Monte Blue (1887 - 1963)

Monte Blue had no theatrical experience when he came to the screen. His first movie was The Birth of a Nation (1915), in which he was a stuntman and an extra. Next, he played another small part in Intolerance (1916). He also was a stuntman or stand-in for Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree during the making […]

Eric Blore (1887 - 1959)

Eric Blore (23 December 1887 – 2 March 1959) was an English comic actor. Blore was born in Finchley, Middlesex, England. Aged 18, Blore worked as an insurance agent for two years. He gained theatre experience while touring Australia. Originally enlisting into the Artists Rifles he was commissioned in the South Wales Borderers in World War […]

Michael Blodgett (1939 - 2007)

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Michael Blodgett attended the University of Minnesota before moving to Los Angeles to act. Once in Los Angeles, he earned a degree in political science from Cal State Los Angeles and attended Loyola Law School for one year before turning his attention to acting. In the summer of 1967, Blodgett served […]

Stuart Blackton (1875 - 1941)

Stuart Blackton was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. His surname was originally Blacktin, his parents being Henry Blacktin and Jessie, née Stuart. He emigrated with his family to the USA at 10 years of age. He worked as a reporter and illustrator for the New York Evening World newspaper, and performed regularly on stage with […]

William Bishop (1918 - 1959)

William Bishop was the son of Edward T. Bishop and Helen MacArthur Bishop. He had a brother, Robert. His elementary and secondary schooling came in New York and New Jersey. He went to West Virginia University where he wanted to study law but left to enter theater. While he was at WVU, Bishop “won laurels […]

Willy Birgel (1891 - 1973)

Willy Birgel began his acting career before World War I on the stage in his native city of Cologne, and came to movies rather late. He was about 43 years old before he got his first major film role as the English Camp Commandant in Paul Wegener’s Ein Mann will nach Deutschland (roughly translated A […]

Diana Sands (1934 - 1973)

Diana Sands (August 22, 1934 – September 21, 1973) was an American actress, perhaps most famous for her portrayal of Beneatha Younger, the sister of Sidney Poitier’s character in the original stage and film versions of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1961). She also appeared in a number of dramatic television series in […]

Adele Sandrock (1863 - 1937)

Adele Sandrock (19 August 1863 – 30 August 1937) was a German-Dutch actress. After a successful theatrical career, she became one of the first German movie stars. Adele Sandrock was born as Adele Feldern-Förster in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the daughter of the German merchant Eduard Sandrock (1834–1897) and his Dutch wife Johanna Simonetta ten Hagen (1833–1917). After […]

Johanna Sällström (1974 - 2007)

Johanna Sällström made her first stage appearance in Hudiksvall at the age of 15, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She became famous in Sweden in the 1990s, after portraying the teenage girl Victoria Bärnsten in the soap opera Tre kronor. Thereafter, she appeared in numerous productions, and received a Guldbagge Award for Best Actress in […]

Peggy Ryan (1924 - 2004)

Peggy Ryan (August 28, 1924 – October 30, 2004) was an American dancer, best known for starring in a series of movie musicals at Universal Pictures with Donald O’Connor and Gloria Jean. She joined her parents’ vaudeville act, “The Merry Dancing Ryans,” before she was two years old. Her singing, acting, and dancing skills were noticed […]

Irene Ryan (1902 - 1973)

Irene Ryan began her career at the age of 11, after winning $3 for singing “Pretty Baby” in an amateur contest at the Valencia Theater in San Francisco. At 20, she married writer-comedian Tim Ryan. They performed in vaudeville as a double act, known in show business as a “Dumb Dora” routine and epitomized by George […]

Fran Ryan (1916 - 2000)

Fran Ryan began performing at the age of 6 at Oakland’s Henry Duffy Theatre. She attended Stanford University for three years, and during World War II was a member of the USO entertaining troops. She performed comedy, singing and acting on stage in California and Chicago and launched her television career two decades later. Her […]

Gail Russell (1924 - 1961)

At the age of 19 Gail Russell made her film debut in the 1943 film Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour. Russell appeared in several more films in the early and mid-1940s, the most notable being The Uninvited (1944) with Ray Milland and Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944), in which she co-starred with Diana Lynn. […]

Zelda Rubinstein (1933 - 2010)

In 1978 Zelda Rubinstein decided to pursue an acting career. She studied acting at the University of California. Poltergeist was her first major film role. She remained active in film and television thereafter, frequently portraying various psychic characters, such as her appearance on Jennifer Slept Here. She also narrated the horror television series, Scariest Places […]

Ruth Royce (1893 - 1971)

Ruth Royce (February 6, 1893 – May 7, 1971) was an American vaudeville performer and silent film actress from Versailles, Missouri. Royce appeared in the serial, The Vanishing Dagger (1920), which starred Eddie Polo and C. Norman Hammond. In 1923, Royce, along with other Hollywood actors, participated in a vaudeville show at Universal City. Royce assisted […]

Patsy Rowlands (1931 - 2005)

Patsy Rowlands made her debut in the Carry On films in Carry On Again Doctor in 1969 and soon became a regular member of the team, usually playing the dowdy, put-upon wife or the long-suffering secretary. Between 1969 and 1975 she appeared in nine of the films in increasingly large roles, including Carry On Loving, […]

Ruth Roland (1892 - 1937)

Born in San Francisco, California, Ruth Roland’s father managed a theatre and she became a child actress who went on to work in vaudeville. She was hired by director Sidney Olcott who had seen her on stage in New York City. She appeared in her first film for Kalem Studios in 1909 and along with […]

Roxie Roker (1929 - 1995)

Roxie Roker is known for her role as Helen Willis on The Jeffersons. She began her professional career with the Negro Ensemble Company and became a successful stage actress. She won an Obie Award in 1974 and was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal of Mattie Williams in The River Niger. She was […]

Beth Rogan (1931 - 2015)

Beth Rogan was born Jenifer Puckle on 19 July 1931 in Walmer, Kent. She was always known as Jeni to friends and family. Her father was Kenneth Puckle, a major in the Royal Marines and a veteran of the Gallipoli campaign and her mother was Enid Puckle (née Gray). She had a sister, Priscilla, who […]

May Robson (1858 - 1942)

On 17 September 1883, May Robson became an actress in Hoop of Gold at the Brooklyn Grand Opera House stage. Her name was incorrectly spelled “Robson” in the billing, which she used from that point forward “for good luck”. Over the next several decades, she flourished on the stage as a comedienne and character actress. […]

Flora Robson (1902 - 1987)

Her father discovered that Flora Robson had a talent for recitation and, from the age of five, she was taken around by horse and carriage to recite, and to compete in recitations. This established a pattern that remained with her. Flora Robson made her stage debut in 1921, aged 19. In cinema she was often chosen […]

Dany Robin (1927 - 1995)

Dany Robin (French pronunciation: ​[dani ʁɔbɛ̃]; 14 April 1927 – 25 May 1995) was a French actress of the 1950s and the early 1960s. Dany Robin was born Danielle Robin in Clamart. She performed with Peter Sellers in The Waltz of the Toreadors, and co-starred opposite Kirk Douglas in the 1953 romantic drama Act of Love. […]

Lynne Roberts (1922 - 1978)

Born in El Paso, Texas, Lynne Roberts was the daughter of Hobart M. Roberts, a bookkeeper, and May Holland. The family moved to Los Angeles in the 1920s. Lynne Roberts began working as an actress in the 1930s, under contract to Republic Pictures. At the age of 14, in 1936, she played a role in Bulldog […]

Beverly Roberts (1914 - 2009)

Beverly Roberts was born in Brooklyn, New York, she was first spotted by a Warner Bros. talent scout while singing in a nightclub in 1935. Having performed as a stage actress prior to that, she was signed to a contract with Warner Brothers, starring in her first film in 1936, titled The Singing Kid, in […]

Lyda Roberti (1906 - 1938)

Born in Warsaw, then part of Imperial Russia, Lyda Roberti was the daughter of a German father and a Polish mother. Her father was a professional clown. As a child she performed in the circus as a trapeze artist, and was a vaudeville singer. As her family toured Europe and Asia, Roberti’s mother left her […]

Dorothy Fay (1915 - 2003)

Dorothy Fay was born Dorothy Fay Southworth in Prescott, Arizona, the daughter of Harry T. Southworth and Harriet Fay Fox. Her father was a medical doctor. Fay attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California, and studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She began her motion picture career […]

Elisabeth Risdon (1887 - 1958)

Elisabeth Risdon, born Elizabeth Evans in London, England, graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in 1918 with high honours. She attracted the attention of George Bernard Shaw and was cast as the lead in his biggest plays. Besides her performances for Shaw, she was leading lady for actors like George Arliss, Otis Skinner, and […]

Cleo Ridgely (1894 - 1962)

Cleo Ridgely was born Freda Cleo Helwig in New York City. She was the daughter of August Helwig and Catherine Emily Sommerkamp. She had two sisters, Christina and Martha. Cleo Ridgely starred with Ruth Roland in a girl detective series in the 1920s and co-starred in a number of films with Wallace Reid and Lew Cody. […]

Lucille Ricksen (1910 - 1925)

Lucille Ricksen began her career as a professional child model and actress similar to other actresses her age such as Madge Evans, Helen Chandler and Kittens Reichert, starting at age 4. Through these roles, Ricksen rose to fame and provided a revenue for her parents. In 1920, she arrived with her mother, Ingeborg, in Hollywood […]

Shirley Rickert (1926 - 2009)

Shirley Rickert (March 25, 1926 – February 6, 2009) was an American child actress who was briefly the “blonde girl” for the Our Gang series in 1931, during the Hal Roach talkie period. Shirley Rickert’s most notable appearances were in the films Love Business and Bargain Day, in which her spit-curls were the centerpiece of her […]