I Grew Up On Great Movies
The Wild One - 1951
Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 July 1, 2004) was an Academy Award-winning American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He is widely considered one of the greatest actors of all time, and was named the fourth Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute.
John Wayne and Humphrey Bogart
Vintage Clint Eastwood
Singing In The Rain
Easter Williams and Abott and Costello
Did you know? - illiams was born in Inglewood, California to Bula Myrtle Gilpin and Louis Stanton Williams. She was enthusiastic about swimming in her youth. She was National AAU champion in the 100 meter freestyle. Williams went to Hollywood, where she quickly became a popular star of the 1940s and 1950s. Her brother, Stanton Williams, also had a brief acting career during the 1920s before his untimely death while still a teenager. Esther was a graduate of Glendale High School (Glendale, California), class of 1939.
She appeared with swimming star Johnny Weismuller in Billy Rose's "Aquacade" during the San Francisco World's Fair, 1939-41, where she first attracted attention from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer scouts, as she noted in her autobiography. She also had to fend off the amorous attentions of Weismuller, whom she said acted as if he were Tarzan on and off the screen.
Did you know? - William (Bud) Abbott and Lou Costello (born Louis Francis Cristillo) performed together as Abbott and Costello, an American comedy duo whose work in radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s and 50's. Thanks to the endurance of their most popular and influential routine, "Who's on First?"3Ê4whose rapid-fire word play and comprehension confusion set the preponderant framework for most of their best-known routines3Ê4the team is, as a result, featured in the Baseball Hall of Fame. (Contrary to popular belief, however, the duo was not inducted into the Hall.)
Did you know? - Mae West (August 17, 1893 - November 22, 1980) was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol.
Known for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in Vaudeville and on the stage in New York before moving to Hollywood to become a comedienne, actress and writer in the motion picture industry. One of the more controversial stars of her day, West encountered many problems including censorship.
She was prosecuted on morals charges and, on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to ten days for "corrupting the morals of youth". While incarcerated on Welfare Island (now known as Roosevelt Island), she dined with the warden and his wife and told reporters that she wore her silk underpants while serving time.[30] She served eight days with two days off for good behavior. Media attention about the case enhanced her career.
During World War II, Allied soldiers called their yellow inflatable, vest-like life preserver jackets "Mae Wests" partly from rhyming slang for "breasts" or "life vest" and partly because of the resemblance to her curvaceous torso
Anima House
Did you know? - Early casting ideas included Chevy Chase, Bill Murray, Brian Doyle-Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and John Belushi. Of these five comedians, only Belushi was cast and he received $35,000 for the film with a bonus after it became a hit. Much of the cast, including the likes of Karen Allen and Kevin Bacon, were struggling actors just starting out. The studio hated Landis's choices and wanted to cast dramatic actors as well as comedians. The actors who played the Deltas arrived five days before principal photography in order to bond with each other and get into character, including separating themselves from the actors playing the Omegas, which helped generate authentic animosity between them on camera.
Upon its initial release, Animal House received positive review from critics and Time magazine proclaimed it one of the year's best. It is considered to be the movie that launched the gross-out genre, although it was predated by several films now also included in the genre. Produced on a small $2.7 million budget, the film has turned out to be one of the most profitable movies of all time. Since its initial release, Animal House has garnered an estimated return of more than $141 million in the form of video and DVDs, not including merchandising.
Did you know? - Planet of the Apes (1968) was a groundbreaking science fiction film based on Boulle's novel, and was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starred Charlton Heston. It was the vision of producer Arthur P. Jacobs, who commissioned Rod Serling to write the script, but the final version would be written by Michael Wilson. Jacobs enlisted Heston (who enlisted Schaffner) well before any production deal was made, and Heston's star status was instrumental in gaining support for the film. They gained the support of Mort Abrahams after producing a short film demo which showed that the makeups (initially created by Ben Nye, Sr., not to be confused with the design by John Chambers for the actual film) could be convincing enough to not appear funny, as most "monkey suits" up to that time had. In the English-language films, the apes are insulted when called "monkeys," but in the original book, no distinction is made because "singes" is a French word for both "apes" and "monkeys".There were four sequels to Schaffner's film, creating a pentalogy, which also deviate from the finer points of the storyline in Boulle's book:
- Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
- Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
- Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
- Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
Jimmy Cagney
Did you know? - Cagney became President of the Screen Actors Guild in 1942 for a two year term. He took an active role in the Guild's work against the Mafia, which had taken an active interest in the movie industry. Having failed to scare Cagney and the Guild off3Ê4having on one occasion phoned Billie to tell her that Cagney was dead 3Ê4 Cagney alleged that they sent a hit man to kill him by dropping a heavy light onto his head. On hearing about the rumor of the hit, George Raft made a call, and the hit was canceled.
During the war, he took part in racing exhibitions at the Roosevelt Raceway to raise war bonds. He also allowed the Army to practice maneuvers at his Martha's Vineyard farm, and sold seats for the premiere of Yankee Doodle Dandy to raise money for war bonds. After the war, Cagney's politics started to change. Cagney had worked on Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidential campaigns, including the 1940 presidential election against Wendell Willkie. However, by the time of the 1948 election, he had become disillusioned with Harry S. Truman, and voted for Thomas E. Dewey, his "first non-Democratic vote". By 1980, Cagney was contributing financially to the Republican party, supporting his friend Reagan's bid for the Presidency in the Presidential election.
As he got older, he became more and more conservative, referring to himself in his autobiography as "arch-conservative". He regarded his move away from liberal politics as "a totally natural reaction once I began to see undisciplined elements in our country stimulating a breakdown of our system... Those functionless creatures, the hippies ... just didn't appear out of a vacuum."
James Dean
Did you know? - On September 30, 1955, Dean and his mechanic Rolf WZ?therich set off from Competition Motors, where they had prepared his Porsche 550 Spyder that morning for a sports car race at Salinas, California. Dean originally intended to trailer the Porsche to the meeting point at Salinas, behind his new Ford Country Squire station wagon, crewed by Hickman and photographer Sanford Roth, who was planning a photo story of Dean at the races. At the last minute, Dean drove the Spyder, having decided he needed more time to familiarize himself with the car. At 3:30 pm, Dean was ticketed in Kern County for doing 65 in a 55 mph (89 km/h) zone. The driver of the Ford was ticketed for doing 10 mph (16 km/h) over the limit, as the speed limit for all vehicles towing a trailer was 45 mph (72 km/h). Later, having left the Ford far behind, they stopped at Blackwell's Corner in Lost Hills for fuel and met up with fellow racer Lance Reventlow.
Dean was driving west on U.S. Route 466 (later State Route 46) near Cholame, California when a black-and-white 1950 Ford Custom Tudor coupe, driven from the opposite direction by 23-year-old Cal Poly student Donald Turnupseed, attempted to take the fork onto State Route 41 and crossed into Dean's lane without seeing him. The two cars hit almost head on. According to a story in the October 1, 2005 edition of the Los Angeles Times,[10] California Highway Patrol officer Ron Nelson and his partner had been finishing a coffee break in Paso Robles when they were called to the scene of the accident, where they saw a heavily-breathing Dean being placed into an ambulance. WZ?therich had been thrown from the car, but survived with a broken jaw and other injuries. Dean was taken to Paso Robles War Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival at 5:59 p.m. His last known words, uttered right before impact, were said to have been "That guy's gotta stop... He'll see us."
Contrary to reports of Dean's speeding, which persisted decades after his death, Nelson said "the wreckage and the position of Dean's body indicated his speed was more like 55 mph (88 km/h)." Turnupseed received a gashed forehead and bruised nose and was not cited by police for the accident. Rolf WZ?therich would die in a road accident in Germany in 1981 after surviving several suicide attempts.
Rita Hayworth
Johnny Weissmuller
Did you know? - The Graduate is a 1967 American comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols, based on the 1963 novel of the same name by Charles Webb, who wrote the piece shortly after graduating from Williams College. The screenplay is by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry, who makes a cameo appearance as the hotel clerk. The film tells the story of Ben Braddock (played by Dustin Hoffman), a recent university graduate with no well-defined aim in life, who is seduced by an older woman, Mrs. Robinson (Anne Bancroft), and then falls in love with her daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross).
In 1996, The Graduate was selected for preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". It ranked as the seventh greatest film of all time on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies, and placed #18 on the list of highest-grossing films in the United States and Canada, adjusted for inflation.
Did you know? - The catchphrase most associated with Laurel and Hardy is almost always misquoted as "Well, that's another fine mess you've gotten me into." Ollie actually said, "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." The phrase has passed into common usage and means to blame a partner for causing an avoidable problem. The phrase was first used in the The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (1930). A variation of the phrase occurs in the Chickens Come Home (1931), when Ollie says impatiently to Stan, "Well...." with Stan replying, "Here's another nice mess I've gotten you into." The phrase is also reinterpreted in The Fixer-Uppers (1935) as "Well, here's another nice kettle of fish you pickled me in!" and in Saps at Sea (1940) as "Well, here's another nice bucket of suds you've gotten me into!" The misquoted version of the phrase actually was used by the pair; just not as often as the "nice mess" variant. The "fine mess" version of course becomes the title to Another Fine Mess (1930); Ollie also uses it in a 1932 public address that the pair recorded in London, redistributed as an audio track in later years.
