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1-8 of 8
- Elisabeth Brooks Luyties was born on July 2, 1951 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Elisabeth Brooks began acting at age five with her career encompassing both stage and screen. She started appearing in television roles in the mid-1970s and managed to pursue her acting career as a single mother while working a variety of jobs to support herself and her son. She regularly appeared on the daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives (1965), and in such popular television series as The Rockford Files (1974), Hart to Hart (1979), Starsky and Hutch (1975), The Six Million Dollar Man (1974) and Emergency! (1972). She is probably best remembered for her role as the villainess Marsha Quist in the horror film The Howling (1981), a role that brought her considerable notoriety within the genre.
Brooks was not only a beautiful actress, but also an accomplished writer, poet and musician. She had a wonderful deep, sultry voice and can be heard singing briefly in the film The Forgotten One (1989) - a horror film she appeared with longtime friend Kristy McNichol. She and McNichol had separated, but McNichol came back to care for Brooks on her final days. Brooks was also known for her spirituality and her encouragement to others. She created her own production company and became an established acting coach. She wrote and produced plays that taught children about the environment, and how they could work with parents to improve their community. An example of this was "Orphan Dreams", which she directed first at Calabasas High School and again at Chamber Theatre in Studio City.
Elisabeth Brooks, after a three-year struggle with cancer, died in a hospice near her Palm Springs, California home at age 46. As Gigi Bannister wrote in a Tribute to Elisabeth Brooks, "let it be said, Elisabeth Brooks was no quitter. She was a fighter... a true warrior to the end". - Director
- Writer
- Producer
Mukul Anand was born on 11 October 1951 in Bombay, State of Bombay, India. He was a director and writer, known for Khuda Gawah (1992), Agneepath (1990) and Sultanat (1986). He died on 7 September 1997 in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India.- Mobutu Sese Seko was born Joseph Mobutu in Lisala, Belgian Congo. His father was a cook, who died when Mobutu was a child, and his mother was a maid in a hotel. She used her earnings to send him to a Christian Brothers Catholic boarding school for his education. In 1949 he joined the Force Publique, an internal security force of Congolese troops but with Belgian officers, and rose to sergeant. He stayed there for seven years, leaving to become a newspaper reporter. It was in that position that he met Congolese nationalist Patrice Lumumba, and Mobutu was so taken with him that he joined Lumumba's political party, the Congolese National Movement (MNC).
When the Congo became independent on June 30, 1960, a coalition government led the country, with Lumumba as Prime Minister and Joseph Kasavubu as President. Mobutu was appointed Army Chief of Staff. Lumumba and Kasavubu then locked horns in a struggle for political supremacy, and on Sept. 14, 1960, a military coup overthrew Lumumba and installed Kasavubu as overall leader. One of the key figures in the coup was none other than Lumumba's old friend, Mobutu. It turned out that both the American CIA and the Belgian government mistrusted Lumumba, who they thought to be a Communist or at least pro-Communist, and wanted Kasavubu in power, as they believed--correctly, as it turned out--that Kasavubu and Mobutu would be more "pliable". Five years later, though, Mobutu led a coup against Kasavubu, who had just managed to oust his rival, popular Prime Minister Moise Tshombe. Upon taking power, Mobutu banned all political parties and declared the equivalent of a state of emergency, taking on almost dictatorial powers. He later formed his own party, the Popular Movement of the Revolution, which all Congolese were obliged to join. He ordered all existing trade unions to form a single union, the National Union of Zairian Workers, and placed it under the control of the government.
Although there were several uprisings and attempted coups, all were swiftly and brutally put down. In 1970 Mobutu held an election in which he was the only candidate and in which voting was mandatory. Not surprisingly, he got 99% of the vote. In 1971 he began a program of "cultural awareness" and renamed the country the Republic of Zaire. He ordered all Congolese with Christian names to drop them and change to African ones, baptism of children was outlawed and Western-style clothing and ties were banned. The next year he renamed himself Mobutu Sese Seko Kuku Nbendu Wa Za Banga, although for convenience's sake he allowed others to refer to him as Mobutu Sese Seko. He also fostered a cult of personality in which his picture appeared everywhere, on everything from from postage stamps to the country's paper currency.
His erratic, corrupt and authoritarian rule resulted in several coup attempts and secessions. Mobutu's solution was to stage public executions of those who were real, potential or imagined threats to his regime, but he later found that it was much less trouble--and garnered much less bad publicity worldwide--if he just bought off his enemies, which he proceeded to do. He also nationalized foreign-owned firms and deported their European owners and managers. He handed the firms over to his family members and political allies, most of whom immediately robbed the companies blind, sold off their assets and kept the money. The resulting economic anarchy caused by these actions forced Mobutu in 1977 to bring the Europeans back. In that same year a force of several thousand rebels--followers of the executed Tshombe--invaded the province of Katanga from their bases in neighboring Angola. They were well-trained, motivated and led mainly by professional mercenaries from South Africa and Europe, and they swiftly and decisively routed Mobutu's ill-equipped, poorly trained, undisciplined and disorganized army. He appealed for aid from France, which airlifted several thousand Moroccan paratroopers who eventually defeated the Katangan rebels. However, a year later the rebels attacked again, but this time with more troops than before. Mobutu's ragtag army fared no better this time than it did the year before and was decisively defeated again, with many of its soldiers tearing off their uniforms, throwing away their weapons and fleeing naked into the jungles. Katanga, with its vast mineral, diamond and ore deposits, was on the verge of declaring its independence, and there was nothing Mobutu could do about it. Once more he appealed for international help against the "Communists". France and Belgium dispatched troops to put down the invasion, with the US supplying logistical and material help, and the invading forces were driven back across the border into Angola.
Despite these crises, Mobutu still had time to build up his personal wealth, which by 1984 was estimated to be at least $5 billion. While he amassed a fortune the country was going broke, and in 1989 it defaulted on loans from Belgium--Mobutu and his family and cronies having looted the country for years almost nonstop, the treasury simply ran out of money. This situation resulted in most roads, bridges and other elements of its infrastructure beginning to literally fall apart because there was no money to maintain them. Most government workers were paid sporadically if at all, resulting in tremendous inflation and a level of corruption that was mind-boggling even for Africa. The sheer scope of mismanagement, embezzlement and outright thievery by Mobutu and his cronies resulted in economists coining a new word for his form of government--kleptocracy. The cult of personality fostered by Mobutu and his government was pervasive; pictures and portraits of Mobutu were everywhere, government employees had to wear buttons with his photograph on them, and on TV broadcasts he was seen descending from the sky through clouds. He also awarded himself such titles as "Lion Warrior", "Savior of the Nation" and "Supreme Combatant".
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 did not bode well for Mobutu. He had always been able to count on support by Western governments, no matter how much they disliked his domestic policies. Because of the Congo's huge size. vast mineral wealth and strategic location, he was able to paint himself as a bulwark against "the Communist menace" in Africa, and the fact that his country held vast untapped reserves of gold, silver, diamonds, timber, etc., didn't hurt, either. However, now that the Soviet Union no longer existed, Mobutu's claim to be an anti-Communist bastion in the heart of Africa was irrelevant. Under pressure from western governments and because of economic problems and internal disturbances, Mobutu ended the ban on political parties and brought opposition figures into the government. Despite his attempt to co-opt the opposition by playing different factions against each other, however, the main opposition parties joined in one single organization in 1994, forcing him to appoint one of their members as his Prime Minister. In addition, Mobutu's health began to deteriorate, and he started to spend more time in Europe for medical treatment. In 1996 Tutsi rebels took advantage of one of his absences by launching a rebellion and taking control of the western half of the country. Other rebellions were launched from eastern Zaire, and in 1997 the combined rebel forces defeated Mobutu's army and took Kinshasa, the capital. Mobutu fled to neighboring Togo and then to Morocco, where he took permanent residence.
On Sept. 7, 1997, he died of prostate cancer in Rabat, Morocco. - Costume and Wardrobe Department
Michel Stuart was born on 8 February 1945 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA. He is known for The 34th Annual Tony Awards (1980), Donahue (1967) and The 36th Annual Tony Awards (1982). He died on 7 September 1997 in Malibu, California, USA.- Connie Clausen was an actress, author and literary agent. She was born in Menasha, Wisconsin and in her teens she moved with her family to Sarasota, Florida, then winter quarters of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. While walking down Sarasota's Main Street she was stopped by John Ringling North, who remarked that her long hair was perfect for portraying "Alice in Wonderland" on a float in that season's fairy tale finale. She spent two years in the circus and then left for Hollywood, where she worked in M-G-M Studio's Publicity Department. She rose from a messenger to Director of Special Promotions. An M-G-M studio photographer encouraged her to pursue an acting career, and she moved to New York where she first worked as a Conover model and then had a successful career as a television and stage actress. She appeared on Broadway and in hundreds of television programs and commercials during the 1950's and 60's. She was a spokeswoman for many major brands including Westinghouse and Beech-Nut, and she was a regular on the "Dr. Spock Show" with her twin sons. In 1961 she wrote a memoir based on her two seasons in the circus, "I Love You Honey But the Season's Over" (Holt, Rinehart and Winston). In 1970 she began a new career in publishing with MacMillan Publishing Company, rising to Vice President. During her tenure at MacMillan she was instrumental in promoting the bestsellers "Jonathon Livingston Seagull" and Watership Down" In 1976 she founded her own literary agency, "Connie Clausen and Associates". Her agency produced many bestsellers including a Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Jackson Pollack, and her clients included the fashion photographer Francesco Scavullo and the British author Quentin Crisp . She died in Manhattan at the age of 74 of a stroke. The role of Connie Clausen in the 2009 British ITV film production of "An Englishman in New York" is played by the actress Swoosie Kurtz.
- Alex MacIntosh was born on 18 November 1925 in Fulham, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Big Pull (1962), Doctor Who (1963) and R3 (1964). He died on 7 September 1997 in Norwich, Norfolk, England, UK.
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Donald Journeaux was born on 23 July 1910 in Jersey, Channel Islands. He was an actor, known for The Twilight Zone (1959), At Long Last Love (1975) and McCloud (1970). He died on 7 September 1997 in London, England, UK.- Director
- Writer
- Producer
Myriam Braniff was born on 24 January 1960 in Pueblo Hundido, Chile. She was a director and writer, known for Antingen eller... (1994), Leken (1995) and O lo uno o lo otro (1993). She died on 7 September 1997 in Sweden.