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Anita O'Day
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Anita Belle Colton
Also known as "The Jezebel of Jazz"
Born October 18, 1919(1919-10-18)
Origin Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died November 23, 2006 (aged 87) age 87
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Genre(s) Vocal jazz
Occupation(s) Singer
Years active 1934 - 2006
Label(s) Verve, Kayo Steriophonics
Website AnitaODay.com

Anita O'Day (October 18, 1919 - November 23, 2006) was an American jazz singer. Many place her among the greatest female jazz singers (the only white one) in a group that includes Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Carmen McRae, Sarah Vaughan, Abbey Lincoln and Betty Carter.

Born Anita Belle Colton, O'Day was admired for her sense of rhythm and dynamics, and her early big band appearances shattered the traditional image of the "girl singer". Refusing to pander to any female stereotype, O'Day presented herself as a "hip" jazz musician, wearing a band jacket and skirt as opposed to an evening gown. She changed her surname from Colton to O'Day, pig Latin for "dough," slang for money.

O'Day, along with Mel Tormé, is often grouped with the West Coast Cool school of jazz. Interestingly, like Tormé, O'Day had some training in jazz drums (courtesy of her first husband Don Carter); her longest musical collaboration was with John Poole, a skilled jazz drummer whose career was severely curtailed by his heroin habit. While maintaining a central core of hard swing, O'Day's considerable skills in improvisation of rhythm and melody put her squarely among the pioneers of bebop; indeed, a staple of her live act in the 1950s was a smooth cover of "Four" by Miles Davis. She cited Martha Raye as the primary influence on her vocal style, although she also expressed admiration for Mildred Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and Billie Holiday. O'Day's soft, slightly raspy alto voice bore a strong resemblance to that of a saxophone. That unique sound, combined with her strong percussive drive, allowed her to utilize her skills in scat singing to meld seamlessly into jazz orchestras as a wordless instrument; her cover of Woody Herman's "Four Brothers" is an excellent example. Another key example of her improvisational skills and rhythmic surety is her cover of "Them There Eyes" with Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson; the song is laid out at a furiously fast tempo, but O'Day pushes the lyrics out at full speed for one chorus, scats another at a Cannonball Adderley pace, then playfully paraphrases the lyrics at half-tempo for her last chorus. O'Day's song interpretations typically reflected a sly, playful sensibility (see, for example, her cover of "An Occasional Man" with Cal Tjader's band, a much more sex-kittenish interpretation than that of Peggy Lee, among others).

O'Day always maintained that the accidental excision of her uvula during a childhood tonsillectomy left her incapable of vibrato, as well as unable to maintain long phrases. That botched operation, she claimed, forced her to develop a more percussive style based on short notes and rhythmic drive. However, when she was in good voice she demonstrated surprising skill at stretching long notes with strong crescendos and a telescoping vibrato, e.g. her stunning live version of "Sweet Georgia Brown" at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival, captured in Bert Stern's film Jazz on a Summer's Day: [1] .

O'Day's cool, backbeat-based singing style was strongly influential on many other female singers of the late swing and bebop eras, including June Christy, Chris Connor and even less jazz-oriented performers such as Doris Day.

O'Day's long-term problems with heroin and alcohol addiction and her often erratic behavior related to those problems earned her the nickname "The Jezebel of Jazz".




Early career

Born in Chicago, Illinois, O'Day left home at age 12 and began her career two years later in 1934, touring the Midwestern United States as a marathon dance contestant and singing "The Lady in Red" for tips. In 1936, she left the endurance contests, determined to become a professional singer. She started out as a chorus girl in such Uptown venues as the Celebrity Club and the Vanity Fair, then found work as a singer and waitress at the Ball of Fire, the Vialago, and the Planet Mars. At the Vialago, O'Day met the drummer Don Carter, who introduced her to music theory and whom she married in 1937. Her first big break came in 1938 when Down Beat editor Carl Cons hired her to work at his new club at 222 North State Street, the Off-Beat, which quickly became a popular hangout for musicians. While performing at the Off Beat, she met Gene Krupa, who promised to call her when Irene Daye, his current vocalist left his band.


Work with Krupa, Herman, and Kenton

The call from Krupa finally came in early 1941. Of the 34 sides she recorded with Krupa, it was "Let Me Off Uptown", a novelty duet with Roy Eldridge, that became her first big hit. That year, Down Beat named O'Day "New Star of the Year". In 1942, she appeared with the Krupa band in two "soundies" (short musical films), singing "Thanks for the Boogie Ride" and "Let Me Off Uptown". The same year Down Beat readers voted her into the top five big band singers. O'Day came in fourth, with Helen O'Connell first, Helen Forrest second, Billie Holiday third, and Dinah Shore fifth. O'Day married again in 1942, this time to golf pro and jazz fan Carl Hoff.

When Krupa's band broke up after his possession of marijuana arrest in 1943, O'Day joined Woody Herman for a month-long gig at the Hollywood Palladium, followed by two weeks at the Orpheum. Unwilling to tour with another big band, she left Herman after the Orpheum engagement and finished out the year as a solo artist. Despite her initial misgivings about the compatibility of their musical styles, she let herself be persuaded to join Stan Kenton's band in April of 1944. During her eleven months with Kenton, O'Day recorded 21 sides, both transcription and commercial, and appeared in a Universal Pictures short Artistry in Rhythm (1944). "And Her Tears Flowed Like Wine" became a huge seller and put Kenton's band on the map. She also appeared in one soundie with Kenton, performing "I'm Going Mad for a Pad" and "Tabby the Cat". O'Day later said, "My time with Stanley helped nurture and cultivate my innate sense of chord structure." In 1945 she rejoined Krupa's band and stayed almost a year. The reunion, unfortunately, yielded only ten sides. On two of these ("That Feeling in the Moonlight" and "Harriet") O'Day shared the mike with Buddy Stewart, an excellent bop-tinged singer whose promising career was cut short by an early death when he got out of his car to help a motorist in distress in 1950, and unfortunately was promptly run over. After leaving Krupa late in 1946, O'Day once again became a solo artist.


Post-war work and drug problems

During the late forties, she recorded two dozen sides, mostly for small labels. The quality of these singles varies: O'Day was trying to achieve popular success without sacrificing her identity as a jazz singer. Among the more notable recordings from this period are "Hi Ho Trailus Boot Whip", "Key Largo", "How High the Moon", and "Malaguena". O'Day's drug problems began to surface late in 1947, when she and her husband Carl Hoff were arrested for possession of marijuana and sentenced to 90 days in jail. Her career was back on the upswing in September 1948, when she sang with Count Basie at the Royal Roost in New York City, resulting in five airchecks. What secured O'Day's place in the jazz pantheon, however, are the seventeen albums she recorded for Norman Granz's Norgran and Verve labels between 1952 and 1962.

Her first album, Anita O'Day Sings Jazz (reissued as The Lady Is a Tramp), was recorded in 1952 for the newly established Norgran Records (it was also the label's first LP). The album was a critical success and further boosted her popularity. In October 1952 O'Day was again arrested for possession of marijuana, but found not guilty. The following March, she was arrested for possession of heroin. The case dragged on for most of 1953; O'Day was finally sentenced to six months in jail. Not long after her release from jail on February 25, 1954, she began work on her second album, Songs by Anita O'Day (reissued as An Evening with Anita O'Day). She recorded steadily throughout the fifties, accompanied by small combos and big bands. In person, O'Day was generally backed by a trio which included the drummer with whom she would work for the next 40 years, John Poole.

As a live performer O'Day also began performing in festivals and concerts with such musicians as Louis Armstrong, Oscar Peterson, Dinah Washington, George Shearing, Cal Tjader, and Thelonious Monk. She appeared in the documentary Jazz on a Summer's Day, filmed at the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival which increased her popularity. The following year O'Day made a cameo appearance in The Gene Krupa Story, singing "Memories of You". Late in 1959 she toured Europe with Benny Goodman. O'Day wrote in her 1981 autobiography that when Goodman's attempts to upstage her failed to diminish the audience's enthusiasm, he cut all but two of her numbers from the show.

After the Goodman fiasco, O'Day went back to touring as a solo artist. She recorded infrequently after the expiration of her Verve contract in 1962 and her career seemed over when she nearly died of a heroin overdose in 1968. After kicking the habit, she made a comeback at the 1970 Berlin Jazz Festival. She also appeared in the films Zig Zag (1970) and The Outfit (1974). She resumed making live and studio albums, many recorded in Japan, and several were released on her own label, Emily Records.

O'Day spoke candidly about her drug addiction in her 1981 memoir, High Times, Hard Times.

In 2005, her version of the standard, Sing, Sing, Sing was remixed by RSL and was included in the compilation album Verve Remixed 3, and 2006 saw her first album release in 13 years, entitled Indestructible!.

One of her best late-career audio performances "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?" opens the 2006 film "Shortbus" by John Cameron Mitchell.

A feature length documentary Anita O'Day: The Life of A Jazz Singer directed by Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 30, 2007. See preview, at [2]


Death

With her album Indestructible! released, and her new documentary already wrapped up for production, Anita O'Day was making a strong comeback. But in November 2006, Robbie Cavolina (manager) entered her into a West Hollywood, California convalescent hospital, while she recovered from pneumonia. Two days before her death, she had demanded to be released from the hospital. On Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 2006, Anita O'Day died in her sleep. The official cause of death, was deemed cardiac arrest.

Melina Mercouri
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Maria Amalia Mercouri
Born October 18, 1920(1920-10-18)
Athens, Greece
Died March 6, 1994 (aged 73), age 73
New York City, U.S.
Occupation Actress, Member of the Hellenic Parliament, Minister for Culture of Greece
Spouse(s) Panos Harokopos (1941-1962)
Jules Dassin (1966-1994)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Nominated: Best Actress
1960 Pote tin Kyriaki
BAFTA Awards
Nominated: Best Actress
1960 Pote tin Kyriaki
1962 Phaedra
Golden Globe Awards
Nominated: Best Actress - Motion Picture Drama
1963 Phaedra
1971 Promise at Dawn

Nominated: Best Actress - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy
1965 Topkapi


Melina Mercouri (Greek:Μελίνα Μερκούρη, born Maria Amalia Mercouri) (Athens, Greece, October 18, 1920 - New York City, March 6, 1994) was an Academy Award nominated Greek actress, singer, and political activist. She was a member of the Hellenic Parliament, and in 1981 she became the first female Minister for Culture in Greece.





Early life

The most important person in her early life was her grandfather Spyros Merkouris, who was mayor of Athens for many decades. Her father was a member of Parliament. The marriage of her parents ended when she was a youngster and she lived with her mother. Her uncle was George S. Mercouris, the leader of the Greek National Socialist Party who became during the Axis Occupation of Greece during WWII (1941-1944) the president of the Bank of Greece.

Her first lover was a Greek actor surnamed Papas, but she first married, as a teenager, Panos Harokopos. They married during the Second World War, and his wealth helped her to survive the Nazi occupation. She later maintained that although she loved her husband, their marriage was a mistake [citation needed].


Actress

Her first film, the Greek film Stella (1955), was directed by Michael Cacoyannis, the director of Zorba the Greek, and brought her to Cannes, where it was nominated for the Golden Palm. It did not win the prize, but she met there the man of her life, director Jules Dassin. Dassin and Mercouri lived together for the rest of her life. They had no children.

Melina became well-known to international audiences when she starred in the 1960 film Never on Sunday, directed by Jules Dassin. (The couple collaborated on its 1967 musical stage adaptation, Illya Darling, for which she received a Tony Award nomination, as well.) Nominated for an Academy Award for Never on Sunday, she went on to star in such films as Topkapi, Phaedra, and Gaily, Gaily. Mercouri retired from film acting in 1978. Her last film, A Dream of Passion, was directed, as were most of her films, by her husband Jules Dassin. Her co-star in the film was Ellen Burstyn. In 1980, she starred in the Greek production of Sweet Bird of Youth by Tennessee Williams, in the lead role, which had been originated on Broadway by Geraldine Page.


Singer

One of her first songs was by Manos Hadjidakis and Nikos Gatsos. It was titled Hartino to Fengaraki and was a part of the Greek production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1949, in which she starred as Blanche DuBois. The first official recording of this, now-legendary song was made by Nana Mouskouri in 1960, although the company Sirius, created by Manos Hadjidakis, issued in 2004 a recording that Melina made for French TV during the 1960s. Her recordings 'Athene ma Ville' and 'Melinaki' were popular in France. Her recording of 'Feggari mou, Agapi mou (Phaedra)' was quite popular and was later covered by Xaris Alexiou.


Politician

During the period of U.S.-backed military dictatorship in Greece (see Greek military junta of 1967-1974) from 1967 to 1974, Mercouri lived in France. When the dictatorship revoked her Greek citizenship, she said, "I was born a Greek and I will die a Greek. Mr. Pattakos was born a fascist and he will die a fascist." During those years she recorded four records in France, one with Greek lyrics and the other three with French lyrics, all created by Greek musicians. They were highly popular, and they are still critically acclaimed and remastered. Her husky and unusual voice made her the perfect performer of some great Greek songs which are known classics and performed by hundreds of singers.

When democracy returned to her home country, she returned, and became first a member of Parliament for PASOK. She later became the first female Minister of Culture in Greece in 1981, and served in that position for two terms until 1989. She took this office again in 1993, and served until 1994. In 1971, she wrote her autobiography, I Was Born Greek.


As Minister of Culture, she proposed the Cultural Capital of Europe ideal within the framework of cultural policy of the European Community. Athens inaugurated this institution in 1985. She advocated the return of the Parthenon Marbles, now a part of the British Museum collection, that Lord Elgin removed from the Acropolis. In anticipation of the return of the marbles, a new museum has been created under the Parthenon to host the collection and other pieces from the monument that are being removed and restored.


Death

Melina Mercouri died in 1994 in a New York hospital at the age of 73 from lung cancer, survived by her husband, Dassin. She had been a heavy smoker and when she died, hundreds of Greek citizens left her favourite brand of cigarettes as a memorial at her shrine.

Her body was returned to Athens and she received a state funeral equivalent to that of a Prime Minister. Thousands of Greeks attended the funeral.

George C. Scott
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name George Campbell Scott
Born October 18, 1927(1927-10-18)
Wise, Virginia
Died September 22, 1999 (aged 71)
Westlake Village, California
Spouse(s) Carolyn Hughes (1951-1955)
Patricia Reed (1955-1960)
Colleen Dewhurst (1960-1965, 1967-1972)
Trish Van Devere (1972-1999)
[show]Awards
Academy Awards
Best Actor
1970 Patton
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Lead Actor - Miniseries/Movie
1971 ITV Saturday Night Theatre: The Price (#3.16)
Outstanding Supporting Actor - Miniseries/Movie
1997 12 Angry Men
Golden Globe Awards
Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama
1971 Patton
Best Supporting Actor - Miniseries
1998 12 Angry Men

George Campbell Scott (October 18, 1927 - September 22, 1999) was a stage and film actor, director, and producer. He was best known for his Academy Award-winning portrayal of General George S. Patton Jr. in the film Patton, as well as for his flamboyant performance as General Buck Turgidson in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.




Early life

Scott was born in Wise, Virginia to George Dewey Scott (1902-1987) and Helena Agnes Scott (1904-1935), the only son and younger of their two children. His mother died just before his eighth birthday, and he was raised by his father, an executive at the Buick Motor Company.

As a young man, Scott's original ambition was to be a writer like his idol, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and while in high school, he wrote many short stories, none of which were ever published. As an adult, he tried on many occasions to write a novel, but was never able to complete one to his satisfaction. When asked by an interviewer in later life which contemporary novelists he admired, he replied, "I stopped reading novels when I stopped trying to write them."

Scott joined the U.S. Marine Corps, serving from 1945 until 1949, and was assigned to the prestigious 8th and I Barracks in Washington, D.C. In that capacity, he served as a ceremonial guard at Arlington National Cemetery and taught English literature and radio speaking/writing at the Marine Corps Institute. Scott later said that his duties at Arlington led to his drinking.

After his military service, Scott enrolled in the University of Missouri, where he majored in journalism and then became interested in drama; he left college after a year to pursue acting.


Broadway and film career

Scott began his acting career on Broadway, and achieved critical acclaim portraying the prosecutor in The Andersonville Trial by Saul Levitt. This was based on the military trial of the commandant of the infamous Civil War prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia. Scott's performance earned him a mention in Time magazine as a rising young actor of great intensity. In 1970 Scott directed a highly acclaimed television version of this same play. It starred William Shatner, Richard Basehart and Jack Cassidy who was nominated for an Emmy award for his performance as the defense lawyer in this production.

In 1963, Scott was top billed in the critically acclaimed CBS hour-long drama series East Side, West Side; he and co-star Cicely Tyson played urban social workers. Perhaps too gritty and stark for 1963, the show lasted only one season.

Scott also won an Obie Award for his performance as Richard III for the New York Shakespeare Festival, a performance one critic said was the "angriest" Richard III of all time.

Scott won wide public recognition in the film, Anatomy of a Murder, in which he played a wily prosecutor opposite Jimmy Stewart as the defense attorney. Scott was nominated for an Academy Award for best supporting actor; when he was notified of the nomination, he called the Academy Awards a "meat parade" or "meat race". He said, "Actors are the world's oldest, underprivileged minority - looked upon as nothing but buffoons, one step above thieves and charlatans. These award ceremonies simply compound the image for me."[citation needed]

Scott's most famous early role was in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, where he played the part of General "Buck" Turgidson. It is revealed on the DVD documentary that after having shot many takes of any given scene, Stanley Kubrick would frequently ask Scott to redo it in an "over the top" fashion. Kubrick would then proceed to use this version in the final cut, which Scott supposedly resented. However, Kubrick did earn Scott's respect on this film, since by that time, Scott was an accomplished chess player. The cast and crew noted they would often play chess between takes, and Kubrick was the only person who could routinely beat Scott.

Scott's portrayal of the swaggering and controversial General Patton in the 1970 film Patton has become, to many, his most iconic performance. Scott had researched extensively for the role, studying films of the general and talking to those who knew him. Having declined an Academy Award nomination for his appearance in the 1961 film, The Hustler, Scott returned his Oscar for Patton, stating in a letter to the Academy that he didn't feel himself to be in competition with other actors. However, also regarding this second rejection of the Academy Award, Scott famously said elsewhere, "The whole thing is a goddamn meat parade. I don't want any part of it." [1] In the mid-80s, Scott reprised his role as Patton for a television movie. At the time that sequel was aired, Scott mentioned in a TV Guide interview that he had verbally told the Academy to donate his Oscar to the Patton Museum; since the instructions were never put in writing, it was never delivered. The Oscar is currently displayed in a museum at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia, the institution that generations of Pattons have attended.

Sixteen years later, Scott reprised his Patton title role in a made-for-television sequel, The Last Days of Patton, which was produced in 1986. The movie was based on Patton's final weeks after being mortally injured in a car accident, with flashbacks of Patton's life.

In 1971, Scott gave two more critically acclaimed performances, as a de facto Sherlock Holmes in They Might Be Giants, and as an alcoholic doctor in the black comedy The Hospital. Despite his repeated snubbing of the Academy, Scott was again nominated for Best Actor for the latter role. Scott excelled on television that year as well, appearing in an adaptation of Arthur Miller's The Price, an installment of the Hallmark Hall of Fame anthology. Scott was nominated for, and won, an Emmy Award for his role, which he accepted. Scott's reasoning for keeping an Emmy after rejecting an Oscar was believed to be because the Emmy Award winners were chosen by blue-ribbon panels of experts, while Academy Award winners were chosen by the entire Academy membership.

The actor also starred in the popular 1980 horror film The Changeling, with Melvyn Douglas. He received the Canadian Genie Award for Best Foreign Film Actor for his performance. [1]

In 1984, Scott was cast in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in a television adaptation of A Christmas Carol. Critics and the public alike praised his performance. Some have said his Scrooge ranks alongside Alastair Sim's portrayal. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for the role.

In 1990, he voiced the villain Smoke in the TV special Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue, where his character was alongside popular cartoon characters like Bugs Bunny. That same year, he voice acted the villain Percival McLeach in the Disney film, The Rescuers Down Under. The following year, he hosted the TV series Weapons At War on A&E TV, but was replaced after one season by Gerald McRaney for the last two seasons. Weapons At War moved to The History Channel with Scott still being shown as host for the first season. His episodes would be replaced by Robert Conrad in 2000 after Scott's death the previous year.

Scott had a reputation for being moody and mercurial while on the set. "There is no question you get pumped up by the recognition," he once said, "Then a self-loathing sets in when you realise you're enjoying it." He said he'd seen a psychiatrist four times, "I kept laughing. I couldn't get serious. If it helps you, it helps you. If standing on your head on the roof helps you, it helps you - if you think so." There is a famous anecdote that one of his stage co-stars, Maureen Stapleton, told the director of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite: "I don't know what to do, I am scared of him." The director, Mike Nichols, replied, "My dear, everyone is scared of George C. Scott!"

Scott's favorite film actress was Bette Davis, whom he called "my bloody idol."


Private life

Scott was married five times:

Carolyn Hughes (1951-1955) (one daughter, Victoria, born December 19, 1952)
Patricia Reed (1955-1960) (two children: Matthew - born May 27, 1957 - and actress Devon Scott - born November 29, 1958).
The Canadian-born actress Colleen Dewhurst, by whom he had two sons, writer Alexander Scott (born August 1960), and actor Campbell Scott (born July 19, 1961). Dewhurst nicknamed her husband "G.C.". (1960-1965)
He remarried Colleen Dewhurst on July 4, 1967, but divorced for a second time on February 2, 1972.
The American actress Trish Van Devere on September 4, 1972, with whom he starred in several films, including the supernatural thriller The Changeling (1980). They were estranged at the time of his death.
He also had a daughter, Michelle, born August 21, 1954, with Karen Truesdell.

George C. Scott died on September 22, 1999 at the age of 71 from a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Westwood, California. He is buried next to Walter Matthau, in an unmarked grave. [2]

Inger Stevens
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Born October 18, 1934
Stockholm Sweden
Died April 30, 1970

Spouse(s) Anthony Soglio
Ike Jones

Inger Stevens ( October 18, 1934 - April 30, 1970) was a Golden Globe-winning, Emmy-nominated Swedish-American movie and TV actress.

Stevens, born Inger Stensland, in Stockholm, Sweden, was an insecure and often ill child. Her parents divorced while living in Sweden and she moved with her father to the United States. She attended high school in Manhattan, Kansas. At 16, she left home and started to work in New York City as a showgirl in low-budget performances. At the same time she took lessons at the Actors Studio.

Later she made appearances in commercials, plays and TV until she finally got her big chance in the movie Man on Fire, with Bing Crosby. She was also romantically linked to Crosby.

Several roles in major films followed, but she had the greatest success with her leading role in the television series The Farmer's Daughter, and also with roles in TV episodes of series like Bonanza, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour and The Twilight Zone. Ironically, in both of her Twilight Zone performances, she portrays protagonists who believe they are living women but discover they aren't alive after all: in one episode, she is an unwitting ghost; in the other, she is a robot programmed to believe she is human.

After The Farmer's Daughter was cancelled in 1966, Inger concentrated on making movies. The best known of her movie roles were the westerns Hang 'Em High with Clint Eastwood in 1968, 5 Card Stud with Dean Martin and Madigan with Henry Fonda and Richard Widmark, each the same year. Inger made plans on making a comeback on TV in 1970 with the detective drama series The Most Deadly Game.


Death

Miss Stevens, although attractive, seemingly pleasant and successful, was an unhappy woman. She committed suicide in Los Angeles, California with an overdose of barbiturates in 1970. It then became known that from 1961 to her death she had been married to Ike Jones, a black American actor. Her first husband was Anthony Soglio, to whom she was married from 1955 to 1957. It was rumored that she'd had less-than-satisfactory affairs with several Hollywood actors, including Anthony Quinn, throughout her career.

She dated Burt Reynolds shortly before her suicide. Reynolds politely refuses to discuss any aspect of his relationship with Stevens.

Peter Boyle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Peter Lawrence Boyle
Born October 18, 1935(1935-10-18)
Norristown, Pennsylvania
Died December 12, 2006 (aged 71)
New York City
Years active 1966 - 2006
Spouse(s) Loraine Alterman (1977-2006)
[show]Awards
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series
1996 The X-Files

Peter Lawrence Boyle (October 18, 1935 - December 12, 2006)[1][2] was an Emmy Award-winning American actor who is perhaps best known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. He is also well known for his roles in the 1974 film, Young Frankenstein and Taxi Driver in 1976. He won praise for both comedic and dramatic roles following his breakthrough performance in the 1970 film Joe.





Biography

Early life and career

Born in Norristown, Pennsylvania, Boyle later moved to nearby Philadelphia.[3] Of Irish descent, he was the son of Peter Boyle, Sr., a Philadelphia TV personality from 1951-1963 who, among many other things, played the Western-show host Chuck Wagon Pete, and hosted the popular afterschool children's program Uncle Pete Presents the Little Rascals, which showed vintage Little Rascals and Three Stooges comedy shorts and Popeye cartoons.[4]

Boyle attended St. Francis de Sales school and West Philadelphia Catholic High School. After high school Boyle spent three years as a novice of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, or De La Salle Brothers, a Catholic teaching order. He lived in a house of studies with other novices and earned a BA from La Salle University in Philadelphia in 1957, but left the order because he did not feel called to religious life.[5][6] After spending time in the navy and graduating from Officer Candidate School in 1959, he was commissioned as an ensign in the United States Navy, but his military career was shortened by a nervous breakdown.[7]

In New York City, he studied acting with famed acting coach Uta Hagen while working as a postal clerk and a maitre d'.[8] He went on to play Murray the cop in a touring company of Neil Simon's The Odd Couple, leaving the tour in Chicago, Illinois and joining The Second City improv comedy ensemble there.[8] He had a brief scene as the manager of an indoor shooting range in the critically acclaimed 1969 film Medium Cool, filmed in Chicago.


Screen and theater

His first starring role was as the title character in the 1970 movie Joe, in which Boyle played a bigoted New York City factory worker to wide acclaim. The film's release was surrounded by controversy over its violence and language. It was during this time that Boyle became close friends with the actress Jane Fonda, and with her he participated in many protests against the Vietnam War. After seeing people cheer at his role in Joe, Boyle refused the lead role in The French Connection (1971),[9] as well as other movie and TV roles that he believed glamorized violence. His next major role was as the campaign manager for a U.S. Senate candidate (Robert Redford) in The Candidate (1972).

Boyle had another hit role as Frankenstein's monster in the 1974 Mel Brooks comedy Young Frankenstein, in which, in an homage to King Kong, the monster is placed onstage in top hat and tails, grunt-singing and dancing to the song "Puttin' on the Ritz". Boyle said at the time, "The Frankenstein monster I play is a baby. He's big and ugly and scary, but he's just been born, remember, and it's been traumatic, and to him the whole world is a brand new alien environment. That's how I'm playing it".[8]

Boyle received his first Emmy nomination for his acclaimed dramatic performance in the 1977 television film Tail Gunner Joe, in which he played Senator Joseph McCarthy, who led the Communist witch hunts in the 1950s. Yet he was more often cast as a character actor than as a leading man.


Boyle portrays Oscar Zeta Acosta alongside Bill Murray in the 1980 film Where the Buffalo RoamHis roles include the philosophical cab driver "Wizard" in Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), starring Robert De Niro; the attorney of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson (played by Bill Murray) in Where the Buffalo Roam (1980); a corrupt space mining-facility boss in the science-fiction film Outland (1981), opposite Sean Connery; Boatswain Moon in the 1983 pirate comedy Yellowbeard, also starring Cheech and Chong, Madeline Kahn, and members of the comedy troupe Monty Python's Flying Circus; a mental patient who belts out a Ray Charles song in the comedy The Dream Team (1989), starring Michael Keaton; the title character's cab driver in The Shadow (1994), starring Alec Baldwin; the father of Sandra Bullock's fiancee in While You Were Sleeping (1995); the hateful father of Billy Bob Thornton's prison-guard character in Monster's Ball (2001); and Old Man Wickles in the comedy Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed (2004). In cameo roles, he can be seen as a tough police officer in Malcolm X (1992), and as a drawbridge operator in Porky's Revenge (1985). In 1992, he starred in Alex Cox's Death and the Compass, an adaptation of Jorge Luis Borges' La Muerte y la Brujula. However, the film was not released until 1996.

His New York theater work included playing a comedian who is the object of The Roast, a 1980 Broadway play directed by Carl Reiner. Also in 1980 he co-starred with Tommy Lee Jones in an Off-Broadway production of playwright Sam Shepard's acclaimed True West. Two years later, Boyle played the head of a dysfunctional family in Joe Pintauro's less well-received Snow Orchid, at the Circle Repertory.

In 1986, Boyle played the title role of the acclaimed but short-lived TV series Joe Bash, created by Danny Arnold (Barney Miller). A comedy-drama that followed the life of lonely, world-weary, and sometimes compromised New York City beat cop whose closest friend was a prostitute played by actress DeLane Matthews.[10]


Later life and career

In 1990, Boyle suffered a stroke that rendered him speechless for six months. After recovering, he went on to win an Emmy Award in 1996 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his appearance on The X-Files. In the episode, "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", he played an insurance salesman who can see selected things in the near future, particularly others' deaths. Boyle also guest starred in two episodes as Bill Church in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

Boyle was perhaps most widely known for his role as the deadpan, cranky Frank Barone in the popular CBS television sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, which aired from 1996 to 2005. The show was shot in Los Angeles, to which Boyle commuted from his New York City home. He was nominated for an Emmy seven times for this role, but never won (beaten out multiple times in the Supporting Actor category by his co-star Brad Garrett), though fellow co-stars Garrett, Ray Romano, Patricia Heaton, and Boyle's TV wife Doris Roberts won at least one Emmy each for their performances.

In 1999, he had a heart attack on the set of Everybody Loves Raymond. He soon regained his health and returned to the series.

In 2005 and 2006 he made several appearances on the Comedy Central show Mind of Mencia as himself, mostly delivering "cranky old person" one-liners. Show host Carlos Mencia gave a short tribute to Boyle consisting of his most memorable jokes on the show at the beginning of its third season in 2007.


Death

On December 12, 2006, Boyle died in New York City at New York Presbyterian Hospital after suffering from multiple myeloma and heart disease.

At the time of his death, Boyle had completed the film All Roads Lead Home, and was scheduled to appear in the film Chatham. His final film "The Santa Clause 3" said at the end of the credits "Dedicated To The Memory Of Peter Boyle".

Pam Dawber
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Birth name Pam Dawber
Born October 18, 1951 (1951-10-18) (age 56)
Farmington Hills, Michigan, U.S.
Spouse(s) Mark Harmon

Pam Dawber (October 18, 1951 in Farmington Hills, Michigan) is an American actress, best known for her role as Mindy McConnell in Mork & Mindy.





Biography

Pam Dawber attended North Farmington High School and Oakland Community College and began her career as a fashion model with Wilhelmina and went on to a career as an actress. Her character was the comedic foil and eventual love interest for Robin Williams' character, Mork from the planet "Ork". Dawber parodied her Mork & Mindy character in the 1992 movie Stay Tuned. Dawber later starred in her own series as Samantha Russell on My Sister Sam, which ran on CBS from 1986 to 1988.

Dawber has a four-octave soprano voice. She featured as Mabel, in a Los Angeles Civic Light Opera production (based on the Joseph Papp/New York Shakespeare Festival production) of Gilbert & Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance.

Pam Dawber is a national spokeswoman for Big Brothers Big Sisters of America.


Personal life

She is married to actor Mark Harmon, with whom she has two sons: Sean Thomas Harmon (born April 26, 1988) and Tyrone "Ty" Christian Harmon (born June 25, 1992).

Jean-Claude Van Damme
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Birth name Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg
Born October 18, 1960 (1960-10-18) (age 47)
Sint-Agatha-Berchem, Brussels, Belgium
Other name(s) JCVD
"The Muscles from Brussels"
"Wham Bam Van Damme"
Official site http://www.jeanclaude-vandamme.com
[show]Awards
Golden Raspberry Awards
Worst Screen Couple
1997 Double Team
with Dennis Rodman

Jean-Claude Van Damme (born October 18, 1960) is a Belgian-born martial artist and actor who is best known for his large catalogue of action movies. His Belgian background combined with his physique gave rise to his nickname "The Muscles from Brussels". Van Damme has also been called the "King of the Belgians" due to his international superstardom.

He currently lives in Alhaurín el Grande (Spain).




Biography

Early life

Van Damme was born Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg in Sint-Agatha-Berchem, in the Brussels-Capital Region, to Eliana and Eugene Van Varenberg, a belgian man, and an accountant and owner of a flower shop.[1][2] He began martial arts at the age of ten, enrolled by his father in a shotokan karate school.[3] He eventually earned his black belt in karate,[4] later winning the European Professional Karate Association's middleweight championship[3] (although he has claimed that he was "twice world champion"[5]). He also started lifting weights to improve his physique, which eventually led to a Mr. Belgium bodybuilding title.[6] At the age of 16 he took up ballet, which he studied for five years. He says of ballet that it "is an art, but it's also one of the most difficult sports. If you can survive a ballet workout, you can survive a workout in any other sport."[7]

At the age of 18, Van Damme opened up the California Gym in Brussels, which one article claimed brought in $15,000 a month.[7] Van Damme was first seen on screen in the French-made Rue Barbare, released in 1984, followed in the same year with Monaco Forever, where he was credited as 'Very Gay Karate Man'[8]. This gave Van Damme the impetus to give up his profitable fitness business in favor of acting. He sold his gym business and left for America in the early 1980s (having first tried Hong Kong), initially sleeping in a rented car and doing odd jobs until he broke into film.[7]


Fight career

Jean-Claude's karate teacher and coach was Claude Goetz in Brussels, Belgium. Under Goetz's guidance, Van Damme developed an impressive array of kicks and strikes. Van Damme has also studied Taekwondo and Muay Thai, along with Shotokan Karate. A young man by the name of Salim fought by his side, and rumor has it that Salim is his twin brother.

In 1978, at the age of 18, Jean-Claude made his full-contact karate debut under his birth name, Jean Claude Van Varenberg. Entering a tournament in Antwerp, Belgium in the Novice Division, Jean-Claude scored three victories;an 18 second knockout over Germany's Eric "Basel" Strauss, a default over Michel Juvillier, and a 26 second stoppage of Orlando Lang. A few months later at a tournament in Iseghem, Belgium, Van Damme knocked out both Emile Leibman and Cyrille Nollet in the first round.

After fighting on the under-card of the main event between France's Dominique Valera and the U.S.A.'s Dan Macaruso in Brussels, Belgium, in which he knocked out a fighter named Verlugels in 2 rounds, Van Damme started to catch the attention of the Martial Arts World. According to Mike Anders, founder of Professional Karate Magazine, and multiple European Champion Geet Lemmens, Van Damme was definitely an upcoming prospect.

In 1979, the nineteen year old Jean-Claude (fighting under his birth name of Van Varenberg) won the European Full-Contact Championship in the middleweight division. A series of quick knockouts over Andre Robaeys, Jacques Piniarski, and Rolf Risberg, prepared Jean-Claude for the up-coming world championships in the United States.

Traveling to Orlando, Florida in the United States, Jean-Claude set his sights on winning the World Full-Contact Middleweight Title. In his first tournament match, Van Damme scored a first round stoppage over U.S.A.'s Sherman Bergman(Miami Beach, Florida). In his second match, he stopped Gil Diaz (Madrid, Spain)in the opening round. However, in the quarter-finals, Jean-Claude was defeated by a Belgian fighter named Patrick Teugels. Teugels went on to become Vice-Champion of the World. In a rematch in Brussels a few months later, Van Damme avenged his only defeat by stopping Teugels in less than two minutes. Following the victory, Jean-Claude retired from active competition with a 14-1 (13 knockouts) record.

Controversy arose after Jean-Claude's film career took off because none of his fights were found. The basic fact seems to be that his entire full-contact career was fought under his birth name of Van Varenberg, thus there are no fights listed for a Jean Claude Van Damme.


Early films

Van Damme appeared as an extra in Breakin' during one of the breakdance scenes. In 1985, he played Ivan Krushensky in No Retreat, No Surrender, which starred Kurt McKinney in the starring role. The director of the film, Patrick Passis, was a close friend.

Van Damme was scheduled to play the part of the camouflaged extraterrestrial monster in the Arnold Schwarzenegger action film Predator, but wearing the heavy alien costume in the jungle was too difficult, and Van Damme, unhappy with his role, left the production. How he left the picture is disputed: some sources say he quit, others say he was replaced when the character was revised. Van Damme claims he intentionally got fired so he could move on to other movies by intentionally injuring a stuntman according to Jesse Ventura's autobiography.

Van Damme's breakthrough role came in Bloodsport, a film that earned him a nomination as "Worst New Star" in the 1988 Golden Raspberry Awards. The critics were unimpressed, but Bloodsport proved to be Van Damme's stepping stone to more lucrative roles. The movie became a cult classic and is seen as one of the major contributors to the rise in popularity of Mixed Martial Arts.

Van Damme became well known for his ability to do full splits while performing stunts, and his better than average flexibility, even for a martial arts practitioner. Many of his movies feature scenes showcasing him performing such splits.


Mainstream films

Van Damme worked his way up to Hollywood mainstream in the 1990s, often working with acclaimed foreign directors. Notable films include Kickboxer (1989), Double Impact (1991), Universal Soldier (1992), Nowhere to Run (1993), Hard Target (1993), Sudden Death (1995) and his most critically acclaimed work, Timecop (1994). Many of these roles included doppelgänger or Lazarus themes involving Van Damme's characters, an aspect unusual for the action movie genre. These films have earned over $1 billion worldwide, earning him a place in the action film world along with others like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

He also wrote, directed and starred in The Quest (1996).


Health

Van Damme had troubles with cocaine and pot and ecstacy during 1993, entering a month-long rehab program in 1996 but leaving it only after a week.[9] He is also reported to have experienced bipolar disorder.[9] A turning point in his health issues came in late 1997, after having signed divorce papers charging him with spousal abuse, drug addiction and bizarre sexual practices.

" The former action hero says he had bipolar disorder but didn't know it until he became suicidal. He was diagnosed with rapid-cycling bipolar disorder and was placed on sodium valproate, which he calls "that simple salt". "



On-screen nudity

Van Damme has had nude appearances in many of his films, though his nudity has only been shown from the rear. He first appeared nude in Bloodsport, with numerous such appearances in his subsequent films, including a lengthy one in Universal Soldier.

Van Damme has expressed pride in his body and especially his posterior, often citing the appeal of his body. Van Damme is on record as saying, "If you have a decent body why not show it? I'm very proud of my butt. My close friend Stashe greatly approves of it. He's a big fan." This was the subject of parody in the television show Friends, where Van Damme, guest-starring as himself, tells Rachel and Monica that "I can crush a walnut with my butt."


An "abstract thinker"

In the French-speaking world, Van Damme is well known for the picturesque aphorisms that he delivers on a wide range of topics (personal well-being, ecology, etc.) in a strange mixture of French and English. [10] He is especially well known for his use of the English word aware when speaking French. While delivering an interview for a French channel, he used the English word "aware" in order to introduce the notion of self-awareness as a key of success.


Marriages

Van Damme has been married five times, including two marriages with his current wife, bodybuilder and fitness competitor Gladys Portugues.

Gladys Portugues (25 June 1999 - present)
Darcy LaPier (3 February 1994 - November 1997) (divorced) 1 child
Gladys Portugues (3 January 1987 - 1992) (divorced) 2 children
Cynthia Derderian (24 August 1985 - 1986) (divorced)
Maria Rodriguez (25 August 1980 - 1984) (divorced)

A pregnant woman from Washington, D.C. gets in a car accident and falls into a deep coma. Asleep for nearly six months, when she wakes up she sees that she is no longer pregnant and frantically asks the doctor about her baby. The doctor replies, "Ma'am you had twins! A boy and a girl. Your brother from Maryland came in and named them." The woman thinks to herself, "No, not my brother... he's an idiot!"

She asks the doctor, "Well, what's the girl's name?"

"Denise."

"Wow, that's not a bad name, I like it! What's the boy's name?"

"Denephew"

Good Morning WA2K.






Have a Great Day all.

Good morning, Boston Bob. Great bio's today, hawkman. Always liked George C. Scott. One of the veteran broadcasters that worked with Bud in TV played bridge with the guy.

Another interesting observation, folks, I think my friend Phil told me that Claude had a bit of a conflict with the guy who created Hawaiian Tropics tanning lotion. Need to check it out, but I think that mogol's posh place is right here in Florida.

Loved the idiot names for the twins. I guess there's an idiot in ever family, right?

Well, folks, a lot of people have done this song, but I think Anita O'Day did the original. (banned in some studios)

(Cole Porter)
Love for sale
Advertising young love for sale
Love that's fresh and still unspoiled
Love that's only slightly soiled
Love - yes come get my love because it's right here for sale

Who will buy
Who would like to sample my supply
Who's prepared to pay the price
For a trip to paradise
Love for sale

Let the poets pipe of love in their childish way
I've known every type of love better far than they
If you want the thrill of love,
I've been through the mill of love
Old love, new love, every love but true

Love for sale
Advertising young love for sale
If you want to buy my wares
Follow me and climb the stairs
Love for sale

Oops, folks. Missed our Raggedy's gallery stuff. Thanks, PA. If the hawk is here can the pup be far behind? Great collage, and thank you.

Well, folks. My sources say that today is also Wynton Marsalis' birthday. I have spent all morning trying to locate some of his songs with not much luck. How odd to me that the most fabulous jazz and classical musican of all times should be so hard to find.

This may be his as I did find one site that alluded to his having written it, but if not, I will apologize in advance.



A Ghost in the House

I don't pick up the mail
I don't pick up the phone
I don't answer the door
I'd just as soon be alone
I don't keep this place up
I just keep the lights down
I don't live in these rooms
I just rattle around

I'm just a ghost in this house
I'm just a shadow upon these walls
As quietly as a mouse I haunt these halls
I'm just a whisper of smoke
I'm all that's left of two hearts on fire
That once burned out of control
You took my body and soul
I'm just a ghost in this house

I don't care if it rains
I don't care if it's clear
I don't mind stayin' in
There's another ghost here
He sits down in your chair
And he shines with your light
And he lays down his head
On your pillow at night

I'm just a ghost in this house
I'm just a shadow upon these walls
I'm living proof of the damage heartbreak does
I'm just a whisper of smoke
I'm all that's left of two hearts on fire
That once burned out of control
And took my body and soul
I'm just a ghost in this house

Oh, I'm just a ghost in this house

I Don't Stand A Ghost Of A Chance With You

I need your love so badly
I love you oh so madly
But I don't stand a ghost of a chance with you
I thought at last I found you
But other loves surround you
And I don't stand a ghost of a chance with you
If you'd surrender
Just for a tender
Kiss or two
You might discover
That I'm the lover
Meant for you
And I'd be true
But what's the good of scheming
I'm dreaming
For I don't stand a ghost of a chance with you
Cuz I don't stand
A ghost of a chance
With you

Frank Sinatra

even though it's dark outside ... the sun is shining somewhere !

Great "ghost" song, edgar. Love it as well. Thanks buddy, and I love the way the melody progresses from minor to major in the chord changes.

Bridge, of course, is all major.

Here's and eerie one, folks, and it has great chord structure as well. Funny that the entire song is written in a major key.

LAURIE (STRANGE THINGS HAPPEN)
(Milton C. Addington / Cathie Harmon)

Dickey Lee - 1965



Last night at the dance I met Laurie
So lovely and warm, an angel of a girl
Last night I fell in love with Laurie
Strange things happen in this world

As I walked her home, she said it was her birthday
I pulled her close and said, "Will I see you anymore?"
Then suddenly she asked for my sweater
And said that she was very, very cold

I kissed her goodnight at her door and started home
Then thought about my sweater and went right back instead
I knocked at her door and a man appeared
I told him why I'd come, then he said

"You're wrong, son, you weren't with my daughter
How can you be so cruel to come to me this way?
My Laurie left this world on her birthday
She died a year ago today"

A strange force drew me to the graveyard
I stood in the dark, I saw the shadows wave
And then I looked and saw my sweater
Lyin' there upon her grave

Strange things happen in this world


TRIVIA:
This song was inspired by a ghost story written for a Memphis
newspaper by 15-year-old Cathie Harmon.

Her story may have been inspired by the legend of "Resurrection
Mary", described as a shy young woman with very cold hands. A number
of young men reportedly encountered her at dance parties in Chicago
beginning in the 1930s. Escorted or given a ride home, she typically
asked to be dropped off at Resurrection Cemetery on Archer Avenue,
asking her escort not to follow her. In 1939 a man named Jerry Palus
met her at the Liberty Grove dance hall and she told him her actual
home address. Going there the following day, he found an older woman
who verified that she had had such a daughter, who had died many
years before. Her picture was identical to the girl Jerry had
escorted to the graveyard.

Deborah Kerr, the acclaimed British actress whose versatile talent and refined screen persona made her one of Hollywood's top leading ladies in the 1950s in films such as "From Here to Eternity," "The King and I" and "An Affair to Remember," has died. She was 86.

Kerr, who in recent years suffered from Parkinson's disease, died Tuesday in Suffolk, eastern England, her agent said today.

Kerr received an honorary Oscar in 1994 for her body of work in films that also included "Tea and Sympathy," "Beloved Infidel" and "The Night of the Iguana." The award paid tribute to "an artist of impeccable grace and beauty, a dedicated actress whose motion picture career has always stood for perfection, discipline and elegance."

The Scotland-born Kerr, who began her film career in England in 1940 and had been in 10 films before coming to Hollywood to co-star with Clark Gable in the 1947 MGM film "The Hucksters," was the postwar personification of the British gentlewoman.

Indeed, when she arrived in Hollywood after playing a nun in the British film "Black Narcissus," she not only was preceded by her reputation as a lady but for being, in the words of Laurence Olivier, "unreasonably chaste."

But Kerr memorably shattered her ladylike image in 1953 with "From Here to Eternity," in which she played an American Army officer's adulterous wife who has an affair with a first sergeant played by Burt Lancaster.

Her performance as the disillusioned Karen Holmes not only showed audiences a different side of Kerr, but the film boasts one of the most memorable shots in screen history: Kerr and Lancaster locked in a passionate embrace on a deserted Hawaiian beach as a wave washes over them.

"That certainly shook a few people up," Kerr said of her image-breaking role in a 1986 interview with the Chicago Tribune.

"Yes, people always think I'm the epitome of the English gentlewoman," she added with a laugh, "which just goes to show that things are never quite what they seem."

Kerr's versatility as an actress made her unique among Hollywood leading ladies of the 1950s, said Jeanine Basinger, head of the film studies program at Wesleyan University and the author of "A Woman's View: How Hollywood Spoke to Women."

"Generally, you had sort of archetypes: female stars that were sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe and female stars that were ladylike like Audrey Hepburn. Deborah Kerr could do both," Basinger told The Times a few years ago. "She could play a sexy role, as in 'From Here to Eternity,' and also play a nun, as in 'Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison.' "

But even while playing an adulterer in from "From Here to Eternity," Kerr is dignified, Basinger said. "She could give you the whole range in one performance, and that made her unique."

She was born Deborah Jane Kerr Trimmer in Helensburgh, Scotland, on Sept. 30, 1921, and was still a young child when her family moved to Alford, England.

Kerr, who loved to sing and dance as a child, won a scholarship to the Sadler's Wells ballet school in London and made her professional stage debut in 1938 as a member of the corps de ballet in "Prometheus."

"I was mad about ballet, but I grew too tall, and when I eventually realized I'd never become the second Margot Fonteyn, I auditioned for a play instead and got the part," she told the Chicago Tribune in 1986.

Kerr was playing walk-on parts with the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park in 1939 when London film agent John Gliddon saw the company's production of "Pericles," in which Kerr had a tiny role as a page boy who pours wine for his mistress. Kerr had no lines, but Gliddon later said he was so taken with the expressiveness of her eyes and her graceful movements, which suggested ballet training, that he sought her out afterward. Telling her that he thought she was "star material," Gliddon offered to put her under contract. Kerr was not yet 18.

Her film debut came in 1941, when Kerr played a Salvation Army worker in a screen adaptation of the George Bernard Shaw comedy "Major Barbara," starring Wendy Hiller and Rex Harrison.

Kerr's small but key role as Jenny Hill was, according to Eric Braun in his 1977 biography "Deborah Kerr," "a signpost to the kind of part in which she would excel -- moral fortitude concealed by a frail appearance."

In 1945, Kerr joined a touring company that performed "Gaslight" for British troops in France, Holland and Belgium. At a party in Brussels, she met Royal Air Forces squadron leader Anthony Bartley. They were married in November 1945 and had two daughters. The marriage ended in divorce in 1959; a year later Kerr married screenwriter and novelist Peter Viertel, who survives her, as do her two daughters and three grandchildren.