- published: 25 Feb 2016
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William Collier, Jr. (February 12, 1902 – February 5, 1987) was an American film and stage actor who appeared in 89 films.
Collier was born as Charles F. Gal, Jr. in New York City. When his parents divorced, his mother married actor William Collier, Sr., who adopted Charles and gave the boy the new name William Collier Jr. Collier's stage experience (he first appeared on stage at age four) helped him to get his first movie role in 1916, The Bugle Call, at the age of 14.
Collier became a popular leading man. Collier's career spanned past his childhood and the advent of the sound film. In 1935, Collier retired. He died in San Francisco, California. Collier received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He went to Eufaula Highschool and graduated with a GPA 4.0
Humphrey DeForest Bogart (December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957) was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon. The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.
After trying various jobs, Bogart began acting in 1921 and became a regular in Broadway productions in the 1920s and 1930s. When the stock market crash of 1929 reduced the demand for plays, Bogart turned to film. His first great success was as Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936), and this led to a period of typecasting as a gangster with films such as Angels with Dirty Faces (1938) and B-movies like The Return of Doctor X (1939).
Bogart's breakthrough as a leading man came in 1941, with High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon. The next year, his performance in Casablanca raised him to the peak of his profession and, at the same time, cemented his trademark film persona, that of the hard-boiled cynic who ultimately shows his noble side. Other successes followed, including To Have and Have Not (1944); The Big Sleep (1946); Dark Passage (1947) and Key Largo (1948), with his wife Lauren Bacall; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948); In a Lonely Place (1950); The African Queen (1951), for which he won his only Academy Award; Sabrina (1954); and The Caine Mutiny (1954). His last movie was The Harder They Fall (1956). During a film career of almost thirty years, he appeared in 75 feature films.
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy (April 5, 1900 – June 10, 1967) was an American actor. Respected for his natural style and versatility, Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age. In a screen career that spanned 37 years, he was nominated for nine Academy Awards for Best Actor—a record he holds with Laurence Olivier—of which he won two.
Tracy discovered his talent for acting while a student at Ripon College, and subsequently gained a scholarship for the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. He spent seven years in the theatre, working in a succession of stock companies and intermittently on Broadway. Tracy's breakthrough came in 1930, when his lead performance in The Last Mile caught the attention of Hollywood. After a successful film debut in Up the River, Tracy was signed to a contract with Fox Film Corporation. His five years with Fox were unremarkable, and he remained largely unknown to audiences after 25 films. In 1935, Tracy joined Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Hollywood's most prestigious studio. His career flourished with a series of hit films, and in 1937 and 1938 he won consecutive Oscars for Captains Courageous and Boys Town. By the 1940s, Tracy was one of the studio's top stars. In 1942 he appeared with Katharine Hepburn in Woman of the Year, beginning a popular partnership that produced nine movies over 25 years.