Lee J. Cobb

Lee J. Cobb (December 8, 1911 – February 11, 1976) was an American actor. He is best known for his performances in 12 Angry Men (1957), On the Waterfront (1954), and one of his last films, The Exorcist (1973). He also played the role of Willy Loman in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller's 1949 play Death of a Salesman under the direction of Elia Kazan. On television, Cobb costarred in the first four seasons of the western series The Virginian. He typically played arrogant, intimidating, and abrasive characters, but often had roles as respectable figures such as judges and police officers.

Background

Cobb was born Leo Jacoby in New York City, to a Jewish family of Russian and Romanian extraction. He grew up in the Bronx, New York, on Wilkins Avenue, near Crotona Park. His parents were Benjamin (Benzion) Jacob, a compositor for a foreign-language newspaper, and Kate (Neilecht). Cobb studied at New York University before making his film debut in The Vanishing Shadow (1934). He joined the Manhattan-based Group Theatre in 1935.

Twelve Angry Men

Twelve Angry Men is a drama written by Reginald Rose concerning the jury of a homicide trial. It was broadcast initially as a television play in 1954. The following year it was adapted for the stage, and in 1957 was made into a highly successful film. Since then it has been given numerous remakes, adaptations, and tributes.

Description

The play concerns the deliberations of the jury of a homicide trial. At the beginning, they have a nearly unanimous decision of guilty, with a single dissenter of not guilty, who throughout the play sows a seed of reasonable doubt. This was first made as a 1954 teleplay by Reginald Rose for the Studio One anthology television series, and was aired as a live CBS Television production on 20 September 1954. The drama was later rewritten for the stage in 1955 under the same title.

Stage

Rose wrote several stage adaptations of the story. In 1964, Leo Genn appeared in the play on the London stage. In other theatrical adaptations in which female actors are cast, the play is retitled 12 Angry Jurors, 12 Angry Men and Women or 12 Angry Women.

On the Waterfront

On the Waterfront is a 1954 American crime drama film with elements of film noir. The film was directed by Elia Kazan and written by Budd Schulberg. It stars Marlon Brando and features Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb, Rod Steiger, Pat Henning, and, in her film debut, Eva Marie Saint. The soundtrack score was composed by Leonard Bernstein. The film is based on "Crime on the Waterfront" by Malcolm Johnson, a series of articles published in November-December 1948 in the New York Sun which won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting. The film focuses on union violence and corruption amongst longshoremen while detailing widespread corruption, extortion, and racketeering on the waterfronts of Hoboken, New Jersey.

On the Waterfront was a critical and commercial success and received 12 Academy Award nominations, winning eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor for Brando, Best Supporting Actress for Saint, and Best Director for Kazan. In 1997 it was ranked by the American Film Institute as the eighth-greatest American movie of all time and in AFI's 2007 list it was ranked 19th. It is Bernstein's only original film score not adapted from a stage production with songs.

John Dall

John Dall (May 26, 1920 – January 15, 1971) was an American actor.

Primarily a stage actor, he is best remembered today for two film roles: the cool-minded intellectual killer in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948), and the trigger-happy lead in the 1950 noir Gun Crazy. He also had a substantial role in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus (1960).

He first came to fame as the young prodigy who comes alive under the tutelage of Bette Davis in The Corn Is Green, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Warner Bros signed him to a contract to make the film but they let him go in 1946.

Personal life

John Dall Thompson (he used his middle name for his acting career) was born in New York City on 26 May 1920, the younger son of Charles Jenner Thompson (1873-1929) and his wife Henry (née Worthington). (Sources which cite Dall's birth name as John Jenner Thompson and his birth year as 1918 appear to be in error.) His father was a civil engineer. His elder brother, Worthington Thompson, was later a decorated lieutenant in the 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team.

Henry Fonda

Henry Jaynes "Hank" Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades.

Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor. He also appeared in 1938 in plays performed in White Plains, New York, with Joan Tompkins. He made his Hollywood debut in 1935, and his career gained momentum after his Academy Award-nominated performance as Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath, a 1940 adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel about an Oklahoma family who moved west during the Dust Bowl. Throughout six decades in Hollywood, Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in such classics as The Ox-Bow Incident, Mister Roberts and 12 Angry Men. Later, Fonda moved both toward darker epics such as Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West and lighter roles in family comedies such as Yours, Mine and Ours with Lucille Ball, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor at the 54th Academy Awards for the movie On Golden Pond, his final film role.