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Lisa Sheridan was born on December 5, 1974, in Macon, Georgia. She spent her childhood running around in the woods - until she did her first play at the age of 11. Lisa studied in the conservatory program at Carnegie Mellon University, where she graduated with honors and won the Thomas Auclair Memorial Scholarship Award for Most Promising Student Actor. She went on to study in Moscow and performed in fringe theatre in London before relocating to Los Angeles. She is best known for her roles as a series regular in three network series and for her extensive work in network television and independent film. She lived in Los Angeles.

In 1998, she was cast as a series regular in the short-lived UPN's western drama Legacy (1998), alongside Brett Cullen, Melissa Leo and Tony Hale. She was then a series regular in FOX's FreakyLinks (2000) alongside Ethan Embry (her love interest), Eric Balfour, and Erika Christensen. She then continued playing guest roles in Concealing Evidence (2003), The Family Jewels (2004), Bloodlines (2004), Mr. Monk and the Game Show (2004), End Game (2005), and Clinical Risk (2005). Another regular role came in Shaun Cassidy's ABC sci-fi television series Invasion (2005), alongside William Fichtner, Eddie Cibrian (who played her fiancé), and Alexis Dziena. Unfortunately that series ended, like "Legacy" and "FreakyLinks", after the first season.

After "Invasion", she continued playing guest roles. In 2007, she had recurring roles on Journeyman (2007) opposite Kevin McKidd and Reed Diamond as Dr. Theresa Sanchez, and on CSI: Miami (2002) as Kathleen Newberry. Other roles include Try the Pie (2007), Out of the Past (2007), One Hit Wonder (2008), Miss Red (2009), Child's Play (2009), and Boom Goes the Dynamite (2013). She also appeared in two episodes of Halt and Catch Fire (2014).

She appeared in movies as well. In the romantic comedy Elsa & Fred (2014) she acted alongside Christopher Plummer and Shirley MacLaine, in A Magic Christmas (2014) alongside Jonathan Silverman and Burt Reynolds, and the lead in Only God Can (2015). She also had a lead in Strange Nature (2018), alongside Stephen Tobolowsky and John Hennigan. Her prior feature film appearances included playing the lead in McCartney's Genes (2008), starring in the short film Pirates (2003) directed by Eric McCormack, in Carolina (2003) alongside Julia Stiles and Shirley MacLaine, and in Beat (2000) alongside Kiefer Sutherland and Courtney Love.

Born in New Orleans' French Quarter, Louis Prima longed to play jazz. When he was a child, he studied the violin. His older brother Leon took up trumpet while Louis was still quite young, and he soon followed in his brother's footsteps. He played in clubs like "The Famous Door" in the 1930s, and by the time the 1940s rolled around, Prima and his band were becoming well known. Like many other big bands, Prima always had a woman singer, his most famous being Keely Smith, with whom he recorded the classic "That Old Black Magic". She began with him when she was 16 years old, and he eventually married her. They were divorced in 1962, and he married 20-year-old Gia Maione that same year. In 1967 Prima voiced King Louie of the apes in the animated Disney feature The Jungle Book (1967). Prima died in 1978, but his music continues as some of the best jazz and swing music ever recorded.

Anne Rice began life in New Orleans as Howard Allen O'Brien, named after her father, as the second of four daughters of Howard and Katherine Allen O'Brien. She decided to call herself "Anne" when she enrolled in first grade at the Redemptorist Catholic School. Her mother (who had long suffered from alcoholism) died when Anne was nearly fifteen. Her father remarried and soon relocated the family to Richardson (suburb of Dallas), Texas. She graduated in 1959 and entered Texas Woman's University where she completed two years of school in one. In 1960, Anne moved to San Francisco, where she took a furnished apartment in the Haight-Ashbury district. In 1961, Anne married Stan Rice (whom she had met in High School and who had proposed by telegram from Texas) and, in 1962, they were both living in Haight-Ashbury. They graduated from San Francisco State in 1964, she in political science, he in creative writing. Their daughter, Michele, was born on September 21, 1966. In 1969, they moved to Berkeley. There, she wrote a short story, "Interview With the Vampire". In 1970, Michele was diagnosed with leukemia. In 1972, Anne received her M.A. in creative writing; Michele died August 5. The next year, Anne turned "Interview" into a novel, and, over a year later, Knopf offered her a $12,000 advance for it. Christopher Rice was born on March 11, 1978. In 1980, they moved to San Francisco's Castro District. "The Vampire Lestat" brought a $100,000 advance from Knopf. In 1988, they moved to New Orleans and bought a mansion in the Garden District. Stan (who had chaired the creative writing program at S.F. State) turned to painting. "The Witching Hour" brought a $5 million advance. In 1994, "Interview" was very successfully released as a movie (amid much controversy -- some over content, mostly over casting) and Anne entered into a $17 million contract for three more Vampire Chronicles.

Carol Sutton was born on 3 December 1944 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She was an actress, known for Steel Magnolias (1989), Ray (2004) and Monster's Ball (2001). She was married to Archie Sutton . She died on 10 December 2020 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Gia Allemand was born on 20 December 1983 in Howard Beach, Queens, New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Ghost Trek: The Kinsey Report (2011), Ghost Trek: Goomba Body Snatchers Mortuary Lockdown (2013) and The Bachelor (2002). She died on 14 August 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Dr. John was born on November 21, 1940, in New Orleans, Louisiana, as Malcolm Rebbenack. At 13 he decided to become a musician, and was supported by his family, who themselves were musicians in a small way. "Mac" dropped out of school in the 11th grade in 1956, at the age of 16, to become a blues piano player. He has become known as "Dr. John, The Night Tripper" (or "Dr. John", for short) and a prime example of the "New Orleans Sound" style of blues/jazz. He has received two Grammy Awards, and is in the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame.

Jim Garrison is so far the only one to hold a trial in relation to the murder of USA president John F. Kennedy in 1963. Jim Garrison was at the time a very skilled district attorney of New Orleans. Three years later, he has a conversation with a governor, which arose his suspicion of the whole affair, mainly the fact that Lee Harvey Oswald could hardly have been the lone assassin. Links from Oswald lead to offices in New Orleans. Garrison's investigations ended with the trial against Clay Shaw in 1967. Shaw was acquitted, but the evidence against him presented by Jim Garrison trembled USA, and triggered a discussion about the assassin of Kennedy which is still at its peak now, 30 years later. The focus of Garrison's evidence was to prove there was a conspiracy against JFK, and that the investigations conducted by The Warren Commission were totally mistargeted. This Mr. Garrisson did to the extreme. An investigation in 1979 found that "there may well have been more than one assassin". Jim Garrison is now retired. He appears very briefly in the film "JFK" (about his own investigations), as leader of the official investigation team, Earl Warren. Kevin Costner plays Jim Garrison in the Oscar Winner.

Shirley Prestia was born on 18 August 1947 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. She was an actress and writer, known for Species (1995), Wag the Dog (1997) and What Women Want (2000). She died on 6 October 2011 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Lee Frost rates highly as one of the best, most talented and versatile filmmakers in the annals of exploitation cinema. Frost was born on August 14, 1935, in Globe, Arizona. He grew up in Glendale, California, and Oahu, Hawaii. He eventually wound up in Hollywood, where he started his career making TV commercials for the studio Telepics. Frost made his film debut with the early 1960s nudie cutie Surftide 77 (1962). He went on to make a slew of films in many different genres: tongue-in-cheek horror comedy (House on Bare Mountain (1962)), mondo shock documentaries (Hollywood's World of Flesh (1963), Mondo Bizarro (1966), Mondo Freudo (1966)), perverse softcore roughies (The Defilers (1965), The Animal (1968)), crime drama (The Pick-Up (1968)), westerns (Hot Spur (1968), The Scavengers (1969)) and even Nazisploitation (Love Camp 7 (1969), which has been widely cited as the prototype for the notorious Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS (1975)). A majority of Frost's 1960s features were made for legendary trash flick producer Bob Cresse. Moreover, Lee added sex inserts into such foreign films as London in the Raw (1964), Night Women (1964) and Witchcraft '70 (1969). Frost continued cranking out entertainingly sleazy drive-in items throughout the 1970s; they include the startling psycho sniper outing Zero in and Scream (1971), the passable biker opus Chrome and Hot Leather (1971), the gritty Chain Gang Women (1971), the hilariously campy The Thing with Two Heads (1972), the immensely enjoyable Policewomen (1974), the gnarly blaxploitation winner The Black Gestapo (1975), the rowdy redneck romp Dixie Dynamite (1976) and the jolting roughie porno shocker A Climax of Blue Power (1974). Frost often cast former football player Phil Hoover in his 1970s movies and frequently collaborated with producer/screenwriter Wes Bishop (in addition to their own pictures, Frost and Bishop wrote the script for Jack Starrett's terrific Race with the Devil (1975), which Frost was originally supposed to direct as well). Both Frost and Bishop often appear as actors, usually in small parts, in Frost's films. Lee worked as an editor on industrial movies for a film laboratory throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. His last feature was the straight-to-video Shannon Whirry erotic thriller Private Obsession (1995).

Lee Frost died at age 71 on May 25, 2007.

Extrovert saxophonist and bandleader, who started performing in theatre bands from the age of 15. Beginning in 1926, Stabile worked for a decade as a sideman with the orchestras of George Olsen and Ben Bernie, before forming his own dance band in New York, in April 1936. Introduced by his own composition, "Blue Nocturne", Stabile enjoyed a lengthy engagement at the Lincoln Hotel in New York, before going on an extended tour of ballrooms and hotels across the United States. At this time, he featured a predominant reed sextet and several good musicians, including composer/arranger Chauncey Gray, as well as vocalists Paula Kelly and Gracie Barrie. The latter wound up to become Mrs. Stabile and fronted the orchestra, when her husband was called up for military service in the Coast Guard in 1942.

After World War II, Stabile based himself on the West Coast and led his band for eight years at Ciro's Le Disc in West Hollywood. He also worked for nine years as arranger and musical director on The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950), featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, occasionally appearing in the duo's films at Paramount. Stabile remained active as a bandleader well into the 1970's, with engagements in Las Vegas, at the Cocoanut Grove and (leading the orchestra-in-residence) at the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans. In addition to his theme song, Stabile composed several other popular tunes, such as "Cloudburst", "Raindrops on the River" and "That's How I Need You". During it's heyday, his band had lucrative recording contracts with Decca, Bluebird, Victor and Vocalion. At one time, Dick Stabile was also featured in "Ripley's Believe It or Not" for his ability to blow the highest note possible on the saxophone.

J. Michael Riva was born on 28 June 1948 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He was a production designer and art director, known for Iron Man (2008), Django Unchained (2012) and The Color Purple (1985). He was married to Julia Riva and Wendy Riva. He died on 7 June 2012 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Harry Connick Sr. was born on 27 March 1926 in Mobile, Alabama, USA. He was married to Londa Jean Matherne, Barbara Bossett, Anita Frances Levy and Jean Maria daRoza. He died on 25 January 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Antoine Dominique Domino Jr. (February 26, 1928 - October 24, 2017), known as Fats Domino, was an American pianist and singer-songwriter. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records. Born in New Orleans to a French Creole family, Domino signed to Imperial Records in 1949. His first single "The Fat Man" is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies. Domino continued to work with the song's co-writer Dave Bartholomew, contributing his distinctive rolling piano style to Lloyd Price's "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" (1952) and scoring a string of mainstream hits beginning with "Ain't That a Shame" (1955). Between 1955 and 1960, he had eleven Top 10 US pop hits. By 1955, five of his records had sold more than a million copies, being certified gold.

Ylenia Carrisi was born on 29 November 1970 in Rome, Lazio, Italy. She was an actress, known for Champagne in paradiso (1984), La ruota della fortuna (1987) and Verstehen Sie Spaß? (1980). She died on 31 December 1993 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Stan Rice was an actor, known for Billy Jack (1971). He was married to Anne Rice. He died on 9 December 2002 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Shannon Hoon was born on 26 September 1967 in Lafayette, Indiana, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Without a Paddle (2004), Private Parts (1997) and Remember the Daze (2007). He was married to Lisa Crouse. He died on 21 October 1995 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Fred Niblo entered films in 1917 after two decades as a touring actor in vaudeville and one-time manager of 'The Four Cohans' (he married Josephine Cohan, the sister of George M. Cohan). He made his film debut with two early Australian silent films in 1916. He worked for Thomas H. Ince from 1917 as producer-director, many of his films starring his second wife, Australian actress Enid Bennett. Niblo joined Paramount under a three-year contract from 1918-21 and then settled at MGM (1923-31). During this period, his chief claim to fame rests on directing the epic Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ (1925), filmed in Italy (though completed in California) at the (then) staggering cost of $4 million. Niblo was brought in by Louis B. Mayer to replace director Charles Brabin after the production ran into financial difficulties.He not only rescued it but made it into one of the biggest blockbusters of the decade. However, it was second-unit director B. Reeves Eason who deserves credit for the famous chariot race.

In 1926 Niblo replaced Swedish director Mauritz Stiller who had a disagreement with producer Irving Thalberg, on Greta Garbo's The Temptress (1926). This, alongside Camille (1926) and The Mysterious Lady (1928), were his last successes. His career failed to survive the transition to sound and even a stint in England could not resuscitate it. After a few small parts as an actor, Niblo slipped quietly into relative obscurity in 1943.

David Mills was born on 20 November 1961 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. He was a producer and writer, known for NYPD Blue (1993), The Corner (2000) and The Wire (2002). He died on 30 March 2010 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Sylvia Kuumba Williams was born on 28 October 1941 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Obsession (1976), French Quarter (1978) and Grand Isle (1991). She died on 17 July 2001 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Don Brady was born on 20 May 1933 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Lolita (1997), Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004). He died on 23 February 2019 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Born in Queens, NY, Thunders is best known as the lead guitarist for the New York Dolls in the early 1970s and unintentionally helped inspire the Punk movements in New York City and London. He later formed The Heartbreakers and went on to a solo career. His career was often interrupted by issues related to drug addiction, and he died under suspicious circumstances in a New Orleans, LA, hotel room at 38 years old.

Trained for the theater at University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point (BA) and the University of New Orleans (MFA). He studied at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and Royal Shakespeare Company in England, UK. He studied Juggling and Clown Makeup at Ringlilng Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus. He owned The Rose Dinner Theater in Gretna, LA. Taught Screenwriting at Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. The son of Freida Bridgeman, a faculty member in the Theater Department at UW-Stevens Point.

Clay Shaw was born on 17 March 1913 in Kentwood, Louisiana, USA. He died on 15 August 1974 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Eric Paulsen was an actor, known for Runaway Jury (2003), The Final Destination (2009) and Mardi Gras: Spring Break (2011). He died on 26 October 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA.

Special Recognition... Highly Recommended, Times-Picayune: An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Nominee, Best Supporting Actor, 48Hr Film Festival: Vikasita Critics Choice, Chicago Reader: Pattern Recognition, Smokers, Verbatim Verboten Highly Recommended, Chicago Reader: Hinckley on Foster: The Hearing, Krapp's Last Tape Highly Recommended; Times-Picayune, WYES, Ambush: The Bachelor in New Orleans Big Easy Award & Marquee Award nominees, Lead Actor Drama: A Christmas Carol for George Wallace Ambie Awards nominee, Lead Actor Play: Finding the Enemy Highly Recommended; Ambush: The Third Degrees of J.O. Breeze Highly Recommended; Times-Picayune, St Bernard Voice: Happy Days Highly Recommended; NOLA Defender, WYES' Steppin Out: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Storer Boone nominee, Lead Actor Drama: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Big Easy Award & Marquee Award winners, Lead Actor Drama: Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Best of the Year 2013, Lead Actor Drama, Times-Picayune: Long Day's Journey into Night

Selected Critic Remarks... Ever daring, however, actor and director Michael Martin turns this month to the very edge of the abyss with (take a deep breath)"An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening." A retelling of the legend of Faust, that long-winded title is belied by playwright Mickle Maher's blending of comedy and tragedy, as well as the swift intensity that Martin brings in the title role.... Giving a bravura performance, Martin reveals Faustus to be a tortured narcissist who must set the record straight for an unknown posterity. The"apology" of the title of the play is not brought about to seek forgiveness or as an act of redemptive repentance. Instead, it is an apologetic for his own life, an ultimate act of egoism. [Theodore Mahne, Times-Picayune, 2Jul18]

Michael Martin's intentionally digressive, train-wreck fascinating performance piece Martin on Hinckley on Foster: The Home Visit, in which the artist imagines himself in conversation with would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley[is] an exercise that yields sometimes facile, sometimes profound meditations on pop America. [Tony Adler, Chicago Reader, 2/1/07]

Watching Martin and Pauley together, two of the finest actors in town, is a veritable master class in character development. The characterizations may appear so natural as to be simple, but there is not a single move, nuance, gesture or vocal inflection that is not carefully chosen. --- A number of performances stood out this year, but Michael Martin's handling of the whiskey-ravaged old actor James Tyrone in Long Day's Journey into Night rises to the top. In a role that could too easily be tossed off as a drunken villain, Martin coherently revealed, layer by careful layer, who James Tyrone is. And as easy as he might have made it look, there wasn't a move or inflection that wasn't carefully and specifically chosen. It was a genuine pleasure to see such a master of his craft at work. [Theodore Mahne, Times-Picayune, 2013]

[W]hat Hal Holbrook might be like playing Mark Twain while drinking Sazeracs. Dressed in foppish finery, declaiming ornamental language from another era, he's an aristocratic barfly, a John Barrymore in his later years, when his self-mocking, crazily courageous comic performances would rise above his circumstances. [H]is performance...has become heightened, funnier, and much more assured. ...It's a bravura turn that requires the guts of a burglar. A 90-minute monologue is tough enough to put across on the stage. Performing in a bar, interacting with customers who can be unpredictable, requires a special set of skills. Think matador and bull. ...A performance of extremes. A quiet, well-mannered politesse can turn into a Shakespearean roar; Lear against the elements. Martin wages this battle with garrulous good humor and quicksilver mood changes, adapting his approach to a constantly changing human landscape. It is this that gives the piece and his performance a certain stature. He is on the high wire and could fall at any moment, but somehow manages to keep his balance. [David Cuthbert, Times-Picayune, 2008]

Martin gives an energetic performance in this demanding hourling laugh fest. He convincingly portrays le charme malefique. [Dalt Wonk, Gambit Weekly, 2/19/08]

[He] makes Vanya a haggard, kindly, eccentric, outrageous romantic. The quirky characterization, which he manages to hold throughout the long play, works wonderfully. Martin is Vanya for every moment he is on stage, and it is impossible not to attend to his every erratic movement. His clear voice is effective, always swelling with grievance and frustration. He throws himself around in a manner just short of slapstick, so that we feel sad for him, but we don't take him quite seriously: this is as Chekhov intended it. Great performance! [Christina Vella, St Bernard Voice, 2008]

...[H]is mane of gray hair as disheveled as his ill-fitting black trousers and vest, his incongruous white shoes polished to a Sunday-school gleam, he'd mastered this heartbreaking buffoon. Shuffling stiffly to an enormous desk covered with an ancient reel-to-reel tape deck and a dozen battered boxes of tape spools, he lowered himself into a chair with arthritic care, placed his hands neatly before him, and let out a tiny sigh, which left him as limp as a deflated balloon. ...Krapp rummages around in his desk, eats a banana (slipping on the peel, of course), fumbles with his tapes, exits to take swigs from his bottle backstage (the audience hears only a dainty pop as he uncorks it), and finally listens to his former self rambling on about seemingly nothing-though it gradually becomes evident that the tape may recount how he blew his one chance at true love. ...Martin plays the scene as a very funny grumbling clown routine. Each tiny accomplishment-finding the right tape spool or feeding it into the player-brings a fleeting moment of joy even as the accumulated weight of a squandered life squashes the rail-thin Krapp farther down in his chair. As Martin sits motionless listening to the tape, his expression by turns contemptuous, sly, forlorn, defeated, childlike, and empty, he creates a pitiful and absurd old man, someone who sees that his effort to create a brilliant chronicle of his life has fallen tragicomically flat. [Justin Hayford, Chicago Reader, 2006]

Martin's one-man piece is a tour de force of desperate, Dostoyevskian fury...a minor masterpiece in the grand tradition of the overliterate madman, concealing layers of truth beneath its ravings, swinging assuredly between persuasive and preposterous. ...But what really sells the piece is his wryly self-deprecating performance as the angry but resigned Hinckley, whose pretense of recovery is gradually broken down by invisible tormentors. Memorizing this drifting, looping, hour-plus monologue alone is a feat, and Martin was virtually flawless the night I attended, navigating the emotional ebb and flow of the slowly splintering Hinckley with unassuming genius. Since Martin is moving to New Orleans in the spring, this may be the last chance to see his amazing work for some time. [Brian Nemtusak, Reader, 2002]

Martin proves again that he is one of our best character actors as Mr. Cohen, whose"horse doesn't circle the whole track." He is funny, sincere... [David Cuthbert, Times-Picayune, 2/2/07]

Martin played the crippled troll creature with controlled agility and a well-conceived idea of this strange role...an athletically demanding character who bounced from desktop to chair to stage floor with kinetic intensity. In the scenes just sitting on his desk in the glow of a red light, wearing a frayed clown collar and ghastly makeup, he established a remarkable and theatrically effective stage presence. ...When one considers how he managed to keep his legs folded against himself when he hopped around, one cannot help but appreciate his awesome stagecraft. [Patrick Shannon, Ambush, 7/17-30/07]

One galvanizing performance can alter an entire show,[lay] waste to any misgivings an audience might have. Martin's stunner of a turn arrests the viewer with its meticulous build, lifts the acting of his co-star, and, as of this writing, is the male performance of the year. ...Martin's George is a revelation. Shuffling, mumbling under his breath, and infused with defeated resignation, the actor devises a slow burn of a character. He walks into the play a man who simply wants to have a quiet drink before going to bed. It is the cleanest, least pretentious objective I have seen an actor offer this year... His sighs become despairing beat shifts that indicate a trope of continual refortification in the face of his wife's withering assaults. Every time Martha lands a blow, Martin's George straightens his shoulders, shrugs off the pain, and fixes a pained smile before reentering the arena. And he does it while delivering his lines. I cannot emphasize that last point enough, because along with delving into the emotional darkness of broken man with a flicker of light left in him, Martin never forgets we have a long road to travel. ...[H]e drives the play with a steady beat of purpose. He also avoids playing a moment of it for laughs. His only audience is his wife and his guests, and that approach insures that patrons will be howling and roaring with every head feint, quick jab, and haymaker he executes. ...The three hours dissipate in the face of his triumph. Anyone who cares about acting in New Orleans needs to make the time to attend. [James Fitzmorris, NOLA Defender, 2011]

One of our most influential performers...a talent with an original edge and a furious urge to succeed. [Al Shea, WYES Steppin Out, 2008]

What a remarkable, courageous, eccentric, flaky actor Martin is; what a valiant performance he gave both nights. He's like a magician, explaining when a trick hasn't worked, but also explaining when it has. [David Cuthbert, Times-Picayune, 1/16/09]