Category: Oscar Profile

Born May 5, 1914, matinee idol Tyrone Power was the fourth of five to carry the name beginning with his great-grandfather, a famous Irish comedian who lived from 1795 to 1841. His father (1869-1931) was a noted stage actor who appeared in several films as Tyrone Power but has subsequently been referred to Tyrone Power,…

Born April 7, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, Francis Ford Coppola’s father Carmine was a flautist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. His mother Italia was a former actress. Two years after his birth his father was named principal flautist for the NBC Symphony Orchestra and the family moved to Woodside, Queens. Originally trained as a musician,…

Born October 20, 1956 in Lancashire, England to Irish parents, the writer/director Daniel “Danny” Boyle began his show business career in the theatre, moving to television in 1982. Among his TV credits were two episodes of Inspector Morse which he directed in 1990 and 1992. According to both IMDB and Wikipedia, the “Daniel Boyle” who…

Born October 15, 1900 in San Francisco, California, Mervyn LeRoy’s paternal grandfather owned a successful department store in the city that was wiped out by the 1906 earthquake. Although LeRoy and his father survived, the family was in financial ruin. The youngster sold newspapers and entered talent contests as a singer to make money. Eventually…

Born December 23, 1887 in Toledo, Ohio, actor/director Elwood Dager Cromwell (stage name John Cromwell) had one of the longest and most prolific stage and screen careers of the Twentieth Century. He directed ten actors to Oscar nominations and had more films open at Radio City Music Hall than any other director – 18 in…

Born July 17, 1899, James Cagney was the second of seven children, two of whom died at birth, of an Irish bartender and Irish-Norwegian mother. He grew up on New York’s tough lower East Side. Cagney held a variety of jobs before making his stage debut as a sailor masquerading as a female dancer in…

Born Lucille LeSueur on March 23, 1904, her father abandoned her mother and older brother before she was born. By age 16 she had had three different stepfathers, although her mother’s marriage to Henry Cassin was listed as her first in the 1920 census. Cassin was a minor impresario in Oklahoma whose vaudeville shows gave…

Born January 25, 1874 in Paris, France to British parents, where his father was a lawyer who handled the affairs of the British Embassy, William Somerset Maugham grew up to become a popular playwright, short story writer and the highest paid author in the world in the 1930s. Maugham had an idyllic childhood raised more…

Born January 21, 1886 in New York, New York, John Malcolm Stahl began working in the city’s growing movie industry at an early age. He directed his first of forty-six films, A Boy and the Law in 1914. He wrote the first of his three screenplays for Wives of Men in 1918. He produced the…

Born March 23, 1893 in Dublin, Ireland to an Irish architect and his wife, Cedric Gibbons became one of the most influential artisans in Hollywood history. Having emigrated to the U.S. with his parents as a child, he worked for his father after graduating New York’s prestigious Art Students League. From there he went to…

Born September 13, 1900 to a show business family, Gladys George was touring with her parents by the age of 3. A Broadway star by 1916, she made her film debut as the female lead in 1919’s Red Hot Dollars. She made six more films in the next two years before returning to the stage.…

Born November 30, 1947 in Chicago, Illinois to Bernard and Lenore Mamet, a lawyer and a teacher, respectively, David Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, film writer and film director. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1984 play, Glengarry Glen Ross and Tony awards for that and 1988’s Speed-the-Plow. He is known for Mamet…

Born January 15, 1937, Angela Maxine O’Brien’s father, circus performer Lawrence O’Brien, died before she was born. Her mother, Gladys Flores, was a well-known flamenco dancer. The precocious child began her acting debut at the age of four with an un-credited role in 1941’s Babes on Broadway. She received her first billing in the title…

Born February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California of German, English and Irish descent, John Steinbeck’s father was the Monterey Country treasurer. Having graduated from Salinas High School in 1919, he spent five years at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 without graduating. He was then variously employed as a sales clerk, farm laborer, ranch hand and…

Born April 5, 1901 in Macon, Georgia to Lena Priscilla (née Shackelford) and Edouard Gregory Hasselberg, Melvyn Edouard Hasselberg took the stage name Melvyn Douglas from his maternal grandmother. His Russian Jewish born father was an internationally famous concert pianist and college professor. His mother, a native of Tennessee, was a Protestant descendant of the…