Two actors from "Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Plebs" - Edinburgh Fringe

Follow me at FotoFling Scotland

My Facebook Page | My Twitter Page | My Google+ | My New Site | My 500px

***My best shots transformed into wonderful wallpapers for all your devices: download them now for free!***

Photo: Aurora

British postcard by Athena International, no. 0334340, BAT, no. 10. Photo: TM / DC Comics Inc. Photo: Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson in Batman (Tim Burton, 1989).

Jack Nicholson (1937) is an American actor and filmmaker who has performed for over sixty years. His rise in Hollywood was far from meteoric, and for years, he sustained his career with guest spots in television series and a number of Roger Corman films. He is now known for playing a wide range of starring or supporting roles, including satirical comedy, romance, and dark portrayals of anti-heroes and villainous characters. In many of his films, he has played someone who rebels against the social structure. Nicholson's 12 Oscar nominations make him the most nominated male actor ever. He won the Oscars for Best Actor twice – for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), and As Good as It Gets (1997), and the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for Terms of Endearment (1983).

Jack Nicholson was born in 1937 as John Joseph Nicholson in Neptune City, New Jersey. He was the son of a showgirl, June Frances Nicholson (stage name June Nilson). She married Italian-American showman Donald Furcillo (stage name Donald Rose) in 1936, before realising that he was already married. Biographer Patrick McGilligan stated in his book Jack's Life that Latvian-born Eddie King, June's manager, may have been Nicholson's biological father, rather than Furcillo. Other sources suggest June Nicholson was unsure of who the father was. As June was only seventeen years old and unmarried, her parents agreed to raise Nicholson as their own child without revealing his true parentage, and June would act as his sister. In 1974, Time magazine researchers learned, and informed Nicholson, that his 'sister', June, was actually his mother, and his other 'sister', Lorraine, was really his aunt. By this time, both his mother and grandmother had died (in 1963 and 1970, respectively). On finding out, Nicholson said it was "a pretty dramatic event, but it wasn't what I'd call traumatizing ... I was pretty well psychologically formed". Before starting high school, his family moved to an apartment in Spring Lake, New Jersey. When Jack was ready for high school, the family moved once more, to old-money Spring Lake, New Jersey's so-called Irish Riviera, where Ethel May set up her beauty parlor. 'Nick', as he was known to his high school friends, attended nearby Manasquan High School, where he was voted 'Class Clown' by the Class of 1954. In 1957, Nicholson joined the California Air National Guard. After completing the Air Force's basic training, Nicholson performed weekend drills and two-week annual training as a fire fighter. Nicholson first came to Hollywood in 1954, when he was seventeen, to visit his sister. He took a job as an office worker for animators William Hanna and Joseph Barbera at the MGM cartoon studio. He trained to be an actor with a group called the Players Ring Theater, after which time he found small parts performing on the stage and in TV soap operas. He made his film debut in a low-budget teen drama The Cry Baby Killer (Justus Addiss, 1958), playing the title role. For the following decade, Nicholson was a frequent collaborator with the film's producer, Roger Corman. Corman directed Nicholson on several occasions, most notably in The Little Shop of Horrors (Roger Corman, 1960), as masochistic dental patient and undertaker Wilbur Force, and also in The Raven (Roger Corman, 1963), The Terror (Roger Corman, 1963) as a French officer seduced by an evil ghost, and The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (Roger Corman, 1967). Nicholson also frequently worked with director Monte Hellman on low-budget Westerns, including the cult successes Ride in the Whirlwind (Monte Hellman, 1966) with Cameron Mitchell, and The Shooting (Monte Hellman, 1966) opposite Millie Perkins. Nicholson also appeared in episodes of TV series like Dr. Kildare (1966) and The Andy Griffith Show (1966-1967). However, Nicholson seemed resigned to a career behind the camera as a writer/director. His first real taste of writing success was the screenplay for the counterculture film The Trip (Roger Corman, 1967), which starred Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. Nicholson also co-wrote, with Bob Rafelson, Head (Bob Rafelson, 1968), which starred The Monkees. He also arranged the film's soundtrack. Nicholson's first turn in the director's chair was for Drive, He Said (1971).

Jack Nicholson had his acting break when a spot opened up in Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969). Nicholson played liquor-soaked lawyer George Hanson, for which he received his first Oscar nomination. The film cost only $400,000 to make, and became a blockbuster, grossing $40 million. Overnight, Nicholson became a hero of the counter-culture movement. Nicholson was cast by Stanley Kubrick, who was impressed with his role in Easy Rider, in the part of Napoleon in a film about his life, and although production on the film commenced, the project fizzled out, partly due to a change in ownership at MGM. Nicholson starred in Five Easy Pieces (Bob Rafelson, 1970) alongside Karen Black. Bobby Dupea, an oil rig worker, became his persona-defining role. Nicholson and Black were nominated for Academy Awards for their performances. Critics began speculating whether he might become another Marlon Brando or James Dean. His career and income skyrocketed. Nicholson starred in Carnal Knowledge (Mike Nichols, 1971), which co-starred Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, and Candice Bergen. Other roles included Billy "Bad Ass" Buddusky in The Last Detail (Hal Ashby, 1973). For his role, Nicholson won the Best Actor award at the Cannes Film Festival, and he was nominated for his third Oscar and a Golden Globe. In 1974, Nicholson starred in Roman Polanski's majestic Film Noir Chinatown, opposite Faye Dunaway. For his role as private detective Jake Gittes, he was again nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor. The role was a major transition from the exploitation films of the previous decade. One of Nicholson's greatest successes came with his role as Randle P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Miloš Forman, 1975). It was an adaptation of Ken Kesey's novel and co-produced by Michael Douglas. Nicholson plays an anti-authoritarian patient at a mental hospital where he becomes an inspiring leader for the other patients. The film swept the Academy Awards with nine nominations, and won the top five, including Nicholson's first for Best Actor. Also that year, Nicholson starred in Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (1975), which co-starred Maria Schneider. The film received good reviews and revived Antonioni's reputation as one of the cinema's great directors. He took a small role in The Last Tycoon (Elia Kazan, 1976), opposite Robert De Niro. He took a less sympathetic role in Arthur Penn's Western The Missouri Breaks (1976), specifically to work with Marlon Brando.

Although Jack Nicholson did not win an Oscar for Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Stephen King's The Shining (1980), it remains one of his more significant roles. Nicholson improvised his now-famous "Here's Johnny!" line, along with the scene in which he's sitting at the typewriter and unleashes his anger upon his wife after she discovers he has gone insane when she looks at his writing ("all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" typed endlessly). In 1982, he starred as an immigration enforcement agent in The Border (Tony Richardson, 1982, co-starring Warren Oates. Nicholson won his second Oscar, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, for his role of retired astronaut Garrett Breedlove in Terms of Endearment (James L. Brooks, 1983), starring Shirley MacLaine and Debra Winger. He and MacLaine played many of their scenes in different ways, constantly testing and making adjustments. Nicholson continued to work prolifically in the 1980s, starring in such films as The Postman Always Rings Twice (Bob Rafelson, 1981), Reds (Warren Beatty, 1981), where Nicholson portrays the writer Eugene O'Neill with a quiet intensity, Prizzi's Honor (John Huston, 1985), The Witches of Eastwick (George Miller, 1987), Broadcast News (James L. Brooks, 1987), and Ironweed (Hector Babenco, 1987) with Meryl Streep. Three Oscar nominations also followed, for Reds, Prizzi's Honor, and Ironweed. In Batman (Tim Burton, 1989), Nicholson played the psychotic murderer and villain, the Joker. Batman creator Bob Kane personally recommended him for the role. The film was an international smash hit, and a lucrative percentage deal earned him a percentage of the box office gross estimated at $60 million to $90 million. For his role as hot-headed Col. Nathan R. Jessup in A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner, 1992), a film about a murder in a U.S. Marine Corps unit, Nicholson received yet another Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1996, Nicholson collaborated once more with Batman director Tim Burton on Mars Attacks!, pulling double duty as two contrasting characters, President James Dale and Las Vegas property developer Art Land. At first, studio executives at Warner Bros. disliked the idea of killing off Nicholson's character, so Burton created two characters and killed them both off. Not all of Nicholson's performances have been well received. He was nominated for Razzie Awards as worst actor for Man Trouble (Bob Rafelson, 1992) and Hoffa (Danny DeVito, 1992). However, Nicholson's performance in Hoffa also earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Nicholson went on to win his next Academy Award for Best Actor in the romantic comedy, As Good as It Gets (1997), his third film directed by James L. Brooks. He played Melvin Udall, a "wickedly funny", mean-spirited, obsessive-compulsive novelist. His Oscar was matched with the Academy Award for Best Actress for Helen Hunt, who played a Manhattan wisecracking, single-mother waitress drawn into a love/hate friendship with Udall, a frequent diner in the restaurant. The film was a tremendous box office success, grossing $314 million, which made it Nicholson's second-best-grossing film of his career, after Batman.

In About Schmidt (Alexander Payne, 2002), Nicholson portrayed a retired Omaha, Nebraska, actuary who questions his own life following his wife's death. His quietly restrained performance earned him another Oscar Nomination. In Anger Management (Peter Segal, 2003), he played an aggressive therapist assigned to help an over pacifist man (Adam Sandler). In 2003, Nicholson also starred in Something's Gotta Give (Nancy Meyers, 2003), as an aging playboy who falls for the mother (Diane Keaton) of his young girlfriend. In late 2006, Nicholson marked his return to the dark side as Frank Costello, a nefarious Boston Irish Mob boss, based on Whitey Bulger who was still on the run at that time, presiding over Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's Oscar-winning film The Departed, a remake of Andrew Lau's Infernal Affairs. The role earned Nicholson worldwide critical praise, along with various award wins and nominations, including a Golden Globe nomination. In 2007, Nicholson co-starred with Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List (Rob Reiner, 2007) Nicholson and Freeman portrayed dying men who fulfill their list of goals. Nicholson reunited with James L. Brooks, director of Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, and As Good as It Gets, for a supporting role as Paul Rudd's character's father in How Do You Know (2012). It had been widely reported in subsequent years that Nicholson had retired from acting because of memory loss, but in a September 2013 Vanity Fair article, Nicholson clarified that he did not consider himself retired, merely that he was now less driven to "be out there any more". In 2015, Nicholson made a special appearance as a presenter on SNL 40, the 40th anniversary special of Saturday Night Live. After the death of boxer Muhammad Ali in 2016, Nicholson appeared on HBO's The Fight Game with Jim Lampley for an exclusive interview about his friendship with Ali. In 2017, it was reported that Nicholson would be starring in an English-language remake of Toni Erdmann opposite Kristen Wiig, but Nicholson dropped out of the project. does not consider himself to be retired. He has also directed three films, including The Two Jakes (1990), the sequel to Chinatown. Nicholson is one of three male actors to win three Academy Awards. He also has won six Golden Globe Awards. He has had a number of high-profile relationships and was married to Sandra Knight from 1962 until their divorce in 1968. Nicholson has five children. His eldest daughter is Jennifer Nicholson (1963), from his marriage to actress Sandra Knight. He has a son, Caleb James Goddard (1970) with Susan Anspach, and a daughter, Honey Hollman (1981) with Danish supermodel, Winnie Hollman. With Rebecca Broussard, he has two children, Lorraine Nicholson (1990) and Ray Nicholson (1992). Nicholson's longest relationship was the 17 years he spent with actress Anjelica Huston; this ended when Broussard become pregnant with his child. Jack Nicholson is the only actor to ever play the Devil, the Joker, and a werewolf.

Sources: Pedro Borges (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

Please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Dutch postcard by Boomerang. Photo: Amblin Entertainment / Columbia Pictures. Tommy Lee Jones and Will Smith in Men in Black II (Barry Sonnenfeld, 2002). Caption: Back in black.

American actor Tommy Lee Jones (1946), known for his deadpan delivery, played hard-edged but sarcastic law enforcement and military officers in such blockbusters as the thriller The Fugitive (1993) opposite Harrison Ford and the Men in Black series with Will Smith. He received four Oscar nominations, for JFK (1991), The Fugitive (1993), In the Valley of Elah (2007) and Lincoln (2012), and won the award for The Fugitive. Other acclaimed films in which he appeared include Coal Miner's Daughter (1980), and No Country for Old Men (2007).

Tommy Lee Jones was born in 1946 in San Saba, Texas. He was the son of Lucille Marie (Scott), a police officer and beauty shop owner, and Clyde C. Jones, who worked on oil fields. Tommy himself worked in underwater construction and on an oil rig. He attended St. Mark's School of Texas, a prestigious prep school for boys in Dallas, on a scholarship. On another scholarship, he attended Harvard University, where he roomed with future U.S. Vice President Al Gore. Though several of his less-knowledgeable fans have tended to dismiss Jones as a roughhewn redneck, the actor was equally at home on the polo fields (he's a champion player) as the oil fields. He received a B.A. in English literature and graduated cum laude from Harvard in 1969. Following college, he moved to New York and began his stage career on Broadway in 'A Patriot for Me' with Maximilian Schell, which closed after 49 performances. In 1970, he appeared in his first film, Love Story (Arthur Hiller, 1970), listed way, way down the cast list as one of Ryan O'Neal's fraternity buddies. Interestingly enough, while Jones was at Harvard, he and roommate Gore provided the models for author Erich Segal while he was writing the character of Oliver, the book's (and film's) protagonist. While living in New York, he continued to appear in various plays, both on- and off-Broadway: 'Fortune and Men's Eyes' (1969), Abe Burrows' 'Four on a Garden' (1971), 'Blue Boys' (1972), and 'Ulysses in Nighttown (1974). Between 1971 and 1975 he portrayed Dr. Mark Toland on the ABC soap opera, One Life to Live. Jones got his first film lead in the obscure Canadian film Eliza's Horoscope (Gordon Sheppard, 1975). With his first wife, Kate Lardner, granddaughter of short-story writer/columnist Ring Lardner, and her two children from a previous marriage, he moved to Los Angeles. Jones gained national attention in 1977 when he was cast in the title role in the TV miniseries The Amazing Howard Hughes (William A. Graham, 1977). His resemblance to the American aviation pioneer and filmmaker - both vocally and visually - was positively uncanny. In the cinema, he played an escaped convict hunted in the exploitation crime thriller Jackson County Jail (Michael Miller, 1976), a Vietnam veteran in the thriller Rolling Thunder (John Flynn, 1977), based on a story by Paul Schrader, an automobile mogul in the Harold Robbins drama The Betsy (Daniel Petrie, 1978) with Laurence Olivier, and opposite Faye Dunaway in the thriller Eyes of Laura Mars (Irvin Kershner, 1978), written by John Carpenter. In 1980, Jones earned his first Golden Globe nomination for his portrayal of country singer Loretta Lynn's husband, Doolittle "Mooney" Lynn, in Coal Miner's Daughter (Michael Apted, 1980), starring Sissy Spacek. While working on the film Back Roads (Martin Ritt, 1981), he met and fell in love with Kimberlea Cloughley, whom he later married. Jones won further acclaim and an Emmy for his startling performance as murderer Gary Gilmore in The Executioner's Song (Lawrence Schiller, 1982), based on the book by Norman Mailer. Maria Vitale at IMDb: "More roles in television, on stage, and in films garnered him a reputation as a strong, explosive, thoughtful actor who could handle supporting as well as leading roles." Jones spent the rest of the 1980s working in both television and film, doing his most notable work on such TV miniseries as Lonesome Dove (Simon Wincer, 1989), for which he earned another Emmy nomination.

It was not until the early 1990s that Tommy Lee Jones became a substantial figure in Hollywood, a position catalyzed by a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his role in Oliver Stone's epic political thriller JFK (1991) which examines the events leading to the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the alleged cover-up through the eyes of former New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner). In 1993, Jones won both that award and a Golden Globe for his driven, starkly funny portrayal of U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard in The Fugitive (Andrew Davis, 1993), starring Harrison Ford. His subsequent work during the decade was prolific and enormously varied. In 1994 alone, he could be seen as an insane prison warden in Natural Born Killers (Oliver Stone, 1994); titular baseball hero Ty Cobb in Cobb (Ron Shelton, 1994); a troubled army captain in Blue Sky (Tony Richardson, 1994); a wily federal attorney in the John Grisham adaptation The Client (Joel Schumacher, 1994); and a psychotic bomber in Blown Away (Stephen Hopkins, 1994) opposite Jeff Bridges. Jones was also attached to a number of big-budget action films, hamming it up as the crazed Two-Face in Batman Forever (Joel Schumacher, 1995); donning sunglasses and an attitude to play special agent K in Men in Black (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1997); and reprising his Fugitive role for the film's sequel, U.S. Marshals (Stuart Baird, 1998). The following year, he continued this trend, playing Ashley Judd's parole officer in the psychological thriller Double Jeopardy. The late 1990s and millennial turnover found Jones' popularity soaring, and the distinguished actor continued to develop a successful comic screen persona in such films as Space Cowboys (Clint Eastwood, 2000) and Men in Black II (Barry Sonnenfeld, 2002), in addition to maintaining his dramatic clout with roles in such thrillers as Rules of Engagement (William Friedkin, 2000) and The Hunted (William Friedkin, 2003).

2005 brought a comedic turn for Tommy Lee Jones who starred in the madcap comedy Man of the House (Stephen Herek, 2005) as a grizzled police officer who has to protect a house full of cheerleaders who witnessed a murder. Jones also took a stab at directing that year, helming and starring in the Neo-Western The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (Tommy Lee Jones, 2005). His performance won him the Best Actor Award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival. Jones appeared in the film adaptation of A Prairie Home Companion (Robert Altman, 2006), based on Garrison Keillor's long-running radio show. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "The film's legendary director, much-loved source material, and all-star cast made the film a safe bet for the actor, who hadn't done much in the way of musical comedy. Jones played the consummate corporate bad guy with his trademark grit." He headlined the Iraq war drama In the Valley of Elah (Paul Haggis, 2007). His work as the veteran father of a son who died in the war earned him strong reviews and an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. However, more people saw Jones' other film from that year, the Coen brothers adaptation of No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007). His work as a middle-aged Texas sheriff haunted by the acts of the evil man he hunts earned him a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Supporting Actor. The actor co-starred with Stanley Tucci and Neal McDonough in the blockbuster Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston, 2011) opposite Chris Evans, and reprised his role as a secret agent in Men in Black 3 (Barry Sonnenfeld, 2011). In 2012 he played a Congressman fighting to help Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) end slavery in Lincoln (Steven Spielberg, 2012), a role that led to an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. He most recently appeared in the Science-Fiction film Ad Astra (James Gray, 2019) starring Brad Pitt, and in the comedy The Comeback Trail (George Gallo, 2020) with Robert De Niro. Tommy Lee Jones and Kimberlea Cloughley have two children, Austin Leonard Jones (1982), and Victoria Jones (1991). After his divorce from Cloughley in 1996, he married Dawn Jones in 2001.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Maria Vitale (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Russian actor of theater and cinema

Actor Theater Che

Fragment of the spectacle «Mom in the East»

Date: March 22, 2020

Владимир Братков - актер театра и кино.

актер театра ЧЁ'

Кадр из спектакля-квартирника Театра Чё «Мама на Востоке».

Дата: 22 марта 2020 года

_______

Владимир Братков: Свобода во все времена не возможна без осознания, что свобода — это не вседозволенность. Необходим внутренний самоконтроль на основе простой общечеловеческой морали. Иначе начнутся внешние ограничения. Самая главная человеческая свобода — это возможность выбора. Этого никто не отнимет, но именно здесь необходима особая концентрация внимания на ответственности.

French postcard by Editions Cinémagazine, no. 217. Photo: United Artists.

English gentleman-actor Ronald Colman (1891 - 1958) was a top box office draw in Hollywood films throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. ‘The Man with the velvet voice’ was nominated for four Academy Awards. In 1948 he finally won the Oscar for his splendid portrayal of a tormented actor in A Double Life (1947).

Ronald Charles Colman was born in 1891 in Richmond, England. He was the fifth of six children of silk importer Charles Colman and his wife Marjory Read Fraser. Ronald was educated at a boarding school in Littlehampton, where he discovered he enjoyed acting. When Ronald was 16 his father died of pneumonia, putting an end to the boy's plans to attend Cambridge and become an engineer. He went to work as a shipping clerk at the British Steamship Company. He also became a well-known amateur actor and was a member of the West Middlesex Dramatic Society (1908-1909). In 1909, he joined the London Scottish Regiment, a territorial army force, and he was sent to France at the outbreak of World War I. Colman took part in the First Battle of Ypres and was severely wounded at the battle at Messines in Belgium. The shrapnel wounds he took to his legs invalided him out of active service. In May 1915, decorated, discharged and depressed, he returned home with a limp that he would attempt to hide throughout the rest of his acting career. He tried to enter the consular service, but a chance encounter got him a small role in the London play The Maharanee of Arakan (1916). He dropped other plans and concentrated on the theatre. Producers soon noted the young actor with his striking good looks, rich voice and rare dignity, and Colman was rewarded with a succession of increasingly prominent parts. He worked with stage greats Gladys Cooper and Gerald du Maurier. He made extra money appearing in films like the two-reel silent comedy The Live Wire (Cecil Hepworth, 1917). The set was an old house with a negligible budget, and Colman doubled as the leading character and prop man. The film was never released though. Other silent British films were The Snow of the Desert (Walter West, 1919) with Violet Hopson and Stewart Rome, and The Black Spider (William Humphrey, 1920) with Mary Clare. The negatives of all of Colman's early British films have probably been destroyed during the 1941 London Blitz. After a brief courtship, he married actress Thelma Raye in 1919. The marriage was in trouble almost from the beginning. The two separated in 1923 but were not divorced until 1934.

In 1920 Ronald Colman set out for New York in hopes of finding greater fortune there than in war-depressed England. His American film debut was in the tawdry melodrama Handcuffs or Kisses? (George Archainbaud, 1920). He toured with Robert Warwick in 'The Dauntless Three', and subsequently toured with Fay Bainter in 'East is West'. After two years of impoverishment, he was cast in the Broadway hit play 'La Tendresse' (1922). Director Henry King spotted him and cast him as Lillian Gish's leading man in The White Sister (Henry King, 1923), filmed in Italy. The romantic tear-jerker was wildly popular and Colman was quickly proclaimed a new film star. This success led to a contract with prominent independent film producer Samuel Goldwyn, and in the following ten years, he became a very popular silent film star in both romantic and adventure films. Among his most successful films for Goldwyn were The Dark Angel (George Fitzmaurice, 1925) with Hungarian actress Vilma Bánky, Stella Dallas (Henry King, 1926), the Oscar Wilde adaptation Lady Windermere's Fan (Ernst Lubitsch, 1925) and The Winning of Barbara Worth (Henry King, 1926) with Gary Cooper. Colman's dark hair and eyes and his athletic and riding ability led reviewers to describe him as a ‘Valentino type’. He was often cast in similar, exotic roles. The film that cemented this position as a top star was Beau Geste (Herbert Brenon, 1926), Paramount's biggest hit of 1926. It was the rousing tale of three brothers (Colman, Neil Hamilton and Ralph Forbes), who join the Foreign Legion to escape the law. Beau Geste was full of mystery, desert action, intrigue and above all, brotherly loyalty. Colman's gentlemanly courage and quiet strength were showcased to perfection in the role of the oldest brother, Beau. The film is still referred to as possibly the greatest Foreign Legion film ever produced. Towards the end of the silent era, Colman was teamed again with Vilma Bánky under Samuel Goldwyn. The two would make a total of five films together and their popularity rivalled that of Greta Garbo and John Gilbert.

Although Ronald Colman was a huge success in silent films, with the coming of sound, his extraordinarily beautiful speaking voice made him even more important to the film industry. His first major talkie success was in 1930 when he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for two roles - Condemned (Wesley Ruggles, 1929) with Lily Damita, and Bulldog Drummond (F. Richard Jones, 1929) with Joan Bennett. Thereafter he played a number of sophisticated, noble characters with enormous aplomb such as Clive of India (Richard Boleslawski, 1935) with Colin Clive, but he also swashbuckled expertly when called to do so in films like The Prisoner of Zenda (John Cromwell, 1937) with Madeleine Carroll. A falling out with Goldwyn in 1934 prompted Colman to avoid long-term contracts for the rest of his career. He became one of just a handful of top stars to successfully freelance, picking and choosing his assignments and studios. His notable films included the Charles Dickens adaptation A Tale of Two Cities (Jack Conway, 1935), the poetic classic Lost Horizon (Frank Capra, 1937), and If I Were King (Frank Lloyd, 1938) with Basil Rathbone as vagabond poet Francois Villon. During the war, he made two of his very best films - Talk of the Town (George Stevens, 1942) with Cary Grant and Jean Arthur, and the romantic tearjerker Random Harvest (Mervyn LeRoy, 1942), as an amnesiac victim, co-starring with the luminous Greer Garson. For his role in A Double Life (George Cukor, 1947), an actor playing Othello who comes to identify with the character, he won both the Golden Globe for Best Actor in 1947 and the Best Actor Oscar in 1948. Colman made many guest appearances on The Jack Benny Program on the radio, alongside his second wife, British stage and screen actress Benita Hume. Their comedy work as Benny's next-door neighbours led to their own radio comedy The Halls of Ivy from 1950 to 1952, and then on television from 1954 to 1955. Incidentally, he appeared in films, such as the romantic comedy Champagne for Caesar (Richard Whorf, 1950), and his final film The Story of Mankind (Irwin Allen, 1957) with Hedy Lamarr. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "a laughably wretched extravaganza from which Colman managed to emerge with his dignity and reputation intact." Ronald Colman died in 1958, aged 67, from a lung infection in Santa Barbara, California. He was survived by Benita Hume, and their daughter Juliet Benita Colman (1944). In 1975, Juliet published the biography 'Ronald Colman: A Very Private Person'.

Sources: Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Jim Beaver (IMDb), Julie Stowe (The Ronald Colman Pages), Encyclopaedia Britannica, Wikipedia and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

35.5 cm X 43.2 cm, 14" X 17"

grease pencil on Paper, 2022

We are all actors on stage.

What would a person look like if he took off his shell?

March Brother's

New York, NY

Non va via il riso, la poesia dei giorni.

In nero

Deauville

head shot of actor used when filming a fight scene (DOP)

All Time Low - Actors

didcot railway centre

One of my fav's from the day. This time with added grainy goodness via Silver Efex Pro 2.

Merseyside actors/singers David Knopov and leading man Connor Deino Simkins clowning around on set of upcoming full length musical movie, Perfectly Frank.

www.facebook.com/perfectlyfrankmusical/

Sophie Bouchard as Belle and Noah Hackett as Maurice her father in Ignite Theatre's production of Beauty and the Beast at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre. BC CA

I usually try headshots on white, neutral or black backgrounds, but they just seem to pop that bit more on black. I'm also favouring slightly de-saturated colour over mono, but I can't quite explain why.

Mehmet Akif Alakurt (Turkish actor!)

My session w/ Model/Actor Dakota

Webpage | Facebook | Twitter| Instagram |

Italian postcard by Rotalfoto, Milano, no. 395.

Gene Kelly (1912-1996) was an American actor, dancer, singer, filmmaker, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks, and the likeable characters that he played on screen. He starred in, choreographed, or co-directed some of the most well-regarded musical films of the 1940s and 1950s until they fell out of fashion in the late 1950s. Kelly is best known today for his performances in films such as Anchors Aweigh (1945), On the Town (1949), which was his directorial debut, An American in Paris (1951), Singin' in the Rain (1952), Brigadoon (1954), and It's Always Fair Weather (1955).

Eugene Curran Kelly was born in 1912 in the East Liberty neighbourhood of Pittsburgh. He was the third son of James Patrick Joseph Kelly, a phonograph salesman, and his wife, Harriet Catherine Curran. By the time he decided to dance, he was an accomplished sportsman and able to defend himself. He attended St. Raphael Elementary School in the Morningside neighbourhood of Pittsburgh and graduated from Peabody High School at age 16. He entered Pennsylvania State College as a journalism major, but after the 1929 crash, he left school and found work to help his family financially. He created dance routines with his younger brother Fred to earn prize money in local talent contests. They also performed in local nightclubs. In 1931, Kelly enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh to study economics. His family opened a dance studio in the Squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh. In 1932, they renamed it the Gene Kelly Studio of the Dance and opened a second location in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in 1933. Kelly served as a teacher at the studio during his undergraduate and law student years at Pitt. Kelly eventually decided to pursue a career as a dance teacher and full-time entertainer, so he dropped out of law school after two months. In 1937, having successfully managed and developed the family's dance-school business, he finally moved to New York City in search of work as a choreographer. His first Broadway assignment, in 1938, was as a dancer in Cole Porter's 'Leave It to Me!' Kelly's first big breakthrough was in the Pulitzer Prize-winning 'The Time of Your Life' (1939), in which, for the first time on Broadway, he danced to his choreography. In 1940, he got the lead role in Rodgers and Hart's 'Pal Joey', choreographed by Robert Alton. This role propelled him to stardom. Offers from Hollywood began to arrive.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was the largest and most powerful studio in Hollywood when Gene Kelly arrived in town in 1941. There he made his film debut with Judy Garland in For Me and My Gal (Busby Berkeley, 1942). The film was a production of the Arthur Freed unit at MGM and it was one of the big hits of the year. The talent pool at MGM was especially large during World War II, when Hollywood was a refuge for many musicians and others in the performing arts of Europe who were forced to flee the Nazis. Kelly's film debut was followed by Cole Porter's Du Barry Was a Lady (Roy Del Ruth, 1943) with Lucille Ball, the morale booster Thousands Cheer (George Sidney, 1943), Cover Girl (Charles Vidor, 1944) opposite Rita Harworth, and Anchors Aweigh (George Sidney, 1945) with Frank Sinatra. MGM gave him a free hand to devise a range of dance routines for the latter, including his duets with Sinatra and the celebrated animated dance with Jerry Mouse—the animation for which was supervised by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Anchors Aweigh became one of the most successful films of 1945 and Kelly was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. In Ziegfeld Follies (1946), Kelly collaborated with Fred Astaire, for whom he had the greatest admiration, in 'The Babbitt and the Bromide' challenge dance routine. He co-starred with Judy Garland in The Pirate (1948) which gave full rein to Kelly's athleticism. It features Kelly's work with the Nicholas Brothers—the leading black dancers of their day—in a virtuoso dance routine. Now regarded as a classic, the film was ahead of its time but flopped at the box office. Kelly made his debut as a director with On the Town (1949), for Arthur Freed. Stanley Donen, brought to Hollywood by Kelly to be his assistant choreographer, received co-director credit for On the Town. A breakthrough in the musical film genre, it has been described as "the most inventive and effervescent musical thus far produced in Hollywood."

Two musicals secured Gene Kelly's reputation as a major figure in American musical film. First, he directed and starred in An American in Paris (1951) with Leslie Caron. The highlight of the film is the seventeen-minute ballet sequence set to the title song written by George Gershwin and choreographed by Kelly. The sequence cost a half-million dollars (U.S.) to make in 1951 dollars. Kelly's many innovations transformed the Hollywood musical, and he is credited with almost single-handedly making the ballet form commercially acceptable to film audiences. In 1952, he received an Academy Honorary Award for his career achievements, the same year An American in Paris won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Probably the most admired of all film musicals is his next film, Singin' in the Rain (1952). As co-director, lead star, and choreographer, Kelly was the central driving force and unforgettable is Kelly's celebrated and much-imitated solo dance routine to the title song. Kelly continued his string of classic Hollywood musicals with Brigadoon (1954) with Cyd Charisse, and It's Always Fair Weather (1955), co-directed with Donen. The latter was a musical satire on television and advertising and includes his roller-skate dance routine to I Like Myself, and a dance trio with Michael Kidd and Dan Dailey that Kelly used to experiment with the widescreen possibilities of Cinemascope. Next followed Kelly's last musical film for MGM, Les Girls (1957), in which he partnered with a trio of leading ladies, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall, and Taina Elg. It, too, sold a few movie tickets. Dale O'Connor at IMDb: "Kelly was in the same league as Fred Astaire, but instead of a top hat and tails Kelly wore work clothes that went with his masculine, athletic dance style." He finally made for MGM The Happy Road (1957), set in his beloved France, his first foray into a new role as producer-director-actor. After leaving MGM, Kelly returned to stage work.

After musicals got out of fashion, Gene Kelly starred in two films outside the musical genre: Inherit the Wind (Stanley Kramer, 1960) with Spencer Tracey and Fredric March, and What a Way to Go! (1964). In 1967, he appeared in the French musical comedy Les Demoiselles de Rochefort/The Young Girls of Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967) opposite Catherine Deneuve. It was a box-office success in France and was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Music and Score of a Musical Picture. Kelly directed films without a collaborator, including the bedroom-farce comedy A Guide for the Married Man (1967) starring Walter Matthau, and the musical Hello, Dolly! (1969) starring Barbra Streisand and Matthau. The latter was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. He appeared as one of many special narrators in the surprise hit That's Entertainment! (Jack Haley Jr., 1974). The compilation film was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 50th anniversary. The film turned the spotlight on MGM's legacy of musical films from the 1920s through the 1950s. Kelly subsequently directed and co-starred with his friend Fred Astaire in the sequel That's Entertainment, Part II (Gene Kelly, 1976). It was a measure of his powers of persuasion that he managed to coax the 77-year-old Astaire—who had insisted that his contract rule out any dancing, having long since retired—into performing a series of song-and-dance duets, evoking a powerful nostalgia for the glory days of the American musical film. It was later followed by That's Dancing! (Jack Haley Jr., 1985), and That's Entertainment, Part III (Bud Friedgen, Michael J. Sheridan, 1994). Kelly received lifetime achievement awards in the Kennedy Center Honors (1982) and from the Screen Actors Guild and American Film Institute. In 1999, the American Film Institute also ranked him as the 15th greatest male screen legend of Classic Hollywood Cinema. Gene Kelly passed away in 1996 at the age of 83 in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. His final film project was the animated film Cats Don't Dance, not released until 1997, on which Kelly acted as an uncredited choreographic consultant. It was dedicated to his memory. Gene Kelly was married three times: to actress Betsy Blair ​(1941-1957)​, Jeanne Coyne (1960- her death in 1973), and Patricia Ward (1990- his death in 1996).

Sources: Dale O'Connor (IMDb), Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Spanish postcard by Archivo Bermejo, no. C 43. Photo: Warner Bros. Caption: "Troy Donahue (John Hunter) de Warner Bros." John Hunter was the character Donahue played in A Summer Place (Delmer Daves, 1959), but the picture seems to be a studio portrait and not connected to this film.

American actor Troy Donahue (1936-2001), was especially known in the late 1950s and early 1960s as a teen idol. His blond hair, tanned skin, and blue eyes appeared frequently on the covers of movie magazines. In the 1970s, alcohol and drugs problems cost him his career.

Troy Donahue was born Merle Johnson Jr. in New York, in 1936

He was the son of Merle Johnson Sr., the manager of the motion-picture department of General Motors, and a retired stage actress. His father died when Troy was 14. When Donahue was 18, he moved to New York and got a job as a messenger in a film company founded by his father. Troy first came into contact with the acting profession while studying journalism at Columbia. At that time, he joined a repertory company. In the mid-1950s, he left for Hollywood to pursue his acting career. Actress Fran Bennett introduced him to agent Henry Willson, who represented Rock Hudson, among others. Willson signed him and changed his name to Troy Donahue. He made his film debut in 1957 with a small, uncredited role in the Film Noir Man Afraid (Harry Keller, 1957) starring George Nader. Larger roles followed, including in the drama The Tarnished Angels (Douglas Sirk, 1957) starring Rock Hudson and Robert Stack, and the Film Noir Live Fast, Die Young (Paul Henreid, 1958). Donahue achieved good reviews for a brief, but effective part in Imitation of Life (Douglas Sirk, 1959), playing a man who beats up his girlfriend after he discovers she is black. The big break came in 1959 when Warner Bros. signed him to a long-term contract. The studio put him to work guest-starring in episodes of their Western TV series, such as Colt .45 (1959), Maverick (1959), Sugarfoot (1959), The Alaskans (1960), and Lawman (1960). They also gave him a leading role opposite Sandra Dee in A Summer Place (Delmer Daves, 1959). The film was a huge success. The young, blond, blue-eyed Donahue became a star, especially with teenage girls, and regularly appeared on the cover of magazines.

In the following years, Troy Donahue played leading roles for Warner Bros. in several major films, especially those aimed at teenage audiences. Donahue's most successful film was Parrish (Delmer Daves, 1961), in which he played the title character. Donahue and Daves reunited for another melodrama, Susan Slade (Delmer Daves, 1962). In Rome Adventure (Delmer Daves, 1962), he starred opposite Suzanne Pleshette, whom he married and divorced again in 1964. In addition to his film work, Troy Donahue could also be seen on television, first in Surfside 6 (1960-1962), one of several spin-offs of 77 Sunset Strip, and then in Hawaiian Eye (1962-1963), another spinoff of Sunset Strip. A more challenging role came with the Western A Distant Trumpet (Raoul Walsh, 1964), about the conflicts between the US Cavalry and the Indians. In 1965, Donahue was cast as a psychopathic killer opposite Joey Heatherton in the thriller My Blood Runs Cold (William Conrad, 1965). While Donahue was happy to break type and play a different type of role, it was not well received by the public. After years in the limelight, Troy Donahue went out of fashion and he was offered smaller and lesser roles. In 1966, his contract with Warner Bros. was not renewed. Low-budget television films became his main income. He had roles in low-budget films such as Sweet Savior (Robert L. Roberts, 1971), Cockfighter (Monte Hellman, 1974), and the horror film Seizure (1974), Oliver Stone's directorial debut. A small revival came when Francis Ford Coppola gave him a role in The Godfather Part II (1974) as the fiancé of Connie Corleone. The character in that film carried his own name, Merle Johnson. However, due to an alcohol and drug addiction, he disappeared from view from the mid-1970s. For a while, he was even homeless. In 1982, he joined Alcoholics Anonymous, which he credited for helping him achieve and maintain sobriety. In the mid-1980s he returned to film, mostly exploitation films for the low-budget home video market, e.g., Sexpot (1990) and Nudity Required (1990). But he also appeared in the cult classic Cry-Baby (John Waters, 1990) starring Johnny Depp. The film spawned a Broadway musical of the same name which was nominated for four Tony Awards. Donahue's final film role was in the comedy The Boys Behind the Desk (2000), directed by Sally Kirkland. Troy Donahue was married several times, but never for long. His brief marriage to actress Suzanne Pleshette lasted from 4 January to 8 September 1964. In 1966, he married actress Valerie Allen. The couple was married for just over a year and divorced in 1968. He was also married to Vicky Taylor from 1979 to 1981. At the time of his death, he was living with his fiancée, mezzo-soprano Zheng Cao. Donahue had two children, a son and a daughter, and three grandchildren. Troy Donahue died of a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 65.

Source: Ed Stephan (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

(אחרונה מסדרת הסטודיו בשלב זה)

actor/model

Modelo: Alfredo Zapata, actor

Si te gusta esta imagen puedes seguirme en www.facebook.com/photodrama.es

Since today's Movie Saturday, here's my top ten actors! I'm also going to include the film (or 1 TV show in this case) where this actor shined the most along side their name, check it out!

1. Paul Rudd (Ant-Man)

2. John C. Reilly (Check it Out! With Dr. Steve Brule) (yeah it's a TV show, but I love him in this role so much!)

3. Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy)

4. Will Ferrell (Anchorman)

5. John Goodman (The Big Lebowski)

6. Michael Shannon (Midnight Special)

7. Jeff Bridges (The Big Lebowski)

8. Samuel L. Jackson (Pulp Fiction)

9. Sylvester Stallone (Rocky)

10. Michael Keaton (Birdman)

French postcard by Editions Chantal, Paris, no. 4. Photo: Warner Bros.

Energetic, wise-cracking James Cagney (1899-1986) was an American film actor, famous for his gangster roles in the 1930s and 1940s. One of the brightest stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood, Cagney was not only a multifaceted tough guy but also an accomplished dancer and he easily played light comedy.

James Francis 'Jimmy' Cagney was born in 1899 on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. His parents were Carolyn (Nelson) and James Francis Cagney, Sr., who was a bartender and amateur boxer. Jimmy had one sister, the actress Jeanne Cagney, and three brothers, including the actor and film producer William Cagney who was also his manager. In his first professional acting performance in 1919, Cagney was costumed as a woman when he danced in the chorus line of the revue 'Every Sailor'. In 1920, Cagney was a member of the chorus for the show 'Pitter Patter,' where he met Frances Willard "Billie" Vernon. They married the following year. Cagney spent several years in vaudeville as a dancer and comedian, until he got his first major acting part in 1925. He played a young tough guy in the three-act play 'Outside Looking In' by Maxwell Anderson. He secured several other roles, receiving good notices, before landing the lead in the 1929 play 'Penny Arcade'. When Warner Bros. Pictures bought the film rights to the play, they took Cagney and his colleague Joan Blondell from the theatre to the big-screen version, retitled Sinner's Holiday (John G. Adolfi, 1930). Cagney received a full seven-year contract at $400 a week. His role as the sympathetic "bad" guy was to become a recurring character type for Cagney throughout his career. Cagney's fifth film, The Public Enemy (William A. Wellman, 1931) with Jean Harlow, became one of the most influential gangster movies of the period. Notable for a famous scene in which Cagney pushes a grapefruit against Mae Clarke's face, the film thrust him into the spotlight. Cagney starred in many films after that and was nicknamed the tough guy by a series of crime films such as Blonde Crazy (Roy Del Ruth, 1931) with Joan Blondell, and Hard to Handle (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933) with Mary Brian. Sandra Brennan at AllMovie: "Cagney was a small, rather plain-looking man, and had few of the external qualities usually associated with the traditional Hollywood leading man during the '30s. Yet, inside, he was a dynamo, able to project contentious and arrogant confidence that made him the ideal Hollywood tough guy." However, Cagney was not content to simply play one type of role.

From 1935 on, James Cagney was cast more frequently in non-gangster roles. He played a lawyer who joins the FBI in G-Men (William Keighley, 1935) with Ann Dvorak. That year, he also took on his first, and only, Shakespearean role, as top-billed Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Max Reinhardt, 1935) alongside Joe E. Brown as Flute and Mickey Rooney as Puck. In 1938 he received his first Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for his subtle portrayal of the tough guy/man-child Rocky Sullivan in Angels with Dirty Faces (Michael Curtiz, 1938) with Pat O'Brien. In 1942 Cagney won the Oscar for his energetic portrayal of George M. Cohan in Yankee Doodle Dandy (Michael Curtiz, 1942). Later memorable films were White Heat (Raoul Walsh, 1949) with the quote "Made it, Ma! Top of the world!", and Mister Roberts (John Ford, Mervyn LeRoy, 1955) opposite Henry Fonda. He was one of the founders of the Screen Actors Guild and was its president from 1942-1944. The satire One, Two, Three (Billy Wilder, 1961) was the end of a career that spanned more than 70 films. During the next decades, Cagney turned down all roles in order to spend time learning to paint (at which he became very good) and maintaining his farm in Stanfordville, New York. In 1974, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute. After 1979, his health declined rapidly and he suffered from diabetes. Then he returned to the cinema for a small but crucial role in Ragtime (Milos Forman, 1981), the screen adaptation of E.L. Doctorow's novel. In this film, he was reunited with his frequent co-star of the 1930s, Pat O'Brien. In 1984 he also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from his friend Ronald Reagan. Cagney's final performance came in the title role of the made-for-TV movie Terrible Joe Moran (Joseph Sargent, 1984), in which he played as a grumpy ex-prizefighter opposite Art Carney. In 1986, he died of a heart attack in Stanfordville (New York), at the age of 86. He is buried in Hawthorne in New York. Cagney and his wife, Frances Wilhard "Billie" Vernon (1899-1994), were together for 64 years. They adopted a son, James Cagney Jr., and a daughter, Cathleen "Casey" Cagney. James Cagney's electric acting style was a huge influence on future generations of actors. According to IMDb, actors as diverse as Clint Eastwood and Malcolm McDowell point to him as their number one influence to become actors.

Sources: Sandra Brennan (AllMovie), Bill Takacs (IMDb), Wikipedia (Dutch and English), and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Terracotta figurine of actors with masks. During the Hellenistic age comedy grew so popular that its theatrical types became the subjects of mosaics, wall-paintings and a common non expensive motif figurines. All favorite subjects of comedy (the pedagogue, the villager, Heracles and old Silen) are often depicted as humorous, rotund figures wearing mask.

The actors wore tights that covered them from neck to wrists and ankles; under the tights they had heavy padding fixed over the belly and backside, and sometimes breasts as well. The seams down the sides of sleeves or leggings were often made clear by painters. On the outside of the tights at the front was affixed a large leather phallus.

Source: Gregory W. Dobrov, “Brill’s Companion to the Study of Greek Comedy”

Terracotta figurine

Ca. 4th century BC

Thessaloniki, Archaeological Museum

Saint Paul church, Covent Garden.

News papper+drawing

From a visit to Højris Castle. As a visitor you were invited to solve a 'murder crime'. They have live actors roaming the castle and a different story/crime to solve each year. Very popular and a good way to engage visitors of all ages.

Photo by Poul-Werner Dam / bit.ly/PWD_Flickr