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1-17 of 17
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Handsome, boyish-looking Ben Cooper graduated from child roles to playing juvenile leads in second features, often for Poverty Row studio Republic. As a nine year old, he made his stage debut in Bretaigne Windust's Broadway production of Life With Father, remaining in the cast for the entire run of the play. Between 1946 and 1952, Ben enjoyed a lengthy spell on the airwaves, lending his voice to many a famous radio soap of the day (by some accounts he acted in more than 3000 radio shows). A graduate of New York's Columbia University, he was featured on screen for the first time in a bit part in 1950. Three years later, he played Jesse James in a cameo in Woman They Almost Lynched (1953). His career made little headway until he was cast as brash would-be gunslinger Turkey Ralston in the noirish cult western Johnny Guitar (1954).
Ben's forte was the western. He had his own horse by the age of twelve, became an adept rider and diligently rehearsed the stunts he saw on the screen. He also perfected a fast draw, practicing "for 90 minutes each day over four years". During most of the early '50s, he went about playing assorted hombres on both sides of the law in B-westerns. He never quite managed to set the prairie on fire. A mere handful of starring turns confined him to staid leading men in run-of-the-mill oaters (Duel at Apache Wells (1957)) or routine melodramas (A Strange Adventure (1956)). Arguably, his most effective performance in a motion picture was in The Rose Tattoo (1955) (as the good-natured sailor in love with Marisa Pavan). Unable to find the one role which would have made him a household name, Ben eventually pursued a solid, if unremarkable, career as a television guest star with a predilection for westerns (Laramie (1959), Bonanza (1959), Gunsmoke (1955) ) and crime dramas (Perry Mason (1957), Mannix (1967)). His work in the former earned him a Golden Boot Award in 2005.- Actress
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Silent moppet star Jackie Coogan, immortalized as Charles Chaplin's The Kid (1921), had only one screen rival during the early 1920s, and that was none other than Baby Peggy. She was "discovered" while visiting the Century Studios lot on Sunset Boulevard with her mother when she was a mere 19 months old and went on to appear in nearly 150 shorts (between 1920 and 1923) and nine feature films during her silent heyday. Often considered a precursor to Shirley Temple, Baby Peggy's most popular film vehicle was the child classic Captain January (1924), which would be made a decade later as a vehicle for Temple.
She was born Peggy-Jean Montgomery in 1918 in San Diego, California, of acting stock. She was the daughter of Marian (Baxter), from Wisconsin, and Jack Montgomery, a Nebraska-born cowboy for years all over the western states. He ended up in the movies as a stuntman and extra, driving stagecoaches and buckboards. He supported himself as Tom Mix's double, but never achieved the rugged stardom he yearned for. In fact, his daughter was the one who became the celebrity and chief breadwinner for the family.
Many of Baby Peggy's popular comedies were parodies of movies that grown-up stars had made, and she delightfully imitated such legends as Rudolph Valentino, Pola Negri, Mary Pickford and Mae Murray. Her first feature-length film was Penrod (1922); her first film with Universal, The Darling of New York (1923), shot when she was 3-1/2 years old, was a solid hit. A few more, including Helen's Babies (1924), were also certifiable winners. However, by the age of 8, she was finished.
Her fortune reportedly was depleted by her father Jack's stepfather, a banker to whom she had entrusted all her money. Within a short time, she was forced to turn to the vaudeville circuit for survival. A comeback in early talkies with the new moniker Peggy Montgomery was very short-lived. Her credits, as a result, are often mixed up with another actress named Peggy Montgomery, who was a western ingénue for many years.
The former child star lived in dire straits and suffered from nervous breakdowns and near poverty for many years until she found a new and unexpectedly successful career as a book publisher and writer, using the pseudonym "Diana Serra Cary". As the author of "Hollywood Posse" (1975) and (later) "Hollywood's Children", she wrote about her youthful career, post-stardom years, child stars in general, and Hollywood history in all its fascinating glory. Her own autobiography, "Whatever Happened to Baby Peggy?", was released in 1996.
In 2016, Diana was inducted into the Classic Film Hall of Fame at the Rheem Theater in Moraga, CA. Diana was present, at age 98, to receive the honor and answer questions. She is considered to have been the last living star of the silent film era. Per Robert Garfinkle, a board member of the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont, CA, Diana now has the longest acting career of all time, from 1920 to 2015. Her last film was a silent film she made at the above-referenced museum. The film was actually made using one of their antique hand-cranked cameras!
Baby Peggy died on February 24, 2020 in Gustine, California. She was 101.- Writer
- Actor
Probably one of the greatest adventure novelists of our time. When his novel "Raise the Titanic" was bought for $840,000 by Viking Publishing in 1976, it put him on the map after 11 years of hard work. Before his success with RTT, he previously had written "Pacific Vortex", which wasn't published until after his successes, "The Mediterranean Caper" and "Iceberg". Originally in advertising, first as an award-winning copy writer, and then as creative director for two of the nation's largest agencies. He started his writing career when his wife, Barbara, got a night job for the local police station as a clerk. At night after putting his kids to bed, he had hardly anything to do and no one to talk to. So out of solitude he decided to write a book. After a few nights of thinking of an idea on what to write about he thought it would be fun to produce a little paperback series. The thought of a best-seller never crossed his mind. Thanks to his marketing experience, he began researching and analyzing all the series heroes, beginning with Edgar Allan Poe's Inspector Dumas. Next came Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes and all the other fiction detectives and spies. Like the likes of Bulldog Drummond, Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Matt Helm, James Bond. Whatever he could find, he studied them all. With his experience in creative advertising under his belt, he started to wonder what he could conceive that was totally different. He didn't want to compete with already-famous authors. He was determined not to write about a detective, secret agent or undercover investigator or deal in murder mysteries. He then decided his hero's adventure would be based on and under water. And thus, the basic concept for Dirk Pitt the marine engineer with the National Underwater and Marine Agency (NUMA) was born. He found it interesting that almost no authors were writing pure, old-fashioned adventure. It seemed to him, a lost genre. After taking a refresher course in English, he launched his first book that introduced Pitt and most all of his characters who appeared in the upcoming novels to follow afterwards. The first book was named "Pacific Vortex". Dr. Cussler, leaned heavily on Alistair McLean on his first two books and was quite flattered when critics told him they were quite similar. But by his third book, he began to drift into his own style with a myriad of sub-plots. And because of that, "Iceberg", to this day, has and always will be a sentimental favorite of his because it never ended where it began. After completing "Pacific Vortex", he was about to launch a second book when he was offered a position at a large advertising agency. It would have been a wonderful opportunity with a well-paid salary, but his wife challenged him. She knew that if he wanted to write sea stories, why didn't he take a job as a clerk at the local dive shop who at the time was hiring. He wasted little time and in 1968 he started working for the Aquatic Center Dive ship in Newport Beach as a behind-the-counter-salesman. Never being a certified diver, it took him just a few weeks. Once he was certified, Dr. Cussler started bringing in his typewriter in the morning and wrote at a card table behind the counter when business was slow which was usually in the afternoons. A little over a year later, Dr. Cussler finished his second novel, "Mediterranean Caper". That's when he decided to leave the shop and return to advertising. With constant rejection letters on his first novel, Pacific Vortex, Dr. Cussler had decided that it would be a smart decision to find himself a literary agent. With a little cunning and ingenuity, he soon met Peter Lampack, who was with the William Morris Agency in Manhattan. With Peter liking his second novel, "Mediterranean Caper", Dr. Cussler now had a contract. With the contract promptly signed and mailed, he started working on his third novel, "Iceberg". Now that he had an agent and with renewed inspiration, Dr. Cussler left the advertising agency, and decided to write full time. Fed up with Southern California and wanting to change his family's lifestyle, he sold his boat, house and car. He bought a new family sedan and a tent trailer. After a wonderful summer, he and his family relocated to Estes Park, Colorado. Once settled in, he started to work on his third novel, Iceberg. After a year he finished Iceberg and with his agent having no success finding an editor to take "Mediterranean Caper" and now, "Iceberg" and with his savings about depleted, Dr. Cussler went back to advertising. Once he got himself a job with a very small agency and started to prove to them his value, Dr. Cussler moved his family to the suburb of Arvada just outside of Denver. It wouldn't be long before he was given the pink slip again. Taking a once broken down and small firm and making it into multi-million company, Dr. Cussler vowed to never work in the advertising agency again. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because that's when he started to work on "Raise The Titanic!" in one corner of his unfinished basement. By then his agent, Peter Lampack, had found a small publisher to take Mediterranean Caper. Printing fifty-thousand copies and selling thirty-two thousand, Pyramid Publishing paid him five thousand dollars and sold the novel for seventy-five cents a piece. Less then a year later, Dr. Cussler sold his novel, Iceberg to Dodd Mead Publishing for five-thousand dollars. The novel sold thirty-two thousand copies with an initial intent of only printing five thousand. Once he finished Raise The Titanic, Dr. Cussler sent it off to his agent. Once approved, it was relayed to Dodd Mead. It was rejected within ten days. His agent decided to sent the renounced manuscript to Putnam but they wanted a massive rewrite which Dr. Cussler refused to do. And what Dr. Cussler would later say, "Out of the blue, Viking Press bought it, asked for very few changes and paid me seventy-five hundred dollars." And that's when "strange forces" went to work. A London editor from Macmillan Publishing was visiting a friend at Viking and heard about the Dr. Cussler manuscript. Since the Titanic was a British ship, he asked for a copy of the manuscript to read on his plane back to England. He ended up wanting to buy it. But his agent had already sold "Iceberg" to Sphere Publishing, a small publishing house in London, for four hundred dollars. Since Sphere had the first option, they put in a bid for the manuscript that was promptly topped by Macmillan. Once the dust settled from the bidding war, Sphere owned the book, paying twenty-two thousand dollars, a high price for England in those days. Getting the feeling that things were suddenly falling into place, Dr. Cussler called his agent and got his rights back for Mediterranean Caper. At the same time, Dodd Mead Publishing notified his agent that Playboy Publications had offered four thousand dollars for the paperback right to Iceberg. Still with that "gut" feeling, Dr. Cussler told his agent that he would buy back Mediterranean Caper from Dodd Mead Publishing for five thousand dollars. The deal was done two weeks later. With the buzz and interest about Raise The Titanic over in Britain, it didn't take long for American paperback publishers to take notice. It soon went to auction with Viking Press winning the rights for $840,000. Once the auction was over and finding out that "Raise The Titanic" was the third Dirk Pitt novel, Viking Press bought them both for forty thousand dollar a piece. "Raise The Titanic" was Cussler's first novel to have several plots going on at the same time and to have them all converge at the end. Since then, Dr. Cussler has sold over 100 million copies of his Dirk Pitt Adventures. He continues to write Dirk Pitt adventures while living a life that nearly parallels that of his action hero. Like Pitt, Dr. Cussler enjoys discovering and collecting things of historical significance. With NUMA (National Underwater & Marine Agency, a non profit group begun by Cussler) he has had an amazing record of finding over 60 shipwrecks, one of which was the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley. And recently discovered the rescue ship Carpathia who picked up the Titanic survivors. Dr. Cussler also has a renowned and extensive classic car collection, which features over 80 examples of custom coachwork. Along with being Chairman of NUMA, he is also a fellow of the Explorers Club (which honored him with the Lowell Thomas Award for outstanding underwater exploration), the Royal Geographical Society and the American Society of Oceanographers. Married to Barbara Knight for 40 years, with three children and two grandchildren, he divides his time between the mountains of Colorado and the deserts of Arizona. He is represented by the Bartholomeaux Agency.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Olof Thunberg was born on 21 May 1925 in Västerås, Västmanlands län, Sweden. He was an actor and director, known for Winter Light (1963), Lilla Jönssonligan och cornflakeskuppen (1996) and Tre kronor (1994). He was married to Mona Andersson and Ingrid Johansson. He died on 24 February 2020 in Stockholm, Sweden.- Katherine Johnson was born on 26 August 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, USA. She was married to James Arthur Johnson and James Francis Goble. She died on 24 February 2020 in Newport News, Virginia, USA.
- Don McManus was born on 30 August 1932 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He was an actor, known for Folio (1955), Head Office (1985) and The Edison Twins (1982). He was married to Marie Pendleton. He died on 24 February 2020 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
- Sonny Franzese was born on 6 February 1917 in Naples, Campania, Italy. He was a producer, known for This Thing of Ours (2002) and American Gangster: Sonny Speaks (2021). He was married to Cristina Capobianco and Ann Schiller. He died on 24 February 2020 in New York City, New York, USA.
- Producer
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Brian Armstrong was born on 10 October 1933 in Newcastle upon Tyne, Northumberland, England, UK. He was a producer and writer, known for Wood and Walters (1981), How's Your Father? (1974) and Game, Set, and Match (1988). He was married to Christine Moffat. He died on 24 February 2020.- Junichi Goto was born on 4 October 1979 in Suita, Osaka, Japan. He was an actor, known for Catherine: Full Body (2019), Tegami Bachi: Letter Bee Reverse (2010) and Final Fantasy XIII (2009). He died on 24 February 2020 in Ôta, Tokyo, Japan.
- Mary Haney was born on 16 December 1954 in Welland, Ontario, Canada. She was an actress, known for As You Like It (1983) and Breaking All the Rules (1988). She died on 24 February 2020 in Stratford, Ontario, Canada.
- Rodney Cazimero was born on 20 February 1942 in Hawi, Hawaii, USA. He died on 24 February 2020 in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.
- Actor
- Writer
- Composer
Jahn Teigen was born on 27 September 1949 in Tønsberg, Norway. He was an actor and writer, known for Prima Veras saga om Olav den hellige (1983), På stigende kurs (1987) and Enkel resa (1988). He died on 24 February 2020 in Ystad, Skåne län, Sweden.- István Csukás was born on 2 April 1936 in Kisújszállás, Hungary. He was a writer, known for Süsü, a sárkány kalandjai (1977), A legkisebb ugrifüles (1976) and Kiscsacsi kalandjai (1972). He was married to Maria Porga. He died on 24 February 2020 in Budapest, Hungary.
- Mario Bunge was born on 21 September 1919 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He was married to Marta Cavallo and Julia Delfina Molina y Vedia. He died on 24 February 2020 in Montréal, Québec, Canada.
- Bob Andelman was married to Mimi Andelman. He died on 24 February 2020 in the USA.
- Director
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
Tom Watkins was born on 21 September 1949 in Greenwich, London, England, UK. He was a director, known for It Couldn't Happen Here (1987), Kim Wilde: Go for It (1984) and Urk (2003). He died on 24 February 2020 in East Sussex, England, UK.- Arion was born on 27 April 1967 in Hong Kong. Arion was a composer, known for He Comes from Planet K (1997), Killing Me Tenderly (1997) and The Third Eye (2006). Arion died on 24 February 2020 in Hong Kong.