Martin Brooks (1925 - 2015)

Martin Brooks was born Martin Baum in The Bronx. When he was 10, he moved with his family to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. After high school, he volunteered to serve in the U.S. Army, became a paratrooper with the 11th Airborne Division and was awarded a Purple Heart for injuries received during World War II. He attended […]

John Bromfield (1922 - 2005)

John Bromfield was born in South Bend, Indiana. He played football and was a boxing champion in college. He served in the United States Navy in World War II. In 1948, he twice harpooned a whale in the documentary film Harpoon. In 1948, he was cast as a detective in the film Sorry, Wrong Number, […]

James Broderick (1927 - 1982)

James Broderick was born in Charlestown, New Hampshire, the son of Mary Elizabeth (née Martindale) (b. 1896) and James Joseph Broderick II (or Jr.) (1895-1959). He was raised Catholic. His father, a highly decorated World War I combat medic, was of Irish descent, and his mother was of English and Irish ancestry. In 1947, after […]

Carl Brisson (1893 - 1958)

Carl Brisson (24 December 1893 – 25 September 1958), born Carl Frederik Ejnar Pedersen, was a Danish film actor and singer. He appeared in thirteen films between 1918 and 1935, including two silent films directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In the 1934 film Murder at the Vanities, he introduced the popular song “Cocktails for Two”. Prior to […]

David Brian (1914 - 1993)

David Brian served in the United States Coast Guard during World War II. Persuaded by Joan Crawford to try his hand at film acting, he joined her in Hollywood and, in 1949, signed a contract with Warner Brothers. The New York City native appeared in such films as The Damned Don’t Cry! and Flamingo Road […]

Robert Bray (1917 - 1983)

Robert Bray was born to homesteading parents in Kalispell, Montana. The family moved to Seattle, Washington, where Bray attended Lincoln High School. After graduation, he was for a time a lumberjack, a cowboy, and a member of the Civilian Conservation Corps. In 1942, Bray joined the United States Marine Corps and saw action in the […]

Hugh Brannum (1910 - 1987)

During World War II, Hugh Brannum enlisted in the US Marine Corps and joined a Marine band led by Bob Crosby. After the war, he joined the Four Squires, later moving to Fred Waring and His Pennsylvanians; Waring’s group had a regular radio show, where Hugh met fellow Marine Bob Keeshan, an employee at the […]

Jay Marshall (1919 - 2005)

Jay Marshall his interest in magic started when he was six. As a youngster, he saw performances by Thurston and Houdini. In later years, he admitted to dozing off in the midst of Houdini’s show. After only a year at college, he went on to be a professional entertainer instead, initially working out of Boston. […]

Neville Brand (1920 - 1992)

Neville Brand started his big-screen career in D.O.A. (1950) as a henchman named Chester. His hulking physique, rough-hewn, craggy-faced looks and gravelly voice lead to him largely playing gangsters, Western outlaws and other screen “heavies,” cops and other tough-guy roles throughout his career. He became well known as a villain when he killed the character […]

Wilfrid Brambell (1912 - 1985)

Wilfrid Brambell’s television career began during the 1950s, when he was cast in small roles in three Nigel Kneale/Rudolph Cartier productions for BBC Television: as a drunk in The Quatermass Experiment (1953), as both an old man in a pub and later a prisoner in Nineteen Eighty-Four (1954) and as a tramp in Quatermass II […]

Scott Brady (1924 - 1985)

Scott Brady specialized in tough-guy roles in films like He Walked by Night, Canon City, and Johnny Guitar, as the “Dancin’ Kid”. From 1953 to 1956, Brady appeared four times in different roles on the anthology series, Lux Video Theatre. In 1955, he portrayed Ted Slater in “Man in the Ring” of NBC’s anthology series, The […]

Pat Brady (1914 - 1972)

Pat Brady (December 31, 1914 – February 27, 1972) was best known as cowboy Roy Rogers’ “comical sidekick.” Pat’s full name was Robert Ellsworth Patrick Aloysious O’Brady and this was shortened to “Bob Brady,” although it is not known when the “O’” was dropped from “O’Brady.” Born in Toledo, Ohio, Pat Brady first set foot on […]

Tommy Bond (1926 - 2005)

Tommy Bond got his start in 1931 at the age of five when a talent scout for Hal Roach studios approached him as he was leaving a Dallas cinema with his mother. The scout asked him if he would like to act in films because he “had a great face” and set up an appointment […]

Derek Bond (1920 - 2006)

Derek Bond was born on 26 January 1920 in Glasgow, Scotland. He attended Haberdashers’ Aske’s Boys’ School in Hampstead, London. He saw active service with the Grenadier Guards in North Africa during the Second World War, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. He spent the last few months of the war in Stalag […]

Curt Bois (1901 - 1991)

Curt Bois (April 5, 1901 – December 25, 1991) was a German actor. He is best remembered for his performance as the Pickpocket in Casablanca (1942). Bois was born in Berlin and began acting in 1907, becoming one of the film world’s first child actors, with a role in the silent movie Bauernhaus und Grafenschloß. In […]

Melvin Burkhart (1907 - 2001)

Melvin Burkhart Was a legendary sideshow performer who billed himself as the Human Blockhead and proved it by hammering nails and spikes up his nose in front of millions of Americans in thousands of places — from the 1939 World’s Fair to countless dusty midways to the Coney Island boardwalk to an off-Broadway theater just […]

Polly Wagner (1910 - 2014)

Polly Wagner Actress. Wagner, who came to California as a young girl and graduated from Santa Monica High School, was discovered by an MGM talent scout while playing volleyball outside the Santa Monica beachfront home of Marion Davies and William Randolph Hearst. Although she had roles in ‘Lady Killer’ (1933) with James Cagney, ‘Little Miss […]

Syd Thrift (1929 - 2006)

  Major League Baseball Executive. In 1949, he began his baseball career as a minor-league pitcher for the New York Yankees. When a injury ended his playing in 1953, he remained in the Yankee system as a scout. From 1957 to 1967, he was scouting supervisor and training instructor for the Pittsburgh Pirates and was […]

Roman Bohnen (1901 - 1949)

After the failure of a play called Five Alarm Waltz in 1941, Roman Bohnen and [his daughter] Marina moved to Hollywood. His first film was the Vogues of 1938 (1937). By 1941, he was working almost exclusively in film. Among his better-known roles are Candy in Of Mice and Men (1939) and Pat Derry in […]

Monte Blue (1887 - 1963)

Monte Blue had no theatrical experience when he came to the screen. His first movie was The Birth of a Nation (1915), in which he was a stuntman and an extra. Next, he played another small part in Intolerance (1916). He also was a stuntman or stand-in for Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree during the making […]

Eric Blore (1887 - 1959)

Eric Blore (23 December 1887 – 2 March 1959) was an English comic actor. Blore was born in Finchley, Middlesex, England. Aged 18, Blore worked as an insurance agent for two years. He gained theatre experience while touring Australia. Originally enlisting into the Artists Rifles he was commissioned in the South Wales Borderers in World War […]

Michael Blodgett (1939 - 2007)

Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Michael Blodgett attended the University of Minnesota before moving to Los Angeles to act. Once in Los Angeles, he earned a degree in political science from Cal State Los Angeles and attended Loyola Law School for one year before turning his attention to acting. In the summer of 1967, Blodgett served […]

Stuart Blackton (1875 - 1941)

Stuart Blackton was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England. His surname was originally Blacktin, his parents being Henry Blacktin and Jessie, née Stuart. He emigrated with his family to the USA at 10 years of age. He worked as a reporter and illustrator for the New York Evening World newspaper, and performed regularly on stage with […]

William Bishop (1918 - 1959)

William Bishop was the son of Edward T. Bishop and Helen MacArthur Bishop. He had a brother, Robert. His elementary and secondary schooling came in New York and New Jersey. He went to West Virginia University where he wanted to study law but left to enter theater. While he was at WVU, Bishop “won laurels […]

Willy Birgel (1891 - 1973)

Willy Birgel began his acting career before World War I on the stage in his native city of Cologne, and came to movies rather late. He was about 43 years old before he got his first major film role as the English Camp Commandant in Paul Wegener’s Ein Mann will nach Deutschland (roughly translated A […]

Diana Sands (1934 - 1973)

Diana Sands (August 22, 1934 – September 21, 1973) was an American actress, perhaps most famous for her portrayal of Beneatha Younger, the sister of Sidney Poitier’s character in the original stage and film versions of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun (1961). She also appeared in a number of dramatic television series in […]

Adele Sandrock (1863 - 1937)

Adele Sandrock (19 August 1863 – 30 August 1937) was a German-Dutch actress. After a successful theatrical career, she became one of the first German movie stars. Adele Sandrock was born as Adele Feldern-Förster in Rotterdam, Netherlands, the daughter of the German merchant Eduard Sandrock (1834–1897) and his Dutch wife Johanna Simonetta ten Hagen (1833–1917). After […]

Johanna Sällström (1974 - 2007)

Johanna Sällström made her first stage appearance in Hudiksvall at the age of 15, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She became famous in Sweden in the 1990s, after portraying the teenage girl Victoria Bärnsten in the soap opera Tre kronor. Thereafter, she appeared in numerous productions, and received a Guldbagge Award for Best Actress in […]

Peggy Ryan (1924 - 2004)

Peggy Ryan (August 28, 1924 – October 30, 2004) was an American dancer, best known for starring in a series of movie musicals at Universal Pictures with Donald O’Connor and Gloria Jean. She joined her parents’ vaudeville act, “The Merry Dancing Ryans,” before she was two years old. Her singing, acting, and dancing skills were noticed […]

Irene Ryan (1902 - 1973)

Irene Ryan began her career at the age of 11, after winning $3 for singing “Pretty Baby” in an amateur contest at the Valencia Theater in San Francisco. At 20, she married writer-comedian Tim Ryan. They performed in vaudeville as a double act, known in show business as a “Dumb Dora” routine and epitomized by George […]