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Veteran actor and director Robert Selden Duvall was born on January 5, 1931, in San Diego, CA, to Mildred Virginia (Hart), an amateur actress, and William Howard Duvall, a career military officer who later became an admiral. Duvall majored in drama at Principia College (Elsah, IL), then served a two-year hitch in the army after graduating in 1953. He began attending The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre In New York City on the G.I. Bill in 1955, studying under Sanford Meisner along with Dustin Hoffman, with whom Duvall shared an apartment. Both were close to another struggling young actor named Gene Hackman. Meisner cast Duvall in the play "The Midnight Caller" by Horton Foote, a link that would prove critical to his career, as it was Foote who recommended Duvall to play the mentally disabled "Boo Radley" in Du silence et des ombres... (1962). This was his first "major" role since his 1956 motion picture debut as an MP in Marqué par la haine (1956), starring Paul Newman.

Duvall began making a name for himself as a stage actor in New York, winning an Obie Award in 1965 playing incest-minded longshoreman "Eddie Carbone" in the off-Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "A View from the Bridge", a production for which his old roommate Hoffman was assistant director. He found steady work in episodic TV and appeared as a modestly billed character actor in films, such as Arthur Penn's La poursuite impitoyable (1966) with Marlon Brando and in Robert Altman's Objectif Lune (1967) and Francis Ford Coppola's Les gens de la pluie (1969), in both of which he co-starred with James Caan.

He was also memorable as the heavy who is shot by John Wayne at the climax of 100 Dollars pour un shérif (1969) and was the first "Maj. Frank Burns", creating the character in Altman's Korean War comedy M*A*S*H (1970). He also appeared as the eponymous lead in George Lucas' directorial debut, THX 1138 (1971). It was Francis Ford Coppola, casting Le Parrain (1972), who reunited Duvall with Brando and Caan and provided him with his career breakthrough as mob lawyer "Tom Hagen". He received the first of his six Academy Award nominations for the role.

Thereafter, Duvall had steady work in featured roles in such films as Le Parrain, 2ᵉ partie (1974), Tueur d'élite (1975), Network : Main basse sur la TV (1976), Sherlock Holmes attaque l'Orient-Express (1976) and L'aigle s'est envolé (1976). Occasionally this actor's actor got the chance to assay a lead role, most notably in Tomorrow (1972), in which he was brilliant as William Faulkner's inarticulate backwoods farmer. He was less impressive as the lead in Police connection (1973), in which he played a character based on real-life NYPD detective Eddie Egan, the same man his old friend Gene Hackman had won an Oscar for playing, in fictionalized form as "Popeye Doyle" in French Connection (1971).

It was his appearance as "Lt. Col. Kilgore" in another Coppola picture, Apocalypse Now (1979), that solidified Duvall's reputation as a great actor. He got his second Academy Award nomination for the role, and was named by the Guinness Book of World Records as the most versatile actor in the world. Duvall created one of the most memorable characters ever assayed on film, and gave the world the memorable phrase, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning!"

Subsequently, Duvall proved one of the few established character actors to move from supporting to leading roles, with his Oscar-nominated turns in The Great Santini (1979) and Tendre bonheur (1983), the latter of which won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. Now at the summit of his career, Duvall seemed to be afflicted with the fabled "Oscar curse" that had overwhelmed the careers of fellow Academy Award winners Luise Rainer, Rod Steiger and Cliff Robertson. He could not find work equal to his talents, either due to his post-Oscar salary demands or a lack of perception in the industry that he truly was leading man material. He did not appear in Le Parrain, 3e partie (1990), as the studio would not give in to his demands for a salary commensurate with that of Al Pacino, who was receiving $5 million to reprise Michael Corleone.

His greatest achievement in his immediate post-Oscar period was his triumphant characterization of grizzled Texas Ranger Gus McCrae in the TV mini-series Lonesome Dove (1989), for which he received an Emmy nomination. He received a second Emmy nomination and a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in Staline (1992), and a third Emmy nomination playing Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in L'homme qui a capturé Eichmannn (1996).

The shakeout of his career doldrums was that Duvall eventually settled back into his status as one of the premier character actors in the industry, rivaled only by his old friend Gene Hackman. Duvall, unlike Hackman, also has directed pictures, including the documentary We're Not the Jet Set (1974), Angelo My Love (1983) and Assassination Tango (2002). As a writer-director, Duvall gave himself one of his most memorable roles, that of the preacher on the run from the law in Le prédicateur (1997), a brilliant performance for which he received his third Best Actor nomination and fifth Oscar nomination overall. The film brought Duvall back to the front ranks of great actors, and was followed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod for Préjudice (1998).

Robert Duvall will long be remembered as one of the great naturalistic American screen actors in the mode of Spencer Tracy and his frequent co-star Marlon Brando. His performances as "Boo Radley" in Du silence et des ombres... (1962), "Jackson Fentry" in Tomorrow (1972), "Tom Hagen" in the first two "Godfather" movies, "Frank Hackett" in Network : Main basse sur la TV (1976), "Lt. Col. Kilgore" in Apocalypse Now (1979), "Bull Meechum" in The Great Santini (1979), "Mac Sledge" in Tendre bonheur (1983), "Gus McCrae" in Lonesome Dove (1989) and "Sonny Dewey" in Le prédicateur (1997) rank as some of the finest acting ever put on film. It's a body of work that few actors can equal, let alone surpass.

William Shatner has notched up an impressive 70-plus years in front of the camera, displaying heady comedic talent and being instantly recognizable to several generations of cult television fans as the square-jawed Captain James T. Kirk, commander of the starship U.S.S. Enterprise.

Shatner was born in Côte Saint-Luc, Montréal, Québec, Canada, to Anne (Garmaise) and Joseph Shatner, a clothing manufacturer. His father was a Jewish emigrant from Bukovina in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while his maternal grandparents were Lithuanian Jews. After graduating from university, he joined a local Summer theatre group as an assistant manager. He then performed with the National Repertory Theatre of Ottawa and at the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival as an understudy working with such as Alec Guinness, James Mason, and Anthony Quayle. He came to the attention of New York critics and was soon playing important roles in major shows on live television.

Shatner spent many years honing his craft before debuting alongside Yul Brynner in Les Frères Karamazov (1958). He was kept busy during the 1960s in films such as Jugement à Nuremberg (1961) and The Intruder (1962) and on television guest-starring in dozens of series such as Alfred Hitchcock présente (1955), Les accusés (1961), Au-delà du réel (1963) and La quatrième dimension (1959). In 1966, Shatner boarded the USS Enterprise for three seasons of Star Trek (1966), co-starring alongside Leonard Nimoy, with the series eventually becoming a bona-fide cult classic with a worldwide legion of fans known variously as "Trekkies" or "Trekkers".

After "Star Trek" folded, Shatner spent the rest of the decade and the 1970s making the rounds, guest-starring on many prime-time television series, including Hawaii police d'état (1968), Docteur Marcus Welby (1969) and L'homme de fer (1967). He has also appeared in several feature films, but they were mainly B-grade (or lower) fare, such as the embarrassingly bad Euro western Rio Hondo (1968) and the campy L'Horrible Invasion (1977). However, the 1980s saw a major resurgence in Shatner's career with the renewed interest in the original Star Trek (1966) series culminating in a series of big-budget "Star Trek" feature films, including Star Trek, le film (1979), Star Trek II : La Colère de Khan (1982), Star Trek III : À la recherche de Spock (1984), Star Trek IV : Retour sur Terre (1986), Star Trek V : L'Ultime Frontière (1989) and Star Trek VI : Terre inconnue (1991). In addition, he starred in the lightweight police series Hooker (1982) from 1982 to 1986, alongside spunky Heather Locklear, and surprised many fans with his droll comedic talents in Y a-t-il enfin un pilote dans l'avion ? 2 (1982), Alarme fatale (1993) and Miss Détective (2000).

He has most recently been starring in the David E. Kelley television series The practice: Bobby Donnell & associés (1997) and its spin-off Boston Justice (2004).

Outside of work, he jogs and follows other athletic pursuits. His interest in health and nutrition led to him becoming spokesman for the American Health Institute's 'Know Your Body' program to promote nutritional and physical health.

Sir Ian Holm was one of the world's greatest actors, a Laurence Olivier Award-winning, Tony Award-winning, BAFTA-winning and Academy Award-nominated British star of films and the stage. He was a member of the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company and has played more than 100 roles in films and on television.

He was born Ian Holm Cuthbert on September 12, 1931, in Goodmayes, Essex, to Scottish parents who worked at the Essex mental asylum. His mother, Jean Wilson (née Holm), was a nurse, and his father, Doctor James Harvey Cuthbert, was a psychiatrist. Young Holm was brought up in London. At the age of seven he was inspired by the seeing 'Les Miserables' and became fond of acting. Holm studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, graduating in 1950 to the Royal Shakespeare Company. There he emerged as an actor whose range and effortless style allowed him to play almost entire Shakespeare's repertoire. In 1959 his stage partner Laurence Olivier scored a hit on Ian Holm in a sword fight in a production of 'Coriolanus'. Holm still had a scar on his finger.

In 1965 Holm made his debut on television as Richard III on the BBC's The Wars of the Roses (1965), which was a filmed theatrical production of four of Shakespeare's plays condensed down into a trilogy. In 1969 Holm won his first BAFTA Film Award Best Supporting Actor for The Bofors Gun (1968), then followed a flow of awards and nominations for his numerous works in film and on television. In 1981, he played one of his best known roles, Sam Mussabini in Les Chariots de feu (1981), for which he was nominated for Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. In the late 1990s, he gave a highly-acclaimed turn as the lawyer, Mitchell, in Atom Egoyan's De beaux lendemains (1997), and was subsequently cast in a number of high-profile Hollywood films of the next decade, playing Father Vito Cornelius in Le Cinquième Élément (1997), Bilbo in Le Seigneur des anneaux : Le Retour du roi (2003), and Professor Fitz in Aviator (2004), as well as Zach Braff's character's father Gideon in Garden State (2004). His last non-Hobbit film role was a voice part as Skinner in Ratatouille (2007).

Ian Holm had five children, three daughters and two sons from the first two of his four wives and from an additional relationship. In 1989 Holm was created a Commander of the British Empire (CBE), and in 1998 he was knighted for his services to drama. He died in London in June 2020.

Widely regarded as the one of greatest stage and screen actors both in his native USA and internationally, James Earl Jones was born on January 17, 1931 in Arkabutla, Mississippi. At an early age, he started to take dramatic lessons to calm himself down. It appeared to work as he has since starred in many films over a 40-year period, beginning with the Stanley Kubrick classic Dr. Folamour ou : comment j'ai appris à ne plus m'en faire et à aimer la bombe (1964). For several movie fans, he is probably best known for his role as Darth Vader in the original Star Wars trilogy (due to his contribution for the voice of the role, as the man in the Darth Vader suit was David Prowse, whose voice was dubbed because of his British West Country accent). In his brilliant course of memorable performances, among others, he has also appeared on the animated series Les Simpson (1989) three times and played Mufasa both in Le Roi lion (1994) and Le Roi lion (2019), while he returned too as the voice of Darth Vader in Star Wars, épisode III : La Revanche des Sith (2005) and Rogue One: A Star Wars story (2016).

Joan Felt was born on January 18, 1931, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Her mother was quite a famous piano player in the 1930s. Six-year-old Joan made her film debut in Walking Down Broadway (1938). She played the role of Sunny, and changed her name from Felt to Carroll. A role in Two Sisters (1938) followed, and the next year she had supporting roles in Barricade (1939) and La tour de Londres (1939). It wasn't until 1940 when Joan had her breakthrough. She had important parts in Anne of Windy Poplars (1940) and especially Le lys du ruisseau (1940), as Ginger Rogers' younger sister. In 1941, she won her first lead role in Obliging Young Lady (1942) as Bridget Potter, a young girl stuck in the middle of her parents' divorce case. The film costarred Ruth Warrick.

In 1942, she was the first child star from Hollywood to appear in a Broadway play.This play, "Panama Hattie", garnered Carroll national fame, and she was featured in many magazine articles and newspapers. In 1943, she won her second lead role in Petticoat Larceny (1943), in which she played Joan Mitchell, a radio star who goes undercover to get a better feel of her roles. That film reunited Joan with Warrick.

In 1944, she played Agnes, the middle sister between Judy Garland and Margaret O'Brien in Le chant du Missouri (1944). In 1945, she had an important supporting role in Les cloches de Sainte-Marie (1945), which starred Bing Crosby and Ingrid Bergman. That same year she appeared in Les hommes de demain (1944), after which she retired.

Rita Moreno is one of the very few performers to win an Oscar, an Emmy, a Tony and a Grammy, thus becoming an EGOT. She was born Rosita Dolores Alverío in the hospital in Humacao, Puerto Rico on December 11, 1931 (but raised in nearby, smaller Juncos, which had no hospital), to seamstress Rosa María (Marcano) and farmer Francisco José "Paco" Alverío. Her mother moved to New York City in 1937, taking Rita with her while leaving her reportedly unfaithful husband and Rita's younger brother behind. Rita's professional career began before she reached adolescence.

From the age of nine, she performed as a professional dancer in New York night clubs. At age 11, she landed her first movie experience, dubbing Spanish-language versions of US films. Less than a month before her 14th birthday on November 22, 1945, she made her Broadway debut in the play "Skydrift" at the Belasco Theatre, costarring with Arthur Keegan and a young Eli Wallach. Although she would not appear again on Broadway for almost two decades, Rita Moreno, as she was billed in the play, had arrived professionally. In 1950, she was signed by MGM, but the studio dropped her option after just one year.

The cover of the March 1, 1954, edition of "Life Magazine" featured a three-quarters, over-the-left-shoulder profile of the young Puerto Rican actress/entertainer with the provocative title "Rita Moreno: An Actresses' Catalog of Sex and Innocence". It was sexpot time, a stereotype that would plague her throughout the decade. If not cast as a Hispanic pepper pot, she could rely on being cast as another "exotic", such as her appearance on Papa a raison (1954) as an exchange student from India. Because of a dearth of decent material, Moreno had to play roles in movies that she considered degrading. Among the better pictures she earned featured roles in were the classic Chantons sous la pluie (1952) and Le roi et moi (1956).

Director Robert Wise, who was chosen to co-direct West Side Story (1961) (the film version of the smash Broadway musical, a retelling of William Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" with the warring Venetian clans the Montagues and Capulets re-envisioned as Irish/Polish and Puerto Rican adolescent street gangs, the Jets and the Sharks), cast Moreno as "Anita", the Puerto Rican girlfriend of Sharks' leader Bernardo, whose sister Maria is the piece's Juliet.

However, despite her talent, roles commensurate with that talent were not forthcoming in the 1960s. The following decade would prove kinder, possibly because the beautiful Moreno had aged gracefully and could now be seen by filmmakers, TV producers and casting directors as something other than the spitfire/sexpot that Hispanic women were supposed to conform to. Ironically, it was in two vastly diverging roles--that of a $100 hooker in director Mike Nichols' brilliant realization of Jules Feiffer's acerbic look at male sexuality, Ce plaisir qu'on dit charnel (1971), and Milly the Helper in the children's TV show The Electric Company (1971)--that signaled a career renaissance.

Moreno won a 1972 Grammy Award for her contribution to "The Electric Company"'s soundtrack album, following it up three years later with a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical for "The Ritz" (a role she would reprise in the film version, The Ritz (1976)). She then won Emmy Awards for Le Muppet Show (1976) and Deux cent dollars plus les frais (1974).

She has continued to work steadily on screen (both large and small) and on stage, solidifying her reputation as a national treasure, a status that was officially ratified with the award of the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush in June 2004.

Leonard Simon Nimoy was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Dora (Spinner) and Max Nimoy, who owned a barbershop. His parents were Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. Raised in a tenement and acting in community theaters since age eight, Nimoy did not make his Hollywood debut until he was 20, with a bit part in Queen for a Day (1951) and another as a ballplayer in the perennial Rhubarb, le chat millionnaire (1951). After two years in the United States Army, he was still getting small, often uncredited parts, like an Army telex operator in Des monstres attaquent la ville (1954). His part as Narab, a Martian finally friendly to Earth, in the closing scene in the corny Republic serial Zombies of the Stratosphere (1952), somewhat foreshadowed the role which would make him a household name: Mr. Spock, the half-human/half-Vulcan science officer on Star Trek (1966) one of television's all-time most successful series. His performance won him three Emmy nominations and launched his career as a writer and director, notably of Star Trek IV : Retour sur Terre (1986), the story of a humpback whale rescue that proved the most successful of the Star Trek movies. Stage credits have included "Fiddler on the Roof", "Oliver", "Camelot" and "Equus". He has hosted the well-known television series In Search of... (1976) and Ancient Mysteries (1994), authored several volumes of poetry and guest-starred on two episodes of Les Simpson (1989). In the latter years of his career, he played Mustafa Mond in NBC's telling of Aldous Huxley's Le Meilleur des mondes (1998), voiced Sentinel Prime in the blockbuster Transformers 3 : La Face cachée de la Lune (2011), and played Spock again in two new Star Trek films, Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013).

Leonard Nimoy died on February 27, 2015 in Bel Air, Los Angeles, California, of end-stage chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 83.

Vocal artist and character actor supreme Robert Ridgely was born on December 24, 1931 under the name of Robert Ritterbusch in New Jersey. Ridgely started out as a cabaret entertainer. In the late 1950s, he recorded 45 RPM singles for Decca Records under the name of Bob Ritterbush and as Bob Ritterbusch and Robert Ridgely after changing his name to the latter. He began his television acting career in the early 1960s with guest appearances on such TV shows as Surfside 6 (1960), Remous (1958), and Maverick (1957). He had a recurring role as Lt. Frank Kimbro on the short-lived World War II TV series The Gallant Men (1962). He made his film debut in the 1963 feature Opération F.B.I à Cap Canavéral (1963). Ridgely was occasionally cast as sleazy charmers such as unctuous emcees and announcers.

He popped up in four comedies for Mel Brooks: Le shérif est en prison (1974), Le Grand Frisson (1977), Chienne de vie (1991), and Sacré Robin des Bois (1993). Moreover, Ridgely was in several pictures for director Jonathan Demme; he's especially memorable (and delightful) as smarmy game show host Wally "Mr. Love" Williams in the wonderful Melvin et Howard (1980). Other noteworthy movie roles are boozy, moonshine-running airplane pilot Lester Boggs in the rowdy redneck romp The Great Lester Boggs (1974), radio talk show host Bob Morton in Heart Like a Wheel (1983), and Los Angeles Mayor Ted Egan in Le Flic de Beverly Hills 2 (1987).

Ridgely lent his voice to countless animated TV programs and cartoon features; the characters he voiced include Tarzan in Tarzan, seigneur de la jungle (1976), Flash Gordon in Flash Gordon (1979), the Peculiar Purple Pieman of Porcupine Peak in the The World of Strawberry Shortcake (1980) and TV specials, and Thundarr in Arok le barbare (1980). Among the TV shows on which he had guest spots were Femmes d'affaires et dames de coeur (1986), Newhart (1982), Tribunal de nuit (1984), Rick Hunter (1984), L'incroyable Hulk (1977), WKRP in Cincinnati (1978), Kung Fu (1972), and Max la menace (1965). In addition, he did voice-over work for numerous TV commercials. He gave a robust and engaging performance as jolly porno producer the Colonel James in the fantastic Boogie Nights (1997), which turned out to be his last movie and a worthy closer to his long and distinguished career.

Robert Ridgely died at age 65 from cancer on February 8, 1997 in Toluca Lake, California.

Rip Torn was born Elmore Rual Torn Jr. on February 6, 1931 in Temple, Texas, the son of Thelma Mary (Spacek) and Elmore Rudolph Torn, who was an agriculturalist and economist, credited with popularizing the custom of eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day. "Rip" is a family name, taken by generations of Torn men and bestowed on Elmore by his father, who was also called "Rip." He was of German, Austrian, Bohemian, and Moravian descent. His mother was an elder sister of actress Sissy Spacek's father, Edwin Spacek.

Torn attended Texas A&M and the University of Texas, where he joined Sigma Chi Fraternity. He majored in animal husbandry. Extremely naïve when he was young, Torn hitchhiked to Hollywood with the idea of becoming a movie star; he wanted to make enough money in order to buy a ranch. Success did not come overnight, as he had hoped, and Torn had to work many odd jobs while occasionally being cast in television roles. He made his feature film debut in Elia Kazan's La Poupée de chair (1956) in a small part.

Serious about learning his craft, he moved to New York City where he studied under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. Torn also studied dance with Martha Graham. His serious acting career began on the small screen, where he made a name for himself in the Golden Age of Television; between 1957 and 1960, he appeared regularly on such prestigious live shows as Omnibus (1952) and Playhouse 90 (1956).

Torn made his Broadway debut in Kazan's staging of Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" on March 10, 1959, in support of Paul Newman, Sidney Blackmer and Geraldine Page, who would become his second wife. The play was a hit, closing on January 30, 1960 after 375 performances. He won a 1960 Tony Award nomination as Best Featured Actor in a Play and a Theater World award for his role as "Tom, Jr.", a role he recreated in the 1962 film. (Torn also starred as "Boss Finley" in a later television adaptation of the play).

Torn earned a reputation as an actor's actor on stage, both Broadway and off-Broadway, as well as on screen. He continued to work in the New York theater despite his demanding TV and movie schedule as both an actor and director. He won two Obie awards for his work off-Broadway, for Distinguished Performance in Norman Mailer's "The Deer Park" (for the 1966-67 season), and for Distinguished Direction for "The Beard" (1967-68). He had his own stage company, and directed his daughter Angelica Page (by Geraldine Page) in John Paul Alexander's "Strangers in the Land of Canaan" at the Actors Studio. Torn made his feature film directorial debut with Allô, je craque (1988).

He was constantly in demand as a character actor, in supporting, second lead and occasional lead roles. Arguably his best performance on film came in Payday (1973), and he was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Marjorie (1983). Most of Torn's roles were in drama, though he was adept at comedy. His role in Albert Brooks' comedy Rendez-vous au paradis (1991) led to his being cast in The Larry Sanders Show (1992), on which he played talk show producer "Artie." Torn won six consecutive Emmy nominations for the role, winning once for Best Supporting Actor in a comedy series in 1996.

Torn was married to actress Ann Wedgeworth from 1956-61, whom he divorced to marry Geraldine Page. They remained married until her death in 1987. He was married to Amy Wright until his death. Torn helped his first cousin, Oscar-winner Sissy Spacek, to make her way as an actress, seeing to it that she was accepted by the Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio and then the Lee Strasberg Institute.

Rip Torn died in on July 9, 2019 in Lakeville, Connecticut, aged 88.

Anne Bancroft was born on September 17, 1931 in The Bronx, NY, the middle daughter of Michael Italiano (1905-2001), a dress pattern maker, and Mildred DiNapoli (1907-2010), a telephone operator. She made her cinema debut in Troublez-moi ce soir (1952) in 1952, and over the next five years appeared in a lot of undistinguished movies such as Panique sur la ville (1954), Les gladiateurs (1954), New York confidentiel (1955), Poursuites dans la nuit (1956) and La fille aux bas noirs (1957). By 1957 she grew dissatisfied with the scripts she was getting, left the film business and spent the next five years doing plays on Broadway. She returned to screens in 1962 with her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in Miracle en Alabama (1962), for which she won an Oscar. Bancroft went on to give acclaimed performances in Le mangeur de citrouilles (1964), 30 minutes de sursis (1965), Les griffes du lion (1972), Le prisonnier de la deuxième avenue (1975), Elephant Man (1980), To Be or Not to Be (1983), Poste restante (1987) and other movies, but her most famous role would be as Mrs. Robinson in Le lauréat (1967). Her status as the "older woman" in the film is iconic, although in real life she was only eight years older than Katharine Ross and just six years older than Dustin Hoffman. Bancroft would later express her frustration over the fact that the film overshadowed her other work. Selective for much of her intermittent career, she appeared onscreen more frequently in the '90s and early '00s, playing a range of characters in such films as Miss Cobaye (1992), Nom de code: Nina (1993), Week-end en famille (1995), À armes égales (1997), De grandes espérances (1998), Au nom d'Anna (2000) and Il suffit d'une nuit (2000). She also started to make some TV films, including Deep in My Heart (1999) for which she won an Emmy. Sadly, on June 6, 2005, Bancroft passed away at the age of 73 from uterine cancer. Her death surprised many, as she had not disclosed her illness to the public. Among her survivors was her husband of 41 years, Mel Brooks, and their son Max Brooks, who was born in 1972. Her final film, the animated feature Delgo (2008), was released posthumously in 2008 and dedicated to her memory.

He had that same genuine likability factor, owned that same trademark lantern jaw and was just as appealing and gifted as his older brother, Dick Van Dyke, but, for decades, Jerry Van Dyke bore the brunt of his brother's overwhelming shadow.

Six years younger than brother Dick, the comic actor was born on July 27, 1931, in Danville, Illinois. Raised there, the crew cut blond showed an aptitude for clowning in high school. His stand-up comedy venues first took the form of dives and strip clubs throughout the Deep South in which his banjo-playing became an intricate part of the routine. At one point, Jerry was a regular on the Playboy club circuit. He then set his sights on the top showrooms in Las Vegas, Lake Tahoe and Atlantic City and became a dependable opening act.

Jerry's early career should have been rightfully interrupted when he joined the Air Force in 1952. He, instead, kept the troops laughing by performing in Special Services shows. Winning a military talent contest actually earned him a couple of appearances on Toast of the Town (1948) (aka "The Ed Sullivan Show") and resulting TV exposure. Following his tour of duty, he nabbed variety appearances and a regular comic relief role on The Judy Garland Show (1963). He found comic acting parts as well on TV. Like brother Dick, who was a huge TV star by this time, Jerry also did a stint emceeing a game show. In Jerry's case, it was Picture This (1963).

Ever the hapless klutz and happy-go-lucky stammerer, Jerry built up his TV reputation in the early 60s. He turned down the title role in L'île aux naufragés (1964), which he rightfully deemed inane, but instead chose the equally silly Une mère pas comme les autres (1965). It proved to be a detrimental career move. While "Gilligan" became a surprise hit that still runs in syndication four decades later, Jerry had to live down starring in one of the most lambasted sitcoms of all time. Truthfully, the two shows were on an equal (sub)par with each other. It was just a cruel luck of the draw that Jerry ended up biting the bullet while Gilligan's Bob Denver found cult celebrity. Jerry's subsequent two series were also one seasoners with Accidental Family (1967), a sitcom in which he more or less played himself (a nightclub comedian), and Headmaster (1970), a drama starring Andy Griffith in which he played a physical education coach. Neither did much for his career. A promising co-star role with Griffith in the film Angel in My Pocket (1969) also went nowhere. Over the years, Jerry has appeared as a guest star on a number of brother Dick's shows, including the classic The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) in which he played, of course, Dick's brother.

The genially dim character "George Utley" on Bob Newhart's 1980s series was originally created for Jerry but Tom Poston assumed the part. Good fortune finally smiled on Jerry when he won the hapless role of "Luther Van Dam", a role that capped his long career, on Coach (1989). He earned four consecutive Emmy nominations and a steady paycheck for eight seasons. His seesaw struggle and survival after nearly five decades truly paid off this time, and only proves his love for the business.

Nearing the millennium, Jerry was seen frequently on the smaller screen. In addition to guesting on such shows as "The New Addams Family," "The District," "Diagnosis Murder," "My Name Is Earl," "Committed" and "Raising Hope," the veteran actor played the regular roles as grandpa types in the sitcom fantasies Teen Angel (1997) and You Wish (1997); had the recurring grandparent role of Big Jimmy Hughes in the comedy series Oui chérie! (2000) and ended his career as a grandpa in the established sitcom The Middle (2009) starring Patricia Heaton and Neil Flynn.

In later years, Jerry spent much of his time at a ranch in Arkansas where he lived with his second wife, the former Shirley Jones (not the singer/actress), and raised cattle. Tragedy struck in 1991 when one of his three children, Kelly Van Dyke, a substance abuser, took her own life. On the sly, one could also find Jerry at the poker table as part of ESPN tournaments. He died in Arkansas on January 5, 2018, aged 86.

Angie Dickinson was born in Kulm, North Dakota, in 1931, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. L. H. Brown. Mr. Brown was the publisher of The Kulm Messenger. The family left North Dakota in 1942 when Angie was 11 years old, moving to Burbank, California. In December of 1946, when she was a senior at Bellamarine Jefferson High School in Burbank, she won the Sixth Annual Bill of Rights Contest. Two years later her sister Janet, did likewise. Being the daughter of a printer, Angie at first had visions of becoming a writer, but gave this up after winning her first beauty contest. After finishing college she worked as a secretary in a Burbank airplane parts factory for 3-1/2 years. In 1953 she entered the local Miss America contest one day before the deadline and took second place. In August of the same year she was one of five winners in a beauty contest sponsored by NBC and appeared in several TV variety shows. She got her first bit part in a Warner Brothers movie in 1954 and gained television fame in the TV series The Millionaire (1955) and got her first good film role opposite John Wayne and Dean Martin in Rio Bravo (1959). Her success then climbed until she became one of the nation's top movie stars.

Bill McKinney, the movie and television character actor who was one of the great on-screen villains, was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on September 12, 1931. He had an unsettled life as a child, moving 12 times before joining the Navy at the age of 19 during the Korean War. Once, when his family moved from Tennessee to Georgia, he was beaten by a local gang and thrown into a creek for the offense of being from the Volunteer State.

In his four years on active duty in the Navy, McKinney served two years on a mine sweeper in Korean waters. He was also stationed at Port Hueneme in Ventura County, California, and he would journey to nearby Los Angeles while on liberty from his ship. During his years in the Navy, McKinney decided he wanted to be an actor and would make it his life if he survived the Korean War.

Discharged in Long Beach, California, in 1954, McKinney settled in southern California. He attended acting school at the famous Pasadena Playhouse in 1957, and his classmates included Dustin Hoffman and Mako. McKinney supported himself as an arborist, trimming and taking down trees, a job he continued into the 1970s, when he was appearing in major films. McKinney has had a life-long love affair with trees since he was a child.

After his time at the Pasadena Playhouse, McKinney was admitted to Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. He made his movie debut in the exploitation picture, She Freak (1967), and was busy on television, making his debut in 1968 on The Monkees (1965) and attracting attention as "Lobo" on Opération danger (1971). But it was as the Mountain Man in John Boorman's Délivrance (1972), a movie nominated for Best Picture of 1972 at the Academy Awards, that brought McKinney widespread attention and solidified his reputation as one of moviedom's all-time most heinous screen villains.

In his autobiography, McKinney's Délivrance (1972) co-star, Burt Reynolds (whose character dispatches The Mountain Man with an arrow in the back) said of McKinney, "I thought he was a little bent. I used to get up at five in the morning and see him running nude through the golf course while the sprinklers watered the grass...."

McKinney denies this, and also disputes Reynolds contention that he was overly enthusiastic playing the infamous scene where his character buggers Ned Beatty.

"He always played sickos", Reynolds said of McKinney, "but he played them well. With my dark sense of humor, I was kind of amused by him.... McKinney turned out to be a pretty good guy who just took the method way too far".

McKinney told Maxim magazine in an interview honoring him and his Mountain Man partner 'Herbert "Cowboy" Coward' as the #1 screen villains of all time that Reynolds' stories were untrue. "If you lose control on a movie set", McKinney told Maxim, "it's not acting, it's indulgence".

McKinney's wild-and-reckless screen persona and penchant for on-screen villainy attracted offers from A-list directors, which is a testament to his professionalism. He began appearing in films directed by top directors: Sam Peckinpah's Junior Bonner : Le Dernier Bagarreur (1972), John Huston's Juge et hors-la-loi (1972), Peter Yates's Ma femme est dingue (1974) and, most chillingly, as the assassin in Alan J. Pakula's À cause d'un assassinat (1974). (One director who did not hire him was Stanley Kubrick, who had considered him for the role of the Marine drill instructor in Full Metal Jacket (1987) but demurred as he thought he came across as too scary after screening "Deliverance".)

McKinney also appeared in the classic TV movie, Exécuté pour désertion (1974), while guest-starring on some of the top TV shows, including He'll Never See Daylight (1975) and Columbo (1971).

It was on the set working for a new director, who would go on to win an Oscar that McKinney made a fateful connection. He played the aptly named "Crazy Driver" in Michael Cimino's Le Canardeur (1974), starring Clint Eastwood. McKinney became part of the Eastwood stock company and enjoyed one of his best roles as the commander of the Red Legs in Josey Wales hors-la-loi (1976), under the direction of Eastwood, himself. McKinney appeared in another six Eastwood films from L'Épreuve de force (1977) to Pink Cadillac (1989), when the Eastwood stock company disbanded, and had another terrific turn in Eastwood's well-reviewed Bronco Billy (1980), this time playing a member of Bronco Billy's circus, a character that was neither crazy, demented or odd.

Josey Wales hors-la-loi (1976), which Orson Welles praised as an extremely well-directed film at a time when respectable critics did not associate Clint Eastwood with art, let alone craftsmanship, and Bronco Billy (1980), which was a hit with the critics but not with Eastwood fans, established the laconic superstar's reputation as a director, and McKinney was in both films. In the mid-'70s, McKinney also was a memorable misanthrope as 'Ron Howard''s employer who is done in by John Wayne's Le dernier des géants (1976) in the eponymous film directed by Don Siegel, Eastwood's mentor. Other memorable movies that McKinney has appeared in during his career include the initial Rambo film, Rambo (1982), Contre toute attente (1984), Heart Like a Wheel (1983), Retour vers le futur 3 (1990) and La Ligne verte (1999).

He never retired, continuing to act into his late seventies. He also performed as a singer and recorded a CD, "Love Songs from Antry", featuring Sinatra-like numbers and some country & western tunes.

Bill McKinney died on December 1, 2011 in Van Nuys, California from cancer of the esophagus. He was 80 years old.

James Byron Dean was born February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana, to Mildred Marie (Wilson) and Winton A. Dean, a farmer turned dental technician. His mother died when Dean was nine, and he was subsequently raised on a farm by his aunt and uncle in Fairmount, Indiana. After grade school, he moved to New York to pursue his dream of acting. He received rave reviews for his work as the blackmailing Arab boy in the New York production of Gide's "The Immoralist", good enough to earn him a trip to Hollywood. His early film efforts were strictly small roles: a sailor in the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis overly frantic musical comedy La polka des marins (1952); a GI in Samuel Fuller's moody study of a platoon in the Korean War, Baïonnette au canon! (1951) and a youth in the Piper Laurie-Rock Hudson comedy Qui donc a vu ma belle? (1952).

He had major roles in only three movies. In the Elia Kazan production of John Steinbeck's À l'est d'Eden (1955) he played Cal Trask, the bad brother who could not force affection from his stiff-necked father. His true starring role, the one which fixed his image forever in American culture, was that of the brooding red-jacketed teenager Jim Stark in Nicholas Ray's La Fureur de vivre (1955). George Stevens' filming of Edna Ferber's Géant (1956), in which he played the non-conforming cowhand Jett Rink who strikes it rich when he discovers oil, was just coming to a close when Dean, driving his Porsche Spyder race car, collided with another car while on the road near Cholame, California on September 30, 1955. He had received a speeding ticket just two hours before. At age 24, James Dean was killed almost immediately from the impact from a broken neck. His very brief career, violent death and highly publicized funeral transformed him into a cult object of apparently timeless fascination.

Dominic Chianese is an American actor, singer, and musician. He is best known for his roles as Corrado "Junior" Soprano on the HBO series The Sopranos (1999-2007), Johnny Ola in The Godfather Part II (1974), and Leander in Boardwalk Empire (2011-2013). Chianese was born in the Bronx, New York. His father was a bricklayer. His paternal grandfather immigrated to the United States from Naples in 1904 and settled in the Bronx. Chianese graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1948.

Trevor Peacock was born on 19 May 1931 in Edmonton, London, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for Frère Noël (2007), Neverwhere (1996) and The Trial (1993). He was married to Tilly Tremayne and Iris Jones. He died on 8 March 2021 in Somerset, England, UK.

With that impish, gap-toothed grin, nervous bundle of energy, Robert Morse could never be contained long enough to become a film star. The live stage would be his calling.

He was born Robert Allen Morse on May 18, 1931, in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of May (Silver) and Charles Morse, who worked at a record store. His father was of German Jewish descent and his mother was of Russian Jewish ancestry. He developed an interest in performing in high school. Moving to New York, he joined elder brother Richard who was already studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse. Robert made his debut with the musical "On the Town", in 1949, and trained with Lee Strasberg, before making his inauspicious film debut in Un magnifique salaud (1956), but movie offers were few. Instead, he brightened up the lights of Broadway as "Barnaby Tucker" in "The Matchmaker" (and in the film version of La meneuse de jeu (1958)), as well as in "Say, Darling" (Tony nomination in 1958), "Take Me Along" (Tony nomination in 1959) and his best-known role as the ever-ambitious "J. Pierpont Finch" in "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", in which he finally won the Tony, in 1961, while singing his signature song, "I Believe in You", to himself in the mirror. He took that role to film, Comment réussir dans les affaires sans vraiment essayer (1967), six years later.

Morse's best movie roles also came in the 60s, as a Britisher arranging his uncle's funeral in the cult favorite, Le cher disparu (1965), and as Walter Matthau's philandering buddy/advisor in Petit Guide pour mari volage (1967). His offbeat musical talents were used for the intriguing experimental James Thurber-like TV series, That's Life (1968), with E.J. Peaker, which combined sketches, monologues and musical interludes, but the show lasted only one season.

Overall, Bobby's work has never been less than interesting with no gray areas in his performances -- ranging from bizarre to irritating, from frenzied to fascinating. After earning acclaim and another Tony-nomination as the cross-dressing musician on the lam in "Sugar", a Broadway musical version of Certains l'aiment chaud (1959), Morse appeared less and less -- his eccentricities proving both difficult to cast and to deal with.

Following an unfulfilling stint on the daytime soap, La force du destin (1970), he came back in grand style in the one-man tour de farce, Tru (1992), based on the life of the equally-eccentric Truman Capote - a perfect fit, if ever there was one, between actor and role. With this role, Bobby became one of the choice few to ever win Tony awards for both a musical and dramatic part. At the age of 85, Morse returned to the lights of Broadway in the 2016 revival of "The Front Page" starring Nathan Lane.

Robert continued to be seen in odd roles from time to time, such as "Grandpa" in the revamped TV movie, Les monstres (1995). Into the millennium, he focused on TV work. He made a huge dramatic impression as an advertising agency founder Bertram Cooper on the popular series Mad Men (2007) and earned five Emmy nominations. He also impressed as Dominick Dunne on the series American Crime Story (2016) and provided the TV voice of Santa Claus in the animated short series Teen Titans Go! (2013).

Married twice, his five children include actresses Andrea Doven, Hilary Morse and Robin Morse. Robert Morse died on April 20, 2022, in Los Angeles. He was 90.

Gloria Talbott was born in the Los Angeles suburb of Glendale, a city co-founded by her great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Nye Patterson. Growing up in the shadows of the Hollywood studios, her interests inevitably turned to acting, with the result that she participated in school plays and landed small parts in films such as "Maytime" (1937), "Sweet and Low-Down" (1944) and "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" (1945). After leaving school, she started her own dramatic group and played arena-style shows at various clubs. After a three-year hiatus (marriage, motherhood and divorce), Talbott resumed her career, working extensively in both TV and films. Her sister is actress Lori Talbott.

Philip Baker Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio, to Berdene (McDonald) and William Alexander Hall, a factory worker who was originally from Montgomery, Alabama. He did not start acting until he was 30 years old. Known to film fans for his turn as Richard Nixon in Robert Altman's one-man show film Secret Honor (1984), he shot to cult fame when he turned in another electrifying performance, as Sydney, the veteran gambler, in Paul Thomas Anderson's debut feature, Double Mise (1996). However, it was his work in the same director's star-studded Magnolia (1999) that really caught the mass film public's attention; his performance as the legendary quiz show presenter "Jimmy Gator" was highly acclaimed. These acclaimed smaller films led to Hall's casting in multiple blockbuster hits of the 1990s and 2000s, including La Somme de toutes les peurs (2002) and Dogville (2003), directed by Lars von Trier.

Born in Palestine before the inception of the Israeli state in the city of Haifa, she first distinguished herself by winning one of the first beauty contests in the nascent Israel. Haya Harareet (also spelled Hararit) made her debut in Thorold Dickinson's film La colline 24 ne répond plus (1955) ("Hill 24 Doesn't Answer"). The landmark Israeli film, mostly in English, is also the first feature-length production to be shot and processed entirely in Israel, and made for international distribution. The film was an official selection at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival and Harareet won an award for her role in the film. She plays Miriam Mizrahi, a fourth generation, dark-eyed and beautiful Sabra, working for the underground.

Best-known for her role as Esther, opposite Charlton Heston in William Wyler's film classic Ben-Hur (1959), she also played in Francesco Maselli's La donna del giorno (1957) ("The Doll that Took the Town") with Virna Lisi, _Edgar G. Ulmer''s L'Atlantide (1961) ("Journey Beneath The Desert", AKA "The Lost Kingdom")with Jean-Louis Trintignant, and Basil Dearden's Scotland Yard contre X (1961) with Stewart Granger. She cowrote the screenplay for Chaque soir à neuf heures (1967) which starred Dirk Bogarde.

Ms. Harareet was also credited as a presenter for 'Best Special Effects' at the 32nd Annual Academy Awards in 1960.

She was married to the British film director Jack Clayton until his death in 1995.

Stephen Boyd was born William Millar on July 4, 1931, at Glengormley, Northern Ireland, one of nine children of Martha Boyd and Canadian truck driver James Alexander Millar, who worked for Fleming's on Tomb Street in Belfast. He attended Glengormley & Ballyrobert primary school and then moved on to Ballyclare High School and studied bookkeeping at Hughes Commercial Academy. In Ireland he worked in an insurance office and travel agency during the day and rehearsed with a semi-professional acting company at night during the week and weekends. He would eventually manage to be on the list for professional acting companies to call him when they had a role. He joined the Ulster Theatre Group and was a leading man with that company for three years, playing all kinds of roles. He did quite a bit of radio work in between as well, but then decided it was distracting him from acting and completely surrendered to his passion. Eventually he went to London as an understudy in an Irish play, "The Passing Day."

In England he became very ill and was in and out of work, supplementing his acting assignments with odd jobs such as waiting in a cafeteria, doorman at the Odeon Theatre and even busking on the streets of London. Even as things turned for the worst, he would always write back to his mother that all was well and things were moving along so as not to alarm her in any way or make her worry. Sir Michael Redgrave discovered him one night at the Odeon Theatre and arranged an introduction to the Windsor Repertory Company. The Arts Council of Great Britain was looking for leading man and part-time director for the only major repertory company that was left in England, The Arts Council Midland Theatre Company, and he got the job. During his stay in England he went into television with the BBC, and for 18 months he was in every big play on TV. One of the major roles in his early career was the one in the play "Barnett's Folly," which he himself ranked as one of his favorites.

In 1956 he signed a seven-year contract with 20th Century-Fox. This led to his first film role, as an IRA member spying for the Nazis L'homme qui n'a jamais existé (1956), a job he was offered by legendary producer Alexander Korda. William Wyler was so struck by Boyd's performance in that film that he asked Fox to loan him Boyd, resulting in his being cast in what is probably his most famous role, that of Messala in the classic Ben-Hur (1959) opposite Charlton Heston. He received a Golden Globe award for his work on that film but was surprisingly bypassed on Oscar night. Still under contract with Fox, Boyd waited around to play the role of Marc Anthony in Cléopâtre (1963) opposite Elizabeth Taylor. However, Taylor became so seriously ill that the production was delayed for months, which caused Boyd and other actors to withdraw from the film and move on to other projects.

Boyd made several films under contract before going independent. One of the highlights was Le Voyage fantastique (1966), a science-fiction film about a crew of scientists miniaturized and injected into the human body as if in inner space. He also received a nomination for his role of Insp. Jongman in L'inspecteur (1962) (aka "The Inspector") co-starring with Dolores Hart.

Boyd's Hollywood career began to fade by the late 1960s as he started to spend more time in Europe, where he seemed to find better roles more suited to his interests. When he went independent it was obvious that he took on roles that spoke to him rather than just taking on assignments for the money, and several of the projects he undertook were, at the time, quite controversial, such as La maîtresse noire (1969) and Commando de guerre (1970). Boyd chose his roles based solely on character development and the value of the story that was told to the public, and never based on monetary compensation or peer pressure.

Although at the height of his career he was considered one of Hollywood's leading men, he never forgot where he came from, and always reminded everyone that he was, first and foremost, an Irishman. When the money started coming in, one of the first things he did was to ensure that his family was taken care of. He was particularly close to his mother Martha and his brother Alex.

Boyd was married twice, the first time in 1958 to Italian-born MCA executive Mariella di Sarzana, but that only lasted (officially) during the filming of "Ben Hur." His second marriage was to Elizabeth Mills, secretary at the British Arts Council and a friend since 1955. Liz Mills followed Boyd to the US in the late 1950s and was his personal assistant and secretary for years before they married, about ten months before his death. He died on June 2, 1977, in Northridge, California, from a massive heart attack while playing golf - one of his favorite pastimes - at the Porter Valley Country Club. He is buried at Oakwood Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California. It was a terrible loss, just as he seemed to be making a comeback with his recent roles in the series Hawaii police d'état (1968) and the English movie Le piège infernal (1977).

It is a real tragedy to see that a man who was so passionate about his work, who wanted nothing but to tell a story with character, a man who was ahead of his time in many ways ended up being overlooked by many of his peers. One fact remains about Stephen Boyd, however--his fans are still passionate about his work to this day, almost 30 years after his death, and one has to wonder if he ever realized that perhaps in some way he achieved the goal he set out for himself: to entertain the public and draw attention to the true art of acting while maintaining glamour as he defined it by remaining himself a mystery.

Long a vital, respected thespian of the classic and contemporary stage, this grand lady did not become a household name and sought-after film actress until age 56 when she turned in a glorious, Oscar-winning performance as Cher's sardonic mother in the romantic comedy Éclair de lune (1987). Movie (and TV) fans then discovered what East coast theater-going audiences had uncovered decades before -- Olympia Dukakis was an acting treasure. Her adaptability to various ethnicities (Greek, Italian, Jewish, Eastern European, etc.), as well her chameleon-like versatility in everything from cutting edge comedy to stark tragedy, kept her in high demand for 30 years as one of Hollywood's topnotch character players.

Olympia Dukakis was born on June 20, 1931, in Lowell, Massachusetts, the daughter of Greek immigrants, Alexandra (Christos), from the Peloponnese, and Constantine S. Dukakis, from Anatolia. She majored in physical therapy at Boston University, where she graduated with a BA. Olympia practiced as a physical therapist during the polio epidemic. She later returned to her alma mater and entered the graduate program in performing arts, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree.

Olympia found early success by distinguishing herself first on stage performing in summer stock and with several repertory and Shakespearean companies throughout the county. She made her Broadway debut as an understudy in "The Aspern Papers" at age 30, followed by very short runs in the plays "Abraham Cochrane" (1964) and "Who's Who in Hell" (1974). In 1999, she premiered a one-woman play "Rose," at the National Theatre in London and subsequently on Broadway in 2000. The play earned her an Outer Critics Circle Award and Drama Desk Award nomination and she continues to tour the country with it.

Olympia was seen on the New York stage in the Roundabout Theatre's production of "The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore" (2011), in San Francisco in A.C.T.'s production of "Vigil" (2011) and as "Prospera" in "The Tempest" (2012) at Shakespeare & Co. She has performed in over 130 productions Off-Broadway and regionally at theaters including the Public Theatre, A.C.T., Shakespeare in the Park, Shakespeare & Co., and the Williamstown Summer Theatre Festival, where she also served as Associate Director. She was seen again at Shakespeare & Co. in the summer of 2013 as the title role in "Mother Courage and Her Children."

Olympia married Yugoslav-American actor Louis Zorich in 1962. The New York-based couple went on to co-found The Whole Theatre Company in Montclair, New Jersey, and ran the company for 19 years (1971-1990). As actress, director, producer and teacher, she still found the time to raise their three young children. She also became a master instructor at New York University for fourteen years. She scored theater triumphs in "A Man's a Man," for which she won an Off-Broadway Obie Award in 1962; several productions of "The Cherry Orchard" and "Mother Courage"; "Six Characters in Search of an Author"; "The Rose Tattoo"; "The Seagull"; "The Marriage of Bette and Boo" (another Obie Award); and, more notably, her many performances as the title role in "Hecuba." A good portion of her successes was launched within the walls of her own theater company, which encouraged the birth of new and untried plays.

Olympia's prolific stage directing credits include many of the classics: "Orpheus Descending," "The House of Bernarda Alba," "Uncle Vanya," and "A Touch of the Poet," as well as the more contemporary ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "Kennedy's Children"). She also adapted such plays as "Mother Courage" and "The Trojan Women" for the theater company. Over the duration of their marriage, she and her husband have experienced shared successes, appearing together in "Long Day's Journey Into Night," "Camino Real, "The Three Sisters" and "The Seagull," among many others. Both are master interpreters of Chekhovian plays -- one of their more recent acting collaborations was in "The Chekhov Cycle" in 2003.

Making an inauspicious debut in a bit role as a mental patient in Lilith (1964), she tended to gravitate toward off-the-wall films with various offshoots of the ethnic mother. She played mom to such leads as Dustin Hoffman in John et Mary (1969), Joseph Bologna in the cult comedy Faits l'un pour l'autre (1971) and Ray Sharkey in Le temps du rock'n'roll (1980). Interestingly, it was her scene-stealing work on Broadway in the comedy "Social Security" (1986) that caught director Norman Jewison's eye and earned her the Éclair de lune (1987) movie role. The Academy Award win for Best Supporting Actress was the last of a stream of awards she earned for that part, including the Los Angeles Film Critics, Golden Globe and American Comedy awards.

From then on, silver-haired Olympia was frequently first in line for a number of cream-of-the-crop matron roles: Potins de femmes (1989), Mon père (1989), Allô maman, ici bébé! (1989), Les veuves joyeuses (1993), Professeur Holland (1995) and Mother (1995).

On TV, she received high praise for her work especially for her sympathetic trans-gendered landlady Anna Madrigal in the acclaimed miniseries Les chroniques de San Francisco (1993) and its sequels Les chroniques de San Francisco II (1998) (Emmy Nominee) and Chroniques de San Francisco (2001). She was additionally seen in episodes of Bored to Death (2009), and TV movies The Last of the Blonde Bombshells (2000) (Judi Dench), Sinatra (1992) (Golden Globe Nominee), and Jeanne d'Arc (1999) (Emmy Nominee). This work is among more than 40 other series, mini-series and guest starring roles she accumulated over her long career. Several recurring TV roles also came her way with Center of the Universe (2004), Bored to Death (2009), Sex & Violence (2013), Forgive Me (2013), Switch (2018) and one last return to her popular Anna Madrigal role with the series sequel Les chroniques de San Francisco (2019).

The septuagenarian hardly slowed down and continued strongly into the millennium with top supporting film credits including The Intended (2002), The Event (2003), the title role in the mystery Charlie's War (2003), The Thing About My Folks (2005), Jesus, Mary and Joey (2005), Loin d'elle (2006), Day on Fire (2006), In the Land of Women (2007), The Last Keepers (2013), La Reine des jeux (2014), 7 Chinese Brothers (2015), Infiltrator (2016), Secret Links (2016) and Change in the Air (2018). The film Cloudburst (2011), in which she shared a co-lead with Brenda Fricker, became a critical and audience darling, winning a multitude of "Best Film" awards and several "Best Actress" honors (Seattle, San Diego) at various film festivals.

An ardent liberal and Democrat, she was the cousin of 1988 presidential nominee Michael Dukakis. Moreover, she was a strong advocate of women's rights and environmental causes. Olympia published her best-selling autobiography "Ask Me Again Tomorrow: A Life in Progress" in 2003, an introspective chronicle full of her trademark candor and wry humor. She was also a figure on the lecture circuit covering topics as widespread as life in the theater to feminism, Alzheimer's, diabetes, and osteoporosis.

A hardcore New Yorker, she resided there following the death of her husband in 2018, and until her death in May 2021. She received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Greek America Foundation, the National Arts Club Medal of Honor, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

The daughter of a noted surgeon, Dana Wynter was born Dagmar Winter in Berlin, Germany, and grew up in England. When she was 16 her father went to Morocco, reportedly to operate on a woman who wouldn't allow anyone else to attend her; he visited friends in Southern Rhodesia, fell in love with it and brought his daughter and her stepmother to live with him there. Wynter later enrolled as a pre-med student at Rhodes University (the only girl in a class of 150 boys) and also dabbled in theatrics, playing the blind girl in a school production of "Through a Glass Darkly", in which she says she was "terrible."

After a year-plus of studies, she returned to England and shifted gears, dropping her medical studies and turning to an acting career. She was appearing in a play in Hammersmith when an American agent told her he wanted to represent her. She left for New York on November 5, 1953, "Guy Fawkes Day," a holiday commemorating a 1605 attempt to blow up the Parliament building. "There were all sorts of fireworks going off," she later told an interviewer, "and I couldn't help thinking it was a fitting send-off for my departure to the New World."

Wynter had more success in New York than in London, acting on TV (Robert Montgomery Presents (1950), Suspense (1949), Studio One (1948), among others) and the stage before "going Hollywood" a short time later. The willowy, dark-eyed actress appeared in over a dozen films, worked in "Golden Age" television (such as Playhouse 90 (1956)) and even co-starred in her own short-lived TV series, the globe-trotting The Man Who Never Was (1966). Married and divorced from well-known Hollywood lawyer Greg Bautzer, Wynter, once called Hollywood's "oasis of elegance", divided her time between homes in California and County Wicklow, Ireland until her death.

He, along with the other members of the "Compass Players" including Elaine May, Paul Sills, Byrne Piven, Joyce Hiller Piven and Edward Asner helped start the famed "Second City Improv" company. They used the games taught to them by fellow cast mate, Paul Sills 's mother, Viola Spolin. He later worked in legitimate theater as an actor before entering into a very successful comedy duo with Elaine May. The two were known as "the world's fastest humans".

Gavin MacLeod's pleasing, agreeable manner on two hit TV series in the 1970s and '80s belied a number of shady villains he portrayed in his early career. Born Allan George See in Mt. Kisco, New York, on February 28, 1931, and raised in Pleasantville, he was the son of Margaret (Shea) and George See, a gas station owner who was part Chippewa Indian (Ojibwa). He followed his 1952 graduation from Ithaca College (Fine Arts major) with Air Force military duty, then moved to New York City and worked for a while as an usher and elevator operator at Radio City Music Hall. Focusing on acting, he changed his stage name to "Gavin McLeod."

A solid break on Broadway in "A Hatful of Rain" in 1956 led to a move to Los Angeles in an attempt to break into film and TV. MacLeod began to earn a minor reputation as a second-string heavy in such crime shows as "The Thin Man," "Steve Canyon," "Manhunt," "Mr. Lucky," "Peter Gunn," "Michael Shayne," "The Untouchables" and "Perry Mason." This led to a regular comedy role as part of the Sur le pont la marine (1962) TV series. He also managed several film roles, although far down the credits, with Je veux vivre! (1958), Le génie du mal (1959), La gloire et la peur (1959), Opération jupons (1959), Twelve Hours to Kill (1960), Une seconde jeunesse (1960), Le Mal de tuer (1962) and La flotte se mouille (1965). He was a member of the superb supporting cast of The Sand Pebbles (1966). He returned to Broadway in "The Captains and the Kings" in 1962.

MacLeod's career more or less flowed and ebbed until 1972, when his shiftless typecast was shattered forever. As Murray Slaughter, the balding, beaming, wisecracking, gleaming-toothed news writer on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970), MacLeod became a happy household name. From then on, he could only be envisaged as a lovable schmuck and nice guy. From there he went on to another benign starring role with the TV series, La croisière s'amuse (1977), as the ingratiating Captain Stubing.

On the down side, "Love Boat" marred MacLeod's chances to be considered for more challenging work, and his inability to cope with success led to alcoholism and divorce from second wife Patti. However, he later turned his life around, remarried his wife, and they both wrote a book called "Back on Course" (1987). MacLeod continued sporadically on the musical stage ("Gypsy," "Annie Get Your Gun," "Gigi"), in TV reunions ("Love Boat" specials) and as a TV guest ("Murder, She Wrote," "Touched by an Angel," "The King of Queens," "Oz," "That 70s Show," "JAG" and "The Comeback Kid").