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Murder, Inc. (1960 Film)
''Murder, Inc.'' is a 1960 American gangster film starring Stuart Whitman, May Britt, Henry Morgan, Peter Falk, and Simon Oakland. The Cinemascope film was directed by Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg. The screenplay was based on the true story of Murder, Inc., a Brooklyn gang that operated in the 1930s. Falk plays Abe Reles, a vicious thug who led the Murder, Inc. gang and was believed to have committed 30 murders, for which he was never prosecuted. The film was the first major feature role for Falk, who was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance. In his 2006 autobiography ''Just One More Thing'', Falk said that ''Murder, Inc.'' launched his career. This was the first film directed by Rosenberg, who later won acclaim for ''Cool Hand Luke'' (1967), and it launched Stuart Whitman's career as a leading man. A highly fictionalized film on the same basic events titled '' The Enforcer'' (1951), starring Humphrey Bogart, was released in the United Kingdom w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Burt Balaban
Burt Balaban (March 6, 1922 – October 14, 1965) was an American film producer and director. Biography Balaban was born to a Jewish family, the son of Tillie (nee Urkov) from her first marriage, and stepson of Barney Balaban. He was the nephew of Elmer Balaban, the nephew of A. J. Balaban, the brother of author Judy Balaban, and the cousin of actor Bob Balaban of ''Close Encounters of the Third Kind'' (1977) and ''Gosford Park'' (2001). He was born in Chicago and graduated from Roanoke College. During World War Two he was a combat photographer with the Marines.Tinee, M. (July 31, 1960)"Films leave their mark on youngsters"''Chicago Daily Tribune'' Selected filmography *''Phantom Caravan'' (1954) – executive producer *''The Sergeant and the Spy'' (TV movie) (1954) (producer) *''Amiable Lady'' (1954) (TV movie) (producer) *''The Lie (1954 film), The Lie'' (1954) (TV movie) (producer) *''Double Barrel Miracle'' (1954) (TV movie) – producer *''Stranger from Venus'' (1954) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cool Hand Luke
''Cool Hand Luke'' is a 1967 American prison drama film directed by Stuart Rosenberg, starring Paul Newman and featuring George Kennedy in an Oscar-winning performance. Newman stars in the title role as Luke, a prisoner in a Florida prison camp who refuses to submit to the system. Set in the early 1950s, it is based on Donn Pearce's 1965 novel '' Cool Hand Luke''. Roger Ebert called ''Cool Hand Luke'' an anti-establishment film shot during emerging popular opposition to the Vietnam War. Filming took place within California's San Joaquin River Delta region; the set, imitating a prison farm in the Deep South, was based on photographs and measurements made by a crew the filmmakers sent to a Road Prison in Gainesville, Florida. The film uses Christian imagery. Upon its release, ''Cool Hand Luke'' received favorable reviews and was a box-office success. It cemented Newman's status as one of the era's top actors, and was called the "touchstone of an era". Newman was nominated fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Smith (actor)
Howard Irving Smith (August 12, 1893 – January 10, 1968) was an American character actor with a 50-year career in vaudeville, theatre, radio, films and television. In 1938, he performed in Orson Welles's short-lived stage production and once-lost film, ''Too Much Johnson'', and in the celebrated radio production, " The War of the Worlds". He portrayed Charley in the original Broadway production of '' Death of a Salesman'' and recreated the role in the 1951 film version. On television, Smith portrayed the gruff Harvey Griffin in the situation comedy, '' Hazel''. Biography Howard Irving Smith was born August 12, 1893, in Attleboro, Massachusetts, to parents George H. Smith and Sybelle Pollard Smith. Smith began as a concert singer, but his hopes of an opera career were ended after his service in the 77th Infantry Division in World War I. Enrico Caruso suggested that he try a musical act in vaudeville. He formed a team with his friend Harry Meeker and later, as a comedian, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vincent Gardenia
Vincent Gardenia (born Vincenzo Scognamiglio; January 7, 1920 – December 9, 1992) was an Italian-American stage, film, and television actor. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, first for ''Bang the Drum Slowly'' (1973) and again for ''Moonstruck'' (1987). He also portrayed Det. Frank Ochoa in '' Death Wish'' (1974) and its 1982 sequel, ''Death Wish II'', and played "Mr. Mushnik" in the musical film adaptation of '' Little Shop of Horrors'' (1986). Gardenia's other notable feature films include '' Murder Inc.'' (1960), ''The Hustler'' (1961), ''The Front Page'' (1974), '' Greased Lightning'' (1977), '' Heaven Can Wait'' (1978), and '' The Super'' (1991). In 1990, Gardenia was awarded the Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a television movie or television series for the HBO production ''Age Old Friends''. Gardenia was twice honored for his performances on Broadway. In 1972, he won the Tony Award for Best Supporting Actor in ''The Prison ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emanuel Weiss
Emanuel "Mendy" Weiss (June 11, 1906 – March 4, 1944) was an American organized crime figure. He was an associate of the notorious Louis Buchalter and part of Buchalter's criminal organization known as Murder, Inc. during the 1930s and up to the time of his arrest for murder in 1941, for which he was convicted and, in 1944, executed. The Federal Bureau of Narcotics claimed that Weiss and his partner in crime Philip "Little Farvel" Cohen were heavily involved in narcotics trafficking. Although he was indicted on multiple drug charges, Weiss was never sentenced for any of these crimes. Career Starting as an enforcer for the labor rackets run by Louis "Lepke" Buchalter in 1923, Weiss rose to become one of Buchalter's most trusted associates. Weiss was active in Buchalter's lucrative garment industry rackets and once Buchalter and Jacob Shapiro became fugitives from justice in 1937 Weiss took over the post as the acting general manager and was left in charge of payrolls and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Bernard (actor)
Joseph Bernard (December 12, 1923 – April 3, 2006) was an American actor and acting teacher who appeared in 25 Broadway plays and several movies and TV appearances in the 1950s through 1970s. Bernard was born in Brooklyn, New York, and studied at New York's New School for Social Research with acting teacher Stella Adler. One of his New School classmates was Marlon Brando. Bernard was drafted into the U.S. Army and served in the D-Day invasion of France. After the war, he appeared in the play ''Winter Soldiers'' and then ''Skipper Next to God'', directed by Lee Strasberg and starring John Garfield, with whom he became friends. Garfield was Bernard's best man at his marriage to his wife, Bina, whom he wed in 1952. Bina died in 2001. Bernard appeared in ''Murder, Inc.'', the Stanley Kramer film ''Judgment at Nuremberg'' (1961), in which he played an assistant to the American prosecutor, played by Richard Widmark, and a number of other films that included ''Ice Station Zebra''. H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eli Mintz
Eli Mintz (born Edward Satz, 1 August 1904 – 8 June 1988) was an American actor of Polish-Austrian Jewish descent. Biography Born in Lemberg, Austrian-Hungary (now Lviv, Ukraine), the son of a tailor, Mintz began acting professionally as a child in the theatre, with his first performance being in a production of ''The Dybbuk''. Emplyed a waiter on the steamship ''Lituania'', he immigrated to the United States in 1927 with the intent of pursuing a career as an actor. His brother Ludwig Satz was already working as an actor in New York City before his arrival. Mintz worked as a waiter, a presser and a clothing salesman in New York City until he procured his first acting jobs within Yiddish theater during the 1930s. He decided to use the stage name Eli Mintz at this time, largely so that his name would be separated from his brother's career. Mintz's first major break came in 1948 when he was cast as Uncle David in Gertrude Berg's Broadway play ''Me and Molly''. The work was based ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Lois Vaughan (March 27, 1924 – April 3, 1990) was an American jazz singer. Nicknamed "Sassy" and " The Divine One", she won two Grammy Awards, including the Lifetime Achievement Award, and was nominated for a total of nine Grammy Awards. She was given an NEA Jazz Masters Award in 1989. Critic Scott Yanow wrote that she had "one of the most wondrous voices of the 20th century". Early life Vaughan was born in Newark, New Jersey, to Asbury "Jake" Vaughan, a carpenter by trade who played guitar and piano, and Ada Vaughan, a laundress who sang in the church choir, migrants from Virginia. The Vaughans lived in a house on Brunswick Street in Newark for Vaughan's entire childhood. Jake was deeply religious. The family was active in New Mount Zion Baptist Church at 186 Thomas Street. Vaughan began piano lessons at the age of seven, sang in the church choir, and played piano for rehearsals and services. She developed an early love for popular music on records and the radio. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David J
David John Haskins (born 24 April 1957, Northampton, Northamptonshire, England), better known as David J, is a British alternative rock musician, producer, and writer. He is the bassist for the gothic rock band Bauhaus and for Love and Rockets. He has composed the scores for a number of plays and films, and also wrote and directed his own plays, ''Silver for Gold (The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick)'', in 2008, which was restaged at REDCAT in Los Angeles in 2011, and ''The Chanteuse and The Devil's Muse'' in 2011. His artwork has been shown in galleries internationally, and he has been a resident DJ at venues such as the Knitting Factory. David J has released a number of singles and solo albums, and in 1990 he released one of the first No. 1 hits on the then nascent Modern Rock Tracks charts, with "I'll Be Your Chauffeur". His most recent single, "The Day That David Bowie Died" entered the UK vinyl singles chart at number 4 in 2016. The track appears on his double album, ''Vaga ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morey Amsterdam
Moritz "Morey" Amsterdam (December 14, 1908 – October 28, 1996) was an American actor, comedian, writer and producer. He played Buddy Sorrell on CBS's ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' from 1961 to 1966. Early life Amsterdam was born in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of the three sons of Max and Jennie (née Finder) Amsterdam, Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary. He began working in vaudeville in 1922 as the straight man for his older brother's jokes. He was a cellist, a skill he used throughout his career. By 1924, he was working in a speakeasy operated by Al Capone. After being caught in the middle of a gunfight, Amsterdam moved to California and worked writing jokes. His enormous repertoire, and his ability to come up with a joke on any subject, earned him the nickname The Human Joke Machine. He sometimes performed with a mock machine on his chest, hanging by a strap. He turned a hand crank and paper rolled out; he would then pretend to read the machine's joke, althoug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louis Buchalter
Louis Buchalter, known as Louis Lepke or Lepke Buchalter, (February 6, 1897March 4, 1944) was an American mobster and head of the Mafia hit squad Murder, Inc., during the 1930s. Buchalter was one of the premier labor racketeers in New York City during that era. Charles Birger and Buchalter are the only American mob bosses to be executed after being convicted of murder. Louis Buchalter was executed using the infamous "Old Sparky" electric chair after being sent "up the river" to Sing Sing Correctional Facility. Background Buchalter was born in the Lower East Side neighborhood of the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York in February 1897. His mother, Rose Buchalter, called him "lepkeleh" ("little Louis" in Yiddish), which later became "Lepke". Louis Buchalter had one sister and three brothers; one brother eventually became a dentist, another brother a college professor and rabbi, and the third brother a pharmacist. His father, Barnett Buchalter, was a Russian immigrant wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
