Roberta Haynes

Roberta Haynes was born on August 19, 1929 in Wichita Falls, Texas, USA as Roberta Arline Schack. She is known for her work on Point Blank (1967), Gun Fury (1953) and Return to Paradise (1953).

Ilka Chase

The daughter of Vogue’s editor-in-chief for 40 years, Edna Woolman Chase, Ilka was named after a Hungarian friend of her mother’s. She went to school in France and later acted in stock with Rube Miller in New York. Her first appearance on Broadway was as a maid in ‘The Red Falcon’ in 1924. After co-starring in her next play, the mystery ‘Shall we Join the Ladies?’ (with Leslie Howard, 1925), she established a reputation as an intelligent leading lady of the stage. She went on to have further successes in prestigious plays by Philip Barry (‘The Animal Kingdom’,1932,as Grace Macomber), Thomas Mitchell (‘Forsaking all Others’,1933,with Tallulah Bankhead), Eugene O’Neill(‘Days Without End’,1934,as Lucy Hillman) and Clare Boothe Luce (‘The Women’,1936,as Sylvia Fowler). In 1944, she starred in her adaptation of her novel ‘In Bed we Cry’, playing an actress somewhat inspired by, or modelled upon, her own experiences and personality.

Ilka was known as much for her acting ability, as for her acidulous wit and sometimes scathing criticism, levelled at her contemporaries in general and her peers in particular. A member of the social elite herself, she used her insight in her best-selling autobiography, ‘Past Imperfect’, written in 1942. The book brought her nationwide fame, taking gratuitous pot-shots at writers, actors and socialites alike. It eventually led to her hosting a radio program, ‘Luncheon at the Waldorf’.

Although she appeared in several motion pictures, few came close to showcasing her caustic personality. The exception was, perhaps, The Big Knife (1955), in which she portrayed a Hedda Hopper-like newspaper columnist. An earlier role of note included Now, Voyager (1942) 1942. Bosley Crowther thought her ‘cool’ in Ocean’s 11 (1960).

Ilka Chase was actively involved in a number of charities and was a staunch advocate of wildlife preservation and protection.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis

Frances Bergen

“New York Times” obituary from 2006:

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 7 (AP) — Frances Bergen, a model and actress who married the ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and was the mother of the actress Candice Bergen, died here on Monday. She was 84.   Her death followed a prolonged illness, said Heidi Schaeffer, a publicist for Candice Bergen, said Tuesday. She declined to specify the illness.

Born Frances Westerman in Birmingham, Ala., she moved to Los Angeles with her mother after her father died of tuberculosis.   When she was 19, she attended a recording of “The Edgar Bergen/Charlie McCarthy Show” and caught the attention of the star, then 39, who with his impish, top-hatted dummy Charlie, was host of radio’s highest-rated programs at the time.   The two married after more than a year of courtship. She later started a successful modeling career and became the face of the Chesterfield Girl and Ipana Girl in advertisements.     The birth of her first child, Candice, was headline news in 1946.

The Bergens had a son, Kris, born in 1962, who also survives, along with a granddaughter, Chloe Malle, Candice Bergen’s daughter with the filmmaker Louis Malle. Edgar Bergen died in 1978 at 75. Like her husband, Frances Bergen appeared in several movies, playing small roles in the 1953 rendition of “Titanic,” “American Gigolo” and “The Muppets Take Manhattan.” She also appeared on “Murphy Brown,” her daughter’s hit sitcom.

1981 obituary from “The New York Times”:

Adele Marie Astaire, the pixieish dancer who captivated audiences in New York and London in many musical comedies of the 1920’s with her brother and dance partner, Fred, died yesterday in Phoenix at the age of 83. Members of the family said she had suffered a stroke on Jan. 6 and never recovered consciousness.

Miss Astaire had been beset by illness in recent years, according to, Kingman Douglass Jr. of Chicago, her stepson. ”But she had enormous recuperative powers,” he said, ”and soon would be up and in Marine-type English telling what she thought of the world.”

Miss Astaire had lived in Phoenix since her second husband, Kingman Douglass, died in 1971. She had spent summers until two years ago in Ireland, at the castle she shared with her first husband, the late Lord Charles Cavendish. Appeared in ‘Funny Face’   The diminutive, dark-haired comedian starred in 11 musicals with her brother, who is two years her junior. Among the more memorable were ”Funny Face,” ”Lady, Be Good,” ”The Band Wagon,” ”For Goodness’ Sake” – retitled ”Stop Flirting” in London – and ”Apple Blossoms.”

Miss Astaire left show business in 1932 to become the wife of Lord Cavendish, the second son of the ninth Duke of Devonshire. Their romance was something of an international sensation, as she kept putting off accepting Lord Charles’s proposal until she had one final hit show.   At the time of their engagement she was performing in Florenz Ziegfeld’s ”Smiles,” which received less than happy reviews when it opened in 1930. Although ”Smiles” was a dud, reviewers, such as Brooks Atkinson of The New York Times, singled out the Astaires for praise:

”Strictly speaking, the Astaires are dancers. But they have more than one string to their fiddle. With them, dancing is comedy of manners, very much in the current mode. Free of show-shop trickery, they plunge with spirit into the midst of the frolic. Once to the tune of ‘If I Were You, Love,’ with a squealing German band accompaniment, they give dancing all the mocking grace of improvisation with droll dance inflections and with comic changes of pace. Adele Astaire is also an impish comedian; she can give sad lines a gleam of infectious good-nature. Slender, agile and quickwitted, the Astaires are ideal for the American song-and-dance stage.” Left Stage and Her Brother

After ”The Band Wagon,” at the pinnacle of her career, she left the stage and her brother for Lismore Castle in County Waterford, Ireland, from which producers tried repeatedly to lure her. Mr. Astaire went on to greater fame on the screen with Ginger Rogers.

Fred said of his sister on her retirement, ”She was a great artist and inimitable, and the grandest sister anybody could have.” He had followed her into dancing. When he was 4 and she was 6, their parents sent him to her dance classes so he could keep her company, but he got interested.

The marriage of Lord and Lady Charles, though happy, was marked by tragedy. A daughter was born in 1933, and died the same day. Two years later, twin sons, who were born prematurely, died within hours of their births. She was to have no more children. Some time later, Lord Charles fell ill from a liver ailment that made him an invalid.

During World War II, at the urging of her husband, Miss Astaire worked at a famous Red Cross canteen in London, the Rainbow Corner, helping out at the information desk, dancing with G.I.’s and shopping and writing letters for them. To the letters she signed herself, ”Adele Astaire (Fred’s sister).” Married for Second Time

On March 23, 1944, Lord Charles died. Three years later, on April 28, 1947, Miss Astaire was married to Mr. Douglass, whom she had met at the Rainbow Corner. It was his second marriage. In 1950, he became assistant director of the Central Intelligence Agency, a post he held for two years before resuming his career in finance. He became a partner in Dillon Read & Company, retiring before his death in New York in 1971.

Adele Marie Austerlitz was born in Omaha, Neb., on Sept. 10, 1898, to Fredrick Austerlitz, a brewer from Vienna, and the former Ann Geilus, a native of Omaha. In 1904, the family moved to New York, where Adele and Fred, the only children, were enrolled in the Alviene School of Dance. Until then, they had been tutored by their mother.

The Astaires appeared in their first vaudeville show in New York in 1912, and had their first triumph on Broadway in 1917, with ”Over the Top” at the Winter Garden.

Besides her brother and stepson, Miss Astaire is survived by two other stepsons, Howard James Douglass of Chicago and William Angus Douglass of London.

Private services will be held in Phoenix and Beverly Hills, Calif.

Cecil Kellaway (August 22, 1893 – February 28, 1973), was born in Cape Town, South Africa, and was an Academy Award-nominated character actor active in Hollywood from the late 1930’s through the late 1960’s. Kellaway spent his early years as an actor, writer and director in Australia. He was discouraged during his initial trip to the US because he was getting only small gangster parts. He returned to Australia until William Wyler contacted him with a part in Wuthering Heights(1939). After that Kellaway remained in demand. Kellaway died in 1973, in Hollywood at age 79. He had received two Best Supporting Actor nominations in his career, for The Luck of the Irish and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Other notable roles included that of Nick in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

TCM Overview:

Ever-smiling, world-class tap artist who danced her way through a dozen successful MGM musicals in the late 1930s and early 40s before retiring from the screen–save for a guest role in “The Duchess of Idaho” (1950). Typically cast as the determined hopeful whose talent and determination get her to the top, Powell was not a major actress, but she did display exuberance and a certain tongue-in-cheek charm, and her aggressive, androgynous dancing style made her as familiar a sight in top hat and tails as Fred Astaire.Powell’s best films include “Broadway Melody of 1936” (1935), which made her a star, its two sequels from 1938 and 1940 (the latter featuring her legendary “Begin the Beguine” duet with Astaire), and “Born to Dance” (1936). Generally a solo dancer, the acrobatic Powell did have George Murphy on hand in several films as a partner; she also teamed with comedian Red Skelton for three films, the best of which is “Ship Ahoy” (1942). Married to actor Glenn Ford from 1943 to 1959, Powell hosted an acclaimed religious program in the 1950s and later performed occasionally onstage and in nightclubs.

“Wikipedia” entry:

Darryl  Hickman (born July 28, 1931) is an American film and television actor, former television executive, and child actor of the 1930s and 1940s.

Hickman gained attention as a child actor during the late 1930s and 1940s, appearing in The Grapes of Wrath, Men of Boys Town, The Human Comedy and Leave Her to Heaven, among others. He made a featured appearance in the 1942 Our Gang comedy Going to Press. In 1944, he played the antagonist to Jimmy Lydon‘s Henry Aldrich character in the film Henry Aldrich, Boy Scout. In 1946, he played young Sam Masterson in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers. By age 21, he had appeared in more than one hundred motion pictures. Darryl Hickman graduated from Cathedral High

After spending his childhood as an actor, Hickman retired from entertainment to enter a monastery in 1951, returning to Hollywood just over a year later. He continued acting, but in fewer roles than in the peak of his career. He was cast in 1952 in the episode “Fight Town” of the syndicated western television series, The Range Rider.

In 1954, he appeared as Chet Sterling in the “Annie Gets Her Man” episode of syndicated western series, Annie Oakley, with Gail Davis. In 1957, Hickman appeared in the episode “Copper Wire” of the syndicated western-themed crime drama Sheriff of Cochise. Later that year he appeared as murderer Steve Harris in the second Perry Mason episode, “The Case of the Sleepwalker’s Niece.” Hickman appeared four times in the 1957-1958 syndicated drama series, Men of Annapolis, about midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He also guest starred in Kenneth Tobey‘s adventure drama, Whirlybirds.

Hickman was cast as Dal Royal in the 1957 episode “Hang ’em High” (1957) of the ABC/Desilu series, The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp. In the story line, Marshal Wyatt Earp (Hugh O’Brian) and Sheriff Bat Masterson (Mason Alan Dinehart) tangle with secreted vigilantes called the “White Caps” after a judge order’s Royal’s hanging when he refuses to defend himself in court for fear the gang will murder his girlfriend, the daughter of a prominent rancher. The story line includes a fake hanging and burial to smoke out the gang and a rush to obtain justice by Earp and Masterson.^[1]

In 1959, Hickman appeared on younger brother Dwayne Hickman‘s CBS sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, playing his older brother Davey in the episode “The Right Triangle.”^[2] In 1959, Darryl Hickman appeared in an episode of Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen, titled “Rope Law”; on May 9, 1959, he was a guest star on CBS’s Gunsmoke as Andy Hill. He also guest-starred in a 1959 first-season episode of another ABC/Desilu series, The Untouchables, entitled “You Can’t Pick The Number”.

He guest-starred in the 1960 episode “Moment of Fear” of CBS’s The DuPont Show with June Allyson, also featuring Edgar Bergen. He appeared on NBC‘s science fiction series The Man and the Challenge. In 1962, he portrayed the part of Lt. Matthew Perry in the episode “The Reunion” on CBS’s Rawhide. During the American Civil War Centennial, Hickman played a young Union soldier in The Americans (1961), and as an officer in Walt Disney‘s Johnny Shiloh (1963). In 1966 he starred as Charley in the New York City Center revival of the Frank Loesser musical comedy Where’s Charley?.  He had a key role in the film Sharky’s Machine (1981).

Hickman eventually became a television executive and an acting coach, and a voice actor for Hanna-Barbera Productions toward the end of a five-decade career in the entertainment industry. Some notable voice overs include Wags in The Biskitts and Derek from The Greatest Adventure: Stories from the Bible. He played Roadie, one of the cars with A.I. in the 1984 animated series Pole Position