Billy Curtis (born Luigi Curto; June 27, 1909 – November 9, 1988) was an American film and television actor. A sufferer of Dwarfism, he had a 50-year career in the entertainment industry.
Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, his birth name was Luigi Curto, and his height was 4 feet 2 inches (1.27 m).
The bulk of his work was in the western and science fiction genres. One of his early roles was as a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz (1939). He also appeared in Superman and the Mole Men (1951), a B-Picture intended as the pilot for the Adventures of Superman TV series.
Curtis work in westerns included the Clint Eastwood feature, High Plains Drifter (1973) in which he featured as Mordecai, a friendly small person sympathetic to Eastwood, he also appeared in the Musical/Western The Terror of Tiny Town (1938). This film is, as far as is known, the world's only Western with an all-midget cast. Many of the actors in Tinytown were part of a performing troupe called Singer's Midgets, who also played Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz. Curtis had a starring role in American International Pictures' Little Cigars (1973), about a gang of small people on a crime spree.
Angel Tompkins (born December 20, 1942) is an American actress and Golden Globe nominee, who appeared in several films and television shows.
Angel Tompkins was a model in the Chicago area before being discovered by Woody Allen who sent her to Universal. She was signed and became part of the last Universal Contract Players. She started her television and film acting career in the late 1960s. She made her major film debut as the seductive blonde who came between husband and wife, Elliott Gould and Brenda Vaccaro, in the comedy I Love My Wife (1970) and was nominated for a Golden Globe.
She appeared in Prime Cut (1972) with co-stars Gene Hackman and Lee Marvin and newcomer Sissy Spacek as a co-star. She also appeared with Anthony Quinn in The Don Is Dead (1973), with former child star, Jay North in The Teacher (1974), and with Charles Bronson in Murphy's Law (1986). Tompkins was featured in the pictorial "Angel" in the February 1972 edition of Playboy Magazine; subsequently the magazine used her in three more editions, all presumably related to that film promotion.
Curtis Lee Mayfield (June 3, 1942 – December 26, 1999) was an African-American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer. He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly regarded as a pioneer of funk and of politically conscious African-American music. He was also a multi-instrumentalist who played the guitar, bass, piano, saxophone, and drums. Curtis Mayfield is a winner of both the Grammy Legend Award (in 1994) and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (in 1995), and was a double inductee into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted as a member of The Impressions into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1991, and again in 1999 as a solo artist. He is also a two-time Grammy Hall of Fame inductee.
Born on June 3, 1942 in Chicago, Illinois, Mayfield was the son of Marion Washington and Kenneth Mayfield. Mayfield's father left the family when Mayfield was five and his mother moved Curtis and his siblings into various Chicago projects before settling at the Cabrini–Green projects when Mayfield reached his teenage years. Mayfield attended Wells Community Academy High School. He dropped out of high school early to become lead singer and songwriter for The Impressions, then went on to a successful solo career. Perhaps most notably, Mayfield was among the first of a new wave of mainstream African-American R&B performing artists and composers injecting social commentary into their work. This "message music" became extremely popular during the 1960s and 1970s.
Billy Jack is a 1971 action film. It is the second, the highest grossing, in a series of motion pictures centering on a character of the same name,which started with the movie The Born Losers(1967)) that played by Tom Laughlin who also directed and co-wrote the script. Filming began in Prescott, Arizona, in fall 1969, but the movie was not completed until 1971. American International Pictures pulled out of the production, halting filming. Twentieth Century Fox came in and filming eventually resumed, but when that studio refused to distribute the film, Warner Bros. took over.
The film lacked distribution, so Laughlin took it to theatres himself in 1971. The film died at the box office in its initial run but took in more than $40 million in its 1973 re-release, which was supervised by Laughlin.
Billy Jack is a "Half-breed" American Cherokee Indian, a Green Beret Vietnam War veteran, and a hapkido master. The character made his début in The Born Losers (1967), a "biker film" about a motorcycle gang terrorizing a California town. Billy Jack rises to the occasion to defeat the gang by defending a college student who has evidence against them for gang rapes.
Clinton "Clint" Eastwood, Jr. (born May 31, 1930) is an American film actor, director, producer, composer and politician. Eastwood first came to prominence as a supporting cast member in the TV series Rawhide (1959–1965). He rose to fame for playing the Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy of spaghetti westerns (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly) during the late 1960s, and as Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry films (Dirty Harry, Magnum Force, The Enforcer, Sudden Impact, and The Dead Pool) throughout the 1970s and 1980s. These roles, among others, have made him an enduring cultural icon of masculinity.
For his work in the films Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004), Eastwood won Academy Awards for Best Director and Producer of the Best Picture, as well as receiving nominations for Best Actor. These films in particular, as well as others including Play Misty for Me (1971), Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974), The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976), Escape from Alcatraz (1979), Tightrope (1984), Pale Rider (1985), Heartbreak Ridge (1986), In the Line of Fire (1993), The Bridges of Madison County (1995), and Gran Torino (2008), have all received commercial success and critical acclaim. Eastwood's only comedies have been Every Which Way but Loose (1978) and its sequel Any Which Way You Can (1980), which are his two most commercially successful films after adjustment for inflation.
Plot
Danny's Wish is the touching story of Danny Rackly, a sixteen year old boy stricken with cancer. He is given the opportunity by a Wish Grant Foundation to have one of his dreams come true. He uses the wish to meet Billy Curtis, a famous movie star who is playing Danny's favorite comic book super hero in an upcoming film. Billy's immoral behavior is at an immediate clash with Danny's personality. A chain of events put the two in a situation where they are forced to be together. Joined by Kevin, Danny's wise cracking friend, and Bonnie, Billy's high school sweetheart, Danny and Billy set journey on trek from Chicago to upstate Wisconsin to confront their fathers. Along the way the two learn more than they could have ever imagined about each other and life.
Keywords: character-name-in-title, children's-road-trip-movie, independent-film, teenage-boy
In the merry month of May, From my home I started,
Left the girls of Tuam, Nearly broken hearted,
Saluted father dear, Kissed my darlin' mother,
Drank a pint of beer, My grief and tears to smother,
Then off to reap the corn, And leave where I was born,
I cut a stout blackthorn, To banish ghost and goblin,
In a brand new pair of brogues, I rattled o'er the bogs,
And frightened all the dogs,On the rocky road to Dublin.
One, two, three, four five,
Hunt the hare and turn her
Down the rocky road
And all the ways to Dublin,
Whack-fol-lol-de-ra.
In Mullingar that night, I rested limbs so weary,
Started by daylight, Next mornin' light and airy,
Took a drop of the pure, To keep my heart from sinkin',
That's an Irishman's cure, Whene'er he's on for drinking.
To see the lasses smile, Laughing all the while,
At my curious style, 'Twould set your heart a-bubblin'.
They ax'd if I was hired, The wages I required,
Till I was almost tired, Of the rocky road to Dublin.
In Dublin next arrived, I thought it such a pity,
To be so soon deprived, A view of that fine city.
Then I took a stroll, All among the quality,
My bundle it was stole, In a neat locality;
Something crossed my mind, Then I looked behind;
No bundle could I find, Upon my stick a wobblin'.
Enquirin' for the rogue, They said my Connacht brogue,
Wasn't much in vogue, On the rocky road to Dublin.
From there I got away, My spirits never failin'
Landed on the quay As the ship was sailin';
Captain at me roared, Said that no room had he,
When I jumped aboard, A cabin found for Paddy,
Down among the pigs I played some funny rigs,
Danced some hearty jigs, The water round me bubblin',
When off Holyhead, I wished myself was dead,
Or better far instead, On the rocky road to Dublin.
The boys of Liverpool, When we safely landed,
Called myself a fool; I could no longer stand it;
Blood began to boil, Temper I was losin',
Poor ould Erin's isle They began abusin',
"Hurrah my soul," sez I, My shillelagh I let fly;
Some Galway boys were by, Saw I was a hobble in,
Then with a loud hurray, They joined in the affray.
arewell to your bricks and mortar,farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks, to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
to take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay.
I'm on my way down to the quay where the ship at anchor lays
To command a gang of navvys that they told me to engage
I thought I'd drop in for a drink before I went away
For to take a trip on an emigrant ship to the shores of Botany Bay
Farewell to your bricks and mortar,farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks, to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
to take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay.
The boss came up this morning, he says "well Pat you know
If you don't get your navvys out I'm afraid you have to go"
So I asked him for me wages and demanded all my pay
For I told him straight, I'm going to emigrate to the shores of Botany Bay
Farewell to your bricks and mortar,farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks, to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
to take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay.
And when I reach Australia I'll go and look for gold
There's plenty there for the digging of, or so I have been told
Or else I'll go back to my trade and a hundred bricks I'll lay
Have you heard about the big strong man?
He lived in a caravan.
Have you heard about the Jeffrey Johnson fight?
Oh, Lord what a hell of a fight.
You can take all of the heavyweights you’ve got.
We’ve got a lad that can beat the whole lot.
He used to ring bells in the belfry,
Now he’s gonna fight Jack Demspey.
That was my brother Sylvest’ (What’s he got?)
A row of forty medals on his chest (big chest!)
He killed fifty bad men in the west; he knows no rest.
Think of a man, hells’ fire, don’t push, just shove,
Plenty of room for you and me.
He’s got an arm like a leg (a ladies’ leg!)
And a punch that would sink a battleship (big ship!)
It takes all of the Army and the Navy to put the wind up Sylvest’.
Now, he thought he’d take a trip to Italy.
He thought that he’d go by sea.
He dove off the harbor in New York,
And swam like a great big shark.
He saw the Lusitania in distress.
He put the Lusitania on his chest.
He drank all of the water in the sea,
And he walked all the way to Italy.
That was my brother Sylvest’ (What’s he got?)
A row of forty medals on his chest (big chest!)
He killed fifty bad men in the west; he knows no rest.
Think of a man, hells’ fire, don’t push, just shove,
Plenty of room for you and me.
He’s got an arm like a leg (a ladies’ leg!)
And a punch that would sink a battleship (big ship!)
It takes all of the Army and the Navy to put the wind up Sylvest’.
He thought he take a trip to old Japan.
They turned out a big brass band.
You can take all of the instruments you’ve got,
We got a lad that can play the whole lot.
And the old church bells will ring (Hells bells!)
The old church choir will sing (Hells fire!)
Arewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks, to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
To take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay.
I'm on my way down to the quay where the ship at anchor lays
To command a gang of navvys that they told me to engage
I thought I'd drop in for a drink before I went away
For to take a trip on an emigrant ship to the shores of Botany Bay
Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks, to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
To take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay.
The boss came up this morning, he says "well Pat you know
If you don't get your navvys out I'm afraid you have to go"
So I asked him for me wages and demanded all my pay
For I told him straight, I'm going to emigrate to the shores of Botany Bay
Farewell to your bricks and mortar, farewell to your dirty lies
Farewell to your gangers and gang planks, to hell with your overtime
For the good ship Ragamuffin is lying at the quay
To take oul Pat with a shovel on his back
To the shores of Botany Bay.
And when I reach Australia I'll go and look for gold
There's plenty there for the digging of, or so I have been told
Or else I'll go back to my trade and a hundred bricks I'll lay
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
Earl-eye in the morning!
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-eye in the morning
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
Earl-eye in the morning!
Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter
Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter
Put him in the hold with the Captain's daughter
Earl-eye in the morning!
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-eye in the morning
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
Earl-eye in the morning!
Shave his belly with a rusty razor
Shave his belly with a rusty razor
Shave his belly with a rusty razor
Earl-eye in the morning!
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
What do you do with a drunken sailor
Earl-eye in the morning!
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Earl-eye in the morning
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises
Way hay and up she rises