Name	Barry Levinson
Caption	Levinson at the 2009 premiere of Poliwood
Birth date	April 06, 1942
Birth place	Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, director, screenwriter, producer
Years active	1970–present
Spouse	Valerie Curtin (1977–1982) Diana Rhodes

Barry Levinson (born April 6, 1942) is an American screenwriter, film director, actor, and producer of film and television. His films include Bugsy, The Natural and Rain Man.

Early life

Levinson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Violet "Vi" (née Krichinsky) and Irvin Levinson, who worked in the furniture and appliance business. His family is of Russian Jewish descent. After growing up in Baltimore and graduating from Forest Park Senior High School, Levinson attended Baltimore City Community College, and American University in Washington, D.C., before moving to Los Angeles to work as an actor and writer. Levinson at one time shared an apartment with would-be drug smuggler (and basis for the movie Blow) George Jung.

Career

Levinson's first writing work was for variety shows such as The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine, The Lohman and Barkley Show, The Tim Conway Show, and The Carol Burnett Show. After some success as a screenwriter — notably the Mel Brooks comedies Silent Movie (1976) and High Anxiety (1977) (in which he played a bellboy) and the Oscar-nominated script (co-written by then-wife Valerie Curtin) …And Justice for All (1979) — Levinson began his career as a director with Diner (1982), for which he had also written the script and which earned him a Oscar nomination for Best Screenplay.

Diner was the first of a series of films set in the Baltimore of Levinson's youth. The others were Tin Men (1987), a story of aluminum-siding salesmen in the 1960s starring Richard Dreyfuss and Danny DeVito; the immigrant family saga Avalon (which featured Elijah Wood in one of his earliest screen appearances), and Liberty Heights (1999).

His biggest hit, both critically and financially, was Rain Man (1988), with Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise. (Levinson appeared in a cameo as a doctor.) The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Another of his notable films is the 1984 baseball drama The Natural starring Robert Redford, who would later direct Quiz Show and cast Levinson as television personality Dave Garroway. Levinson also directed Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) and Toys (1992), both with Robin Williams, and the critically acclaimed Bugsy (1991) with Warren Beatty.

He directed Dustin Hoffman again in Wag the Dog (1997), a political comedy co-starring Robert De Niro about a war staged in a film studio. (Levinson had been an uncredited co-writer on Hoffman's 1982 hit comedy Tootsie).

Levinson partnered with producer Mark Johnson to form the film production company Baltimore Pictures. The two parted ways in 1994. Levinson has been a producer or executive producer for such major productions as The Perfect Storm directed by Wolfgang Petersen (2000); Analyze That (2002), starring De Niro as a neurotic mob boss and Billy Crystal as his therapist, and Possession (2002), based on the best-selling novel by A. S. Byatt.

He has a television production company with Tom Fontana (The Levinson/Fontana Company) and served as executive producer for a number of series, including (which ran on NBC from 1993–1999) and the HBO prison drama Oz. Levinson also played an uncredited main role as a judge in the short-lived TV series The Jury.

Levinson published his first novel, Sixty-Six (ISBN 0-7679-1533-X), in 2003. Like several of his films, it is semi-autobiographical and set in Baltimore in the 1960s. He directed two webisodes of the American Express ads "The Adventures of Seinfeld and Superman".

In 2004, Levinson was the recipient of the Austin Film Festival's Distinguished Screenwriter Award.

Levinson directed a documentary PoliWood about the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. The documentary, produced by Tim Daly, Robin Bronk and Robert E. Baruc, had its premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival.

Personal life

Levinson grew up in a Jewish family. He married his writing collaborator Valerie Curtin in 1975. They divorced seven years later. He later married Dianna Rhodes, whom he met in Baltimore while filming Diner. He is the father of Sam, Jack, Michelle and Patrick Levinson.

He is a minority owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.

Currently, he resides with his two sons and wife in Redding, Connecticut.

Filmography

References

External links

Barry Levinson on Charlie Rose (March 24, 1994)

Category:1942 births Category:American film directors Category:American television directors Category:American University alumni Category:Best Director Academy Award winners Category:American Jews Category:Living people Category:People from Baltimore, Maryland Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners Category:Jewish American writers Category:Baltimore City Community College alumni

Caption	Warren Beatty at the 1990 Academy Awards
Birth name	Henry Warren Beatty
Birth date	March 30, 1937
Birth place	Richmond, Virginia, U.S.
Spouse	Annette Bening (1992–present)
Occupation	Actor, director, producer, screenwriter
Years active	1957–present

Warren Beatty (, ; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and director.

Early life and education

Beatty was born Henry Warren Beaty in Richmond, Virginia's Bellevue neighborhood. His mother, Kathlyn Corinne (née MacLean), was a Nova Scotia–born drama teacher, and his father, Ira Owens Beaty, was a professor of psychology, a public school administrator, and a real estate agent. Beatty's grandparents were also teachers. The family was Baptist. His father moved the family from Richmond to Norfolk, Virginia, and then to Arlington, Virginia, where he became a middle school principal. The family also lived in Waverly, Virginia, in the 1930s. Beatty's sister, three years his senior, is the multi-award winning actress and writer Shirley MacLaine.

Beatty was a star football player at Washington-Lee High School, in Arlington, Virginia. Encouraged to act by the success of his sister, who had recently established herself as a Hollywood star, he decided to work as a stagehand at the National Theater in Washington, D.C., during the summer prior to his senior year. This enabled him to establish contact with a few famous actors. Upon graduation from high school, he turned down 10 football scholarships to enroll in drama school.

He studied acting and directing at the Northwestern University school of drama. While at Northwestern, he appeared in the annual Dolphin show. He is a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. He dropped out after his freshman year to enroll in the Stella Adler Conservatory of Acting in New York City. By the age of twenty-two, Beatty had appeared in about forty Off Broadway productions. He garnered a best actor Tony Award nomination in 1960 for his performance in William Inge's drama A Loss of Roses. It was to be his only appearance on the Broadway stage.

Military service

Under his original name of Henry W. Beaty, Warren Beatty enlisted in the California Air National Guard on February 11, 1960.

On January 1, 1961, Beatty was discharged from the Air National Guard due to physical disability. He was also simultaneously discharged from the United States Air Force Reserve. Since he served on inactive duty only, Beatty was not awarded any military decorations.

Career

at Walt Disney World's Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park.]] Beatty started his career making appearances in television series such as Studio One (1957), Playhouse 90 (1959), and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959). He made his film debut under Elia Kazan's direction and opposite Natalie Wood in Splendor in the Grass (1961). The film was a box office success and Beatty was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in the category Best Motion Picture Actor - Drama. Subsequently he appeared in several small films such as "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone" (1961). Then, at age 30, he achieved critical acclaim and power as a producer and star of Bonnie and Clyde (1967), which was nominated for 10 Academy Awards.

Warner Bros. had such little faith in Bonnie and Clyde, they decided to give Beatty 40% of the gross box office receipts instead of a flat fee, expecting it to be a major flop. The film made $70 million within six years.

Because of his work on Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Beatty is generally regarded as the precursor of the New Hollywood generation, which included such filmmakers as Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas and Martin Scorsese.

Afraid of being typecast as a milquetoast leading man, and still smarting over the What's New, Pussycat? debacle, where he was outmaneuvered by Woody Allen and eventually forced to leave the production, Beatty produced Bonnie and Clyde as a means of controlling the projects he was involved with. He hired the untested writers Robert Benton and David Newman, as well as director Arthur Penn, and controlled every facet of production, including cast, script and final cut of the film, as he would throughout the rest of his career, be it as producer/director or only as producer. It should be noted that in Bugsy it was Beatty, the producer, who had final cut on the film, not Barry Levinson, the director.

Bonnie and Clyde became a blockbuster and cultural touchstone for the youth culture of the era. The film, along with Easy Rider, marked the beginning of the so-called “New Hollywood” era, where studios gave unprecedented freedom to filmmakers to pursue their own idiosyncratic vision.

Subsequent Beatty films include McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971), The Parallax View (1974), Shampoo (1975), and Heaven Can Wait (1978). These last two films made forty-nine and eighty-one million dollars respectively, and gave Beatty box-office power. He used this power to make Reds (1981), an historical epic about the Communist journalist John Reed who observed the Russian October Revolution – a project Beatty had started doing research and some filming for as far back as 1970.

Beatty is one of the few people to receive Oscar nominations in the Best Picture, Actor, Director, and Screenplay categories for a single film. This feat is all the more impressive since Beatty achieved it twice: in 1978 for Heaven Can Wait, where he won none of the awards; and again for Reds in 1981, where he won the directing award. His writing credits have often been in dispute, however. In Peter Biskind's biography of Beatty, Star, several distinguished writers with whom Beatty has collaborated (e.g., Bo Goldman, Robert Towne, James Toback, Robert Benton, et al.) have claimed that Beatty often requested or demanded writing credit where little or none was due. He received Best Picture and Best Actor nominations for both Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Bugsy (1991), and received Best Original Screenplay nominations for Shampoo (1975) and Bulworth (1998).

After a six-year hiatus following Reds, Beatty starred alongside Dustin Hoffman in 1987's big-budget film Ishtar. It was critically panned and is regarded as one of the biggest box office bombs in film history. In 1990, he bounced back when he produced, directed and starred (alongside his Ishtar co-star Hoffman) in the title role as the comic strip character Dick Tracy in the film of the same name. The film was one of the highest grossers of the year and also the highest-grossing film in Beatty's career to date.

In 1991, he starred as the real-life gangster Bugsy Siegel in the biopic Bugsy which was critically acclaimed and made almost fifty million dollars at the U.S. box-office. His next film, Love Affair (1994), failed to do well. In 1998 he wrote, produced, directed and starred in the political satire Bulworth which was critically appreciated and earned him another nomination for Best Original Screenplay. In 2001, he appeared in his last film to date, Town and Country, which became the second-largest money loser of any movie ever made (after The Adventures of Pluto Nash) based on contemporary dollars lost: it was made on a budget of approximately USD $90 million, but earned only $6.7 million domestically. Since then, Beatty has not acted in any films but has expressed interest in returning to cinema.

In 2006, Beatty was named Honorary Chairman of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting, succeeding Marlon Brando. In 2007, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association awarded Beatty the Cecil B. DeMille award, presented at the Golden Globe ceremony by Tom Hanks. Beatty was honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2008.

Beatty is on the Board of Trustees at The Scripps Research Institute.

Tribune lawsuit

In May 2005, Beatty sued Tribune Co. for $30 million in damages, claiming he still maintains the rights to Dick Tracy. Beatty received the rights in 1985 and claimed that Tribune moved to reclaim them in violation of various notification procedures. There was talk of a sequel, and Beatty did express interest in reprising the part, but the sequel was sidelined by unexpected legal disputes. In March 2009, Tribune filed suit against Beatty, saying that Beatty had "made no productive use" of the rights for over a decade, causing them to revert back to Tribune.

Political work

A longtime activist in various liberal political causes, Beatty has, at various times, been extremely active in the presidential politics of the Democratic Party. In 1968, he hit the campaign trail for the first time, supporting Senator Robert F. Kennedy's bid for his party's presidential nomination. His involvement in the senator's campaign, which included stump speaking and fundraising, was cut short when Kennedy was shot and killed by Sirhan Sirhan on the same night that he won a crucial primary in California.

Four years later, Beatty joined the campaign of Senator George McGovern as an advisor. As part of the so-called "Malibu Mafia," a group of Hollywood celebrities who were part of the candidate's "inner circle," Beatty gave McGovern's campaign manager Gary Hart advice about the handling of public relations and was instrumental in organizing a series of rock concerts which raised over $1 million for the senator's campaign.

In 1984, and again in 1988, Beatty was to play a similar role in Hart's own presidential campaigns. Hart, who had, by that time, become a senator himself, had become friends with Beatty during the 1972 campaign and the relationship had grown closer during the intervening decade. After Hart's second campaign imploded over allegations that he had committed adultery with a former beauty queen named Donna Rice, a mutual friend of the two explained why they were so close: "Gary always wanted to have Warren's life and Warren always wanted to have Gary's. It was a match made in heaven."

with first lady Nancy Reagan and Diane Keaton, 1981]] Beatty seriously considered becoming a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination during the summer of 1999 . After it became clear that the only two contenders for the Democratic Party's nomination were to be Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey, Beatty made it generally known that he was dissatisfied with the two choices and began to drop hints that he might be willing to seek the nomination himself. After meeting with several powerful liberal activists and influential Democratic operatives, including pollster Pat Caddell, who had worked previously for Hart, McGovern, California governor Jerry Brown and President Jimmy Carter, and adman Bill Hillsman, who had worked on the campaigns of Senator Paul Wellstone and Governor Jesse Ventura, Beatty announced in September 1999 that he would not seek the nomination. However, he continued to be courted by members of a different political party, the Reform Party, who were looking for an alternative to Pat Buchanan, a conservative who had switched parties after losing the Republican Party's presidential nomination for the third time in a row. Despite frequent entreaties by Governor Ventura, real-estate magnate Donald Trump, and syndicated columnist Arianna Huffington, Beatty refused to enter the race and Buchanan eventually won the Reform Party's nomination.

Despite his decision not to seek the presidency in 2000, Beatty intimated that he might still run at a later time, telling reporters that he would do so if he thought he "could make an impact on the debate". As California governor Gray Davis' popularity with California voters dropped, Beatty campaigned against the 2003 special election. He was the keynote speaker at the California Nurses Association's 2005 convention, and recorded radio ads urging voters to reject Governor Schwarzenegger's ballot proposals. The propositions were defeated at the ballot box, increasing speculation that Beatty might run against Schwarzenegger in the 2006 election. But, in early 2006, Beatty announced he would not seek the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Beatty's anticipated run for president in 2000 was lampooned by Gary Trudeau in his strip Doonesbury.

Personal life

Beatty has had relationships with singers Madonna, Cher, Carly Simon, Julie Christie,

In 1989, he recorded the duet, "Now I'm Following You" with Madonna for her 1990 album, I'm Breathless.

His best friend was Jack Nicholson. Other close friends include the late Marlon Brando, the late Dennis Hopper, Sean Penn, Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Downey Jr., the late journalist Hunter S. Thompson, Terry Gilliam, and Roman Polanski.

After years of dating many famous women, he married Annette Bening on March 10, 1992, with whom he co-starred in the film Bugsy. They have four children: Kathlyn (born January 8, 1992), Benjamin (born August 23, 1994), Isabel (born January 11, 1997) and Ella (born April 8, 2000).

Filmography

{|class="wikitable" style="font-size: 90%;" border="2" cellpadding="4" background: #f9f9f9; |- align="center" ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Year ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Film ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Role ! style="background:#B0C4DE;" | Notes |- |rowspan=2|1961 |Splendor in the Grass |Bud Stamper |Golden Globe Award for Most Promising NewcomerNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama |- |The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone |Paolo di Leo | |- |1962 |All Fall Down |Berry-Berry Willart | |- |1964 |Lilith |Vincent Bruce | |- |rowspan=3|1965 |Mickey One |Mickey One | |- |Promise Her Anything |Harley Rummell | |- |What's New Pussycat | |(executive producer) (uncredited) |- |1966 |Kaleidoscope |Barney Lincoln | |- |1967 |Bonnie and Clyde |Clyde Barrow |(also producer)Nominated — Academy Award for Best ActorNominated — Academy Award for Best PictureNominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama |- |1970 |The Only Game in Town |Joe Grady | |- |rowspan=2|1971 |McCabe & Mrs. Miller |John McCabe |(also writer) |- |$ |Joe Collins | |- |1973 |Year of the Woman | |(documentary) |- |1974 |The Parallax View |Joseph Frady | |- |rowspan=2|1975 |Shampoo |George Roundy |(also producer and co-writer with Robert Towne)Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original ScreenplayNominated — Academy Award For Best Original ScreenplayNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |- |The Fortune |Nicky Wilson | |- |1978 |Heaven Can Wait |Joe Pendleton |(also director with Buck Henry, producer, and writer)Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or ComedySaturn Award for Best ActorSaturn Award for Best WritingWriters Guild of America Award for Best Adapted ScreenplayNominated — Academy Award for Best ActorNominated — Academy Award for Best PictureNominated — Academy Award for Best DirectorNominated — Academy Award for Best Adapted ScreenplayNominated — Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Feature FilmNominated — Saturn Award for Best Direction |- |1981 |Reds |John Reed |(also director, producer, and writer)Academy Award for Best DirectorDavid di Donatello for Best ProducerDirectors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing - Feature FilmGolden Globe Award for Best DirectorLos Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best DirectorNational Board of Review Award for Best DirectorWriters Guild of America Award for Best Original ScreenplayNominated — Academy Award for Best ActorNominated — Academy Award for Best PictureNominated — Academy Award for Best Original ScreenplayNominated — BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading RoleNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture DramaNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Screenplay |- |1984 |George Stevens: A Filmmakers Journey | |(documentary) |- |1987 |Ishtar |Lyle Rogers |(also producer) |- |1990 |Dick Tracy |Dick Tracy |(also producer and director) |- |rowspan=2|1991 | | |(documentary) |- |Bugsy |Bugsy Siegel |(also producer)National Board of Review Award for Best ActorNominated — Academy Award for Best ActorNominated — Academy Award for Best PictureNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama |- |1992 |Writing with Light: Vittorio Storaro | |(documentary) |- |1994 |Love Affair |Mike Gambril |(also writer) |- |1998 |Bulworth |Sen. Jay Billington Bulworth |(also producer, director and writer)Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best ScreenplayNominated — Academy Award for Best Original ScreenplayNominated — Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Adapted ScreenplayNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated — Golden Globe Award for Best ScreenplayNominated — Satellite Award for Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated — Writers Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay |- |1999 |The Book That Wrote Itself | |(cameo) |- |2001 |Town & Country |Porter Stoddard | |- |2003 |Dean Tavoularis: The Magician of Hollywood | |(documentary) |- |2005 |One Bright Shining Moment | |(documentary) |}

References

Further reading

Ellis Amburn, The Sexiest Man Alive : A Biography of Warren Beatty, HarperCollins Publishers Inc., New York, 2002. ISBN 0-06-018566-X

Suzanne Finstad, Warren Beatty : A Private Man, Random House, Inc., New York, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-4606-8

Peter Biskind, Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, Simon & Schuster, Inc. New York, 2010. ISBN 978-0743246583

External links

Category:1937 births Category:Actors from Virginia Category:Akira Kurosawa Award winners Category:American film actors Category:American film directors Category:American film producers Category:American screenwriters Category:Best Director Academy Award winners Category:Best Director Golden Globe winners Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actor Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Cecil B. DeMille Award Golden Globe winners Category:English-language film directors Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:Living people Category:Northwestern University alumni Category:People from Richmond, Virginia Category:The Scripps Research Institute Category:United States Air Force airmen Category:Virginia Democrats Category:Writers Guild of America Award winners

Name	John Wayne
Birth name	Marion Robert Morrison
Birth date	May 26, 1907
Birth place	Winterset, Iowa, U.S.
Death date	June 11, 1979
Death place	Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Other names	Marion Michael Morrison; Duke; Duke Morrison
Occupation	Actor, director, producer
Years active	1926–1976
Spouse
Website	http://www.johnwayne.com

Marion Mitchell Morrison (born Marion Robert Morrison; May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), better known by his stage name John Wayne, was an American film actor, director and producer. He epitomized rugged masculinity and became an enduring American icon. He is famous for his distinctive voice, walk and height. He was also known for his conservative political views and his support, beginning in the 1950s, for anti-communist positions.

A Harris Poll, released January 2011, placed Wayne third among America's favorite film stars, the only deceased star on the list and the only one who has appeared on the poll every year since it first began in 1994.

In 1999, the American Film Institute named Wayne 13th among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time.

Early life

Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. His middle name was soon changed from Robert to Mitchell when his parents decided to name their next son Robert.

Wayne's father, Clyde Leonard Morrison (1884–1937), was the son of American Civil War veteran Marion Mitchell Morrison (1845–1915). Wayne's mother, the former Mary Alberta Brown (1885–1970), was from Lancaster County, Nebraska. Wayne was of Presbyterian Scots-Irish descent through his second great-grandfather Robert Morrison, who was born in County Antrim, Northern Ireland and emigrated to the United States in 1782.

Wayne's family moved to Palmdale, California, and then in 1911 to Glendale, California, where his father worked as a pharmacist. A local fireman at the station on his route to school in Glendale started calling him "Little Duke" because he never went anywhere without his huge Airedale Terrier dog, Duke. He preferred "Duke" to "Marion," and the name stuck for the rest of his life.

As a teen, Wayne worked in an ice cream shop for a man who shod horses for Hollywood studios. He was also active as a member of the Order of DeMolay, a youth organization associated with the Freemasons. He attended Wilson Middle School in Glendale. He played football for the 1924 champion Glendale High School team. Wayne applied to the U.S. Naval Academy, but was not accepted. He instead attended the University of Southern California (USC), majoring in pre-law. He was a member of the Trojan Knights and Sigma Chi fraternities. Wayne also played on the USC football team under legendary coach Howard Jones. An injury curtailed his athletic career; Wayne later noted he was too terrified of Jones's reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury, which was bodysurfing at the “Wedge” at the tip of the Balboa Peninsula in Newport Beach. He lost his athletic scholarship and, without funds, had to leave the university.

Wayne began working at the local film studios. Prolific silent western film star Tom Mix had gotten him a summer job in the prop department in exchange for football tickets. Wayne soon moved on to bit parts, establishing a longtime friendship with the director who provided most of those roles, John Ford. Early in this period, Wayne appeared with his USC teammates playing football in Brown of Harvard (1926), The Dropkick (1927), and Salute (1929) and Columbia's Maker of Men (filmed in 1930, released in 1931). Also, it is during this period that Wayne is reputed to have met the legendary gunfighter and lawman Wyatt Earp.

Film career

While working for Fox Film Corporation in bit roles, he was given on-screen credit as "Duke Morrison" only once, in Words and Music (1929). In 1930, director Raoul Walsh cast him in his first starring role in The Big Trail (1930). For his screen name, Walsh suggested "Anthony Wayne", after Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. Fox Studios chief Winfield Sheehan rejected it as sounding "too Italian." Walsh then suggested "John Wayne." Sheehan agreed, and the name was set. Wayne himself was not even present for the discussion. His pay was raised to $105 a week.

The Big Trail was to be the first big-budget outdoor spectacle of the sound era, made at a staggering cost of over $2 million, utilizing hundreds of extras and wide vistas of the American southwest, still largely unpopulated at the time. To take advantage of the breathtaking scenery, it was filmed in two versions, a standard 35mm version and another in "Grandeur", a new process utilizing innovative camera and lenses and a revolutionary 70mm widescreen process. Many in the audience who saw it in Grandeur stood and cheered. Unfortunately, only a handful of theaters were equipped to show the film in its widescreen process, and the effort was largely wasted. The film was considered a huge flop. (1948)]] After the failure of The Big Trail, Wayne was relegated to small roles in A-pictures, including Columbia's The Deceiver (1931), in which he played a corpse. He appeared in the serial The Three Musketeers (1933), an updated version of the Alexandre Dumas novel in which the protagonists were soldiers in the French Foreign Legion in then-contemporary North Africa. He appeared in many low-budget "Poverty Row" westerns, mostly at Monogram Pictures and serials for Mascot Pictures Corporation. By Wayne's own estimation, he appeared in about eighty of these horse operas between 1930 - 1939. In Riders of Destiny (1933) he became film's first singing cowboy, albeit via dubbing. Wayne also appeared in some of the Three Mesquiteers westerns, whose title was a play on the Dumas classic. He was mentored by stuntmen in riding and other western skills.

(1942)]] Wayne's breakthrough role came with director John Ford's classic Stagecoach (1939). Because of Wayne's non-star status and track record in low-budget westerns throughout the 1930s, Ford had difficulty getting financing for what was to be an A-budget film. After rejection by all the top studios, Ford struck a deal with independent producer Walter Wanger in which Claire Trevor—a much bigger star at the time—received top billing. Stagecoach was a huge critical and financial success, and Wayne became a star. He later appeared in more than twenty of John Ford's films, including She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), The Wings of Eagles (1957), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).

Wayne's first color film was Shepherd of the Hills (1941), in which he co-starred with his longtime friend Harry Carey. The following year he appeared in his only film directed by Cecil B. DeMille, the Technicolor epic Reap the Wild Wind (1942), in which he co-starred with Ray Milland and Paulette Goddard; it was one of the rare times he played a character with questionable values.

In 1949, director Robert Rossen offered the starring role of All the King's Men to Wayne. Wayne refused, believing the script to be un-American in many ways. Broderick Crawford, who eventually got the role, won the 1949 Oscar for best male actor, ironically beating out Wayne, who had been nominated for Sands of Iwo Jima. (1951)]] He lost the leading role in The Gunfighter (1950) to Gregory Peck due to his refusal to work for Columbia Pictures because its chief Harry Cohn had mistreated him years before when he was a young contract player. Cohn had bought the project for Wayne, but Wayne's grudge was too deep, and Cohn sold the script to Twentieth Century Fox, which cast Peck in the role Wayne badly wanted but refused to bend for. He appeared in the similar Box Office poll in 1939 and 1940. While these two polls are really an indication only of the popularity of series stars, Wayne also appeared in the Top Ten Money Makers Poll of all films from 1949 to 1957 and 1958 to 1974, taking first place in 1950, 1951, 1954 and 1971 . With a total of 25 years on the list, Wayne has more appearances than any other star, beating Clint Eastwood (21) into second place.

In later years, Wayne was recognized as a sort of American natural resource, and his various critics, of his performances and his politics, viewed him with more respect. Abbie Hoffman, the radical of the 1960s, paid tribute to Wayne's singularity, saying "I like Wayne's wholeness, his style. As for his politics, well—I suppose even cavemen felt a little admiration for the dinosaurs that were trying to gobble them up." Reviewing The Cowboys (1972), Vincent Canby of the New York Times, who did not particularly care for the film, wrote: "Wayne is, of course, marvelously indestructible, and he has become an almost perfect father figure."

Filmography

1964 illness

Wayne had been a chain-smoker of cigarettes since young adulthood. In 1964, Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer, and underwent successful surgery to remove his entire left lung and four ribs. Despite efforts by his business associates to prevent him from going public with his illness (for fear it would cost him work), Wayne announced he had cancer and called on the public to get preventive examinations. Five years later, Wayne was declared cancer-free. Despite the fact that Wayne's diminished lung capacity left him incapable of prolonged exertion and frequently in need of supplemental oxygen, within a few years of his operation he chewed tobacco and began smoking cigars until the day he died.

Politics

Wayne claimed in his Playboy interview to have been a socialist during his years at college, and he admitted voting for Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1936 presidential election. In the same interview he also expressed admiration for Democratic President Harry S Truman. However, for most of his career he was a vocally conservative Republican. He took part in creating the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals in February 1944 and was elected president of that organization in 1947. He was an ardent anti-communist, and vocal supporter of the House Un-American Activities Committee. In 1952, he made Big Jim McLain to show his support for the anti-communist cause. A supporter of Vice President Richard Nixon's candidacy in the United States presidential election in 1960, he expressed his vision of patriotism when John F. Kennedy won the election: "I didn't vote for him but he's my president, and I hope he does a good job."

Wayne used his iconic status to support conservative causes, including rallying support for the Vietnam War by producing, co-directing, and starring in the critically panned The Green Berets in 1968. In the mid-1970s, however, he talked some fellow conservatives into supporting the Panama Canal Treaty.

Due to his enormous popularity, and his status as the most famous Republican star in Hollywood, wealthy Texas Republican Party backers asked Wayne to run for national office in 1968, as had his friend and fellow actor, Senator George Murphy. He declined, joking that he did not believe the public would seriously consider an actor in the White House. However, he did support his friend Ronald Reagan's runs for Governor of California in 1966 and 1970. He was also asked to be the running mate for Democratic Alabama Governor George Wallace in 1968. Wayne vehemently rejected the offer. Wayne actively campaigned for Richard Nixon, and addressed the Republican National Convention on its opening day in August 1968. Wayne also was a member of the conservative and anti-communist John Birch Society.

Soviet documents released in 2003 reveal that, despite being a fan of Wayne's movies, Joseph Stalin ordered Wayne's assassination due to his strong anti-communist politics. Stalin died before the killing could be accomplished. His successor, Nikita Khrushchev, reportedly told Wayne during a 1959 visit to the United States that he had personally rescinded the order.

Military service controversy

, Australia, in December, 1943]] America's entry into World War II resulted in a deluge of support for the war effort from all sectors of society, and Hollywood was no exception. Many established stars rushed to sign up for military service.

As the majority of male leads left Hollywood to serve overseas, John Wayne saw his just-blossoming stardom at risk. Despite enormous pressure from his inner circle of friends, he put off enlisting. Wayne was exempted from service due to his age (34 at the time of Pearl Harbor) and family status, classified as 3-A (family deferment). Wayne's secretary recalled making inquiries of military officials on behalf of his interest in enlisting, "but he never really followed up on them." He repeatedly wrote to John Ford, asking to be placed in Ford's military unit, but consistently postponed it until "after he finished one more film." Republic Studios was emphatically resistant to losing Wayne, especially after the loss of Gene Autry to the Army.

Correspondence between Wayne and Herbert J. Yates (the head of Republic) indicates that Yates threatened Wayne with a lawsuit if he walked away from his contract, though the likelihood of a studio suing its biggest star for going to war was minute. Whether or not the threat was real, Wayne did not test it. Selective Service Records indicate he did not attempt to prevent his reclassification as 1-A (draft eligible), but apparently Republic Pictures intervened directly, requesting his further deferment. In May, 1944, Wayne was reclassified as 1-A (draft eligible), but the studio obtained another 2-A deferment (for "support of national health, safety, or interest").

The foregoing facts influenced the direction of Wayne's later life. By many accounts, Wayne's failure to serve in the military during World War II was the most painful experience of his life. There were some other stars who, for various reasons, did not enlist. But Wayne, by virtue of becoming a celluloid war hero in several patriotic war films, as well as an outspoken supporter of conservative political causes and the Vietnam War, became the focus of particular disdain from both himself and certain portions of the public, particularly in later years. While some hold Wayne in contempt for the paradox between his early actions and his later attitudes, his widow suggests that Wayne's rampant patriotism in later decades sprang not from hypocrisy but from guilt. Pilar Wayne wrote, "He would become a 'superpatriot' for the rest of his life trying to atone for staying home."

Controversial statements to Playboy magazine

In an interview with Playboy magazine published on May 1, 1971, Wayne made several controversial remarks about race and class in the United States. The interview became a hot topic and many stores had trouble keeping the issue in stock. He noted that, as someone living in the 20th century, he was not responsible for the way people who lived one hundred years before him had treated Native Americans, stating:

I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them if that's what you're asking. Our so called stealing of this country was just a question of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.... Look, I'm sure there have been inequalities. If those inequalities are presently affecting any of the Indians now alive, they have a right to a court hearing. But what happened 100 years ago in our country can't be blamed on us today. I'm quite sure that the concept of a Government-run reservation... seems to be what the socialists are working for now — to have everyone cared for from cradle to grave.... What happened between their forefathers and our forefathers is so far back -- right, wrong or indifferent -- that I don't see why we owe them anything. I don't know why the government should give them something that it wouldn't give me.

Wayne responded to questions about whether social programs like Medicare and Social Security were good for the country:

I know all about that. In the late Twenties, when I was a sophomore at USC, I was a socialist myself -- but not when I left. The average college kid idealistically wishes everybody could have ice cream and cake for every meal. But as he gets older and gives more thought to his and his fellow man's responsibilities, he finds that it can't work out that way -- that some people just won't carry their load.... I believe in welfare -- a welfare work program. I don't think a fella should be able to sit on his backside and receive welfare. I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living. I'd like to know why they make excuses for cowards who spit in the faces of the police and then run behind the judicial sob sisters. I can't understand these people who carry placards to save the life of some criminal, yet have no thought for the innocent victim.

In the interview he previously had discussed race relations, including his response to Angela Davis's assertion that her removal from a position as an assistant professor in the UCLA philosophy department on the grounds that she was an active member the Communist party was actually because she was black:

With a lot of blacks, there's quite a bit of resentment along with their dissent, and possibly rightfully so. But we can't all of a sudden get down on our knees and turn everything over to the leadership of the blacks. I believe in white supremacy until blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.

When asked how blacks could address their perceived lack of leadership experience and the inequities of the past, Wayne replied:

It's not my judgment. The academic community has developed certain tests that determine whether the blacks are sufficiently equipped scholastically. But some blacks have tried to force the issue and enter college when they haven't passed the tests and don't have the requisite background.... By going to school. I don't know why people insist that blacks have been forbidden to go to school. They were allowed in public schools wherever I've been. Even if they don't have the proper credentials for college, there are courses to help them become eligible. But if they aren't academically ready for that step, I don't think they should be allowed in. Otherwise, the academic society is brought down to the lowest common denominator.... What good would it do to register anybody in a class of higher algebra or calculus if they haven't learned to count? There has to be a standard. I don't feel guilty about the fact that five or 10 generations ago these people were slaves. Now, I'm not condoning slavery. It's just a fact of life, like the kid who gets infantile paralysis and has to wear braces so he can't play football with the rest of us. I will say this, though: I think any black who can compete with a white today can get a better break than a white man. I wish they'd tell me where in the world they have it better than right here in America. Wayne's son Ethan was billed as John Ethan Wayne in a few films and played one of the leads in the 1990s update of the Adam-12 television series.

His stormiest divorce was from Esperanza Baur, a former Mexican actress. She convinced herself that Wayne and co-star Gail Russell were having an affair. The night the film Angel and the Badman (1947) wrapped, there was the usual party for cast and crew, and Wayne came home very late. Esperanza was in a drunken rage by the time he arrived, and she attempted to shoot him as he walked through the front door. The only time he unintentionally appeared on film without it was for a split second in North to Alaska. On the first punch of the climactic fistfight, Wayne's hat flies off, revealing a brief flash of his unadorned scalp. Wayne also has several scenes in The Wings of Eagles where he is without his hairpiece. (During a widely noted appearance at Harvard University, Wayne was asked by a student, "Is your hair real?" Wayne responded in the affirmative, then added, "It's not mine, but it's real!")

Wayne had several high-profile affairs, including one with Marlene Dietrich that lasted for three years. In the years prior to his death, Wayne was romantically involved with his former secretary Pat Stacy (1941–1995).

Wayne biographer Michael Munn writes of Wayne's love of alcohol.

John Wayne's height has been perennially described as at least 6'4" (193 cm), but claims abound that he was shorter. However, Wayne's high school athletic records indicate he was 6'3" at age 17, and his University of Southern California athletic records state that by age 18, he had grown to 6'4".

Death

Although he enrolled in a cancer vaccine study in an attempt to ward off the disease, John Wayne died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979, at the UCLA Medical Center, and was interred in the Pacific View Memorial Park cemetery in Corona del Mar. According to his son Patrick, he converted to Roman Catholicism shortly before his death. He requested his tombstone read "Feo, Fuerte y Formal", a Mexican epitaph Wayne described as meaning "ugly, strong and dignified". However, the grave, unmarked for twenty years, is now marked with a quotation from his controversial 1971 Playboy interview: "Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

Among the 220 or so cast and crew who filmed the 1956 film, The Conqueror, on location near St. George, Utah, ninety-one had come down with cancer (41%), including stars Wayne, Susan Hayward, and Agnes Moorehead, and director Dick Powell. The film was shot in Southwestern Utah, east of and generally downwind from where the U.S. Government had tested nuclear weapons in Southeastern Nevada, and many contend that radioactive fallout from these tests contaminated the film location and poisoned the film crew working there. Despite the suggestion that Wayne’s 1964 lung cancer and his 1979 stomach cancer resulted from this nuclear contamination, he himself believed his lung cancer to have been a result of his six-pack-a-day cigarette habit. The effect of nuclear fallout on The Conqueror's cast and crew, and particularly on Wayne, is the subject of James Morrow's science-fiction short story Martyrs of the Upshot Knothole.

Congressional Gold Medal and Presidential Medal of Freedom

John Wayne's enduring status as an iconic American was formally recognized by the United States Congress on May 26, 1979, when he was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. Hollywood figures and American leaders from across the political spectrum, including Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Mike Frankovich, Katharine Hepburn, General and Mrs. Omar Bradley, Gregory Peck, Robert Stack, James Arness, and Kirk Douglas, testified to Congress of the merit and deservedness of this award. Most notable was the testimony of Robert Aldrich, then president of the Directors Guild of America: "It is important for you to know that I am a registered Democrat and, to my knowledge, share none of the political views espoused by Duke. However, whether he is ill disposed or healthy, John Wayne is far beyond the normal political sharp shooting in this community. Because of his courage, his dignity, his integrity, and because of his talents as an actor, his strength as a leader, his warmth as a human being throughout his illustrious career, he is entitled to a unique spot in our hearts and minds. In this industry, we often judge people, sometimes unfairly, by asking whether they have paid their dues. John Wayne has paid his dues over and over, and I'm proud to consider him a friend and am very much in favor of my Government recognizing in some important fashion the contribution that Mr. Wayne has made."

Maureen O'Hara, Wayne's close friend, initiated the petition for the medal and requested the words that would be placed onto the medal: "It is my great honor to be here. I beg you to strike a medal for Duke, to order the President to strike it. And I feel that the medal should say just one thing, 'John Wayne, American.'" The medal crafted by the United States Mint has on one side John Wayne riding on horseback, and the other side has a portrait of Wayne with the words, "John Wayne, American." This Congressional Gold Medal was presented to the family of John Wayne in a ceremony held on March 6, 1980, at the United States Capitol. Copies were made and sold in large numbers to the public.

On June 9, 1980, Wayne was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Jimmy Carter (at whose inaugural ball Wayne had appeared "as a member of the loyal opposition", as Wayne described it in his speech to the gathering). Thus Wayne received the two highest civilian decorations awarded by the United States government.

American icon

, California]]

Wayne rose beyond the typical recognition for a famous actor to that of an enduring icon who symbolized and communicated American values and ideals. By the middle of his career, Wayne had developed a larger-than-life image, and as his career progressed, he selected roles that would not compromise his off-screen image. By the time of his last film The Shootist (1976), Wayne refused to allow his character to shoot a man in the back as was originally scripted, saying "I've made over 250 pictures and have never shot a guy in the back. Change it."

Wayne's rise to being the quintessential movie war hero began to take shape four years after World War II when Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) was released. His footprints at Grauman's Chinese theater in Hollywood were laid in cement that contained sand from Iwo Jima. His status grew so large and legendary that when Japanese Emperor Hirohito visited the United States in 1975, he asked to meet John Wayne, the symbolic representation of his country's former enemy.

Wayne was a popular visitor to the war zones in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. By the 1950s, perhaps in large part due to the military aspect of films such as the Sands of Iwo Jima, Flying Tigers, They Were Expendable, and the Ford cavalry trilogy, Wayne had become an icon to all the branches of the U.S. Military, even in light of his actual lack of military service. Many veterans have said their reason for serving was in some part related to watching Wayne's movies. His name is attached to various pieces of gear, such as the P-38 "John Wayne" can-opener, so named because "it can do anything," paper towels known as "John Wayne Toilet Paper" because "it's rough and it's tough and don't take shit off no one," and C-Ration crackers are called "John Wayne crackers" because presumably only someone as tough as Wayne could eat them. A rough and rocky mountain pass used by army tanks and jeeps at Fort Irwin in San Bernardino County, California, is aptly named "John Wayne Pass."

Various public locations have been named in memory of John Wayne. They include John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California, where his nine-foot bronze statue graces the entrance; the John Wayne Marina near Sequim, Washington; John Wayne Elementary School (P.S. 380) in Brooklyn, NY, which boasts a 38-foot mosaic mural commission by New York artist Knox Martin entitled "John Wayne and the American Frontier"; and a 100-plus-mile trail named the "John Wayne Pioneer Trail" in Washington state's Iron Horse State Park. A larger than life-size bronze statue of Wayne atop a horse was erected at the corner of La Cienega Boulevard and Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California at the former offices of the Great Western Savings & Loan Corporation, for whom Wayne had done a number of commercials. (The building now houses Larry Flynt Enterprises.)

In the city of Maricopa, Arizona, part of AZ State Highway 347 is named John Wayne Parkway, which runs right through the center of town.

On December 5, 2007, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and First Lady Maria Shriver inducted Wayne into the California Hall of Fame, located at The California Museum for History, Women and the Arts.

Celebrations and landmarks

Several celebrations took place on May 26, 2007, the centennial of John Wayne's birth.

At the Birthplace of John Wayne in Winterset, Iowa, the John Wayne Birthday Centennial Celebration was held on May 25–27, 2007. The celebration included chuck-wagon suppers, concerts by Michael Martin Murphey and Riders in the Sky, a Wild West Revue in the style of Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a Cowboy Symposium with John Wayne co-stars, Gregg Palmer, Ed Faulkner, and Dean Smith along with Paramount producer A.C. Lyles and costumer Luster Bayless were all there to talk about their friendships with Duke. They had cavalry and trick horse demonstrations as well as many of John Wayne's films running at the local theater.

This event also included the ground-breaking for the New John Wayne Birthplace Museum and Learning Center at his birthplace house. Over 30 family members were there including Melinda Wayne Munoz, Aissa, Ethan and Marisa Wayne. Several grandchildren and great-grandchildren were also present. An old gas station is being torn down to make way for the new museum. This groundbreaking was held with Ethan Wayne at the controls of the equipment.

In 2006, friends of Wayne's and his former Arizona business partner, Louis Johnson, inaugurated the "Louie and the Duke Classics" events benefiting the John Wayne Cancer Foundation and the American Cancer Society. The weekend long event each fall in Casa Grande, Arizona includes a golf tournament, an auction of John Wayne memorabilia and a team roping competition".

Wayne was approached by Mel Brooks to play the part of the Waco Kid in the film Blazing Saddles. After reading the script he said, "I can't be in this picture, it's too dirty ... but I'll be the first in line to see it."

He reportedly had initially strongly considered taking the role of Major Reisman in The Dirty Dozen, even asking MGM to make changes to the script to accommodate him. But ultimately, he turned it down to make The Green Berets. The role went to Lee Marvin.

Wayne had lobbied to play the lead in Dirty Harry, but Warner Bros. felt that at age 63, he was too old for the role. The role eventually went to Clint Eastwood.

Prior to his death, Wayne had bought the film rights to Buddy Atkinson's novel, Beau John, and was in the pre-production stage of the movie when he took ill. The film was a comedy set in Kentucky during the 1920s, and would have co-starred Ron Howard and Hal Linden.

Quotations

Movie quotations

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." (The Shootist)

Speaking to his young cavalry lieutenants: "Don't apologize—it's a sign of weakness." (She Wore a Yellow Ribbon)

"Fill your hand, you son of a bitch!" (True Grit)

"That'll be the day!" (The Searchers - Spoken several times; inspired Buddy Holly to write a song with that title.)

"Pilgrim." (The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance - Reportedly he used the expression "Pilgrim", as in "tenderfoot" or "dude" or "amateur", 23 times in that film, and once also in McLintock!. It became a catchphrase for impressionists such as John Byner, and Rich Little)

"I haven't lost my temper in 40 years; but, Pilgrim, you caused a lot of trouble this morning; might have got somebody killed; and somebody oughta belt you in the mouth. But I won't. I won't. The hell I won't!" (He belts him in the mouth). (To Leo Gordon in McLintock!)

"Out here, due process is a bullet!" (To anti-war journalist David Janssen in The Green Berets)

"Not hardly!" (Big Jake - used several times throughout the movie when told by others "Jacob McCandles?! I thought you were dead!")

"It's a hard life!" (The Cowboys - in response to "The 'long-haired man'" played by Bruce Dern saying "You're a hard man!")

"Were burning daylight" ( The Cowboys )

Famous quotations outside the movies

"I eat as much as I ever did, I drink more than I should, and my sex life is none of your goddamned business." (May 1971, Playboy interview)

"If I had known this, I would've put that patch on thirty-five years earlier." (1969, Academy Awards speech for Best Actor in True Grit.)

"We had a pretty good time together, when she wasn't trying to kill me!" (1954, in an interview with Hedda Hopper regarding his marriage to Esperanza "Chata" Baur.)

Awards and nominations

Academy Awards

The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are presented annually by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry. Wayne was nominated for three competitive awards and won once.

Actor

{| | The winner for each year is in bold face text against a | bgcolor="yellow" | yellow | background. |}

Producer

{| class=wikitable | align=center bgcolor=lightsteelblue colspan=2|- 1960 - |- ! Producer ! Film |- | Bernard Smith | Elmer Gantry |- | Jerry Wald | Sons and Lovers |- | John Wayne | The Alamo |- | bgcolor=yellow|Billy Wilder | bgcolor=yellow|The Apartment {Best Picture} |- | Fred Zinnemann | The Sundowners |}

Golden Globes

The Golden Globe Awards are presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA) to recognize outstanding achievements in the entertainment industry, both domestic and foreign, and to focus wide public attention upon the best in motion pictures and television. Wayne won a competitive award and received the Cecil B. DeMille Award.

See also

List of film collaborations

Hall of Great Western Performers

National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum

The Red Scare

References

Further reading

Baur, Andreas, and Bitterli, Konrad. "Brave Lonesome Cowboy. Der Mythos des Westerns in der Gegenwartskunst oder: John Wayne zum 100. Geburtstag". Verlag für moderne Kunst Nürnberg. Nuremberg 2007 ISBN 978-3-939738-15-2.

Roberts, Randy, and James S. Olson. John Wayne: American. New York: Free Press, 1995 ISBN 978-0029238370.

Campbell, James T. "Print the Legend: John Wayne and Postwar American Culture". Reviews in American History, Volume 28, Number 3, September 2000, pp. 465–477.

Shepherd, Donald, and Robert Slatzer, with Dave Grayson. Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne. New York: Doubleday, 1985 ISBN 0-385-17893-X.

Carey, Harry Jr. A Company of Heroes: My Life as an Actor in the John Ford Stock Company. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1994 ISBN 0-8108-2865-0.

Clark, Donald & Christopher Anderson. John Wayne's The Alamo: The Making of the Epic Film. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1995 ISBN 0-8065-1625-9. (pbk.)

Eyman, Scott. Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999 ISBN 0-684-81161-8.

McCarthy, Todd. Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood. New York: Grove Press, 1997 ISBN 0-8021-1598-5.

Maurice Zolotow., Shooting Star: A Biography of John Wayne. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974 ISBN 0671829696.

Jim Beaver, "John Wayne". Films in Review, Volume 28, Number 5, May 1977, pp. 265–284.

McGivern, Carolyn. John Wayne: A Giant Shadow. Bracknell, England: Sammon, 2000 ISBN 0-9540031-0-1.

Davis, Ronald L. Duke: The Life and Times of John Wayne. University of Oklahoma Press, 2001. ISBN 0806133295.

Raab, Markus, Beautiful Hearts, Laughers at the World, Bowlers. Worldviews of the Late Western; in: Baur/Bitterli: Brave Lonesome Cowboy. Der Myhos des Westerns in der Gegenwartskunst oder: John Wayne zum 100. Geburtstag, Nuremberg 2007, ISBN 978-3-939738-15-2.

External links

John Wayne Cancer Foundation

John Wayne Cancer Institute

Birthplace of John Wayne official website

John Wayne walks into Stardom

The Duke

John Wayne Island

Awesome, and Then Some by Dick Cavett

More Awesomeness, or John Wayne Part 2 by Dick Cavett

Category:1907 births Category:1979 deaths Category:People from Winterset, Iowa Category:Former Presbyterians Category:American Roman Catholics Category:American people of Scottish descent Category:American people of Scotch-Irish descent Category:California Republicans Category:John Birch Society members Category:Actors from Iowa Category:American anti-communists Category:American film actors Category:American football offensive linemen Category:American silent film actors Category:Best Actor Academy Award winners Category:Cancer deaths in California Category:Congressional Gold Medal recipients Category:Conservatism in the United States Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism from Calvinism Category:Deaths from stomach cancer Category:Film serial actors Category:Liberty Records artists Category:Lung cancer survivors Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients Category:University of Southern California alumni Category:USC Trojans football players Category:Western (genre) film actors

Caption	Elijah Wood at WonderCon 2009
Birth date	January 28, 1981
Birth place	Cedar Rapids, Iowa, U.S.
Birth name	Elijah Jordan Wood
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1989 – Present

Elijah Jordan Wood (born January 28, 1981) is an American actor. He made his film debut with a minor part in Back to the Future Part II (1989), then landed a succession of larger roles that made him a critically acclaimed child actor by age 9. He is best known for his high-profile role as Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's critically acclaimed The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Since then, he has resisted typecasting by choosing varied roles in critically acclaimed films such as Bobby, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sin City, Green Street and Everything Is Illuminated.

He starred in the film Day Zero (2007) and provided the voice of the main character, Mumble, in the award-winning animated film Happy Feet. He played an American tourist turned vampire in Paris, je t'aime. In 2005, he started his own record label, Simian Records. He was cast in the lead role of an Iggy Pop biopic to be called The Passenger, but after years of development, the project now appears to be shelved.

In 2006, he became a well-known voice actor in video gaming and soon became the voice of the video game icon Spyro the Dragon.

In 2008, he became the first person to cross Victoria Falls on ropes during an appearance on Jack Osbourne's show Adrenaline Junkie.

Early life

Wood, the second of three children, was born and raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Debra D. (née Krause) and Warren W. Wood, delicatessen operators. He is of English, Austrian, German, and Danish descent. Wood has a brother seven years his senior, Zachariah "Zach" Wood, and a sister two years his junior, Hannah Wood. At age ten, Wood began modeling in his hometown and took piano lessons. He took to the stage in his elementary school's staging of the play The Sound of Music. The following year, he graduated to the title character in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. He also served as choir boy during the production of See How They Run, produced by the Marion Creative Council.

Career

Early career

Wood modeled and did local commercials before moving with his family to Los Angeles in 1988, where he got his first break, a small role in a video by Paula Abdul - "Forever Your Girl", directed by David Fincher. Film work followed almost instantly in Back to the Future Part II (1989). It was Wood's role as Aidan Quinn's son in Barry Levinson's 1990 film Avalon (the third film in the Baltimore trilogy containing 1982's Diner and 1987's Tin Men) that first gave Wood attention, as the film received widespread critical acclaim and was nominated for four Academy Awards.

After a small part in the Richard Gere movie Internal Affairs (1990), he secured his first starring role in Paradise (1991), playing a young boy who brings estranged couple Melanie Griffith and Don Johnson back together. From there, he went on to co-star with Mel Gibson and Jamie Lee Curtis in Forever Young and with Joseph Mazzello in Radio Flyer (both were released in 1992).

In 1993 he had the lead role in The Adventures of Huck Finn and also appeared with Macaulay Culkin in The Good Son. In 1994 he starred in The War (1994), with Kevin Costner. His performance in this movie gained him a nomination for a 'Young Star Award' (for which he was nominated four times, and won twice), and Roger Ebert said in his review of the film:

:"Elijah Wood has emerged, I believe, as the most talented actor in his age group, in Hollywood history".

Also in 1994, he had the title role in North, and was featured in a Super Bowl commercial for Wavy Lay's potato chips that had him repeatedly exchanging seats with spectators at a football game (including Dan Quayle) using its famous slogan. In 1995, he appeared in the music video for The Cranberries "Ridiculous Thoughts". The following year, Wood got the lead role in Flipper (1996), which was not very successful, but the subsequent critical and financial success of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) provided a positive development in the young actor's career.

In 1997, he portrayed the pick-pocketing thief Jack "The Artful Dodger" Dawkins in Tony Bill's Oliver Twist.1998's Deep Impact and The Faculty did not allow Wood the same degree of character development, but were great financial successes and further stepping stones in Wood's evolution from winsome child star to young actor.

Wood's next role was as the boyfriend of a wannabe hip-hop groupie in James Toback's Black and White (1999). He followed this with a role as a junior hitman in Chain of Fools.

1999–2003: The Lord of the Rings

Wood was cast as Frodo Baggins in , the first installment of director Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's novel. His most hotly anticipated project, the 2001 film gave Wood top billing as Baggins, alongside a cast that included Ian McKellen, Liv Tyler, Orlando Bloom, Cate Blanchett, Christopher Lee, Sean Bean, Sean Astin, Billy Boyd, Dominic Monaghan, Viggo Mortensen, and Miranda Otto.

The Lord of the Rings was filmed in New Zealand and, before the cast left the country, Jackson gave Wood two gifts: one of the One Ring props used on the set and Sting, Frodo's sword. He was also given a pair of prosthetic "hobbit feet" he wore during filming. The same year, the actor appeared in Ed Burns' Ash Wednesday, a crime drama that also featured Oliver Platt and Rosario Dawson.

In 2002, Wood lent his voice to the direct-to-video release of The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina. His most substantial role of 2002 was his return to the role of Frodo Baggins in .

In 2003, he starred in the direct-to-video movie All I Want (also titled Try Seventeen) and once again portrayed Frodo Baggins for , the final part of Jackson's trilogy.

2004–2010: Recent career

Hot on the heels of the trilogy, Wood quickly appeared in his first post-Frodo role in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), playing a lab technician who helps erase heartbreaking memories but then uses his knowledge of the past relationship of an unknowing former patient (Kate Winslet) to woo her. He then played bespectacled serial killer Kevin in director Robert Rodriguez and writer-artist Frank Miller's adaptation of Miller's crime noir comic book series Sin City (2005), appearing opposite Mickey Rourke in the segment "The Hard Goodbye". On May 12, 2005, Wood hosted a program called "MTV Presents: The Next Generation Xbox Revealed", when the new Xbox 360 games console was launched.

Also in 2005, Wood starred in Everything Is Illuminated, in which he plays a young American Jewish man on a quest to find the woman who once saved his grandfather during World War II, and Green Street, as an American college student who falls in with a violent English football firm. Both had limited release, but were critically acclaimed.

Wood shot a small part in Paris, je t'aime, which consists of 18 five-minute sections. Each section is directed by a different director. Wood’s section, called "Quartier de la Madeleine", was directed by Vincenzo Natali. The film opened on May 18 at 2006 Cannes Film Festival and was shown at 2006 Toronto International Film Festival. First Look Pictures acquired the North American rights, and the film opened in the US in early 2007.

In 2006, he was part of the ensemble cast in Emilio Estevez's Bobby, in which his character gets married to change his draft classification. It premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was released on November 17, 2006 in New York and Los Angeles. Wide release followed on November 23.

In Happy Feet, Wood provided the voice of Mumble, a penguin who can tap dance, but not sing. Happy Feet was released on November 17, 2006 and has grossed over $380 million worldwide. The movie also received a Golden Globe Award nomination and won an Academy Award and a BAFTA for Best Animated Feature.

Day Zero, a drama about the draft, had its debut at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. Wood portrays draftee, Aaron Feller.

In 2006, Wood hosted the special "Saving a Species: The Great Penguin Rescue" for Discovery Kids Channel, for which he has been nominated for a Daytime Emmy in the category of acting in a children/youth/family special. On January 4, 2007 Wood joined Screen Actors Guild President Alan Rosenberg to announce the nominees for the 13th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards.

In The Oxford Murders, a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by Guillermo Martínez, Wood plays a graduate student, who investigates a series of bizarre, mathematically-based murders in Oxford. It was released in Spain on January 18, 2008.

Wood also voiced the lead in the animated feature film version of the short film 9. A project in which Wood was set to star in, a biopic about singer Iggy Pop, putatively named The Passenger, has not come to fruition after years in development.

Wood's first starring TV role is on the FX pilot Wilfred in which he plays, Ryan. The pilot was shot in the summer of 2010.

In January 2011, it was confirmed that Wood would reprise the role of Frodo Baggins in the The Hobbit parts one and two films to be released in 2012 and 2013.

Other work

In 2005 Wood started his own record label called Simian Records. On September 19, 2006 Wood announced that Simian had signed The Apples in Stereo as their first band, with their new album New Magnetic Wonder released in February 2007. In addition he also directed the music video for "Energy". The other band signed to Simian thus far is Heloise and the Savoir Faire.

Wood has also provided voiceovers for videogames, providing the current voice for Spyro the Dragon since 2006's , as well as reprising Mumble in the game version of Happy Feet. He also contributed his talents to fellow Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen's album Pandemoniumfromamerica, singing and playing various instruments on the album.

Wood has signed to co-produce the film Black Wings Has My Angel, based on the noir novel of the same name, with Anthony Moody and Rob Malkani of Indalo Productions.

On April 11, 2008, Wood was the guest host of Channel 4's Friday Night Project.

On April 25, 2009, Wood was honored with the Midnight Award by the San Francisco International Film Festival as a dynamic young American actor who "has made outstanding contributions to independent and Hollywood cinema, and who brings striking intelligence, exemplary talent and extraordinary depth of character to his roles".

Wood also starred in an episode of Yo! Gabba Gabba entitled "Eat" where he danced and "went crazy" alongside the rest of the Yo! Gabba Gabba crew.

Wood can be seen in a short film on stepthroughtheportal.com. The site is an interactive website created by Simian Records artist' The Apples in Stereo, promoting their upcoming album, Travelers in Space and Time.

Personal life

Wood keeps his personal life from the media spotlight, and is private about his romantic relationships. He dated Gogol Bordello drummer Pamela Racine for five years. Wood ended their long-term relationship during September 2010 because he was not ready to "settle down". Pamela was not in attendance at the premiere for his new movie The Romantics.

In an interview about Everything Is Illuminated, director Liev Schreiber commented that Wood has a "generosity of spirit" and a "sincere goodness as a human being." He supported campaigns for charity as Keep a Child Alive or ALDO/YouthAIDS. Wood is a music buff owning 4,000 CDs, citing his favorite band as Smashing Pumpkins.

Wood has a tattoo of the word "nine" written in Tengwar script, but in the English language (rather than Quenya or Sindarin as is widely believed) below his waist on the right side, a reference to his character as one of the Fellowship of the Ring. The other actors of "The Fellowship" got the same tattoo (with the exception of John Rhys-Davies).

In May 2006, Autograph Collector Magazine published its list of 10 Best & 10 Worst Hollywood Autograph Signers, Wood was ranked #7 of Best Signers.

Filmography

Films

{| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1989 || Back to the Future Part II || Video-Game Boy #2 (Mickey) || bit part |- | 1990 || Child in the Night || Luke || TV film |- | 1990 || Internal Affairs || Sean Stretch || minor role |- | 1990 || Avalon || Michael Kaye || major role |- | 1990 || The Witness || Little Boy || short film |- | 1991 || Paradise || Willard Young || |- | 1992 || Day-O || Day-O || TV film |- | 1992 || Forever Young || Nat Cooper || |- | 1992 || Radio Flyer || Mike || |- | 1993 || The Adventures of Huck Finn || Huckleberry Finn|| |- | 1993 || The Good Son || Mark Evans || |- | 1994 || North || North || |- | 1994 || The War || Stuart "Stu" Simmons || |- | 1996 || Flipper || Sandy || |- | 1997 || Oliver Twist || Jack "The Artful Dodger" Dawkins || TV film. Wood's first adult role |- | 1997 || The Ice Storm || Mikey Carver || |- | 1998 || Deep Impact || Leo Biederman || |- | 1998 || The Faculty || Casey Connor || |- | 1999 || The Bumblebee Flies Anyway || Barney Snow || |- | 1999 || Black and White || Wren || |- | 2000 || Chain of Fools || Mikey || Direct-to-video |- | 2001 || || Frodo Baggins || |- | 2001 || Ash Wednesday || Sean Sullivan || |- | 2002 || || Frodo Baggins || |- | 2002 || The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina || Tom Thumb || voice; Direct-to-video |- | 2002 || All I Want aka Try Seventeen || Jones Dillon || Direct-to-video |- | 2003 || || Frodo Baggins || |- | 2003 || The Long and Short of It||First Assistant Director|| Short film |- | 2003 || || The Guy || Cameo |- | 2004 || Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind|| Patrick || |- | 2005 ||Sin City || Kevin || |- | 2005 || Everything Is Illuminated|| Jonathan Safran Foer || |- | 2005 || Green Street || Matt Buckner || |- | 2006 || Bobby || William Avary|| |- | 2006 || Happy Feet || Mumble || voice |- | 2007 || Paris, je t'aime || David || |- | 2007 || Day Zero || Aaron Feller || US Release: April 29, 2007 |- | 2008 || The Oxford Murders || Martin || Spain Release: January 18, 2008 |- | 2009 || 9 || 9 || voice |- | 2010 || The Romantics || Chip ||January 27, 2010 Sundance Film Festival |- | 2011 || Happy Feet 2 || Mumble || voice; US release: November 18, 2011 |- | 2011 || The Passenger || Iggy Pop || pre-production |- | 2012 || The Hobbit: Part I || Frodo Baggins || pre-production |- | 2013 || The Hobbit: Part II || Frodo Baggins || pre-production |- |}

Television

{| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1994 || Frasier || Ethan || voice; "Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast" |- | 1996 || || McPhee Broadman || "The True Test" |- | 1996 || Adventures from the Book of Virtues || Icarus || voice; "Responsibility" |- | 2002 || Franklin (TV series) || Coyote || voice |- | 2002 || The Electric Playground || ? || |- | 2003 || Saturday Night Live || Host|| |- | 2004 || The Osbournes || Himself || |- | 2004 || King of the Hill || Jason || voice; "Girl, You'll Be a Giant Soon" |- | 2005 || I'm Still Here: Real Diaries of Young People Who Lived During the Holocaust || Klaus Langer / Dawid Rubinowicz || voice |- | 2006 ||Robot Chicken || William David Reynolds || voice; "Sausage Fest" |- | 2006 || American Dad! || Ethan || voice; "Iced, Iced Babies" |- | 2006 || Punk'd || Himself || |- | 2006 || Saving a Species: The Great Penguin Rescue || Host and Narrator || Television special |- | 2007 || Yo Gabba Gabba! || Himself || |- | 2008 || Friday Night Project || Himself || Guest host |- | 2008 || Celebrity Adrenaline Junkie || Himself || Became the first person to cross the Victoria Falls on ropes. |- | 2009 || Saturday Night Live || Himself || SNL Digital Short On the Ground |- | 2010 || Family Guy || Himself || "Brian Griffin's House of Payne" |- | 2010 || WW2 HD: The Air War|| Andy Rooney || |- | 2011 || Wilfred || Ryan || |- | 2011 || Treasure Island || Ben Gunn || TV Two-Part Miniseries |- | 2012 || || Beck || voice |}

Music videos

Paula Abdul: "Forever Your Girl" (1989)

The Cranberries: "Ridiculous Thoughts" (1995)

The Apples in Stereo: "Energy" (as director) (2006)

Greg Laswell: "How the Day Sounds" (2008)

The Lonely Island: "On the Ground" (2009)

Danko Jones: "Full of Regret" (2010)

The Apples in Stereo: "Dance Floor" (2010)

Video games

{| class="wikitable sortable" ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 2006 || || Spyro || Main character. |- | 2007 || || Spyro || Main character. |- | 2008 || || Spyro || Main character. |- | 2010 || God of War III || Deimos || The character Deimos did not appear in God of War III, however, his voice is heard in a portion of the game where the protagonist Kratos is within his own psyche. Deimos is the brother of Kratos. |}

Audiobooks

2009 Witch & Wizard

2010 Witch & Wizard: The Gift

2010 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Awards and nominations

{| width="100%" |- valign="top" |width="50%" |

Young Star Awards

1995 Nominate Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Drama Film The War 1994

1997 Nominated Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Comedy Film Flipper 1996

1998 Won Best Performance by a Young Actor in a Drama Film Deep Impact 1998

1998 Won Best Performance by a Young in a Miniseries/Made for TV Movies Oliver Twist 1997

Young Hollywood Awards

2002 Won Hottest, Coolest Young Veteran - Male N/A

Young Artist Awards

1991 Nominated Best Young Actor Starring in a TV Movie, Pilot or Special Child in the Night 1990

1991 Nominated Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture Avalon 1990

1992 Nominated Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture Paradise 1991

1993 Won Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture Radio Flyer 1992

1995 Nominated Best Young Actor Starring in a Motion Picture North 1994

1997 Nominated Best Performance in a Drama Series - Guest Starring Young Actor Homicide: Life on the Street 1993

1998 Nominated Best Performance in a Feature Film - Supporting Young Actor The Ice Storm 1997

Visual Effects Society Awards

2003 Won Best Performance by an Actor in an Effect Film Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers 2002

Teen Choice Awards

2002 Nominated Film - Choice Actor, Drama/Action Adventure FOTR 2001

2003 Nominated Choice Movie Actor - Drama/Action Adventure TTT 2002

2004 Nominated Choice Movie Actor - Drama/Action Adventure ROTK 2003

2005 Nominated Choice Movie Bad Guy Sin City 2005

ShoWest Convention USA

1994 Won Young Star of the Year

Screen Actors Guild Awards

2002 Nominated Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture FOTR 2001

2003 Nominated Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture TTT 2002

2004 Won Outstanding Performance by the Cast of a Theatrical Motion Picture ROTK 2003

2007 Nominated Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Bobby 2006

Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards

2002 Won Best Ensemble Acting FOTR 2001

2003 Won Best Ensemble Acting TTT 2002

2004 Nominated Best Ensemble Acting ROTK 2003

Online Film Critics Society Awards

2003 Won Best Ensemble ROTK 2003

Blockbuster Entertainment Awards

1999 Nominated Favorite Actor - Horror The Faculty 1998

1999 Nominated Favorite Supporting Actor - Sci-Fi Deep Impact 1998

National Board of Review USA

2003 Won Best Acting by an Ensemble ROTK 2003

MTV Movie Awards

2002 Nominated Best On-Screen Team FOTR 2001

2003 Won Best On-Screen Team TTT 2003

Kids' Choice Awards

2002 Nominated Favorite Male Butt Kicker FOTR

2003 Nominated Favorite Male Kicker TTT

Empire Awards UK

2002 Won Best Actor FOTR

DVD Exclusive Awards

2003 Nominated Best Animated Character Performance The Adventures of Tom Thumb & Thumbelina 2002

2003 Nominated Best Audio Commentary, New Release FOTR

2003 Nominated Best Audio Commentary (New For DVD) TTT

Broadcast Film Critics Awards

2004 Won Best Acting Ensemble ROTK

1999 Nominated Favorite Actor - Horror The Faculty 1998

1999 Nominated Favorite Supporting Actor - Sci-Fi- Deep Impact 1998

Saturn Award

1994 Won Best Performance by a Young Actor The Good Son 1993

1995 Nominated Best Performance by a Younger Actor North 1994

2003 Nominated Best Performance by a Younger Actor TTT

2004 Won Best Actor ROTK

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences

2004 Won Outstanding Achievement in Character Performance - Male ROTK

Hollywood Film Festival

2006 Won Best Ensemble Cast for Bobby

|}

Daytime Emmy Awards

2007 Nominated Outstanding Performer In A Children/Youth/Family Special - Saving a Species: The Great Penguin Rescue 2006

San Francisco International Film Festival

2009 Won The Midnight Award as dynamic young American actor who bring striking intelligence, exemplary talent and extraordinary depth of character to his roles.

Further reading

Sibley, Brian. The Lord of the Rings Official Movie Guide. Houghton Mifflin, 2001. ISBN 0-618-15402-7.

References

External links

Elijah Wood: Performer for Our Time ElijahNet

Wood talks about Simian Records

Step Through the Portal

Elijah Wood Before and After

Extensive audio interview on public radio program The Sound of Young America, September 6, 2010

Category:1981 births Category:American child actors Category:American film actors Category:American music industry executives Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:American people of English descent Category:Actors from Iowa Category:Living people

Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:People from Cedar Rapids, Iowa Category:American actors of German descent Category:Saturn Award winners Category:American people of Austrian descent Category:American people of Danish descent Category:American video game actors

Caption	Bening at the 2005 Toronto International Film Festival
Birth name	Annette Francine Bening
Birth date	May 29, 1958
Birth place	Topeka, Kansas, U.S.
Spouse
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1986–present

Annette Francine Bening (born May 29, 1958) is an American actress. Her break-through role in The Grifters was followed with critically acclaimed roles in films such as Bugsy and American Beauty. In 1992, she married American actor and director Warren Beatty, with whom she has four children. She was most recently in the 2010 film The Kids Are All Right as Nic, for which she got critical acclaim.

Early life

Bening was born in Topeka, Kansas, the youngest of four children of Shirley, a church singer and soloist, and Arnett Grant Bening, a sales training consultant and insurance salesman. Her parents, natives of Iowa, were practicing Episcopalians and conservative Republicans. Her sister and two brothers are Jane Bening (born 1953), Bradley Bening (born 1955) and Byron Bening (born 1957). In 1959, the family moved to Wichita, Kansas, where she spent her early childhood. In 1965, her father took a job with a company in San Diego, California, and they moved there. She began acting in junior high school, playing the lead in The Sound of Music. She studied drama at Patrick Henry High School.

She then spent a year working as a cook on a charter boat taking fishing parties out on the Pacific Ocean, and scuba diving for recreation. She attended San Diego Mesa College, then completed an academic degree in theatre arts at San Francisco State University. Bening joined the acting company at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco while studying acting as part of the Advanced Theatre Training Program. During this time she established herself as a formidable acting talent in roles like Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth.

Career

Bening moved to New York City, where she debuted off-Broadway at Second Stage Theatre (McGinn-Cazale Theatre) in the role of 'Holly Dancer' in Tina Howe's widely acclaimed Coastal Disturbances (1986) opposite Tim Daly, and for which she earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Play. However, despite the praise and recognition, it took some time for that success to translate to her film career. Her television debut was with the made-for-TV movie Manhunt for Claude Dallas (1986). Her first major role in a theatrical feature was in The Great Outdoors (1988) playing 'Kate Craig' opposite Dan Aykroyd and John Candy. Her next role was as the Marquise de Merteuil in Valmont (1989) opposite Colin Firth.

Bening's next major feature, Stephen Frears's The Grifters (1990) starring Anjelica Huston and John Cusack, met with critical acclaim. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress for The Grifters. She followed that with her appearance in Bugsy. Bening was offered the role as Catwoman in Batman Returns (1992), but after she became pregnant, the role went to Michelle Pfeiffer. In 1994, she played opposite 87-year old acting legend Katharine Hepburn in Love Affair. Bening was paid $3 million to play the role of 'Elise Kraft/Sharon Bridger' in The Siege (1998), co-starring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis. Her next role, in the 1999 film American Beauty, would give her the highest-profile role of her career thus far. Bening played a real-estate agent in three different movies: Regarding Henry, American Beauty, and What Planet Are You From?. She has appeared in three different Mike Nichols movies: Postcards from the Edge, Regarding Henry, and What Planet Are You From?

She was originally cast as the mother in Disney's Freaky Friday, but dropped out. She replaced Julianne Moore in Running with Scissors, playing Deirdre Burroughs in the film adaptation of the Augusten Burroughs book. On December 9, 2006, Bening hosted Saturday Night Live with musical guests Gwen Stefani and Akon.

Her 2010 film, The Kids Are All Right, was her most critically acclaimed performance since American Beauty, with several reviewers noting that she "deserves an Oscar" and that her "sublime" performance "towers over the rest of the cast".

Personal life

In 1985, Bening and her first husband, choreographer J. Steven White, moved to Denver, Colorado, to work at the Shakespeare Festival in Boulder, Colorado. They separated the following year.

Bening and Warren Beatty began a relationship during the filming of Bugsy (1991). Bening has said, "When Warren and I were first together and I was pregnant, we would get followed around by photographers. But it was nothing like what celebrities have to endure these days." They married on March 10, 1992 and have four children: Kathlyn (born January 8, 1992), Benjamin (born August 23, 1994), Isabel (born January 11, 1997) and Ella (born April 8, 2000).

Bening is a supporter of the Democrats and was a political contributor to the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama in 2008. She is a student of Iyengar Yoga.

Filmography

{| class="wikitable sortable" |+ Films |- ! Year ! Title ! Role ! class="unsortable" | Notes |- | 1988 | | Kate Craig | |- | 1989 | Valmont | Merteuil | |- | 1990 | Postcards from the Edge | Evelyn Ames | |- | 1990 | | Myra Langtry | London Film Critics' Circle Award for Newcomer of the YearNational Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—Academy Award for Best Supporting ActressNominated—BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role |- | 1991 | Guilty by Suspicion | Ruth Merrill | |- | 1991 | Regarding Henry | Sarah Turner | |- | 1991 | Bugsy | Virginia Hill |Nominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated—MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss (shared with Warren Beatty) |- | 1994 | Love Affair | Terry McKay | |- | 1995 | Richard III | Queen Elizabeth | |- | 1995 | | Sydney Ellen Wade | Nominated—American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion PictureNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy |- | 1996 | Mars Attacks! | Barbara Land | |- | 1998 | | Elise Kraft/Sharon Bridger | Nominated—Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress – Suspense |- | 1999 | In Dreams | Claire Cooper | |- | 1999 | American Beauty | Carolyn Burnham | American Comedy Award for Funniest Actress in a Motion PictureBAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading RoleLondon Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressOnline Film Critics Society Award for Best CastSan Diego Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading RoleScreen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion PictureNominated—Academy Award for Best ActressNominated— Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actress – DramaNominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Chlotrudis Award for Best ActressNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture DramaNominated—Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated—Online Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated—Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Drama |- | 2000 | What Planet Are You From? | Susan Anderson | |- | 2003 | Open Range | Sue Barlow | Bronze Wrangler for Outstanding Theatrical Motion PictureNominated—Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture |- | 2004 | Being Julia | Julia Lambert | Bangkok International Film Festival Award for Best ActressGolden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNational Board of Review Award for Best ActressSatellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedySoutheastern Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Academy Award for Best ActressNominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role |- | 2005 | Mrs. Harris | Jean Harris | Nominated—Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress – Miniseries or a MovieNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television FilmNominated— Prism Award for Performance in a TV-MovieNominated—Satellite Award for Best Actress – Miniseries or Television FilmNominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie |- | 2006 | Running with Scissors | Deirdre Burroughs | Nominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated—Satellite Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated—St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress |- | 2007 | 14 Women | Narrator | |- | 2008 | | Sylvie Fowler | Nominated—Razzie Award for Worst Actress (shared with the film's ensemble of actresses) |- | 2010 | | Nic |Hollywood Award for Best Actress (also for Mother and Child)New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Actress Women Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress Women Film Critics Circle Award for Best Comedic ActressNominated—National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress Nominated—Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best ActressNominated—Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading RoleNominated—Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated—Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best ActressNominated—Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated—Independent Spirit Award for Best Female LeadNominated—Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated—London Film Critics Circle Award for Actress of the YearNominated—Online Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated—Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best ActressNominated—Satellite Award for Best Actress — Motion Picture Musical or ComedyNominated—Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best ActressNominated—Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Actress |- | 2010 | Mother and Child | Karen |Hollywood Award for Best Actress (also for ) |- |}

References

External links

People in Film: Annette Bening – Focus Features

Roger Ebert "Movie Answer Man: Hail, Columbia! Mystery solved". Retrieved Aug. 27, 2005.

Category:1958 births Category:American film actors Category:American stage actors Category:American television actors Category:American voice actors Category:BAFTA winners (people) Category:Best Musical or Comedy Actress Golden Globe (film) winners Category:Actors from California Category:Actors from Kansas Category:Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture Screen Actors Guild Award winners Category:California Democrats Category:People from San Diego, California Category:People from Topeka, Kansas Category:People from Wichita, Kansas Category:San Francisco State University alumni Category:Living people