Category: Profiles

Born Archibald Leach in Bristol, England on January 18, 1904, the future Cary Grant grew up in a working-class family. When he was nine, he was told his mother had gone off to a seaside resort. In truth, she had been placed in a mental institution. His father remarried when he was ten and young…

Born July 22, 1946 in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Paul Joseph Schrader was raised as a strict Calvinist and did not see a film until he was 17. The first film he saw was Disney’s The Absent-Minded Professor with Fred MacMurray and Nancy Olson which failed to impress him.  His second film, however, was Philip Dunne’s…

Born June 10, 1922 in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Judy Garland, née Frances Ethel Gumm, was the youngest of three sisters known professionally as The Gumm Sisters.  The sisters appeared in three short films between 1929 and 1930. Signed by MGM in 1935 when she was just 13 years old, Garland had a rapid climb to…

Born January 30, 1930 in San Bernadino, California, Eugene Allen Hackman was raised primarily in Danville, Illinois where his family settled after several moves.  He joined the U.S. Marines at 16. After being discharged from the Marines, he moved to New York where he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and…

Although there had been occasional tributes to recently deceased performers and other film greats through the years, the first In Memoriam segment at the Oscars where multiple actors and other film participants are honored did not occur until 1994. Each year, we look to this segment with lumps in our throats and tears in our…

Born November 11, 1962 in Roswell, New Mexico, Demi Gene Guynes’ father, Charles Harmon left her mother before her birth.  She was named Guynes after her mother’s second husband, Danny Guynes.  The future Demi Moore had an unstable childhood thanks to Guynes’ forcing them for move forty times as he went from job to job. …

Born December 16, 1963 in New York, New York, James Mangold is the son of artists Robert and Sylvia Plimack Mangold.  He was raised in Washingtonville in New York’s Hudson Valley.  After high school in New York, he attended the California Institute of the Arts film and video program under Alexander Mackendrick (Sweet Smell of…

Born October 5, 1967 in Cambridgeshire, England, Guy Edward Pearce is the son of an Australia father and an English mother.  When he was just three years old, his family moved to Australia for two years when his father was offered the position of Chief Test Pilot for the Australian Government.  The position became permanent,…

Born December 22, 1962, Ralph Fiennes is the eldest of six children born to photographer Mark Fiennes and his wife, novelist Jennifer Lash. An eighth cousin of King Charles, with his mellifluous voice, Fiennes give the impression of a well-heeled British aristocrat when in fact he was brought up in near poverty. The family moved…

Born September 30, 1982 in New York, New York, Kieran Culkin is the son of former child actor Kit Culkin and Patricia Brentrup who never married despite having seven children: Shane (born 1976), Dakota (1978), Macauley (1980), Kieran, Quinn (1984), Christian (1987), and Rory (1989).  Dakota passed away in 2008.  The others are still alive.…