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The Money Pit
''The Money Pit'' is a 1986 American comedy film directed by Richard Benjamin and starring Tom Hanks and Shelley Long as a couple who attempt to renovate a recently purchased house. The film is a loose remake of the 1948 Cary Grant comedy film '' Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House'', and was filmed in New York City and Lattingtown, New York, and was co-executive produced by Steven Spielberg. Plot Attorney Walter Fielding and his classical musician girlfriend, Anna Crowley, learn that Walter's father, Walter Sr., has married a woman named Florinda and fled the country after embezzling millions of dollars from their musician clients. The next morning, they are told they need to vacate the apartment they are subletting from Anna's ex-husband, Max Beissart, a self-absorbed conductor who has returned early from Europe. Through an unscrupulous realtor friend, Walter learns about a million-dollar distress sale mansion on the market for just $200,000. He and Anna meet the owner, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Benjamin
Richard Samuel Benjamin (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of well-known films, including '' Goodbye, Columbus'' (1969), '' Catch-22'' (1970), '' Portnoy's Complaint'' (1972), '' Westworld'', '' The Last of Sheila'' (both 1973) and '' Saturday the 14th'' (1981). In 1968, Benjamin was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his performance on the CBS sitcom '' He & She'' (starring opposite his wife Paula Prentiss), which aired from 1967-1968. In 1976, Benjamin received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Motion Picture for his performance as aged vaudevillian Willy Clark's ( Walter Matthau) comedically long-suffering nephew, confidante and talent agent, Ben Clark, in Herbert Ross' '' The Sunshine Boys'' (1975), based on Neil Simon's 1972 hit stage play of the same name. After directing for television, his first film as a director was the 1982 comedy '' My Favorite Year'', star ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cary Grant
Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904November 29, 1986) was an English and American actor. Known for his blended British and American accent, debonair demeanor, lighthearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of Classical Hollywood cinema, classic Hollywood's definitive leading man, leading men. He was nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor, Academy Award, received an Academy Honorary Award in 42nd Academy Awards, 1970, and received the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. He was named AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars#List of 50 greatest screen legends: Top 25 Male and Top 25 Female stars, the second greatest male star of the Golden Age of Hollywood by the American Film Institute in 1999. Grant was born into an impoverished family in Bristol, where he had an unhappy childhood marked by the absence of his mother and his father's alcoholism. He became attracted to theatre at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At 16, he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Backer
Brian Backer (born December 5, 1956) is an American former actor who has starred in film and on television. He is best known for his role in the 1982 hit comedy film '' Fast Times at Ridgemont High'' as shy teenager Mark "Rat" Ratner. He appeared in the 1985 comedy film '' Moving Violations'' as Scott Greeber and the 1987 comedy film '' Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol'' as Arnie. Backer's primary television role was on the soap opera '' Santa Barbara'' in 1990 as A. Bartlett Congdon. He has made guest appearances on such shows as '' Charles in Charge'', ''Gimme a Break!'' and ''Growing Pains''. Backer won the 1981 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Play, the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play and the Theatre World Award for Woody Allen's '' The Floating Light Bulb'', in which he portrayed an Allen-like protagonist. Early life Backer grew up in Brooklyn. He is Jewish. Filmography * '' The Burning'' (1981) as Alfred * '' F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carmine Caridi
Carmine Caridi (January 23, 1934 – May 28, 2019) was an American film, television and stage actor. He is best known for his roles in the films ''The Godfather Part II'' (1974) and ''The Godfather Part III'' (1990). In 2004, Caridi became the first person to be expelled from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Life and career Caridi's most notable film roles are Carmine Rosato in ''The Godfather Part II'' (1974) and Albert Volpe in ''The Godfather Part III'' (1990). He is one of three actors to play two different roles in the ''Godfather'' films, the others being Frank Sivero (who played a young Genco Abbandando in ''Godfather Part II'' and a bystander to the fight between Sonny Corleone and Carlo Rizzi in ''The Godfather''), and Sofia Coppola (who played Mary Corleone in ''Godfather Part III'' and the infant son of Carlo and Connie baptized in the final scenes of ''The Godfather'' as well as a child on the ship at the beginning of ''Godfather Part II''). Acc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yakov Smirnoff
Yakov Naumovich Pokhis (; born 24 January 1951), better known as Yakov Smirnoff (; ), is a Jewish Soviet-American comedian, actor and writer. He began his career as a stand-up comedian in the Soviet Union, then immigrated to the United States in 1977 in order to pursue an American show business career, not yet knowing any English. He reached his biggest success in the mid-to-late 1980s, appearing in several films which include '' Moscow on the Hudson'' with Robin Williams, ''The Money Pit'' with Tom Hanks, ''Heartburn'' with Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, and ''Brewster's Millions'' with Richard Pryor. He was a star of the television series '' What a Country!'' and was a recurring guest star on NBC's hit television series ''Night Court'' playing the part of Yakov Korolenko. His comic persona was of a naive immigrant from the Soviet Union who was perpetually confused and delighted by life in the United States. His humor combined a mockery of life under Communist states and of co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Josh Mostel
Joshua Mostel (born December 21, 1946) is an American actor with numerous film and Broadway credits. The son of Zero Mostel, he is best known for his supporting roles in films such as '' Jesus Christ Superstar'' (1973), '' Harry and Tonto'' (1974), '' Sophie's Choice'' (1982), '' City Slickers'' (1991), '' Billy Madison'' (1995), and '' Big Daddy'' (1999). Life and career Mostel was born in New York City, the son of Kathryn Celia, née Harkin, an actress, dancer, and writer, and Zero Mostel, a comic actor. Tobias Mostel, his brother, is a painter, ceramic artist and professor of art, teaching at Florida State University and Tallahassee Community College. Mostel started his career as a boy soprano at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He graduated from Brandeis University. His Broadway debut was in 1971 with '' Unlikely Heroes''. In 1973, Mostel had one of his more notable film performances as Herod in '' Jesus Christ Superstar''. In 1979, Mostel briefly starred in '' Delt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frankie Faison
Frankie Russel Faison (born June 10, 1949) is an American actor known for his role as Deputy Commissioner, and, later, Commissioner, Ervin Burrell in the HBO series ''The Wire'', as Barney Matthews in the ''Hannibal Lecter'' franchise, and as Sugar Bates in the Cinemax series ''Banshee''. Early life and education Faison was born in Newport News, Virginia, the son of Carmena (née Gantt) and Edgar Faison. He studied drama at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois, where he joined Theta Chi fraternity. He went on to obtain a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1974. Frankie has been married to Samantha Jupiter Faison since 2017. Career Faison started his acting career in 1974 in the New York Shakespeare Festival production of ''King Lear'', with James Earl Jones in the title role. Faison later appeared opposite Jones in the Broadway premiere of '' Fences'', for which he received a nomination for a Tony Awar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philip Bosco
Philip Michael Bosco (September 26, 1930 – December 3, 2018) was an American actor. He was known for his Tony Award-winning performance as Saunders in the 1989 Broadway production of '' Lend Me a Tenor'', and for his starring role in the 2007 film '' The Savages''. Bosco won a Daytime Emmy Award in 1988. Early life Philip Michael Bosco was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, on September 26, 1930, to Margaret Raymond (née Thek), a policewoman, and Philip Lupo Bosco, a carnival worker. His father was of Italian descent and his mother was of German descent. Bosco attended St. Peter's Preparatory School in Jersey City, and later studied drama at Catholic University of America, where he had notable success in the title role of William Shakespeare's ''Richard III''. Career Bosco began his career in Broadway theatre and earned a Tony Award nomination for his debut in ''The Rape of the Belt'' in 1960. Bosco spent the next three decades supporting major stars in classic revivals like ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Mantegna
Joseph Anthony Mantegna (, ; born November 13, 1947) is an American actor best known for starring on CBS's ''Criminal Minds'' since 2007 as FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. He has voiced the recurring role of mob boss Fat Tony on the animated series ''The Simpsons'', beginning with the 1991 episode " Bart the Murderer", as well as in ''The Simpsons Movie'' (2007). Mantegna began his career on stage in 1969 in the Chicago production of the musical ''Hair''. He earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play and a Joseph Jefferson Award for portraying Richard Roma in the first American productions of David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize–winning play '' Glengarry Glen Ross'', the first of many collaborations with Mamet. His long-standing association with Mamet includes the premieres of '' A Life in the Theatre'', ''The Disappearance of the Jews'', and '' Speed-the-Plow'' on Broadway. Mantegna also directed a highly lauded production of Mamet's '' Lakeboat'', which enj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Con Artist
A scam, or a confidence trick, is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using a combination of the victim's credulity, naivety, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have defined confidence tricks as "a distinctive species of fraudulent conduct ... intending to further voluntary exchanges that are not mutually beneficial", as they "benefit con operators ('con men') at the expense of their victims (the 'marks')". Terminology Other terms for "scam" include confidence trick, con, con game, confidence game, confidence scheme, ripoff, stratagem, finesse, grift, hustle, bunko, bunco, swindle, flimflam, gaffle, and bamboozle. The perpetrator is often referred to as a scammer, confidence man, con man, con artist, grifter, hustler, or swindler. The intended victims are known as marks, suckers, stooges, mugs, rubes, or gulls (from the word ''gullible''). When accomplices are employ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Partition (law)
A partition is a term used in the law of real property to describe an act, by a court order or otherwise, to divide up a concurrent estate into separate portions representing the proportionate interests of the owners of property. It is sometimes described as a forced sale. Under the common law, any owner of property who owns an undivided concurrent interest in land can seek such a division. In some cases, the parties agree to a specific division of the land; if they are unable to do so, the court will determine an appropriate division. A sole owner, or several owners, of a piece of land may partition their land by entering a deed poll (sometimes referred to as "carving out"). Why forced sales occur Forced sales generally occur because owners of property are unable to agree upon certain aspects of the ownership. The owners may disagree on how to use the property, the amount of money to invest into the property, on their right to occupy and use the whole of the property. If the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Embezzlement
Embezzlement (from Anglo-Norman, from Old French ''besillier'' ("to torment, etc."), of unknown origin) is a type of financial crime, usually involving theft of money from a business or employer. It often involves a trusted individual taking advantage of their position to steal funds or assets, most commonly over a period of time. Versus larceny Embezzlement is not always a form of theft or an act of stealing ''per se'', since those definitions specifically deal with taking something that does not belong to the perpetrators. Instead, embezzlement is, more generically, an act of deceitfully secreting assets by one or more persons that have been ''entrusted'' with such assets. The persons entrusted with such assets may or may not have an ownership stake in such assets. Embezzlement differs from larceny in three ways. First, in embezzlement, an actual '' conversion'' must occur; second, the original taking must not be trespassory, and third, in penalties. To say that the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
