Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-7 of 7
- Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Stunts
Fred Stromsoe was born on 15 June 1930 in Denver, Colorado, USA. He was an actor and assistant director, known for What's Up, Doc? (1972), Adam-12 (1968) and The Lucy Show (1962). He was married to Nancy Berry. He died on 30 September 1994 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Journalist Adela Rogers St. Johns once dubbed Lina Basquette "The Screen Tragedy Girl." In retrospect, Lina's private life bore a similar description. While six of her eight marriages ended up "I Don'ts" (she was widowed twice), she would also have to contend with a flurry of legal confrontations, stormy affairs and suicide attempts. Once she gave a fond farewell to her entertainment career in the late 1930s, her life literally went to the dogs.
The full-faced, raven-haired California-born actress was christened Lena Baskette, the daughter of Frank Baskette, a drug store owner. Lina trained in dance while very young and at the San Francisco World's Fair of 1915, the eight-year-old was featured as a baby ballerina for the Victor Talking Machine Company's exhibition. Movie maker Carl Laemmle saw her perform and signed her to a long-term contract with his Universal Pictures company at $50 a week. Lina headlined her very own short programs, the "Lena Baskette Featurettes," between 1916-1917, and also garnered young leads in a number of full-length features including What Love Can Do (1916), Shoes (1916), A Prince for a Day (1917), The Weaker Vessel (1919) and, more notably, Penrod (1922).
In 1916, Lena's father died and mother Gladys remarried. Gladys and her new husband, dance director Ernest Belcher, had a daughter together who became Lena's half-sister and future dancing star Marge Champion. Lena's mother was an avid stage mother and eventually, with Belcher's help, managed to prod Lena into the Ziegfeld Follies of 1923. She stayed with the Follies for a couple of years. Billed third as "America's Prima Ballerina," Lena's marquee name was changed to the more exotic spelling of "Lina Basquette." Her act was caught by the legendary Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, who offered to take on Lina as her protégée. Lina's mother nixed the offer, wishing to make bigger bucks for her daughter with the Follies and other shows, Texas Guinan's notorious speakeasies notwithstanding.
At age 18, Lina married 38-year-old Warner Bros. mogul Sam Warner. Lina greatly influenced Warner to pursue sound pictures and even encouraged him to star Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer (1927). Sam died unexpectedly at age 40 of a brain hemorrhage the night before the film's premiere. This heartbreak jump-started an avalanche of problems for Lina. She not only became embroiled in a series of legal battles with her in-laws over her husband's estate, she lost custody of her daughter Lita in the process. She would not see her daughter for another 30 years. This crisis led to Lina's first attempt at suicide.
Lina valiantly returned to films and made such silents as Ranger of the North (1927), The Noose (1928) and Wheel of Chance (1928), while scoring two noteworthy roles in Frank Capra's The Younger Generation (1929) and Cecil B. DeMille's The Godless Girl (1928). In the latter she played an avowed atheist. This powerful film should have made Lina a sultry star had it not been released as a silent film right at the advent of talkies.
Within a very short time Lina married twice more -- a quickie union to cameraman J. Peverell Marley, and in 1931 the widow (once again) of third husband, actor Ray Hallam, who suddenly died at the age of 26 after only a few months of wedded bliss. Lina subsequently started up a highly publicized affair with famed boxer Jack Dempsey. Their stormy breakup led to her second suicide try and a rebound marriage to his personal trainer Theodore Hayes in December of 1931. This fourth marriage was not valid as it was discovered that Hayes was already married. The couple remarried in 1933 and had a son, Edward Alvin, in 1934 before divorcing the following year.
At this juncture Lina's private life received more interest from the public than her films. Her career had down-sized to "B" westerns opposite such stars as Buck Jones and Hoot Gibson and a few mellers here and there. After touring the stages of Australia, New Zealand and various South African cities in the plays "Private Lives," "Black Limelight" and "Idiot's Delight" in 1938 and 1939, and after appearing in the films Rose of the Rio Grande (1938), Four Men and a Prayer (1938) and A Night for Crime (1943), she called it quits.
Misfortune, however, continued to follow her. In August of 1943 she brought up assault and rape charges against a 22-year-old Army GI. The soldier was found guilty and sentenced to 20 years in the brig. Completely retired, she found emotional solace with her new post-war profession -- the breeding and handling of Great Danes. In 1949, she became the owner of Honey Hollow Kennels, a 25 acre estate in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. There she bred and raised champion dogs for best-in-shows and also became a respected judge. More marriages came and fell by the wasteside and at least one of her later unions lost out to an either/or ultimatum with her Great Danes. Lina also wrote the non-fiction book "Your Great Dane" in 1972. She moved to Wheeling, West Virginia, in 1975 and lived there until her death of lymphoma at age 87 on September 30, 1994.
Out of nowhere, the octogenarian grandmother had one last chance to bask in the limelight when she was touchingly cast as Nada in Daniel Boyd's independent feature Paradise Park (1992) playing an Appalachian trailer park granny who dreams that God is coming and granting a wish on all its residents. The film also featured country music stars Porter Wagoner and Johnny PayCheck. Boyd had met the actress at a West Virginia film festival. - Sydney Walker, the stage and movie actor, was born on May 5, 1921 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Walker made his Broadway debut as the Archbishop of Canterbury in the famous 1960 production of Jean Anouilh's "Beckett," which starred Laurence Olivier and Anthony Quinn. He subsequently appeared in 22 Broadway productions from 1960 to 1973.
As a member of the APA-Phoenix Repertory Company, he was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actor in a Play for his role as Lt. Ekdahl in the revival of Henrik Ibsen's "The Wild Duck" in 1967. Later, he was a member of the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln Center, appearing as the Second God in the 1970 production of Bertolt Brecht's "The Good Woman of Setzuan," as Sir Toby Belch in the 1972 production of "Twelfth Night," and as Shylock in the 1973 production of "The Merchant of Venice." His last play was the 1973 production of "Veronica's Room," in which he was the standby for Arthur Kennedy, whom had replaced Anthony Quinn in "Beckett," Walker's first Broadway production.
Walker made his movie debut in the Kirk Douglas movie A Lovely Way to Die (1968) and played the doctor in Love Story (1970). He made five appearances on the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in 1974. His last film was Getting Even with Dad (1994), but his most famous movie role came two years earlier in the film adaptation of Prelude to a Kiss (1992), in which he reprized the role of the Old Man he had assayed in the 1988 Berkeley Repertory production of the Craig Lucas play.
Walker received the best reviews of the film for his portrait of the Old Man who swaps bodies with a young woman, giving a performance that showed the frightened young woman trapped inside an old man's body while simultaneously channeling a sad, genteel sagacity. The movie was not a commercial or critical success, primarily due to Meg Ryan's poor acting, which failed to intimate that she is the same person as the Old Man.
Unfortunately, Sydney Walker was never able to capitalize on this late career succes d'estime. He died in San Francisco, California on September 30, 1994 from cancer. - Doreen English was born on 20 July 1917 in Pancras, London, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Uneasy Terms (1948). She died on 30 September 1994 in New Malden, Surrey, England, UK.
- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Pierre Sabbagh was born on 18 July 1918 in Lannion, Côtes-du-Nord, France. He was a director and producer, known for Au théâtre ce soir (1966), À la recherche du temps présent (1983) and Spectacle d'un soir (1964). He was married to Catherine Langeais. He died on 30 September 1994 in Paris, France.- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
- Actress
Galina Suprunova was born on 26 June 1932 in Novosibirsk, RSFSR, USSR. She was an assistant director and actress, known for Andzamb tchanachum em (1958), Patvi hamar (1956) and Ya rodom iz detstva (1966). She died on 30 September 1994 in St. Petersburg, Russia.- Bill Whedbee was born on 27 August 1919. He was an actor, known for Over the Edge (1979). He died on 30 September 1994.