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Annette Joanne Funicello achieved teenage popularity starting in October 1955 after she debuted as a Mouseketeer. Born on October 22, 1942 in Utica, New York, the family had moved to California when she was still young. Walt Disney himself saw her performing the lead role in "Swan Lake" at her ballet school's year-end recital in Burbank and decided to have her audition along with two hundred other children. Annette became the last Mouseketeer of the twenty-four that was picked. By the run-through in 1958 of The Mickey Mouse Club (1955) in which she appeared in her own multi-segmented series entitled "Annette", she had become the most popular Mousketeer of them all and the only one kept under contract by Walt Disney after he canceled the show. Her popularity was such that by the late 1950s, she was simply known as "Annette" -- America's sweetheart and the first "crush" for many a teenage baby boomer. Whenever anyone spoke of Annette, no last name was ever needed as everyone knew who you were talking about.

The popular teenager became synonymous with wholesome entertainment and was borrowed by Danny Thomas in 1959 to play Gina, a foreign exchange student, on The Danny Thomas Show (1953) (aka "The Danny Thomas Show") and also that same year had a recurring role on the Disney television series Zorro (1957). She made her well as other Disney film vehicles for several years, including The Shaggy Dog (1959), Babes in Toyland (1961) and The Monkey's Uncle (1965). During this time, the modest young singer had a couple of hit singles on the "Hot 100" charts, notably, "Tall Paul", and as a result, traveled with Dick Clark's caravan on singing tours around the country. At one point, she and teen idol Paul Anka became an item and he wrote both "Puppy Love" and "Put Your Head On My Shoulder" with her in mind. Their busy careers led to them parting ways.

During the early 1960s, American International Films wanted to use her in a fun-on-the-beach movie. They presented the idea to "Mr. Disney", as Annette always called him and with whom she was still under contract. To everyone's surprise, he gave his consent, with the only condition being that she make sure her navel was completely covered by a one piece bathing suit. The first movie, aptly titled Beach Party (1963) starred Robert Cummings and Dorothy Malone as the older generation who explore the younger set represented by Annette (as "Dee Dee") and her love interest Frankie Avalon (as "Frankie"). The "teenage" couple (actually she was 20 and he 23) proved so popular in this that they were whisked into a number of sand-and-surf romps (Muscle Beach Party (1964), Bikini Beach (1964), Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) and How to Stuff a Wild Bikini (1965)) that showcased the actors engaging in harmless fun while singing and dancing in the sand, and falling into silly slapstick.

After the surfing craze died out in 1965, Annette married Jack Gilardi, Paul Anka's agent, and became the mother of his three children -- Gina, Jack Jr. and Jason. While appearing in a few other movies that did nothing to further her career, including Fireball 500 (1966), Thunder Alley (1967) and Head (1968), she appeared as a guest on shows and, most famously, became the spokesperson for Skippy Peanut Butter in a host of commercials. But she phased out her career in favor of family.

She and Gilardi divorced in 1983. Three years later, she married Glen Holt, a harness racing horse breeder/trainer. Within a year into her second marriage, Annette was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She hid her condition for five years before making a formal announcement (in 1992) for fear that her uncontrollable movements might be characterized as drunkenness. She became the most famous spokesperson for the disease. Annette's life was filmed as a television movie with A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story (1995) co-starring her good friend, Shelley Fabares. Receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1993, Annette was eventually wheelchair-ridden and went into complete seclusion.

Following a tragic March 2011 incident in which their Los Angeles house burnt to the ground and both Annette and husband Glen were hospitalized with smoke inhalation, the couple moved to Bakersfield, California. A little more than a year later, and over 25 years after she was diagnosed with this long and painful illness, Annette passed away on April 8, 2013 from complications at age 70. To the present, her foundation continues to raise money to help find cures for this and other debilitating disorders, including Lou Gehrig's disease.

Trisha started her career as a professional ballet dancer, actress and choreographer. As a child, she choreographed her first show, a community theater production of Annie. Her love of choreography eventually transitioned to directing for theater, where she directed numerous live productions in New York and Los Angeles.

She has coached and taught actors including Lenny Kravitz, Glen Powell, Julianne Hough, Kathryn Morris, Suki Waterhouse, David Hornsby and comedians Pete Davidson and Sebastian Maniscalco.

She began directing for film and television in 2017. Her short films 6 Angry Cubans (2019), Roommates (2019) and her series pilot So Foreign (2019) have received multiple festival nominations since submissions began in April 2019, with 6 Angry Cubans taking home top honors at the Austin Short Film Comedy Festival, the San Diego Short Film Comedy Festival, the Atlanta Comedy Festival, and the Dominican Film Festival in New York City.

A native of Utica, New York, Steven Brill studied film, theater and acting at Boston University. It was there that he became a student of acclaimed, Nobel Prize winning poet and playwright, Derek Walcott. Brill became a part of Mr. Walcott's first theater group in Boston, Playwright's Theater, where he wrote and directed original plays.

Brill continued to write plays and moved to Los Angeles where he began auditioning as an actor and writing screenplays as well. In his spare time, Brill would go skating at public ice rinks - which proved a fortuitous hobby. One day while watching a Pee Wee hockey practice, he was struck by the idea for The Mighty Ducks.

Brill scripted the film, recalling his own youth hockey experience, and sold it to Walt Disney Pictures. Emilio Estevez was cast as Coach Gordon Bombay in the 1992 release. One year later, "The Mighty Ducks" of Anaheim entered their first NHL season. Brill next wrote and executive produced the 1995 sequel "D2-The Mighty Ducks Are Back" and in 1997, "D3-The Mighty Ducks".

Brills directorial debut was the Disney film "Heavyweights", a comedy about a group of kids at a weight loss summer camp starring Ben Stiller,. He co-wrote the script with Judd Apatow, who also served as the executive producer.

Next, Brill wrote and directed "Late Last Night" for Screenland Pictures. "Late Last Night" stars Emilio Estevez, Steven Weber and Catherine O'Hara. It chronicles one intense night in the life of a man in Los Angeles.

Brill wrote Ready to Rumble for Warner Brothers. He also worked as a writer on "The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy, and Doctor Dolittle" He then directed and co-wrote Little Nicky with Adam Sandler for New Line Cinema. Also starring in the picture are Harvey Keitel, Patricia Arquette and Reese Witherspoon.

Brill followed that up by directing "Mr. Deeds" with Adam Sandler.. Deed's, also starring Winona Ryder came out in June of 2002 and made over 170 million at the box office worldwide

Brill then re-wrote and directed "Without a Paddle," starring Burt Reynolds, Seth Green and Matthew Lillard, for Paramount Pictures. He directed "Drillbit Taylor" produced by Judd Apatow and starring Owen Wilson for Paramount Pictures.

His most recent film was "Walk of Shame," an original screenplay that directed, starring Elizabeth Banks, for Lakeshore Entertainment.

Aside from writing and directing, Brill has kept busy as an actor on such diverse films as "Sex, Lies, and Videotape", "Postcards from the Edge", "Edward Scissorhands", "Batman Returns", "When a Man Loves a Woman", "The Wedding Singer" and "Big Daddy", and "Knocked Up".

Tiffany Pollard was born on 6 January 1982 in Utica, New York, USA. She is an actress and producer, known for First Sunday (2008), I Love New York (2007) and Drama: A Comedy Pilot (2011).

Tall, lean, handsome veteran stage and classically trained actor, best known for his iconic role as Youngblood Priest - the long haired, stylishly dressed cocaine dealer who wants to make one last big score so he can retire from the cocaine business, in the seminal 1972 crime drama Super Fly. Son of a jazz musician who worked as a factory worker to support his family, Ron O'Neal grew up in the ghetto. After graduating Glenville High School, he attended Ohio State University, and after a disastrous semester where he, in his words, "just played bridge", developed an interest in acting after seeing Finian's Rainbow at the Karamu House. He joined the Karamu House and trained with the interracial acting troupe between 1957-1966 acting in productions of Kiss Me Kate and A Streetcar Named Desire. He moved to New York in 1967 to pursue a career in acting. He taught acting classes in Harlem to support himself and appeared in Off-Broadway plays and summer stock.

His first big break came when he was cast in a Broadway production of Ceremonies In Dark Old Men. In 1970, he was propelled into the spotlight after appearing in Charles Gordone's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, No Place to Be Somebody. The stirring performance earned him an Obie Award, Drama Desk Award, Clarence Derwent Award and the National Theater Award. He had two minor roles in Move (1970) and The Organization (1971), before being contacted by an old friend from Cleveland, screenwriter Phillip Fenty, who wanted him to play the title role in a film about a drug dealer who wants to leave his life of crime behind him. Shot on a starvation budget, Super Fly became a surprise box-office hit. The gifted actor's remarkable performance brought a great measure of class and depth to the role, which if done by a lesser actor could have easily have become "cartoonish".

O'Neal received both praise and criticism for his performance. And there was even talk of an Oscar Nomination. But the criticism proved too much as he later said, "..the press thought I was some n****r off the street who made a movie about his own dissolute life. I never used drugs in those days. And my film was about a dealer who quit selling drugs and got out of that system. Still, the negative press soured my career and, eventually, it soured me."

He followed up the highly successful Super Fly with the sequel, Super Fly T.N.T. (1972), in which he starred in and directed. Unfortunately, the film failed at the box-office and O'Neal soon found the only film roles offered to him were pimps and drug dealers. He returned to Broadway in 1975, replacing Cleavon Little in Murray Schisgal's All Over Town, which was directed by Dustin Hoffman and was Othello at Connecticut's American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford in the 1970s. He'd also been Macbeth and Petruchio in the Taming of the Shrew.

A film career that began with such promise was never allowed to come to fruition. Amidst the political backlash and controversy surrounding Super Fly, and other so called "blaxploitation" films, he was typecast-unable to get roles of merit. He was subjugated to supporting roles beneath his talent and ability - appearing in a string of mediocre low budget and straight to video films. Only his role in the 1977 drama Brothers, and his role in the 1981 made-for-TV film The Sophisticated Gents were of any merit. He also appeared in a number of television guest spots, usually as detectives. He co-starred in the short-lived 1982 series "Bring 'Em Back Alive" and in the television series "The Equalizer" in 1986. O'Neal could be seen in episodes of "A Different World" and "Frank's Place" among others. He appeared in a number of stage productions, including Othello at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in the 1990s. He once again directed, the 1991 well-intentioned drama Up Against A Wall and appeared with fellow "blaxploitation" icons in the 1996 hit film Original Gangsters.

Unfortunately, he was never able to break free from the iconic image he helped to create. On January 14, 2004, he died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. He was only 66. Ironically, he died a day after Super Fly made its debut on DVD.

Matt Landers, a graduate of Notre Dame High School, worked his first professional season as an actor at the Surflight Summer Theater in Beach Haven, New Jersey, in 1969. He studied at the Boston Conservatory of Music and appeared as Jesus in "Godspell" in his first Equity performance at the Wilbur Theater in Boston. Matt made his Broadway debut as the first replacement in the role of Sonny in "Grease" at the Royale Theater and was nominated for a New York Drama Desk Award for his performance in Studs Terkel's Working (1982). In Hollywood Matt has starred in numerous television shows and, most notably, as Pinkerton in The George Carlin Show (1994). On the big screen he has featured roles in 48 Hrs. (1982), Die Hard (1988), Down Periscope (1996) and starred as Ray in the Academy Award-winning Best Live Action Short, Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall (1987). The father of two daughters, Lily Kivlen and Fiona Kathleen, he resides in New York.

Leonard Crofoot was born on 20 September 1948 in Utica, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for The Man Who Wasn't There (2001), Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and A Reflection of Fear (1972).

Marylou Connors was born on 22 December 1926 in Utica, Indiana, USA. She was married to Mike Connors. She died in 2017.

Joe Zaloom was born on 30 July 1942 in Utica, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995), Kinsey (2004) and Rounders (1998). He was previously married to Patrick Devine.

Mu-Shaka Benson is an actor and Army combat veteran born and raised in Utica, NY. He began his acting career in 2012 on an independent horror feature called Half Dead. He has starred in a number of short films, feature films and network television shows on MGM+, Amazon, NBC, HULU, ID, and Starz.

Michael Cariglio was born on 22 July 1948 in Utica, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Pappyland (1996).

Andrew Savage was born on 29 July 1963 in Utica, New York, USA.

Karl Lewis Miller was born on 16 June 1941 in Utica, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Nutty Professor (1996), Stand by Me (1986) and Body Double (1984). He died on 27 March 2008 in Arleta, California, USA.

Laura Fuino was born in Utica, New York, USA. Laura is an actor and producer, known for Progeny (1998), Robot Dating (2022) and The Dance (2011).

Jerry Mandy was born on 5 June 1892 in Utica, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Unknown Woman (1935), Behind the Mike (1937) and King of Burlesque (1936). He died on 1 May 1945 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA.

Brian J. Singer was born on 26 May 1966 in Utica, New York, USA. He is an actor and director, known for The Bronx Bull (2016), 9/11 (2017) and Tell-Tale (2007).

David J. Plescia was born on 17 February 1977 in Utica, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Slade Collins in and Out of Time (2016), Stone (2012) and Night Run (2011).

Dion T. Gibson is an actor born to Shannon (Pollard), a former flight attendant & Dion L. Gibson, a retired correctional officer in Utica, N.Y. on December 20th, 1991. Although, not previously involved in notable films, the actor has gained recognition for being considered a top candidate as the Green power ranger in the potential 2017 sequel and being cast as Bambi in a live action re-imagination. Dion is a living embodiment that you can have a late start in the industry and still accomplish one's ambitions.

Irving Sorkin was born on 14 December 1918 in Utica, New York, USA. Irving was a producer, known for Something the Lord Made (2004). Irving was married to Joyce Kalnitsky. Irving died on 18 October 2007 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Brad M. Bucklin received a Bachelors Degree in English and Theatre from Windham College where he studied with John Irving. After moving to Los Angeles at 25, he worked as an actor for a number of years on such notable shows as One Day At A Time, Waverly Wonders, Wavelength and Jurassic Park. He became a member of Theatre West in the early 80s where he co-produced "The Dodo Bird" and reactivated the writers' workshop. He was Production Stage Manager for the West Coast Premiere of David Mamet's play "A Life in The Theatre" at the Matrix Theatre, starring Bruce Davison, directed by David Birney and produced by Joe Stern. Brad was a Partner at the Empty Stage Theatre, where he produced the play "Three," which he co-wrote with former Groundling Director Stan Wells and turned into the hilarious screenplay "Sex and the Modern Marriage." He has also produced the critically acclaimed sketch shows "Traditional Female Roles I & II" and Co-Directed "Heart Mummers & Brain Matter," at the Empty Stage. He directed the original one-acts "The Eros Thanatos Class" and "Twins" (featuring Kristin Wigg) for the Award Winning Can Festival I & II. His play Mrs. Christmas was made into an Award Winning short film and he has since made over 15 shorts. He is also a Producer/Director/Editor of both long-form media (After Ever After, El Gran Concierto Mariachi) and short-form, including YouTube content (Taradaysnews), Music Videos for Ellee Ven and Protije, short films "An Immigrant's Story" "Lie In Wait," web series "Froommates" and "The Man Inside." For nine years Brad taught editing Aesthetics and Story at a Post Production School.

Joe Funicello was born on 21 February 1916 in Utica, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes: The Annette Funicello Story (1995) and Sally Jessy Raphael (1983). He was married to Virginia Funicello. He died on 21 May 2009 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Mary Lawlor was born on 28 June 1907 in Utica, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Good News (1930) and Shooting Straight (1930). She died on 20 April 1977 in Downey, California, USA.

John Lopacki was born on 27 October 1985 in Utica, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Nightmare Alley (2021), Plan B (2021) and Shoelaces (2024).

Lester Allen was born on 17 November 1891 in Utica, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for The Great Flamarion (1945), The Pirate (1948) and Ma and Pa Kettle (1949). He died on 6 November 1949 in Hollywood, California, USA.

Ken Smolka was born on 27 January 1944 in Utica, New York, USA. He is an actor, known for Halloween II (1981), Die Hard 2 (1990) and The Fall Guy (1981).