Category: Oscar Profile

Born August 29, 1923 in Cambridge, England, Richard (Samuel) Attenborough was the son of May (née Clegg), a founding member of the Marriage Guidance Council and Frederick Levi Attenborough, don at Emmanuel College and author of a standard text on Anglo-Saxon law. The family later moved to Leicester where his father was appointed principal of…

Born September 28, 1916 in London, England, Peter Finch was the subject of a custody battle between his mother and her husband who was not his actual father. His “father” won, and the child was kept from his mother who later married Finch’s actual father. He never met his mother until he was 33, and…

Born March 29, 1919 in Columbus, Ohio, (Anna) Eileen Herbert was an only child who went with her mother when her parents separated when she was 2. Her mother was an alcoholic who married five times. She was often shunted off to her mother’s mother and her second husband who eventually adopted her, changing her…

Born Hermann Kosterlitz on May 1, 1905 in Berlin, Germany, the future Henry Koster was the grandson on his mother’s side of famed operatic tenor Julius Salomon who died of tuberculosis in the 1880s. His father, who was a salesman of women’s underwear, abandoned his family when the future director was 5. His mother got…

In 1996, when Julie Andrews was the only actor nominated for the Broadway version of Victor/Victoria, she withdraw her nomination with the comment, “I have searched my conscience and my heart and find that I cannot accept this nomination, and prefer instead to stand with the egregiously overlooked.” As I have been saying, Julie and…

In 1996, when Julie Andrews was the only actor nominated for the Broadway version of Victor/Victoria, she withdraw her nomination with the comment, “I have searched my conscience and my heart and find that I cannot accept this nomination, and prefer instead to stand with the egregiously overlooked.” As I have been saying, Julie and…

In 1996, when Julie Andrews was the only actor nominated for the Broadway version of Victor/Victoria, she withdrew her nomination with the comment, “I have searched my conscience and my heart and find that I cannot accept this nomination, and prefer instead to stand with the egregiously overlooked.” As I said last week, Julie and…

In 1996, when Julie Andrews was the only actor nominated for the Broadway version of Victor/Victoria, she withdraw her nomination with the comment, “I have searched my conscience and my heart and find that I cannot accept this nomination, and prefer instead to stand with the egregiously overlooked.” Well, Julie, you and they are in…

Born April 7, 1928 in Norman, Oklahoma to a carpet layer and his wife, James Scott Bumgarner and his older brothers were sent to live with relatives after his mother’s death in 1933. They were reunited with their father after his second marriage the following year. He would remarry several more times, the last to…

Born July 9, 1951 in Kansas City, Missouri, Christopher Walton (Chris) Cooper was the son of a cattleman and internist who served as a doctor in the U.S. Air Force, and his wife, a homemaker. Raised in Texas, where his parents were from, Cooper was educated at the University of Missouri school of drama. Cooper…

Born February 15, 1899 in Litchfield, Minnesota, Edith Holm Sondergaard, known professionally as Gale Sondergaard, was the daughter of socially conscious Danish immigrants. Her parents were progressives. As a child she marched with her mother, who was a suffragette. Educated at the University of Minnesota, she then studied with the Minneapolis School of Dramatic Arts…

Born July 26, 1922 in Chicago, Illinois, the only child of actor Jason Robards Sr. (1892-1963) and his first wife. The family moved to New York when he was a toddler, then to Los Angeles. His parents’ divorce, which occurred while he was in grade school, is said to have affected his personality and world…

Born December 13, 1908 in Walters, Oklahoma, Everett Evan (Van) Heflin was the son of a dental surgeon and his wife. His younger sister was the actress Frances Heflin. He received a BA from the University of Oklahoma in 1932 after he had already appeared on Broadway. Heflin made his Broadway debut in 1928 in…

Born May 24, 1914 in Posen, Prussia, now Poznan, Poland, Lilli Marie Peiser, known professionally as Lilli Palmer, was the middle daughter of a German Jewish surgeon and his Austrian stage actress wife. When the future actress was four, her family moved to Berlin where she became a table tennis champion as a young girl.…

Born February 10, 1967 in Los Angeles, California to actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, future actress Laura Dern would become the first member of her family to win an Oscar. She was raised by her mother and grandmother after her parents divorced when she was just two years old. Dern first appeared on screen…