Alan Wolf Arkin (born March 26, 1934) is an American actor, director, musician and singer. He is known for starring in such films as Wait Until Dark, The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Catch-22, The In-Laws, Edward Scissorhands, Glengarry Glen Ross, Marley & Me, and Little Miss Sunshine, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2006. He is the father of actors Adam Arkin, Anthony Arkin, and Matthew Arkin.
Arkin was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Beatrice (née Wortis), a teacher, and David I. Arkin, a painter and writer who mostly worked as a teacher. Arkin was raised in a Jewish family with "no emphasis on religion"; his maternal grandfather was an immigrant from Odessa, Ukraine. The family moved from Brooklyn to Los Angeles when Arkin was 11 years old, but an eight-month Hollywood strike cost Arkin's father a set designer job he had wanted to take. During the 1950s Red Scare, Arkin's parents were accused of being Communists, which led to David losing his job when he refused to answer questions about his political affiliation. David challenged the dismissal and was ultimately vindicated, but only after his death.
Richard John Kind (born November 22, 1956) is an American actor known for his roles in the sitcoms Mad About You (as Dr. Mark Devanow) and Spin City (as Paul Thomas Lassiter).
Kind was born to a Jewish family in Trenton, New Jersey, the son of Alice, a homemaker, and Samuel Kind, a jeweler who formerly owned La Vake's Jewelry in Princeton, NJ. Together with his younger sister Joanne he grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Richard attended Pennsbury High School with fellow thespian, Robert Curtis-Brown. Kind is a 1974 graduate of Pennsbury High School and a 1978 graduate of Northwestern University where he was in the fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon. He is also an alumnus of The Second City Chicago and lives in Santa Monica.
Kind portrayed Dr. Mark Devanow on Mad About You throughout the show's run, although after he took the role of Paul Thomas Lassiter on Spin City, he appeared on Mad About You with less frequency. He appeared throughout the entire run of Spin City. While these are his two highest profile TV appearances, his first big break on television was as a member of the ensemble cast of Carol Burnett's brief return to sketch comedy, "Carol and Company," which ran for two seasons beginning in 1990 on NBC.
Benjamin Géza Affleck-Boldt (born August 15, 1972), better known as Ben Affleck, is an American actor, film director, writer, and producer. He became known with his performances in Kevin Smith's films such as Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), and Dogma (1999). Affleck won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for the screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997), which he co-wrote with Matt Damon, and has appeared in lead roles in such popular hits as Armageddon (1998), Pearl Harbor (2001), Changing Lanes (2002), The Sum of All Fears (2002), Daredevil (2003), Hollywoodland (2007) and State of Play (2009).
Affleck is a critically acclaimed filmmaker. He directed Gone Baby Gone (2007) and The Town (2010), playing the lead in the latter. He has worked with his younger brother, actor Casey Affleck, on several projects, including Good Will Hunting and Gone Baby Gone.
Affleck has been married to Jennifer Garner since June 2005. They have two daughters, Violet and Seraphina, and a son, Samuel. He dated the actress Gwyneth Paltrow in 1998. His relationship with actress/singer Jennifer Lopez attracted worldwide media attention, in which Affleck and Lopez were dubbed "Bennifer". The two broke up in 2004.
Rutger Oelsen Hauer (/ˈrʌtɡər ˈhaʊər/; Dutch pronunciation: [ˈrʏtxər ˈulsə(n) ˈɦʌuwər]; born 23 January 1944) is a Dutch stage, television and film actor. His career began in 1969 with the title role in the popular Dutch television series Floris, directed by Paul Verhoeven. His film credits include Flesh + Blood, Blind Fury, Blade Runner, The Hitcher, Nighthawks, Wedlock, Sin City, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Ladyhawke, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Osterman Weekend, The Blood of Heroes, Batman Begins, Hobo with a Shotgun, The Rite and he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for Escape from Sobibor. Hauer is a dedicated environmentalist and has founded an AIDS awareness organization, the Rutger Hauer Starfish Association.
He is the father of actress Aysha Hauer and the grandfather of fashion model Leandro Maeder (b. Dec 14, 1987).
Hauer was born in Breukelen, in the Netherlands, the town lending its name to New York City's Borough Brooklyn. His parents were drama teachers Arend and Teunke. Rutger grew up in Amsterdam. Since his parents were very occupied with their careers, he and his three sisters (one older, two younger) were brought up mostly by nannies. At the age of 15, Hauer ran off to sea and spent a year scrubbing decks aboard a freighter. Returning home, he worked as an electrician and a joiner for three years while attending acting classes at night school. He went on to join an experimental troupe, with which he remained for five years before Paul Verhoeven cast him in the lead role of the very successful 1969 television series Floris, a Dutch Ivanhoe-like medieval action drama. The role made him famous in his native country.
Jack Gold (born on 28 June 1930) is a British film and television director. He was part of the British Realist Tradition that followed Free Cinema.
Gold was born in London, and was educated at University College London (UCL). After leaving UCL, he began his career as an editor on BBC's Tonight programme. Gold became a freelance documentary filmmaker, also making dramas as a platform for his social and political observations.
He is best known for having directed films such as; The Visit (1959), The National Health (1973), The Naked Civil Servant (1975), Man Friday (1975), The Medusa Touch (1978), Charlie Muffin (1979) aka A Deadly Game (USA), The Chain (1985) and Escape From Sobibor (1987).
His other works include the televised BBC/Lifetime version of The Merchant of Venice (1980) and Macbeth (1983) -- the latter starring Nicol Williamson -- as well as the rare but effective made-for-TV adaptation of Graham Greene's The Tenth Man (1988), starring Anthony Hopkins. He also directed the final episode of Inspector Morse: "The Remorseful Day".