Category: Oscar Profile

Born Harriet Lake on January 22, 1909 in Valley City, North Dakota and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Ann Sothern was the daughter of a singer and vocal coach. Her younger sister was the composer Bonnie Lake. Her paternal grandfather, Simon Lake, was the inventor of the modern submarine. With her good looks and outgoing personality…

Born March 18, 1905 in Withington, Manchester, England, Robert Donat‘s carefully honed speaking voice was a result of the elocution lessons he took as a boy to overcome a terrible stammer. Unfortunately he never outgrew his other childhood affliction, an asthmatic condition that caused him to turn down more film roles than he accepted. On…

Contrary to myth, Sidney Poitier was not the first black actor to play strong, compelling characters on screen. Paul Robeson in the 1930s; Ernest Anderson, Canada Lee, James Edwards and Juano Hernandez in the 1940s all had memorable roles in major integrated Hollywood productions, but Poitier was the first to play such roles consistently over…

Born April 1, 1932 in El Paso, Texas, Mary Frances Reynolds, better known as Debbie, has been a vivacious star for so long it’s impossible for anyone under 70 to recall a time when she wasn’t around. She made her screen debut as a teenager in an un-credited role in 1948’s June Bride, but by…

Born February 14, 1902 in Brooklyn, New York, Thelma Ritter was a hard-working, albeit obscure stage and radio actress whose movie breakthrough came in her first film, in an unbilled bit role in 1947’s Miracle on 34th Street. Her portrayal of a mother who is sent to Gimbels by Macy’s Santa made such an impression…

Born April 21, 1915 in Chihuahua, Mexico to an Irish-Mexican father and Mexican mother, Antonio Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca (later Anthony Quinn) emigrated with his family to El Paso, Texas, then to Los Angeles where his father was an assistant cameraman at one of the studios and after his father’s death, to Tucson, Arizona. Intending to…

Born May 15, 1909, James Mason was a great character actor who was also a major star for most of his fifty year acting career. Although praised for almost all his performances, he was rarely singled out for acting awards. Perhaps it was because he was so good that he was taken for granted for…

Born July 1, 1916 to a British patent attorney and his wife in Tokyo, Japan, Olivia de Havilland’s parents were divorced when she was three, after which she moved with her mother and younger sister, future star Joan Fontaine, to Saratoga, California. Catching the acting bug in high school, de Havilland was spotted by the…

Born December 5, 1905 in Wiznitz, Bukovina, Austria-Hungary, now Wyschnyzja, Ukraine, Otto Preminger was born into a wealthy Jewish family. His father was a prosecutor who became Attorney General of Austria-Hungary. Although he originally intended to follow in his father’s footsteps, he fell in love with the theatre and made his first film as a…

Born January 30, 1920 in Lawrence, Kansas, Delbert Mann was the son of educators. After service as a bomber pilot during World War II, he attended Yale Drama School. His friend Fred Coe, a producer at NBC,offered him the chance to direct live drama on TV beginning in 1949. His television credits beginning in 1950…

Born April 2, 1914 in London, England, Alec Guinness worked in advertising before achieving success as an actor. While studying acting at actress Fay Compton’s school he had a part as extra in 1934’s Evensong but spent the remainder of the decade on stage. A commissioned officer in the Royal Navy during World War II,…

Born March 5, 1874 in Northumberland, England, Travers Haggerty who would take the stage name of stage name Henry Travers had a long career on the British stage before coming to America at the turn of the last century. On Broadway form 1901 to 1938, his stage roles included those of Alfred Dolittle in the…

Born October 5, 1908 in Texarkana, Texas, Joshua Logan’s father committed suicide when the younger Logan was just three years old. He then moved with his mother and sister to his maternal grandparents’ home in Mansfield, Louisiana. After his mother’s remarriage he was sent to a military boarding school. He became interested in acting while…

Born April 20, 1924 in Leiden, Holland to Dutch classical music conductor Dirk Fock and his wife, American actress-singer Consuelo Flowerton, her parents divorced when she was a toddler and she moved with her mother to New York where she grew up. Although she studied music and art, she turned to acting as a teenager…

Born April 29, 1907 in Vienna, Austria, Fred Zinnemann grew up wanting to be a musician but ended up studying law instead. While studying at the University of Vienna he became interested in films and got his start as a cameraman working alongside such future greats as Billy Wilder and Robert Siodmak. Moving to the…