Edmund Lincoln Anderson (September 18, 1905 – February 28, 1977) was an American comedian and actor. To a generation of early radio and television comedy he was known as “Rochester“.
Anderson entered show business as a teenager on the vaudeville circuit. In the early 1930s, he transitioned into films and radio. In 1937, he began his role of Rochester van Jones, usually known simply as “Rochester”, the valet of Jack Benny, on his NBC radio show The Jack Benny Program. Anderson became the first African American to have a regular role on a nationwide radio program. When the series moved to CBS television in 1950, Anderson continued in the role until the series ended in 1965.
After the series ended, Anderson remained active with guest starring roles on television and voice work in animated series. He was also an avid horse-racing fan who owned several race horses and worked as a horse trainer at the Hollywood Park Racetrack. He was married twice and had four children. He died of heart disease in February 1977 at the age of 71.
Anderson was born in Oakland, California. His father, “Big Ed” Anderson, was a minstrel performer, while his mother, Ella Mae, had been a tightrope walker until her career was ended by a fall.[1][2] He described himself as being a descendant of slaves who were able to leave the South during the Civil War through the Underground Railroad.[3] At the age of ten, Anderson and his family moved from Oakland to San Francisco. He left school when he was 14 to work as an errand boy to help his family.[4]
Stage-struck at an early age, he spent much of his free time waiting at stage doors and cutting up on street corners with his friend and brother, Cornelius.[4] Anderson briefly tried being a jockey, but had to give it up when he became too heavy.[5] Anderson started in show business as part of an all African American revue at age 14; he had previously won an amateur contest at a vaudeville theater in San Francisco.[5] Anderson joined the cast of Struttin’ Along in 1923 and was part of Steppin’ High both as a dancer and as one of the “Three Black Aces” with his brother, Cornelius, in 1924.[5] He later worked in vaudeville with Cornelius.[1][2] Anderson began adding comedy to his song and dance act in 1926. During one of his vaudeville tours to the East Coast, Anderson first met Jack Benny; the men only exchanged greetings and shook hands.[5]
Anderson’s vocal cords were ruptured when he was a youngster selling newspapers in San Francisco. The newsboys believed those who were able to shout the loudest sold the most papers. The permanent damage to his vocal cords left him with the gravelly voice later familiar to both radio listeners and television viewers.[6] Anderson was also a dancer and gained his show business start in this way, but it was his uniquely recognizable voice that brought him to stardom.[7][8]
Jack Benny and Eddie Anderson disembark from a train in Los Angeles in 1943 with a camel.
Anderson’s first appearance on The Jack Benny Program was on March 28, 1937.[9][10] He was originally hired to play the one-time role of a redcap on the Benny program for a storyline of the show traveling from Chicago to California by train, which coincided with the radio show’s actual return to NBC’s Radio City West in Hollywood after a brief stint in New York.[3] As Jack Benny and his show staff were traveling to California by train, Benny and his writers had an idea for a comedy sketch that took place on a train with a train porter getting the better of Benny on a fictional trip from Chicago to Los Angeles. Benny liked the idea of the sketch enough to wire California to find someone for the role of the train porter before the show script was actually finished. Benny’s first choice for the role was Oscar, the shoeshine man on the Paramount studios lot. Oscar’s agent told the Benny show his client would take the job for $300. Benny thought this was too much money and the role went to Eddie Anderson.[9] Anderson, who was working as a comedian in the Los Angeles Central Avenue district at the time, won the role after an audition.[4]
When Benny and cast were preparing to board the train, Anderson and Benny had their first lines together, with the following exchange: Benny: “Hey Redcap, carry my grips a little higher; there are some things hanging out.” Anderson: “Yes, sir.” Benny: “Just drop the grips down here until I get my crowd together.” Anderson: “Yes, Mr. Bunny.” Benny: “The name’s Benny.” Anderson: “Well, this is Easter.” There was a recurring gag wherein Benny’s inquiries about their arrival in Albuquerque were met with skepticism by Anderson that such a place existed.[11][12]
Five weeks after Anderson’s first appearance on the Benny program, he was called for another radio role on the show, this time as a waiter in a restaurant serving the cast.[9] In the sketch, Benny complimented Anderson on his extensive knowledge, to which Anderson replied, “I don’t know where Albuquerque is”. During this appearance, Anderson made himself at home on the program, joining in the Jell-O commercial with the regulars of the cast. A few weeks later, Anderson was called back once more, now for the part of a “colored fellow” who had a financial disagreement with Benny.[13]
The Benny show received a large amount of mail about Anderson’s appearances on the radio program. Benny decided to make him part of the cast as his butler and valet, Rochester van Jones.[9][13] Neither Benny nor Anderson could recall how they came up with the name of Rochester for Anderson’s character.[1][3] Anderson always credited Benny for the invention of the Rochester van Jones name, saying that the name was copyrighted and that Benny later sold the rights to him for a dollar.[14] When Anderson became a regular member of the Benny show cast, he became the first African American to have a regular role on a nationwide radio program.[15] Anderson first appeared as “Rochester” on the Benny program of June 20, 1937.[16]
Subsequent episodes gave different “origin stories” for Rochester. One radio show guest starred Amos ‘n’ Andy, where the skit showed that Rochester used to work for them as a taxi cab driver. Benny and Rochester collide their cars, in which Benny is clearly at fault (as Rochester’s car was way up on a grease rack). Benny claimed it was Rochester’s fault and threatens to sue. The racial inequality of the respective parties is explicitly referenced, and Amos ‘n’ Andy essentially give Rochester to Benny to settle the matter out of court.[17] (This same episode included Mary Livingstone‘s infamous blooper at the very end of the show – mispronouncing “grease rack” as “grass reek”.) A later television show explained that Benny met Rochester when the latter was a porter on a railroad train; Benny is responsible for Rochester being fired and then hires him as a valet to make it up to him.[18]
Benny’s chief problem with Anderson was his frequently being late for the show. Benny attempted to instill punctuality in Anderson by fining him $50 each time he arrived late at the studio.[19] Anderson had a habit of losing track of time, especially when he was talking with someone. Benny enlisted some of the cast members to drop in on him just before travel dates to make sure he would be ready to go on time. Most of the time he was not, and there were times the other cast members would need to leave without Anderson with them.[20]
On one occasion when the entire Benny show was scheduled to appear in New York, Anderson, who had been out late the night before departure day, could not be roused by Mamie on time. The Andersons arrived at the Los Angeles train station just as the Super Chief pulled out with the rest of the radio program’s cast on it. Breaking the speed limit with an LAPD motorcycle squad escort, Anderson arrived at the Pasadena train station in time to catch his train from there.[19]
From February 2002 until September 2002, Pullman starred with Mercedes Ruehl in Edward Albee‘s play The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? on Broadway. It won the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play, the 2002 Drama Desk Award Outstanding New Play, and the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Pullman was nominated for the 2002 Drama Desk Award Outstanding Actor in a Play.
He starred as Dr. Richard Massey in the miniseries Revelations and in Albee’s play Peter and Jerry at off-Broadway‘s Second Stage Theatre in New York for which he received a second Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Actor in a Play in 2008.
He also appeared in the Broadway production of David Mamet‘s Oleanna, co-starring Julia Stiles.[5] It opened at the John Golden Theatre October 11, 2009 and closed on December 6, 2009 after 65 performances.[6]
He is a jury member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.[7]
From 2012 to 2013, Pullman portrayed the president of the United States in the television comedy series 1600 Penn. He played detective Harry Ambrose in the USA Network mystery series The Sinner, which premiered in 2017 and has aired for four seasons.
At the age of 21, Pullman suffered a head injury when he fell while rehearsing a play, and lost his sense of smell and the feeling in his left elbow.[17] He is an avid Buffalo Bills fan. He co-owns a cattle ranch with his brother in Montana, near the town of Whitehall, where he lives part-time.[18] He also serves on the board of trustees at Alfred University[19] and was awarded an honorary doctorate there on May 14, 2011.[10] In 2018, he received an honorary doctorate from Montana State University, where he was formerly employed.[3]
His paternal grandfather’s family were Italian emigrants from Telese Terme; the family surname was originally spelled “Giammattei” (Italian pronunciation: [dʒammatˈtɛi]) before immigrating to the United States.[4] Giamatti’s other ancestries are German, Dutch, English, French, Irish, and Scottish.[5] His paternal grandmother had deep roots in New England, dating back to the colonial era.[6] Giamatti’s brother, Marcus, is also an actor, and his sister, Elena, is a jewelry designer.
Giamatti was first educated at The Foote School and later graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall in 1985. He attended Yale, where he was active in the undergraduate theater scene and working with fellow actors and Yale students Ron Livingston and Edward Norton. He graduated in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in English, and went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Yale School of Drama, where he studied with Earle R. Gister. He performed in numerous theatrical productions, including on Broadway and a stint from 1989 to 1992 with Seattle’s Annex Theater,[7] before appearing in some small television and film roles in the early 1990s. In 2023, Giamatti was awarded an honoraryDoctor of Fine Arts degree from Yale.[8]
D’Angelo was born in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Priscilla Ruth (née Smith), a violinist, and Eugene Constantino “Gene” D’Angelo, a bass player and television station manager at WBNS-TV in Columbus.[2][3] Her father was of Italian descent. Her paternal grandparents, Eugenio and Rosina D’Angelo were from Introdacqua in the Abruzzo region of Italy.[4] She has three brothers, Jeff, Tim and Tony.[5] Their maternal grandfather, Howard Dwight Smith, was an architect who designed the Ohio Stadium, nicknamed “the Horseshoe” at Ohio State University.[6][7]
D’Angelo worked as an illustrator at Hanna-Barbera Studios and as a singer before pursuing an interest in acting. While living for a period in Canada, she was a backup singer for American-born rockabilly singer Rompin’ Ronnie Hawkins‘ band The Hawks. After going out on their own they became The Band, a group that is considered legendary.[8][9]
D’Angelo began acting in the theatre, appearing on Broadway in 1976 in Rockabye Hamlet (also known as Kronborg: 1582), a musical based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.[2] She made her television debut in the first three episodes of the TV mini-series Captains and the Kings in 1976.
Her biggest break came in 1983 starring with Chevy Chase in National Lampoon’s Vacation in the role of Ellen Griswold. She reprised this role in four Vacation sequels and a short film between 1985 and 2015. In the 1980s she starred in many other major comedy films; in the mid-1990s she acted primarily in independent movies. In 1994 D’Angelo returned to the stage and won a Theatre World Award for her performance in the Off-Broadway play Simpatico.[12]
In 2014, D’Angelo was cast alongside Chevy Chase in an ABC comedy pilot called Chev & Bev, about a retired couple having to raise their grandchildren. ABC opted against making a series.[15] D’Angelo appeared alongside Chevy Chase in the comedy Vacation, a continuation of the original film, which was released on July 29, 2015.[16]
D’Angelo narrates a short biographical film about Patsy Cline, which is shown to visitors of The Patsy Cline Museum in Nashville, Tennessee. The museum opened to the public on April 7, 2017.
D’Angelo was romantically involved with Milos Forman, who directed her in Hair (1979).[17] In 1981, she married Italian Don Lorenzo Salviati, the only son and heir of Don Forese Salviati, 5th Duke Salviati, Marchese di Montieri and Boccheggiano, Nobile Romano Coscritto, and his wife, the former Maria Grazia Gawronska.[18][19]
Later, she began a relationship with Anton Furst, an Academy Award-winning production designer, who died by suicide in 1991. She was in a relationship with actor Al Pacino from 1997 until 2003. The couple has twins conceived through IVF, a son and daughter born January 25, 2001.[20][21]
Crothers began his musical career as a teenager. He sang and was self-educated on guitar and drums. He was in a band that played in speakeasies in Terre Haute.[2][3] During the 1930s, Crothers formed a band, spending eight years living in Akron, Ohio, and performing five days a week on a radio show in Dayton, Ohio. The station manager thought he needed a catchier name, so Crothers suggested “Scatman” for his scat singing. He married Helen, a native of Steubenville, Ohio, in 1937. In the 1940s, the couple moved to California.[4]
He performed in Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York City.[citation needed]Capitol released several of his singles: “I’d Rather Be a Hummingbird”, “Blue-eyed Sally”, and “Television Blues”. High Fidelity Records released his album Rock and Roll with Scatman Crothers. He went on USO tours with Bob Hope.[5] Crothers also performed with bandleader Slim Gaillard. According to the jacket notes of the Let Freedom Sing CD set, Crothers was part of the music group The Ramparts, who sang “The Death of Emmett Till” (1955), a song by A. C. Bilbrew.[6][7][8]
Crothers became the first Black person to appear regularly in a Los Angeles television show when he joined Dixie Showboat.[3] After The Aristocats in the 1970s, Crothers found voice acting jobs as Meadowlark Lemon in the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon series and as the title character in Hong Kong Phooey. For four years, he played the role of Louie the garbage man on Chico and the Man. During his appearance on Sanford and Son Crothers joined Redd Foxx for two musical numbers. One was a version of the standard “All of Me“, in which he accompanied Foxx on tenor guitar. In 1966, Hanna-Barbera aired an animated special called The New Alice in Wonderland (or What’s a Nice Kid like You Doing in a Place like This?), an updated version of the Lewis Carroll story featuring Sammy Davis Jr. as the Cheshire Cat. The special was followed by an audio adaptation for HB Records, but since Davis was signed to Reprise, Crothers provided the cat’s voice for the album.
Peter Lorre (German: [ˈpεtɐ ‘lɔʁə]; born László Löwenstein, pronounced [ˈlaːsloːˈløːvɛ(n)ʃtɒjn]; June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian and American actor, first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before moving to Germany where he worked first on the stage, then in film in Berlin in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Lorre caused an international sensation in the Weimar Republic-era film M (1931), directed by Fritz Lang, in which he portrayed a serial killer who preys on little girls.
Of Jewish descent, Lorre left Germany after Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. His second English-language film, following the multiple-language version of M (1931), was Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), made in the United Kingdom.[1][2] Eventually settling in Hollywood, he later became a featured player in many Hollywood crime and mystery films. In his initial American films, Mad Love and Crime and Punishment (both 1935), he continued to play murderers, but he was then cast playing Mr. Moto, the Japanese detective, in a B-picture series.
Lorre was born László Löwenstein (Hungarian: Löwenstein László) on June 26, 1904, the first child of Alajos Löwenstein and his wife Elvira Freischberger, in the Hungarian town of Rózsahegy in Liptó County (German: Rosenberg; Slovak: Ružomberok, now in Slovakia). His parents, who were German-speaking Jews, had only recently moved there[a] following his father’s appointment as chief bookkeeper at a local textile mill. Alajos also served as a lieutenant in the Austrian Army Reserve, which meant that he was often away on military maneuvers.[4][5]
László’s mother died when he was four years old, leaving Alajos with three very young sons, the youngest several months old. He soon married his wife’s best friend Melanie Klein, with whom he had two more children. However, Lorre and his stepmother never got along, and this colored his childhood memories.[4] At the outbreak of the Second Balkan War in 1913, anticipating that this would lead to a larger conflict and that he would be called up, Alajos moved the family to Vienna. He served on the Eastern Front during the winter of 1914–15, before being put in charge of a prison camp due to heart trouble.[6][7]
The actor became much better known after director Fritz Lang cast him as child-killer Hans Beckert in M (1931), a film reputedly inspired by the Peter Kürten case.[9] Lang said that he had Lorre in mind while working on the script and did not give him a screen test because he was already convinced that Lorre was perfect for the part.[10] The director said that the actor gave his best performance in M and that it was among the most distinguished in film history.[11] Sharon Packer observed that Lorre played the “loner, [and] schizotypal murderer” with “raspy voice, bulging eyes, and emotive acting (a holdover from the silent screen) [which] always make him memorable.”[9] In 1932, Lorre appeared alongside Hans Albers in the science fiction film F.P.1 antwortet nicht about an artificial island in the mid-Atlantic.
When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, Lorre took refuge first in Paris and then London,[when?] where he was noticed by Ivor Montagu, associate producer for The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), who reminded the film’s director, Alfred Hitchcock, about Lorre’s performance in M. They first considered him to play the assassin in the film, but wanted to use him in a larger role despite his limited command of English at the time,[12] which Lorre overcame by learning much of his part phonetically.
Michael Newton wrote in an article for The Guardian in September 2014 of his scenes with Leslie Banks in the film: “Lorre cannot help but steal each scene; he’s a physically present actor, often, you feel, surrounded as he is by the pallid English, the only one in the room with a body.”[13] After his first two American films, Lorre returned to England to feature in Hitchcock’s Secret Agent (1936).[14] Lorre and his first wife, actress Celia Lovsky, boarded a Cunard liner in Southampton on July 18, 1934, to sail for New York a day after shooting had been completed on The Man Who Knew Too Much, having gained visitor’s visas to the United States.[15]
Lorre settled in Hollywood and was soon under contract to Columbia Pictures, which had difficulty finding parts suitable for him. After some months employed effectively for research, Lorre decided that the 1866 Russian novel Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky, would be a suitable project with himself in the central role. Columbia’s head Harry Cohn agreed to make the film adaptation on the condition that he could lend Lorre to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, possibly as a means of recouping the cost of Lorre not appearing in any of his films.[16]
For MGM’s Mad Love (1935), set in Paris and directed by Karl Freund, Lorre’s head was shaved for the role of Dr. Gogol, a demented surgeon. In the film, Gogol replaces the wrecked hands of a concert pianist with those of an executed knife throwing murderer. An actress who works at the nearby Grand Guignol theater, who happens to be the pianist’s wife, is the subject of Gogol’s unwelcome infatuation.[17] “Lorre triumphs superbly in a characterization that is sheer horror”, The Hollywood Reporter commented. “There is perhaps no one who can be so repulsive and so utterly wicked. No one who can smile so disarmingly and still sneer. His face is his fortune”.[18]
Lorre followed Mad Love with the lead role in Crime and Punishment (also 1935) directed by Josef von Sternberg. “Although Peter Lorre is occasionally able to give the film a frightening pathological significance,” wrote Andre Sennwald in The New York Times on the film’s release, “this is scarcely Dostoievsky’s drama of a tortured brain drifting into madness with a terrible secret.”[19] Columbia offered him a five-year contract at $1,000 a week, but he declined.[20]
Returning from England after appearing in a second Hitchcock picture (Secret Agent, 1936), he was offered and accepted a 3-year contract with 20th Century Fox.[20] Starring in a series of Mr. Moto movies, Lorre played John P. Marquand‘s character, a Japanese detective and spy. Initially positive about the films, he soon grew frustrated with them. “The role is childish,” he said, and eventually tended to angrily dismiss the films entirely.[21] He twisted his shoulder during a stunt in Mr. Moto Takes a Vacation (1939),[22] the penultimate entry of the series. In 1939, he attended a lunch at the request of some visiting Japanese officials; Lorre wore a badge that read “Boycott Japanese goods.”[23]
Late in 1938, Universal Pictures wanted to borrow Lorre from Fox for the top-billed titular role ultimately performed by Basil Rathbone in Son of Frankenstein (1939) starring Boris Karloff as Frankenstein’s monster and Bela Lugosi as Ygor. Lorre declined the role because he thought his menacing parts were now behind him, although he was ill at this time.[24] He had tested successfully in 1937 for the role of Quasimodo in an aborted MGM version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, according to a Fox publicist one of two roles Lorre most wanted to play (the other was Napoleon).[25] By now, frustrated by broken promises from Fox, Lorre had managed to end his contract.
After a brief period as a freelance, he signed for two pictures at RKO in May 1940.[26] In the first of these, Lorre appeared as the anonymous lead in the B-picture Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), reputedly the first film noir.[27] The second RKO film, also in 1940, was You’ll Find Out, a musical comedy mystery vehicle for bandleader Kay Kyser in which Lorre spoofed his sinister image alongside horror stars Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.[28]
In 1941, Lorre became a naturalized citizen of the United States.[29] Director John Huston effectively ended a period of decline for the actor and saved him from more B-pictures by casting him in The Maltese Falcon.[30][31] Although Warner Bros. were lukewarm about Lorre at first, Huston was keen for him to play Joel Cairo. Huston observed that Lorre “had that clear combination of braininess and real innocence, and sophistication… He’s always doing two things at the same time, thinking one thing and saying something else.”[31] Lorre himself reminisced fondly in 1962 about the “stock company” he now found himself working with: Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet and Claude Rains. In his view, the four of them had the rare ability to “switch an audience from laughter to seriousness.”[32] Lorre was contracted to Warner on a picture-by-picture basis until 1943 when he signed a five-year contract, renewable each year, which lasted until 1946.[30]
The year after Maltese Falcon, he portrayed the character Ugarte in Casablanca (1942). While Ugarte is a small part, it is he who provides Rick with the “Letters of Transit”, a key plot device. Lorre made nine movies with Sydney Greenstreet counting The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca, a team which came to be called “Little Pete-Big Syd”, although they did not always have much screen time in joint scenes.[33] Most of these motion pictures were variations on Casablanca, including Background to Danger (1943, with George Raft); Passage to Marseille (1944), reuniting them with Humphrey Bogart and Claude Rains; The Mask of Dimitrios (1944); The Conspirators (1944, with Hedy Lamarr and Paul Henreid); Hollywood Canteen (1944); Three Strangers (1946), a suspense film about three people who are joint partners on a winning lottery ticket, with third-billed Lorre cast against type by director Jean Negulesco as the romantic lead, also starring Geraldine Fitzgerald; and Greenstreet and Lorre’s final film together, suspense thriller The Verdict (1946), director Don Siegel‘s first feature, with Greenstreet and Lorre finally billed first and second, respectively.
Lorre returned to comedy with the role of Dr. Einstein in Frank Capra‘s version of Arsenic and Old Lace (released in 1944) starring Cary Grant and Raymond Massey. Writing in 1944, film critic Manny Farber described what he called Lorre’s “double-take job”, a characteristic dramatic flourish “where the actor’s face changes rapidly from laughter, love or a security that he doesn’t really feel to a face more sincerely menacing, fearful or deadpan.”[34]
Lorre’s last film for Warner was The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), a horror film in which he played a crazed astrologer who falls in love with a character played by Andrea King. Daniel Bubbeo, in The Women of Warner Brothers, thought Lorre’s “wildly over-the top performance” had “elevated the movie from minor horror to first-rate camp.”[35]
Lorre said his continuing friendship with Bertolt Brecht, in exile in California since 1941, had led studio head Jack L. Warner to ‘graylist’ him, and his contract with Warner Bros. was terminated on May 13, 1946. Warner would be a “friendly” witness at his appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in May 1947.[36] Lorre himself was sympathetic to the short-lived Committee for the First Amendment, set up by John Huston and others, and added his name to advertisements in the trade press in support of the committee.[37]
After World War II and the end of his Warner contract, Lorre’s acting career in Hollywood experienced a downturn,[38] whereupon he concentrated on radio and stage work. In 1949 he filed for bankruptcy.[39] In the autumn of 1950, he traveled to West Germany to make the film noir Der Verlorene (The Lost One, 1951) which Lorre co-wrote, directed and starred in. According to Gerd Gemünden in Continental Strangers: German Exile Cinema, 1933–1951, with the exception of Josef von Báky‘s Der Ruf (The Last Illusion, 1949), it is the only film by an emigrant from Germany which uses a return to the country “addressing questions of guilt and responsibility; of accountability and justice.” While it gained some critical approval, audiences avoided it and it did badly at the box office.[40]
Lorre was married three times: Celia Lovsky (1934 – March 13, 1945, divorced); Kaaren Verne (May 25, 1945 – 1950, divorced) and Anne Marie Brenning (July 21, 1953 – March 23, 1964, his death). In 1953, Brenning bore Lorre’s only child, Catharine. Anne Marie Brenning died in 1971. His daughter later made headlines after serial killer Kenneth Bianchi confessed to police investigators that he and his cousin and fellow “Hillside Strangler” Angelo Buono, posing as undercover police officers, had stopped her in 1977 with the intent of abduction and murder, but let her go on learning that she was the daughter of Peter Lorre. It was only after Bianchi was arrested that Catharine realized whom she had met.[42] Catharine died of complications from diabetes, on May 7, 1985, aged 32.[43]
Lorre had suffered from chronic gallbladder troubles, for which doctors had prescribed morphine. Lorre became trapped between the constant pain and addiction to morphine to ease the problem. It was during the period of the Mr. Moto films that Lorre struggled with and overcame his addiction.[44] Having quickly gained 100 lb (45 kg) and not fully recovering from his addiction to morphine, Lorre suffered personal and career disappointments in his later life.[41]
He died in Los Angeles on March 23, 1964, from a stroke.[45] His body was cremated and his ashes were interred at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood. Vincent Price read the eulogy at his funeral.[46]
Lorre was inducted into the Grand Order of Water Rats, the world’s oldest theatrical fraternity, in 1942.[47] Being Warner Bros. cartoonists favorite characterization, Lorre was made into cartoon form, being seen in Looney Tunes and as a fish in Horton Hatches the Egg. Lorre was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6619 Hollywood Boulevard in February 1960.
Actor Eugene Weingand, who was unrelated to Lorre, attempted in 1963 to trade on his slight resemblance to the actor by changing his name to “Peter Lorie”, but his petition was rejected by the courts. After Lorre’s death, however, he referred to himself as “Peter Lorre Jr.”, claiming to be Lorre’s son.[48] He obtained a few small acting roles as a result, including a brief uncredited appearance as a cab driver in Alfred Hitchcock‘s Torn Curtain (1966) starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews.
Filk songwriter Tom Smith (1988) wrote a tribute to Lorre’s acting called “I Want to Be Peter Lorre”, which was nominated for the “Best Tribute” Pegasus Award in 1992 and 2004, and which won the award for “Best Classic Filk Song” in 2006.[49]
Punk cabaret band The World/Inferno Friendship Society‘s 2007 album Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre’s Twentieth Century is a concept album written as a tribute to Lorre, focusing on the transition from Weimar Germany to the Third Reich, and Lorre’s later career and death. The World/Inferno Friendship Society’s lead singer Jack Terricloth describes Lorre as “a strangely charismatic, extremely creepy person, which I think most punk rockers can identify with … It’s the lure of the other. He’s the underdog, the outsider.”[50]
Yaphet Frederick Kotto (born Frederick Samuel Kotto; November 15, 1939 – March 15, 2021) was an American actor for film and television. He starred in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) as Lieutenant Al Giardello. His films include the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), the science-fiction action film The Running Man (1987), the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973), in which he portrayed the main villain Dr. Kananga, and the comedy thriller Midnight Run (1988) opposite Robert De Niro.
Kotto was born Frederick Samuel Kotto in New York City.[4] His mother, Gladys Marie, was an American nurse and U.S. Army officer of Panamanian and West Indian descent. His father, Yaphet Avraham Kotto (who was, according to his son, originally named Njoki Manga Bell), was a businessman from Cameroon who emigrated to the United States in the 1920s.[4] Kotto’s father was raised Jewish and his mother converted to Judaism. The couple separated when Kotto was a child, and he was raised by his maternal grandparents.[5][6][7][8]
By the age of 16, Kotto was studying acting at the Actors Mobile Theater Studio, and at 19, he made his professional acting debut in Othello. He was a member of the Actors Studio in New York. Kotto got his start in acting on Broadway, where he appeared in The Great White Hope, among other productions.[9]
Kotto was cast as a religious man living in the southwestern desert country in the 1967 episode “A Man Called Abraham” on the syndicatedanthology seriesDeath Valley Days, hosted by Robert Taylor. In the story line, Abraham convinces a killer named Cassidy (Rayford Barnes) that Cassidy can change his heart despite past crimes. When Cassidy is sent to the gallows, Abraham provides spiritual solace. Bing Russell also appeared in this segment.[15]
Kotto retired from film acting in the mid-1990s, though he had one final film role in Witless Protection (2008).[16] However, he continued to take on television roles. Kotto portrayed Lieutenant Al Giardello in the long-running television series Homicide: Life on the Street. As a black Sicilian proud of his Italian ancestry, the character was a breakout for television.[citation needed] He has written the book Royalty and also wrote scripts for Homicide. In 2014, he voiced Parker for the video game Alien: Isolation, reprising the role he played in the movie Alien in 1979.[17]
Kotto’s first marriage was to a German immigrant, Rita Ingrid Dittman, whom he married in 1959. They had three children together before divorcing in 1976. Later, Kotto married Toni Pettyjohn, and they also had three children together, before divorcing in 1989. Kotto married his third wife, Tessie Sinahon, who is from the Philippines,[5] in 1998.[16]
Kotto was versed in the Hebrew liturgy and incorporated Jewish prayers at turning points throughout his life.[18] He said his father “instilled Judaism” in him.[16]
Edward James Olmos (born February 13, 1947) is an American actor, producer and director. He is best known for his roles as Lieutenant Martin “Marty” Castillo in Miami Vice (1984–1989), American Me (1992) (which he also directed), William Adama in the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica (2004–2009), teacher Jaime Escalante in Stand and Deliver (1988) (for which he received an Academy Award nomination), Detective Gaff in Blade Runner (1982) and its sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and the voice of Mito in the 2005 English dub of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. In 2018 through 2023, he has played the father of two members of an outlaw motorcycle club in the FX series Mayans M.C.
Olmos was born and raised in East Los Angeles, California, the son of Eleanor (née Huizar) and Pedro Olmos, who was a welder and mail carrier.[5] His father was a Mexican immigrant who moved to California in 1945 and his mother was an American of Mexican descent.[1][6] His parents divorced when he was seven years old, and he was primarily raised by his great-grandparents as his parents worked.[1] He grew up wanting to be a professional baseball player, and at age 13 joined the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ farm system, as a catcher. He left baseball at age 15 to join a rock and roll band, which caused a rift with his father, who was hurt by the decision.[1][7]
He graduated from Montebello High School in 1964. While at Montebello High School, he lost a race for Student Body President to future California Democratic Party Chair Art Torres. In his teen years, he was the lead singer for a band he named Pacific Ocean, so called because it was to be “the biggest thing on the West Coast”.[8] For several years, Pacific Ocean performed at various clubs in and around Los Angeles, and released their only record, Purgatory, in 1968. At the same time, he attended classes at East Los Angeles College, including courses in acting.[9]
In the late 1960s and the early 1970s, Olmos branched out from music into acting, appearing in many small productions, until his big break portraying the narrator, called “El Pachuco”, in the play Zoot Suit, which dramatized the World War II-era rioting in California brought about by the tensions between Mexican-Americans and local police, called the Zoot Suit riots. The play moved to Broadway, and Olmos earned a Tony Award nomination. He subsequently took the role to the filmed version in 1981, and appeared in many other films including Wolfen, Blade Runner and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez.
In 1980, Olmos was cast in the post-apocalyptic science fiction film Virus (復活の日 Fukkatsu no Hi), directed by Kinji Fukasaku and based on a novel written by Sakyo Komatsu. His role required him to play a piano while singing a Spanish ballad during the later part of the film. Although not a box office success, Virus was notable for being the most expensive Japanese film made at the time.
In 2006, he co-produced, directed, and played the bit part of Julian Nava in the HBO film about the 1968 Chicano Blowouts, Walkout.[13] He appeared in Snoop Dogg‘s music video “Vato“. In the series finale of the ABC sitcom George Lopez, titled “George Decides to Sta-Local Where It’s Familia”; he guest-starred as the plant’s new multi-millionaire owner. He has been a spokesperson for Farmers Insurance Group, starring in their Spanish language commercials.
Olmos joined the cast of the television series Dexter for its sixth season, as a “brilliant, charismatic professor of religious studies”.[14]
Olmos starred in the second season of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. as Robert Gonzales, the leader of a rival faction of S.H.I.E.L.D., for five episodes.
In 1967, Olmos – as Eddie James (vocals, keyboards) – formed the bluesy psyche rock band that would become Pacific Ocean[15], who the following year released their selftitled, only LP.
Olmos has often been involved in social activism, especially that affecting the U.S. Hispanic community. During the 1992 Los Angeles riot in Los Angeles, Olmos went out with a broom[17] and worked to get communities cleaned up and rebuilt.[18][19][20] He also attended an The Oprah Winfrey Show episode relating to the L.A. riots as an audience member. In 1997, he co-founded the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival[21] with Marlene Dermer, George Hernandez and Kirk Whisler. That same year, he co-founded with Kirk Whisler the non-profit organization, Latino Literacy Now, that has produced Latino Book & Festivals[22] around the US, attended by over 700,000 people.
In 1998, he founded Latino Public Broadcasting and serves as its chairman. Latino Public Broadcasting funds public television programming that focuses on issues affecting Hispanics and advocates for diverse perspectives in public television. That same year, he starred in The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. In 1999, Olmos was one of the driving forces that created Americanos: Latino Life in the U.S., a book project featuring over 30 award-winning photographers, later turned into a Smithsonian traveling exhibition, music CD and HBO special.
He also makes frequent appearances at juvenile halls and detention centers to speak to at-risk teenagers. He has also been an international ambassador for UNICEF. In 2001, he was arrested and spent 20 days in jail for taking part in the Navy-Vieques protests against United States Navy target practice bombings of the island of Vieques, Puerto Rico. On January 5, 2007, he blamed the United States government for not cleaning Vieques after the U.S. Navy stopped using the island for bombing practice.[23]
Olmos narrated the 1999 documentary film Zapatista, in support of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a revolutionary group that has abstained from using weapons since 1994. He gave $2,300 to New Mexico governorBill Richardson for his presidential campaign (the maximum amount for the primaries).[24] In 2020, he supported Joe Biden for President.[25]
He is a supporter of SENS Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to treating and curing diseases of aging by repairing the underlying damage caused by aging. A series of animations explaining the concept of SENS has been narrated by him.[26]
From 1979 to 1987, Olmos lived in West New York, New Jersey.[27] In 1971, he married Kaija Keel, the daughter of actor Howard Keel. They had two children, Bodie and Mico, before divorcing in 1992. Olmos has four adopted children: Daniela, Michael, Brandon, and Tamiko. He married actress Lorraine Bracco in 1994. She filed for divorce in January 2002 after five years of separation.[8] Olmos had a long-term relationship with actress Lymari Nadal. They married in 2002,[28] and separated in 2013.[29]
In 1993, Olmos was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) degree from Whittier College.[30]
In 1996, he was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from California State University, Fresno. In 2007, after a seven-year process, he obtained Mexican nationality.[31]Asteroid5608 Olmos is named in his honor.
In 2022, Olmos was diagnosed with throat cancer and immediately went into chemotherapy for treatment. By the end of the year, the cancer went into remission. This was not made public until May 2023.[32]
In 1992, a teenage girl accused Olmos of twice touching her in a sexual manner while they watched TV and flirted together.[33] Olmos paid the family a cash settlement of $150,000 in response to the allegations, but denied that they were true. He claimed that the settlement was in fact meant to protect his son, Bodie Olmos, not him.[34]
In 1997, a woman accused Olmos of sexually assaulting her in a South Carolina hotel room.[35][36]
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