Category: Profiles

Born May 9, 1946 in Los Angeles, California to former Powers model Frances and ventriloquist-comedian-actor Edgar Beregn, Candice Bergen began performing on her father’s radio program at an early age and at 11 appeared with her father as a guest on Groucho Marx’s TV show, You Bet Your Life. Not a serious student, Bergen was…

Born February 11, 1936 in Lansing, Michigan, Burt Reynolds claimed that he was really born in Waycross, Georgia, that Lansing was where his parents lived when his father was drafted into the U.S. Army.  The family  moved around quite a bit after that.  After the end of World War II, they moved to Rivera, Florida…

Born April 6, 1895 in Wapakoneta, Ohio, Dudley Nichols was educated at the University of Michigan.  A star reporter and feature writer for the New York World in 1928, the year he married wife Esther Varez, he moved to Hollywood in 1929. He was under contract to Fox from 1929-1935 and RKO from 1935-1938 and…

Some longtime great actors and actresses go out in a blaze of glory with an Oscar nomination or even a win for their last great performance. Two-time Oscar winner Spencer Tracy gave four unforgettable last hurrah performances beginning with one in a film called The Last Hurrah in 1958, followed by Inherit the Wind in…

Some longtime actors and actresses seem to be nominated for an Oscar every time they take a role in a high caliber film.  Some are nominated just once or twice in their long careers.  Still others fail to be nominated at all, no matter how hard they try. Everyone knows that such legends as Lon…

Born June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, the youngest of four children of a waitress mother and civil engineer father, John Christopher (Johnny) Depp II frequently moved with his family, settling in Miramar, Florida.  His parents divorced when he was 15, his mother later marrying Robert Palmer, who young Depp considered an inspiration. Depp’s mother…

Born February 22, 1944 in Baldwin, N.Y., (Robert) Jonathan Demme was the son of Robert Demme, a public relations manager and his wife, Dorothy.  The family later moved to Florida, where he was educated, graduating from Southwest Miami High School and the University of Florida. Demme had an early job as a film critic for…

Born July 13, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois to a radio actress and an actor turned advertising executive, Harrison Ford was a lackluster student with no athletic ability who never averaged more than a C grade.  After dropping out of Ripon College in Wisconsin where he did some acting and later summer stock, he signed a…

Born February 5, 1943 in Chicago, Illinois, Michael Mann studied English literature at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, graduating with a B.A. in 1965.  Having fallen in love with the movies thanks to a screening of Dr. Strangelove, the fledgling filmmaker then moved to London where he earned an M.A. from the London Film…

Born October 6, 1988 in Scottsdale, Arizona to a contracting company founder and CEO and his wife, Emma Stone began acting as a child as a member of the Valley Youth Theatre in Phoenix where she made her debut in a production of The Wind in the Willows.  She appeared in many of their productions…