Each year, Cinema Paradiso reflects on the achievements of those film folk who were born one hundred years ago. Welcome to the second part of the 2024 edition of the Centenary Club, which takes us from May to August.
We have already covered births between January and April 1924. So do check out the article to learn more about Sergei Parajanov, Benny Hill, Dorothy Malone, Lee Marvin, Bonar Colleano, Freddie Bartholomew, Henry Mancini, Ghislain Cloquet, Nina Foch, and many more. And before you ask, Marlon Brando, Doris Day, and Leslie Phillips have articles of their own.
MAY
Born on 1 May 1924, Karel Kachyna spent part of the Second World War as a forced labourer in a German facctory. Having been among the first intake at the FAMU film school in Prague, he made army propaganda shorts with Vojtìch Jasný before breaking away from the approved socialist realist style with writer Jan Procházka. They examined the legacy of the war and the rise of Communism in Long Live the Republic! (1965), Coach to Vienna (1966), and The Nun's Night (1967). But he so offended the authorities with his study of a marriage under surveillance in The Ear (1970) that his work was banned and he was only allowed to make historical dramas and children's films. His reputation was restored following the Velvet Revolution and Kachyna continued to direct until 1999.
Writer Terry Southern was born the same day in Alvarado, Texas. Stationed at Reading during the war, he studied at the Sorbonne and was part of the Beat boom in Greenwich Village in the 1950s. Southern became involved in cinema after Stanley Kubrick asked him to adapt Peter George's Red Alert into Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). In addition to writing comic business for Peter Sellers to use in the Pink Panther films, Southern also oversaw the adaptation of his own novels, Candy (Christian Marquand, 1968) and The Magic Christian (Joseph McGrath, 1969). He also contributed to the screenplays of Tony Richardson's The Loved One, William Wyler's The Collector, Norman Jewison's The Cincinnati Kid (all 1965), the multi-directored Bond spoof, Casino Royale (1967), Roger Vadim's Barbarella (1968), and Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969).
Hailing from Vienna, Theodore Bikel (2 May) trained at RADA and became a familiar face in British films, as Cinema Paradiso users can discover by typing his name into the Searchline. However, he found greater fame in the United States after he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor as Sheriff Max Muller pursuing Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis in Stanley Kramer's The Defiant Ones (1957). A talented folk singer, Bikel originated the roles of Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music and Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, which were respectively filmed by Robert Wise in 1965 and Norman Jewison in 1971. A master of accents, he cropped up in dozens of TV series, while also playing feature roles like linguist Zoltan Karpathy in George Cukor's My Fair Lady (1964). the stranded submarine skipper in Jewison's The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming (1966), and Rance Muhammitz in Tony Palmer and Frank Zappa's 200 Motels (1971).
The son of pioneering Argentine director, Leopoldo Torres Rios, Leopoldo Torre Nilsson was born in Buenos Aires on 5 May 1924. He became his nation's best-known film-maker for pictures co-written with wife Beatriz Guido, such as The Hand in the Trap (1961) and The Seven Madmen (1973), which won the Silver Bear at Berlin. Frenchman Jean Girault (9 May) specialised in comedy, notably starring Louis de Funès as Ludovic Cruchot in Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez (1964) and its many sequels. Sadly, this is as unobtainable as other De Funès vehicles like Jo (1971) and La Soupe aux choux (1981).
Although born in Paris on 7 May, Alfredo Antonini escaped Occupied France with his family and grew up in California as Albert Band. Having assisted John Huston on The Asphalt Jungle (1951), he started directing B Westerns. However, he became known for cult items like I Bury the Living (1958), Zoltan: Hound of Dracula (1978), Ghoulies II (1987), and Dr Mordrid (1992). As a producer, Band had a rare box-office hit with Randal Kleiser's Honey, I Blew Up the Kid (1992).
Raised in Bournemouth after being born in Birmingham on 12 May 1924, Tony Hancock failed the ENSA audition during the war, but still got to entertain troops with Ralph Reader's Gang Show. Radio success came as the tutor to ventriloquist Peter Brough's doll, Archie Andrews, in Educating Archie (1950-60), which led to the launch of Hancock's Half Hour (1954-61). The weekly misadventures of Anthony Aloysius St John Hancock of 23 Railway Cuttings, East Cheam attracted large audiences and led to a BBC TV spin-off in 1956, the year after Hancock had made his feature bow in David Paltenghi's Orders Are Orders (1955).
Dispensing with the services of sidekick Sidney James for his final BBC series and firing regular writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson after Robert Day's The Rebel (1961), Hancock struggled to regain his mojo after Jeremy Summers's The Punch and Judy Man (1963) and committed suicide in Australia at the age of 44 in 1968, following his final film outings in Ken Annakin's Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965) and Bryan Forbes's The Wrong Box (1966).
Chicagoan Maxine Cooper (12 May) only had a short career before she retired to raise a family. But she made such an impression as secretary Velda Wickman in Kiss Me Deadly (1955) that director Robert Aldrich also cast her in Autumn Leaves (1956) and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Cinema Paradiso members can also catch her in the 'Salvage' episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955-65) and 'When the Sky Was Opened' in The Twilight Zone (1959-64).
Along with brothers Vincent and Joseph, Bernard McEveety (13 May) became a director after leaving La Rochelle, New York. He was a prolific contributor to classic TV Westerns, with episodes of Rawhide, Bonanza, The Virginian, and The Big Valley on his CV. McEveety stayed on the frontier for rare features like The Search and The Last Wolf (both 1967), but sprang a horror surprise with The Brotherhood of Satan (1971) before pairing Jodie Foster with a lion in Napoleon and Samantha (1972) and returning to the small-screen with such sci-fi and action shows as Blue Thunder, Knight Rider, The Fall Guy, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Banacek, The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard, The A-Team, and Charlie's Angels.
When not performing or writing over 1000 songs, Gallic crooner Charles Aznavour (22 May) racked up around 80 film credits. His finest display came in François Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player (1960) as Édouard Saroyan, a character he revisited in Atom Egoyan's Ararat (2002). However, Aznavour was also effective in Peter Collinson's And Then There Were None (1974), Douglas Hickox's Sky Riders (1976), and Volker Schlondörff's adaptation of Günter Grass's The Tin Drum (1979), which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. Still singing into his 90s, Aznavour also provided the voice of Carl Fredricksen for the French version of Pete Docter's Up (2009).
JUNE
Welsh actor Peter Halliday (2 June) amassed over 135 credits during a 50-year career. Mostly seen in small character parts in films as different as Peter Graham Scott's Captain Clegg (1962), Robert Young's Keeping It Up Downstairs (1976), and James Ivory's The Remains of the Day (1993), Halliday was a small-screen regular, as a trip to the Cinema Paradiso Searchline will verify. In addition to cult gems like The Andromeda Anthology (2006), he also featured in four Doctor Who stories (1968-88) and provided creature voices in two more.
Born in Montréal on 3 June 1924, but raised in the United States, Colleen Dewhurst collected two Tonys and four Emmys during a distinguished career. Moreover, she became the first actress to share a bed scene with John Wayne in John Sturges's McQ (1974). She played Diane Keaton's mother in Woody Allen's Annie Hall (1977), but will be best remembered as Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables (1985) and Road to Avonlea (1987). Twice married to George C. Scott, Dewhurst was the mother of actor, Campbell Scott.
Also born on 3 June, but in Windsor, Colorado, Herk Harvey spent a long time in student productions before specialising at Centron Films in industrial and educational shorts, with None For the Road (1957) making The Scare Film Archives: Vol.1: Drug Stories! (2018). However, Harvey achieved cult status as the director of the trippy horror, Carnival of Souls (1962), which was made for just $33,000. He can be seen as The Man in the ghoulish gem and also as a farmer in Nicholas Meyer's controversial nuclear bomb saga, The Day After (1983).
A native of Joplin, Missouri, Dennis Weaver (4 June) got his big break when Actors Studio classmate Shelley Winters landed him a contract at Universal Studios. He made his name as Deputy Chester Goode in Gunsmoke (1955-75), but also caught the eye as the twitchy night man at the motel in Orson Welles's Touch of Evil (1958). Following regular TV slots and a key character role with James Garner and Sidney Poitier in Ralph Nelson's Duel At Diablo (1966), Weaver helped the debuting Steven Spielberg make his mark, as the driver being menaced by a killer truck in Duel (1971). The same year saw Weaver take on the role of Marshall Sam McCloud in McCloud (1971-77), which brought him two Emmy nominations.
Birmingham-born Tony Britton went from amateur dramatics to the Royal Shakespeare Company. Despite solid showings in Pat Jackson's The Birthday Party (1957) and Brian Desmond-Hurst's Behind the Mask (1958), he was better suited to the stage repertoire than kitchen sink realism. Solid in support in the likes of Roy Boulting's There's a Girl in My Soup (1970) and Fred Zinnemann's The Day of the Jackal (1973), Britton was more prominent in a string of sitcoms. Along with playing, aspiring Labour MP Christopher Collinson in The Nearly Man (1974-75) and chef Richard O'Sullivan's restaurant partner, James Nicholls, in Robin's Nest (1977-81), he scored a hit as Harley Street consultant, Toby Latimer, opposite NHS GP son Nigel Havers in Don't Wait Up (1983-90).
While it's not disputed that Faith Domergue was born on 16 June in New Orleans, no one seems to know if the year was 1924 or 1925. A bewitched Howard Hughes bought her Warner Bros. contract, only for their collaboration on Vendetta (1950) to stretch on for four years to little effect. She moved to Universal before becoming one of Hollywood's first 'scream queens' in sci-fi outings like Robert Gordon's It Came From Beneath the Sea, Joseph M. Newman's This Island Earth (both 1955), and Ken Hughes's Timeslip (aka The Atomic Man, 1956). After a spell in television, Domergue settled in Italy, appearing in the odd giallo like Lucio Fulci's Perversion Story (1969).
Joan Smith (19 June) from Keighley became Sandra Dorne at the Rank charm school. Following early outings like Arthur Crabtree's Don't Ever Leave Me (1949), she played a steady stream of mid-cast blondes, getting to co-star with Bob Hope and Katharine Hepburn in Ralph Thomas's The Iron Petticoat (1956). Married to prolific actor Patrick Holt, Dorne enjoyed a run of B leads as a cut-price Diana Dors in Francis Searle and Terence Fisher's The Gelignite Gang (1956) and Maxwell Munden's The Bank Robbers (1958). She later played Julia Foster's mum in Sidney Hayers's All Coppers Are... (1972) and Aunt Fanny in Bob Spiers's Five Go Mad in Dorset, which helped launch Channel Four and The Comic Strip Presents... (1982-2000).
More can be found using the Cinema Paradiso Searchline. Here you can also find our Instant Expert's Guide to director Sidney Lumet, who was born on 25 June. Five days earlier, Audie Murphy had been born into a Texan farming family. Falsifying his age to join up, he became the most decorated American in World War II and his picture on the cover of Life magazine prompted James Cagney to invite him to Hollywood. Nothing came of their meeting, but Murphy signed to Universal and became a stalwart Western star, teaming with Faith Domergue in The Duel At Silver Creek (1952).
He would reunite with director Don Siegel on The Gun Runners (1958), by which time Murphy had played himself in To Hell and Back (1955), which was based on his memoir and launched a five-picture partnership with director Jesse Hibbs. Having worked with Joseph L. Mankiewicz on The Quiet American (1958) and John Huston on The Unforgiven (1960), he played against type as a contract killer in Jack Arnold's No Name on the Bullet (1959). The writing team of Willard and Mary Willingham provided the scripts for Battle At Bloody Beach (1961) and Bullet For a Badman (1964), while a final reunion saw Murphy and Budd Boetticher follow The Cimarron Kid (1951) with A Time For Dying (1969). The title proved sadly prophetic, however, as Murphy was killed in a plane crash at the age of just 45.
JULY
Abandoning dreams of becoming a vet, Michael Barrington (3 July) went on the stage after war service. Mostly busy in episode television (as you can see from the Cinema Paradiso Searchline), he took occasional roles in films like Sidney Hayers's Payroll (1961). Following two appearances in The Avengers (1961-65), he played the Bishop of Essex in Peter Watkins's Privilege (1967) and Major Scott in Kevin Billington's The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970). Billington is best known, however, as Governor Venables in Porridge (1974-77), although he also played prominent Tory politicians Sir Robert Peel in Edward the Seventh (1975) and William Huskisson in Number 10 (1983).
We celebrated the 100th birthday of Oscar winner Eva Marie Saint (4 July) in a Getting Know article and she and Anne Vernon are the only members of the 2024 Centenary Club still with us. Born the same day in Pelhrimov, Czech director Oldrich Lipský died at the age of 62. He started directing with comedies like The Hen and the Sexton (1951), but came into his own with the musical, Lemonade Joe (1964), and Happy End (1967), which chronicles the life of a butcher in reverse. This is available to rent from Second Run, but other gems like the cult night school satire, Marecek, Pass Me the Pen! (1976), remain unavailable.
Born in Boggabri in New South Wales, Johnny Vyvyan (6 July) spent much of his career in Blighty. At 5ft, he cut a distinctive figure in Richard Lester's classic Goons short, The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1959, which can be rented from Cinema Paradise on The Lacey Rituals (2012). Often scowling or bemused, Vyvyan was always good for a laugh or two in the likes of Up the Chastity Belt (1972), Intimate Games (1976), and Spike Milligan's sketch show, Q. (1976-78).
The son of the first Philippine ambassador to Britain, Eddie Romero (7 July) wrote his first screenplay at 17, en route to becoming a major figure in Tagalog cinema. However, we shall focus on the English-language pictures available to rent from Cinema Paradiso, including such co-directing collaborations with Gerardo de Leon as Mad Doctor of Blood Island (1968), Brides of Blood (1968), and Blood Creature (1959). Also on offer are solo efforts like the war classic, Manila, Open City (1968), and Black Mama White Mama (1973), a cult 'women in prison' drama starring Pam Grier.
Val Avery was born Sebouh Der Abrahamian in Philadelphia on 14 July. He packed over 300 TV episodes and 100 features into a 50-year career. Criss-crossing the genres, he was invariably cast in blue collar roles, when not straying on to the wrong side of the law. But, while the Cinema Paradiso Searchline throws up lots of classics and also-rans alike, the highspots of Avery's career were his collaborations with John Cassavetes on Too Late Blues (1961), Faces (1968), Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), and Gloria (1980).
A misunderstanding led to Parisian war photographer Raoul Coutard (16 September) becoming a cinematographer, as he thought he was being hired to take production stills on Pierre Schoendoerffer's La Passe du diable (1956). He dictated the look of the nouvelle vague after Jean-Luc Godard had objected to him being assigned to À bout de souffle (1960). Having used handheld monochrome for Une Femme est une femme (1961), Vivre sa vie (1962), Le Petit soldat, 'Il nuovo mondo' in Ro.Go.Pa.G. (both 1963), Une femme mariee, Bande à part (1964), and Alphaville (1965), Coutard adopted a cool colour detachment in Le Mépris (1963), 'Montparnasse et Levallois' in Paris vu par..., Pierrot le Fou (both 1965), Two or Three Things I Know About Her (1966), La Chinoise, and Weekend (both 1967).
Coutard also worked with François Truffaut on Shoot the Piano Player (1960), Jules et Jim (1961), La Peau douce (1964), and The Bride Wore Black (1968), while also photographing such modish gems as Peter Lennon's Rocky Road to Dublin (1967), Costa-Gavras's Z (1969), and Nagisa Oshima's Max My Love (1986). Having racked up 86 cinematographic credits and directed three films of his own, he died at the age of 92 in 2016.
New Yorker Faith Hubley (16 September) was a script supervisor, notably on Sidney Lumet's 12 Angry Men (1957) when she married animator John Hubley. They won Oscars for Moonbird (1959) and The Hole (1962) and she went on to complete 25 solo projects between 1975-2001. Born the following day, Marilyn Harris was placed in a Los Angeles orphanage. Her adoptive mother forced her to act because her own career had failed and she achieved screen immortality as Little Maria, the girl Boris Karloff's creature tosses into the lake, in James Whale's Frankenstein (1931). The director also cast her in minor roles in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) and Show Boat (1936) before she retired from acting at 19.
Even though he had 201 credits in his filmography, comic-book fans will always remember Miami-born Pat Hingle (19 July) as Commissioner James Gordon in Tim Burton's Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992) and Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997). He turned to acting after serving in the Second World and Korean wars and possibly missed out on an Oscar when a freak elevator injury cost him the lead in Richard Brooks's Elmer Gantry (1960). Burt Lancaster profited. However, his Actors Studio connections led to him being cast as Warren Beatty's father in Elia Kazan's Splendor in the Grass (1961) and he went on to play Oscar winner Sally Field's father in Martin Ritt's Norma Rae and Colonel Tom Parker in John Carpenter's Elvis (both 1979). Seemingly never off the television, Hingle acted right up to his death at 84 in 2009.
Also born on 19 July 1924, New Yorker Arthur Rankin, Jr. was the son and step-grandson of actors Arthur Rankin and Harry Davenport. But his talent lay in animation and the films he produced with Jules Bass remain firm favourites. Dubbing their stop-motion process, 'Animagic', Rankin and Bass became part of American Christmas folklore with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), The Little Drummer Boy (1968), Frosty the Snowman (1969), and Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970). However, they could also spring surprises with one-offs like Mad Monster Party (1967), The Hobbit (1977), and The Last Unicorn (1982), as well as such action series as ThunderCats (1985-89).
Known to Aussie soap fans as Ida Jessup in The Sullivans (1976-83), Edna Pearson in Prisoner: Cell Block H (1984), and Nell Mangel in Neighbours (1986-88), Vivean Gray (20 July) was born in Cleethorpes. She started acting with an amdram group during a holiday in Australia and wound up making Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) and The Last Wave (1977) for Peter Weir. The daughter of a chip shop owner, she retired in 1988 and returned to live another 28 years in Shoreham-by-Sea.
Born the same day in Akron, Ohio, Lola Albright also quit showbiz in the 1980s and lived to be 92. Both parents were gospel singers, but Albright sang torch songs as Craig Stevens's chanteuse girlfriend, Edie Hart, in the hit TV series, Peter Gunn (1958-61), for which she received an Emmy nomination. She had started out in the Judy Garland musicals, The Pirate and Easter Parade (both 1948), but made her mark as the vampish promoter's wife who seduces Kirk Douglas in Mark Robson's boxing noir, Champion (1949). A similar role followed with Elvis Presley being the pursued pug in Phil Karlson's Kid Galahad (1962), by which time Albright had drifted into television, in spite of a fine performance as a stripper falling for a 17 year-old youth in Alexander Singer's A Cold Wind in August (1961), which really should be on disc, as should George Axelrod's Lord Love a Duck (1965), for which she won the Best Actress prize at the Berlin Film Festival. Following Charles R. Rondeau's The Beast That Walks Like a Man and a reunion with Douglas on Andrew V. McLaglen's The Wild Wes (both 1967), Albright was seen exclusively on the small screen.
Television was where Don Knotts (21 July) made his name, as Deputy Barney Fife in The Andy Griffith Show (1960-68), for which he won five Emmys. During the run, he co-starred with Doris Day in Move Over, Darling (1963) before headlining comic vehicles like The Ghost and Mr Chicken (1966) and The Love God? (1969). Knotts also became a Disney regular, notably in The Apple Dumpling Gang, Gus (both 1976), and Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977), returning to the studio as Mayor Turkey Lurkey in Chicken Little (2005). Following the sitcom, Three's Company (1979-84), however, appearances became fewer, although he guested in Gary Ross's Pleasantville (1998), while his voice could be heard in Pinocchio and the Emperor of the Night (1987), Tom Sawyer (2000), Robot Chicken (2005-), and a couple of cases in The New Scooby-Doo Movies: The (Almost) Complete Collection (2019).
Initially an influential critic on Sequence and Sight and Sound who went on to write about the LGBTQIA+ influence on American cinema, Gavin Lambert (23 July) made his directorial debut in Morocco with Another Sky (1954), a chronicle of a prim woman's sexual awakening that really should be on disc. Lured to Hollywood to work with Nicholas Ray on the screenplays for Bigger Than Life (1956) and Bitter Victory (1957), he received an Oscar nomination for adapting D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (1960) for Jack Cardiff. Frustratingly, his work on The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (1961), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), and I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (1977) is unavailable. But Cinema Paradiso members can still see Liberace: Behind the Music (1988) and catch Lambert cameoing in John Schlesinger's The Next Best Thing (2000).
With 219 titles to his credit, Toronto-born Lloyd Bochner (29 July) started acting on the radio at the age of 11. Heading south after war service, he became a TV regular, notably playing the cryptographer deciphering an alien text in 'To Serve Man', a 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone, which he would parody in The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear (1991). Excelling as Carter, the gangster targeting Lee Marvin in Point Blank (1967), Bochner brought his brand of suave villainy to dozens of TV classics (as a trip to the Searchline will show). But he struck gold as Cecil Colby in Dynasty (1981-82) and as Mayor Hamilton Hill in Batman: The Animated Series (1992-95) and The New Batman Adventures (1997-99). Son Hart Bochner voiced Arthur Reeves in Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993).
Also born on 29 July, Los Angelino Robert Horton became a familiar face as scout Flint McCullough in the hit Western series, Wagon Train (1957-62). But he also made seven appearances on Alfred Hitchcock Presents, notably as the blackmailing insurance investigator in 'The Disappearing Trick'. Somehow, no one has thought to release Kinji Fukusaku's The Green Slime (1968), in which Horton commands a spaceship whose power supply helps manic aliens multiply.
Another 29 July baby, Bostonian Elizabeth Short desperately wanted to be a movie star. But the waitress achieved unwanted infamy when her mutilated body was found on 15 January 1947. Despite there being 150 suspects, the case remains open, with Short being played by Lucie Arnaz in Gene Nelson's teleplay, Who Is the Black Dahlia? (1975), and Mia Kirshner in Brian De Palma's film à clef, The Black Dahlia (2005), which was based on a pulp bestseller by James Ellroy.
AUGUST
Author and activist James Baldwin was born in New York on 2 August 1924. His life and causes are superbly summed up by Raoul Peck in the BAFTA-winning documentary, I Am Not Your Negro (2016). The potency is equally evident in Horace Ové's Baldwin's Nigger (1969), in which the writer and comedian Dick Gregory discuss the realities of being Black in the United States at the end of the 1960s. Baldwin can also be seen in Susanne Rostock's Sing Your Song (2011) and Liz Garbus's What Happened, Miss Simone? (2015), which respectively profile Harry Belafonte and Nina Simone. Also available is Barry Jenkins's compelling adaptation of Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk (2018), which earned Regina King the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
There's a dark irony that Carroll O'Connor was born in Manhattan on the same day as Baldwin, as he won four Emmys for playing reactionary bigot Archie Bunker in All in the Family (1971-79), the popular sitcom that was based on Johnny Speight's Til Death Us Do Part (1965-75), in which Warren Mitchell had essayed the equally prejudiced Alf Garnett. Prior to this, O'Connor had been a jobbing actor on film and television, often playing cops and blue collar types. Somewhat surprisingly, he was Casca in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Cleopatra (1963), with other notable roles coming in Death of a Gunfighter (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), and Return to Me (2000), along with the James Coburn vehicles, What Did You Do in the War Daddy? (1966) and Waterhole #3 (1967).
Baltimore's Leon Uris (3 August) became one of America's bestselling novelists. Both Battle Cry (Raoul Walsh, 1956) and The Angry Hills (Robert Aldrich, 1959) were adapted for the screen, while Uris also wrote the screenplay for John Sturges's Gunfight At the O.K. Corral (1957). MGM bought the rights to Exodus (1960) before the book was finished and Otto Preminger's film version earned three Oscar nominations. By contrast, Alfred Hitchcock's take on Topaz (1969) proved one of his least effective efforts - which, of course, makes it essential viewing.
Billie Brosch was born in Du Quoin, Illinois on 5 August, but she was being billed as Billie Hayes from the age of 10. Having made her name as Mammy Pansy Yokum in L'il Abner (1959), she acquired a cult following as Wilhelmina W. Witchiepoo in Pufnstuf (1970). A versatile voice artist, Hayes played Orgoch in Disney's The Black Cauldron (1985), MotherMae-Eye in Teen Titans (2003-06) and Teen Titans Go! (2013-14), and a cackling witch in Shrek Forever (2010). She died in 2021, five years after she had finally retired, at the age of 96. Animator Gene Deitch (8 August) reached 95. Starting out at UPA and Terrytoons, the Chicagoan relocated to Prague to make Munro, which was shown with Blake Edwards's Breakfast At Tiffany's (both 1961) and became the first Oscar-winning animation to have been produced outside the USA. In addition to 13 Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM, Deitch's 100+ credits also included the Oscar-nominated Sidney's Family Tree (1958), an abandoned mid-60s collaboration with the legendary Jirí Trnka on The Hobbit, and a version of Where the Wild Things Are (1973).
A native of Forth Worth, Texas, Martha Hyer (10 August) landed a contract with RKO on graduating from the Pasadena Playhouse. Early outings like Abbott and Costello Go to Mars (1953) may not have been world-beaters. But they did enough to secure Hyer the role of William Holden's socialite fiancée, Elizabeth Tyson, in Billy Wilder's Sabrina (1954). She then teamed with Jerry Lewis, Rock Hudson, and Cary Grant respectively in The Delicate Delinquent (1956), Battle Hymn (1957), and Houseboat (1958). Having been nominated for Best Supporting Actress opposite Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin as Gwen French in Vincente Minnelli's Some Came Running (1959), she married producer Hal B. Wallis. But Hyer reunited with Martin on Henry Hathaway's The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and got on so well with John Wayne that she wrote Don Siegel's Rooster Cogburn (1975) for him and Katharine Hepburn.
Raised in Sale in Cheshire, Robert Bolt (15 August) became a playwright after military service. His 1960 study of Sir Thomas More was filmed as A Man For All Seasons (1966) by Fred Zinnemann and he, actor Paul Scofield, and Bolt all won Oscars for their work. When he came to collaborate with Michael Wilson on David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Bolt refused to share the credit and was nominated alone for the Academy Award. He won for Lean's take on Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago (1965), but wasn't even nominated for Ryan's Daughter (1970), Roger Donaldson's The Bounty (1984), or Roland Joffé's The Mission (1986), which won the Palme d'or. Puzzlingly, Bolt's sole directorial outing, Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), which starred wife Sarah Miles (whom he married twice), isn't available to rent.
Arriving in Fort Worth just six days after Martha Hyer, Fess Parker (16 August) became the hero of millions of American kids by playing the title characters in Davy Crockett (1954-55) and Daniel Boone (1964-70). He also headlined Norman Foster's Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier (1954), which was released the same year as Gordon Douglas's giant ant saga, Them!, which had convinced the Disney hierarchy to cast Parker over James Arness. The part cost him John Ford's The Searchers and Joshua Logan's Bus Stop (both 1956), but Parker also did the studio proud as James J. Andrews in Francis D. Lyon's The Great Locomotive Chase (1956) and Robert Stevenson's canine tearjerker, Old Yeller (1957).
Establishing himself in six stage versions of Othello, William Marshall (19 August) first made an impact on screen as Glycon opposite Victor Mature in Delmer Daves's Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954). Making periodic TV appearances, he followed an imposing turn as Attorney General Edward Brooke in Richard Fleischer's The Boston Strangler (1968) by taking the lead in William Crain's Blacula (1972) and Bob Kelljan's Scream Blacula Scream (1973). Having played Attorney General William Klinger in Robert Aldrich's Twilight's Last Gleaming (1977), Marshall excelled in finally filming his signature role in The Tragedy of Othello (1981).
Morris Weinstein from Cleveland, Ohio became Jack Weston (21 August) when he started acting. While versatile on television, he tended to take comic roles on film, stooging for Doris Day in Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960), Steve McQueen in The Cincinnati Kid (1965) and The Thomas Crown Affair, and Walter Matthau in Cactus Flower (both 1968) and A New Leaf (1971). However, he joined Alan Arkin and Richard Crenna in menacing a blind Audrey Hepburn in Wait Until Dark (1967), although he'll be best known to many as Max Kellerman, the owner of the Catskills camp in Emile Ardolino's Dirty Dancing (1987). Weston's first wife, Marge Redmond (14 December) also acted, notably in Billy Wilder's The Fortune Cookie (1966), Alfred Hitchcock's Family Plot (1976), and Woody Allen's Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993). She lived to be 95.
On stage in the family vaudeville act at the age of three, Peggy Ryan (28 August) became a teen star in a string of 1940s Universal musicals with Donald O'Connor and Gloria Jean. She also appeared with Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Here Come the Co-Eds (1945) before forming a cabaret act with three-time co-star and husband, Ray McDonald. Continuing to teach tap until she was 80, Ryan also featured in 49 episodes of Hawaii Five-O (1969-76) as secretary Jenny Sherman.
Brooklynite Leonard Hacker went by the stage name of Buddy Hackett (31 August) when performing stand-up or acting. A graduate of the fabled Borscht Belt, his routines can be sampled via The Golden Age of Comedy series. On screen, he stole scenes as Marcellus Washburn in Morton DaCosta's The Music Man (1962), as Benjy Benjamin alongside Mickey Rooney in Stanley Kramer's It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and as hippy mechanic Tennessee Steinmetz in Robert Stevenson's The Love Bug (1968). Returning to Disney, Hackett also voiced Scuttle in The Little Mermaid (1989) and The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea (2000).
Born in Hoxton to a florist and a printer who boxed as 'The Cobblestone Kid', George Sewell (31 August) took all manner of jobs before meeting Dudley Sutton in a pub and being persuaded to take up acting at the age of 35 with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, with whom he made Sparrows Can't Sing (1963). After a solid apprenticeship playing small-screen ne'er-do-wells, Sewell was cast by Gerry Anderson as Colonel Alec Freeman in UFO (1970-71). He also proved his menacing mettle as Con McCarty in Mike Hodges's Get Carter (1971) before hitting his straps as DCI Alan Craven in the gritty Euston Films crime series, Special Branch (1973-74), which he later spoofed as Superintendent Frank Cottam alongside Jasper Carrott and Robert Powell in The Detectives (1993-97).
The last 31 August baby was Herbert Weitz, who was born in Vienna. Coming to Britain, he took the name Herbert Wise and started directing in regional rep. He only made two features, To Have and to Hold (1963), which was released as part of the Edgar Wallace Mysteries B series, and The Lovers! (1973), a spin-off from the ITV sitcom of the same name (1970-71) , starring Paula Wilcox and Richard Beckinsale. As the Cinema Paradiso Searchline reveals, Wise's TV CV is filled with classic plays like Mrs Warren's Profession (1972), top-ranked series, and TV-movies of the calibre of Skokie (1981) and The Woman in Black (1989). Nothing, however, could top his 13-episode adaptation of Robert Graves's I, Claudius (1976), which earned Wise an Outstanding Contribution Award from BAFTA and the chance to make Julius Caesar (1979) for the BBC Television Shakespeare project. Episodes of Rumpole of the Bailey, Tales of the Unexpected, Inspector Morse, and A Touch of Frost followed, along with Cadfael, which reunited Wise with Derek Jacobi, who had been behind Charlton Heston and Ronnie Barker in the search for the stuttering Emperor Claudius.
