Celebrity Names with the Letter J: Part 8

Typical of busy character actors, Fiedler made his face (and voice) recognizable to millions. Many know the bald-pated Fiedler as therapy patient "Mr. Peterson" on The Bob Newhart Show (1972); others might first recognize him for the 1968 movie, The Odd Couple (1968), and spin-off TV show, The Odd Couple (1970), or perhaps even from the Broadway play that preceded them. Even kids would know that helium-high voice from animated Disney features like Robin Hood (1973), The Fox and the Hound (1981) and the "Winnie the Pooh" stories, in which he voiced "Piglet". The son of an Irish-German beer salesman, Fiedler knew he wanted to be an actor from his childhood days, when he had a full head of reddish-yellow hair. He made his first professional appearances onstage, branched out into live TV in New York and, then, during the 20 years he lived in Hollywood (1960-80), he turned up in many movies and an ever greater number of popular TV shows.

John Finn was born on 30 September 1952 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Glory (1989), Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Cold Case (2003).

John Fleck is an actor, known for Waterworld (1995), Falling Down (1993) and Velvet Buzzsaw (2019).

John Fogerty was born on 28 May 1945 in Berkeley, California, USA. He is a music artist and actor, known for Battleship (2012), The Manchurian Candidate (2004) and Blade (1998). He has been married to Julie Lynne Kramer since 20 April 1991. They have three children. He was previously married to Martha Ann Paiz.

John Ford came to Hollywood following one of his brothers, an actor. Asked what brought him to Hollywood, he replied "the train". He became one of the most respected directors in the business, in spite of being known for his westerns, which were not considered "serious" film. He won six Oscars, counting (he always did) the two that he won for his WWII documentary work. He had one wife; a son and daughter; and a grandson, Dan Ford who wrote a biography on his famous grandfather.

John Forysthe was born Jacob Lincoln Freund in Penns Grove, New Jersey, the son of Blanche Materson (Blohm) and Samuel Jeremiah Freund, a Wall Street businessman. He chose to pursue acting over the objections of his father. He did some work in radio soaps and on Broadway before signing a movie contract with Warner Bros. His early career was interrupted by World War II. During the war, he enlisted in the Army Air Corps appearing in the Air Corps show "Winged Victory". After the war, he helped found the Actors Studio. He has had the most success on television, with healthy runs on Bachelor Father (1957), Dynasty (1981) and as the unseen voice of Charlie Townsend on Charlie's Angels (1976). John Forsythe died at age 92 of complications from pneumonia on April 1, 2010 in Santa Ynez, California.

Born in New York and raised in Queens, John Frankenheimer wanted to become a professional tennis player. He loved movies and his favorite actor was Robert Mitchum. He decided he wanted to be an actor but then he applied for and was accepted in the Motion Picture Squadron of the Air Force where he realized his natural talent to handle a camera. After his military discharge he began a TV career in 1953 convincing CBS to hire him as an assistant director, which consisted mainly working as a cameraman at that time. He eventually started to direct the show he was working on as an assistant director. Frankenheimer still didn't want to direct films. He liked to direct live television, and he would have continued to do it if the profession itself hadn't cease to exist. He first turned to the big screen with The Young Stranger (1957) which he hated to do because he thought he didn't understand movies and wasn't used to work with only one camera. Disappointed his with first feature film experience he returned to his successful television career directing a total of 152 live television shows between 1954 and 1960. He took another chance to move to the cinema industry, working with Burt Lancaster in The Young Savages (1961) ending up becoming a successful filmmaker best known by expressing on films his views on important social and philosophical topics.

John Franklin was born in Blue Island, Illinois, USA. John is an actor and writer, known for Children of the Corn (1984), Addams Family Values (1993) and The Addams Family (1991). John was previously married to David White.

John Gabriel Rodriquez is known for Allegiant (2016), The Vampire Diaries (2009) and The Courier (2012).

John Gallagher Jr. has appeared in several television programs, including The West Wing (1999), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), NYPD Blue (1993), Ed (2000), Love Monkey (2006), and Hallmark Hall of Fame's film The Flamingo Rising (2001). He played Jim Harper in Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom (2012) which aired on HBO. He also appeared in HBO's mini-series Olive Kitteridge (2014), based on the Pulitzer-winning novel of the same name, in the role of Christopher Kitteridge.

Film credits include Pieces of April (2003), Woody Allen's Whatever Works (2009), Jonah Hex (2010), The Heart Machine (2014), Kenneth Lonergan's Margaret (2011), and a lead role in Short Term 12 (2013) opposite Brie Larson. In 2016, he starred in the thriller film 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016) and the horror thriller film Hush (2005).

John Gammon was born on 11 July 1985 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. He is an actor, known for Corey and Lucas for the Win (2011), The Middle (2009) and I Am Singh (2011).

John Garfield was born Jacob Julius Garfinkle on the Lower East Side of New York City, to Hannah Basia (Margolis) and David Garfinkle, who were Jewish immigrants from Zhytomyr (now in Ukraine). Jules was raised by his father, a clothes presser and part-time cantor, after his mother's death in 1920, when he was 7. He was sent to a special school for problem children, where he was introduced to boxing and drama. He won a scholarship to Maria Ouspenskaya's drama school. He joined the Civic Repertory Theatre in 1932, changing his name to Jules Garfield and making his Broadway debut in that company's Counsellor-at-Law. Joined the Group Theatre company, winning acclaim for his role in Awake and Sing. Embittered over being passed over for the lead in Golden Boy, which was written for him, he signed a contract with Warner Brothers, who changed his name to John Garfield. Won enormous praise for his role of the cynical Mickey Borden in Four Daughters (1938). Appeared in similar roles throughout his career despite his efforts to play varied parts. Children Katherine (1938-1945), David Garfield (1942-1995) and Julie Garfield (1946-). Active in liberal political and social causes, he found himself embroiled in Communist scare of the late 1940s. Though he testified before Congress that he was never a Communist, his ability to get work declined. While separated from his wife, he succumbed to long-term heart problems, dying suddenly in the home of a woman friend at 39. His funeral was mobbed by thousands of fans, in the largest funeral attendance for an actor since Rudolph Valentino.

John Gatins was born on 16 April 1968 in Poughkeepsie, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Flight (2012), Norbit (2007) and Real Steel (2011).

John Gavin, the American film and TV actor, businessman and diplomat who was Ronald Reagan's first Ambassador to Mexico, was born Juan Vincent Apablasa in Los Angeles, California.

The future "Jack" Gavin was a fifth-generation Angeleno, the son of Delia Diana Pablos and Juan Vincent Apablasa, and was of Mexican, Chilean, and Spanish ancestry, a descendant of early landowners in Spanish California and the powerful Pablos family of the Mexican state of Sonora. His stepfather was Herald Ray Golenor. John had a fluency in Spanish that aided him in his career in diplomacy. He graduated with honors from Stanford University, majoring in Latin American economic history. "Law, Latin America and diplomacy were my early interests," Gavin later remembered. Too young to participate in World War II, he did serve in the military during the Korean Conflict. He was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Navy in 1952, where he served in naval air intelligence until his 1955 discharge. After his hitch in the Navy, Universal -- the home studio of 6'5" heartthrob Rock Hudson, who was on his way to becoming the top box office star in America -- offered the 6'4" Gavin a screen-test and a contract with the studio. Studio bosses always liked internal competition to keep the pressure on their major stars; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer signed Robert Taylor as a young backup to the King of Hollywood Clark Gable, and similarly, Gavin was positioned as the "next Rock Hudson".

Tall, dark and handsome, Gavin debuted in Behind the High Wall (1956), and three years later, in 1959, he had his first major lead in Douglas Sirk's remake of Imitation of Life (1959) opposite Lana Turner. Sirk, whose Ross Hunter-produced melodramas of the mid-1950's made Hudson a superstar, first directed Gavin in the role of a German soldier in his adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958) the year before. Imitation of Life (1959), which was produced by Ross Hunter in his typical lavish style, was a huge hit. Gavin was on the road to becoming a major Hudson-style heart-throb, it seemed.

The following year, Gavin achieved cinematic immortality by appearing in two classics in supporting roles, as Sam Loomis in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) and as Julius Caesar in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960). Of Psycho (1960) and Spartacus (1960), he has said, "I didn't have an inkling they would be classics. Had I realized that, perhaps I would have paid more attention." The momentum of his cinema career petered out after appearing opposite Susan Hayward in the 1961 remake of Fannie Hurst's Back Street (1961), though he did move on to star in two television series during the 1960s, Destry (1964) and Convoy (1965). Both series were produced by companies that were subsidiaries of the Universal-M.C.A., Revue Studios and Universal TV, created by the legendary agent and studio boss Lew Wasserman, the éminence grise behind Ronald Reagan's movie, TV and political careers. More importantly, in 1961, he was appointed special adviser to the secretary general of the Organization of American States, a position he held until 1973. He also performed task-group work for the Department of State and the Executive Office of the President. From 1966 to 1973, he also served on the board of the Screen Actors Guild and was guild president from 1971-1973. For the next eight years, he was engaged in business activities, many of which took him to Mexico and other Latin American countries. The producers of the James Bond series signed him to replace George Lazenby as James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), until they convinced Sean Connery to reprise the role with a $1 million charitable contribution and a $1 million salary. Thus, Gavin lost out on what could have been his career break into the big-time. However, he did not lament the loss of the role. If he had been a more successful actor, it "might have prevented me from fulfilling my real childhood dream: to be U.S. ambassador to Mexico."

During the 1970s, Gavin made some more movies, toured in summer stock in a production of The Fantasticks (Gavin has a fine baritone voice), and appeared on Broadway and in the touring show of the musical Seesaw (1973). He ended the decade by starring in TV mini-series Doctors' Private Lives (1979); he left show business to pursue business interests. The 1980s brought America a new president, and on May 7, 1981, Republican Gavin was appointed Ambassador to Mexico by President Reagan, serving until June 10, 1986. The American diplomatic mission in Mexico, one of the largest in the world, employed more than 1,000 American and Mexican employees tasked by over a dozen U.S. government agencies in consulates and offices throughout Mexico.

Gavin married the former stage and television actress Constance Towers in 1974. Each partner had two children from previous marriages. Gavin's daughter, Christina Gavin, followed in his footsteps and became an actress.

Since leaving government service, Gavin has become a successful businessman and civic leader, co-founding and managing successful ventures in the U.S. and Latin America. In 1986, Gavin was named president of Univisa Satellite Communications, a subsidiary of Univisa, Inc. He is founder/chairman of Gamma Holdings and serves on the boards of Apex Mortgage Capital, International Wire Holdings, and KKFC. Inc, and is a trustee and director of certain Merrill Lynch mutual funds. He is also a member of the Latin America Strategy Board of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst. Previously he was a managing director and partner of Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst (Latin America) as well as a director of Atlantic Richfield (where he had served as vice president of federal and international relations). He also served on the boards of Dresser Industries, Claxson and several other major corporations. Gavin also serves on the boards of several non-profit corporations, pro bono, including The Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA, Loyola Marymount University, and the California Community Foundation. Gavin also is a member of the Congressional Policy Advisory Board as a defense and foreign policy expert.

Gavin served as founding Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Century Council's from May 1991 until December 1994, then served on the Council's Advisory Board until 1996. The Century Council, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting alcohol abuse, focuses on drunk driving and underage drinking problems and is supported by America's leading distillers.

John died on February 9, 2018 in Beverly Hills.

John Gemberling was born on 1 February 1981 in New York City, New York, USA. He is an actor and writer, known for Fat Guy Stuck in Internet (2007), Human Giant (2007) and Making History (2017).

A graduate of the University of Iowa, Getz is one of four siblings raised in Iowa and in the Mississippi River Valley of Northern Illinois. After doing a number of plays at the University of Iowa he was encouraged to try acting as a profession. A children's theater production in Napa led to New York which led to Getz's first East Coast play at LaMaMa with Danny DeVito and Peter Riegert. He later spent one season (1970-71) with the American Conservatory Theater (ACT) in San Francisco, joined Actor's Equity, and a year later helped found the Napa Valley Theater Company in Yountville, California. One of Getz's earliest roles was as "Shampoo Man" in a Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo commercial shot in the late 1970s. He appeared in the workshop and very first production of the musical "The Robber Bridegroom".

Sir John Gielgud enjoyed a theatrical career that spanned 64 years, from a role in a 1924 London production of "The Constant Nymph" to the 1988 production of " Sir Sydney Cockerell: The Best of Friends", and a film career which began in 1924 and ended not long before his death. He played his first Hamlet in London in 1929, and was hailed by many as the Hamlet of his generation (and in hindsight, of the century). In 1965, his Shakespearean colloquy "The Ages of Man" won him a Tony on Broadway. The great actor, at his best in classical roles, even won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar uncharacteristically playing a butler in the comedy hit Arthur (1981).

He was born Arthur John Gielgud on April 14, 1904, in South Kensington, London, to Franciszek Henryk (later Frank Henry) Gielgud, a stockbroker, and his wife, Kate Terry. His father was of Polish ancestry, with distant Lithuanian roots, while his mother was English and from an acting family. His paternal great-grandmother, Aniela (nee Wasinskiej) Aszperger, had been a Shakespearean actress in Poland, and his maternal grandmother, Kate Terry, had played Cordelia at the age of 14. Also on his mother's side, his great-uncle Fred Terry became a stage star acting the role of the Scarlet Pimpernel, and Fred's sister, Ellen Terry, the great stage actress who made her fame as Henry Irving's leading lady, was his great-aunt. (Gielgud's brother, Val Gielgud, became the head of BBC Radio in the 1950s).

Arthur John Gielgud attended Hillside prep school, where he had his first stage experience as Shakespeare's Shylock and as Humpty Dumpty, before moving on to the Westminster school in London. He often played hooky from school to attend performances of the Diaghilev Ballet. He was 17 years old when he made his debut as a professional actor at the Old Vic in 1921, playing a French herald in "Henry V." The next year, his cousin Phyllis Neilson-Terry hired him as an assistant stage manager and understudy for "The Wheel". While pursuing his stage career, he studied acting at Lady Benson's Dramatic Academy before attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) for a year. He appeared in his first motion picture in 1923 in the silent picture Who Is the Man? (1924).

Gielgud's first major role on the London stage was as Trofimov in Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard." In 1924, he understudied Noel Coward in "The Vortex" and "The Constant Nymph," parts he subsequently took over. During the run of "The Constant Nymph", Gielgud met the actor John Perry, who had a walk-on role in Avery Hopwood's "The Golddiggers", starring Tallulah Bankhead. Gielgud and Perry fell in love, and Perry abandoned his unpromising stage career to live with Gielgud in his flat in Covent Garden. Subsequently, Gielgud joined J. B. Fagan's company that played in Oxford and in the West End, as London's commercial theater district was called.

In 1929, Lilian Baylis invited him to join the Old Vic, and he played all the major parts in repertory over the next two seasons, establishing his reputation as a great actor. It was in 1929-30 season that Gielgud first played the title role in William Shakespeare's "Hamlet", which made theatrical history as it was the first time an English actor under 40 had played the part in the West End. Blessed with what Laurence Olivier called "The Voice that Wooed the World", Gielgud revolutionized the role with the speed of his delivery. Developing his interpretation of Hamlet in subsequent performance over the years, he would generally be accorded the greatest Hamlet of his generation and of the 20th century, his facility with the part rivaled only on stage by John Barrymore . But it was his 1929-30 Hamlet and his performance in the title role of Shakespeare's "Richard II", another role he made his own, that earned him the reputation as the premier Shakespearean actor in England.

Inspired by Gielgud's performances, a woman wrote, under the pseudonym Gordon Daviot, the play "Richard of Bordeaux" specifically for him, and he starred in and directed the play. "Richard of Bordeaux" was a box-office smash and made him a celebrity. This huge financial success of the play meant that Gielgud could stage classics in the West End. An innovator, Gielgud pioneered the theater company system. He also encouraged a new generation of actors, including Laurence Olivier, Peggy Ashcroft, Edith Evans, Glen Byam Shaw, Anthony Quayle, George Devine, and Alec Guinness, who reportedly saw him in "Richard of Bordeaux" fifteen times. After World War II, Gielgud proved a mentor to a young de-mobilized R.A.F. enlisted man, Richard Jenkins, who became a star overnight in Gielgud's production of "The Lady's Not for Burning" as Richard Burton. The two remained friends for all of Burton's life, Gielgud directing Burton in his memorable 1964 New York production of "Hamlet".

Gielgud was a notorious workaholic and single-mindedly focused on his craft. Beverley Nichols related how Gielgud returned from a village in late 1939, loaded down with newspapers and a worried look. Asked whether war had finally been declared with Germany, Gielgud replied: "'Oh, I don't know anything about that, but 'Gladys Cooper' has got the most terrible reviews."

Represented by the theatrical agency H. M. Tennent, whose managing director was the famous Hugh 'Binkie' Beaumont, Gielgud lost the romantic affections of John Perry to Beaumont (they were a committed couple until Beaumont's death). During World War II, acting without Gielgud's knowledge, Beaumont obtained an exemption from military service for Gielgud, who expected to be called up, but had to content himself with being a London fire watch warden. In the post-war theater, Gielgud abandoned the romantic roles that made him a box-office star in favor of character work. He was influenced in that direction by the 25-year-old Peter Brook, who directed him in Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure." (The other great Peter, Peter Hall, who founded the Royal Shakespeare Company, and later succeeded Laurence Olivier as director of the National Theatre, directed Gielgud as Prospero in "The Tempest" in 1973, the first production he directed for the NT on the South Bank.)

He became Sir John Gielgud when he was awarded a knighthood in the Coronation Honours list of June 1953. By this time, he had begun a long-term relationship with Paul Anstee. On October 21, 1953, Gielgud was arrested in Chelsea for soliciting a homosexual act in a public lavatory. Arraigned the next morning, he pleaded guilty, apologized to the court, and was fined ten pounds sterling. He had identified himself to the police as "Arthur Gielgud, 49, a clerk, of Cowley Street Westminster." Homosexuality was proscribed by the law in the UK, and Gielgud gave his less common birth name and a phony job description in the hopes that the press would not get wind of his pinch. The police made an attempt to prevent the press from learning of the incident, but in "Evening Standard" journalist was in the court that morning, and for the early afternoon edition, the paper came out with a headline "Sir John Gielgud fined: See your doctor the moment you leave here."

Publicly humiliated, Gielgud worried about how the West End audience would react the next time he appeared on stage. Gielgud was advised not to seek work in the United States for at least four years as he likely would be being refused entry by American immigration authorities. In a letter to Lillian Gish at the time (not revealed until after his death), Gielgud told her that he perhaps should have committed suicide. While Binkie Beaumont initially favored keeping Gielgud off the boards, Gielgud's brother Val, then head of BBC Radio, threatened the homosexual Beaumont with exposure if he kept his brother away from acting. A conference of his friends was called by Beaumont to determine how to best handle the crisis as Gielgud was scheduled to open in N. C. Hunter's play "A Day at the Sea" in the West End, which he was also directing. The "war council" included Laurence Olivier, his wife Vivien Leigh, Ralph Richardson, and Glen Byam Shaw, who was running the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-Upon-Avon. Only Olivier counseled him to postpone the play; the rest urged him to carry on. Gielgud heeded the advice of the majority, and went ahead with the production. Upon entering the stage the first night, the house was brought down by a standing ovation.

Outside the theater, the press whipped up a public backlash over the "homosexual menace." There were fears among the theater's gay community that there would be a police crackdown, leading choreographer Frederick Ashton to say of Gielgud, "He's ruined it for us all." So afraid was his lover Paul Anstee, that he burned all his letters. Gielgud's official biographer, Sheridan Morley, who withheld publication of his authorized biography until after Gielgud's death so as not to broach the subject of the arrest and Gielgud's sexuality during his lifetime, believes that the Gielgud arrest and brouhaha in the press likely were part of an organized campaign against homosexuality that had been festering in Britain since just before World War II.

By the mid-1950s, the traditional English stage was stagnating, as susceptible to an insurrection as the theater had been in the 1930s, when Gielgud's acting and direction had overthrown the old order. Gielgud's 1955 go at Shakespeare's "King Lear" was a failure, and his style of acting went out of fashion after the kitchen-sink theatrical revolution heralded by the Royal Court's May 1956 staging of John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger". Unlike Olivier, who reinvented himself with his characterization of Archie Rice in Osborne's The Entertainer (directed by kitchen-sink stalwart Tony Richardson), an era of rebellion against the cultural Establishment was at hand, which rendered the current lions of the stage passé. It was a new world in which Gielgud felt he had no place.

Gielgud stuck to what he knew. He created a solo recital of Shakespearean excerpts called "The Ages of Man" for the 1957 Edinburgh Festival. The recital proved extremely popular, and he toured with the show for a decade, winning a special Tony Award in 1958 for his staging of the show on Broadway. In the 1960s, he had a notable failure with his "Othello," and he was not a success in Peter Brook's 1968 staging of "Oedipus", two roles that Olivier had excelled in. Laurence Olivier, once his acolyte, was by this time considered the greatest actor in the English language, if not the world. He would become the first actor ennobled when he became Lord Olivier of Brighton in 1970. Gielgud, in contrast, had seemed, like their contemporary Ralph Richardson, to be old-fashioned and behind the times.

He was nominated for a Tony as Julian in Edward Albee's willfully obscure "Tiny Alice" in 1965, but Gielgud did not truly begin to transform himself into a contemporary actor until his appearances in Tony Richardson's 1967 film The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968) and in Alan Bennett's 1968 play "40 Years On...." He continued to revitalize his reputation in 1970, when he appeared in David Storey's "Home," and in 1976, when he appeared in Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land." Along with his reclaimed reputation came an appointment as a Companion of Honour in 1977. His career renaissance was ratified by the winning of an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the film Arthur (1981) in 1981.

Although he had appeared in approximately 80 films, his supercilious character did not make him a popular movie actor, or a particularly distinguished one, aside from his brilliant turn as Cassius in the film adaptation of Julius Caesar (1953) and his gem of a cameo as Clarence in Olivier's Richard III (1955). His genius remained reserved for the stage. (He had even turned down a film offer in the mid-1930s from Alexander Korda to film his great Hamlet.) As The Times eulogized after his death, "To a unique degree his greatest performances coincided with the greatest plays."

John Gielgud met his last love, Martin Hensler, at an exhibition at the Tate Gallery in the 1960s. They kept in touch, and Hensler moved in with Gielgud six years later. They remained a couple for over 30 years until Gielgud's death. Despite the publicity surrounding his 1953 arrest and the legalization of homosexuality in the UK in 1967, Gielgud did not talk publicly about his sexuality, so most of the public did not know that Gielgud was gay. Hensler, with Gielgud's approval, successful lobbied to have the 1988 program notes for Hugh Whitemore's play "Best of Friends" state that he and Gielgud had been a happy couple for many years, but it was not publicized by the press. That play proved to be Gielgud's final appearance in the theater.

Gielgud outlived his great contemporaries, Olivier and Richardson, the Three Knights of the Stage, by a decade. Benedict Nightingale wrote of the three, in 'The Times' (May 23, 2000) that, "Laurence Olivier was the most fiery and physically volatile, Ralph Richardson the earthiest and the quirkiest, but Gielgud was the most vocally exquisite, intellectually elegant and spiritually fine."

Sheridan Morley, his biographer, said: 'Since 1917, when he started in walk-on parts, he never had more than four weeks without work." In his career on stage, he had played every major Shakespearean role, including his favorite, Prospero in "The Tempest", which he later essayed for director Peter Greenaway in "Prospero's Books".

Gielgud could be seen as having made the career of his greatest acolyte, Laurence Olivier, his only rival for the title of Greatest Shakespearean Actor of the 20th Century, a contest most felt that Gielgud won due to the beauty of his phrasing and more cerebral interpretation of Shakespeare. (Olivier was generally considered the better actor in contemporary roles.) A great Richard II (as well as Hamlet), the generous Gielgud made his Bolingbroke possible through both his mentorship of the younger actor at the New Theatre during the 1935 season (where they alternated the roles of Romeo and Mercutio, with Gielgud getting the better reviews), and by reinventing Shakespeare as commercial theater in the 20th century. The modern, revitalized Shakespearean stage willingly embraced the more physical Olivier.

Director Sir Peter Hall, in eulogizing the great man, said. "His work at the Vic in the 1930s, then with his own company, was trailblazing. He was not an old-style actor wanting inferior actors around him so he would look the star, which was what happened in a lot of companies. He wanted to be around people who were better than he was. He believed in that kind of humility. His companies were very happy places, with one humorous qualification - that mercurial mind meant as a director he was always changing it."

Thus, Gielgud's greatest legacy was his work as an actor-manager in the 1930s and 1940s, a time when the commercial West End theater was generally frivolous and its Shakespeare as caught in amber as a D'Oyly Carte production of a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. Gielgud created classical companies that laid the foundations for the great renaissance of British theater that blossomed after the War, doing the groundwork at the New Theatre in 1935, at the Queen's Theatre in the 1937/38 seasons, and at the Haymarket in 1944. His companies featured in repertory Shakespeare, Sheridan, Congreve, and Chekhov, and his patronage of the design team Motley reinvented the look of British theatrical staging. Aside from Olivier, who went on to found the National Theatre, George Devine founded the English Stage Company in 1956, and Anthony Quayle and Glen Byam Shaw revitalized Stratford during the 1950s.

Without Gielgud, those paragons of the modern English theater, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, likely would not have come into existence. 'Percy' Harris, one of the Motley theatrical design team, said, "I think he single-handedly put English theater back on the map. Larry [Olivier] gets all the credit and John doesn't, which I think is a sign of John's innate modesty."

Gielgud wrote many books in his career, starting with a 1939 autobiography entitled "Early Stages." This was followed by "John Gielgud: An Actor's Biography in Pictures" in 1952, "Stage Directions" in 1963, "Distinguished Company" in 1972, the new autobiography "An Actor in His Time" in 1979 (revised 1989), "Backward Glances: Part One, Time for Reflection: Part Two, Distinguished Company" in 1989, "Teach Yourself" in 1990, and a primer for Shakespearean actors, "Shakespeare - Hit or Miss?" in 1991 (re-published as "Acting Shakespeare" in 1992). In 1994, "Notes from the Gods: Playgoing in the Twenties," based on Gielgud's annotated theater programs from the London theatrical productions from 1919-25, was published. The lifetime awards began to pile up: a BAFTA fellowship award for his lifetime contribution to show business in 1992, the renaming of the Globe Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue in London's West End as the Gielgud Theatre in 1994, and his appointment to the Order of Merit in 1996.

Gielgud and Hensler lived together in his later years at their country house, South Pavilion, at Wotton Underwood, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, where he died "simply of old age" on 21 May 2000, at 96. That night, the lights at the Gielgud Theatre and 12 others in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group were dimmed for three minutes in tribute to the passing of the man acclaimed as the greatest Shakespearean actor of the century.

At a small memorial service in Buckinghamshire, Sir Alec Guinness, Sir John Mills, Dame Maggie Smith and Lord Richard Attenborough were among those whom paid their respects to the legendary actor. His body was later cremated at a ceremony witnessed by a small group of those closest to him. A year after Gielgud's death, an archive of letters chronicling his personal and professional life was bequeathed to the nation and housed at the British Library. "Style", Gielgud once said, "is knowing what sort of play you're in."

John Soursby Glover, Jr., is an American actor, known for a range of villainous roles in films and television, including Lionel Luthor on the Superman-inspired television series Smallville. In 1993 he co-starred in the dark comedy Ed and His Dead Mother with Steve Buscemi and Ned Beatty.Glover was born in Salisbury, Maryland, the son of Cade (née Mullins) and John Soursby Glover, Sr., a television salesman. Glover attended Wicomico High School and acted at Towson University. Glover began his career at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, and later studied acting at the Beverly Hills Playhouse under Milton Katselas. Aside from his theatrical endeavors, Glover is also actively involved with the Alzheimer's Association. His inspiration for joining this cause was his own father's experience with Alzheimer's disease.

John Stephen Goodman's an American film, TV & stage actor. He was born in Affton, Missouri to Virginia Roos (Loosmore), a waitress and saleswoman & Leslie Francis Goodman, a postal worker who died when he was a small child. He's of English, Welsh & German ancestry. He's best known for his role as Dan Conner on the TV show Roseanne (1988), which ran until 1997 & for which he earned him a Best Actor Golden Globe in 1993. He's also noted for appearances in films of the Coen brothers, w/ prominent roles in Raising Arizona (1987) as an escaped convict, in Barton Fink (1991) as a congenial murderer, in The Big Lebowski (1998) as a volatile bowler & in O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) as a cultured thief. Additionally, he has done voice work in numerous Disney & Pixar films, including the Sulley in Monsters, Inc. (2001). Having contributed to more than 50 films, he has also won 2 American Comedy Awards & hosted Saturday Night Live (1975) 14 times.

John Michael Green was born on August 24, 1977 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is a YouTube video-blogger, or "vlogger", with his brother, Hank Green. Their YouTube channel, Vlogbrothers, has over 2,500,000 subscribers as of May 2015. Perhaps more notably, John is also an author. His most recent book, released in January 2012, was adapted to film in The Fault in Our Stars (2014). John and his wife Sarah have two children together, a son named Henry, and a daughter named Alice. The family resides in Indianapolis, Indiana. Alongside his brother, Hank Green, John started an annual YouTube conference called "Vidcon" in 2010. Starting at only 1,400 attendee's in 2013 there were over 12,000 in attendance of the weekend long conference which celebrates the online video viewers, creators, and industry representatives worldwide, drawing thousands of attendees.

A graduate of Mississippi State University and Ole Miss Law School, John Grisham obtained his law degree in 1981 and practiced law for about 10 years, specializing in criminal defense and personal injury litigation. He was elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1983 and served until 1990. He gave up his law practice to write full-time. He began writing in 1984, and three years later finished his first novel, "A Time To Kill", published by Wynwood Press in June 1988. He is the best-selling author of "A Time to Kill", "The Firm", "The Pelican Brief" and "The Client". He lives with his wife and their two children on a farm in Oxford, Mississippi.

John Gulager was born on 19 December 1957 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a cinematographer and actor, known for Feast (2005), Piranha 3DD (2012) and He Was a Quiet Man (2007). He has been married to Diane Ayala Goldner since 1986.

John Hamburg was born on 26 May 1970 in New York City, New York, USA. He is a producer and director, known for Little Fockers (2010), Why Him? (2016) and I Love You, Man (2009). He has been married to Christina Kirk since 24 September 2005.

John Hannah is the youngest child of his family, having two older sisters. Before he decided on a career as an actor, John was an apprentice electrician for four years. He gave up his work as an electrician after being accepted to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. After years of struggling, he finally got his 'big break' when he was cast as Matthew in Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). He currently lives in London with his wife Joanna Roth and their two children.

Tall and athletic, and possessed of "movie star" good looks, John Hart acted on the stage of the renowned Pasadena Playhouse as a young man, before making his screen debut in a supporting role in director Cecil B. DeMille's big-budget The Buccaneer (1938). With these physical assets and early acting credentials, the native Los Angeleno seemed bound for bigger and better things but military service slowed his momentum: Returning to Hollywood after World War II, he found himself back at the proverbial starting line. Hart soon fell into the low-budget Western and serial rut, but he served with distinction in many youth-oriented productions: He was the perfect embodiment of radio-comic strip hero Jack Armstrong in a 1947 serial, rode the Western plains in 52 episodes of TV's The Lone Ranger (1949) (playing the Masked Man) and brought life to James Fenimore Cooper's courageous frontiersman Hawkeye in TV's Hawkeye and the Last of the Mohicans (1957). In more recent years, he worked behind-the-scenes (as a cameraman, post-production supervisor, dubbing supervisor, etc.).