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1-9 of 9
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Alfred Ryder, the veteran actor who appeared on radio and Broadway and in the movies and TV and who also was a renowned stage director, was born Alfred Jacob Corn on January 5, 1916, in New York City. He made his professional debut as an actor at the age of eight and attended New York City's Professional Children's School. His Broadway debut came in 1929, when the 13-year-old Ryder played a "lost boy" in Eva Le Gallienne's production of J.M. Barrie's "Peter Pan". Ryder studied acting with Benno Schneider, Robert Lewis and Lee Strasberg. He appeared in the 1938 Broadway production of "Our Town" - his Broadway debut as an adult performer - as well as numerous Broadway productions before World War II, including the 1939 revival of Clifford Odets's "Awake and Sing!". For many years he was the voice of Sammy in the radio serial "Rise of the Goldbergs" Ryder joined the Army Air Force during World War II, eventually appearing in the U.S. Army Air Force's gala Broadway stage show "Winged Victory" in 1943. The following year, he made his movie debut as "PFC Alfred Ryder" in the film version of the show Winged Victory (1944)). After the war he made more films, including director Anthony Mann's classic 1947 film noir T-Men (1947). On Broadway, he appeared as Oswald in the 1948 revival of Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts" and as Mark Antony in the 1950 production of "Julius Caesar". Also that year, he appeared as Orestes in the Broadway play "The Tower Beyond Tragedy".
Ryder had the singular honor of being cast as the understudy for Laurence Olivier in one of the legendary actor's greatest roles, that of Archie Rice, in the 1958 Broadway production of John Osborne's "The Entertainer". Olivier's Archie Rice is considered one of the greatest performances of the 20th century, and Ryder was chosen to keep the Broadway patrons in their seats in the event the great British theatrical knight couldn't go on. Ryder also appeared in the original Broadway production of Eugène Ionesco's absurdist masterpiece "Rhinoceros" in 1960.
A noted theatrical stage director with such companies as Washington, D.C.'s Arena Stage, Ryder made his Broadway directorial debut with the play "A Far Country" in 1961. He subsequently directed two more Broadway productions, "The Exercise" in 1968 and the 1971 revival of August Strindberg's "Dance of Death."
Despite his achievements on the stage, film and radio, Ryder is mostly remembered as a prolific and versatile TV character actor. He made over 100 appearances on TV, including memorable turns on Star Trek (1966) (he appeared as Prof. Robert Crater in the series' very first aired episode, "The Man Trap"), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) (two appearances as the ghost of Nazi U-boat commander Capt. Gerhardt Krueger), and The Invaders (1967) (appearing as The Alien Leader). Ryder retired from screen acting in 1976 to concentrate on the stage, both as an actor and director. He died on April 16, 1995 in Englewood, NJ, at the age of 79. He was married to actress Kim Stanley, with whom he had a child, from 1957 until 1964, and he was the brother of actress Olive Deering.- Actor
- Soundtrack
One of Britain's great variety comedians Arthur English was known as 'The Prince of the Wide Boys', a cockney 'spiv' character outrageously dressed on stage and wearing a huge kipper tie.
Born in Aldershot, Hants English started his career at an early age appearing in amateur shows but did not become a professional performer until he was 30. He served in the Army during World War Two and after being demobbed worked as a painter and decorator.
In 1949 he auditioned at the famous Windmill Theatre in London and he was put under contract for several seasons as a principal comic. His catchphrases became legendary: "They're laughin' at me Mum", "Sharpen up there, the quick stuff's coming" and his famous exit line "Play the music - open the cage!".
On radio he starred in BBC's Variety Bandbox alongside comics such as Reg Dixon and Mrs Shufflewick (Rex Jameson) and he also appeared in numerous summer shows, pantomimes and clubs throughout the UK.
English turned to straight acting in the early 1970s both on stage, screen and on television. He starred in a variety of comic cockney parts on television in the Comedy Playhouse series and Hugh and I (1962). In 1987 he joined fellow veterans Irene Handl and Charlie Chester in Never Say Die (1987), a comedy series set in an old people's home. His greatest success on tv was as the janitor Mr Harman in the cult series Are You Being Served? (1972).- Director
- Writer
- Producer
The son of a struggling businessman, Cy Endfield--born Cyril Raker Endfield--worked hard to be admitted to Yale University in 1933. While completing his education he became enamored with progressive theatre and appeared in a New Haven production of a minor Russian play in 1934. He was also profoundly influenced by such friends as writer Paul Jarrico, who was in Hollywood and who advocated liberal and leftist views. For several years Endfield worked as a director and choreographer with avant-garde theatre companies in and around New York and Montreal. He led his own repertory company of amateur players in performances of musicals and satirical revue at resorts in the Catskills.
Endfield had another string to his bow, having established a not inconsiderable reputation as master of the art of micro magic, particularly card tricks. In a circuitous way this brought him to Hollywood in 1940. There have been conflicting stories as to how he came to the attention of Orson Welles, who was known to have a long-standing fascination with magic. Endfield first met Welles in a magic shop, but it was his producer and business manager Jack Moss, himself a magician, who hired Endfield for the Mercury Theatre as a "general factotum". Moss wanted to enhance his own skills in order to confound Welles, who had engaged him in the first place as a tutor for performing magic on stage. In return for his expertise, Endfield was permitted to sit in on the making of Journey Into Fear (1943) and The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), learning valuable lessons in the process. By 1942 he was ready with his first film, a 15-minute-long documentary about the danger of rampant capitalism, entitled Inflation (1943). The witty little piece was a subtle attack on corporate greed and corruption and featured well-known actor Edward Arnold as a devil in businessman garb. An outspoken social critic, who had flirted briefly with the Young Communist League back in his days at Yale, Endfield was from the outset on a collision course with the establishment. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce banned his film as "excessively anti-capitalist" and kept it from public view for half a century.
Following wartime service, Endfield wrote several scripts for radio and television. He directed a number of short documentaries for MGM in 1946, and followed this with his motion picture debut, Gentleman Joe Palooka (1946), based on a popular comic strip character, shot in eight days at "Poverty Row" studio Monogram Pictures. He also directed a B-mystery, The Argyle Secrets (1948), from his own earlier radio play, followed by one of the better entries in the "Tarzan" series, Tarzan's Savage Fury (1952). Unfortunately, the picture did poorly at the box office. The reason for this, producer, Sol Lesser suggested later, was because Lex Barker (as "Tarzan") had been given too many lines to speak and "nearly talked himself to death". It was not until Endfield's harrowing indictment of mob rule, The Sound of Fury (1950), that he "arrived" as a director of note. That same year he helmed another independently produced minor masterpiece (on a budget of $500,000), the stylish and moody film noir The Underworld Story (1950). In this scathing attack on unscrupulous journalism, with the lead character being inherently unsympathetic, Endfield elicited one of the finest performances of his career from Dan Duryea.
The ideas and sentiments expressed in these films were ill-timed, in that they drew the attention of HUAC--The House Un-American Activities Committee, which was tasked with rooting out Communists and other "subversives" in the entertainment industry--which particularly denounced "Sound of Fury" as being un-American. Though never a card-carrying member of the Communist Party, Endfield found himself "named" as a sympathizer. Preferring to leave the country rather than inform on others to the FBI, he settled his affairs and left for a new career in Britain in December 1951. To avoid problems with distribution in the US, for the first few years he worked under pseudonyms (such as "Hugh Raker") and on two occasions allowed a friend of his, director Charles de la Tour, to act as a 'front'. He used his own name again for the offbeat action film Hell Drivers (1957). This uncompromisingly tough working-class melodrama featured Stanley Baker, with whom Endfield formed a production company in the 1960s. Baker eventually starred in six of Endfield's films, including the routinely scripted drama Sea Fury (1958) about tugboat sailors and the rather over-the-top Sands of the Kalahari (1965). From the late 1950's, Endfield became also increasingly involved in turning out television commercials. He also worked in the theatre again, directing Neil Simon's play "Come Blow Your Horn" at the West End.
Certainly the most visually impressive and successful of Endfield's films is Zulu (1964), the epic story of the Battle of Rorke's Drift in 1879 between a small contingent of British troops and a vastly superior force of Zulu tribesmen. The original story was penned by military writer John Prebble and Endfield had written the screenplay as early as 1959. After several abortive attempts, he was able to parlay his way into the offices of producer Joseph E. Levine in Rome and was finally given the go-ahead. Enhanced by John Barry's rousing score, "Zulu" is a supremely well-choreographed "battle ballet"--the battle scenes constitute well over half the screen time), with numerous lateral tracking shots of the main protagonists, which effectively draw the audience into the heart of the action. The social element is concerned with British imperialism and class structure, as two officers from different backgrounds are forced to pull together in order to stay alive. As the supercilious upper-crust Lt. Bromhead, Michael Caine, then relatively unknown, began on his path to fame with an excellent performance, alongside Stanley Baker. Historical incongruities apart, "Zulu" succeeded as pure spectacle, much in the same way as the big-budget Hollywood epics of the same period.
Endfield lost interest in filmmaking after shooting the anti-war movie Universal Soldier (1971). This was in part due to the fact that most of his films had failed to make much money. After the death of his friend Stanley Baker in 1976, Endfield devoted himself to his "technical period". He manufactured a gold-and-silver chess set as commemoration for a famous match between grand masters Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky in 1972 (only 100 were ever produced). In 1980 he invented the first pocket word processing system, the "MicroWriter", which had re-chargeable batteries and a 14-character LCD display.
In 1955 Endfield had co-authored a very successful book, "Cy Endfield's Entertaining Card Magic" (with Lewis Ganson), which had been well-received by amateur and professional magicians alike. In fact, one of his admirers, and occasional collaborators, was the famous micro magician Dai Vernon. Many of the sleight-of-hand routines in the book were developed by Endfield himself and related to the reader in a manner befitting a consummate storyteller. Endfield's passion for performing magic remained with him to the end. The multi-talented polymath resided in Britain until his death in April 1995.- Cheyenne Brando was a Tahitian model and the daughter of Marlon Brando by his third wife Tarita Teriipaia, a former Tahitian actress whom he met while filming Mutiny on the Bounty in 1962.
Cheyenne was raised in the island of Tahiti, south of Papeete. Her parents divorced in 1972.
As a child, Cheyenne reportedly adored her father and bragged about him. As she entered her teenage years, her feelings towards her father changed.
Cheyenne eventually dropped out of high school and began taking drugs including LSD, PCP, marijuana, and tranquilizers. During this time, she began a modeling career.
In May 1987, Cheyenne began dating 23-year-old Dag Drollet. His father, Jacques Drollet, was a member of Tahiti's parliament. The pair were introduced through a get together, as the Brandos and Drollets had been longtime friends. In 1989, Cheyenne became pregnant with their child. At Marlon Brando's request, the couple moved to the United States and into Marlon's Mulholland Drive home to await the birth of their child.
On 16 May 1990, Drollet was fatally shot by Cheyenne's elder half-brother Christian at their father's home. Christian Brando maintained that the shooting was accidental. He stated that earlier in the evening, Cheyenne told him that Drollet was physically abusing her. Later that night, Christian confronted Drollet about the abuse. Christian claimed that the gun went off after Drollet tried to take the gun away from him.
Christian Brando was immediately arrested and charged with first-degree murder two days later. The prosecutors of the case attempted to subpoena Cheyenne to testify at Christian's trial as they felt her account of the night's event was crucial in proving the shooting was premeditated. However, she refused to testify and fled to Tahiti. On 26 June 1990, she gave birth to a son she named Tuki Brando. Soon after Tuki's birth, Cheyenne attempted suicide twice and was hospitalized for drug detoxification in a psychiatric hospital. On 22 December 1990, Cheyenne was declared "mentally disabled" by a French judge and was deemed unable to testify in her brother's trial.
Without Cheyenne's testimony, prosecutors felt they could no longer prove that Drollet's death was premeditated. They presented Christian Brando with a plea deal. Christian took the deal and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter. He was sentenced to ten years in prison. He served a total of five years and was placed on three years probation. In an interview given after his release, Christian stated that he doubted Cheyenne's accusations of physical abuse against Drollet due to her mental instability. "I feel like a complete chump for believing her," he said.
In the years following Drollet's death and her half brother Christian's trial, Cheyenne Brando's mental health steadily declined. She repeatedly entered drug rehab and psychiatric hospitals.
Cheyenne Brando was later formally diagnosed with schizophrenia, became isolated from her former friends, and lost custody of her son to her mother (who raised him in Tahiti).
On 16 April 1995, Cheyenne hanged herself at her mother's house in Punaauia, Tahiti. - Adalberto Rodriguez was born on 22 January 1934 in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico. He was an actor, known for El alcalde de Machuchal (1964), Machuchal agente 'O' en New York (1970) and El curandero del pueblo (1969). He died on 16 April 1995 in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
- Writer
- Actress
Elida Gay Palmer was born on 28 July 1934 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was a writer and actress, known for Delito (1962), El curandero (1955) and Barrio Gris (1954). She was married to Alberto D'Aversa and Nelson Luiz de Toledo Piza. She died on 16 April 1995 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.- Grover Lewis was born on 8 November 1934 in San Antonio, Texas, USA. He was an actor, known for The Last Picture Show (1971) and The Candidate (1972). He died on 16 April 1995 in Santa Monica, California, USA.
- Emmett Bejano was born on 22 August 1915 in Ocala, Florida, USA. He was an actor, known for Carny (1980), The Secret Cabaret (1990) and Being Different (1981). He was married to Percilla Bejano. He died on 16 April 1995 in Tampa, Florida, USA.
- Klaus Glowalla was born on 15 November 1924 in Neidenburg, East Prussia, Germany [now Nidzica, Warminsko-Mazurskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for Du und ich und Klein-Paris (1971), Der Tangospieler (1991) and Dr. Schlüter (1965). He died on 16 April 1995 in Magdeburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.