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Elizabeth Landau^[1] (born November 1967) is an American film maker, who has produced documentaries such as 1999's Does Life Get Better After 30?.

Landau was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and spent her childhood there in in the 70's, in Dallas, Texas in the 1980s, and then back to Memphis. Landau graduated at the University of Texas at Austin. She traveled all over the globe, participating in various foreign exchange programs, before moving back to Dallas for a short time. Landau then settled down in the Village (in NYC) before marrying Andy Breckman and moving to Madison, a small suburban town in New Jersey.

In May 2002 she organized a trip to Memphis for New York City firefighters in gratitude for their service in the September 11 attacks. This trip was the subject of a story in the October 15 episode of This American Life, "Middlemen", and resulted in her being the recipient of one of the New York Post's Liberty Medal Awards in 2003.

She is the second wife of Andy Breckman and appeared briefly on Monk, a television show he produces, in the fourth-season episode "Mr. Monk and Mrs. Monk". Her name was used for a murdered English teacher in the season 2 episode "Mr. Monk Goes Back to School".

Ms. Landau (who retained her maiden name) has two children: Molly Breckman, born September 7, 2005, and Evan Breckman, also born in September, of 2006. She has three stepchildren from her husband's previous marriage: Josh, Rachel, and Julie.

In 2011, Landau and her husband were a featured couple in the documentary When Strangers Click, a film about internet dating.

References[link]

External links[link]

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzsl7wQnTRA
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sXgOTzQPis&feature=related
• October 15, 2002 episode of This American Life

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Ann Robinson (born May 25, 1935) is an American actress and stunt horse rider, perhaps best known for her work in the film, The War of the Worlds and in the 1947 to 1970 radio and television series, Dragnet, in which she starred opposite Jack Webb.

Personal life[link]

Robinson was born at the Hollywood Hospital, in Hollywood, California.^[1] She attended Hollywood High School in the early 1950s. Her father was employed by the Bank of Hollywood, on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, and she learned from him, at the age of three, how to ride horses. She became an accomplished rider, which led to her first professional work in Hollywood as a stunt rider.^[2]

Her career as a leading woman was effectively ended in 1957, when she eloped to Mexico to marry a matador, Jaime Bravo, with whom she had two sons; Jaime Bravo, Jr., who is a director for ABC Sports, and Estefan A. Bravo, who played the Axl Rose-like character in White Trash Wins Lotto, a musical by Andy Prieboy. Since that marriage, Robinson has played minor roles, mainly in science fiction films. The couple divorced in 1967^[2] and the same year, Bravo married a Las Vegas showgirl from Les Folies Bergère, named Monica Lind, by whom he had his third and final son, Aleco Jaime Bravo, before he died in an automobile accident in 1970.^[2]

Ann married real estate broker and business manager Joseph Valdez in 1987 and lives with her husband in the Echo Park section of Los Angeles, California.^[3] She makes guest appearances at autograph shows and science fiction conventions.

Acting career[link]

As a stunt horse rider, Ann Robinson doubled for Shelly Winters in the 1950 film Frenchie, starring and riding in several westerns during her career such as The Cimarron Kid (1951) with Audie Murphy, Gun Brothers (1956), and Gun Duel in Durango (1957).^[2]

Paramount signed her as an actress in the 1950s. Her first leading role was as "Sylvia Van Buren" in that studio's 1953 film, The War of the Worlds, a role she quasi-reprised in two later films, first as Dr. Van Buren in 1988's Midnight Movie Massacre and then as Dr. Sylvia Van Buren in 2005's The Naked Monster, before reprising the role again in three episodes of the 1988 War of the Worlds television series. She worked on several other films, including Imitation of Life (1959), and Julie (1956).She also had a starring role opposite Jack Webb, in the radio and television series Dragnet, which was broadcast in multiple versions between 1947 and 1970.^[2]

She has worked on numerous television shows and commercials, some in guest starring roles, including credits on episodes of Adam 12, Alfred Hitchcock, Bachelor Father, Ben Casey, Biff Baker, USA, Bob Cummings Show, Burns and Allen, Caesar Romero Series, Callie and Sons, Darren Mcgavin- Series, Days Of Our Lives, Four Star Playhouse, General Hospital, Gilligans Island, It's a Great Life, Millionaire, My Little Margie, Perry Mason, Peter Gunn, Police Woman, Rawhide, Rocky Jones Space Ranger, Roy Calhoun's series, The Texan, The Web, Victor Jory series, Waterfront, and Wyatt Earp.^[2]

She was featured in several commercials for Home Savings Of America, Toni home perms, and Chesterfield Cigarettes. She also performed a number of film voice-overs also, in English and Spanish, in both of which she is fluent. She did the leading actress' voice in To Begin Again, which won the 1984 Oscar for best foreign film. She also did loops for the Bruce Lee Series, The Dead Are Alive, Tough Guys, and Survive. In the 2005 Steven Spielberg film, War of the Worlds, she played the role of Tom Cruise's character's mother in law, the grandmother of Dakota Fanning's character.^[2]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ann Robinson at the Internet Movie Database

Mary Beth Peil (born June 25, 1940) is an American actress and singer.

Early life[link]

Born in Davenport, Iowa in 1940, Peil (pronounced "peel") trained as an opera singer at Northwestern University under Lotte Lehmann. There she became a member of the Gamma Phi Beta sorority. In 1964 she won both the Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions.

Career[link]

During the 1960s, Peil toured with Boris Goldovsky's opera company and the Metropolitan Opera's national company singing such roles as Susanna in Mozart and da Ponte's The Marriage of Figaro. She also sang with the New York City Opera.

In 1971, she originated the role of Alma in the opera Summer and Smoke, based on a Tennessee Williams play, and performed it again when it was broadcast on television in 1982 (based on a 1980 performance).^[1]

Peil was persuaded to take a role in Kiss Me, Kate and soon found herself on Broadway. In May 1983 she was cast in a national tour as the twelfth and final Anna Leonowens opposite Yul Brynner's monarch of Siam in a revival of The King and I. The production toured the United States, closing on Broadway shortly before Brynner's death in 1985. Peil was nominated for a 1985 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical.^[2][3] She starred in the 1987 Off-Broadway musical Birds of Paradise.

She made her film debut in 1992's Jersey Girl. She appeared on TV's Law & Order in 1994. Peil won an Obie Award in 1995 for her work in three non-musical plays, The Naked Truth,^[4] Missing Persons, and A Cheever Evening.^[3][5]

In 1996 and 1997, Peil toured in A. R. Gurney's play, Sylvia with Charles Kimbrough and Stephanie Zimbalist. She played evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson in a 1998 off-Broadway revival of the Irving Berlin - Moss Hart revue As Thousands Cheer.^[6]

Between 1998 and 2003, Peil was introduced to a wider audience through her role as Evelyn 'Grams' Ryan on teen television drama Dawson's Creek. Alongside the four main young stars of that show, she was the only actress to appear as a credited regular throughout the show's six-season run, appearing in 74 of 128 episodes.

In May 1999, Peil appeared in the Yale Repertory Theatre's production of the Noël Coward play Hay Fever. She played the beggar woman in Sweeney Todd at the Kennedy Center in 2002 and in the spring of 2003 she played the mother of Antonio Banderas's character in a Broadway revival of the musical Nine. In the winter of 2003, she again appeared off-Broadway, starring in Frame 312, Keith Reddin's play about the Kennedy assassination.^[7] In 2008 she appeared as the Old Lady and Blair Daniels in the Roundabout Theatre Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's musical Sunday in the Park with George.

Peil portrayed Nancy Reagan's mother, actress Edith Luckett, in the Showtime movie The Reagans (2003). She also appeared in the thriller Mirrors (2008), filmed in Romania. As of 2009 she is playing "Jackie Florrick", the mother of Chris Noth's character, on the CBS drama The Good Wife.

Starting in October 2010 she appeared in the original Broadway cast of the Lincoln Center Theater production of the musical Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, which is based upon the movie of the same name.^[8] The show had a limited run until January 2011. Peil appeared in Stephen Sondheim's Follies on Broadway in the role of Solange LaFitte, alongside Bernadette Peters and Elaine Paige, starting in August 2011.^{[9] [10]} In March 2012, she appeared as Erica Morini in Willy Holtzman's off-Broadway play The Morini Strad about the concert violinist.^[11]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Mary Beth Peil at the Internet Movie Database
• Mary Beth Peil at the Internet Broadway Database
• Mary Beth Peil at Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Biography from American Repertory Theater with photo
• Photos from Summer and Smoke

Michael Landau (1 June 1958, Los Angeles) is a prolific session musician and guitarist who has played on a large number of albums since the early 1980s with artists as varied as Seal, Michael Jackson, James Taylor, Helen Watson, Richard Marx, Steve Perry, Pink Floyd^[1] and Miles Davis. Landau, along with fellow session guitarists Dean Parks, Steve Lukather and Dann Huff, played on many of the major label releases recorded in Los Angeles from the 1980s-1990s.

In addition to his session work, Landau has also fronted several bands including Raging Honkies and Burning Water. In the early 1980s, he was also in the band Maxus that featured future Los Angeles session musicians Robbie Buchanan, Jay Gruska, and Doane Perry. Landau was also in competition with high school bandmate Steve Lukather to become the guitarist for Toto in the late 1970s.

His brother Teddy Landau is married to pop singer Michelle Branch.

References[link]

• http://www.mikelandau.com/
• http://www.allmusic.com/artist/p96267

Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr.
Murphy performing in December 2011.
Background information
Born	(1974-08-11) August 11, 1974 (age 37)[1]
Origin	Logan County, West Virginia, United States
Genres	Jazz
Occupations	Singer
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	2011–present
Labels	Sony (2011-present)[2] Columbia (2011-present)[3]
Website	landaumurphyjr.com

Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr. (born August 11, 1974)^[1] is a jazz singer from Logan County, West Virginia. He received national attention for winning the sixth season of the NBC reality show America's Got Talent.^[4]

[edit] Before AGT

Before America's Got Talent, Murphy worked as a car washer. He was homeless at age 19.^[5]

[edit] America's Got Talent

Murphy was revealed as the winner of the show on September 14, 2011, after a positively received performance of "My Way", a song popularized by Frank Sinatra.^[4][6] He won the $1 million grand prize and will begin a headlining act in Las Vegas on October 28.^[5]

Performances and results[link]

[edit] Post-Talent

Landau has since been signed to Sony Records and Columbia Records,^[3] and released his first album That's Life on November 21, 2011.^[2] The album debuted at #34 on the Billboard 200 selling 28,000 copies, then fell to #41 the next week on the charts.

On Amazon, That's Life has reached #1 in the Jazz category.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b} "Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr. - AGTNews.com Finale Interview - 09/14/2011". YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u28Rgh47Czk. Retrieved September 15, 2011. 
2. ^ ^{a b} America's Got Talent winner records his million dollar CD in H-Town with Steve Tyrell
3. ^ ^{a b} Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr., Winner of "America's Got Talent," to Release That's Life November 21
4. ^ ^{a b} Harold, Zack. "Logan wigs out for Landau Murphy Jr.". Charleston Daily Mail. http://www.dailymail.com/Entertainment/201109135229. Retrieved 15 September 2011. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Shira, Dahvi (September 15, 2011). "Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr. Wants AGT Win to Inspire Hope". People Magazine. http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20528514,00.html. Retrieved 16 September 2011. 
6. ^ Macht, Daniel. "Landau Eugene Murphy, Jr. Wins "America's Got Talent"". NBCDFW.com. http://www.nbcdfw.com/entertainment/television/Landau-Eugene-Murphy-Jr-Wins-Americas-Got-Talent--129851198.html. Retrieved 15 September 2011. 
7. ^ "Building Album Sales Chart". HITS Daily Double. 2012-01-16. http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/sales/salescht.cgi. Retrieved 2012-01-20. 

External links[link]

• Official website
• Interview with NPR's All Things Considered

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