Franklin Wendell "Frank" Welker (born March 12, 1946) is an American actor who specializes in voice acting. Welker is one of the highest-grossing actors in Hollywood.
Welker was born in Denver, Colorado. He then moved to California and attended Santa Monica City College in Santa Monica, California, where he majored in theatrical arts. In 1966, he received honors for his performance as the Cowardly Lion in the college's theater production of The Wizard of Oz. During his transition between college and his voice acting career, his first voice-over role was in a commercial for Friskies dog food. The producer's girlfriend informed him of auditioning for Hanna-Barbera during the casting of Scooby Doo, where he initially auditioned for the title character but instead got the role of Fred Jones.
Welker's first on camera film role was as a bar fight participant in Stan Dragoti’s 1972 film Dirty Little Billy. His next film role was in The Trouble with Girls, portraying a college kid from Rutgers University who befriends Elvis Presley. He later co-starred with Don Knotts in Universal's How to Frame a Figg. Welker also appeared in two Disney films, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, and Now You See Him, Now You Don't.
Peter Claver Cullen (born July 28, 1941) is a Canadian voice actor. The most prominent characters he has voiced are Eeyore in the Winnie-the-Pooh franchise and Optimus Prime (as well as Ironhide) in the original Transformers series. Cullen reprised his role as Optimus Prime in Michael Bay's live-action Transformers film series and the Transformers: War for Cybertron video game, as well as its sequel, Transformers: Fall of Cybertron. He was once again cast as Optimus Prime for the new TV series, Transformers: Prime in 2010.
Cullen was born in Montreal, Quebec to Henry L. Cullen and Muriel McCann. He is a member of the first graduating class of the National Theatre School of Canada, which graduated in 1963. His brother, Larry Cullen, was a retired Captain in the United States Marine Corps, and helped inspire the voice of Optimus Prime.
In 1968, he appeared as Giles with Joan Stuart as 'Penelope' in L'Anglaise, a CBC sitcom about a French-Canadian husband with an English-Canadian wife (CBC's Funny You Should Say That). He also performed a French-Canadian astronaut character named Bebe LaToque alongside Ted Zeigler for a 1969 children's show on CFCF-TV in Montreal.
Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as archetypes of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. He is also one of the co-founders of DreamWorks movie studio.
Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films—Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993)—achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.
Curb Your Enthusiasm is an American comedy television series produced and broadcast by HBO, which premiered on October 15, 2000. As of 2011, it has completed 80 episodes over eight seasons. The series was created by Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who stars as a fictionalized version of himself. The series follows David in his life as a semi-retired television writer and producer in Los Angeles and later New York City. Also starring are Cheryl Hines as David's wife Cheryl, Jeff Garlin as David's manager Jeff, and Susie Essman as Jeff's wife Susie. Curb Your Enthusiasm often features guest stars, and many of these appearances are by celebrities playing versions of themselves fictionalized to varying degrees.
The plots and subplots of the episodes are established in an outline written by David and the dialogue is largely improvised by the actors themselves. Much like Seinfeld, the subject matter in Curb Your Enthusiasm often involves the minutiae of daily life, and plots often revolve around Larry David's many faux pas, and his problems with certain social conventions and expectations, as well as his annoyance with other people's behavior. The character has a hard time letting such annoyances go unexpressed, which leads him often into awkward situations.
Hugo Wallace Weaving (born 4 April 1960) is an English-Australian film and stage actor and voice artist. He is best known for his roles as Tick in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy, Elrond in the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, "V" in V for Vendetta, and performances in numerous Australian character dramas.
Weaving was born at the University Teaching Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria, two English parents Anne (née Lennard), a tour guide and former teacher, and Wallace Weaving, a seismologist. His maternal grandmother was Belgian. A year after his birth, his family returned to England, living in Bedford and Brighton before moving to Melbourne and Sydney in Australia, Johannesburg in South Africa, and then returning to England again. While in England, he attended the independent boarding school Queen Elizabeth's Hospital. His family moved back to Australia in 1976, where he attended another private school, Sydney's Knox Grammar School. He later graduated from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1981.