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1917

2019

At the height of the First World War, two young British soldiers must cross enemy territory and deliver a message that will stop a deadly attack on hundreds of soldiers.

William Squire

William Squire (29 April 1917 – 3 May 1989) was a Welsh actor of stage, film and television. Squire was born in Neath, South Wales, the son of William Squire and his wife Martha (née Bridgeman). As a stage actor, Squire performed at Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Old Vic, and notably replaced his fellow-countryman Richard Burton as King Arthur in Camelot at the Majestic Theatre on Broadway. One of his first film appearances was in the 1956 film Alexander the Great, which starred Burton in the title role. His varied screen roles included Thomas More in the 1969 film version of Maxwell Anderson's play Anne of the Thousand Days, Sir Daniel Brackley in the 1972 television adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow, the voice of Gandalf in the 1978 animated version of The Lord of the Rings and the Shadow in the 1979 Doctor Whoserial The Armageddon Factor. Perhaps his best-known role was as Hunter, the superior of secret agent David Callan in the spy series Callan in the early 1970s; Squire took over the role from Derek Bond. In a set of Encyclopædia Britannica-produced educational films about William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Squire played the role of Macbeth. This was in keeping with his long career as a Shakespearean actor, which included roles in the classic 1960s TV series, An Age of Kings.

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917–2016) was a Hungarian-American actress and socialite. She began her stage career in Vienna and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated from Hungary to the United States in 1941.

Jan Clayton

Cast · Known for Lassie

Jan Clayton (1917–1983) was an American actress, known for Lassie, The Snake Pit and Spreadin' the Jam.

Titos Vandis

Cast · Known for The Exorcist

Titos Vandis (7 November 1917 – 23 February 2003) was a Greek actor. Vandis began his career on the Greek stage in the late 1930s. In 1962, he won the Best Actor award for the film Poliorkia at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival. Vandis left Greece when a dictatorship took power and lived in the United States for 24 years. Vandis appeared in over 250 plays before making his Broadway debut in the Tony-nominated musical On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965). Vandis was in the original Broadway cast and led the title song in Illya Darling (1967), a musical based on his film Never on Sunday (1960). The title character Illya was a carefree Greek prostitute. Newsday critic George Oppenheimer wrote, "Major credit goes to Titos Vandis for his playing of Illya's oldest client, who sings and dances as rousingly as the youngsters ..." Vandis reprised his role in a Westbury Music Fair production in 1968. Newsday critic Murry Frymer wrote that Vandis "... is delightfully authentic. In fact, he's better than that. Vandis has been in both the film Never on Sunday and the Broadway production of Illya Darling and he's not tired of it at all. His portrayal was fresh and kept bringing the affair back to the colorful gayety that bubbled through the motion picture." In 1970 Vandis joined the cast of Man of La Mancha as Sancho Panza at the Martin Beck Theater. He also played the title role in the musical Zorba at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Millburn, NJ. Critic W. C. Flahault wrote, "His portrayal of the Greek vagabond with an eye for the girls has an earthiness which brings reality to the role." In 1972 Vandis played an uneducated coal miner on Ironside who sought Ironside's help in discovering the murderer of his daughter. He admitted "that drama was easier for him than the musical stage." Vandis said, "I suppose this part can be considered a change of pace for me, but as an actor, I find myself considering each role I play as a separate entity ... During the days of my early training, I often played old men; in fact, I relished the opportunities. Today, of course, as I grow older, I wish the positions were reversed!" That same year, he appeared in the Woody Allen film Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (*But Were Afraid to Ask) as Milos Stavros, an Armenian shepherd who was in love with a sheep. In The Exorcist (1973), he played the uncle of protagonist Father Damien Karras. Vandis wore a hat in one shot that obscured his face, as director William Friedkin felt that Vandis's face would be connected with his previous role as Milos. Vandis had a recurring role in the detective series Baretta (1975-1978), having appeared in four episodes, and guest-starred alongside Hulk Hogan in The A-Team episode "Body Slam" (1985-1986 season). His other TV appearances have included The Flying Nun, Trapper John, M.D., M*A*S*H, The Odd Couple, Kojak, Barney Miller, Wonder Woman, Newhart, and The Mary Tyler Moore Show. Description above from the Wikipedia article Titos Vandis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Don Chaffey

Director · Known for Charlie's Angels

Donald Chaffey (5 August 1917 – 13 November 1990) was a British film director, writer, producer, and art director. Chaffey's film career began as an art director in 1947, and his directorial debut was in 1953. He remained active in the industry until his death in 1990 from heart failure. His film Charley One-Eye (1973) was entered into the 24th Berlin International Film Festival. He is chiefly remembered for his fantasy films, which include Jason and the Argonauts (1963), The Three Lives of Thomasina (1963), One Million Years B.C. (1966), The Viking Queen (1967), Creatures the World Forgot (1971), Pete's Dragon (1977), and C.H.O.M.P.S. (1979), his final feature film. Concurrent with his theatrically released films, Chaffey directed episodes of numerous British television series, including multiple installments of Danger Man, The Prisoner, and The Avengers. From the 1980s until his death, all of his work was in American made-for-TV movies, and in such TV series as Fantasy Island, Stingray, MacGyver, Vega$, T. J. Hooker, Matt Houston, and Charlie's Angels. Chaffey began his career in the art department of Gainsborough Pictures where he worked as a draftsman on Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945), The Rake's Progress (1945), and Caravan (1946). He was art director of The Adventures of Dusty Bates (1947) and The Little Ballerina (1948). He directed the documentary shorts Thames Tideway (1948) and Cape Cargoes (1948). Chaffey directed the short features The Mysterious Poacher (1950) and The Case of the Missing Scene (1950). He returned to the art department for King of the Underworld (1950), The Stolen Plans (1952), Murder at the Grange (1952), Murder at Scotland Yard (1952), and Black 13 (1953). Chaffey resumed his directing career with the family film Skid Kids (1953). He made the short Watch Out (1953), then did Strange Stories (1953), Bouncer Breaks Up (1953, a short), The Mask (1952), and A Good Pull Up (1953). Chaffey directed Time Is My Enemy (1954). After the short Dead on Time (1955) he made The Secret Tent (1956), The Flesh Is Weak (1957) and The Girl in the Picture (1957). He directed episodes of TV series like Theatre Royal, The Adventures of the Big Man, Chevron Hall of Stars, The Errol Flynn Theatre, Assignment Foreign Legion, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Dial 999, and The New Adventures of Charlie Chan. He interspersed these with features like A Question of Adultery (1958), The Man Upstairs (1958), Danger Within (1959), Dentist in the Chair (1960), Lies My Father Told Me (1960), and Nearly a Nasty Accident (1961).

John Arnatt

John Edwin Arnatt (9 May 1917 – 21 December 1999) was a British actor.

Philip Leacock

Director · Known for Dynasty, The Waltons

Philip David Charles Leacock (8 October 1917 – 14 July 1990) was an English television and film director and producer. His brother was documentary filmmaker Richard Leacock. Born in London, England, Leacock spent his childhood in the Canary Islands. He began his career directing documentaries and later turned to fiction films. He was known for his films about children, particularly The Kidnappers (US: The Little Kidnappers, 1953), which gained Honorary Juvenile Acting Oscars for two of its performers, and The Spanish Gardener (1956) starring Dirk Bogarde. He also directed Innocent Sinners (1958) with Flora Robson, The Rabbit Trap (1959) with Ernest Borgnine, and The War Lover (1962) with Steve McQueen, based on John Hersey's novel about a World War II pilot. He began to work mainly in Hollywood, where he made Take a Giant Step (1959) about a black youth's encounter with racism and Let No Man Write My Epitaph (1960) about an aspiring young pianist whose mother is a drug addict. Around this time, he began to work in television, directing episodes of Gunsmoke, Route 66, The Waltons, The Defenders, and The New Land. He also directed many segments of the American series Eight Is Enough (1977–1981). He retired in 1987 after directing a three-part television drama about the Salem witch hunts titled Three Sovereigns for Sister Sarah, which starred Vanessa Redgrave. Leacock died while on vacation with his family in London on 14 July 1990.

Aldo Rendine

Aldo Rendine was born on 15 March 1917 in Foggia, Puglia, Italy. He was an actor, known for Avanti! (1972), Agente Sigma 3 - Missione Goldwather (1967) and A... For Assassin (1966). He died on 25 December 1987 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.

Ivor Dean

Cast · Known for The Saint

Ivor Donald Dean (21 December 1917 – 10 August 1974) was a British stage, film and television actor. With his lugubrious demeanour he was often cast as world-weary police officers or butlers, and it is for the role of Chief Inspector Claud Eustace Teal in the 1960s series The Saint, opposite Roger Moore, that he is best known.Dean played Teal for almost the entire run of the series, except three instances in early episodes where other actors were used. It was on the third occasion, in an episode called Starring The Saint which featured Dean in another role, that the producers saw the ideal actor for the part. Dean proved the ideal foil for Moore's Simon Templar, invariably one step behind and allegedly hoping for the day when he could pin something on Templar. Dean's character however seemed to have a respect for his adversary nonetheless. Dean reprised the role in all but name in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1968–69) in which he played Inspector Large, who had an even more adversarial relationship with (the much less suave) Jeff Randall. Dean also appeared in one-off roles in several other ITC series, including Jason King and The Persuaders!, he appeared as a butler in 3 episodes of the long-running LWT sitcom Doctor at Large and featured in three episodes of The Avengers. In 1964 he played estate agent Alfred Wormold in the long-running soap opera Coronation Street, selling No. 13 Coronation Street to Stan Ogden and his wife Hilda. Dean also portrayed Long John Silver in a Franco-German television adaptation of Treasure Island, entitled Die Schatzinsel / L' île au Tresor (1966). He contributed to a follow-up script with Saint producer Robert S. Baker, but it never materialised before his death. Baker continued to develop the project and it was finally made as the 10 part serial Return to Treasure Island in 1986. It was scripted by John Goldsmith and the part of Long John Silver was played by Brian Blessed. His other film appearances include Theatre of Death and the 'Pride' segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins. In 1949, Dean married British actress Patricia Hamilton, with whom he had three daughters. He died of heart failure, aged 56, in Truro, Cornwall in August 1974.

Cardew Robinson

Douglas John Cardew Robinson (14 August 1917 – 28 December 1992) was a British comic, whose craft was rooted in the music hall and Gang Shows.

Freddie Francis

Frederick William (Freddie) Francis BSC (22 December 1917 – 17 March 2007) was an English cinematographer and film director. He achieved his greatest successes in the former, including winning two Academy Awards, for Sons and Lovers (1960) and Glory (1989). As a director, he has cult status on account of his association with the British production companies Amicus and Hammer in the 1960s and 1970s. Description above from the Wikipedia article Freddie Francis, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Lena Horne

Lena Horne (June 30, 1917 - May 9, 2010) was a singer, dancer, actress, and civil rights activist. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood, where she had small parts in numerous movies, and more substantial parts in the films Cabin in the Sky and Stormy Weather. Due to the Red Scare and her left-leaning political views, Horne found herself blacklisted and unable to get work in Hollywood. Returning to her roots as a nightclub performer, Horne took part in the March on Washington in August 1963, and continued to work as a performer, both in nightclubs and on television, while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than three hundred performances on Broadway and earned her numerous awards and accolades. She continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, disappearing from the public eye in 2000. Horne died on May 9, 2010 in New York City. During her lifetime, Horne was awarded four Grammys, a Tony, and a NAACP Image Award . She also received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1984.

Celeste Holm

Celeste Holm (April 29, 1917 – July 15, 2012) was an American actress. Holm won an Academy Award for her performance in Elia Kazan's Gentleman's Agreement (1947), and was nominated for her roles in Come to the Stable (1949) and All About Eve (1950). She also is known for her performances in The Snake Pit (1948), A Letter to Three Wives (1949), and High Society (1956). Description above from the Wikipedia article Celeste Holm, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Kim Chan

Cast · Known for The Fifth Element, 16 Blocks

Kim Chan (December 28, 1917 – October 5, 2008) was a Chinese–American actor and producer. He was most notable for his roles as Lo Si, a.k.a. The Ancient, in Kung Fu: The Legend Continues and Mr. Kim in The Fifth Element.

Jan Miner

Janice Miner (October 15, 1917 – February 15, 2004) was an American actress best known as the character Madge the manicurist in Palmolive dish-washing detergent television commercials from the 1960s to the 1990s. Janice Miner was the daughter of a dentist and a painter, and had three brothers, Sheldon, Donald and Lyndsey. She studied at the Vesper George School of Art in her native Boston, then studied acting under Lee Strasberg and others. She made her stage debut in 1945 in a Boston production of Elmer Rice's Street Scene. Miner then became established on radio, and worked through the 1950s in several series simultaneously. Among other roles, she was one of three actresses who played secretary Della Street on Perry Mason and one of five to play girlfriend Ann Williams on Casey, Crime Photographer. She also appeared as Mary Wesley on Boston Blackie. Miner played featured roles in the anthology series Radio City Playhouse, in "Soundless", "Portrait of Lenore" and other episodes. Her appearance in the premiere broadcast of the series "created a minor sensation in the play Long Distance"; the episode proved so popular that she repeated her performance later in the season. From circa 1948 through some time before the series ended in 1957, Miner starred as Julie Erickson, head of the titular orphanage in the soap opera Hilltop House, during most of the show's revival beginning in 1948. The series was sponsored by the Colgate-Palmolive Company, for which she later appeared in a famous, long-running series of television commercials.

Maria Palmer

This lovely Austrian-born actress was born (in 1917) and raised in Vienna, performing as a child on stage and appearing in various productions for the renowned Max Reinhardt. Trained in dance, she was a member of the Bodenwieser Ensemble, a European troupe. Following a few high school plays and dance recitals, she went on to study drama and voice at the Vienna Conservatory. Maria arrived in the United States at the outbreak of war in 1938 and first performed on the New York stage, notably in the 1942 production of "The Moon Is Down." Spotted for films, she was one of many foreign actresses Hollywood took in at the time to fill their quota of exotic mystery ladies in war-era intrigue and film noir. She made her debut in Mission to Moscow (1943) for Warner Bros. and continued on freelancing for other studios with Days of Glory (1944), opposite Gregory Peck, Lady on a Train (1944), The Web (1947), The Other Love (1947), Strictly Dishonorable (1941), By the Light of the Silvery Moon (1953), and Outcasts of the City (1958), among others. Her film career waned in the 1950s and she turned to radio, TV and commercials. She formed her own production company, Maria Palmer Enterprises, and hosted her own local Los Angeles show "Sincerely, Maria Palmer" in the early 1960s. In later years she wrote a number of unproduced teleplays, often under the pseudonym Eliot Parker White. Dying of pulmonary failure while battling cancer in 1981, she kept extensive journals of her life and career which were later available to the public. (IMDB)

Richard Derr

Richard Derr (June 15, 1917 – May 8, 1992) was an American actor who worked on stage, screen and television, performing in both starring and supporting roles.

Frankie Darro

Frankie Darro (December 22, 1917 – December 25, 1976) was an American actor. Born into a show-business family - his parents were circus aerialists - Darro appeared in his first film at age six. Due to his small size and youthful appearance, he played teenagers well into his 20s. Always a physical performer, Darro often did his own stunts, many times out of necessity - his small stature made it difficult to find stunt doubles his size. He was an accomplished horseman and, in addition to westerns, made several films where he played jockeys. In 1933 he played the lead as a troubled teen in a major film for Warner Brothers, "Wild Boys Of The Road." It is a pre-code film with a realistic look at "The Great Depression," from the point of view of the youth of the time. This film seems to have been rediscovered only recently and has received critical acclaim.That same year, he played a troubled youth in the James Cagney classic, "The Mayor Of Hell". Later in 1935, he had a key role in the cult serial classic "The Phantom Empire"(1935). As Darro got older, however, he found it increasingly difficult to secure employment, and by the late 1940s was doing uncredited stunt work and bit parts. He had a recurring role on The Red Skelton Hour (1951), unrecognized by his fans, he played "Robby The Robot" in the groundbreaking sci-fi film "The Forbidden Planet" (1956), though Marvin Miller, best remembered as Michael Anthony of TVs "Millionaire"(1955-60), was the robot's voice. After that Frankie appeared sporadically in films and on TV .

Jesse White

Jesse White (January 4, 1917 – January 9, 1997) was an American television, film, and stage character actor. He is best remembered for portraying the Maytag repairman in television commercials, a role he played from 1967 to 1988. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

George Gaynes

George Gaynes (May 16, 1917 – February 15, 2016) was a Finnish-born American actor of stage, screen and television. He is best known for his role of Commandant Eric Lassard in the Police Academy film series, and as Henry Warnimont on the television series Punky Brewster.

Ed Peck

Ed Peck (March 26, 1917 – September 12, 1992) was an American actor. He is best known as Officer Kirk in Happy Days (1975-1983).

Margo

Margo (May 10, 1917 – July 17, 1985), sometimes known as Margo Albert, was a Mexican film and television actress and dancer. Born María Marguerita Guadalupe Teresa Estela Bolado in Mexico City, Margo appeared in many American motion pictures and television productions, mostly in minor roles. Her more substantial roles include Lost Horizon (1937), The Leopard Man (1943), Viva Zapata! (1952) and I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955). Margo was married to the actor Francis Lederer from 1937 until their divorce in 1940. She married the actor Eddie Albert on December 5, 1945 and they remained together until her death from brain cancer in 1985; they were the parents of the actor Edward Albert. Margo was also the niece by marriage of the band leader and musician, Xavier Cugat, through his first marriage to Carmen Castillo. Description above from the Wikipedia article Margo (actress), licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

June Allyson

June Allyson (October 7, 1917 – July 8, 2006) was an American film and television actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s. She was a major MGM contract star. Allyson won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress for her performance in Too Young to Kiss (1951). From 1959–1961, she hosted and occasionally starred in her own CBS anthology series, The DuPont Show with June Allyson. A later generation knew her as a spokesperson for Depend undergarments. Description above from the Wikipedia article June Allyson, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia