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Marion Mitchell Morrison (born Marion Robert Morrison; May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), known professionally as John Wayne and nicknamed Duke, was an American actor and filmmaker. An Academy Award-winner for True Grit (1969), Wayne was among the top box office draws for three decades.Born in Winterset, Iowa, Wayne grew up in Southern California. He was president of Glendale High class of 1925. He found work at local film studios when he lost his football scholarship to the University of Southern California as a result of a bodysurfing accident. Initially working for the Fox Film Corporation, he appeared mostly in small bit parts. His first leading role came in Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail (1930), which led to leading roles in numerous B movies throughout the 1930s, many of them in the Western genre.Wayne's career took off in 1939, with John Ford's Stagecoach making him an instant star. He went on to star in 142 pictures. Biographer Ronald Davis said, "John Wayne personified for millions the nation's frontier heritage. Eighty-three of his movies were Westerns, and in them, he played cowboys, cavalrymen, and unconquerable loners extracted from the Republic's central creation myth."Wayne's other well-known Western roles include a cattleman driving his herd north on the Chisholm Trail in Red River (1948), a Civil War veteran whose young niece is abducted by a tribe of Comanches in The Searchers (1956), and a troubled rancher competing with a lawyer for a woman's hand in marriage in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). He is also remembered for his roles in The Quiet Man (1952), Rio Bravo (1959), and The Longest Day (1962). In his final screen performance, he starred as an aging gunfighter battling cancer in The Shootist (1976). He appeared with many important Hollywood stars of his era, and his last public appearance was at the Academy Awards ceremony on April 9, 1979.
Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor and director who, along with his contemporaries Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, was one of a trio of male actors who dominated the British stage of the mid-20th century. He also worked in films throughout his career, playing more than fifty cinema roles. Late in his career he had considerable success in television roles. Olivier's family had no theatrical connections, but his father, a clergyman, decided that his son should become an actor. After attending a drama school in London, Olivier learned his craft in a succession of acting jobs during the late 1920s. In 1930 he had his first important West End success in Noël Coward's Private Lives, and he appeared in his first film. In 1935 he played in a celebrated production of Romeo and Juliet alongside Gielgud and Peggy Ashcroft, and by the end of the decade he was an established star. In the 1940s, together with Richardson and John Burrell, Olivier was the co-director of the Old Vic, building it into a highly respected company. There his most celebrated roles included Shakespeare's Richard III and Sophocles's Oedipus. In the 1950s Olivier was an independent actor-manager, but his stage career was in the doldrums until he joined the avant-garde English Stage Company in 1957 to play the title role in The Entertainer, a part he later played on film. From 1963 to 1973 he was the founding director of Britain's National Theatre, running a resident company that fostered many future stars. His own parts there included the title role in Othello (1965), and Shylock in The Merchant of Venice (1970). Among Olivier's films are Wuthering Heights (1939), Rebecca (1940) and a trilogy of Shakespeare films as actor/director: Henry V (1944), Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955). His later films included Spartacus (1960), The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968), Sleuth (1972), Marathon Man (1976) and The Boys from Brazil (1978). His television appearances included an adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence (1960), "Long Day's Journey into Night" (1973), Love Among the Ruins (1975), Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976), Brideshead Revisited (1981) and King Lear (1983). Olivier's honours included a knighthood (1947), a life peerage (1970) and the Order of Merit (1981). For his on-screen work he received two Academy Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, five Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. The National Theatre's largest auditorium is named in his honour, and he is commemorated in the Laurence Olivier Awards, given annually by the Society of London Theatre. He was married three times, to the actresses Jill Esmond from 1930 to 1940, Vivien Leigh from 1940 to 1960, and Joan Plowright from 1961 until his death.
Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress whose career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned six decades. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited personality, and outspokenness, cultivating a screen persona that matched this public image, and regularly playing strong-willed, sophisticated women. She worked in a varied range of genres, from screwball comedy to literary drama, and earned her various accolades, including four Academy Awards for Best Actress—a record for any performer. In 1999, Hepburn was named the greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute. Raised in Connecticut by wealthy, progressive parents, Hepburn began to act while at Bryn Mawr College. Favorable reviews of her work on Broadway brought her to the attention of Hollywood. Her early years in film brought her international fame, including an Academy Award for Best Actress for her third film, Morning Glory (1933), but this was followed by a series of commercial failures culminating in the critically lauded box office failure Bringing Up Baby (1938). Hepburn masterminded her comeback, buying out her contract with RKO Radio Pictures and acquiring the film rights to The Philadelphia Story, which she sold on the condition that she be the star. That comedy film was a box office success and landed her a third Academy Award nomination. In the 1940s, she was contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where her career focused on an alliance with Spencer Tracy. The screen partnership spanned 26 years and produced nine films. Hepburn challenged herself in the latter half of her life as she tackled Shakespearean stage productions and a range of literary roles. She found a niche playing mature, independent, and sometimes unmarried women such as in The African Queen (1951), a persona the public embraced. Hepburn received three more Academy Awards for her performances in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), The Lion in Winter (1968), and On Golden Pond (1981). In the 1970s, she began appearing in television films, which later became her focus. She made her final screen appearance at the age of 87. After a period of inactivity and ill health, Hepburn died in 2003 at the age of 96.
John Herrick McIntire (June 27, 1907 – January 30, 1991) was an American character actor who appeared in 65 theatrical films and many television series. McIntire is well known for having replaced Ward Bond, upon Bond's sudden death in November 1960, as the star of NBC's Wagon Train. He played Christopher Hale, the leader of the wagon train (and successor to Bond's character, Seth Adams) from early 1961 to the series' end in 1965. He also replaced Charles Bickford, upon Bickford's death in 1967, as ranch owner Clay Grainger (brother of Bickford's character) on NBC's The Virginian for four seasons.
Barbara Stanwyck (July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress. A film and television star, she was known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence and was a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra. After a short stint as a stage actress, she made 85 films in 38 years in Hollywood, before turning to television. Stanwyck was nominated for the Academy Award four times, and won three Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe. She was the recipient of honorary lifetime awards from the Motion Picture Academy, the Film Society of Lincoln Center, the Golden Globes, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the Screen Actors Guild, has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is ranked as the eleventh greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute. Reportedly, she had an affair with fellow actress Ann Sheridan.
Willis Ben Bouchey(May 24, 1907 – September 27, 1977) was an American character actor who appeared in almost 150 films and television shows.
Oliver Burgess Meredith (November 16, 1907 – September 9, 1997) was an American actor and filmmaker whose career encompassed radio, theater, film, and television. Active for more than six decades, Meredith has been called "a virtuosic actor" and "one of the most accomplished actors of the century". A lifetime member of the Actors Studio, he won several Emmys, was the first male actor to win the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, and was nominated for two Academy Awards. Meredith established himself as a leading man in Hollywood with critically acclaimed performances as Mio Romagna in Winterset (1936), George Milton in Of Mice and Men (1939), and Ernie Pyle in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). Meredith was known later in his career for his appearances on The Twilight Zone and for portraying The Penguin in the 1960s TV series Batman and boxing trainer Mickey Goldmill in the Rocky film series. For his performances in The Day of the Locust (1975) and Rocky (1976), he received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He later appeared in the comedy Foul Play (1978) and the fantasy film Clash of the Titans (1981). He narrated numerous films and documentaries during his long career. "Although those performances renewed his popularity," observed Mel Gussow in The New York Times (referring to the Penguin and Mickey Goldmill roles), "they represented only a small part of a richly varied career in which he played many of the more demanding roles in classical and contemporary theater—in plays by Shakespeare, O'Neill, Beckett and others."
John Marley (born Mortimer Leon Marlieb; October 17, 1907 – May 22, 1984) was an American actor and theatre director. He won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the 29th Venice International Film Festival for his performance in John Cassavetes' Faces (1968), and was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his role in Love Story (1970). He was also known to film audiences for his role as Jack Woltz—the defiant film mogul who awakens to find the severed head of his prized thoroughbred horse in his bed—in The Godfather (1972).
Walter Clarence "Dub" Taylor Jr. (February 26, 1907 – October 3, 1994), was an American character actor who from the 1940s into the 1990s worked extensively in films and on television, often in Westerns but also in comedies. He is the father of actor and painter Buck Taylor.
Cesar Julio Romero, Jr. (February 15, 1907 – January 1, 1994) was a Cuban-American film and television actor who was active in film, radio, and television for almost sixty years. His wide range of screen roles included Latin lovers, historical figures in costume dramas, characters in light domestic comedies, and as The Joker in television's Batman series.
Dan Duryea ( DUURR-ee-ay, January 23, 1907 – June 7, 1968) was an American actor in film, stage, and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in a wide variety of leading and secondary roles.
Kent Smith (born Frank Kent Smith) was an American stage, screen, and television actor.Smith's early acting experience started in 1925 when he was one of the founders of the famed Harvard "University Players", which later included Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Joshua Logan and Margaret Sullavan in Falmouth, Massachusetts. Smith's stock experience also included productions with the Maryland Theatre in Baltimore. His professional acting debut was in 1929 in Blind Window in Baltimore, Mayland. He made his Broadway acting debut in 1932 in Men Must Fight. He also appeared on Broadway in Measure for Measure, Sweet Love Remembered, The Best Man, Ah, Wilderness!, Dodsworth, Saint Joan,, Old Acquaintance, Antony and Cleopatra and Bus Stop.Smith moved to Hollywood, California, where he made his film debut in The Garden Murder Case.He appeared in such films as Cat People, Hitler's Children, This Land Is Mine, Three Russian Girls, Youth Runs Wild, The Curse of the Cat People, The Spiral Staircase, Nora Prentiss, Magic Town, My Foolish Heart, The Fountainhead, and The Damned Don't Cry. He continued acting in films such as Comanche, Sayonara, Party Girl, The Mugger, Imitation General, The Badlanders, This Earth Is Mine, Strangers When We Meet, Susan Slade, The Balcony, A Distant Trumpet, Youngblood Hawke, and The Young Lovers.Smith had roles in television films such as How Awful About Allan, The Night Stalker, The Judge and Jake Wyler, The Cat Creature, The Affair and The Disappearance of Flight 412. His numerous television credits included a continuing role in the soap opera Peyton Place as Dr. Robert Morton; Smith's wife, actress Edith Atwater, played his character's wife on the series. He began guest-starring in television series in 1949 in The Philco Television Playhouse, and also appeared in Robert Montgomery Presents, Wagon Train, General Electric Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Naked City, Have Gun Will Travel, Perry Mason, Gunsmoke, The Beverly Hillbillies, Rawhide, The Americans, Barnaby Jones, The Outer Limits, Night Gallery, and the 1976 miniseries Once an Eagle. His last appearance was in a 1977 episode of Wonder Woman.
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Harold "Jack" Albertson (June 16, 1907 – November 25, 1981) was an American actor, comedian, dancer and singer who also performed in vaudeville. Albertson was a Tony, Oscar, and Emmy winning actor, which ranks him among a rare stature of 24 actors who have been awarded the "Triple Crown of Acting".’ For his performance as John Cleary in the 1964 play The Subject Was Roses and its 1968 film adaptation, he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. This again places him amongst a select status as one of eleven peers who have won both awards for the same role. His other roles include Grandpa Joe in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), Manny Rosen in The Poseidon Adventure (1972), and Ed Brown in the television sitcom Chico and the Man (1974–1978), for which he won an Emmy. For his contributions to the television industry, Albertson was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1977 at 6253 Hollywood Boulevard.
Ray Milland (born Reginald Alfred John Truscott-Jones or Alfred Reginald Jones; 3 January 1907 – 10 March 1986) was a Welsh actor and director. He is best remembered for his Academy Award–winning portrayal of an alcoholic writer in The Lost Weekend (1945), as well as for his performances in Dial M for Murder (1954) and Love Story (1970).
Catherine Rosalind Russell (June 4, 1907 – November 28, 1976) was an American actress, comedian, screenwriter, and singer, known for her role as fast-talking newspaper reporter Hildy Johnson in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday (1940), opposite Cary Grant, as well as for her portrayals of Mame Dennis in Auntie Mame (1958) and Rose in Gypsy (1962). A noted comedienne, she won all five Golden Globes for which she was nominated. Russell won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 1953 for her portrayal of Ruth in the Broadway show Wonderful Town (a musical based on the film My Sister Eileen, in which she also starred). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress four times during her career before being awarded a Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1973. In addition to her comedic roles, Russell was known for playing dramatic characters, often wealthy, dignified, and stylish women. She was one of the few actresses of her time to portray women in professional roles such as judges, reporters, and psychiatrists. Russell's career spanned from the 1930s to the 1970s and she attributed this longevity to the fact that, although she had many glamorous roles, she never became a sex symbol.
Edward Quillan (March 31, 1907 – July 19, 1990) was an American film actor and singer whose career began as a child on the vaudeville stages and silent film and continued through the age of television in the 1980s.
Irene Tedrow (August 3, 1907 – March 10, 1995) was an American character actress in stage, film, television and radio. Among her notable roles are as Janet Archer in the radio series Meet Corliss Archer, Mrs. Lucy Elkins on the TV sitcom Dennis the Menace, and as Mrs. Webb in the stage production Our Town at the Plumstead Playhouse.
Mike Mazurki (born: Markijan Mazurkiewicz; 25 December 1907 – 9 December 1990) was an American actor and professional wrestler who appeared in more than 100 films. His towering 6 ft 5 in (196 cm) presence and intimidating face usually got him roles playing tough guys, thugs, strong men, and gangsters.
Annabella (born Suzanne Georgette Charpentier; 14 July 1907 - 18 September 1996) was a French actress.
George Pollock (27 March 1907 – 22 December 1979) was a British film director, best known for bringing Agatha Christie's detective Miss Marple to the big screen for the first time, in films that starred Margaret Rutherford.
Ralph Michael (26 September 1907 – 9 November 1994) was an English actor. He was born as Ralph Champion Shotter in London. His film appearances included Dead of Night, A Night to Remember, Children of the Damned, Grand Prix, The Assassination Bureau and Empire of the Sun.
Shug Fisher (born George Clinton Fisher Jr.; September 26, 1907 – March 16, 1984) was an American character actor, singer, musician, and comedian. During his 50-year entertainment career, he performed in many Western films, often as a member of the Sons of the Pioneers in serials and in B movies starring Roy Rogers. Fisher also was cast in supporting roles on a variety of television series, although most frequently on Gunsmoke and The Beverly Hillbillies. His comic trademarks included his ability to stutter at will and his bemused facial expressions.
Malcolm MacLeod Atterbury (February 20, 1907 – August 16, 1992) was an American stage, film, and television actor, and vaudevillian.Atterbury is perhaps best known for his uncredited role in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959), as the rural man who exclaims, "That plane's dustin' crops where there ain't no crops!" Four years later, Atterbury appeared as the Deputy in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963). He further appeared in such films as I Was a Teenage Werewolf (1957), Crime of Passion (1957), Blue Denim (1959), Wild River (1960), Advise and Consent (1962), and Hawaii (1966). His last film was Emperor of the North Pole (1973).Atterbury was married on February 6, 1937 to Ellen Ayres Hardies (1915–1994) of Amsterdam, New York, daughter of judge Charles E. Hardies Sr. and sister of Charles Hardies Jr., who later became Montgomery County district attorney.He died in Beverly Hills of old age in 1992. CLR.
Lurene Tuttle (August 29, 1907 – May 28, 1986) was an American actress and acting coach, who made the transition from vaudeville to radio, and later to films and television. Her most enduring impact was as one of network radio's more versatile actresses. Often appearing in 15 shows per week, comedies, dramas, thrillers, soap operas, and crime dramas, she became known as the "First Lady of Radio".
Joel Fluellen was an actor, known for The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1974), The Great White Hope (1970) and Friendly Persuasion (1956). He died on February 2, 1990 in Los Angeles, California.
Kent Taylor (born Louis William Weiss; May 11, 1907 – April 11, 1987) was an American actor of film and television. Taylor appeared in more than 110 films, the bulk of them B-movies in the 1930s and 1940s, although he also had roles in more prestigious studio releases, including Merrily We Go to Hell (1932), I'm No Angel (1933), Cradle Song (1933), Death Takes a Holiday (1934), Payment on Demand (1951), and Track the Man Down (1955). He had the lead role in Half Past Midnight in 1948, among a few others.
Iron Eyes Cody (born Espera Oscar de Corti), was an Italian-American actor. He portrayed Native Americans in Hollywood films, famously as Chief Iron Eyes in Bob Hope's The Paleface. He also played a Native American shedding a tear about litter in one of the country's most well-known television public service announcements, "Keep America Beautiful". Cody began acting in the early 1930s. He worked in film and television until his death. Cody claimed his father was Cherokee (and his mother Cree), also naming several different tribes, and frequently changing his claimed place of birth. To those unfamiliar with Indigenous American or First Nations cultures and people, he gave the appearance of living "as if" he were Native American, fulfilling the stereotypical expectations by wearing his film wardrobe as daily clothing—including braided wig, fringed leathers and beaded moccasins—at least when photographers were visiting, and in other ways continuing to play the same Hollywood-scripted roles off-screen as well as on.He appeared in more than 200 films, including The Big Trail with John Wayne; The Scarlet Letter, with Colleen Moore; Sitting Bull, as Crazy Horse; The Light in the Forest as Cuyloga; The Great Sioux Massacre, with Joseph Cotten; Nevada Smith, with Steve McQueen; A Man Called Horse, with Richard Harris; and Ernest Goes to Camp as Chief St. Cloud, with Jim Varney.In 1953, he appeared twice in Duncan Renaldo's syndicated television series, The Cisco Kid as Chief Sky Eagle. He guest starred on the NBC western series, The Restless Gun, starring John Payne, and The Tall Man, with Barry Sullivan and Clu Gulager. In 1961, he played the title role in "The Burying of Sammy Hart" on the ABC western series, The Rebel, starring Nick Adams. A close friend of Walt Disney, Cody appeared in a Disney studio serial titled The First Americans, and in episodes of The Mountain Man, Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone. In 1964 Cody appeared as Chief Black Feather on The Virginian in the episode "The Intruders." He also appeared in a 1968 episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood featuring Native American dancers.Cody was widely seen as the "Crying Indian" in the "Keep America Beautiful" public service announcements (PSA) in the early 1970s.The environmental commercial showed Cody in costume, shedding a tear after trash is thrown from the window of a car and it lands at his feet. The announcer, William Conrad, says: "People start pollution; people can stop it."The Joni Mitchell song "Lakota", from the 1988 album, Chalk Mark in a Rainstorm, features Cody's chanting. He made a cameo appearance in the 1990 film Spirit of '76.Living in Hollywood, he began to insist, even in his private life, that he was Native American, over time claiming membership in several different tribes. In 1996, Cody's half-sister said that he was of Italian ancestry, but he denied it. After his death, it was revealed that he was of Sicilian parentage, and not Native American at all.Cody, at age 94, died of mesothelioma at his home in Los Angeles on January 4, 1999.
Cabell Calloway III (December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994) was an American jazz singer and bandleader. He was a regular performer at the Cotton Club in Harlem, where he became a popular vocalist of the swing era. His niche of mixing jazz and vaudeville won him acclaim during a career that spanned over 65 years. Calloway was a master of energetic scat singing and led one of the most popular dance bands in the United States from the early 1930s to the late 1940s. His band included trumpeters Dizzy Gillespie, Jonah Jones, and Adolphus "Doc" Cheatham, saxophonists Ben Webster and Leon "Chu" Berry, guitarist Danny Barker, bassist Milt Hinton, and drummer Cozy Cole. Calloway had several hit records in the 1930s and 1940s, becoming the first African-American musician to sell one million copies of a single record. He became known as the "Hi-de-ho" man of jazz for his most famous song, "Minnie the Moocher", originally recorded in 1931. He reached the Billboard charts in five consecutive decades (1930s–1970s). Calloway also made several stage, film, and television appearances until his death in 1994 at the age of 86. He had roles in Stormy Weather (1943), Porgy and Bess (1953), The Cincinnati Kid (1965), and Hello Dolly! (1967). His career enjoyed a marked resurgence from his appearance in the 1980 film The Blues Brothers. Calloway was the first African-American to have a nationally syndicated radio program. In 1993, Calloway received the National Medal of Arts from the United States Congress. He posthumously received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008. His song "Minnie the Moocher" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1999, and added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry in 2019. Three years later in 2022, the National Film Registry selected his home films for preservation as "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant films". He is also inducted into the Big Band and Jazz Hall of Fame and the International Jazz Hall of Fame.
Helen Kleeb (January 6, 1907 – December 28, 2003) was an American film and television actress. In a career covering nearly 50 years, she may be best known for her role from 1972 to 1981 as Miss Mamie Baldwin on the family drama The Waltons.
Harold Hankins Hopper (July 29, 1907 – December 17, 1988), known professionally as Jerry Hopper, was an American film and television director, active from the mid-1940s through the early 1970s.
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