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The Alamo (1960 Film)
''The Alamo'' is a 1960 American epic historical war film about the 1836 Battle of the Alamo produced and directed by John Wayne and starring Wayne as Davy Crockett. The film also co-stars Richard Widmark as Jim Bowie and Laurence Harvey as William B. Travis, and features Frankie Avalon, Patrick Wayne, Linda Cristal, Joan O'Brien, Chill Wills, Joseph Calleia, Ken Curtis, Ruben Padilla as Santa Anna, and Richard Boone as Sam Houston. Shot in 70 mm Todd-AO by William H. Clothier, it was released by United Artists. Plot The film depicts the Battle of the Alamo and the events leading up to it. Sam Houston leads the forces of Texas against Mexico and needs time to build an army. The opposing Mexican forces, led by General Santa Anna, are numerically stronger as well as better-armed and -trained. Nevertheless, the Texans have spirit and morale remains generally high. Lieutenant Colonel William Travis is tasked with defending the Alamo, a former mission in San Antonio. Jim B ...
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Reynold Brown
William Reynold Brown (October 18, 1917 – August 24, 1991) was an American realist artist who painted many Hollywood film posters. He was also briefly active as a comics artist. Biography He attended Alhambra High School and refined his drawing under his teacher Lester Bonar. A talented artist, Brown met cartoonist Hal Forrest around 1936-37. Forrest hired Brown to ink (uncredited) Forrest's comic strip ''Tailspin Tommy''. Extensive discussion of the comic strip. Norman Rockwell's sister was a teacher at Alhambra High, and Brown later met Rockwell who advised him to leave cartooning if he wanted to be an illustrator. Brown subsequently won a scholarship to the Otis Art Institute. During World War II he worked as a technical artist at North American Aviation. There he met his wife, fellow artist Mary Louise Tejeda. Following the war Brown drew numerous advertisements and illustrations for magazines such as '' Argosy'', ''Popular Science'', '' Saturday Evening Post'', ''Bo ...
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Frankie Avalon
Francis Thomas Avallone (born September 18, 1940), better known as Frankie Avalon, is an American actor, singer, and former teen idol. He had 31 charting U.S. ''Billboard'' singles from 1958 to late 1962, including number one hits, "Venus" and "Why" in 1959. Avalon, started appearing in films in the 1960s and is also well known for his role in the 1970s musical film '' Grease'' as ''Teen Angel'', in which he sings " Beauty School Dropout" to Frenchy (played by Didi Conn). Early life and music Avalon was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Mary and Nicholas Avallone. His mother was originally from Sicily. His father was a butcher from Naples or Salerno, in Campania, Italy. His paternal grandmother was from Sicily. In December 1952, Avalon made his American network television debut playing the trumpet in the Honeymooners "Christmas Party" sketch on ''The Jackie Gleason Show''. Two singles showcasing Avalon's trumpet playing were issued on RCA Victor's "X" sublabe ...
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William Travis
William Barret "Buck" Travis (August 1, 1809 – March 6, 1836) was a 19th-century American lawyer and soldier. At the age of 26, he was a lieutenant colonel in the Texas Army. He died at the Battle of the Alamo during the Texas Revolution. Travis County and Travis Park were named after him for being the commander of the Republic of Texas at the Battle of the Alamo. Early life Ancestry, early years, and education Travis's grandfather, Berwick (also known as Barrett) Travis, came to the Thirteen Colonies, British Colonies of North America at the age of 12, where he was placed in indentured servitude for more than a decade. Berwick's ancestors came to North America in the late 1600s, and Berwick's (Barrett's) grandfather was born in Perquimans, North Carolina but went back to Great Britain for his medical training. A descendant of the Travers of Tulketh Castle in Preston, Lancashire, Preston, England, Berwick had a life that hardly resembled his ancestor's glory and wealth. Aft ...
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Centralist Republic Of Mexico
The Centralist Republic of Mexico ( es, República Centralista de México), or in the anglophone scholarship, the Central Republic, officially the Mexican Republic ( es, República Mexicana), was a unitary political regime established in Mexico on October 23, 1835, under a new constitution known as the Seven Laws after conservatives repealed the federalist Constitution of 1824 and ended the First Mexican Republic. It would ultimately last until 1846 when the Constitution of 1824 was restored at the beginning of the Mexican American War. Two presidents would predominate throughout this era: Santa Anna, and Anastasio Bustamante. Mexican conservatives attributed the political chaos of the federal era to the empowerment of states over the federal government, the participation of non-elite men in the political system through universal male suffrage, rebellions, and economic stagnation to the weakness of the federal government. Conservative elites saw the solution to the problem as ...
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Republic Of Texas
The Republic of Texas ( es, República de Tejas) was a sovereign state in North America that existed from March 2, 1836, to February 19, 1846, that bordered Mexico, the Republic of the Rio Grande in 1840 (another breakaway republic from Mexico), and the United States of America, although Mexico considered it a rebellious province during its entire existence despite the Treaties of Velasco of May 1836. It was bordered by Mexico to the west and southwest, the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast, the two U.S. states of Louisiana and Arkansas to the east and northeast, and Territories of the United States, United States territories encompassing parts of the current U.S. states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico to the north and west. The Anglo residents of the area and of the republic became known as Texians. The region of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas, now commonly referred to as Mexican Texas, declared its independence from Mexico during the Texas Revo ...
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Todd-AO
Todd-AO is an American post-production company founded in 1953 by Mike Todd and Robert Naify, providing sound-related services to the motion picture and television industries. For more than five decades, it was the worldwide leader in theater sound. The company now operates one facility in the Los Angeles area. Todd-AO is also the name of the widescreen, 70 mm film format that was developed by Mike Todd and the Naify brothers, owners of United Artists Theaters in partnership with the American Optical Company in the mid-1950s. Todd-AO had been founded to promote and distribute this system. History Todd-AO began as a high resolution widescreen film format. It was co-developed in the early 1950s by Mike Todd, a Broadway producer, and United Artists Theaters in partnership with the American Optical Company in Buffalo, New York. It was developed to provide a high definition single camera widescreen process to compete with Cinerama, or as characterized by its creator, "Cinerama o ...
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Sam Houston
Samuel Houston (, ; March 2, 1793 – July 26, 1863) was an American general and statesman who played an important role in the Texas Revolution. He served as the first and third president of the Republic of Texas and was one of the first two individuals to represent Texas in the United States Senate. He also served as the sixth governor of Tennessee and the seventh governor of Texas, the only individual to be elected governor of two different states in the United States. Born in Rockbridge County, Virginia, Houston and his family migrated to Maryville, Tennessee, when Houston was a teenager. Houston later ran away from home and spent about three years living with the Cherokee, becoming known as Raven. He served under General Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812, and after the war, he presided over the removal of many Cherokee from Tennessee. With the support of Jackson and others, Houston won election to the United States House of Representatives in 1823. He strongly supported ...
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Richard Boone
Richard Allen Boone (June 18, 1917 – January 10, 1981) was an American actor who starred in over 50 films and was notable for his roles in Westerns, including his starring role in the television series ''Have Gun – Will Travel''. Early life Boone was born in Los Angeles, California, the middle child of Cecile (née Beckerman) and Kirk E. Boone, a corporate lawyer and fourth great-grandson of Squire Boone, frontiersman Daniel Boone's brother.The Kelsay Family
from the website; accessed April 11, 2017.
His mother was Jewish, the daughter of immigrants from Russia. Richard Boone graduate ...
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Antonio López De Santa Anna
Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (; 21 February 1794 – 21 June 1876),Callcott, Wilfred H., "Santa Anna, Antonio Lopez De,''Handbook of Texas Online'' Retrieved 18 April 2017. usually known as Santa Anna or López de Santa Anna, was a Mexican politician and general. His influence on post-independence Mexican politics and government in the first half of the nineteenth century is such that historians of Mexico often refer to it as the "Age of Santa Anna". He has been called "the Man of Destiny", "a quintessential ''caudillo'' trongman. Although initially in the post-independence period he identified as a federalist and participated in a coup that ousted the conservatives in 1833, he became increasingly conservative. Elected President in 1833, López de Santa Anna declined to serve and retired to his home state and power base of Veracruz, a pattern that was to repeat itself until his ouster in 1855. López de Santa Anna's military and poli ...
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Ken Curtis
Ken Curtis (born Curtis Wain Gates; July 2, 1916 – April 28, 1991) was an American singer and actor best known for his role as Festus Haggen on the CBS western television series ''Gunsmoke''. Although he appeared on ''Gunsmoke'' earlier in other roles (such as “Brisco” in S4E32’s “Change Of Heart), he was first cast as Festus in season 8 episode 13, December 8, 1962 "Us Haggens." His next appearance was Season 9, episode 2, October 5, 1963 as Kyle Kelly, in "Lover Boy." Curtis joined the cast of ''Gunsmoke'' permanently as Festus in "Prairie Wolfer," season 9 episode 16, January 18, 1964; though this fact is often confused with a 1969 episode of the same name ("Prairie Wolfer") made five years later (S13E10). Early years Born the youngest of three boys in Lamar in Prowers County in southeastern Colorado, Curtis lived his first ten years on a ranch on Muddy Creek in eastern Bent County. In 1926, the family moved to Las Animas, the county seat of Bent County, ...
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Joseph Calleia
Joseph Calleia ( ; born Joseph Alexander Caesar Herstall Vincent Calleja, August 4, 1897 – October 31, 1975) was a Maltese-born American actor and singer on the stage and in films, radio and television. After serving in the British Transport Service during World War I, he travelled to the United States and began his career on the stage, initially in musical comedy, but later in original Broadway productions such as ''Broadway'' (1926), ''The Front Page'' (1928), ''The Last Mile'' (1930), and ''Grand Hotel'' (1930). Calleia became a star with the play '' Small Miracle'' (1934), his first real role as a villain, and he was put under contract by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Calleia excelled as the villain in Hollywood films, but he fought against typecasting and created a succession of darkly mysterious characters edged with humor in films such as ''Algiers'' (1938), ''Five Came Back'' (1939), '' Golden Boy'' (1939), ''The Glass Key'' (1942) and ''Gilda'' (1946). During World War II, Ca ...
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Chill Wills
Theodore Childress "Chill" Wills (July 18, 1902 – December 15, 1978) was an American actor and a singer in the Avalon Boys quartet. Early life Wills was born in Seagoville, Texas, on July 18, 1902. Career He was a performer from early childhood, forming and leading the Avalon Boys singing group in the 1930s. After appearing in a few Westerns, he disbanded the group in 1938, and struck out on a solo acting career. One of his more memorable roles was that of the distinctive voice of Francis the Talking Mule in a series of popular films. Wills' deep, rough voice, with its Western twang, was matched to the personality of the cynical, sardonic mule. As was customary at the time, Wills was given no billing for his vocal work, though he was featured prominently on-screen as blustery General Ben Kaye in the fourth entry, ''Francis Joins the WACS''. He provided the deep voice for Stan Laurel's performance of "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" in '' Way Out West'' (1937), in which th ...
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