Category: Profiles

Born Kathleen Doyle Bates in Memphis, Tennessee on June 28, 1948, the third child of a mechanical engineer and a homemaker, Kathy Bates’ paternal grandfather was writer Finis Bates. A great-great grandfather was Andrew Jackson’s physician in New Orleans. Majoring in theatre at Southern Methodist University from which she graduated in 1969, Bates immediately moved…

Born June 26, 1970 in Los Angeles, California to Edwina and Ernie Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson’s father was a radio and TV personality, horror host and announcer and one of the first owners of a VCR with a vast collection of classic films for his son to cut his teeth on. Young Anderson began shooting…

Born July 29, 1892 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, William (Horatio) Powell was the only child of Nettie and Horatio Powell. He moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri in 1907 where he graduated from Central High School in 1911. He then moved to New York where he entered the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in…

Born July 22, 1938 in London, England, Terence Stamp was the eldest of five children of Ethel and Thomas Stamp, a tugboat stoker. With his father away for long periods of time with the Merchant Navy, he was raised mostly by his mother, grandmother, and aunts. His family endured heavy bombing during the World War…

Born November 6, 1970 in Austin, Texas, Ethan Hawke has been actor since the age of 13. He is a great-grandnephew of Tennessee Williams on his father’s side. His maternal grandfather, Howard Lemuel Green, served five terms in the Texas Legislature and was a minor-league baseball commissioner. Hawke made his stage debut in a school…

Born March 6, 1947 in the Bronx, Robert Norman Reiner was the son of Estelle and Carl Reiner, the renown comedian, actor, writer, producer, director.  It would only be a matter of time before Rob followed his father into show business.  Sure enough, he began his acting career in TV’s Manhunt in 1961 when he was only…

Born December 4, 1913 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Mark Robson was a political science major at the University of California who found work in the prop department at 20th Century-Fox. Fired by Daryl F. Zanuck for asking for a raise, he moved to RKO. At RKO, Robson became an assistant editor under Robert Wise, working…

Born December 22, 1907 in Surrey, England, Edith Margaret Emily Ashcroft, known professionally as Peggy Ashcroft, was a titan of the British stage who only occasionally appeared in films, but when she did, she was as amazing and unforgettable as she was in her lauded stage roles. Ashcroft’s mother had been an actress. Her father,…

Born June 22, 1949 in Summit, New Jersey to Mary, a commercial artist, and William Streep, Jr., a pharmaceutical executive, Mary Louise (Meryl) Streep’s early performing ambitions tended toward opera. Raised in New Jersey, she received her BA cum laude from Vasser in 1971, and her MBA from Yale Drama School in 1975. Streep’s first…