Category: Oscar Profile

Born Anna Maria Italiano in the Bronx on September 17, 1931, the future Anne Bancroft made her screen debut in 1952’s Don’t Bother to Knock. In featured roles in A movies like Demetrius and the Gladiators and lead roles in B movies like Gorilla at Large, she became dissatisfied with her film career by the…

Born January 20, 1926, Patricia Neal’s real life story, only part of which was played out by Glenda Jackson in a 1981 TV movie, was more turbulent and eventful than anything she ever did on screen. A classically trained actress, the Kentucky native made her Broadway debut as Margaret Sullavan’s understudy in 1943’s The Voice…

Frank James “Gary” Cooper was born May 7, 1901 in Helena, Montana. The son of a Montana Supreme Court judge, he was schooled in England and Iowa as well as Montana. He moved with his parents to California when his father retired from the bench. His numerous early jobs included that of an extra in…

Born in Yorkshire, England in 1899, young Charles Laughton followed his father into the hotel management business, but in his late twenties enrolled as a student in London’s prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) where he excelled. Soon appearing on the London stage, he was the first actor to play Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot…

Born April 5, 1916 in La Jolla, California, Eldred Gregory Peck was raised by his grandmother after his parents divorced when he was five. Sent to a Catholic military school by his father, after the death of his grandmother, he later enrolled as a pre-med student at U.C.-Berkeley, but caught the acting bug. After graduation…

Born August 7, 1884 in Washington, D.C, Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke spent her early life touring the world with her father, the famous clown, Billy Burke. Eventually settling in England, the redheaded beauty became a star on the London stage in 1905 and returned to America in 1907 to star opposite John Drew in…

Born December 18, 1888 in London, England, Gladys Cooper would have one of the most celebrated stage and screen careers of the Twentieth Century. Considered a great beauty even as a child, she became a photographer’s model at the age of six. She made her stage debut at 16 in 1905 in the British touring…

Born in 1934, Maggie Smith has been acting on stage since 1952, on TV since 1955 and on screen since 1958. She is a recipient of five BAFTAs, two Oscars, two Golden Globes, two Emmys and a Tony. She has been a Dame of the British Empire since 1990. Although she started out as a…

Born in 1898 in Menominee, Michigan, James Mitchell Leisen was trained as an architect, but worked in Hollywood form his early twenties as a set designer, art director and costume designer. Associated throughout the 1920s with Douglas Fairbanks and Cecil B. DeMille, he designed the costumes for Fairbanks’ Robin Hood (1920) and The Thief of…

Born in Philadelphia, Penn. in 1924, Sidney Lumet is one of the most prolific film directors of the last fifty-plus years. His films have received a total of forty-six Oscar nominations, and won four. He has directed seventeen actors to eighteen Oscar nominations, been nominated himself five times, and won an honorary award at the…

Born in Constantinople, Ottoman Empire, now Istanbul, Turkey, to Greek parents in 1909, Elia Kazan emigrated with his parents to America as a child. An actor before he became a director, he was a co-founder of the Group Theatre in 1932 and the founder of the Actor’s Studio in 1947. The earliest proponent of “method”…

Born Oscar Levert Bridges III, and delivered by candlelight because of a power outage on December 9 in 1941, the first of Lloyd and Dorothy Bridges’ four children was immediately nicknamed “Beau” after Olivia de Havilland’s baby in Gone With the Wind. Born to a Hollywood family with a Hollywood name, it was only natural…

Born in 1890, the youngest of 11 children of a wealthy businessman, Frank Morgan followed his older (by seven years) brother, Ralph, into show business. Though Ralph was initially the more famous of the two, and later the first President of the Screen Actors Guild, Frank’s career would soon eclipse his. A popular character actor…

The most popular entertainer of his time, Bing Crosby was born in Tacoma, Washington in 1903. He was a rising star when he married his first wife, Dixie Lee in 1930. She was a well-known singer and actress while he was still struggling to make his name. After the success of his single “I Surrender…

Of all the many wonderful character actors and actresses with lengthy careers who somehow never managed to attract serious Oscar consideration, the indomitable Una O’Connor was perhaps the best. Born in 1880 in Belfast, Ireland to a Catholic nationalist family, O’Connor’s early career was as a member of Dublin’s celebrated Abbey Theatre. She appeared on…