John MacDonald Badham^[1] (born August 25, 1939) is an English film director, best known for films Saturday Night Fever (1977), Blue Thunder (1983), WarGames (1983), Short Circuit (1986), Stakeout (1987), Bird on a Wire (1990) and others.

Biography[link]

Badham was born in Luton, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom, the son of Mary Iola (née Hewitt), an actress. ^[1] Badham's website states that his father "was a U S Army general" who "moved the family back to...Alabama". Henry Lee Badham Jr married Mary Hewitt secondly, his first wife Lottie (née Austin) is buried beside Henry and Mary at Elmwood Cemetery in Birmingham, Alabama. Henry Lee Badham Jr was an aviator in both world wars and was posthumously inducted into the Alabama Aviation Hall of Fame in 2007. After retirement from the US Air Force as a Brigadier General, Henry L Badham Jr became a businessman, involved with the development of the Ensley and Bessemer regions near Birmingham, Alabama. This same line of business had brought his father, Henry Lee Badham Sr, into association with Walker Percy, grandfather of writer Walker Percy.

John Badham was raised in Birmingham, Alabama in the U.S. and became a naturalized citizen in 1950.^[1] He attended Indian Springs School in Alabama and college at Yale University.

Badham had worked for television for years before his breakthrough in 1977 with Saturday Night Fever. Starring John Travolta, the film is recognized as the most representational of the 1970s disco era. WarGames (1983), starring Matthew Broderick, is his other signature film, renowned for its take on popular Cold War fears of nuclear terror and holocaust as well as of amateur hacking.

In addition to his numerous film credits, Badham has also directed and produced for TV, including credits for Rod Serling's Night Gallery and the A&E television series The Beast. He has also contributed commentary to the web series Trailers From Hell.^{[citation needed]}

Family[link]

Badham is the older brother (by 13 years) of Mary Badham, Oscar-nominated for To Kill a Mockingbird. Brother and sister have never worked together on the same project, however. Though she's younger, all of Mary's acting credits preceded John's film/television credits by several years.

John's former wife is veteran model Jan Speck, 15 years his junior, of The New Treasure Hunt fame. She has had assorted cameo roles in many of his projects, starting in the 1980s.

Filmography[link]

• The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars & Motor Kings (1976)
• Saturday Night Fever (1977)
• Dracula (1979)
• Whose Life Is It Anyway? (1981)
• Blue Thunder (1983)
• WarGames (1983)
• American Flyers (1985)
• Short Circuit (1986)
• Stakeout (1987)
• Bird on a Wire (1990)
• The Hard Way (1991)
• Point of No Return (1993)
• Another Stakeout (1993)
• Drop Zone (1994)
• Nick of Time (1995)
• Incognito (1998)

TV films[link]

• The Senator (also known as The Bold Ones: The Senator), NBC (1970)
• Sarge, NBC, (1971)
• The Impatient Heart, NBC (1971)
• The Boy Who Predicted Earthquakes, Night Gallery (also known as Rod Serling's Night Gallery), NBC (1971)
• Camera Obscura, Night Gallery, NBC (1971)
• Green Fingers, Night Gallery, NBC (1971)
• The Girl with the Hungry Eyes, Night Gallery, NBC (1972)
• You Can Come Up Now, Mrs. Millikan, Night Gallery, NBC (1972)
• The Doll of Death, Night Gallery, NBC (1972)
• (Uncredited) No Place to Run, (1972)
• The Sixth Sense, ABC (1972)
• Isn't It Shocking?, ABC (1973)
• The Godchild, ABC (1974)
• The Gun, ABC (1974)
• Reflections of Murder, ABC (1974)
• The Law, NBC (1974)
• Sunshine, NBC (1975)
• The Keegans, CBS (1976)
• Relentless: Mind of a Killer (also known as Mood Indigo), NBC (1993)
• The Jack Bull, HBO (1999)
• The Last Debate, Showtime (2000)

Publications[link]

• Badham, John (2006). I’ll Be in My Trailer. Michael Wiese Productions. ISBN 1-932907-14-9. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• John Badham at the Internet Movie Database
• John Badham at BFI Film & TV Database

Persondata
Name	Badham, John
Alternative names
Short description	Film director
Date of birth	August 25, 1939
Place of birth	Luton, Bedfordshire  England
Date of death
Place of death

Madeleine Stowe
Madeleine Stowe in 2002
Born	Madeline M. Stowe (1958-08-18) August 18, 1958 (age 53) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actress
Years active	1978–present
Spouse	Brian Benben (1982–present); 1 child

Madeleine Stowe (born Madeline M. Stowe;^[1] August 18, 1958) is an American actress. She rose to prominence appearing in such films as Revenge, Stakeout, Unlawful Entry, The Last of the Mohicans, Blink, China Moon, 12 Monkeys, General's Daughter, TheThe General's Daughter and We Were Soldiers. She currently stars as Victoria Grayson in the ABC drama series Revenge, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama in 2011.

Early life[link]

Stowe, the first of three children, was born in Los Angeles, California^[1][2] and raised in Eagle Rock, a suburb of Los Angeles. Her mother, Mireya (née Mora), had come from a prominent family in Costa Rica, and her father, Robert Stowe, a native of Oregon, was a civil engineer.^[2][3][4] Stowe's father suffered from multiple sclerosis, and she accompanied him to medical treatments.^[5]

Mireya Mora's parents were Federico Mora Carranza and Rosita Steinvorth Marín. Federico Mora, an accountant, was the son of Federico Mora Gutiérrez and Micaela Carranza Montealegre. Mr. Mora Gutiérrez was the son of General José Joaquín Mora Porras and María Dolores Gutiérrez de la Peña. General Mora was a younger brother of President Juan Rafael Mora Porras, President of Costa Rica between 1849-1859.^[6]

Another important link is that of Micaela Carranza Montealegre. Her father was Bruno Carranza, President of Costa Rica in 1870, albeit briefly, as he resigned three months after taking power. His wife, Gerónima Montealegre Fernández was also the sister of President José María Montealegre Fernández, who governed from 1859-1863. He was behind the overthrow of President Juan Rafael Mora Porras and his eventual execution in 1860. José María Montealegre Fernández was firstly married to a sister of Juan Rafael Mora Porras, hence they had been brothers-in-law before José María Montealegre Fernández decided to overthrow and exile Juan Rafael Mora Porras, whose unlawful execution by firing squad led to the eventual abolition of the death penalty in Costa Rica.^[7]

She originally aspired to become a concert pianist, taking piano lessons between the ages of 10 and 18. Stowe would later explain that playing the piano was a means of escape from having to socialize with other children her age. Her Russian-born music teacher, Sergei Tarnowsky, had faith in Stowe, even teaching her from his deathbed. Following his death at the age of 96, she quit, later commenting: "I just felt it was time to not be by myself anymore." Stowe went on her first date at the age of 18.^[8]

Career[link]

Stowe studied cinema and journalism at the University of Southern California. Not overly interested in her classes, she volunteered to do performances at the Solaris, a Beverly Hills theater, where a movie agent saw her in a play and got her several offers of appearances in TV and films. In 1978 she made her debut in an episode in the police drama series Baretta, followed by a string of TV work such as guest appearances on the The Amazing Spider-Man, Barnaby Jones and Little House on the Prairie in which she played Annie Crane - a blind painter. In 1978, she played a leading role as Mary in the television movie Nativity, TheThe Nativity.^[9] She starred in the NBC miniseries The Gangster Chronicles, which starred Brian Benben, her future husband. She also starred on several television films, such as Deerslayer, TheThe Deerslayer (1978), Amazons (1984) and Blood & Orchids (1986).^[10]

In 1987, Stowe appeared in her first breakthrough role in feature film, the comedy Stakeout opposite Richard Dreyfuss and Emilio Estevez.^[9]The film debuted at No.1 at the box office.^{[11] [12]} After Stakeout she co-starred with Mark Harmon in comedy Worth Winning in 1989, thriller Revenge, which Kevin Costner in 1990 and The Two Jakes opposite Jack Nicholson. She played a leading role in the 1991 independent film Closet Land written and directed by Radha Bharadwaj. Stowe played a young author of children's books and her co-star Alan Rickman as a ruthless interrogator.^[13]

In 1992, she appeared opposite Kurt Russell in the financially successful gritty crime drama Unlawful Entry.^[14] Also that year, Stowe played Cora Munro in The Last of the Mohicans, which also starred Daniel Day-Lewis. Her critically acclaimed performance in the film, which grossed more than $75 million worldwide, elevated Stowe from supporting player to an A-list movie star.^[9][15] The next year, director Robert Altman cast Stowe in award-winning ensemble cast movie Short Cuts, in which she gave one of her most acclaimed screen performances as the wife of a compulsively lying and adulterous police officer played by Tim Robbins. She won National Society of Film Critics Awards for Best Supporting Actress, Golden Globe Award and Volpi Cup for Best Ensemble Cast for her performance in the movie.^[16] She also made a cameo appearance in the Stakeout's sequel Another Stakeout^[9]. The following year, Stowe played leading role a blind musician in the thriller Blink, co-starring Aidan Quinn, neo-noir thriller China Moon opposite Ed Harris, and western film Bad Girls about four former prostitutes on the run following a justifiable homicide and a prison escape, who later encounter difficulties involving bank robbery and Pinkerton detectives, with Mary Stuart Masterson, Andie MacDowell and Drew Barrymore.^[15] The year after that, she was a sympathetic psychiatrist in the financially successful and critically lauded science-fiction movie Twelve Monkeys. Stowe received Saturn Awards nomination for her performance.^[16]

Madeleine Stowe in 2008

In 1994 Stowe named one of People magazine's "The 50 Most Beautiful People in the World".^[9][17] In 1995, Stowe was chosen by Empire as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in film history".^[18]

Stowe postponed her acting career in 1996 to concentrate on motherhood. In 1998, she came back with The Proposition and Playing by Heart, then The General's Daughter, opposite John Travolta in 1999.^[15] In 2001, she starred in the science-fiction box office bomb Impostor.^[19] In 2002 she played a Julia Moore in war film We Were Soldiers with Mel Gibson, and box office flop action-comedy Avenging Angelo opposite Sylvester Stallone.^[15] In 2003, she starred in the thriller Octane about single mother Senga Wilson (Stowe), a recently divorced woman, trying to save her 15-year-old daughter Natasha (Mischa Barton) from a bizarre cult obsessed with blood and cars.

Stowe had left the screen in 2003 and settled on a Texas ranch outside Fredericksburg, with her daughter May and husband Brian Benben. Stowe returned to television in 2005 with the role in the drama television film Saving Milly, adaptation of Morton Kondracke's book of the same name, of a woman, a patient Parkinson's disease.^[20] Stowe starred in the not picking up Fox pilot Southern Comfort about a woman who takes over her mobster husband's biz when he gets sent to prison.^[21] In 2007 she appeared in a recurring role as Dr. Samantha Kohl on the Jeff Goldblum's supernatural detective drama Raines on NBC, a 2007 mid-season replacement. The series was canceled after two months. In 2009 she starred in the Lifetime movie The Christmas Hope.^[15]

In 2011, Stowe returned to the screen as Victoria Grayson, the glamorous and powerful matriarch of the Grayson family, on ABC's television drama series Revenge.^[22][23] It debuted on September 21, 2011, and airs on Wednesday nights at 10:00 pm. The show has been met with positive reviews, was picked up for a full season by ABC on October 13, 2011.^[24] Stowe's portrayal of the character has received critical praise.^[25][25] She has been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Drama.^[26]

In April 2012 Stowe came 5th in People magazine's annual Most Beautiful Woman list.^[27][28]

Personal life[link]

In 1982, Stowe married Brian Benben, whom she met on the set of a NBC miniseries The Gangster Chronicles the previous year. They live west of Austin, near Johnson City, Texas, and have a daughter named May.^[29]

In 2008, Stowe travelled to Haiti and helped found Artists For Peace And Justice. She is on the advisory board of this foundation.^[30]

Filmography[link]

Awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Madeleine Stowe

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Madeleine Stowe

• Madeleine Stowe at the Internet Movie Database
• Madeleine Stowe at the TCM Movie Database
• Madeleine Stowe at AllRovi
• Madeleine Stowe at TV Guide
• Madeleine Stowe at People.com
• Madeleine Stowe at Rotten Tomatoes