• Andy Dick
• Anne Meara
• Arrow Entertainment
• B movies
• Ben Stiller
• Ben Vaughn
• Chris Franklin
• English language
• Fred Dryer
• Fred Williamson
• Ginger Lynn
• Independent films
• Janeane Garofalo
• Jerry Stiller
• John Lydon
• Jonathan Katz
• Julie Strain
• Karen Black
• Max Perlich
• Mike Wilkins
• Mockumentary
• Nick Cassavetes
• Parody
• Peter Bogdanovich
• Roger Corman
• Ron Howard
• Stephen Kessler
• United Lotus Group
• United States
• 
  

• 
  United States
  The United States of America (commonly abbreviated to the United States, the U.S., the USA, America, and the States) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to the east and Russia to the west, across the Bering Strait. The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific. The country also possesses several territories in the Pacific and Caribbean.
  At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 312 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and the third largest by both land area and population. It is one of the world's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries. The U.S. economy is the world's largest national economy, with an estimated 2011 GDP of $15.1 trillion (22% of nominal global GDP and over 19% of global GDP at purchasing-power parity). Per capita income is the world's sixth-highest.
  
  wn.com/United_States

• Amir Hamed
  Amir Hamed (Born 1962) is a Uruguayan writer and translator.
  Born in Montevideo, he earned a degree in literature from the University of the Republic and a doctorate in Hispanoamerican literature from Northwestern University.
  Uruguayan literature
  
  
  
  wn.com/Amir_Hamed
• 
  Andy Dick
  Andrew Roane "Andy" Dick (born December 21, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, musician and television/film producer. He is best known as a talented comic but is also known for his eccentric and controversial behavior. His first regular television role was on the short-lived but influential Ben Stiller Show. In the mid-1990s, he had a long-running stint on NBC's NewsRadio and was a supporting character on Less than Perfect. He briefly had his own program, The Andy Dick Show on MTV, and he is also noted for his outlandish behavior from a number of Comedy Central Roasts.
  Dick was born Andrew Roane Dick in Charleston, South Carolina on December 21, 1965 and he was adopted at birth by Allen and Sue Dick. He was brought up Presbyterian, and as a kid, he spent time living with his family in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, New York, and Yugoslavia before moving to Chicago in 1979. He attended Lassiter High School, which was being temporarily housed at George Walton Comprehensive High School in Cobb County, Georgia. Dick appeared in numerous theater productions during his high school years and was elected homecoming king his senior year in 1983. While in high school, Dick tended to use his name as a joke; and one day, he dressed in a homemade superhero costume and presented himself at school as "Super Dick". Dick graduated from Joliet West High School in 1984, and is a friend of actor Anthony Rapp, whom he had known since childhood. After graduating from high school, Dick joined Chicago's Second City, attended Columbia College Chicago, and took improv comedy classes at i.O. (formerly 'ImprovOlympic').
  
  wn.com/Andy_Dick
• Anne Meara
  Anne Meara (born September 20, 1929) is an American actress and comedian. She and Jerry Stiller were a prominent 1960s comedy team, appearing as Stiller and Meara, and are the parents of actor/comedian Ben and actress Amy Stiller.
  Meara was born in Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of Irish immigrant parents, Mary (née Dempsey) and Edward Joseph Meara, a lawyer. Meara was raised Catholic in an Irish American family, and converted to Reform Judaism six years after marrying Stiller. She has long stressed that she did not convert at Stiller's request, but because "Catholicism was dead to me." She took the conversion seriously and studied the faith in such depth that her Jewish-born husband quipped, "Being married to Anne has made me more Jewish."
  Meara has written about her mother's death and her childhood experiences at Catholic boarding school.
  Meara has been married to Stiller since 1954. Both were members of the improvisational company The Compass Players (which later became The Second City), and the pair, as the comedy team Stiller and Meara, brought many of their real-life relationship foibles to bear on their often-improvised comedy routines. After some years honing the act, Stiller and Meara became regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show and other TV programs. Their career declined, however, as variety series gradually disappeared.
  
  wn.com/Anne_Meara
• 
  Ben Stiller
  Benjamin Edward "Ben" Stiller (born November 30, 1965) is an American comedian, actor, writer, film director, and producer. He is the son of veteran comedians and actors Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.
  After beginning his acting career with a play, Stiller wrote several mockumentaries, and was offered two of his own shows, both entitled The Ben Stiller Show. He began acting in films, and made his directorial debut with Reality Bites. Throughout his career he has since written, starred in, directed, and/or produced over 50 films including Heavyweights, There's Something About Mary, Meet the Parents, Zoolander, Dodgeball, Tropic Thunder, Greenberg and Night at the Museum. In addition, he has had multiple cameos in music videos, television shows, and films.
  Stiller is a member of the comedic acting brotherhood colloquially known as the Frat Pack. His films have grossed more than $2.1 billion in Canada and the United States, with an average of $73 million per film. Throughout his career, he has received several awards and honors including an Emmy Award, several MTV Movie Awards, and a Teen Choice Award.
  
  wn.com/Ben_Stiller
• Ben Vaughn
  Ben Vaughn is an American musician, music producer and a longtime Rambler (automobile) enthusiast.
  Vaughn grew up in Collingswood, New Jersey, and his interest in music began at age 6 when his uncle gave him a Duane Eddy record. The "Ben Vaughn Combo" released two albums and toured the U.S. from 1983 to 1988. Vaughn then had a solo career, 1988–1994, recording four albums and touring Europe and the United States. As a musician, he is perhaps best known for his "Rambler '65" album when Vaughn decided to "cut out the middleman," as he puts it, and recorded an entire album in his 1965 Rambler American.
  As a producer, Vaughn made albums for artists such as Charlie Feathers and Los Straitjackets. He also collaborated with Alan Vega and Alex Chilton and contributed a cover, (Paradise) to an Alex Chilton tribute album released by Munster Records based in Madrid, Spain.
  In 1996, Vaughn produced Ween's cult classic, a ten track exploration of country music - 12 Golden Country Greats. Musically, 12 Golden Country Greats was, more or less, classic country sounds. Ween and Vaughn went so far as to enlist the services of veteran Nashville session musicians. However, while even the vocal performances were an exquisite mimic of country singing, the album's lyrics were decidedly twisted.
  
  wn.com/Ben_Vaughn
• Chris Franklin
  Chris Franklin (born 1964) is an Australian stand up comedian and former sailor for the Royal Australian Navy. He is most famous for writing the song "Bloke" (a bogan parody of Meredith Brooks' feminist anthem "Bitch"), which reached #1 on the ARIA Charts in 2000. Through his music, Chris Franklin emulates the stereotypical Aussie 'bloke' or 'yobbo' frequently appearing in a flannelet shirt and double plugger thongs. Chris Franklin's "Hoganesque" style of comedy is aimed largely at the chief perceived concerns of the 'average' Australian: beer, sport and relationships. He currently lives on Magnetic Island, off the coast of Townsville, Queensland.
  Chris was born in Sydney and from age 3 to 5 lived on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea and as a young adult spent eight years in the Royal Australian Navy. He is a qualified chef and was one of seven chosen to cook for the Queen during her visit to Australia in the 1980s. After this Chris quit the navy to take ten years 'off' to travel Australia.
  
  wn.com/Chris_Franklin
• Fred Dryer
  John Frederick "Fred" Dryer (born July 6, 1946 in Hawthorne, California) is an American actor and former football defensive end in the National Football League (NFL). Dryer played 13 years in the NFL, playing 176 games, starting 166, and recording 104 career sacks with the New York Giants and Los Angeles Rams. Dryer is the only NFL player to score two safeties in one game.
  Following his retirement from football, Dryer had a successful career as a film and television actor, notably starring in the series Hunter. His height (6'6" or 1.98 m) and physique was useful for his action roles.
  The son of Charles F. Dryer and Genevieve Nell Clark, Dryer began his football career at Lawndale High School in Lawndale, California, and then attended El Camino Junior College before transferring to San Diego State University (SDSU).
  Dryer was inducted to the El Camino C.C. Athletic Hall Of Fame in 1988, as a charter member and was the Athlete of the Year for his 1966 performance on the football field. Dryer was also a 1966 Junior College All-American
  
  wn.com/Fred_Dryer
• 
  Fred Williamson
  Fred "The Hammer" Williamson (born March 5, 1938) is an American actor, architect, and former professional American football defensive back who played mainly in the American Football League during the 1960s.
  After playing college football for Northwestern in the late 1950s, he was drafted by the San Francisco 49ers #2 overall. When during training camp he was switched to their defense, his attitude over the switch prompted him to hit his assignment too hard, the 49ers coach asked him to quit "hammering" his players. The nickname "The Hammer" stuck with him ever since. He played a year for the Pittsburgh Steelers in the National Football League in 1960. He then switched to the new American Football League. Williamson played four seasons for the AFL’s Oakland Raiders, making the AFL All-Star team in 1961, 1962, and 1963. He also played three seasons for the AFL’s Kansas City Chiefs.
  During his time with the Chiefs, Williamson became one of football’s first self-promoters, coining the nickname “The Hammer”—because he used his forearm to deliver karate-style blows to the heads of opposing receivers. Prior to Super Bowl I, he garnered national headlines by boasting that he would knock Green Bay Packers starting receivers Carroll Dale and Boyd Dowler out of the game, stating “Two hammers to (Boyd) Dowler, one to (Carroll) Dale should be enough”. His prediction turned out to be ironic, because Williamson himself was knocked out of the game in the fourth quarter, his head meeting the knee of Packer running back Donny Anderson. Williamson finished his eight-season NFL/AFL career in 1967 with 36 interceptions, which he returned for 479 yards and 2 touchdowns, in 104 games. After a brief stint with the CFL's Montreal Alouettes in the 1968 season, he retired permanently from pro football.
  
  wn.com/Fred_Williamson
• 
  Ginger Lynn
  Ginger Lynn (born Ginger Lynn Allen; December 14, 1962) is an American pornographic model, prominent in 1980s videos. She also had occasional roles in low-budget B-movies. AVN has ranked her at #7 in a list of the 50 greatest porn stars of all time. After ending her adult-entertainment career she began using her full name of Ginger Lynn Allen and found work in a variety of B-movies. She had a late career comeback to the adult industry and made a brief series of movies. During this two-year period she toured the country doing interviews for radio shows and appearances at adult-entertainment stores.
  Ginger Lynn Allen moved to California in 1982 after hearing about her grandfather's heart attack. Following her grandfather's death, a male friend came to live with her and became her "first nice boyfriend". Allen was the major financial supporter in the relationship and needed to find a higher-paying job.^{[citation needed]} When she answered an advertisement from the World Modeling Agency in September 1983, she was immediately hired and did a spread for Penthouse. This made her visible to the adult film industry.
  
  wn.com/Ginger_Lynn
• 
  Janeane Garofalo
  Janeane Garofalo ( /dʒəˈniːn ɡəˈrɒfəloʊ/; born September 28, 1964) is an American stand-up comedian, actress, progressive political activist and writer. She is the former co-host on the now defunct Air America Radio's The Majority Report. Garofalo continues to participate regularly in New York City's local comedy and performance art scene.
  Garofalo was born in Newton, New Jersey, the daughter of Joan and Carmine Garofalo. Her mother was a secretary, in the petrochemical industry, who died of cancer when Janeane was 24. Her father is a former executive at Exxon. Garofalo was raised as a conservative Catholic and is of Italian and Irish descent. She grew up in various places, including Ontario, California, Madison, New Jersey and Katy, Texas. Garofalo is quoted as having disliked life in Houston because of the heat and humidity and the emphasis on prettiness and sports in high school.
  While studying history at Providence College, Garofalo entered a comedy talent search sponsored by the Showtime cable network, winning the title of "Funniest Person in Rhode Island." Her original gimmick was to read off her hand, which was not successful in subsequent performances. Dreaming of earning a slot on the writing staff of the TV show Late Night With David Letterman, she became a professional standup upon graduating from college with degrees in History and American Studies. She struggled for a number of years, working briefly as a bike messenger in Boston.
  
  wn.com/Janeane_Garofalo
• 
  Jerry Stiller
  Gerald Isaac "Jerry" Stiller (born June 8, 1927) is an American comedian and actor.
  He spent many years in the comedy team Stiller and Meara with his wife Anne Meara. Stiller and Meara are the parents of actor Ben Stiller (with whom he co-starred in the movies Zoolander, Heavyweights, Hot Pursuit and The Heartbreak Kid) and actress Amy Stiller.
  He is best known for his recurring role as Frank Costanza on the television series Seinfeld and his supporting role as Arthur Spooner on the television series The King of Queens.
  The eldest of four children, Stiller was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Bella (née Citrin) and William Stiller, a bus driver. He attended Seward Park High School. A drama major at Syracuse University, he gained a Bachelor's degree in Speech and Drama in 1950.
  In the 1953 Phoenix Theater production of Coriolanus (produced by John Houseman) Jerry Stiller (along with Gene Saks and Jack Klugman) formed "the best trio of Shakespearian clowns that [he] had ever seen on any stage."
  
  wn.com/Jerry_Stiller
• 
  John Lydon
  John Joseph Lydon (born 31 January 1956), also known by the former stage name Johnny Rotten, is a singer-songwriter and television presenter, best known as the lead singer of punk rock band the Sex Pistols from 1975 until 1978, and again for various revivals during the 1990s and 2000s. He is the lead singer of the post-punk band Public Image Ltd, which he founded and fronted from 1978 until 1993, and again from 2009. Throughout his career, Lydon has made controversial or dismissive comments about the royal family and other subjects. There has been a recent revival of a 1980s movement to have Lydon knighted for his achievements with the Sex Pistols. Q Magazine remarked that "somehow he's assumed the status of national treasure."
  Lydon's personally crafted image and fashion style led to him being asked to become the singer of the Sex Pistols by their manager, Malcolm McLaren. With the Pistols, he penned singles including "Anarchy in the U.K.", "God Save the Queen" and "Holidays in the Sun", the content of which precipitated the "last and greatest outbreak of pop-based moral pandemonium" in Britain. The band caused nationwide uproar in much of the media, who objected to the content of Lydon’s lyrics, and their antics, which included swearing on live television, in which Steve Jones called Bill Grundy a "fucking rotter". Due to the band's appearance in the media, Lydon was largely seen as the figurehead of the punk movement in the public image although this idea was not widely supported amongst the punk movement itself. Despite the negative reaction that they provoked, they are now regarded as one of the most influential acts in the history of popular music.
  
  wn.com/John_Lydon
• 
  Jonathan Katz
  Jonathan Paul Katz (born December 1, 1946) is an American comedian, actor, and voice actor best known for his starring role in the animated sitcom Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. He releases podcasts titled Hey, We're Back on www.wkatz.com and also can be heard on Explosion Bus at www.explosionbus.com.
  Katz's father was an immigrant from Budapest, Hungary.
  He is a close friend of playwright David Mamet, with whom he attended Goddard College. Katz co-wrote House of Games with Mamet and had small roles in the Mamet-directed films Things Change, Homicide, The Spanish Prisoner and State and Main.
  Katz and Mamet used to travel from college to college hustling people at ping-pong. Katz was the New York ping-pong champion in 1964. He would let Mamet beat him. They would pretend to play for money, and then Mamet would say to a mark, "If you want to play me, you have to beat my friend first." To keep the game moderately close, Katz would sometimes spot his opponents 15 points and during every point recall a painful experience from his childhood.
  
  wn.com/Jonathan_Katz
• 
  Julie Strain
  Julie Strain (born February 18, 1962) is an American actress and model who was Penthouse Pet of the Month in June 1991 and later chosen as the magazine's Pet of the Year in 1993.
  Strain was born in Concord, California. A graduate of Diablo Valley College, she had an extensive athletic background. Much of her youth was wiped from her memory, however, when she was left with a case of retrograde amnesia due to a severe head injury suffered in a fall from a horse. She eventually made her way to Las Vegas and later Hollywood, California and her career took off. Julie faced very difficult odds and managed to come out on top as a model, actress, and B-Movie goddess.
  With over 100 films to her credit, Strain has come to be known as the "Queen of the B-movies".^{[citation needed]} In addition, she was Penthouse Pet of the Month for June 1991, and Penthouse Pet of the Year for 1993. She has also had her likeness attached to numerous comic book characters and animation items. For example, she did the voice acting for the main character in the animated movie Heavy Metal 2000 and was the basis for the third person shooter Heavy Metal: F.A.K.K.².
  
  wn.com/Julie_Strain
• 
  Karen Black
  Karen Black (born July 1, 1939) is an American actress, screenwriter, singer, and songwriter. She is noted for appearing in such films as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Great Gatsby, Rhinoceros, The Day of the Locust, Nashville, Airport 1975, and Alfred Hitchcock's final film, Family Plot. Over the course of her career, she won two Golden Globe Awards (out of three nominations), and an Academy Award nomination in 1970 for Best Supporting Actress, among numerous other honors.
  Black was born as Karen Blanche Ziegler in Park Ridge, Illinois, in suburban Chicago, the daughter of Elsie Mary (née Reif), a writer of several prize-winning children's novels, and Norman Arthur Ziegler. Her paternal grandfather was Arthur Charles Ziegler, a classical musician and the first violinist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Her sister is actress Gail Brown. Black is of German, Bohemian (Czech), and Norwegian descent. She attended Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, for two years, having commenced university studies in 1954, aged 15. She then moved to New York where she appeared in a number of Off-Broadway productions, as well as moonlighting on the female professional wrestling circuit.
  
  wn.com/Karen_Black
• Max Perlich
  Max Perlich (born March 28, 1968) is an American film and television actor.
  He was born in Cleveland, Ohio. His mother was a teacher and his father, Martin Perlich, a writer and radio programming director and announcer, worked for a time with the Cleveland Orchestra. The Perlich family moved to Los Angeles, California when Max was four. He is left-handed.
  Perlich's career began with a small part in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, which came after he had dropped out of high school in the 10th grade. Thus began his appearances in a series of bit parts on television and in teen films such as Can't Buy Me Love (1987), Plain Clothes (1988) and Lost Angels (1989). His roles usually were of the slacker or juvenile delinquent variety. As he outgrew the teen genre, his later performances, although still minor, were distinguished by eccentricity and twitchy, nervous energy, fully realized in the films Gleaming the Cube (1989) and Drugstore Cowboy (1989). He has appeared in supporting roles in films such as Rush (1991), Cliffhanger (1993), Maverick (1994), Georgia (1995), Blow (2001) and The Missing (2003). Along with his continuing work in films, he has had recurring roles in television shows such as Homicide: Life on the Street (1997), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1998), My Name Is Earl (2006), and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008). He is also featured in the music videos "No Excuses" by Alice In Chains and "Naked Eye" by Luscious Jackson.
  
  wn.com/Max_Perlich
• Nick Cassavetes
  Nicholas David Rowland "Nick" Cassavetes (Greek: Νικ Κασσαβέτης; born May 21, 1959) is an American film actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker.
  Cassavetes was born in New York City, the son of actress Gena Rowlands and Greek-American actor and film director John Cassavetes. As a child, he appeared in two of his father's films: Husbands (1970) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974). After spending so much of his youth surrounded by the film industry, Cassavetes initially decided he did not want to go into the field. He instead attended Syracuse University on a basketball scholarship. His athletic career was effectively ended by an injury, and he decided to rethink his aspirations, ultimately deciding to attend his parents' alma mater, the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.
  He has appeared in the films Face/Off, The Wraith, Life, Class of 1999 II: The Substitute, Backstreet Dreams and The Astronaut's Wife, among others. He has directed several films, including John Q, Alpha Dog, She's So Lovely, Unhook the Stars, The Notebook, and My Sister's Keeper. He also adapted the screenplay for Blow and wrote the dialogue for the Justin Timberlake music video "What Goes Around... Comes Around".
  
  wn.com/Nick_Cassavetes
• 
  Peter Bogdanovich
  Peter Bogdanovich (Serbian: Петар Богдановић, Petar Bogdanović, born July 30, 1939) is an American film historian, director, writer, actor, producer, and critic. He was part of the wave of "New Hollywood" directors, which included William Friedkin, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Martin Scorsese, Michael Cimino, and Francis Ford Coppola. His most critically acclaimed film is The Last Picture Show (1971).
  Bogdanovich was conceived in Europe and born in Kingston, New York in America, the son of Herma (née Robinson) and Borislav Bogdanovich, a painter and pianist. His Austrian-born mother was Jewish and his father was Serbian and an Eastern Orthodox Christian. He was an actor in the 1950s, studying his craft with acting teacher Stella Adler, and appeared on television and in summer stock. In the early 1960s, Bogdanovich was known as a film programmer at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. An obsessive cinema-goer, seeing up to 400 movies a year in his youth, Bogdanovich showcased the work of American directors such as Orson Welles and John Ford, whom he later wrote a book about based on the notes he had produced for the MoMA retrospective of the director, and Howard Hawks. Bogdanovich also brought attention to such forgotten pioneers of American cinema as Allan Dwan.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Bogdanovich
• 
  Roger Corman
  Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an Academy Award winning American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for his body of work. Corman has occasionally taken minor acting roles in such films as The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather Part II, Apollo 13 and Philadelphia. A documentary about Roger Corman's life and career entitled Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel premiered at Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals in 2011, directed by Alex Stapleton. The film's TV rights were picked up by A&E IndieFilms after a well-received screening at Sundance.
  Corman has been a mentor to young film directors including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, Curtis Hanson, John Sayles, and many others. He has also helped launch the careers of actors including Jack Nicholson, William Shatner, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Talia Shire and Robert De Niro.
  
  wn.com/Roger_Corman
• 
  Ron Howard
  Ronald William "Ron" Howard (born March 1, 1954) is an American film director, producer and former child actor. He came to prominence playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years. He appeared in the films American Graffiti in 1973 and The Shootist in 1976, the latter during his run on Happy Days. Howard made his directorial debut with the 1977 comedy Grand Theft Auto, and left Happy Days in 1980 to focus on directing. His films include the Academy Award-winning Cocoon, Apollo 13, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and A Beautiful Mind. In 2003, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Asteroid 12561 Howard is named after him.
  Howard was born in Duncan, Oklahoma, the son of Jean Speegle Howard, an actress, and Rance Howard, a director, writer and actor. His father was born with the surname "Beckenholdt", and had taken the stage name "Howard" by 1948, for his acting career. Rance Howard was serving three years in the United States Air Force at the time of Ron's birth. The family moved to Hollywood in 1958, the year before the birth of his younger brother, Clint Howard. They rented a house on the block south of the Desilu Studios, where The Andy Griffith Show would later be filmed. They lived in Hollywood for at least three years, before moving to Burbank.
  
  wn.com/Ron_Howard

My Big Fat Independent Movie (2005)

Actors

• Paget Brewster
• Eric Hoffman
• Darren Reiher
• Neil Barton
• Darren Keefe
• Bob Odenkirk
• Jason Mewes
• Ashley Head
• Clint Howard
• Brian Krow
• Rob Schrab
• Paul Goebel
• Neil Hopkins
• Pete Jones
• Julie Strain

Director

• Philip Zlotorynski