SEFAN Famous and infamous people

Laurence Fishburne biography Laurence Fishburne (Laurence J. Fishburne III) was born on July 30, 1961, in Augusta, Georgia, USA. He moved with his mother to New York after his parents divorced. With a background in the theater, he already got to play in a soap opera in 1973. It led to a role as a very young soldier in Francis Ford Coppola's great Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979), several appearances in television series, and further participation in Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish (1983) and Cotton Club (1984) as well as Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple (1985) based on Alice Walker's novel. In the following years, Laurence Fishburne played a host of roles, both major and minor, on television and in film, while continuing to appear in the theatre before making a significant breakthrough in John Singleton's (1968-2019) ghetto portrayal of Boyz n the Hood (1991). It was set aside for substantial roles in, among other things, The Tina Turner portrait What...

Kirk Douglas biography Kirk Douglas (Issur Danielovich Demsky) was born on December 9, 1916. He was an American actor and the father of Michael Douglas. Kirk Douglas had a long career in Hollywood with his edgy and aggressive acting style, for example, in the boxer film Champion (1949), westerns such as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1956), and the war film Paths of Glory (1957). Among his more nuanced portraits can be mentioned the title role in Lust for Life (1956), The film about Vincent van Gogh. As a producer, Kirk Douglas was behind his own star role in Spartacus (1960). Died on February 5, 2020 (aged 103) last updated October 2022

Karl Malden biography Karl Malden (Mladen Sekulovich) was born March 22, 1914, American actor. Malden had his film breakthrough in Elia Kazan 's A Streetcar Named Desire (1951); since then, he made his mark in significant supporting roles, for example, in On the Waterfront (1954), One-Eyed Jacks (1961), The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and Patton (1970). Malden directed Time Limit (1957) and starred in the television series The Streets of San Francisco (1972-77). Died on July 1, 2009. last updated October 2022

Josh Brolin biography Josh Brolin (Josh J. Brolin) was born February 12,1968 and is an American actor. Josh Brolin is the son of seasoned Hollywood actor James Brolin (b. July 18, 1940) and made his film debut in 1985. After minor roles in both TV series and films, he was more centrally placed in, among other things, Paul Verhoeven's Hollow Man (2000) and had a significant breakthrough in the Coen brothers' laconic crime and fate tale No Country for Old Men (2007). It opened up roles in, among other things, Ridley Scott's American Gangster (2007) and the following year in both Gus Van Sant's Milk and, not least, the all-dominant lead role as George W. Bush in Oliver Stone's presidential portrait W. Josh Brolin has since, usually with masculine emphasis, i.a., noted in the same director's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), Woody Allen 's You'll Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010) and the Coen brothers' western True Grit (2011). last updated October ...

John Wayne biography John Wayne (Marion Michael Morrison) was born on May 26, 1907. He was an American film actor and Oscar winner. He was an institution in American cinema as the classic hero of war films, especially westerns. He personified individualism and a pioneering spirit and was an exponent of conservative American ideals on and off the screen. After a series of b-movie roles, he got his breakthrough in John Ford's Stagecoach (1939). John Wayne's talent, which mainly rested on a rare laid-back and authoritative radiance, was also seen in more complex western roles, for example, in John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Searchers (1956) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). He also had a fruitful collaboration with Howard Hawks in Red River (1948), Rio Bravo (1959), and Hatari! (1962). He won his only Oscar in 1970 for the role of the choleric sheriff in Henry Hathaway's True Grit (1969). Besides his regular genre roles, John Wayne succeeded in ...

John Turturro biography John Turturro (John Michael Turturro) was born on February 28, 1957. John Turturro was born in Brooklyn, New York, and educated at the State University of New York and Yale University in drama. He entered the film industry in 1980 and simultaneously built a distinguished theater career Off-Broadway. From the mid-1980s, John Turturro gradually got more significant and prominent roles in films, e.g., in Spike Lee 's Do the Right Thing (1989), which used his Italian ancestry. Spike Lee has continued to use him in all his films, and with Miller's Crossing (1990), John Turturro became one of the Coen brothers' favorite actors, not least in a central role in Barton Fink (1991). With his lanky figure and often nervous characters, John Turturro has also had wide-ranging roles in, e.g., Robert Redford 's Quiz Show (1994), Tim Robbins ' Cradle Will Rock (1999), Nicolas Winding Refn's gripping thriller Fear X (2003) and the comedy Anger Management (...

John Belushi biography John Belushi was born January 24, 1949, in Humboldt Park, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Belushi was a comedian with cult status and a crazy sense of humor that was honed on the television show Saturday Night Live 1975-79 and carried over to films such as National Lampoon's Animal House (1978) and The Blues Brothers (1980). Died on march 5, 1982, Chateau Marmont, Los Angeles, Californien, USA. last updated October 2022

John Barrymore biography John Barrymore, 1882-1942, American actor. John Barrymore, like his sister Ethel and brother Lionel, was the third generation in the theater world. He made his stage debut in 1903 and his film in 1914. In the theater, he alternated between comedy roles and the classical repertoire, with highlights in John Galsworthy's Justice (1915) as well as Shakespeare's Richard III (1920) and Hamlet (1922). On film, he played complex character roles such as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), seductive lover roles such as Don Juan (1926), and elegant living men on de route in, for example, Grand Hotel (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1933). A hectic personal life and alcohol problems turned Barrymore into a parody of himself in recent years, but he enjoyed international recognition in his heyday. His son John Barrymore Jr. (1932-2004), and his daughter Drew Barrymore (b. 1975), are also film actors. last updated October 2022

Joe Pesci biography Joe Pesci (Joseph Frank Pesci) was an American actor born on February 9, 1943. Joe Pesci has incarnated all kinds of record players and gangsters with a quick temper and staccato lines. It has happened both with comic effect in Lethal Weapon II-IV (1989, 1992, 1998, Lethal Weapon II-IV), Home Alone (1990), and My Cousin Vinny (1992) and with severe danger in Martin Scorsese's GoodFellas (1990), for which he won an Oscar, and Casino (1995). Colleague Robert De Niro has also used Joe Pesci as a safe supporting actor in two of his films as a director, A Bronx Tale (1993) and The Good Shepherd (2006). last updated October 2022

Jeff Bridges biography Jeff Bridges was born On December 4, 1949. The versatile character star got his breakthrough in Peter Bogdanovich's The Last Picture Show (1971), followed by John Huston's Fat City (1972). Jeff Bridges has since had significant roles in, e.g., Starman (1984), Francis Ford Coppola's Tucker: The Man and His Dream (1988), and The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), in which he starred with his brother Beau Bridges ( b. 9.12.1941), Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King (1991) and the Coen brothers' comedy The Big Lebowski (1998), in which Jeff Bridges shone in the role of the anti-hero The Dude. The family drama The Door in the Floor (2004) and the war comedy The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009) showed Jeff Bridges different sides of his acting, and in 2010 he was awarded an Oscar for the role of an aging and repentant country & western star in Crazy Heart. The following year, he continued his excellent portrayal of fallen heroes in the Coen brothers' west...

Jason Robards biography Jason Robards was born July 26, 1922, and is an American actor; he was 1961-69 and married to Lauren Bacall. After breaking through on Broadway in 1956 in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh and other great theater performances, Jason Robards came to the film. He has often made a strong mark in portrait roles, e.g., as the editor-in-chief in Alan J. Pakula's All the President's Men (1976) and Dashiell Hammett in Julia (1977), both of which earned him an Oscar, as well as the Richard M. Nixon impersonator Richard Munckton in the television series Washington Behind Closed Doors (1977). Among Jason Robard's other roles can be mentioned the two western films, Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and Sam Peckinpah's The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), as well as Melvin & Howard (1980), Philadelphia (1993) and A Thousand Acres (1997). Jason Robards played his last film role in Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia (1999). Died ...

Jamie Foxx biography Jamie Foxx, Eric Morlon Bishop, was born December 13, 1967, in Terrell, Texas, USA. He is an American actor. After a career as, among other things, stand-up and TV comedian in, e.g., the series In Living Color 1991-2000 and The Jamie Foxx Show 1996-2001 and roles in, e.g., Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday (1999), Jamie Foxx broke through significantly with his heartfelt portrait of the musician Ray Charles in Ray (2004), which won him an Oscar. Since then, Jamie Foxx has had eye-catching roles in, e.g., Michael Mann's extensive city dramas Collateral (2004) and Miami Vice (2006), as well as in the musical Dreamgirls (2006) and the drama The Soloist (2009) and starred in the thriller Law Abiding Citizen (2009). last updated October 2022

James Stewart biography James Stewart (James Maitland Stewart) was born May 20, 1908, in Indiana, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an American film actor. With his stuttering, eager line delivery, and shy sincerity, Stewart personified the folksy American everyday hero in films such as You Can't Take It With You (1938) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939). It's a Wonderful Life (1946). In the 1950s, a darker, more complex side of his talent was seen in westerns such as The Naked Spur (1953) and The Man From Laramie (1955), in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) and Vertigo (1958) and humorous ambiguity in John Ford's Two Rode Together (1961) and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). Stewart won an Oscar for her role in The Philadelphia Story (1940). Among his other films is The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Harvey (1950), The Glenn Miller Story (1954), Anatomy of a Murder (1959), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962). Died July 2, 1997, in Beverly Hills, California, USA. last updated O...

James Cagney biography James Cagney was born July 17, 1899, in Lower East Side, New York City, New York, USA. He was an American actor and one of Hollywood's central stars in the 1930s and 1940s. Dynamic, agile, and with dangerous smiles and machine-gun rapid lines, James Cagney played underworld types in all guises from his breakthrough in The Public Enemy (1931) to White Heat (1949). Outside the gangster genre, Cagney portrayed Broadway star George Michael Cohan (1878-1942) with gusto and vitality in Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942). Cagney retired in 1961, frustrated and worn out after his verbal equilibrist role in Billy Wilder's Berlin Cold War comedy One, Two, Three (1961), which has gained cult status in Germany over the years. In 1981, James Cagney made a comeback with all his old radiance intact in Miloš Forman's Ragtime. Died on March 30, 1986, in Stanfordville, New York, USA. last updated October 2022

Jake Gyllenhaal biography Jake Gyllenhaal was born on December 19, 1980, in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an American actor who has sought quirky and challenging roles; he attracted attention in the cult film Donnie Darko (2001) and had a breakthrough with fine acting in Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain (2005). Since then, he has, among other things, seen in the war drama Jarhead (2005), David Fincher's Zodiac (2007), and as an action hero in the adventure film Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2010). last updated October 2022

Jackson Rathbone biography Jackson Rathbone (Monroe Jackson Rathbone) was born December 14, 1984, an American actor and musician. Jackson Rathbone is best known for the role of Jasper Halle in the films Twilight (2008), The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009), The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), The Last Airbender (2010), and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011). Jackson Rathbone plays together with Nikki Reed in the Twilight movies. last updated October 2022

Jack Benny biography Jack Benny (Benjamin Kubelsky), 1894-1974, was an American comedian who had a successful career in a vaudeville theater, radio, film, and television. Jack Benny achieved enormous popularity on radio and continued on television with The Jack Benny Program (1950-65), alternating between presenting famous guests and farcical sketches. On film, Benny played i.a. Charley's Aunt (1941) but is primarily remembered for Ernst Lubitsch's masterpiece To Be or Not to Be (1942), in which the role of the smug Polish Shakespearean actor under Nazism, he created one of the funniest moments in film history figures. last updated October 2022

Humphrey Bogart biography Humphrey Bogart (Humphrey DeForest Bogart) was born on December 25, 1899, and was an American actor. No actor from Hollywood's heyday outshines Humphrey Bogart today, but his career started slowly. He played minor roles in the theater in the 1920s and came to Hollywood in 1930, where he got his breakthrough as the gangster in The Petrified Forest (1936), a role he had also played in the theater. After this, he had several gangster roles, but only when he got on the right side of the law in his roles did he become "the real Bogart": a cool individualist and romantic tough idealist on cleaning up a corrupt world. In The Maltese Falcon (1941), he founded the dark city's cotton-coat-clad private detective with sarcastic lines behind a snarling wolfish smile. The figure became a classic and a model for most of the genre's types since then. He varied the role with greater sensitivity in The Big Sleep (1946), where he continued the erotically su...

Harry Langdon biography Harry Langdon (Harry Philmore Langdon) was born on June 15, 1884. He was an American film comedian. With his bemused baby face and figure of eternal naivety, Langdon achieved short-lived success in silent films. He made his debut in 1924, and after 15 short farces, he made seven feature films, of which Long Pants (1927) is the best known. The advent of tone films ended his career, which was already on the way back then. In the 1930s, he worked as a mastermind for, among others, Laurel and Hardy., and in 1939 he paired up, without much success, with Oliver Hardy in Zenobia. Died on December 22, 1944. last updated October 2022

Harold Lloyd biography Harold Lloyd (Harold Clayton Lloyd) was born on April 20, 1893. He was an American film comedian. Harold Lloyd debuted as an extra in 1912 and, from 1913, appeared alternately with Mack Sennett and Hal Roach in well over 100 short farces. His first success was the character Lonesome Luke, a Chaplin pastiche. In 1917 he invented the "glasses guy," a handsome, bespectacled young man, often shy and absent-minded but energetic and agile and embroiled in tragic events. Harold Lloyd stuck to this figure for the rest of his career, moving from 1921 to feature films; the best, e.g., Safety Last (1923) and For Heaven's Sake (1926), has retained classic status. After introducing the sound film, his career languished, but by then, he had become one of Hollywood's wealthiest men. Harold Lloyd received an Honorary Oscar in 1952. Died on March 8, 1971 last updated October 2022