This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can; the talk page may contain suggestions. (May 2010)

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2010)

Ray Stark (October 3, 1915 – January 17, 2004) was an American film producer and powerbroker known for his Machiavellian ways.

While putting together the Broadway musical Funny Girl - the highly fictionalized account of the life of his mother-in-law, Fanny Brice - its producer David Merrick took Stark and his wife to see an unknown singer perform at the Bon Soir in Greenwich Village. At first, the Starks balked at using Barbra Streisand, but settled for her when they couldn't get Eydie Gorme or Carol Burnett and their initial choice, Anne Bancroft, pulled out.^{[citation needed]}

Stark forced Streisand to sign a four-picture deal with his Rastar Productions in exchange for reprising Brice. They collaborated on The Owl and the Pussycat (1970), The Way We Were (1973) and Funny Lady (1975), but there was obvious bitterness: after Funny Lady wrapped, Streisand gave Stark an antique mirror on which she wrote in lipstick, "Paid in full."

Stark was the power behind the throne at Columbia Pictures in the 1970s and 80s. In 1977, when actor Cliff Robertson started an investigation which revealed that Columbia President David Begelman had forged checks, Stark told Robertson to not press on. Robertson said he would do "what a citizen should do in this situation," and Robertson was blacklisted for two years. The story is detailed in David McClintick's Indecent Exposure: a True Story of Hollywood and Wall Street.

He received the Irving G. Thalberg award in 1980 from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Later in his career, he produced such films as Annie and Steel Magnolias, with varying degrees of success.

Ray Stark and his wife Frances owned Rancho Corral de Quati, a 300-acre (1.2 km²) ranch in Los Olivos, California and were breeders of Thoroughbred racehorses^[1]

On his death in 2004, Ray Stark was interred in the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles. Following his death a large part of his modern sculpture collection was given to the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. The Ray and Fran Stark Sculpture Garden opened in 2007 and accounts for approximately 75% of the sculptures in the museums collection.

Films[link]

• The World of Suzie Wong (1960, Paramount Pictures)
• The Night of the Iguana (1964, MGM)
• This Property Is Condemned (1966, Paramount)
• Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967, Warner Bros.)
• Funny Girl (1968, Columbia)
• The Owl and the Pussycat (1970, Columbia)
• Fat City (1972, Columbia)
• The Way We Were (1973, Columbia)
• The Sunshine Boys (1975, MGM)
• Funny Lady (1975, Columbia)
• Robin and Marian (1976, Columbia)
• Murder by Death (1976, Columbia)
• The Goodbye Girl (1977, MGM)
• Smokey and the Bandit (1977, Universal)
• The Cheap Detective (1978, Columbia)
• California Suite (1978, Columbia)
• The Electric Horseman (1979, Universal/Columbia)
• Annie (1982, Columbia)
• The Slugger's Wife (1985, Columbia)
• Steel Magnolias (1989, TriStar)
• Lost in Yonkers (1993, Columbia)
• Barbarians at the Gate (1993, HBO, made for TV)

References[link]

1. ^ NTRA

External links[link]

• Ray Stark at the Internet Movie Database
• Ray Stark at the Internet Broadway Database

Mario Van Peebles
Mario Van Peebles, March 2005
Born	Mario Cain Van Peebles (1957-01-15) January 15, 1957 (age 55) Mexico City, Mexico
Occupation	Actor, director
Years active	1971–present

Mario "Chip"^[1] Cain Van Peebles^[2] (born January 15, 1957) is an American director and actor who has appeared in numerous Hollywood films. He is the son of filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles.

Life and career[link]

Van Peebles was born in Mexico City, Mexico, the son of writer, director and actor Melvin Van Peebles and German actress and photographer Maria Marx.^[3] He graduated from Saint Thomas More School in Connecticut in 1974 and from Columbia University in 1978 with a bachelor's degree in economics. He is married to Chitra Sukhu Van Peebles and has five children: Makaylo, Mandela, Marley, Maya and Morgana (3 boys, 2 girls).

Over the next 30 years, Van Peebles starred in and directed many television shows & films, including Panther, Ali, New Jack City, and an episode of Lost.