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- This actress' two-decade career produced only one single stand-out film role but that one role as the "good girl" who redeems "bad boy" Marlon Brando's tough biker in the cult flick The Wild One (1953) put Mary Murphy at the head of the acting class for one brief shining moment. In others, she proved a lovely distraction amid the male action surrounding her and also, given the right material, displayed obvious talent in both Grade "A" and "B" drama as the feminine co-star or second lead.
The beautiful blue-eyed brunet stunner was born on January 26, 1931, in Washington D.C. but quickly moved with her family six months later to Cleveland, Ohio. Her father, James, a businessman, died there in 1940, and her mother eventually moved Mary and her two brothers and sister (she was the youngest of the four) West to Southern California where Mary went on to attend University High School in the Los Angeles area, graduating in 1949. A one-time employee of Saks Fifth Avenue in Beverly Hills, the fresh-faced beauty was "discovered" at a café and signed by Paramount Studios.
Following insignificant bit/extra work in such movies as the Bob Hope's vehicles The Lemon Drop Kid (1951) and My Favorite Spy (1951), the sci-fi feature When Worlds Collide (1951), and "Best Picture" The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), Mary won the female lead opposite relative newcomer Tommy Morton in the show business drama Main Street to Broadway (1953). The film was ill-received and both stars were rather dwarfed by the huge names that surrounded them -- Tallulah Bankhead, Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, Shirley Booth, Mary Martin and even Rodgers and Hammerstein. Her second lead in a film was a different story. the legendary The Wild One (1953) opposite Marlon Brando. Mary managed to hold her own in this biker classic but it did not, however, necessarily lead to better films. She continued in the demure ingénue mode in the Vincent Price sub-horror The Mad Magician (1954) and the routine western Sitting Bull (1954) which starred future husband Dale Robertson. The June 1956 marriage to Robertson was very short-lived; it was annulled by Christmas time.
Mary went on, however, to give earnest leading lady perfs opposite Tony Curtis in Beachhead (1954), Ray Milland's debut as a director, A Man Alone (1955) and Hell's Island (1955) with John Payne. She also appeared to good advantage in The Desperate Hours (1955) but was slightly overshadowed by powerhouse star cast of Humphrey Bogart, Fredric March, Arthur Kennedy, Gig Young and Martha Scott. From then on it was fairly dismal for Mary in such lesser features as The Maverick Queen (1956), The Electronic Monster (1958) and Live Fast, Die Young (1958), a lowbudget "Wild Ones" delinquent crimer as a girl who tries to save her sister from a life of crime.
Mary left the screen for a time but resumed her career in the 60s and early 70s primarily on TV with a number of episodics and mini-movies playing matronly wives and mothers and had a small but noticeable role in the film Junior Bonner (1972).
Remarried in 1962, Mary retired completely by the late 70s and turned to environmental causes. She also worked in a Los Angeles art gallery for a time and has been seen on occasion in nostalgia conventions. She died on May 4, 2011, of heart disease, in Beverly Hills. - Renowned and highly respected actress Sada Thompson has earned critical acclaim both on stage and TV for her noble, strong-minded matrons, but her more challenging and compelling work has come when her characters have displayed darker, more neurotic tones.
Born in Des Moines, Iowa, she was the eldest of three children of magazine editor Hugh Woodruff Thompson and his wife Corlyss Gibson. After a family move to New Jersey, Sada developed an interest in acting, performing in school plays. She subsequently studied drama at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.
Upon graduating in 1949, she began to build up her resume in regional stock and with repertory companies appearing in such productions as "Hay Fever", "The Little Foxes", "Born Yesterday", "The Clandestine Marriage" and "The Cocktail Party". Making her off-Broadway debut in 1955 with the first concert reading of Dylan Thomas' "Under Milk Wood", Sada won a 1957 Drama Desk award for her work in both The Misanthrope" and "The River Line" and, thereafter, started leaning heavily toward the classics -- "Much Ado About Nothing," "Othello," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "Twelfth Night," "The Tempest" and "Richard II" to name a few. The 1970s began exceptionally well, hitting her zenith with complex, transcending performances in both "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the Moon Marigolds" (earning both Drama Desk and Obie awards) and "Twigs," in which she captured the Tony (as well as Drama Desk, Obie and Sarah Siddons awards) in which she played four roles--three sisters and their elderly mother.
This renewed attention for Sada finally lent itself to film and TV work. The dark-haired, somewhat plump-figured woman with classy but slightly offbeat features was not deemed marketable for film. So, despite adding distinctive support to the dramas Desperate Characters (1971) and The Pursuit of Happiness (1971), it was television that would garner her the attention she longed for and deserved. She won her first Emmy nomination playing Mary Todd Lincoln in Lincoln (1974) opposite Hal Holbrook's Honest Abe. The following year, she earned another nomination as Jack Lemmon's put-upon wife in The Entertainer (1975), a TV remake of the 1960 British film. The Emmy would finally come to her for her sensible mother role in the touching dramatic series Family (1976). As the proper, intelligent, slightly remote Kate Lawrence," mother of three, Sada became a TV symbol of strength, courage and integrity during the show's four seasons. She went on to receive two more Emmy nominations as Rhea Perlman's mother on Cheers (1982) and as accused California schoolteacher Virginia McMartin, on trial for sexual abuse, in the mini-movie Indictment: The McMartin Trial (1995). The quality of her performance along with those of fellow actors James Woods, Shirley Knight and Henry Thomas (of E.T. fame), lent an air of distinction to the obvious tabloid-driven material.
In addition to other socially-relevant mini-movies, Sada occasionally returned to her beloved theater roots. She won a second Sarah Siddons award for the title role in "Driving Miss Daisy" (1989), and enjoyed a return to Broadway after nearly 20 years with "Any Given Day" in 1993. Elsewhere, her warm, soothing voice has been used frequently in documentary narratives and books-on-tape. Ms. Thompson, who lived in Connecticut with long-time husband (since 1949) Donald Stewart, had one daughter, Liza Stewart, a costume designer. She died in a Danbury hospital of lung disease on May 4, 2011, at age 83. - Yelena Samarina was born on December 16, 1927 in Omsk, Russian SFSR, USSR as Yelena Georgievna Volozhanina. She was an actress, known for The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman (1971), Los felices sesenta (1963), El filo del miedo (1967) and Don Juan in Hell (1991). She was married to Juan Manuel López Iglesias, the founder of Spain's Alta Films. She died on May 4, 2011 in Madrid, Spain.
- Additional Crew
Frans J. Afman joined N.V. Slavenburg's Bank Rotterdam in 1967. In 1969 he received an education in International Banking at the First National Bank of Chicago in Chicago and New York. At that time First Chicago was a 20 % shareholder in N.V. Slavenburg's Bank.
In 1972 he became Manager of the International Banking Division of Slavenburg's Bank and as such he was also responsible for the Corporate Banking Division and the liaison with First National Bank of Chicago. At the same time he initiated and developed the Entertainment Business Division of Slavenburg's Bank.
In 1981 N.V. Slavenburg's Bank was taken over by Credit Lyonnais and in 1983 renamed: Credit Lyonnais Bank Nederland N.V. Mr. Afman was Assistant General Manager and Head of the Entertainment Business Division of Credit Lyonnais Bank Nederland N.V., headquartered in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, until July 1, 1988, when he entered into a non-exclusive consultancy agreement with the Board of the Bank, which expired July 1, 1991. On September 1, 1991, Mr. Afman joined International Creative Management in Los Angeles as Managing Director of the newly formed Financial Services Department. In April 1993 he became an independent financial consultant.
Mr. Afman has worked with well known film producers like Dino De Laurentiis and Alexander Salkind, as well as with major independent motion picture production companies such as The Cannon Group (until 1987), Hemdale Film Corporation, Carolco Pictures Inc., Castle Rock, Nelson Entertainment, Imagine Films, Gladden Entertainment Corporation, Transworld Entertainment (until 1988), Merchant Ivory Productions, Neue Constantin, Morgan Creek, Largo Entertainment, LIVE Entertainment and Cinergi Productions.
He has been instrumental in financing film projects such as "Three Days Of The Condor", "King Kong", "Superman II and III", "Terminator I and II", "Rambo II and III", "Platoon","Hoosiers", "The Name Of The Rose", "A Room With A View", "When Harry Met Sally", "The Fabulous Baker Boys", "Driving Miss Daisy", "Total Recall" and "Dances With Wolves".
Mr. Afman has been invited numerous times to speak on seminars and panels (Holland Promotion - Los Angeles November 1988, American Film Market - Los Angeles February 1990, Munich Film Festival - Munich June 1988, Screen Production Association of Australia Conference - New South Wales November 1990, American Film Market - Los Angeles February 1991, Media Business School - Copenhagen 1992). He was keynote speaker during the Cannes Film Festival 1986 (International Bar Association), Tokyo Film Festival (September 1987), Cinetex, Las Vegas (September 1989) and American Film Market 1992 Opening Speech.
He obtained a law degree from the University of Amsterdam and he was an active reserve major in the Cavalry of the Netherlands Army until December 31, 1988. In 1996 he was elected as Chairman of the Netherlands Film Festival. He has also been an advisor to the Media Business School in Madrid as well as the Maurits Binger Institute in Amsterdam. In September 2007 Frans Afman was Knighted by the Queen of the Netherlands.- Karolina Borchardt was born on 25 November 1920 in Bobruisk, Belarus. She was an actress, known for Gangsterzy i filantropi (1963), Szczesciarz Antoni (1961) and Television Theater (1953). She died on 4 May 2011 in Skolimów, Konstancin-Jeziorna, Mazowieckie, Poland.
- Bernard Stasi was born on 4 July 1930 in Reims, Marne, France. He died on 4 May 2011 in Paris, Île-de-France, France.
- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Philip Nast was born on 3 May 1989 in Maryville, Illinois, USA. He was an actor, known for Black Fire: The Mini Series (2009), Point of Deception (2014) and Bittersweet Revenge (2011). He died on 4 May 2011 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.- Jeanette Sonnier was an actor, known for To Boldly Go (2010). He died on 4 May 2011 in Louisiana, USA.
- Writer
- Producer
Kimberly Jessup was born on 26 May 1981 in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Kimberly was a writer and producer, known for The Shasta Bowl (2007). Kimberly died on 4 May 2011 in West Hartford, Connecticut, USA.- Frank Thomas was born on 13 September 1924 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA. He was married to Mildred. He died on 4 May 2011.