed by Blake Edwards and written by George Axelrod from the novella by Truman Capote. The sexually ambiguous ‘I’ of the story, the struggling writer based on Capote himself, had become a full-blooded practising heterosexual – involved with a lady known only as ‘2E’ (played by Patricia Neal), who leaves him dollars 300 on the bedside table after their rendezvous. To the strains of ‘Moon River’, he gives her up for Holly Golightly, who is played by Audrey Hepburn.

George Peppard played the role, that of the all-American boy gone to seed who rediscovers Real Values when he finds True Love. Peppard himself had no difficulty in hinting at the decadence of the character, and indeed in his first film he had played a first-year student at a military academy which was a hotbed of perversion and corruption – The Strange One (1957), adapted from Calder Willingham’s novel End as a Man. Peppard played a victim, but there was a glint in the eye, a flick of the tongue, which suggested that he could not wait to be the next school bully. He continued to be promising in his next few films, and something more than that in Home from the Hill (1959), as the hero’s illegitimate brother, investing his scenes with warmth and humour.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s made Peppard a star, and he appeared in a number of important pictures over the next few years, eventually achieving billing over such names as James Mason, Sophia Loren and Alan Ladd. The titles included How the West was Won (1962), The Victors (1963) and Operation Crossbow (1965). In The Carpetbaggers (1964), he played an unscrupulous playboy modelled on Howard Hughes, as first written up by Harold Robbins in his bestseller of the same title. Peppard had his best screen chance in John Guillerman’s The Blue Max (1966), as an ambitious working-class member of a crack German officer corps, despised by his aristocratic colleagues and determined to prove, by fair means or foul, that he is better than any of them. It was his last major film, which is doubly curious because, like The Carpetbaggers, it was a very big movie at the box-office. With a couple of hits like these, an actor can coast for two or three years, but after Rough Night in Jericho (1967), a western with Jean Simmons and Dean Martin, Peppard was offered little of interest.

This was partly his own fault. In 1965 he was making Sands of the Kalahari for Cy Endfield and Stanley Baker, who expected it to rival the popularity of their earlier Zulu. Peppard walked out during filming, to be replaced by Stuart Whitman. The film not only failed, but the industry looked askance at Peppard, never trusting or liking any actor who causes shooting to begin all over again. With his cool, blond baby-face looks and a touch of menace, of meanness, he had established a screen persona as strong as any of the time. He might have been the Alan Ladd or the Richard Widmark of the Sixties: but the Sixties didn’t want a new Alan Ladd. Peppard began appearing in a series of action movies, predictably as a tough guy, but there were much tougher guys around – like Cagney, Bogart and Robinson, whose films had now become television staples.

John Guillerman, making his first two Hollywood films, cast Peppard in the thrillers New Face in Hell (1967) and House of Cards (1968). In the second of these he was an expatriate American caught up in the dirty tricks of the French political right, and in the first a down-at-heel private eye. Peppard’s private eye brought him an offer to play another, in a television series, Banacek. It ran from 1972 to 1974 and brought renewed acclaim to Peppard and several movie offers. He chose to play a busted cop who sets out to clear his name in Newman’s Law (1974). He himself produced, directed and starred in Five Days from Home (1978), playing another ex-lawman, one who this time has been convicted of the manslaughter of his wife’s lover; the film went direct to television.

When Peppard returned to that medium, it was as Hannibal, the grinning, cigar-chomping leader of The A-Team, an NBC series which ran from 1983 to 1986. Righting wrongs, correcting or uncovering injustices, the A-Team went about their work with rare good-humour and a considerable amount of violence, explosive if not bloody. They were very popular, particularly with children, but the show was expensive to produce and needed the injection of new ingredients to hold its audience; and the producers preferred to put it into syndication.

More recently, Peppard had returned to the stage, and was in London briefly in 1990 in the two-hand play Love Letters, opposite Elaine Stritch. In 1992 he embarked on a tour of The Lion in Winter with Susan Clark.

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

May Whitty

TCM overview:

Dame May Whitty was a delightful character actress of numerous first-class productions of the late 1930s and 1940s. Typically playing a distinguished aunt, mother, grandmother, or dowager, her presence brought an authentic English air to any film ( yes, even more so than Gladys Cooper ). Proud, gentle, kindly, and altogether charming, she was indeed the ideal symbol of British dignity.

Dame May Whitty was born on June 19, 1865 in Liverpool, England, the daughter of a newpaper journalist/editor. Her first encounter with the world of acting was in a stage production of The Mountain Sylph at the court theatre in Liverpool. She was sixteen years old and danced in the chorus. Within a year, she made her London stage debut and quickly became a seasoned performer. By the turn of the century she was well-known on both sides of the Atlantic.

In 1918, she was created a Dame Commander of the British Empire ( being only the third actress to recieve that honor at that time ) for her philantropic services to Britain. Always willing to serve a good cause, she displayed her selfless service again by helping out for the war effort during World War II and appeared in “Forever and a Day” and “Stage Door Canteen”, both made to boost morale and the sales of war bonds. Even upon her death, her will requested that rather then giving flowers at her funeral the money should be used to send CARE packages to England.

She was busy across the pond and on Broadway during the 1920s and 30s, and it was in 1932 that she was offered the co-starring role in Emlyn William’s new play, “Night Must Fall.” Reluctant at first to accept the role of the wheel-chair bound,chocolate-loving old lady who is beguiled by a psychopathic killer, it was to become one of her best performances. The show was a great success in England, and she reprised the role on Broadway and once again in 1937 for the MGM film of the same name opposite Robert Montgomery. At the tender age of 72 she made her Hollywood film debut. Not only was it a magnificent performance, but she was nominated for an Academy Award for it too! And thus began a wonderful career as a supporting actress in many fine productions for MGM and other studios.

She played the medium in “The Thirteenth Chair” ( MGM, 1937 ) and the next year starred in her most memorable role, that of charming old Miss Froy, an espionage agent who mysteriously disappears onboard a train while returning home to England, in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Lady Vanishes”. In 1940, Dame May was asked if she thought of retiring, “Quit? Only the aged and infirm quit, and I am neither. So long as I can do my bit, I’ll keep right on doing it.”

In the early 1940s, she reached the peak of her film productivity and played in a number of fine films for MGM and other studios…in “Raffles” ( 1940 ) she played the Lady Kitty Melrose who’s diamonds are stolen by the renowned Amateur Cracksman; in “Suspicion” ( 1941 ) she played Joan Fontaine’s mother, and in “Mrs.Miniver” ( 1942 ) she was Lady Beldon, the perennial winner of the town’s annual rose competition, and grandmother to Teresa Wright. For a change from her more usual high-society roles, she played the down-to-earth Dolly ( her real-life husband Ben Webster played her spouse in the film ) in “Lassie Come Home”; she was the elderly villager of Penny Green in “If Winter Comes” ; and in “The White Cliffs of Dover” ( 1944 ) she played the lovable governess Nanny. “Gaslight” saw her returning to her prestigious roles, this time as Ingrid Bergman’s garrulous neighbor on Thorton Square. In the thriller “My Name is Julia Ross” she played the wealthy mother who tried to convince secretary Nina Foch that she was her son’s wife, and in “Green Dolphin Street” she was the wise Mother Superior to Donna Reed.

In 1947 her husband of 55 years, Ben Webster, passed away. Dame May Whitty made the films “The Sign of the Ram” ( with Susan Peters ) and “The Return of October” that year but had to be replaced by Lucille Watson in “Julia Misbehaves” due to illness. On May 29, 1948 she died at the age of 82. Many of Hollywood’s British colony friends attended the funeral including C.Aubrey Smith, Edmund Gwenn, Herbert Marshall, Brian Aherne and Boris Karloff.

Her daughter Margaret was a famous actress herself as well as a notable stage producer and director and in 1969 she wrote an autobiography ( The Same Only Different ) covering both her and her mother’s careers.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

Richard Derr

Barbara Nichols

Vivien Leigh

Leo G. Carroll

Ronald Reagan

Tilly Losch

Philips Holmes

George Peppard

May Whitty

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