Louis Jourdan (1921 - 2015)

Louis Jourdan was born Louis Robert Gendre in Marseille, France, in 1921, one of three sons of Yvonne (née Jourdan) and Henry Gendre, a hotel owner. He was educated in France, Turkey, and the UK, and studied acting at the École Dramatique. While there, he began acting on the professional stage, where he was brought […]

Cecil Day-Lewis (1904 - 1972)

Day-Lewis was born in Ballintubbert, Athy/Stradbally border, Queen’s County (now known as County Laois), Ireland. He was the son of the Reverend Frank Cecil Day-Lewis (died 29 July 1937) and Kathleen Blake (née Squires; died 1906). Some of his family was from England (Hertfordshire and Canterbury). His father took on the surname “Day-Lewis” as a […]

Jill Balcon (1925 - 2009)

Jill Angela Henriette Balcon (3 January 1925 – 18 July 2009) was an English film and radio actress. Jill Balcon made her film debut in Nicholas Nickleby (1947), though she was best known for her stage, television, and radio work. Balcon was born in Westminster, London, the daughter of Aileen Freda Leatherman (1904–1988) and Michael Balcon. […]

Michael Balcon (1896 - 1977)

Born in Birmingham, Michael Balcon was the youngest son and fourth of five children of Louis Balcon (c. 1858–1946) and his wife, Laura (née Greenberg; c. 1863–1934), Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who had met in Britain. Growing up in a respectable but impoverished setting, in 1907 Balcon won a scholarship to Birmingham’s George Dixon […]

Alberto Cavalcanti (1897 - 1982)

Alberto Cavalcanti was born in Rio de Janeiro, the son of a prominent mathematician. He was a precociously intelligent child, and by the age of 15 was studying law at university. Following an argument with a professor he was expelled. His father sent him to Geneva, Switzerland on condition that he did not study law […]

Chips Rafferty (1909 - 1971)

Chips Rafferty was born John William Pilbean Goffage in Broken Hill, New South Wales to John Goffage, an English-born stock agent, and Australian-born Violet Maude Joyce. Gaining the nickname “Chips” as a school boy, Rafferty studied at Parramatta Commercial High School before working in a variety of jobs, including opal miner, sheep shearer, drover, airman […]

Vincente Minnelli (1903 - 1986)

Vincente Minnelli born and baptized as Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago, he was the youngest of four known sons, only two of whom survived to adulthood, born to Marie Émilie Odile Lebeau (stage name: Mina Gennell) and Vincent Charles Minnelli. His father was musical conductor of Minnelli Brothers’ Tent Theater. His Chicago-born mother was of […]

Rachel Roberts (1927 - 1980)

Rachel Roberts was born in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales. After a Baptist upbringing (against which she rebelled), followed by study at the University of Wales and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she began working with a repertory company in Swansea in 1950. She made her film debut in the Welsh-set comedy Valley of Song (1953), […]

Kay Kendall (1927 - 1959)

She was born Justine Kay Kendall McCarthy, at Stanley House, Hull Road, in Withernsea, a coastal resort in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Kendall’s father was Terrence “Terry” McCarthy (aka Terry Kendall), the vaudevillian son of music hall star Marie Kendall. Kay’s mother was the former Gladys Drewery. She had two elder siblings, Terrence Justin […]

Rouben Mamoulian (1897 - 1987)

Mamoulian was born in Tbilisi, Georgia (ruled at that time by imperial Russia), to an Armenian family. His mother Virginia (née Kalantarian) was a director of the Armenian theater, and his father, Zachary Mamoulian, was a bank president. Mamoulian relocated to England and started directing plays in London in 1922. He was brought to America […]

Brian Keith (1921 - 1997)

Brian Keith was born Robert Alba Keith in Bayonne, New Jersey, on November 14, 1921, to actor Robert Keith and stage actress Helena Shipman, a native of Aberdeen, Washington. Some sources also list his full name as Brian Robert Keith. He was raised Roman Catholic. His parents divorced, and he moved to Hollywood and started […]

Joan Leslie (1925 - 2015)

Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel was born on January 26, 1925 in Highland Park, Michigan, she was the youngest child of John and Agnes Brodel. John was a bank clerk and Agnes was a pianist. Leslie’s two older sisters, Betty and Mary Brodel, shared their mother’s musical interest and started to learn how to play instruments […]

Peter Yates (1929 - 2011)

The son of an army officer, Peter Yates attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for some years as an actor, director and stage manager. In the 1950s he started in the film industry as a dubbing assistant and later an assistant director for Tony Richardson […]

Allan Dwan (1885 - 1981)

Born Joseph Aloysius Dwan in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Allan Dwan,who was the younger son of commercial traveller of woolen clothing Joseph Michael Dwan (1857-1917) and his wife Mary Jane Dwan, nee Hunt, moved with his family to the United States when he was seven years old, on December 4, 1892 by ferry from Windsor to […]

Leo Gordon (1922 - 2000)

Leo Gordon was born in Brooklyn in New York City on December 2, 1922. Reared by his father in dire poverty, Gordon grew up during the Great Depression. He left school in the eighth grade, went to work in construction and demolition, and then joined the New Deal agency, the Civilian Conservation Corps, in which […]

Brian Hutton (1935 - 2014)

Brian Hutton was born in New York City and studied at the Actors Studio. Brian Hutton had a brief acting career between 1954–62, including an appearance as an army deserter in the episode “Custer” in Gunsmoke (series 2, 1956), as well as two guest appearances on Perry Mason in 1957: he played Rod Gleason in […]

Diane Cilento (1933 - 2011)

Diane Cilento was born in Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia. Her parents, Sir Raphael Cilento and Phyllis, Lady Cilento (née Phyllis Dorothy McGlew),[4] were both distinguished medical practitioners in Queensland. Her paternal great-grandfather was Italian. Her maternal grandfather was merchant and exporter Charles Thomas McGlew. At an early age she decided to follow a career as an actress […]

Eric Ambler (1909 - 1998)

Eric Ambler was born in London into a family of entertainers who ran a puppet show, with which he helped in his early years. Both parents also worked as music hall artists. Later he studied engineering at Northampton Polytechnic in Islington (now City University, London), and served a traineeship with an engineering company. However, his […]

Roy Ward Baker (1916 - 2010)

Born in London where his father was a Billingsgate fish merchant, Roy Ward Baker was educated at a Lycée in Rouen, France, and at the City of London School. From 1934 to 1939, he worked for Gainsborough Pictures, a British film production company based in the Islington district of London. His first jobs were menial, […]

Sidney Gilliat (1908 - 1994)

Sidney Gilliat (15 February 1908 – 31 May 1994) was a British film director, producer and writer. He was the son of George Gilliat, Editor of the Evening Standard, born in the district of Edgeley in Stockport, Cheshire. In the 1930s Sidney Gilliat worked as a scriptwriter, most notably with Frank Launder on The Lady Vanishes […]

Naunton Wayne (1901 - 1970)

Naunton Wayne (22 June 1901 – 17 November 1970), was a British character actor, born Henry Wayne Davies in Llanwonno, Glamorgan, Wales. He was educated at Clifton College. His first London stage roles were in Streamline at the Palace in 1934 and in 1066 and All That at the Strand in 1935 (where he provided comic […]

Ellie Lambeti (1926 - 1983)

Ellie Lambeti born in 1926 in the village of Vilia, Attiki, Greece. Her father owned a Greek tavern in Vilia. She had six siblings. Her maternal grandfather was a Captain Stamatis who fought together with Kolokotronis against the Turks in 1821, when the modern Greek democracy was created. In 1928, the family moved to Athens. In […]

Katina Paxinou (1900 - 1973)

Katina Paxinou was born Aikaterini Konstantopoulou (Αικατερίνη Κωνσταντοπούλου) in Piraeus, Greece, she trained as an opera singer at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève and later in Berlin and Vienna. According to her biography in Playbill (1942), Paxinou was disowned by her family after she decided to seek a permanent stage career. Paxinou made her debut […]

Donald Crisp (1882 - 1974)

Donald Crisp was born in Bow, London at the family home on 27 July 1882. He was one of eight children (four boys and four girls) born to James and Elizabeth Crisp. He was educated at the University of Oxford after serving as a trooper in the 10th Hussars in the Boer War. Crisp claimed […]

Robert Wiene (1873 - 1938)

Robert Wiene was born in Breslau, as the elder son of the successful theatre actor Carl Wiene. His younger brother Conrad also became an actor, but Robert Wiene at first studied law at the University of Berlin. In 1908 he also started to act, at first in small parts on stage. His first involvement with […]

Joe May (1880 - 1954)

After studying in Berlin and a variety of odd jobs, Joe May began his career as a stage director of operettas in Hamburg. In 1902 he had married the actress Mia May (born Hermine Pfleger) and took his stage name from hers. As Joe May, he made ten films for Continental-Art Film GmbH in Berlin; the […]

Jean Gabin (1904 - 1976)

Gabin was born Jean-Alexis Moncorgé in Paris, the son of Madeleine Petit and Ferdinand Moncorgé, a cafe entertainer whose stage name was Gabin. He grew up in the village of Mériel in the Seine-et-Oise (now Val-d’Oise) département, about 22 mi (35 km) north of Paris. The son of cabaret entertainers, he attended the Lycée Janson […]

Dita Parlo (1906 - 1971)

Dita Parlo (4 September 1906 – 12 December 1971), born Gerda Olga Justina Kornstädt in Stettin (present-day Szczecin), was a German film actress. Parlo made her first film appearance in Homecoming (Heimkehr) in 1928 and quickly became a popular actress in Germany. During the 1930s she moved easily between German and French films, achieving success in […]

Eleanor Powell (1912 - 1982)

Powell was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. A dancer since childhood, she was discovered at the age of 11 by the head of the Vaudeville Kiddie revue, Gus Edwards. When she was 17, she brought her graceful, athletic style to Broadway, where she starred in various revues and musicals. During this time, she was dubbed “the […]

Una Merkel (1903 - 1986)

Una Merkel was born in Covington, Kentucky, and grew up in Philadelphia and New York City. Merkel, who bore a resemblance to actress Lillian Gish, began her career as a stand-in for Gish, most notably in the 1928 classic The Wind, a late silent film. Merkel appeared in a few films during the silent era, including […]