- published: 21 Oct 2012
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Dan Duryea (January 23, 1907 – June 7, 1968) was an American actor in film, stage and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in a wide variety of leading and secondary roles.
Born and raised in White Plains, New York, Duryea graduated from White Plains High School in 1924 and Cornell University in 1928. While at Cornell, Duryea was elected into the prestigious Sphinx Head Society, Cornell's oldest senior honor society. He majored in English with a strong interest in drama, and in his senior year succeeded Franchot Tone as president of the college drama society.
As his parents did not approve of his choice to pursue an acting career, Duryea became an advertising executive but after six stress-filled years, had a heart attack that sidelined him for a year.
Returning to his earlier love of acting and the stage, Duryea made his name on Broadway in the play Dead End, followed by The Little Foxes, in which he portrayed Leo Hubbard. In 1940, Duryea moved to Hollywood to appear in the film version of The Little Foxes. He continued to establish himself with supporting and secondary roles in films such as The Pride of the Yankees and None But the Lonely Heart. As the 1940s progressed, he found his niche as the "sniveling, deliberately taunting" antagonist in a number of film noir subjects (Scarlet Street, The Woman in the Window, Criss Cross, Too Late for Tears) and westerns such as Along Came Jones and Black Bart, although he was sometimes cast in more sympathetic roles (Black Angel, One Way Street). In 1946, exhibitors voted him the eighth most promising "star of tomorrow".
Erich von Stroheim (September 22, 1885 – May 12, 1957) was an Austrian-American director, actor and producer, most notable as being a film star of the silent era, subsequently noted as an auteur for his directorial work.
Stroheim was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1885 as Erich Oswald Stroheim, the son of Benno Stroheim, a middle-class hat-maker, and Johanna Bondy, both of whom were observant Jews.
Stroheim emigrated to America at the end of 1909. On arrival at Ellis Island, he claimed to be Count Erich Oswald Hans Carl Maria von Stroheim und Nordenwall, the son of Austrian nobility like the characters he played in his films, but both Billy Wilder and Stroheim's agent Paul Kohner claimed that he spoke with a decidedly lower-class Austrian accent. Jean Renoir writes in his memoirs: “Stroheim spoke hardly any German. He had to study his lines like a schoolboy learning a foreign language.” Later, while living in Europe, Stroheim claimed in published remarks to have "forgotten" his native tongue. In Renoir's movie la Grande Illusion, Stroheim speaks German with a strong American accent.
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Bounty Killer (born Rodney Price; 12 June 1972; Kingston, Jamaica) is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall deejay. Allmusic describes him as having been "one of the most aggressive dancehall stars of the '90s, a street-tough rude boy with an unrepentant flair for gun talk". He is the founder of a dancehall collective known as The Alliance with deejay Mavado.
Price moved to Kingston at an early age, along with his mother and siblings. His father owned and ran the Black Scorpio sound system and Price started his musical career as a sound system deejay in his early teens. At the age of 14, Price was shot by a stray bullet during a gunfight between rival political factions, and while convalescing in hospital decided on the name Bounty Killer. After recovering, he increased his performances on a greater number of sound systems, and turned his attention towards recording.
Prior to his entry into the dancehall industry, Rodney worked in the assets management branch of Bank of Ireland. This role involved dealing with self-employed, and wealthy, individuals. He was then encouraged to record at King Jammy's studio in Kingston. Price eventually recorded with King Jammy, the first session being in Spring 1992. One of his first tunes was the "Coppershot", which Jammy was unwilling to release due to its lyrics glorifying gun culture. Jammy's brother Uncle T disagreed and released the single himself.