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The Cobweb (1955 Film)
''The Cobweb'' is a 1955 American Eastmancolor MGM drama film. It was directed by Vincente Minnelli, and based on a novel by William Gibson. The film stars Richard Widmark, Lauren Bacall, Charles Boyer, and Gloria Grahame Plot The opening credits are followed by the following onscreen words: "The trouble began ---" Dr. Stewart McIver (Richard Widmark) is now in charge of a psychiatric institution, one run for many years by medical director Dr. Douglas Devanal (Charles Boyer). McIver must address the needs of a number of disturbed patients, among them Steven Holte ( John Kerr), a possibly suicidal artist, and the self-loathing Mr. Capp (Oscar Levant). All of his responsibilities keep McIver so busy that his wife, Karen (Gloria Grahame), feels increasingly frustrated and ignored. When new drapes are needed for the clinic's library, the dour and penny-pinching Victoria Inch (Lillian Gish) orders unattractive ones. Karen McIver takes it upon herself to buy a more expensive and co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Houseman
John Houseman (born Jacques Haussmann; September 22, 1902 – October 31, 1988) was a Romanian-born British-American actor and producer of theatre, film, and television. He became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of '' Citizen Kane'' and his collaboration, as producer of ''The Blue Dahlia'', with writer Raymond Chandler on the screenplay. He is perhaps best known for his role as Professor Charles W. Kingsfield in the film '' The Paper Chase'' (1973), for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He reprised his role as Kingsfield in the 1978 television series adaptation. Houseman was also known for his commercials for the brokerage firm Smith Barney. He had a distinctive English accent, a product of his schooling. Early life Houseman was born Jacques Haussmann on September 22, 1902, in Bucharest, Romania, the son of May (née Davies) a gover ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Kerr (actor)
John Grinham Kerr (November 15, 1931February 2, 2013) was an American actor and attorney. He began his professional career on Broadway, earning critical acclaim for his performances in Mary Coyle Chase's '' Bernardine'' and Robert Anderson's '' Tea and Sympathy'', before transitioning into a screen career. He reprised his role in the film version of '' Tea and Sympathy'', which won him the Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer, and portrayed Lieutenant Joseph Cable in the Rodgers and Hammerstein movie musical '' South Pacific''. He subsequently appeared in number of television series, including a starring role on the primetime soap opera ''Peyton Place''. In the 1970s, he largely moved away from acting to become a lawyer, making a few small cameos in Canadian-produced films like ''Plague'' and '' The Amateur''. He operated a legal practice in Beverly Hills until 2000, when he retired from the profession. Early life Kerr was born November 15, 1931, in New York City ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olive Carey
Olive Carey (born Olive Fuller Golden; January 31, 1896 – March 13, 1988) was an American film and television actress, and the mother of actor Harry Carey Jr. Life and career Carey was born Olive Fuller Golden in New York City, the daughter of Ada (Maxwell), who was from Surrey, and George Fuller Golden (originally George Michael Fuller), a vaudeville entertainer. In 1912, her father died, "leaving a wife and four children destitute." She had a sister, Ruth Fuller Golden, who also acted in films. Film Carey's screen debut was in ''Sorrowful Jones'' (1913). She next acted in '' Tess of the Storm Country'' (1914). (An obituary indicates that the name of her initial film was '' The Sorrowful Shore''.) She appeared in more than 50 films, mostly westerns, including ''Gunfight at the O.K. Corral'', often playing tough tomboy parts. Television In 1956, Carey guest starred in the episode "Death in the Snow" of NBC's anthology series, '' The Joseph Cotten Show''. In 1957 and 195 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bert Freed
Bert Freed (November 3, 1919 – August 2, 1994) was an American character actor, voice-over actor, and the first actor to portray Detective Columbo. Life and career Born and raised in the Bronx, New York, Freed began acting while attending Penn State University, and made his Broadway debut in 1942. Following World War II Army service in the European theatre, he appeared in the Broadway musical ''The Day Before Spring'' in 1945 and dozens of television shows between 1947 and 1985. His film debut occurred, oddly enough, in a musical '' Carnegie Hall'' (1947). Freed portrayed Rufe Ryker in the television series ''Shane'', in which Freed added a unique touch of realism by beginning the show clean-shaven and growing a beard from one week to the next, never shaving again through the season. Freed played homicide detective Lt. Columbo in a live 1960 television episode of ''The Chevy Mystery Show'' seven years before Peter Falk played the role, and also before Thomas Mitchell p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sandy Descher
Sandra Kay Descher (born November 30, 1945) is an American former child actress of the 1950s. Life and career Born November 30, 1945, in Burbank, California, Descher is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred Descher. She has a younger brother, Michael. She attended North Hollywood High School. In 1954, a news item reported that Descher was "the only long-term contract child in Hollywood," having been signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. That same year, she appeared in her favorite film, ''The Last Time I Saw Paris''. Based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story '' Babylon Revisited'', she played Vicky, the daughter of Van Johnson and Elizabeth Taylor. After her mother dies, Vicky is adopted by her mother's sister, played by Donna Reed. The movie called on her to speak French and to dance ballet. In 1954, she also played a crippled child in a Martin and Lewis film. In 1954 she also played the little girl in the opening scene of “Them”, the movie about giant ants starring Edmund Gwenn, Ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edgar Stehli
Edgar Stehli (July 12, 1884 – July 25, 1973) was a French-born American actor of the stage, the screen and television. Early years The son of an English mother and a German-Swiss father, Stehli was born in Lyon, France. The family moved to New York in 1886 and later moved to Montclair, New Jersey. He graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in 1907 and a master's degree in 1908. While at Cornell, he acted in university theatrical productions. Career Stehli's professional acting debut came with a stock theater company in Bayonne as he had understudy and bit-part responsibilities and worked with props. He worked there and with other stock companies until 1919, when he was invited to join the Theatre Guild. Stehli appeared in the films ''Boomerang'', '' Executive Suite'', '' Drum Beat'', '' The Cobweb'', ''The Brothers Karamazov'', '' No Name on the Bullet'', '' 4D Man'', ''Cash McCall'', ''Atlantis, the Lost Continent'', '' Parrish'', ''Pocketful of Miracles' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jarma Lewis
Jarma Toy Lewis (June 5, 1931 – November 12, 1985) was an American film actress and model active in the 1950s. Biography Jarma Lewis came from a family of Anglo-Irish ancestry, attended Los Angeles City College. She first appeared in school theater productions and received her acting training at the Neighborhood Playhouse School in New York. In the early 1950s, she played her first film roles. Lewis worked as a receptionist at a Beverly Hills dentist's office and was discovered by director Henry Hathaway, who cast her to play Queen Guinevere in his knight film ''Prince Valiant''. She was subsequently employed as a starlet and up-and-coming actress at 20th Century Fox (1954) and MGM (1955-57). Together with Taina Elg and Luana Leeshe she was one of the youngest performers signed to MGM at the time. She first worked with directors such as Curt Siodmak, Otto Preminger, Stanley Donen, Richard Thorpe, and later with Vincente Minnelli and Edward Dmytryk. Lewis was seen in dif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Stewart (actor)
Paul Stewart (born Paul Sternberg; March 13, 1908 – February 17, 1986) was an American character actor, director and producer who worked in theatre, radio, films and television. He frequently portrayed cynical and sinister characters throughout his career. A friend and associate of Orson Welles for many years, Stewart helped Welles get his first job in radio and was associate producer of the celebrated radio program "The War of the Worlds", in which he also performed. One of the Mercury Theatre players who made their film debut in Welles's landmark film ''Citizen Kane'', Stewart portrayed Kane's butler and valet, Raymond. He appeared in 50 films, and performed in or directed some 5,000 radio and television shows. Biography Paul Stewart was born in Manhattan, New York, on March 13, 1908, as Paul Sternberg. His parents were Maurice D. Sternberg, a salesman and credit agent for a textile manufacturer, and Nathalie C. (née Nathanson) Sternberg; both were born in Minneapoli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Rettig
Thomas Noel Rettig (December 10, 1941 – February 15, 1996) was an American child actor, computer software engineer, and author. He is remembered for portraying the character "Jeff Miller" in the first three seasons of CBS's '' Lassie'' television series, from 1954 to 1957, later seen in syndicated re-runs with the title ''Jeff's Collie''. He also co-starred with another former child actor, Tony Dow, in the mid-1960s television teen soap opera ''Never Too Young'' and recorded the song by that title with the group, The TR-4. Early life and acting career Rettig was born to a Jewish father, Elias Rettig, and a Christian Italian–American mother, Rosemary Nibali, in Jackson Heights in the Queens borough of New York City. He started his career at the age of six, on tour with Mary Martin in the play '' Annie Get Your Gun'', in which he played Little Jake. Rettig was selected from among 500 boys for the role of Jeff Miller, to star in the first '' Lassie'' television se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Susan Strasberg
Susan Elizabeth Strasberg (May 22, 1938 – January 21, 1999) was an American stage, film, and television actress. Imagined to be the next Hepburn-type ingenue, she was nominated for a Tony Award at age 18, playing the title role in ''The Diary of Anne Frank''. She appeared on the covers of LIFE and Newsweek in 1955. A close friend of Marilyn Monroe and Richard Burton, she wrote two best-selling tell-all books. Her later career primarily consisted of slasher and horror films, followed by TV roles, by the 1980s. Biography Early life Strasberg was born in New York City to theatre director and drama coach Lee Strasberg of the Actors Studio and former actress Paula Strasberg. Her brother, John, is an acting coach. Her father was born in what is now Ukraine, and her mother in New York City. They were both from Jewish families who emigrated from Europe. Strasberg attended the Professional Children's School, and then spent time at both The High School of Music & Art and the High S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fay Wray
Vina Fay Wray (September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004) was a Canadian/American actress best known for starring as Ann Darrow in the 1933 film ''King Kong (1933 film), King Kong''. Through an acting career that spanned nearly six decades, Wray attained international recognition as an actress in horror films. She has been dubbed one of the early "scream queens". After appearing in minor film roles, Wray gained media attention after being selected as one of the "WAMPAS Baby Stars" in 1926. This led to her being contracted to Paramount Pictures as a teenager, where she made more than a dozen feature films. After leaving Paramount, she signed deals with various film companies, being cast in her first horror film roles, in addition to many other types of roles, including in ''The Bowery (1933 film), The Bowery'' (1933) and ''Viva Villa'' (1934), both of which starred Wallace Beery. For RKO Radio Pictures, Inc., Wray starred in the film she is most identified with, ''King Kong'' (1933) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adele Jergens
Adele Jergens (November 26, 1917 – November 22, 2002) was an American actress. Early life and career Born in Brooklyn, New York, as Adele Louisa Jurgens (some sources say Jurgenson), she rose to prominence in the late 1930s when she was named "Miss World's Fairest" at the 1939 New York World's Fair. In the early 1940s, she briefly worked as a Rockette and was named the number-one showgirl in New York City. After a few years of working as a model and chorus girl, including being an understudy to Gypsy Rose Lee in the Broadway show ''Star and Garter'' in 1942, Jergens landed a movie contract with Columbia Pictures in 1944, with brunette Jergens becoming a blonde. At the beginning of her career, she had roles in movies in which she was usually cast as a blonde floozy or burlesque dancer, as in '' Down to Earth'' starring Rita Hayworth (1947) and ''The Dark Past'' starring William Holden (1948). She played Marilyn Monroe's mother in ''Ladies of the Chorus'' (1948) despite being ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
