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Big Wednesday
''Big Wednesday'' is a 1978 American coming of age film directed by John Milius. Written by Milius and Dennis Aaberg, it is loosely based on their own experiences at Malibu, California. The picture stars Jan-Michael Vincent, William Katt, and Gary Busey as California surfers facing life and the Vietnam War against the backdrop of their love of surfing. Raised in Southern California, Milius made ''Big Wednesday'' as an homage to the time he spent in Malibu during his youth. Milius and his friends George Lucas and Steven Spielberg famously agreed to exchange a percentage point of ''Big Wednesday'', ''Star Wars'' and ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' prior to the release of the three films throughout 1977-1978. Spielberg in particular was certain that ''Big Wednesday'' was going to be a box office hit, opining it was like "''American Graffiti'' meets '' Jaws''", two of the decade's most successful films. Plot The film tells the story of three young friends whose passion in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Milius
John Frederick Milius (; born April 11, 1944) is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He was a writer for the first two '' Dirty Harry'' films, received an Academy Award nomination as screenwriter of ''Apocalypse Now'' (1979), and wrote and directed ''The Wind and the Lion'' (1975), ''Conan the Barbarian'' (1982), and '' Red Dawn'' (1984). He later served as the co-creator of the Primetime Emmy Award-winning television series ''Rome'' (2005–2007). Early life and education Milius was born April 11, 1944, in St. Louis, Missouri, the youngest of three children to Elizabeth Marie ( Roe; 1906–2010) and William Styx Milius (1889–1975), who was a shoe manufacturer. He is Jewish. When Milius was seven, his father sold Milius Shoe Company, which his grandfather George W. Milius had founded in 1923, and retired. He moved the family to Bel Air, California. John Milius became an enthusiastic surfer. At 14, his parents sent him to a small private school, the Low ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and '' Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairman of Lucasfilm before selling it to The Walt Disney Company in 2012. Lucas is one of history's most financially successful filmmakers and has been nominated for four Academy Awards. His films are among the 100 highest-grossing movies at the North American box office, adjusted for ticket-price inflation. Lucas is considered to be one of the most significant figures of the 20th-century New Hollywood movement, and a pioneer of the modern blockbuster. After graduating from the University of Southern California in 1967, Lucas co-founded American Zoetrope with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola. Lucas wrote and directed ''THX 1138'' (1971), based on his student short '' Electronic Labyrinth: THX 1138 4EB'', which was a critical success but a f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fran Ryan
Fran Mary Ryan (November 29, 1916 January 15, 2000) was an American character actress featured in television and films. She was born in Los Angeles, California. Career Ryan began performing at the age of six at Oakland's Henry Duffy Theatre. She attended Stanford University for three years, and during World War II was a member of the USO entertaining troops. She performed comedy, singing and acting on stage in California and Chicago, and launched her television career two decades later. Her television debut came in episode 43 of ''Batman'', in 1966, followed by a bit part in ''Beverly Hillbillies''. She also appeared in a 1972 episode of ''Columbo'', Dagger of the Mind, as "uncredited woman at the airport." Ryan's first supporting cast television role was as Aggie Thompson in the first several episodes of ''The Doris Day Show''. The same season, she was offered the replacement role on the series ''Green Acres'' as Doris Ziffel from 1969 to 1971. Ryan replaced Barbara Pepper, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Hale
Barbara Hale (April 18, 1922 – January 26, 2017) was an American actress who portrayed legal secretary Della Street in the dramatic television series ''Perry Mason'' (1957–1966), earning her a 1959 Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series. She reprised the role in 30 Perry Mason made-for-television movies (1985–1995). Early life Barbara Hale was born in DeKalb, Illinois, to Wilma (née Colvin) and Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener. She had one sister, Juanita, for whom Hale's younger daughter was named. The family was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. In 1940, Hale was a member of the final graduating class from Rockford High School in Rockford, Illinois, then attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, planning to be an artist. Her performing career began in Chicago, when she started modeling to pay for her education. Career Film Hale moved to Hollywood in 1943, and under contract to RKO Radio Pictures, made her first screen appearance (uncredite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Englund
Robert Barton Englund (born June 6, 1947) is an American actor and director. He is best known for playing the supernatural serial killer Freddy Krueger in the ''Nightmare on Elm Street'' film series. Classically trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Englund began his career as a stage actor in regional theatre, and made his film debut in '' Buster and Billie'' in 1974. After supporting roles in films in the 1970s such as ''Stay Hungry'', '' A Star Is Born'', and ''Big Wednesday'', Englund had his breakthrough as the resistance fighter Willie in the miniseries '' V'' in 1983. Following his performance in the original ''A Nightmare on Elm Street'' in 1984, he became closely associated with the horror film genre, and is widely-regarded as one of its iconic actors. Early life Englund was born on June 6, 1947, in Glendale, California, the son of Janis (née MacDonald) and John Kent Englund, an aeronautics engineer who helped develop the Lockheed U-2 airplane. He is of part S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Darrell Fetty
Darrell Fetty is an American actor, screenwriter, and producer. He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his work on the History miniseries '' Hatfields & McCoys'' which has received a total of 16 nominations. He resides in Los Angeles, California, and continues to work in film, television, and theater. Early life Darrell Fetty was born in Milton, West Virginia and attended one of the last one-room schoolhouses in America at Ball's Gap, West Virginia. He graduated from Milton High School and Marshall University, both located in West Virginia. As a kid, he got his first role in a church play with his parents. He started piano lessons in the third grade, and, a couple of years later, began playing for the church choir. In his teens, Fetty put several rock bands together. With the help of his guitarist friend Yancey Burns, he formed The Satisfied Minds and they released one single on Plato Records. Career TV and film career Moving to Los Angeles after college graduation, Fetty la ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sam Melville (actor)
Samuel Gardner Melville (August 20, 1936 – March 9, 1989) was an American film and television actor. He appeared as a guest star on many television programs of the 1960s and 1970s. He portrayed Officer Mike Danko in four seasons of Aaron Spelling's ABC series ''The Rookies'', and The Bear in the 1978 surfing movie '' Big Wednesday'', with Celia Kaye as his unnamed "bride". Melville also had small parts in ''Hour of the Gun'' (1967) playing the role of Morgan Earp, '' The Thomas Crown Affair'' (1968) starring Steve McQueen, as Lieutenant James Crandall / Schmidt on ''Hogan's Heroes'' (1966), and the television disaster film ''Terror in the Sky'' (1971) as the co-pilot. On ''Gunsmoke'' and '' Hawaii Five-O'', both on CBS, he played villains as a guest-star. However, on the episode "A Mule ... Like the Army's Mule" of the syndicated anthology series ''Death Valley Days'', Melville portrayed United States Army Lt. Jason Beal, who befriended Sandy King, played by Luke Halpin, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality is "an enduring pattern of emotional, romantic, and/or sexual attractions" to people of the same sex. It "also refers to a person's sense of identity based on those attractions, related behaviors, and membership in a community of others who share those attractions." Along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation within the heterosexual–homosexual continuum. Scientists do not yet know the exact cause of sexual orientation, but they theorize that it is caused by a complex interplay of genetic, hormonal, and environmental influences and do not view it as a choice. Although no single theory on the cause of sexual orientation has yet gained widespread support, scientists favor biologically based theories. There is considerably more evidence supp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Insanity
Insanity, madness, lunacy, and craziness are behaviors performed by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity can be manifest as violations of societal norms, including a person or persons becoming a danger to themselves or to other people. Conceptually, mental insanity also is associated with the biological phenomenon of contagion (that mental illness is infectious) as in the case of copycat suicides. In contemporary usage, the term ''insanity'' is an informal, un-scientific term denoting "mental instability"; thus, the term insanity defense is the legal definition of mental instability. In medicine, the general term psychosis is used to include the presence either of delusions or of hallucinations or both in a patient; and psychiatric illness is "psychopathology", not ''mental insanity''. An interview with Dr. Joseph Merlino, David Shankbone, '' Wikinews'', 5 October 2007. In English, the word "sane" derives from the Latin adjective ''sanus'' meaning "he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nickname
A nickname is a substitute for the proper name of a familiar person, place or thing. Commonly used to express affection, a form of endearment, and sometimes amusement, it can also be used to express defamation of character. As a concept, it is distinct from both pseudonym and stage name, and also from a title (for example, City of Fountains), although there may be overlap in these concepts. Etymology The compound word ''ekename'', literally meaning "additional name", was attested as early as 1303. This word was derived from the Old English phrase ''eac'' "also", related to ''eacian'' "to increase". By the 15th century, the rebracketing, misdivision of the syllables of the phrase "an ekename" led to its rephrasing as "a nekename". Though the spelling has changed, the pronunciation and meaning of the word have remained relatively stable ever since. Conventions in various languages English nicknames are generally represented in quotes between the bearer's first and last name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jaws (film)
''Jaws'' is a 1975 American thriller film directed by Steven Spielberg, based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. It stars Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody, who, with the help of a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a professional shark hunter ( Robert Shaw), hunts a man-eating great white shark that attacks beachgoers at a summer resort town. Murray Hamilton plays the mayor, and Lorraine Gary portrays Brody's wife. The screenplay is credited to Benchley, who wrote the first drafts, and actor-writer Carl Gottlieb, who rewrote the script during principal photography. Shot mostly on location on Martha's Vineyard in Massachusetts, ''Jaws'' was the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean, and consequently had a troubled production with issues such as going over budget and past schedule. As the art department's mechanical sharks often malfunctioned, Spielberg decided mostly to suggest the shark's presence, employing an ominous and minimalist theme creat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
American Graffiti
''American Graffiti'' is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by George Lucas, produced by Francis Ford Coppola, written by Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz and Lucas, and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard (billed as Ronny Howard), Paul Le Mat, Harrison Ford, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips, Bo Hopkins, and Wolfman Jack. Suzanne Somers, Kathleen Quinlan, Debralee Scott, and Joe Spano also appear in the film. The film is the first movie to be produced by George Lucas's company Lucasfilm. Set in Modesto, California, in 1962, the film is a study of the cruising and early rock 'n' roll cultures popular among Lucas's age group at the time. Through a series of vignettes, it tells the story of a group of teenagers and their adventures over the course of a night. While Lucas was working on his first film, '' THX 1138'', Coppola asked him to write a coming-of-age film. The genesis of ''American Graffiti'' took plac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
