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Strait-Jacket
''Strait-Jacket'' is a 1964 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by William Castle, written by Robert Bloch and starring Joan Crawford. Its plot follows a woman who, having murdered her husband and his lover decades prior, is suspected of a series of axe murders following her release from a psychiatric hospital. Released by Columbia Pictures in January 1964, the film was the first of two written for Castle by Robert Bloch, the second being ''The Night Walker (film), The Night Walker'' (1964). The film's plot makes use of the psychological abuse method known as gaslighting. Plot After finding her husband asleep in bed with his mistress, Lucy Harbin Decapitation, decapitates them both with an axe. Her three-year-old daughter, Carol, witnesses the murders. Lucy is committed to a psychiatric hospital and deemed criminally insane. Twenty years later, after she is found to be mentally sound and reformed, Lucy is released from the institution. She takes up residen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Kennedy
George Harris Kennedy Jr. (February 18, 1925 – February 28, 2016) was an American actor who appeared in more than 100 film and television productions. He played "Dragline" opposite Paul Newman in ''Cool Hand Luke'' (1967), winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role and being nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture, corresponding Golden Globe. He received a second Golden Globe nomination for portraying Joe Patroni in ''Airport (1970 film), Airport'' (1970). Among the notable films he had a significant role in are ''Cool Hand Luke'', ''Charade (1963 film), Charade'', ''Strait-Jacket'', ''McHale's Navy (1964 film), McHale's Navy'', ''Shenandoah (film), Shenandoah'', ''The Sons of Katie Elder'', ''The Flight of the Phoenix (1965 film), The Flight of the Phoenix'', ''The Dirty Dozen'', ''The Boston Strangler (film), The Boston Strangler'', ''Guns of the Magnificent Seven'', ''Thunderbolt and Lightfoot'', ''The Good Gu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Castle
William Castle (born William Schloss Jr.; April 24, 1914 – May 31, 1977) was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. Orphaned at 11, Castle dropped out of high school at 15 to work in the theater. He came to the attention of Columbia Pictures for his talent for promotion and was hired. He learned the trade of filmmaking and became a director, acquiring a reputation for the ability to churn out competent B-movies quickly and on budget. He eventually struck out on his own, producing and directing Thriller (genre), thrillers, which, despite their low budgets, he effectively promoted using film promotion, gimmicks, a trademark for which he is best known. He was also the producer for ''Rosemary's Baby (film), Rosemary's Baby''. Personal life Castle was born in New York City, the son of Saidie (Snellenberg) and William Schloss. His family was Jewish. His mother died when he was nine. When his father followed a year later, he was left an orphan at the age of 11 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee Majors
Lee Majors (born Harvey Lee Yeary; April 23, 1939) is an American actor. Majors portrayed the characters of Heath Barkley in the American television Western series ''The Big Valley'' (1965–1969), Colonel Steve Austin in the American television science fiction action series ''The Six Million Dollar Man'' (1973–1978), and Colt Seavers in American television action series ''The Fall Guy'' (1981–1986). Early life Majors was born in Wyandotte, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. His parents, Carl and Alice Yeary, were both killed in separate accidents. (His father died in a work accident six months prior to his birth, and his mother was killed in a car accident when he was almost eighteen months old.) At the age of two, Majors was adopted by his uncle and aunt, Harvey and Mildred Yeary, and he moved with them to Middlesboro, Kentucky. He participated in track and football at Middlesboro High School. He graduated in 1957, and earned a scholarship to Indiana University, where he again ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diane Baker
Diane Carol Baker is an American actress, producer and educator who has appeared in motion pictures and on television since 1959. Early life Baker was born in 1938 at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and raised in North Hollywood and Studio City, California. She is the daughter of Dorothy Helen Harrington, who had appeared in several early Marx Brothers movies, and automobile salesman Clyde Lucius Baker. Baker has two younger sisters, Patricia and Cheryl. At age 18, after graduating from Van Nuys High School in 1956, Baker moved to New York to study acting with Charles Conrad and ballet with Nina Fonaroff. Career After securing a seven-year contract with 20th Century Fox in 1958, Baker made her film debut when she was chosen by director George Stevens to play Margot Frank in the 1959 motion picture '' The Diary of Anne Frank''. In the same year, she starred in ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' with James Mason and in '' The Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edith Atwater
Edith Atwater (April 22, 1911 – March 14, 1986) was an American stage, film, and television actress. Career Born in Chicago, Atwater made her Broadway debut in 1933. In 1939, she starred in ''The Man Who Came to Dinner''. Her film career included roles in ''The Body Snatcher'' (1945), ''Sweet Smell of Success'' (1957), ''It Happened at the World's Fair'' (1963), ''Strait-Jacket'' (1964), '' Strange Bedfellows'' (1965), ''True Grit'' (1969), '' The Love Machine'' (1971), ''Die Sister, Die!'' (1972), '' Mackintosh and T.J.'' (1975), and '' Family Plot'' (1976). From 1964 to 1965, Atwater appeared in several episodes of the television series '' Peyton Place'' in the role of Grace Morton, wife of Dr. Robert Morton, who was played by her real-life husband Kent Smith. During the 1966–1967 television season, she appeared in the series ''Love on a Rooftop''. She was also a regular on the television series '' Kaz'' during the 1978–1979 season. Her other television work included ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Bloch
Robert Albert Bloch (; April 5, 1917September 23, 1994) was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He began his professional writing career immediately after graduation, aged 17. Best known as the writer of '' Psycho'' (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while he started emulating Lovecraft and his brand of ''cosmic horror'', he later specialized in crime and horror stories working with a more psychological approach. Bloch was a contributor to pulp magazines such as ''Weird Tales'' in his early career, and was also a prolific scree ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rochelle Hudson
Rochelle Hudson (born Rachael Elizabeth Hudson; March 6, 1916 – January 17, 1972) was an American film actress from the 1930s through the 1960s. '': 25,000 Women Through the Ages''. Gale. 2007. Retrieved January 7, 2013 from Hudson was a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1931. Early years Hudson was born in |
Van Alexander
Van Alexander (May 2, 1915 – July 19, 2015) was an American bandleader, arranger, and composer. Early years Van Alexander was born Alexander Van Vliet Feldman in Harlem. His mother was a classical pianist, and she taught him to play the piano. He studied music at Columbia University. Alexander led bands and arranged music beginning in high school. Career He landed a job selling arrangements to Chick Webb in the middle of the 1930s. A-Tisket, A-Tasket" became a hit for Webb and Ella Fitzgerald, becoming one of her signature tunes. Alexander arranged other nursery rhymes for jazz, such as " Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone?" and "Got a Pebble in My Shoe". In 1938, Alexander formed his own band and played in theaters into the 1940s. When his group disbanded, he and two others from the group joined Larry Clinton's orchestra. George T. Simon, in his book, ''The Big Bands'', quoted Clinton as saying that he had "a package deal from Van Alexander. He had given up his band an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leif Erickson (actor)
Leif Erickson (born William Wycliffe Anderson; October 27, 1911 – January 29, 1986) was an American stage, film, and television actor. Early life Erickson was born in Alameda, California, near San Francisco. He worked as a soloist in a band as vocalist and trombone player, performed in Max Reinhardt's productions, and then gained a small amount of stage experience in a comedy vaudeville act. Initially billed by Paramount Pictures as Glenn Erickson, he began his screen career as a leading man in Westerns. Military service Erickson enlisted in the United States Navy during World War II. Rising to the rank of Chief Petty Officer in the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, he served as a military photographer, shooting film in combat zones, and as an instructor. He was shot down twice in the Pacific, and received two Purple Hearts. Erickson was in the unit that filmed and photographed the Japanese surrender aboard the in Tokyo Bay on September 2, 1945. Over four years service, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford (born Lucille Fay LeSueur; March 23, ncertain year from 1904 to 1908was an American actress. She started her career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies before debuting on Broadway. Crawford was signed to a motion picture contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1925. Initially frustrated by the size and quality of her parts, Crawford launched a publicity campaign and built an image as a nationally-known flapper by the end of the 1920s. By the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, but her films began losing money. By the end of the 1930s, she was labeled "box office poison". After an absence of nearly two years fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck (; born Ruby Catherine Stevens; July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American actress, model and dancer. A stage, film, and television star, during her 60-year professional career she was known for her strong, realistic screen presence and versatility. She was a favorite of directors, including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang, and Frank Capra, and made 85 films in 38 years before turning to television. Orphaned at the age of four and partially raised in foster homes, she always worked. One of her directors, Jacques Tourneur, said of her, "She only lives for two things, and both of them are work." She made her debut on stage in the chorus as a Ziegfeld girl in 1923, at age 16, and within a few years was acting in plays. Her first lead role, which was in the hit ''Burlesque'' (1927), established her as a Broadway star. In 1929, she began acting in talking pictures. Frank Capra chose her for his romantic drama ''Ladies of Leisure'' (1930). This led to additio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (; April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989) was an American actress with a career spanning more than 50 years and 100 acting credits. She was noted for playing unsympathetic, sardonic characters, and was famous for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical films, suspense horror, and occasional comedies, although her greater successes were in romantic dramas. A recipient of two Academy Awards, she was the first thespian to accrue ten nominations. Bette Davis appeared on Broadway in New York, then the 22-year-old Davis moved to Hollywood in 1930. After some unsuccessful films, she had her critical breakthrough playing a vulgar waitress in ''Of Human Bondage'' (1934) although, contentiously, she was not among the three nominees for the Academy Award for Best Actress that year. The next year, her performance as a down-and-out actress in ''Dangerous'' (1935) did land Davis her first Best Actress nomination, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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