Category: Oscar Profile

Born Sophia Kosow on August 8, 1910 in the Bronx, N.Y. to a clothing salesman and his wife, she was adopted by her stepfather in 1915 at which time her last name became Sidney. An actress since the age of 15, Sidney attended the Theater Guild’s School for Acting. She made her Broadway debut at…

Born June 3, 1931 in London, England to actress Mae Bacon and her first husband, actor-editor-director Anthony Harvey was later adopted by his step-father, actor Morris Harvey. Educated at RADA (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), young Harvey was given permission by his headmaster, George Bernard Shaw, to interrupt his studies to take the part…

Born August 12, 1910 in Mahwah, New Jersey to one of America’s most distinguished families, Jane Wyatt, who was raised in Manhattan from the age of three months, could trace her American lineage on mother’s side back to 1638. One of her ancestors on her mother’s side was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.…

Born Kathleen Doyle Bates in Memphis, Tennessee on June 28, 1948, the third child of a mechanical engineer and a homemaker, Kathy Bates’ paternal grandfather was author Finis Bates. A great-great grandfather was Andrew Jackson’s physician in New Orleans. Majoring in theatre at Southern Methodist University from which she graduated in 1969, Bates immediately moved…

Born January 14, 1941 in Bascom, Florida to John Dunaway, a U.S. Army NCO and his wife Grace, a housewife, Faye Dunaway grew up in Florida, attending both Florida State University and the University of Florida before attending Boston University from which she graduated with a degree in theatre in 1962. Immediately after graduation she…

Born May 23, 1882 in New York, New York, writer-actor-producer-director James Gleason was the son of actors William and Mina Gleason (nee Crolius). He began acting in his parents’ stock company in Oakland, California as a teenager before serving in the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War. After the war he played on the London…

Born May 30, 1896 in Goshen, Indiana, Howard Winchester Hawks was the eldest of five children of one of the Midwest’s wealthiest families. The family moved to Pasadena, California due to his mother’s poor health after the birth of her fifth child in 1906. He would attend Cornell University in Ithaca, New York studying mechanical…

Born Richmond Reed Carradine on February 5, 1906 in New York, New York, and billed as Peter Richmond, then John Peter Richmond through 1935, John Carradine eventually amassed 350 known screen and television credits beyond the 70 he claimed he did not get credit for in silent films, making him the most prolific actor in…

Born March 13, 1888 in Sacramento, California as Henri Leopold de Fiennes Hathaway, the child actor turned director Henry Hathaway was the son of American actor and stage manager Rhody Hathaway and his wife, Belgian aristocrat Lillie de Fiennes who acted under the stage name Jean Hathaway. Young Hathaway began his film career circa 1910…

Born December 13, 1929 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, (Arthur) Christopher (Orne) Plummer was the son of a secretary to the Dean of Sciences at McGill University and a stockbroker. His great-grandfather on his mother’s side was Sir John Abbott, the third Prime Minister of Canada in the 1890s. Actor Nigel Bruce was his second cousin.…

Born July 3, 1962 in Syracuse, New York, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV, better known as simply Tom Cruise, was the son of a special education teacher and electrical engineer, the only boy out of four children. The family moved to Canada where his father took a job working for the Canadian Air Force. After his…

Born September 2, 1929 in Ogden, Utah, (William) Hal Ashby was the fourth and youngest child in a Mormon family. He had a rough childhood that saw the divorce of his parents when he was 6, his father’s suicide when he was 12 and two marriages and divorces of his own before the age of…

Born September 9, 1900 in Leigh, Lancashire, England, James Hilton was the son of John Hilton, headmaster of Chapel End School in Walthamstow. He was educated at the Leys School in Cambridge and then Christ’s Church in Cambridge, where he wrote his first novel at the age of 20. Hilton’s first novel, Catherine Herself was…

Born in Los Angeles, California on May 31, 1896, Ernest Haller AKA Ernie B. Haller was one of the great cinematographers of Hollywood’s Golden Age. Leaving his job as a bank clerk, 18-year-old Haller went to work as an actor at Biograph Studios 1914. Within a year he found his true calling behind the camera.…

Formally known as Count don Luchino Visconti di Modrone, the multi-talented Italian theatre, opera and cinema director as well as screenwriter was born on November 2, 1906 in Milan, Italy, one of seven children of the Duke of Modrone, the head of one of Northern Italy’s richest families. A descendant of the 13th Century ruling…