Category: Oscar Profile

The heroes on the front lines of the current coronavirus pandemic are the doctors and nurses who treat the sick and dying and the scientists who race to find a new form of treatment if not a cure for the horrific disease. Films about the heroics performed by like-minded individuals of the past were quite…

Born December 20, 1921 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, George Roy Hill was the son of George Roy and Helen Frances Hill, owners of the Minneapolis Tribune. Young Hill had a love of flying and obtained his pilot’s license at the age of sixteen. He also loved classical music, especially Bach, and as an undergraduate at Yale…

Born July 2, 1990 in Dalby, Queensland, Australia to Scottish parents, Margot Robbie was one of four children of Sarie Kessler, a physiotherapist, and Doug Robbie, a former farm owner. She and her three siblings, two brothers and a sister, were raised by her single mother with minimal contact with her father. After graduating from…

Born August 12, 1931 in Chicago, Illinois, William Goldman was the son of Marion and businessman Maurice Goldman. He was the younger brother of fellow writer James Goldman (1927-1998), best known as the Oscar winning writer of The Lion in Winter. Goldman, received a B.A. degree from Oberlin College in 1952, and was drafted into…

Born July 29, 1892 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, William (Horatio) Powell was the only child of Nettie and Horatio Powell. He moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri in 1907 where he graduated from Central High School in 1911. He then moved to New York where he entered the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in…

Born Joaquin Rafael Bottom in Puerto Rico on October 28, 1974, the middle child of five of a New York Jewish mother and California father of mostly English heritage, his parents who were then members of the Children of God missionaries changed the family name to Phoenix. With older siblings named River and Rain and…

Born April 25, 1969 in Katy, Texas, Renée Zellweger was a cheerleader, gymnast, speech team member and drama club member in Katy High School. She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 1991. She received her Screen Actors Guild Card for doing a Coors Light commercial. Zellweger made her screen debut in an…

Born November 22, 1984 in New York, New York, Scarlett Johansson was one of four children of a Danish-born architect and his wife. She has a sister and two brothers, one of whom is her twin. The budding actress practiced singing and dancing as a child in front a mirror pretending to be Judy Garland…

Born December 18, 1963 in Shawnee, Oklahoma, William Bradley Pitt’s father was the owner of a trucking company and his mother was a school counselor. The family soon moved to Springfield, Missouri where he was raised along with his younger brother and sister. He attended the University of Missouri, majoring in journalism with a focus…

Born June 1, 1947 in Carmel, Wales, John Price was the third child and only son of a former coal miner who ran a small general grocery shop with his wife. His primary education was in Wales, but the brilliant student entered college in Lancashire, England at the age of 16. While studying to become…

Born August 7, 1902 at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas, Dorothy Gatley, known professionally as Ann Harding, was the daughter of a prominent Army officer and his wife who spent her formative years traveling with her West Point educated father to wherever he was sent. Having graduated from New Jersey’s East Orange High…

Born July 24, 1929 in Hampshire, England, Peter Yates was the son of an army officer. He attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for some years as an actor, director and stage manager. He directed plays in London and New York. He also spent two…

Born September 20, 1934 in Rome, Italy, Sophia Scicolone and her younger sister, Maria, were raised by their maternal grandmother in the slums of Pozzuoli, their construction engineer father having refused to divorce his wife and marry the girls’ piano teacher mother. Encouraged to enter a beauty contest at 14, the young would-be actress was…

With lame cable TV channels now cornering the market on Christmas movies, it’s again worth examining what a treasure occasional big screen movies have been. It’s nice to remember that there once was a time when not every Christmas movie was filmed in Canada in the summer with fake snow and was about the same…