Bram Stoker (1847 - 1912)

Bram Stoker was born on 8 November 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, on the northside of Dublin, Ireland. His parents were Abraham Stoker (1799–1876), from Dublin, and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley (1818–1901), who was raised in County Sligo. Stoker was the third of seven children, the eldest of whom was Sir Thornley Stoker, 1st […]

Kate Chopin (1850 - 1904)

Kate Chopin was born Katherine O’Flaherty in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father, Thomas O’Flaherty, was a successful businessman who had emigrated from Galway, Ireland. Her mother, Eliza Faris, was a well-connected member of the French community in St. Louis and herself the daughter of Athénaïse Charleville, who was of French Canadian descent. Some of Chopin’s […]

Fredric Brown (1906 - 1972)

Fredric Brown’s science fiction novel What Mad Universe (1949) is a parody of pulp SF story conventions. Martians, Go Home (1955) is both a broad farce and a satire on human frailties as seen through the eyes of a billion jeering, invulnerable Martians who arrive not to conquer the world but to drive it crazy. The […]

Mickey Spillane (1918 - 2006)

Born in Brooklyn, New York City, and raised in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Spillane was the only child of his Irish bartender father, John Joseph Spillane, and his Scottish mother, Catherine Anne. Mickey Spillane attended Erasmus Hall High School, graduating in 1935. He started writing while in high school, briefly attended Fort Hays State College in […]

William Asher (1921 - 2012)

William Asher was born in New York City to stage actress Lillian Bonner and producer Ephraim M. Asher (1887-1937), whose movie credits were mostly as an associate producer. His sister Betty Asher was an MGM publicist for Judy Garland. His father was Jewish, his mother Catholic. Asher’s family moved to Los Angeles when he was […]

Jody McCrea (1934 - 2009)

Jody McCrea served in the United States Army, Special Services. He later briefly hosted Country Style, USA, an Army-produced recruiting television program filmed in Nashville, Tennessee, featuring various country entertainers. He began acting on the 1959–1960 television series Wichita Town with his father. He went on to star in films (mainly westerns), including the World […]

John Ashley (1934 - 1997)

Born John Atchley, John Ashley was reared in Oklahoma and attended Will Rogers High School in Tulsa and Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, where he studied a BA in Economics. While a student, Ashley visited a friend in California and accompanied him to the set of The Conqueror (1956). He was seen by John Wayne […]

Nestor Paiva (1905 - 1966)

Nestor Paiva (June 30, 1905 – September 9, 1966) was an American actor of Portuguese descent. Nestor Paiva is most famous for portraying Theo Gonzales the innkeeper in Walt Disney’s TV series Zorro and its feature film The Sign of Zorro, as well as Lucas the boat captain in The Creature from the Black Lagoon […]

Antonio Moreno (1887 - 1967)

Born Antonio Garrido Monteagudo in Madrid, Spain, he emigrated to the United States at the age of fourteen and settled in Massachusetts, where he completed his education. Although he claimed to have attended Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts, the Archives of the school, now the Williston Northampton School, have no record of his having done […]

Richard Carlson (1912 - 1977)

The son of a lawyer, Richard Carlson was born in Albert Lea in southern Minnesota. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with an Master of Arts degree, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. He appeared on the Broadway stage in the 1930s after studying and teaching drama in Minnesota. His first film role was […]

Anthony Caruso (1916 - 2003)

Born in Frankfort, Indiana, Anthony Caruso was reared from the age of 10 in Long Beach, California. He made his film debut in Johnny Apollo (1940). During his long career, Caruso often portrayed villains in supporting roles and bit parts. He often played people of different descents like Italians, Indians, Arabs, Persians, Mexicans, Latinos and […]

William Cameron Menzies (1896 - 1957)

William Cameron Menzies was born in New Haven, Connecticut to Scots immigrant parents, Charles A. and Helen originally from Aberfeldy, Scotland. He studied at Yale and the University of Edinburgh, and after serving in the US Army during World War I he attended the Art Students League of New York. Menzies joined Famous Players-Lasky, later to […]

Morris Ankrum (1896 - 1964)

Born Morris Nussbaum in Danville in Vermilion County in eastern Illinois, Morris Ankrum originally began a career in academics. After graduating from The University of Southern California with a law degree, he went on to an associate professorship in economics at the University of California, Berkeley. While at Berkeley he became involved in the drama […]

Hugh Marlowe (1911 - 1982)

Hugh Marlowe was born Hugh Herbert Hipple in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and began his stage career in the 1930s at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Marlowe was usually a secondary lead or supporting actor in the films he appeared in. In 1939-40, Marlowe was in two network radio programs. He was Jim Curtis in the soap opera […]

Barbara Read (1917 - 1963)

Born in Port Arthur, Ontario, Canada, Barbara Read relocated to California during the mid-1930s. Read received her first movie contract while living with in Laguna Beach, California. She was watching a film production in Laguna when she was spotted and offered a screen test. She was given a six-month contract with the production company. When […]

William Talman (1915 - 1968)

Talman was born in Detroit, Michigan, to Ada Barber and William Whitney Talman, a vice president of an electronics company. His maternal grandparents, Catherine Gandy and James Wells Barber, were immigrants from England. Talman founded the drama club at the Cranbrook School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He continued to act at Dartmouth College and the University […]

William Hopper (1915 - 1970)

William DeWolf Hopper, Jr., was born January 26, 1915, in New York City. He was the only child of noted actor, singer, comedian and theatrical producer DeWolf Hopper and his fifth wife, actress Hedda Hopper. William Hopper had one older half-brother, John A. Hopper, from his father’s second marriage in the 1880s. Hopper made his […]

Hedda Hopper (1885 - 1966)

Hedda Hopper was born Elda Furry in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Margaret (née Miller 1856-1941) and David Furry, a butcher, both members of the German Baptist Brethren. Her siblings included Dora, Sherman, Cameron, Edgar, Frank and Margaret. Her family was of Pennsylvania Dutch (German) descent. The family moved to Altoona when Elda was three. She […]

Dalton Trumbo (1905 - 1976)

Dalton Trumbo was born in Montrose, Colorado, the son of Maud (née Tillery) and Orus Bonham Trumbo. His family moved to Grand Junction in 1908. He was proud of his paternal ancestor, a Franco-Swiss immigrant named Jacob Trumbo (possibly anglicized spelling of Trumbeau), who settled in the colony of Virginia in 1736. Trumbo graduated from […]

Victor Jory (1902 - 1982)

Born in Dawson City, Yukon, of American parents, he was the boxing and wrestling champion of the United States Coast Guard during his military service, and he kept his burly physique. Victor Jory toured with theater troupes and appeared on Broadway, before making his Hollywood debut in 1930. He initially played romantic leads, but later […]

Rod Cameron (1910 - 1983)

Cameron was born Nathan Roderick Cox in Calgary, Alberta. He moved to Hollywood as a young man and started out as a stuntman and bit player for Paramount Pictures. His early films include Heritage of the Desert with Donald Woods and Russell Hayden, Rangers of Fortune with Fred MacMurray, and Henry Aldrich for President with […]

Walter Slezak (1902 - 1983)

Born in Vienna, Austria, the son of opera tenor Leo Slezak and Elsa Wertheim, he studied medicine for a time and later worked as a bank teller. He was talked into taking his first role, in the 1922 Austrian film Sodom und Gomorrah, by his friend and the film’s director, Michael Curtiz. In his early […]

John Hodiak (1914 - 1955)

John Hodiak was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Walter Hodiak (October 25, 1888 – August 21, 1962) and Anna Pogorzelec (February 28, 1888 – October 17, 1971). He was of Ukrainian and Polish descent. Hodiak grew up in Hamtramck, Michigan. Hodiak had his first theatrical experience at age 11, acting in Ukrainian and Russian […]

Ralph Nelson (1916 - 1987)

Ralph Nelson was born into a Swedish-American family in Long Island City, New York in 1916. He became interested in the theater while attending high school, and won an oratory contest sponsored by the “New York Times” in 1932. His interest in the theater lead him to Broadway, where he worked as an errand boy […]

Sylvia Ashley (1904 - 1977)

Sylvia Ashley was born Edith Louisa Sylvia Hawkes in Paddington, London, England, a daughter of Arthur Hawkes and Edith Florence Hyde. (Although she preferred giving her year of birth as 1906, the England and Wales Civil Registration Index, Vol. 1a, Page 26, shows it was recorded during the June quarter of 1904, District of Paddington.) […]

Anna Held (1872 - 1918)

Born in Warsaw, Congress Poland, Russian Empire, she was the daughter of a German-Jewish glove maker, Shimmle (aka Maurice) Held, and his French-Jewish wife, Yvonne Pierre. Sources of her year of birth range from 1865 to 1873. In 1881, antisemitic pogroms forced the family to flee to Paris, France. When her father’s glovemaking business failed, […]

William Horatio Powell (1892 - 1984)

An only child, William Horatio Powell was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Nettie Manila (née Brady) and Horatio Warren Powell, on July 29, 1892. His father was born in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania (where Powell spent his boyhood summers), to William S. and Harriet Powell. Powell showed an early aptitude for performing. In 1907, […]

Dick Powell (1904 - 1970)

Dick Powell was born in Mountain View, the seat of Stone County in northern Arkansas. The family moved to Little Rock in 1914, where Powell sang in church choirs and with a local orchestras and started his own band. Powell attended the former Little Rock College, before he started his entertainment career as a singer […]

Frank Borzage (1894 - 1962)

Frank Borzage’s father, Luigi Borzaga, was born in Ronzone, (then Austria-Hungary, now Italy) in 1859. As a stonemason, he sometimes worked in Switzerland; he met his future wife, Maria Ruegg (b. 1860, Ricken, Switzerland, – d. 1947, Los Angeles), where she worked in a silk factory. Borzaga emigrated to Hazleton, Pennsylvania in the early 1880s […]

Val Lewton (1904 - 1951)

Lewton was born Vladimir Ivanovich Leventon (Russian: Владимир Иванович Левентон, Ukrainian: Володимир Іванович Левентон) in Yalta, Imperial Russia (now in Ukraine), in 1904. He was of Jewish descent, the son of moneylender Max Hofschneider and Nina Leventon, a pharmacist’s daughter. The family converted to Christianity. He was nephew of actress Alla Nazimova. His mother left his […]