Bisexual and Lesbian Screen Stars
A list of ladies in the entertainment industry for whom oranges are not the only fruit.
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Picture-pretty brunette Margaret Lindsay was one of a number of pleasant, sweet-natured ingénues who could do no wrong in a score of 1930s stylish Hollywood pictures. Such altruistic love interests were often overlooked in pictures that were carried by the flashy histrionics of a jaunty James Cagney or temperamental Bette Davis, both of whom she supported in several films. Ergo, while she was a lovely distraction and a highly capable talent, Margaret failed to ignite and command the attention of a truer star.
The Dubuque, Iowa-born lovely was christened Margaret Kies in real life, the eldest of six (she had four sisters (Helen, Jane, Lori, Mickie), one brother (Jack)). Her father, a druggist, enrolled her at the National Park Seminary in Washington, DC. The acting bug hit Margaret quite early, however, and she subsequently attended New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts to pursue her dream. Unable to find work in New York, she traveled to England for further speech and acting study. Here she made her professional stage debut and gained experience and confidence in such plays as "Escape," "By Candlelight," and "Death Takes a Holiday". With her resume now consisting of strong theatre credits, she returned to the States hoping to finally make a mark on Broadway, but again her career stalled. While waiting for a show of hers to open following production delays (eventually she co-starred on Broadway opposite Roland Young in "Another Love Story"), Margaret had a number of screen tests arranged for her. Shelving her Iowa-based roots, Universal took an interest in the "British stage actress" and signed her on. She made her debut in Okay America! (1932) and toiled in a few minor roles before taking full advantage of her "English tea rose" reputation with a small but noticeable part in the "all-British" grand-scale epic film Cavalcade (1933) as an optimistic honeymooner on board the fateful H.M.S.Titanic.
Warner Bros. then picked up her option and began featuring her gracefully opposite such magnanimous stars as Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., George Arliss and Humphrey Bogart. "Americanized" as a lead and second lead, she was able to drop the British pretense and appeared opposite Cagney in Lady Killer (1933), Devil Dogs of the Air (1935), Frisco Kid (1935) and 'G' Men (1935). The studio had her work as a second-lead to Ms. Davis as well in such films as Fog Over Frisco (1934) and Bordertown (1935). Of note, she supported Davis in both her Oscar-winning "Best Actress" pictures -- Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938). She also took on a Davis castoff role in Garden of the Moon (1938), a musical in which Margaret did not sing.
Margaret's longstanding problem was that she was either involved in minor pictures that would do nothing to advance her career or was handed oblique secondary roles in "A" pictures wherein she played the star's best friend, light romantic rival or socialite. One of Margaret's sisters, Jane Gilbert was briefly an actress in the late 1930s/early '40s and was once married to Perry Mason (1957) co-star William Hopper, who played private investigator Paul Drake.
Following one of her best roles as Hepzibah in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (1940), Margaret signed up with Columbia in the recurring "Ellery Queen" series (seven in all) as mystery writer Nikki Porter opposite either Ralph Bellamy or William Gargan's title crime solver. Probably her best remembered role, this renewed popularity did not guarantee "A" pictures and she remained for the most part in second tier filming. One of her more atypical roles came as a man-baiting saloon girl in The Vigilantes Return (1947). In the 1940s, she replenished her film resume with secondary ladylike roles behind Joan Bennett in Scarlet Street (1945), Lana Turner in Cass Timberlane (1947) and Barbara Stanwyck in B.F.'s Daughter (1948). Margaret also sought work on TV and on the legit stage in the next decade. Her final film was in typically pleasant mode as Nurse Colman in Tammy and the Doctor (1963) showcasing a nubile Sandra Dee.
Margaret never married in real life but remained close to her family. Her dating companions were typically "safe" stars such as Cesar Romero, Richard Deacon, and even Liberace. For much of her time in Hollywood, Margaret shared a home with a close sister. She died at age 70 in Los Angeles of emphysema in the spring of 1981.Lesbian- Michelle Hardwick was born on 26 February 1976 in Wakefield, Yorkshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Emmerdale Farm (1972), The Royal (2003) and Heartbeat (1992). She has been married to Kate Brooks since 10 September 2019. They have two children. She was previously married to Rosie Nicholl.Lesbian
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Jodie Foster started her career at the age of two. For four years she made commercials and finally gave her debut as an actress in the TV series Mayberry R.F.D. (1968). In 1975 Jodie was offered the role of prostitute Iris Steensma in the movie Taxi Driver (1976). This role, for which she received an Academy Award nomination in the "Best Supporting Actress" category, marked a breakthrough in her career. In 1980 she graduated as the best of her class from the College Lycée Français and began to study English Literature at Yale University, from where she graduated magna cum laude in 1985. One tragic moment in her life was March 30th, 1981 when John Warnock Hinkley Jr. attempted to assassinate the President of the United States, Ronald Reagan. Hinkley was obsessed with Jodie and the movie Taxi Driver (1976), in which Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, tried to shoot presidential candidate Palantine. Despite the fact that Jodie never took acting lessons, she received two Oscars before she was thirty years of age. She received her first award for her part as Sarah Tobias in The Accused (1988) and the second one for her performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).Lesbian- Actress
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Sophie Ward was born on 30 December 1964 in Hammersmith, London, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), Book of Blood (2009) and Jane Eyre (2011). She has been married to Rena Brannan since 2000. She was previously married to Paul Hobson.Lesbian.- Jessica Baglow was born on 23 March 1989 in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for Gentleman Jack (2019), Silent Witness (1996) and Apostasy (2017).Lesbian
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Holly Rivers was born in 1985 in Cardiff, Wales, UK. She is an actress and casting director, known for The Worst Witch (1998), Shadow Skill (1995) and The Landlady (2013).Lesbian, played Drucilla Paddock in The Worst Witch (1998-2002)- Actress
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Jane Hazlegrove was born on 17 July 1968 in Manchester, England, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Heidi (1993), Casualty (1986) and Threads (1984). She has been married to Isobel Middleton since 2015.Lesbian, in a relationship with fellow actress Isobel Middleton.- Actress
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Isobel Middleton is known for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), Menace (2002) and Cracker (1993). She has been married to Jane Hazlegrove since 2015.Lesbian, in a relationship with fellow actress Jane Hazlegrove- Actress
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Rebel Wilson was born in Sydney, Australia, to a family of dog handlers and showers. She trained at the Australian Theatre for Young People and at Second City in the US. After a successful stage and television career in Australia, this writer/actress/producer now focuses on feature film projects in the United States and is perhaps most known for her breakthrough roles in the films Bridesmaids and Pitch Perfect. In 2019, Rebel will be seen in four feature films: Isn't It Romantic and The Hustle (both of which she also produced), Jojo Rabbit directed by Taika Waititi and Tom Hooper's Cats and ABC television series Les Norton.Bisexual- Actress
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Anna Paquin is the first millennial to have received an Academy Award nomination for acting, and the first to win.
She was born on July 24, 1982 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to Mary (Brophy), an English teacher from Wellington, New Zealand, and Brian Paquin, a Canadian phys-ed teacher. Anna moved to her mother's native country when she was four years old. Her first acting job ever was at age nine in the movie The Piano (1993), which was shot in New Zealand. At age 16, she relocated to Los Angeles where she completed her last two years of high school (graduating in 2000). She then moved to New York where she attended Columbia University for one year. Between 2001 and 2004, she worked almost exclusively on stage in both New York and London. In 2007, Anna was cast in HBO's True Blood (2008), which concluded shooting its seventh and final season in 2014.Bisexual, married to Stephen Moyer- Kylie Watson was born on 7 May 1978 in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. She is an actress, known for Home and Away (1988), Blood Brothers (2011) and The Newtown Girls (2012).Lesbian, played Shauna Reynolds in soap Home & Away (1999-2002)
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Portia de Rossi was born and raised in Geelong, Australia. Originally born Amanda Rogers, at 15 she changed her name to Portia, saying that it was the most daring thing she had ever done up until that point. After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Melbourne, and studied law. Although she studied diligently, in 1993, Portia found herself giving special notice to a casting director who saw her in a commercial, and she soon auditioned for Sirens (1994), a low budget comedy starring Hugh Grant. She was cast in the role of Giddy, one of the three gorgeous models in the movie. It wasn't until 1997, however, that Portia at last began to attract real attention. She turned an unforgettable role as Murphy in Scream 2 (1997), and in 1998 she joined the cast of Ally McBeal (1997) as the "Ice Queen", Nelle Porter. She has also worked on such projects as Stigmata (1999), Girl (1998), and The Invisibles (1999), and she has appeared on several magazine covers, including Shape. After more than a decade of hard work, Portia is finally beginning to win real recognition, not only for her long golden tresses, but also for her wonderful talent.Lesbian, in a relationship with Ellen DeGeneres since 1997- Producer
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Emmy-winning talk show host Ellen Lee DeGeneres was born in Metairie, Louisiana, a New Orleans suburb. She is the daughter of Betty DeGeneres (née Elizabeth Jane Pfeffer), a speech therapist, and Elliott Everett DeGeneres, Jr., an insurance agent. Her brother is musician and producer Vance DeGeneres. Her parents divorced when she was 16 years old. Her mother remarried, and her new husband, salesman Roy Gruessendorf, moved the family to Atlanta, Texas.
After graduating from Atlanta High School in 1976, Ellen attended the University of New Orleans as a communications major, but she dropped out after one semester. She held a wide variety of jobs until she turned to stand-up comedy, making her bones at small clubs and coffeehouses before working her way up to emcee Clyde's Comedy Club by 1981. Her comedy was described as a distaff version of Bob Newhart. Beginning in the early 1980s, she toured nationally and was named the funniest person in America after winning a competition sponsored by the cable network Showtime. This led to better gigs, including her first appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962) in 1986.
Though DeGeneres's early forays into series television were not successful (she appeared as a supporting player in two short-lived TV situation comedies in the period 1989-92, Open House (1989) and Laurie Hill (1992)), she scored a hit headlining her own 1994 sitcom on ABC "These Friends of Mine" (renamed Ellen (1994) after its first season). She made TV history in April 1997, when her character, and DeGeneres personally, revealed that she was a lesbian. However, the show was canceled the following season due to declining ratings, after which DeGeneres returned to the stand-up circuit. In 2001, DeGeneres launched a new series, The Ellen Show (2001), on CBS, but it suffered from poor ratings and was canceled.
Redemption as a television artist came in 2003, when DeGeneres's daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show (2003), proved to be both a critical hit and a commercial success. Along with good ratings, the show has won unprecedented kudos from the industry, winning 15 Emmy Awards in its first three seasons on the air and becoming the first talk show in TV history to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show in its first three seasons.
DeGeneres has also made a name for herself as a host of awards shows. She hosted the Grammy Awards in 1996 and 1997, as well as the Primetime Emmy Awards in 2001 and 2005. In February 2007, she had the ultimate TV awards show gig, hosting the Oscars, which she hosted again in 2014.Lesbian, in a relationship with Portia de Rossi since 1997- Actress
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Heather Peace was born on 16 June 1975 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, UK. She is an actress, known for London's Burning (1988), Emmerdale Farm (1972) and Lip Service (2010). She has been married to Eleanor Dickinson since 13 December 2014. They have three children.Lesbian- This tall, dazzling, yet reserved and sensitive foreign import was born Giovanna Scoglio in Liverpool, England but moved to Sicily with her aristocratic Sicilian father and Irish mother at three months of age. She migrated to New York at age 14 and attended Bayside (Queens) High School, graduating in 1952. She worked various jobs as a file clerk and airline reservations taker while studying with Stella Adler and the Actors Studio. Appearing as a contestant on a television game show, a Universal Studios agent happened to spot the young beauty and immediately placed the young beauty under contract in 1954.
It did not take long before she moved up the Hollywood ladder. After only a couple of bit parts, Gia began earning good notices for her "second lead" roles. Her performance in The Price of Fear (1956) led to even better love interest parts in The Garment Jungle (1957) with Kerwin Mathews, Don't Go Near the Water (1957) opposite Glenn Ford, The Two-Headed Spy (1958) with Jack Hawkins, The Angry Hills (1959) starring Robert Mitchum, and I Aim at the Stars (1960) [aka: Wernher von Braun] with Curd Jürgens. Gia's best known film role came as the mute Anna, the ill-fated Greek resistance fighter, in the classic all-star epic film, The Guns of Navarone (1961) headed up by Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn.
From there things began to spiral downhill for Gia personally and professionally. Riding on the coattails of her ever-present glamour and cinematic success were deep-rooted insecurities. Following the loss of her beloved mother, she fell into acute depression and began to drink heavily as compensation which led to a few arrests. She eventually lost her contract at Universal due to her unreliability, which forced her to seek work overseas. Her marriage to handsome actor Don Burnett, whom she co-starred with in the obscure adventure The Triumph of Robin Hood (1962) [The Triumph of Robin Hood] burnt itself out, and, at one point, she threw herself off London's Waterloo Bridge in desperation. She would have drowned in the Thames River had a passing cab driver not plucked her out of the water in time.
Gia's bouts with depression grew so severe that she was forced to undergo frequent psychiatric observations. In the midst of things she tried to pick herself up emotionally by studying painting and staying close to her younger sister, actress Tina Scala. It was too late. On April 30, 1972, it all ended for Gia Scala. She was found dead in her Hollywood Hills bedroom following an overdose of alcohol and sleeping pills. This incredible beauty who never reached her full potential in Hollywood instead became another Tinseltown statistic.Bisexual - Actress
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Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the period from 1927 until 1964, after which she appeared on television until 1986. It was a career that lasted for 59 years.
Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens on July 16, 1907, in Brooklyn, New York, to working class parents Catherine Ann (McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens. Her father, from Massachusetts, had English ancestry, and her Canadian mother, from Nova Scotia, was of Scottish and Irish descent. Stanwyck went to work at the local telephone company for fourteen dollars a week, but she had the urge (a dream--that was all it was) somehow to enter show business. When not working, she pounded the pavement in search of dancing jobs. The persistence paid off. Barbara was hired as a chorus girl for the princely sum of $40 a week, much better than the wages she was getting from the phone company. She was seventeen, and was going to make the most of the opportunity that had been given her.
In 1928 Barbara moved to Hollywood, where she was to start one of the most lucrative careers filmdom had ever seen. She was an extremely versatile actress who could adapt to any role. Barbara was equally at home in all genres, from melodramas, such as Forbidden (1932) and Stella Dallas (1937), to thrillers, such as Double Indemnity (1944), one of her best films, also starring Fred MacMurray (as you have never seen him before). She also excelled in comedies such as Remember the Night (1939) and The Lady Eve (1941). Another genre she excelled in was westerns, Union Pacific (1939) being one of her first and TV's The Big Valley (1965) (her most memorable role) being her last. In 1983, she played in the ABC hit mini-series The Thorn Birds (1983), which did much to keep her in the eye of the public. She turned in an outstanding performance as Mary Carson.
Barbara was considered a gem to work with for her serious but easygoing attitude on the set. She worked hard at being an actress, and she never allowed her star quality to go to her head. She was nominated for four Academy Awards, though she never won. She turned in magnificent performances for all the roles she was nominated for, but the "powers that be" always awarded the Oscar to someone else. However, in 1982 she was awarded an honorary Academy Award for "superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting." Sadly, Barbara died on January 20, 1990, leaving 93 movies and a host of TV appearances as her legacy to us.Bisexual/Lesbian- Actress
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Kay Francis is possibly the biggest of the 'forgotten stars' from Hollywood's Golden Era. Yet, for a while in the 1930s she ranked as one of America's most popular actresses, tagged the 'Queen of Warner Brothers'. By 1935, she earned a yearly salary of $115,000 (compared to Bette Davis with $18,000). The daughter of actress Katherine Clinton and businessman Joseph Gibbs, Kay did not start her working life in show business but sold real estate and arranged extravagant parties for wealthy socialites. Following her marriage in 1922 to James Dwight Francis, the son of a moneyed family, Kay adopted the surname Francis. Her first acting job was in a modernized 1925 version of 'Hamlet' (as the Player Queen), performing as 'Katharine Francis'. She then played Marjorie Grey in the melodrama "Crime" (1927) and appeared in the Ring Lardner play "Elmer the Great" (1928), produced by George M. Cohan and starring Walter Huston as Elmer Kane. On the strength of her stage work, Kay was screen-tested by Paramount and subsequently offered a contract (1929-31). A brief affair with writer/director Edmund Goulding (some time around April 1928) may also have been a contributing factor.
She had a bit in the first Marx Brothers outing, The Cocoanuts (1929), and then graduated to playing sophisticated seductresses opposite stars like William Powell and Ronald Colman. She appeared in the Lubitsch comedy Trouble in Paradise (1932), though being unhappy about being billed below Miriam Hopkins in the picture. One of her best early films was the comedy/drama One Way Passage (1932), in which Kay portrayed a gravely-ill baroness opposite Powell's gentleman burglar. This doomed romance, interlaced with witty dialogue, was described by a reviewer as 'spilled cocktail and love at first sight'.
Paramount, at the time well-stocked with female stars but experiencing financial problems, decided to let Kay move to Warner Brothers. There she would remain for the rest of the decade. A tall, attractive, gray-eyed brunette with undeniable style and poise, she soon acquired a reputation as Hollywood's 'best dressed woman', wearing the most glamorous gowns designed by great studio costumers like Orry-Kelly, Travis Banton and Adrian. Female audiences, in particular, often flocked to see Kay Francis pictures simply to appreciate her sumptuous wardrobe. For her part, Kay spent a lot of time and effort on collaborative efforts with costume designers to select the right clothes for the parts she played. Dorothy Jeakins believed, that Kay possessed an 'innate sense of style'.
By the mid-1930s, Kay earned $5,250 per week and was voted by Variety as Hollywood's sixth most popular star. Numerous magazine articles were written about every detail of her life in and off the studio lot. She had major hits with I Found Stella Parish (1935) and Confession (1937), both excellent money-spinners for the studio. While much was made at the time (and since) of her famous lisp, this had not hitherto been a significant detriment to Kay's career. At least, not until her falling out with the studio executives who thought her salary too excessive. The tight control the studio exercised over the roles she played on screen caused her to file a lawsuit against Warner Brothers in an effort to escape her contract. It had all started to go wrong for her when she was assigned the role of 'women's picture star', effectively typecasting her in sentimental melodramas, earnest biopics (The White Angel (1936), and three-handkerchief tearjerkers like My Bill (1938), her script filled with Rs and Ls as chastisement for bucking the system. Though she still managed to give several good performances, the writing was now on the wall. By the end of the decade, the 'Queen of Warner Brothers' mantle had passed on to Bette Davis.
During the mid-1940s, Kay co-produced several B-movies as vehicles for herself at Monogram, then made a brief return to stage work, acting in summer stock before retiring permanently in 1952. She spent the remainder of her life in virtual seclusion in New York and in her estate near Falmouth, Cape Cod. She left some of her estate (in excess of one million dollars) to an organization training guide dogs for the blind, Seeing Eye Inc. Her surviving personal papers are accessible at the Wesleyan University Cinema Archives.Bisexual- Tallulah Brockman Bankhead was born on January 31, 1902 in Huntsville, Alabama. Her father was a mover and shaker in the Democratic Party who served as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from June 4, 1936, to September 16, 1940. Tallulah had been interested in acting and, at age 15, started her stage career in the local theater troupes of Huntsville and the surrounding areas. At age 16, she won a beauty contest and, bolstered by this achievement, moved to New York City to live with her aunt and to try her hand at Broadway. She was offered a role in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920), but did not take it after she refused John Barrymore's invitation for a visit to the casting couch. Unfortunately, for the young Miss Bankhead, she did not make any headway on the stages of New York, so she pulled up stakes and moved to London, in 1923, to try her luck there.
For the next several years, she was the most popular actress of London's famed West End, the British equivalent of Broadway. After starring in several well-received plays, she gained the attention of Paramount Pictures executives and returned to the United States to try her hand at the film world. Her first two films, Woman's Law (1927) and His House in Order (1928), did not exactly set the world on fire, so she returned to do more stage work. She tried film work again with Tarnished Lady (1931), where she played Nancy Courtney, a woman who marries for money but ultimately gets bored with her husband and leaves him, only to come back to him when he is broke. The critics gave it a mixed reception. Tallulah's personality did not shine on film as Paramount executives had hoped. She tried again with My Sin (1931) as a woman with a secret past about to marry into money. Later that year, she made The Cheat (1931), playing Elsa Carlyle, a woman who sold herself to a wealthy Oriental merchant who brands her like she was his own property and is subsequently murdered. The next year, she shot Thunder Below (1932), Faithless (1932), Make Me a Star (1932) (she had a cameo role along with several other Paramount stars) and Devil and the Deep (1932). The latter film was a star-studded affair that made money at the box-office due to the cast (Gary Cooper, Charles Laughton and newcomer Cary Grant). The films she was making just did not do her talent any justice, so it was back to Broadway--she did not make another film for 11 years. She toured nationally, performing in all but three states.
She was also a big hit at social affairs, where she often shocked the staid members of that society with her "untraditional" behavior. She chain-smoked and enjoyed more than her share of Kentucky bourbon, and made it a "habit" to take her clothes off and chat in the nude. A friend and fellow actress remarked on one occasion, "Tallulah dear, why are you always taking your clothes off? You have such lovely frocks." She was also famous--or infamous--for throwing wild parties that would last for days. She returned to films in 1943 with a cameo in Stage Door Canteen (1943), but it was Lifeboat (1944) for director Alfred Hitchcock that put her back into the limelight. However, the limelight did not shine for long. After shooting A Royal Scandal (1945) she did not appear on film again until she landed a role in Die! Die! My Darling! (1965). Her film and small-screen work consisted of a few TV spots and the voice of the Sea Witch in the animated film The Daydreamer (1966), so she went back to the stage, which had always been first and foremost in her heart. To Tallulah, there was nothing like a live audience to perform for, because they, always, showed a lot of gratitude. On December 12, 1968, Tallulah Bankhead died at age 66 of pneumonia in her beloved New York City. While she made most of her fame on the stages of the world, the film industry and its history became richer because of her talent and her very colorful personality. Today her phrase, "Hello, Dahling" is known throughout the entertainment world.Bisexual - With classic patrician features and an independent, non-conformist personality, Capucine began her film debut in 1949 at the age of 21 with an appearance in the film Rendezvous in July (1949). She attended school in France and received a BA degree in foreign languages. Married for six months in her early twenties, she never remarried. In 1957, she was discovered by director Charles K. Feldman while working as a high-fashion model for Givenchy in Paris and was brought to Hollywood to study acting under Gregory Ratoff. She was put under contract by Columbia studios in 1958 and had her first leading part in the movie Song Without End (1960). She made six more major movies in the early to mid 1960s, two of which (The Lion (1962) and The 7th Dawn (1964)) starred William Holden, with whom she had a two-year affair. Moving from Hollywood to a penthouse apartment in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1962, she continued making movies, mostly in Europe, until her suicide in 1990.Lesbian
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Patsy Kelly was born Bridget Sarah Veronica Rose Kelly on January 12, 1910, in Brooklyn, New York. She began performing in vaudeville when she was just twelve years old. Patsy worked with comedian Frank Fay and starred in several Broadway shows. She was discovered by producer Hal Roach, who paired her with Thelma Todd in a series of comedy shorts. They became a popular onscreen team and made thirty-five films together including Top Flat (1935) and Done in Oil (1934). Although Patsy never became an A-list star she continued to work throughout the 1930s. She had supporting roles in Pigskin Parade (1936), Merrily We Live (1938), and Topper Returns (1941). Patsy was a lesbian and she was always open with the press about her sexuality. She had a long-term relationship with actress Wilma Cox. By the early 1940s Patsy was drinking heavily and making headlines for her erratic behavior. She decided to quit show business and moved to New York City. She started dating Tallulah Bankhead and worked as her secretary. Eventually, Patsy went back to acting and appeared on numerous television shows. She also had small roles in the films Rosemary's Baby (1968) and Freaky Friday (1976). Patsy won a Tony award in 1971 for her performance in No No Nanette. After suffering a stroke she moved into a nursing home. She died from pneumonia on September 24, 1981. Patsy is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Queens, New York.Lesbian- Actress
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Greta Garbo was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson on September 18, 1905, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Anna Lovisa (Johansdotter), who worked at a jam factory, and Karl Alfred Gustafsson, a laborer. She was fourteen when her father died, which left the family destitute. Greta was forced to leave school and go to work in a department store. The store used her as a model in its newspaper ads. She had no film aspirations until she appeared in short advertising film at that same department store while she was still a teenager. Erik A. Petschler, a comedy director, saw the film and gave her a small part in his Luffar-Petter (1922). Encouraged by her own performance, she applied for and won a scholarship to a Swedish drama school. While there she appeared in at least one film, En lyckoriddare (1921). Both were small parts, but it was a start. Finally famed Swedish director Mauritz Stiller pulled her from the drama school for the lead role in The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924). At 18 Greta was on a roll.
Following The Joyless Street (1925) both Greta and Stiller were offered contracts with MGM, and her first film for the studio was the American-made Torrent (1926), a silent film in which she didn't have to speak a word of English. After a few more films, including The Temptress (1926), Love (1927) and A Woman of Affairs (1928), Greta starred in Anna Christie (1930) (her first "talkie"), which not only gave her a powerful screen presence but also garnered her an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress (she didn't win). Later that year she filmed Romance (1930), which was somewhat of a letdown, but she bounced back in 1931, landing another lead role in Mata Hari (1931), which turned out to be a major hit.
Greta continued to give intense performances in whatever was handed her. The next year she was cast in what turned out to be yet another hit, Grand Hotel (1932). However, it was in MGM's Anna Karenina (1935) that she gave what some consider the performance of her life. She was absolutely breathtaking in the role as a woman torn between two lovers and her son. Shortly afterwards, she starred in the historical drama Queen Christina (1933) playing the title character to great acclaim. She earned an Oscar nomination for her role in the romantic drama Camille (1936), again playing the title character. Her career suffered a setback the following year in Conquest (1937), which was a box office disaster. She later made a comeback when she starred in Ninotchka (1939), which showcased her comedic side. It wasn't until two years later she made what was to be her last film, Two-Faced Woman (1941), another comedy. But the film drew controversy and was condemned by the Catholic Church and other groups and was a box office failure, which left Garbo shaken.
After World War II Greta, by her own admission, felt that the world had changed perhaps forever and she retired, never again to face the camera. She would work for the rest of her life to perpetuate the Garbo mystique. Her films, she felt, had their proper place in history and would gain in value. She abandoned Hollywood and moved to New York City. She would jet-set with some of the world's best-known personalities such as Aristotle Onassis and others. She spent time gardening and raising flowers and vegetables. In 1954 Greta was given a special Oscar for past unforgettable performances. She even penned her biography in 1990.
On April 15, 1990, Greta died of natural causes in New York and with her went the "Garbo Mystique". She was 84.Lesbian/Bisexual- Actress
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Her father was a police lieutenant and imbued in her a military attitude to life. Marlene was known in school for her "bedroom eyes" and her first affairs were at this stage in her life - a professor at the school was terminated. She entered the cabaret scene in 1920s Germany, first as a spectator then as a cabaret singer. In 1923, she married and, although she and Rudolf Sieber lived together only 5 years, they remained married until his death. She was in over a dozen silent films in increasingly important roles. In 1929, she was seen in a Berlin cabaret by Josef von Sternberg and, after a screen test, captured the role of the cabaret singer in The Blue Angel (1930) (and became von Sternberg's lover). With the success of this film, von Sternberg immediately took her to Hollywood, introducing her to the world in Morocco (1930), and signing an agreement to produce all her films. A series of successes followed, and Marlene became the highest paid actress of her time, but her later films in the mid-part of the decade were critical and popular failures. She returned to Europe at the end of the decade, with a series of affairs with former leading men (she had a reputation of romancing her co-stars), as well as other prominent artistic figures. In 1939, an offer came to star with James Stewart in a western and, after initial hesitation, she accepted. The film was Destry Rides Again (1939) - the siren of film could also be a comedienne and a remarkable comeback was reality. She toured extensively for the allied effort in WW II (she had become a United States citizen) and, after the war, limited her cinematic life. But a new career as a singer and performer appeared, with reviews and shows in Las Vegas, touring theatricals, and even Broadway. New success was accompanied by a too close acquaintance with alcohol, until falls in her performance eventually resulted in a compound fracture of the leg. Although the last 13 years of her life were spent in seclusion in her apartment in Paris, with the last 12 years in bed, she had withdrawn only from public life and maintained active telephone and correspondence contact with friends and associates.Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
The grand, highly flamboyant Russian star Alla Nazimova of Hollywood silent films lived an equally grand, flamboyant life off-camera, though her legendary status has not held up as firmly as that of a Rudolph Valentino today.
Alla Nazimova was born Miriam Edez Adelaida Leventon in 1879, in Yalta, Crimea, in the Russian Empire, to Jewish parents, Sonya Horowitz and Yakov Leventon. She was the third child in an abusive, contentious household. Most of her sad childhood was spent in foster homes or in the care of other relatives and she showed a strong penchant for outrageous behavior to cope. Nazimova also showed a great aptitude for music at a young age and began violin lessons at age seven. She changed her name to Alla Nazimova when she began appearing on stage--her father insisted on it, as "performing" was not considered respectable at the time.
She began acting lessons at age 17 and joined Konstantin Stanislavski's company of actors as a pupil of his "method style" at the Moscow Art Theatre. During that time she supported herself by being kept by rich, older men. A failed love affair led to her only marriage, to an acting student named Sergei Golovin, but they separated quickly. She grew discontented with Stanislavsky and later performed in repertory. She met the legendary Pavel Orlenev, a close friend of Anton Chekhov and Maxim Gorky, and entered into both a personal and professional relationship with him. They toured internationally throughout Europe with great success and came to New York in 1905, where Nazimova was saluted on Broadway for her definitive interpretations of Henrik Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler" and "A Doll's House." Orlenev returned to Russia but Nazimova stayed.
She made her screen debut with War Brides (1916), which was initially a 35-minute play. By 1918 she was a box-office star for Metro Pictures and completed 11 films for the studio over a three-year period. A torrid, stylish and rather outré tragedienne who played exotic, liberal women confronted by great personal anguish, she earned personal successes as a reformed prostitute in Revelation (1918), a suicide in Toys of Fate (1918) and dual roles as half-sisters during the Boxer Rebellion in The Red Lantern (1919), not to mention the title role of Camille (1921) with Rudolph Valentino. At the same time she maintained a strong Broadway theatrical career.
In accordance with her rise in the film industry, she began producing her own efforts, which were bold and experimental--and monumental failures, although they are hailed as great artistic efforts today. Her Salomé (1922) was quite scandalous and deemed a failure at the time. The monetary losses she suffered as producer were astronomical. The Hays Code, which led to severe censorship in pictures, also led to her downfall, as did her outmoded acting style. She was forced to abandon films for the theater, scoring exceptionally well in Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard." She did return to films briefly in the 1940s in a variety of supporting roles, but she made these solely for the money.
Nazimova's private life has long been the subject of industry gossip. As a Hollywood cover to her well-known bisexual lifestyle, she coexisted in a "marriage" with gay actor Charles Bryant for well over a decade. Her "Garden of Allah" home was the centerpiece for many glamorous private parties. She died in 1945.Bisexual- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dubbed "the funniest woman in the world", comedienne Beatrice Lillie was born the daughter of a Canadian government official and grew up in Toronto. She sang in a family trio act with her mother, Lucy, and her piano-playing older sister, Muriel. Times were hard and the ambitious mother eventually took the girls to England to test the waters. In 1914, Bea made her solo debut in London's West End and was an immediate hit with audiences. A valuable marquee player as a droll revue and stage artiste, she skillfully interwove sketches, songs and monologues with parody and witty satire. In 1924, she returned to America and was an instant success on Broadway, thus becoming the toast of two continents. For the next decade, she worked with the top stage headliners of her day, including Gertrude Lawrence, Bert Lahr and Jack Haley. Noël Coward and Cole Porter wrote songs and even shows for her. A top radio and comedy recording artist to boot, Bea's success in films was surprisingly limited, although she did achieve some recognition in such productions as Exit Smiling (1926) and Doctor Rhythm (1938). During the Second World War, Bea became a favourite performer with the troops and, in her post-war years, toured with her own show "An Evening with Beatrice Lillie". Her rather eccentric persona worked beautifully on Broadway and, in 1958, she replaced Rosalind Russell in "Auntie Mame". In 1964, she took on the role of "Madame Arcati" in the musical version of "Blithe Spirit", entitled "High Spirits". This was to be her last staged musical. Sadly, her style grew passé and outdated in the Vietnam era, and she quickly faded from view after a movie appearance in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). At this point, she had already begun to show early signs of Alzheimer's disease, although she managed to publish her biography in 1973. A year later, Bea suffered the first of two strokes and lived the next decade and a half in virtual seclusion. She died in 1989 at age 94.Lesbian- Actress
- Soundtrack
After working as early as the 1910s as a band vocalist, Hattie McDaniel debuted as a maid in The Golden West (1932). Her maid-mammy characters became steadily more assertive, showing up first in Judge Priest (1934) and becoming pronounced in Alice Adams (1935). In this one, directed by George Stevens and aided and abetted by star Katharine Hepburn, she makes it clear she has little use for her employers' pretentious status seeking. By The Mad Miss Manton (1938) she actually tells off her socialite employer Barbara Stanwyck and her snooty friends. This path extends into the greatest role of her career, Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). Here she is, in a number of ways, superior to most of the white folk surrounding her. From that point her roles unfortunately descended, with her characters becoming more and more menial. She played on the "Amos and Andy" and Eddie Cantor radio shows in the 1930s and 1940s; the title in her own radio show "Beulah" (1947-51), and the same part on TV (Beulah (1950)). Her part in Gone with the Wind (1939) won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress, the first African American actress to win an Academy Award, it was presented to her by Fay Bainter at a segregated ceremony, she had to sit at the back away from the rest of the cast.Bisexual- Blyth Daly: Star of Stage, Screen and Radio
Blyth Daly was born in London, England, on December 5, 1901 to acting legend Arnold Daly (1875-1927) and wife Mary Blythe (1884-1958) a respected actor who like her husband was an American working on the celebrated London stage at the time of their daughters birth. Returning to the United States and settling at Elm Point, Great Neck, Long Island, NY. Arnold Daly was a personal friend of George Bernard Shaw and introduced his works to the States by successfully adapting several of works for the Broadway Stage, earning both critical acclaim.
Blyth was born at the dawn of a new age, Queen Victoria had just died and the world was in the process of great social change. The role of women was in flux, the chains that bound them in stereotypes were breaking. The emergence of "the new woman" as H.G. Wells so termed them, women freed to live their lives on their own terms and express themselves and their sexuality as they wished was becoming a reality.
As Blyth blossomed into womanhood in the 1920's her parents high social status gained her entry to elite circles of society on both sides of the Atlantic, one of the "Pretty Young Things" of British high society where she hobnobbed with aristocracy and worthies of the day and a "Flapper" in American high society. For years her amorous adventures and rumors of engagements featured in society columns and tabloids. Her inherited but well honed acting talent saw her embark on a successful career on the Broadway stage, making her debut as teenager in a production by her father and work steadily thereafter on both the Broadway and London stage. Also touring the United States with theatre companies treading the boards with many of the finest young actors of her generation, including James Cagney in the glorious era between the two world wars. She embraced the new medium of Radio and made numerous appearances in spoken word productions, radio soap operas and commercials.
Blyth would come to embody her age, the glamour of the society Flapper and the starlet of endless energy and ambition. Working hard during the day and dancing the night away, sipping champagne and helping put the roar in the Roaring Twenties. Her wit and vivacious personality gaining her entrance to the illustrious Algonquin Round Table, whiling away evenings at the Algonquin Hotel in New York surrounded by the leading writers, critics and theatrical producers of the day. She was known as one of the "Four Riders of the Algonquin" which included Tallulah Bankhead, Estelle Winwood and Eva Le Gallienne.
The Stock Market Crash hit Broadway hard, producers could not find funding and those that could were unable to find audiences and the theatre district was all but decimated. Actors, writers and producers headed West to Hollywood which was weathering the Depression well, churning out a high volume of movies to satisfy the demand of the new movie houses.
With little to hold her in New York she like many of her peers headed for California where she soon became part of the Hollywood social scene, tabloids detailed her having a grand time dancing in the Coconut Grove and a host of romances including one with the heir to the Tiffany fortune. Described as tanned and athletic, her Passport discription as blond with grey eyes and fair complexion she enjoyed the Californian climate, regularly playing tennis and riding horses. A stunningly attractive woman Charlie Chaplin once got too fresh with her at a party, wouldn't take no for an answer and pulled Blyth close to steal a passionate kiss and she bit his lower lip with vigor making it bleed. Although she had many suitors, a legion of male admirers and was reportedly bisexual, she never married.
Blyth acted in local theatre productions and tried her luck with the movie industry, although she preferred the stage she appeared in several silent and talkies including; "Her Man" (1930) and "That's Gratitude" (1934). During WWII she did her part on the home front and then afterwards appeared in "It's a Joke, Son!" (1947) - "The Model and the Marriage Broker" (1951) - "A Star Is Born" (1954) and "The Chapman Report" in 1962 before ill health resulted in her retiring from show business and living quietly. Blyth Daly died October 16, 1965 at the age of 64 years and was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills, surrounded by many of her friends from old Hollywood and the New York Stage of yesteryear, the passage of over half a century has not dimmed her star.
JGBisexual - Actress
- Writer
- Soundtrack
Carole Landis was born on New Year's Day in 1919 in Fairchild, Wisconsin, as Frances Lillian Mary Ridste. Her father, a railroad mechanic, was of Norwegian descent and her mother was Polish. Her father walked out, leaving Carole, her mother and an older brother and sister to fend for themselves.
After graduating from high school, she married Jack Robbins (Irving Wheeler), but the union lasted a month (the marriage was annulled because Carole was only 15 at the time). The couple remarried in August 1934, and the two headed to California to start a new life. For a while she worked as a dancer and singer, but before long the glitter of show business drew her to Los Angeles.
She won a studio contract with Warner Brothers but was a bit player for the most part in such films as A Star Is Born (1937), A Day at the Races (1937), and The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937). The following year started out much the same way, with more bit roles. By 1939, she was getting a few speaking roles, although mostly one-liners, and that year ended much as had the previous two years, with more bit roles; also, she and Wheeler were divorced.
In 1940 she was cast as Loana in the Hal Roach production of One Million B.C. (1940); she finally got noticed (the skimpy outfit helped), and her career began moving. She began getting parts in B pictures but didn't star in big productions -- although she had talent, the really good roles were given to the established stars of the day.
Her busiest year was 1942, with roles in Manila Calling (1942), The Powers Girl (1943), A Gentleman at Heart (1942), and three other movies. Unfortunately, critics took little notice of her films, and when they did, reviewers tended to focus on her breathtaking beauty. By the middle 1940s, Carole's career was beginning to short-circuit. Her contract with 20th Century-Fox had been canceled, her marriages to Willis Hunt Jr. and Thomas Wallace had failed, and her current marriage to Horace Schmidlapp was on the skids; all of that plus health problems spelled disaster for her professionally and personally.
Her final two films, Brass Monkey (1948) and The Silk Noose (1948) were released in 1948. On July 5, 1948, Carole committed suicide by taking an overdose of Seconal in her Brentwood Heights, California, home. She was only 29 and had made 49 pictures, most of which were, unfortunately, forgettable. If Hollywood moguls had given Carole a chance, she could have been one of the brightest stars in its history.Bisexual- Actress
- Soundtrack
Pola Negri was born in Lipno, Poland, and moved to Warsaw as a child. Living in poverty with her mother, a teenage Pola auditioned and was accepted to the Imperial Ballet. Due to an illness that ended her dancing career, she soon switched to the Warsaw Imperial Academy of Dramatic Arts and became an actress. By 17 she was a star on the Warsaw stage, but World War I would soon change the theater scene. Without the theater, Pola turned to films. With her new career in pictures and her stage success in "Sumurun", she went to Berlin and was teamed with German director Ernst Lubitsch. The Lubitsch-Negri combination was very successful and the roles that Pola played were earthy, exotic, strong women. One of her films, Passion (1919), was optioned and retitled "Passion" for exhibition in America. The film was such a success that by 1922 she and Lubitsch were both given contracts to work in Hollywood. While her first few films showed some success, they were overshadowed by her reported romances with such stars as Charles Chaplin and Rudolph Valentino. Forbidden Paradise (1924), made with Lubitsch, and Hotel Imperial (1927) were two of her more successful films. However, three things conspired to end her career in Hollywood: (1) The perception that her mourning for Rudolph Valentino was insincere, though Negri did describe him as the love of her life; (2) The Hays Office codes that would not allow her to show the very traits that made her a sex-siren in Europe; (3) Her thick Polish accent would not play in the sound pictures that were coming into vogue.
Pola Negri returned to Europe and eventually made films for UFA, which was under Nazi management. In 1941 she returned to America penniless. She made Hi Diddle Diddle (1943) and became an American citizen in 1951. Her next and last movie was The Moon-Spinners (1964).
She died of pneumonia in San Antonio, TX, in 1987.Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
- Casting Director
Spanish actress Elena Anaya impressed the critics with her performance in Sex and Lucía (2001).
Elena was born in Palencia, Spain, on July 17th, 1975. An active child, she excelled in karate and mountain climbing. By the time she was 17 Elena knew that she wanted to channel her energy into being an actress and enrolled in a drama course being given in her local town by actor Manuel Moron. More determined than ever, she then opted out of school, choosing instead to audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Madrid.
Moron mentioned Elena's exceptional talent to his agent, Katrina Bayonas, who was looking for a young girl to star in the film, "Africa". Elena auditioned and the role was hers.
Elena was obliged to leave the Royal Academy when Fernando Leon de Aranoa called her to work in his comedy, "Familia". But, aware of the importance of studying, Elena her formation at the Juan Carlos Corazza school of acting.
Following her feature debut in the 1996 drama "África"(Alfonso Ungría) Anaya continued to impress with supporting roles in such features as "Lagrimas negras" (Fernando Bauluz y Ricardo Franco, 1998) "Finisterre" (Xavier Villaverde, 1998), "Las Huellas borradas" (Enrique Gabriel, 1999) and the romantic drama "El Invierno de las Anjanas"(Pedro Telechea). In 2000, director Julio Medem cast her as the seductive baby sitter, Belen, in the erotic drama "Lucia y el sexo" (2001). The explosive mixture of innocence and provocation earned her a Goya (Spanish Academy Award) nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She also received the Spanish Actors Union Award for Best Supporting Actress. That same year she was featured in the comedy "Sin noticias de Dios" (Agustín Díaz Yanes 2001) with Penelope Cruz and Victoria Abril.
As her star continued to rise thanks to roles in "Dos Tipos duros" (Juan Martínez Moreno 2003) and Pedro Almodóvar's "Talk to Her", it was only a matter of time before she caught the attention of international directors and she was offered the role of Dracula's most possessive bride in 2004's "Van Helsing" (Stephen Sommers). Then, in 2004, came the action comedy "Dead Fish" (Charley Stadler) with Gary Oldman, in 2005 the thriller "Fragile" (Jaume Balagueró), and the period adventure "Capitán Alatriste "(Agustín Díaz Yanes). In 2007 she starred in "Miguel & William" (Inés París) and "Savage Grace" (Tom Kalin) with Julianne Moore.
In 2008 she was introduced to French audiences in "L'instinct de Mort" (Jean-François Richet) with Vincent Cassel and Gerard Depardieu. She then travelled to Cairo to work in the romantic drama "Cairo Time" (Ruba Nadda). Agustín Díaz Yanes called her again for his film "I only want to walk" and she then starred in Gaby Ibanez's thriller "Hierro".
2009 brought Elena and Julio Medem together again to make "Room in Rome". The role of Alba earned her Best Actress nominations for both the Spanish Actors Guild and the Goya Awards. She then returned to France to shoot Fred Cavaye's "A Bout Portant".
In 2010 Pedro Almodovar offered her the leading role of Vera in his new film "The Skin I live in" with Antonio Banderas. This role won her the 2011 Best Actress Goya (Spanish Academy Award).
In 2012 she received the honorary Málaga Sur Award at the yearly Film festival in Málaga.
This same year took Elena to Argentina to make "Pensé que iba haber fiesta". In 2013 she starred as Lupe in "Todos están muertos", directed by Beatriz Sanchis. This role won her six Best Actress nominations, the only actress to be nominated for all the awards in the 2015 Spanish Award season. She received the Spanish SAG Best Actress Award.
In 2013 Elena also starred in the Scottish film "Swung". In 2014 she shot Chilean director Matias Bize's "La memoria del Agua" and has recently finished filming Imanol Uribe's "Lejos del mar".
2015 started for Elena with a cameo role in Brad Furman's "The Infiltrator" working alongside Bryan Cranston and John Leguizamo.Lesbian- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Though most famous for her role as Isabella "Bella" Swan in The Twilight (2008) Saga, Kristen Stewart has been a working actor since her early years in Los Angeles, California. Her parents, John Stewart and Jules Stewart, both work in film and television. The family includes three boys, Kristen's older brother Cameron Stewart and two adopted brothers Dana and Taylor. Kristen is of English, Scottish, and Ashkenazi Jewish descent.
After a talent scout caught her grade school performance in a play at the age of eight, she appeared on television in a few small roles. Her first significant role came when she was cast as Sam Jennings in The Safety of Objects (2001). Soon after that, she starred alongside Jodie Foster in the hit drama, Panic Room (2002) and was nominated for a Young Artist Award.
Praised for her Panic Room performance, she went on to join the cast of Cold Creek Manor (2003) as the daughter of Dennis Quaid and Sharon Stone. Though the film did not do well at the box office, she received another nomination for a Young Artist Award. After appearing in a handful of movies and a Showtime movie called Speak (2004), Stewart was cast in the role of a teenage singer living in a commune in Sean Penn's Into the Wild (2007), a critically acclaimed biopic. A third Young Artist Award nomination resulted in a win for this role. She also appeared in Mary Stuart Masterson's The Cake Eaters (2007) that same year.
Just 17, Stewart took on the starring role in Twilight (2008) which was based on a series of the same name written by Stephenie Meyer, the novel already had a huge following and the film opened to fans anxious to see the vampire romance brought to life. Awarded the MTV Movie Award for Best Female Performance, Stewart's turn as Bella continued in the sequels The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009) and The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010). The final installments of the series started filming in late 2010, and were released the following years, as The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011) and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012).
Despite her stratospheric launch into stardom with the Twilight films, she stayed true to her roots by working on a number of indie projects, including Adventureland (2009) (filmed prior to the Twilight series) and Welcome to the Rileys (2010). And she took on the daunting task of playing hard rocker Joan Jett in Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways (2010) alongside Dakota Fanning. Stewart received praise for her acting and musical performances and later won the 2010 BAFTA Rising Star Award and best actress at the Milan International Film Festival for Welcome to the Rileys (2010).
Stewart worked on several other leading roles between the Twilight Saga installments including the #1 summer box office hit, Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), and the Cannes selection On the Road (2012). She also performed in the Sundance drama Camp X-Ray (2014), Cannes selection Clouds of Sils Maria (2014), for which she won a César Award, and the Lionsgate action comedy, American Ultra (2015), also starring Jesse Eisenberg, the Adventureland duo. She also delivered an acclaimed turn opposite Academy Award-winner Julianne Moore in Still Alice (2014). For the remainder of the decade, Kristen alternated choice supporting roles, such as Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (2016) and Café Society (2016), with starring roles in films about historical figures, including Lizzie (2018) and Seberg (2019), and special effects/action thrillers Charlie's Angels (2019) and Underwater (2020).
Kristen had a change-of-pace role in the romantic comedy Happiest Season (2020), about an LGBT+ couple, and received universal acclaim, and her first Oscar nomination, for Best Actress, for her performance as Princess Diana in Pablo Larraín's Spencer (2021). Moving deeper into the 2020s, she is working on David Cronenberg's thriller Crimes of the Future (2022).
Stewart lives in Los Angeles, California.Bisexual- Actress
- Soundtrack
Luisa Bradshaw-White was born on 9 December 1974 in Eastcote, Middlesex, England, UK. She is an actress, known for This Life (1996), Holby City (1999) and EastEnders (1985). She has been married to Annette Yeo since 20 July 2015. They have two children.Lesbian, played Maria Watts in Grange Hill (1991-94)- Actress
- Producer
Keeley is from Buckinghamshire, England, UK. She appeared in various TV commercials as a child. At the age of 6 Keeley became the youngest actress to appear in Les Miserables in the West End, playing Young Eponine. Locally she has done other stage work, including the title role in the musical Annie. Keeley was almost cast in the dual leading roles in The Parent Trap, being one of the final three actresses in the audition process.Lesbian, appeared in films Black Beauty (1994), Hilary & Jackie (1997) (as young Jackie) and TV series Wives and Daughters (1999).- Actress
- Soundtrack
Gail Russell was born in Chicago, Illinois, on September 21, 1924. She remained in the Windy City, going to school until her parents moved to California when she was 14. She was an above-average student in school and upon graduation from Santa Monica High School was signed by Paramount Studios.
Because of her ethereal beauty, Gail was to be groomed to be one of Paramount's top stars. She was very shy and had virtually no acting experience to speak of, but her beauty was so striking that the studio figured it could work with her on her acting with a studio acting coach.
Gail's first film came when she was 19 years old with a small role as "Virginia Lowry" in Henry Aldrich Gets Glamour (1943) in 1943. It was her only role that year, but it was a start. The following year she appeared in another film, The Uninvited (1944) with Ray Milland (it was also the first time Gail used alcohol to steady her nerves on the set, a habit that would come back to haunt her). It was a very well done and atmospheric horror story that turned out to be a profitable one for the studio. Gail's third film was the charm, as she co-starred with Diana Lynn in Our Hearts Were Young and Gay (1944) that same year. The film was based on the popular book of the time and the film was even more popular.
In 1945 Gail appeared in Salty O'Rourke (1945), a story about crooked gamblers involved in horse racing. Although she wasn't a standout in the film, she acquitted herself well as part of the supporting cast. Later that year she appeared in The Unseen (1945), a story about a haunted house, starring Joel McCrea. Gail played Elizabeth Howard, a governess of the house in question. The film turned a profit but was not the hit that Paramount executives hoped for.
In 1946 Gail was again teamed with Diana Lynn for a sequel to "Our Hearts Were Young and Gay"--Our Hearts Were Growing Up (1946). The plot centered around two young college girls getting involved with bootleggers. Unfortunately, it was not anywhere the caliber of the first film and it failed at the box-office. With Calcutta (1946) in 1947, however, Gail bounced back with a more popular film, this time starring Alan Ladd. Unfortunately, many critics felt that Gail was miscast in this epic drama. That same year she was cast with John Wayne and Harry Carey in the western Angel and the Badman (1947). It was a hit with the public and Gail shone in the role of Penelope Worth, a feisty Quaker girl who tries to tame gunfighter Wayne. Still later Gail appeared in Paramount's all-star musical, Variety Girl (1947). The critics roasted the film, but the public turned out in droves to ensure its success at the box-office. After the releases of Song of India (1949), El Paso (1949), and Captain China (1950), Gail married matinée idol Guy Madison, one of the up-and-coming actors in Hollywood.
After The Lawless (1950) in 1950 Paramount decided against renewing her contract, mainly because of Gail's worsening drinking problem. She had been convicted of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol, and the studio didn't want its name attached to someone who couldn't control her drinking. Being dumped by Paramount damaged her career, and film roles were coming in much more slowly. After Air Cadet (1951) in 1951, her only film that year, she disappeared from the screen for the next five years while she attempted to get control of her life. She divorced Madison in 1954.
In 1956 Gail returned in 7 Men from Now (1956). It was a western with Gail in the minor role of Annie Greer. The next year she was fourth-billed in The Tattered Dress (1957), a film that also starred Jeanne Crain and Jeff Chandler. The following year she had a reduced part in No Place to Land (1958), a low-budget offering from "B" studio Republic Pictures.
By now the demons of alcohol had her in its grasp. She was again absent from the screen until 1961's The Silent Call (1961) (looking much older than her 36 years). It was to be her last film. On August 26, 1961, Gail was found dead in her small studio apartment in Los Angeles, California.Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
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Cara Jocelyn Delevingne was born in London, England, to Pandora Anne (Stevens) and Charles Hamar Delevingne, a property developer. Her parents are both from prominent upper-class families, with her ancestors including Viscounts (Greenwood), Baronets (Hulton, Faudel-Phillips), Majors and Lord Mayors of London.
Delevingne is a fashion model, and the face of Burberry's Beauty campaign. She was previously the face of Burberry's Spring/Summer 2012 campaign and Spring/Summer 2011 campaign. She has been featured in advertising campaigns for other brands including H&M, Zara and Chanel. She also appeared on the catwalk for brands such as Moschino, Jason Wu, Oscar de la Renta, Burberry, Dolce & Gabbana, Fendi and Stella McCartney. Delevingne was on the covers of Vogue UK, Vogue Korea, i-D, Love, Russh, Jalouse and Style.com's Spring 2013 issue. She also walked down the catwalk as a model at the 2012 Victoria's Secret fashion show.
Delevingne has also begun a career as an actress, starring in films such as Paper Towns (2015), Suicide Squad (2016), and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017).
Delevigne is ranked #17 on models.com's 50 Top Models (2013). She also won Model Of The Year 2012 at the British Fashion Awards.Bisexual- Actress
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Judy Holliday was born Judith Tuvim in New York City on June 21, 1921. Her mother, a piano teacher, was attending a play when she went into labor and made it to the hospital just in time. Judy was an only child. By the age of four, her mother had her enrolled in ballet school which fostered a life-long interest in show business. Two years later her parents divorced. In high school, Judy began to develop an interest in theater. She appeared in several high school plays. After graduation, she got a job in the Orson Welles Mercury Theater as a switchboard operator. Judy worked her way on the stage with appearance in Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and New York City. Judy toured on the nightclub circuit with a group called "The Revuers" founded by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. She went to Hollywood to make her first foray into the film world in Greenwich Village (1944). Most of her scenes ended up on the cutting room floor. Disappointed, but not discouraged, Judy earned two more roles that year in Something for the Boys (1944) and Winged Victory (1944). In the latter, Judy had a few lines of dialogue. Judy returned to New York to continue her stage career. She returned to Hollywood after five years to appear in Adam's Rib (1949) as Doris Attinger opposite screen greats Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy and Tom Ewell. With her success in that role, Judy was signed to play Billie Dawn in Born Yesterday (1950), a role which she originated on Broadway. She was nominated for and won the best actress Oscar for her performance. After filming The Marrying Kind (1952), Judy was summoned before the Un-American Activities Committee to testify about her political affiliations. Fortunately for her, she was not blacklisted as were many of her counterparts, but damage was done. Her film career was curtailed somewhat, but rebounded. She continued with her stage and musical efforts, but with limited time on the screen. After filming The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956), she was off-screen for four years. Her last film was the MGM production of Bells Are Ringing (1960) with Dean Martin and it was one of her best. Judy died two weeks before her 44th birthday in New York City on June 7, 1965.Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
- Additional Crew
Amber Laura Heard was born in Austin, Texas, to Patricia Paige Heard (née Parsons), an internet researcher, and David C. Heard (David Clinton Heard), a contractor. She has English, Irish, Scottish, German, and Welsh ancestry.
Heard appeared in the Academy Award-nominated film, North Country (2005), in which she played Charlize Theron's character in flashbacks. Her other early film credits include: Syrup (2013), Drive Angry (2011) 3D, The Joneses (2009), Never Back Down (2008), Alpha Dog (2006) and Friday Night Lights (2004). On television, Heard starred on The CW drama, Hidden Palms (2007), and had guest starring roles on Showtime's Californication (2007) and CBS's Criminal Minds (2005).
In 2009, Heard starred in the box office hit, Zombieland (2009), opposite Woody Harrelson, Bill Murray and Jesse Eisenberg. She also starred in the suspense thriller, The Stepfather (2009), with Sela Ward, Dylan Walsh and Penn Badgley. In 2008, she garnered attention for her role in the comedic hit, Pineapple Express (2008), with Seth Rogen and James Franco. Heard received a 2008 Young Hollywood Award for her breakthrough performance in "Pineapple Express".
She appeared in The Rum Diary (2011), opposite Johnny Depp, and John Carpenter's The Ward (2010), which premiered at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival. She also starred in the independent film, And Soon the Darkness (2010), in which she additionally served as a co-producer.
Heard starred in Paranoia (2013), opposite Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth and Gary Oldman. The film was released by "Relativity Media" on August 16, 2013. She also starred in Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills (2013), which was released by "Open Road Films" on March 4, 2013, and McG's 3 Days to Kill (2014), opposite Kevin Costner and Hailee Steinfeld, which was released in 2014.
Additionally, her film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006), which premiered at the 2006 Toronto Film Festival, was released by The Weinstein Co. in theaters in the fall of 2013.
Heard resides in Los Angeles, where she is actively involved with Amnesty International. In 2015, she married actor Johnny Depp, and the two divorced in 2017.Bisexual- Producer
- Actress
- Director
Since melting audiences' hearts at the age of just six in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Drew Barrymore has emerged as one of the most beloved and singularly gifted actresses of her generation. Born in Culver City, California to John Drew Barrymore and Jaid Barrymore, the clutches of fame were near inescapable for young Drew, her father being a member of the esteemed showbiz dynasty fronted by stage star Maurice Barrymore, his thespian wife Georgiana and their three children: Lionel Barrymore, Ethel Barrymore, and John Barrymore.
Tailgating a turbulent adolescence that saw her grapple with insobriety, substance abuse, and cutthroat media vitriol, a diligent Barrymore threw herself into her career throughout the early-mid nineties, first with a succession of 'bad girl' parts in cultish B-pictures like Poison Ivy (1992), Guncrazy (1992) and - fittingly - Bad Girls (1994); then warmly received turns in prestige vehicles such as Boys on the Side (1995), Woody Allen's Everyone Says I Love You (1996), and Wes Craven's game-changing Scream (1996). Equal portions of goofball - The Wedding Singer (1998), Never Been Kissed (1999), Charlie's Angels (2000) - and gravitas - Riding in Cars with Boys (2001), Donnie Darko (2001), Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002) - came next, with a Golden Globe-grabbing pièce de résistance - her divine incarnation of Edith Bouvier Beale in Grey Gardens (2009) - confirming that her skill set was every bit as forceful and far-reaching as imagined.
Having already set in motion a bunch of lucrative projects via production house Flower Films (co-est. with Nancy Juvonen in '95), Barrymore fastened an additional string to her bow when she spearheaded the sports dramedy Whip It (2009), her glowingly appraised directorial debut. Fresh off a healthy run of movie parts at the launch of the 2010s, her star turn as zombified suburban realtor Sheila Hammond - a tour de force at once dizzy and detailed - on Netflix's Santa Clarita Diet (2017) saw her step with trademark resolve into newer territory still: the flourishing world of small screen entertainment, a metamorphosis she continues to espouse with her role as compère of spirited daytime staple The Drew Barrymore Show (2020).Bisexual- Born in Bromley, England in 1946 to an Irish mother and an Australian father, Fiona started acting in her late twenties, having previously trained as a secretary and worked in the department store Fortnum & Mason whilst living in London, having already lived in Hong Kong, Australia and Canada. She is best known to TV viewers for her role as warped but tragically misunderstood prison officer Vera Bennett in the cult drama Prisoner (1979). In 1990, Fiona recreated the role for a British stage play version of the series.Lesbian, played Celia Stewart in soap Home & Away (1988-1990)
- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Leanna Creel began her television career acting in series such as Parent Trap III (1989) and Perry Mason: The Case of the Fatal Fashion (1991), her most popular role being that of "Tori Scott" in Saved by the Bell (1989). She graduated from UCLA in 1993 with a BA (Honors) in History and, in 1996, she also earned an MFA in Film & Television.
In 1997, she turned away from acting and produced her first movie Mixed Signals (1997) starring Jason London. She later continued to produce such motion pictures as Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 (1998) and Get Over It (2001). In 2001, Leanna wrote and directed her short film Offside (2001), the tale of the Christmas Truce of 1914, when British and German soldiers put down their guns and played a game of soccer in no man's land. In 1997, she co-founded the production company "Ignite Entertainment" and later resigned in 1999 to start "Anomaly Productions".Lesbian, played Tori Scott in Saved by the Bell (1993-94)- Actress
- Director
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Alicya Eyo was born on 16 December 1975 in Liverpool, Merseyside, England, UK. She is an actress and director, known for Bad Girls (1999), Emmerdale Farm (1972) and Paradox (2009).Lesbian, played Denny Blood in TV series Bad Girls (1999-2003)- Actress
- Director
- Writer
Evan Rachel Wood was born September 7, 1987, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her father, Ira David Wood III, is a theatre actor, writer and director, and her mother, Sara Wood, is an actress and acting coach. She has two older brothers--Dana Wood, a musician, and Ira David Wood IV, who has also acted. Evan and her brothers sometimes performed at Theatre In The Park in Raleigh, which her father founded and where he serves as executive director.
At the age of five she screen-tested against Kirsten Dunst for the lead role in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) after a long auditioning process. She moved to Los Angeles with her mom and brother Ira in 1996 and has had success ever since, appearing in a TV series, TV movies and feature films. She has appeared in Practical Magic (1998), starred in the comedy S1m0ne (2002) as Al Pacino's daughter, and followed that with Thirteen (2003), with Holly Hunter. Her breakout role as Tracy in "Thirteen" garnered her a Golden Globes nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture: Drama and for a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. At the time of this SAG nomination, she was the youngest actress to be nominated in the Leading Role category. She received a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie" for her portrayal of Veda Pierce in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011).
She also earned acclaim for her powerful performance as Stephanie, Mickey Rourke's estranged daughter, in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (2008).Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Kelly Ann McGillis was born in Newport Beach, California, to Virginia Joan (Snell), a homemaker, and Donald Manson McGillis, a general practitioner of medicine. She has English, Welsh, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry. McGillis dropped out of high school to pursue a career as an actress, and attended Juilliard in Manhattan and Pacific Conservatory of Performing Art in Santa Monica, CA.
She held a variety of jobs while pursuing her career, such as waitressing, and snagged a few stage roles before landing a supporting part in the Academy Award-nominated Reuben, Reuben (1983). This led to a lot of TV work and a lead role opposite Harrison Ford in the highly acclaimed thriller Witness (1985). This box office hit, directed by Peter Weir, got her noticed around Hollywood and producers took note of her. One of them was Jerry Bruckheimer, who cast her as Charlie Blackwood in the mega-hit Top Gun (1986) which became the highest-grossing film of the year and gave her some major name recognition.
Ironically, that breakthrough role didn't help her career in terms of high-profile work. She played prosecutor Kathryn Murphy in The Accused (1988) with Jodie Foster who won an Academy Award for her role, but unfortunately for McGillis she was overlooked for any major nomination. Never interested in being box-office gold, she remained loyal to the theater, even after being established as a major star during the mid to late 1980s, taking such various stage roles in such William Shakespeare plays as "The Merchant of Venice", "Don Juan", "Twelfth Night", "The Merry Wives of Windsor", "Mourning Becomes Electra" and "A Midsummer Night's Dream". In 1994 she scored the title role in the Broadway production of "Hedda Gabler" but unfortunately it only played for 33 performances before closing.
She had two daughters in the early 1990s, and worked more sporadically on TV and film so she could spend time with her family and owned her business, a restaurant in Florida. She worked on Winter People (1989), Cat Chaser (1989), The Babe (1992), North (1994), At First Sight (1999) and The Monkey's Mask (2000) as well as a string of made-for-TV films.
She has completed a national stage tour of "The Graduate", playing the infamous Mrs. Robinson, and continues to act as she begins study on Addiction Studies and raising her children in Pennsylvania.Lesbian- Producer
- Actress
- Writer
Sara Gilbert was born on January 29, 1975, as Sara Rebecca Abeles at St. John's Hospital and Health Center in Santa Monica, California, to Barbara Cowan and Harold Abeles. Barbara was previously married to the late Paul Gilbert. At the age of six, when Sara saw her sister Melissa Gilbert get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, she told her mother that she wanted to be an actress, too. A string of commercials and, in 1984, an appearance in the CBS TV movie Calamity Jane (1984), led her to adopt the Gilbert family name. After failing to get the new The Facts of Life (1979) show, she eventually found success with Roseanne (1988). Sara spent a total of nine years on that show and was given time to be able to study at Yale University, graduating with honors in 1997. Aside from Roseanne (1988), she has provided the voice of Laura Powers on The Simpsons (1989), and starred in several movies including Sudie and Simpson (1990), Poison Ivy (1992) and Light It Up (1999).Lesbian, played Darlene Conner in sitcom Roseanne (1988-1997)- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Heather Matarazzo was born November 10, 1982, in Oyster Bay, New York. She was adopted by Camille and Ray Matarazzo, an Italian-American couple although she is of Irish descent biologically. Heather attended both Oyster Bay High School and Long Island High School for the Arts. In 1997, she made her film debut in Welcome to the Dollhouse (1995), she played the lead role of Dawn Wiener a shy, unattractive, unpopular 7th grader who falls for a charismatic and handsome aspiring rock musician, and decides to pursue him romantically. She won an Independent Spirit Award for her performance in the film.Lesbian- Actress
- Writer
Emma Kennedy was born on 28 May 1967 in Corby, Northamptonshire, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Notes on a Scandal (2006), The Smoking Room (2004) and This Is Jinsy (2010). She has been married to Georgie Gibbon since 26 July 2015.Lesbian- Actress
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Actor Kristy McNichol is best known for her role as "Buddy" in the Spelling/Goldberg hit TV series Family (1976), where she won 2 Emmy awards and was nominated for a Golden Globe. McNichol began her career with guest appearances on such popular TV series as Starsky and Hutch, The Bionic Woman, Love American Style and The Love Boat, the list goes on. Her first role as a series regular came with the role of Patricia Apple in the CBS television series Apple's Way (1974). McNichol began her feature film career in the Burt Reynolds comedy "The End" and went on to star with Dennis Quaid and Mark Hamill in "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia", "Two Moon Junction" with Louise Fletcher, "The Pirate Movie" with Christopher Atkins, "Just the Way You Are", "The Forgotten One", and "You Can't Hurry Love". Her television movie credits include "Women of Valor", "Like Mom, Like Me", "Summer of My German Soldier", "Love, Mary", "My Old Man" and many more. Kristy also performed voice characters in several animated TV series including "Extreme Ghostbusters and Steven Spielberg's animated "Invasion America". Kristy starred in the hit movie "Little Darlings" with Tatum O'Neil which won her a People's Choice Award. Other TV credits include the Witt, Thomas, Harris hit series "Empty Nest". Kristy's films include Neil Simon's "Only When I Laugh" with Marsha Mason, which earned her a Golden Globe nomination, Alan Pakula's "Dream Lover" and Samuel Fuller's "White Dog".
Kristy devotes a lot of her time to charity work. Not only is Kristy McNichol a renowned actor but she is also a singer. Albums include The Pirate Movie (1982) soundtrack, The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia (1981) soundtrack and the Kristy and Jimmy McNichol album on RCA Records.Lesbian- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Lily Tomlin was born September 1, 1939 in Detroit, Michigan, to Lillie Mae (Ford) and Guy Tomlin, who moved to Michigan from Paducah, Kentucky, during the Great Depression. Her mother was a nurse's aide and her father was a factory worker. She graduated from Cass Technical High School in 1957, and later enrolled at Wayne State University. She began career by doing stand-up comedy in nightclubs in Detroit and New York City. Her first television appearance was on "The Merv Griffin Show". She went on to have astronomical success with several characters, notably Ernestine, a nosy, condescending telephone operator who generally treated customers with little sympathy and regard, on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967). Other notable characters are in film include Linnea Reese, a gospel-singing mother of two deaf children who has an affair with a womanizing country singer (played by (Keith Carradine) in Robert Altman's Nashville (1975), a performance for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. Violet Newstead who joins her on-screen coworkers (played by Jane Fonda and Dolly Parton) in seeking revenge on their monstrous and sexist boss, Franklin M. Hart Jr., (played by Dabney Coleman) in the comedy 9 to 5 (1980), The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981), Doreen Piggot in Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993), Cher's best-friend and American compatriot Georgie Rockwell in Tea with Mussolini (1999), deadpan private investigator, and existentialist Vivian Jaffe in I Heart Huckabees (2004), and Country-Western singer Rhonda Johnson in Robert Altman's final film A Prairie Home Companion (2006).Lesbian- Actress
- Soundtrack
This feisty and very funny British comedienne and musical revue vet with the trademark 60s brunet page-boy haircut, pronounced jaw, and arguably the largest, Bette Davis-like eyes in London was born Shirley Anne Broadbent in Ashton-under-Lyne, Cheshire on September 14, 1935. The daughter of Hubert Howath Broadbent, an accountant, and wife Connie (Pyke) Broadbent, who greatly prodded her young daughter into becoming a performer, Amanda was named after the Depression-era child star Shirley Temple. Her grandfather was a theatre owner in Ashton-under-Lyne, and young Shirley made her very first appearance there at the age of 3 as a Christmas Tree Fairy.
Not long after this she began training earnestly in singing and in dance, particularly ballet. As a youngster she won a talent-judging contest singing "I'm Just a Little Girl Who's Looking for a Little Boy". She then went on to attend school at St. Anne's College in St. Anne's-on-Sea and later studied acting at the Cone-Ripman School.
After her parents' divorce, the teenager ran away from home and off to London where she lived at the Theatre Girls Club and subsequently found work as a chorus girl. By 1958 she had changed her marquee name to "Amanda Barrie" and made her TV debut with the comedy team of Morecambe and Wise in which her skirt accidentally fell off on live TV. She then took her first West End curtain call in a 1961 production of "Babes in the Wood". Eventually Amanada decided to set her sights beyond a dancing career, and moved more into musical revue work in the hopes for good comedy parts. Finding work as a dancer in cabaret shows and the revue "On the Brighter Side", she also trained at the Bristol Old Vic but did not perform in repertory.
Throughout the 1960s Amanda focused on her musical talents in the West End, and sparkled in a number of comedy shows. In the early part of the decade she hit solid notices with the revues "Six of One" (1963) with Dora Bryan and "See You Inside (1963)". Other stage work (which included occasional drama) came in the form of "Cabaret" (as Sally Bowles), "Private Lives", "Hobson's Choice, "Any Wednesday", "A Public Mischief", "She Loves Me" (replacing Rita Moreno in London), and "Little by Little". She also worked as the TV hostess on "Double Your Money" with Hughie Green and appeared in a number of comedy films: Operation Bullshine (1959), her debut in an unbilled bit, A Pair of Briefs (1962), Doctor in Distress (1963)and I've Gotta Horse (1965). She appeared to very good advantage in two of the slapstick "Carry On..." film series. She played a female cabbie in the Carry on Cabby (1963) and Cleopatra herself (with a sexy lisp) in Carry on Cleo (1964).
After her film peak Amanda continued to show resiliency on stage and TV. Theatre endeavors included "Absurd Person Singular", the musical "Stepping Out" with Julia McKenzie, "The Mating Game", "Blithe Spirit (as Elvira) and "Twelfth Night". Occasional movie work came in, including the addled comedy One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing (1975) with Helen Hayes. Of the countless sitcoms Amanda has been involved in, she became a soap opera favorite beginning in 1981 with her participation as Alma Sedgewick in Coronation Street (1960). Her appearances were infrequent until the character became a regular in 1989. She retired the role after 11 years in 2001 in an effort to spread her wings once again and seek other work. The producers actually killed off her popular character in quick fashion with a rapid case of cervical cancer.
In 1967 Amanda married actor and theatre director Robin Hunter and the twosome appeared occasionally on stage together, including the pantomime "Aladdin" in late 1967 and 1968 in which Amanda had the title role. The couple separated in the 1980s, however, but remained good friends and never divorced. Hunter died in 2004. In 1997 Amanda battled a serious optic disease in which she eventually lost the sight of her left eye. She has continued to perform, however, and more recent work has included the pantomimes "Jack and the Beanstalk" (2006) and "Cinderella" (2007), in which she played the Fairy Godmother. In her popular and highly candid autobiography "It's Not a Rehearsal," a best seller published in 2003, Amanda opened up for the first time about her bisexuality.Bisexual, best remembered for Carry on Cleo (1964) and soap Coronation Street (1981-2003)- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Megan Denise Fox was born on May 16, 1986 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and raised in Rockwood, Tennessee to Gloria Darlene Tonachio (née Cisson), a real estate manager and Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. She began her drama and dance training at age 5 and at age 10, she moved to Port St. Lucie, Florida where she continued her training and finished school. Megan began acting and modeling at age 13 after winning several awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. At age 17, she tested out of school using correspondence and eventually moved to Los Angeles, California. Megan made her film debut as Brianna Wallace in the Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen film, Holiday in the Sun (2001). Her best-known roles are as Sam Witwicky's love interest, Mikaela Banes in Transformers (2007) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), as April O'Neil in the remake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), and as Jennifer Check in the horror comedy Jennifer's Body (2009).Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Angelina Jolie is an Academy Award-winning actress who rose to fame after her role in Girl, Interrupted (1999), playing the title role in the "Lara Croft" blockbuster movies, as well as Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005), Wanted (2008), Salt (2010) and Maleficent (2014). Off-screen, Jolie has become prominently involved in international charity projects, especially those involving refugees. She often appears on many "most beautiful women" lists, and she has a personal life that is avidly covered by the tabloid press.
Jolie was born Angelina Jolie Voight in Los Angeles, California. In her earliest years, Angelina began absorbing the acting craft from her actor parents, Jon Voight, an Oscar-winner, and Marcheline Bertrand, who had studied with Lee Strasberg. Her good looks may derive from her ancestry, which is German and Slovak on her father's side, and French-Canadian, Dutch, Polish, and remote Huron, on her mother's side. At age eleven, Angelina began studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, where she was seen in several stage productions. She undertook some film studies at New York University and later joined the renowned Met Theatre Group in Los Angeles. At age 16, she took up a career in modeling and appeared in some music videos.
In the mid-1990s, Jolie appeared in various small films where she got good notices, including Hackers (1995) and Foxfire (1996). Her critical acclaim increased when she played strong roles in the made-for-TV movies True Women (1997), and in George Wallace (1997) which won her a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy nomination. Jolie's acclaim increased even further when she played the lead role in the HBO production Gia (1998). This was the true life story of supermodel Gia Carangi, a sensitive wild child who was both brazen and needy and who had a difficult time handling professional success and the deaths of people who were close to her. Carangi became involved with drugs and because of her needle-using habits she became, at the tender age of 26, one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS. Jolie's performance in Gia (1998) again garnered a Golden Globe Award and another Emmy nomination, and she additionally earned a SAG Award.
Angelina got a major break in 1999 when she won a leading role in the successful feature The Bone Collector (1999), starring alongside Denzel Washington. In that same year, Jolie gave a tour de force performance in Girl, Interrupted (1999) playing opposite Winona Ryder. The movie was a true story of women who spent time in a psychiatric hospital. Jolie's role was reminiscent of Jack Nicholson's character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), the role which won Nicholson his first Oscar. Unlike "Cuckoo", "Girl" was a small film that received mixed reviews and barely made money at the box office. But when it came time to give out awards, Jolie won the triple crown -- "Girl" propelled her to win the Golden Globe Award, the SAG Award and the Academy Award for best leading actress in a supporting role.
With her newfound prominence, Jolie began to get in-depth attention from the press. Numerous aspects of her controversial personal life became news. At her wedding to her Hackers (1995) co-star Jonny Lee Miller, she had displayed her husband's name on the back of her shirt painted in her own blood. Jolie and Miller divorced, and in 2000, she married her Pushing Tin (1999) co-star Billy Bob Thornton. Jolie had become the fifth wife of a man twenty years her senior. During her marriage to Thornton, the spouses each wore a vial of the other's blood around their necks. That marriage came apart in 2002 and ended in divorce. In addition, Jolie was estranged from her famous father, Jon Voight.
In 2000, Jolie was asked to star in Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001). At first, she expressed disinterest, but then decided that the required training for the athletic role was intriguing. The eponymous character was drawn from a popular video game. Lara Croft was a female cross between Indiana Jones and James Bond. When the movie was released, critics were unimpressed with the final product, but critical acclaim wasn't the point of the movie. The public paid $275 million for theater tickets to see a buffed up Jolie portray the adventuresome Lara Croft. Jolie's father Jon Voight appeared in the movie, and during filming there was a brief rapprochement between father and daughter.
One of the Lara Croft movie's filming locations was Cambodia. While there, Jolie witnessed the natural beauty, culture and poverty of that country. She considered this an eye opening experience, and so began the humanitarian chapter of her life. Jolie began visiting refugee camps around the world and came to be formally appointed as a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Some of her experiences were written and published in her popular book "Notes from My Travels" whose profits go to UNHCR.
Jolie has stated that she now plans to spend most of her time in humanitarian efforts, to be financed by her actress salary. She devotes one third of her income to savings, one third to living expenses and one third to charity. In 2002, Angelina adopted a Cambodian refugee boy named Maddox, and in 2005, adopted an Ethiopian refugee girl named Zahara. Jolie's dramatic feature film Beyond Borders (2003) parallels some of her real life humanitarian experiences although, despite the inclusion of a romance between two westerners, many of the movie's images were too depressingly realistic -- the movie was not popular among critics or at the box office.
In 2004, Jolie began filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005) with co-star Brad Pitt. The movie became a major box office success. There were rumors that Pitt and Jolie had an affair while filming Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Jolie insisted that because her mother had been hurt by adultery, she herself could never participate in an affair with a married man, therefore there had been no affair with Pitt at that time. Nonetheless, Pitt separated from his wife Jennifer Aniston in January 2005 and, in the months that followed, he was frequently seen in public with Jolie, apparently as a couple. Pitt's divorce was finalized later in 2005.
Jolie and Pitt announced in early 2006 that they would have a child together, and Jolie gave birth to daughter Shiloh that May. They also adopted a three-year-old Vietnamese boy named Pax. The couple, who married in 2014 and divorced in 2019, continue to pursue movie and humanitarian projects, and now have a total of six children. She was appointed Honorary Dame Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George at the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours for her services to United Kingdom foreign policy and the campaign to end warzone sexual violence.Bisexual- Music Artist
- Actress
- Composer
Lady Gaga, born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, is an American songwriter, singer, actress, philanthropist, dancer and fashion designer.
Gaga was born on March 28, 1986 in Manhattan, New York City, to Cynthia Louise (Bissett), a philanthropist and business executive, and Joseph Anthony Germanotta, Jr., an internet entrepreneur. Her father is of Italian descent; and her mother, who is from West Virginia, is of half Italian and half French, English, German, and Scottish ancestry. Gaga was able to sing and play the piano from a young age. She attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart from age 11 where was bullied for her appearance (she was small and plumper than other girls with large front teeth) and eccentric habits.
By the age of 14, Gaga was performing at open mike nights in clubs and bars. By age 17, she had gained early admission to New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. In addition to sharpening her songwriting skills, she composed essays and analytical papers on art, religion, social issues and politics. At the age of 19 Gaga withdrew from her studies and moved out of her parents' home in order to pursue a musical career. During this time she started a band which began to gain local attention.
After a brief partnership with talent scout Rob Fusari, which resulted in the creation of her stage name, Gaga was signed to Def Jam Records in 2006; however she was dropped from the label after just three months. Devastated, Gaga returned home, and became increasingly experimental: fascinating herself with emerging neo-burlesque shows, go-go dancing at bars dressed in little more than a bikini in addition to experimenting with drugs.
Gaga met performance artist Lady Starlight during this time; after a performance at Lollapalooza Festival in 2007 Gaga was signed by Vince Herbert to Streamline Records, an imprint of Interscope Records. Having served as an apprentice songwriter under an internship at Famous Music Publishing, which was later acquired by Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Gaga subsequently struck a music publishing deal with Sony/ATV. As a result, she was hired to write songs for Britney Spears and labelmates New Kids on the Block, Fergie, and the Pussycat Dolls. At Interscope, singer-songwriter Akon recognized her vocal abilities when she sang a reference vocal for one of his tracks in studio; Akon then convinced Interscope-Geffen-A&M Chairman and CEO Jimmy Iovine to form a joint deal by having her also sign with his own label Kon Live, making her his "franchise player."
In 2008 Gaga released her first album 'The Fame' to lukewarm radio play; Gaga toured around Europe and in gay clubs in the US to promote the album - however it was not until her first hit 'Just Dance' came to mainstream attention in 2009 that Gaga exploded onto the music scene.
Since then Gaga has gained numerous awards and nominations for a string of hits; her first album spawned several more smash hits 'Paparazzi', 'Loveame' and 'Poker Face'); while touring the album Gaga wrote 'The Fame Monster', an EP examining the darker side to her new-found fame. The Fame Monster was released in 2009 and won multiple awards, spawning her most iconic single 'Bad Romance' as well as 'Telephone' and 'Alejandro'. During this time Gaga came under increased public and critical scrutiny for her eccentric and often bizarre style choices. Gaga embarked on her second tour, The Monster Ball; upon finishing in May 2011, the critically acclaimed and commercially accomplished tour ran for over one and a half years and grossed $227.4 million, making it one of the highest-grossing concert tours of all time and the highest-grossing for a debut headlining artist. Concerts performed at Madison Square Garden in New York City were filmed for an HBO television special. The special accrued one of its five Emmy Award nominations and has since been released on DVD and Blu-ray.
In 2011 Gaga released her second full-length album 'Born this Way'; the album was received vastly more critically than her previous two for touching on themes of politics, sexuality, and religion. Despite this, the album's songs were praised critically, and Born This Way sold 1.108 million copies in its first week in the US, debuting atop the Billboard 200, and topping the charts in more than 20 other countries. In addition to exceeding 8 million copies in worldwide sales, Born This Way received 3 Grammy Award nominations, including her third consecutive for Album of the Year. In March 2012, Gaga was ranked fourth on Billboard's list of top moneymakers of 2011, grossing $25,353,039 dollars, which included sales from Born This Way and her Monster Ball Tour.
At the end of April 2012, Gaga's Born This Way kicked off in Korea - the tour would last 2 years and take the singer to every continent of the globe. However in February 2012 the tour was abruptly canceled; Gaga had a labral tear in her right hip which she had been nursing secretly for several weeks in the hopes that she would be able to continue the tour. After a performance in Toronto left her unable to walk and in considerable pain, she was taken to hospital for surgery and the tour was canceled. Through to Jan. 17, the tour had grossed $168.2 million and moved 1.6 million tickets to 85 shows, according to Billboard Boxscore, with the Asian, European, and South American legs already completed in 2012. The North American leg, which was to wrap the tour and was almost completely sold out, would have likely put the tour at more than $200 million gross, easily in the top 20 tours of all time and probably in the top 15, according to Billboard. As it stands, Gaga finished sixth among all touring artists in 2012, with a gross of $125 million and attendance of more than 1.1 million, according to Boxscore.
Gaga wrote her third album, ARTPOP, released in 2013. Gaga made her acting debut in Robert Rodriguez's Machete Kills (2013), the sequel to his 2010 film Machete, and also appeared in Rodriguez's sequel Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014). In 2018, she starred with Bradley Cooper, who also directed, in A Star Is Born (2018). Gaga received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the role.Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
- Writer
Megan is an only child born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother, Martha, was a model, and her father, Carter Mullally Jr., was a contract player for Paramount. Megan first entered Northwestern University intending to study acting, but switched to English literature. However, she still ended up starring in several campus musicals, which gained attention from producers and prompted her to drop out of school. In 1985, she moved to Los Angeles with no particular success. But, in 1994, she co-starred in "Grease" on Broadway with Rosie O'Donnell and, in 1995, in "How To Succeed In Business" with Matthew Broderick. Her star has been rising ever since. Her band Nancy and Beth have recorded two albums and tour extensively. She has directed four music videos for Nancy and Beth, which can be found at nancyandbeth.com.Bisexual- Actress
- Director
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Stephanie Beatriz was born on 10 February 1981 in Neuquén, Argentina. She is an actress and director, known for Encanto (2021), Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013) and Short Term 12 (2013). She has been married to Brad Hoss since 6 October 2018. They have one child.Bisexual- Writer
- Producer
- Actress
Rosie O'Donnell was born into an Irish-American family in Commack, Long Island. She is the third of five children born to Roseann Teresa (Murtha) and Edward Joseph O'Donnell, an electrical engineer for the defense industry. Her mother died when she was 10. She said that she watched TV nearly 24 hours a day. When she was 18, she dropped out of college and went on to do shows like Gimme a Break! (1981), and she produced and hosted Stand-Up Spotlight (1988). She worked on her own down-to-earth syndicated daytime talk show: The Rosie O'Donnell Show (1996).Lesbian- Actress
- Producer
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Dawn O'Porter was born on 23 January 1979 in Scotland, UK. She is an actress and producer, known for Torn (2010), Skins (2007) and Will Sliney's Storytellers (2021). She has been married to Chris O'Dowd since 26 August 2012. They have two children.Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
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Ashley Victoria Benson was born on December 18, 1989 in Anaheim Hills, California, to Shannon (Harte) and Jeff Benson. She has Irish, English, and German ancestry. She has been dancing competitively since she was 2 with hip hop, jazz, ballet, tap and lyrical. She has been singing since she was about 5 and she hopes to pursue that, along with her acting. Ashley started modeling at the age of 5 for dance catalogs. Ashley was then pursued by The Ford Modeling Agency at the age of 8. She worked steadily in print and is still with the Agency. At the age of 10, she wanted to pursue acting. Ashley went on to do 35 commercials, and then on to theatrical roles. Acting was now Ashley's passion. Ashley put all her focus into acting, which left little time for modeling and dancing, anymore. Ashley's most recent role is "Hanna Marin" on ABC Family's Pretty Little Liars (2010). Ashley also had a cameo in Romeo Miller (aka Lil Romeo) and Solange's music video for the song "True Love". She did a photo shoot with Britney Spears for Vogue Magazine. She is in NLT's music video, "That Girl".Bisexual- Actress
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Sue Perkins was born on 22 September 1969 in East Dulwich, London, England, UK. She is an actress and writer, known for Last Christmas (2019), The Great British Baking Show (2010) and Urban Myths (2017).Lesbian- Producer
- Writer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Anna Richardson was born on 27 September 1970 in Shropshire, England, UK. She is a producer and writer, known for Three Fat Brides, One Thin Dress (2007), Scream Team (2002) and You Are What You Eat (2004).Bisexual, presenter of Naked Attraction- Actress
- Soundtrack
Dana Michelle Plato was born in Maywood, California, on Saturday, November 7, 1964. Her first excursion into the film world occurred when she was 11 in the television film Beyond the Bermuda Triangle (1975). Dana never made an impact on the TV screen until she landed the role of Kimberly Drummond in the TV hit sitcom Diff'rent Strokes (1978) from 1978-1986. After the series ended, Dana had difficulty finding more acting work. Sometimes she would act in a made-for-TV movie or a low- budget silver-screen film. She was married for Lanny Lambert for seven years and they had a son. She was arrested in 1991 for robbing a Las Vegas video store and placed on probation; the next year she was arrested again, this time for forging a Valium prescription. She had just finished an interview with Howard Stern in the spring of 1999 when she and her fiancé, Robert Menchaca, were headed back to California. She hoped the interview would revive her stalled career. They stopped at his parents' house in Moore, Oklahoma for a Mother's-Day-weekend visit; on Saturday, May 8, 1999, Dana died of what appeared to be an accidental overdose of the painkiller "Loritab". On May 21, a coroner's inquest ruled her death a suicide because of the large amount of drugs in her body and her history of past suicide attempts. Dana Plato was 34 years old.Lesbian- Jean Acker was born in 1893 on a farm in Trenton, NJ, and was named Harriet. Her father was part Cherokee and her mother was Irish, and they had separated when she was young. Jean attended school at St. Mary's Seminary in Springfield, NJ. Her acting career began in vaudeville and stock-company drama before she moved in front of the cameras.
In 1919 she came to California and negotiated a $200-a-week contract with a movie studio based on the strength of her relationship with her lover, the famed star Alla Nazimova. Within a few months she started another relationship with a younger, less established actress, Grace Darmond. In the midst of this love triangle she met the struggling actor Rudolph Valentino at a party, and they became friends. After a two-month courtship, he asked her to marry him and she accepted. On November 6, 1919, they married, and on their wedding night she locked him out. She wept, claiming she made a mistake and later departed to Grace Darmond's apartment. Valentino tried to reconcile with her but to no avail, and the marriage ended in divorce two years later when Valentino was a major star and Acker's star was waning.
Newspapers had a field day when Valentino was charged with bigamy, as he hadn't waited long enough to marry his second wife, talented set and costume designer Natacha Rambova. Acker sued for the legal right to call herself "Mrs. Rudolph Valentino," and Valentino remained angry at her for several years. However, they rekindled their friendship a few months before his death in 1926. She was one of the last people who saw him alive, and she attended his funeral with her mother. Soon after he died, she wrote and published a popular song about him, "We Will Meet at the End of the Trail."
She played bit parts in films, usually uncredited, until the early 1950s. She and her companion Chloe Carter owned a Beverly Hills building where Patricia Neal lived for several years. She died in 1978 at the age of 85. She and her companion Carter are now buried side by side in Holy Cross Cemetery, Los Angeles, California.Lesbian, former wife of Rudolph Valentino and later girlfriend of Grace Darmond. - Actress
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Canadian-born Grace Darmond first caught the acting bug while appearing in a school play, and as luck would have it was spotted there by the owner of the Selig Film Co., who put her under contract. She appeared in her first film in 1913 at 16 years of age, and by her 20th birthday was a star at Vitagraph. She left that studio for Paramount, but apparently she was a small fish in a big pond, as she didn't stay there very long. She started appearing in low-budget serials for independent companies, a sure sign of a career in decline, and by the late 1920s was making cheap quickies for independent producers for the states-rights market. She seemed to have finally read the writing on the wall, and her last known credit is in 1927, when she apparently left the industry.Bisexual, girlfriend of Jean Acker.- Actress
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Tatum Beatrice O'Neal is an American actress and author. She is the youngest person ever to win a competitive Academy Award, winning at age 10 for her performance as Addie Loggins in Paper Moon (1973) opposite her father, Ryan O'Neal. She also starred as Amanda Wurlitzer in The Bad News Bears (1976), followed by Nickelodeon (1976), and Little Darlings (1980). O'Neal later appeared in guest roles in Sex and the City, 8 Simple Rules and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. From 2006 to 2007, she portrayed Blythe Hunter in the My Network TV drama series Wicked Wicked Games.Bisexual- Actress
- Art Department
- Producer
Mae was born in Los Angeles, California to Pat Musick, a voice artist, and Jeffrey Whitman, a personal manager and set construction coordinator. She began her career with a voice-over for a Tyson Chicken commercial. Whitman attended Ribét Academy, a private preparatory school in Los Angeles.
Whitman made her first silver screen debut playing Meg Ryan's youngest daughter, "Casey Green", in When a Man Loves a Woman (1994). Among her notable childhood roles were that of "Patricia Whitmore", daughter of the President in Independence Day (1996); George Clooney's daughter, "Maggie Taylor", in One Fine Day (1996); and the charming daughter, "Bernice Pruitt", of Sandra Bullock, in Hope Floats (1998).
As she has grown older, Mae has made several guest appearances in television shows such as JAG (1995), State of Grace (2001), Desperate Housewives (2004), Grey's Anatomy (2005) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (1999), just to name a few, as well as some voice-over work.
In 2015, she starred in the movie The Duff (2015) portraying a high school student who realized she is the approachable one, the designated ugly fat friend, the DUFF.
We should expect to see great things from Mae Whitman as her career progresses, for she has shown what a strong, dynamic, and talented actress she has become.Bisexual- Actress
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Alia Shawkat was born in Riverside, California, to Dina Burke and actor Tony Shawkat. Her maternal grandfather, Paul Burke, was also an actor. Her father is from Baghdad, Iraq, and her mother has Irish, Italian, and Norwegian ancestry. Success arrived early for Alia. Her career began at the young age of 11 when she landed a role on the ABC Family series State of Grace (2001). She later starred as "Maeby Funke" on Fox's Emmy-award winning Arrested Development (2003) where she portrayed a rebellious and mischievous member of a dysfunctional Orange County family trying to adjust to their loss of wealth.
Alia was introduced to show business by appearing in a Calvin Klein catalog, which immediately attracted the attention of commercial and theatrical agents in Hollywood. She soon landed a role opposite George Clooney in Three Kings (1999). This was followed by a supporting lead in the Ron Perlman' movie The Trial of Old Drum (2000).
But it was State of Grace (2001) that catapulted her into the forefront of young actresses. She has also had guest-starring roles on JAG (1995), Without a Trace (2002), Boomtown (2002) and Presidio Med (2002) and she recently starred opposite Martin Lawrence in Rebound (2005).
At 16 years old, when she was not filming, Alia attended a private school near her home in Rancho Mirage where she was able to continue her studies in English, Physics, Math, Geography and Drama. Her ambition is eventually to attend Yale University studying International Relations.
In her free time, Alia enjoys horseback riding, ice-skating and dancing. She is an accomplished pianist and speaks several languages. She splits her time between her home and Rancho Mirage and Los Angeles where she resides with her parents and her two brothers.Bisexual- Actress
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Trained in music and dance, tiny-framed, pixie-like Judy Carne was born Joyce Botterill in Northampton, England on April 27, 1939, the daughter of a grocer. Trained in dance, she appeared in music revues as a teenager and changed her name at the advice of a dance teacher.
Slowly building up a career on British TV, she arrived in America in 1962, the eve of the mid-60s "British invasion," and appeared to good advantage on the TV series Fair Exchange (1962). Beginning unobtrusively in film, she developed enough as a light comedienne to score well on the smaller screen and won a regular role on the sitcom The Baileys of Balboa (1964). Stardom came with her own romantic comedy series Love on a Rooftop (1966) opposite the late Pete Duel. The latter series, though short-lived, was quite popular and showcased Carne's appeal to maximum advantage. She found herself embraced by America as a cute, pert-nosed Cockney lass with a Peter Pan-like effervescence.
It was no surprise when a couple of years later she soared to "flower power" stardom on the hip and highly irreverent TV cult variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967), where she introduced the phrase "Sock it to me!" to the American vernacular. As the plucky brunette, she always seemed to be on the receiving end of a slapstick prank, but the audiences loved her for it. The show also made instant household names out of fellow Laugh-In comrades Arte Johnson, Ruth Buzzi, Henry Gibson, Jo Anne Worley, Lily Tomlin, and, notably, Goldie Hawn, who managed to out-perk even Judy and grab the lion's share of attention. Judy proved herself a game sport for a while, but made the decision to leave the series after only two seasons-- tired of the grind, the typecast, and the disappointment of having her singing/dancing skills undermined.
In the long run it probably was a major career mistake. With the exception of her role as Polly (the Julie Andrews roles) in a Broadway revival of "The Boy Friend" that also featured Sandy Duncan, Judy's post "Laugh-In" professional life was unexceptional with a surprising quick descent. There were a couple of mini-movies, a failed TV idea for a sitcom called "Poor Judy", a failed Las Vegas music act, and the TV talk show circuit. Nothing panned out. Despite an innocent, bubbly, cheery exterior, her private life was anything but. Her 1963 marriage to rising star Burt Reynolds was over within a couple of years. The divorce was acrimonious, to say the least, with nasty, below-the-belt accusations being flung from both sides and feeding the tabloid sheets. A second marriage to TV producer Robert Bergman in 1970 lasted even less than that. More problematic, however, was Judy's escalating financial problems and a drug problem which started with marijuana and hallucinogens and developed into a full-fledged heroin addiction.
In the late 60s and 70s she tried to maintain somewhat with scattered appearances on the musical and comedy stage with roles in "Cabaret" (as Sally Bowles), "Absurd Person Singular," "There's a Girl in My Soup", "The Owl and the Pussycat" and "Blithe Spirit". Her career pretty much in shambles, she fell quickly into the lifestyle of a junkie and began living in squalor. For the next decade, she literally dropped out of sight. The only time she was heard from was when she was busted for a drug arrest or when she made unhappy headlines for a near-fatal 1978 car crash (her ex-husband Robert was driving) that left her with a broken neck.
Judy's tell-all 1985 autobiography, "Laughing on the Outside, Crying on the Inside", was a harrowing and heart-wrenching read with explicit detailing of her descent into degradation. Despite the book, the adorable English girl who captured America's heart in the late 1960s failed to win back a now-disinterested audience. She remains a prime example of what the flip side of a glamorous Hollywood can turn out to be.
In later years, Judy lived and was not heard of much since the publishing of the book. She has allegedly been married twice more since then. She was also in attendance for the televised 25th anniversary of "Laugh-In" and a televised "Laugh-In" Christmas show both in 1993. Out of the picture since the early 1980's, she was a 1990 guest for talk show hosts Geraldo Rivera and Howard Stern and made an isolated appearance as a homeless person in the downbeat urban movie drama What About Me (1993), written and directed by the film's star Rachel Amodeo.
Living quietly in the village of Pitsford for two decades, she died from pneumonia on September 3, 2015, at a hospital in Northampton.Bisexual- Actress
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- Writer
Megan Denise Fox was born on May 16, 1986 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee and raised in Rockwood, Tennessee to Gloria Darlene Tonachio (née Cisson), a real estate manager and Franklin Thomas Fox, a parole officer. She began her drama and dance training at age 5 and at age 10, she moved to Port St. Lucie, Florida where she continued her training and finished school. Megan began acting and modeling at age 13 after winning several awards at the 1999 American Modeling and Talent Convention in Hilton Head, South Carolina. At age 17, she tested out of school using correspondence and eventually moved to Los Angeles, California. Megan made her film debut as Brianna Wallace in the Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Olsen film, Holiday in the Sun (2001). Her best-known roles are as Sam Witwicky's love interest, Mikaela Banes in Transformers (2007) and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009), as April O'Neil in the remake Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014) and its sequel Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (2016), and as Jennifer Check in the horror comedy Jennifer's Body (2009).Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
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Jorja Fox has become a familiar face by playing major roles in three of the most successful television dramas in history: ER (1994), The West Wing (1999) and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000).
As a teenager, Fox had a career as a fashion model. She then turned to formal study of the acting craft at the Lee Strasberg Institute in New York, as well as under the tutelage of veteran actor William Hickey at HB Studios.
After appearing in several films and TV series, Fox got her big break in 1996 by landing a role in the immensely successful ER (1994) TV series. She appeared in 33 episodes as "Dr. Maggie Doyle", a lesbian, vegetarian, ER Resident from Chicago's south side. Fox then got a recurring role in the renowned The West Wing (1999) TV series where she portrayed Gina Toscano, a Secret Service agent who was in charge of protecting the President's college-age daughter.
Fox was an anchor of the TV series mega-hit CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2000), portraying crime scene investigator Sara Sidle until 2008. She was a guest star of the show in 2009, recurred in 2010, and returned as a regular from 2011 until the show concluded in 2015. Fox reprised the role in 2021 for the first season of CSI Vegas. Fox shared in CSI's 2005 Screen Actors Guild award for outstanding performance by an ensemble in a drama series, the show's 300th episode, and the CSI finale which aired in September of 2015.
Fox performed in two films and a pilot for CBS before the pandemic in 2020 shut down much of the world for much of the year.
In addition to her TV and movie roles, Fox is the co-founder of a production company called Seafox productions. So far the company has co-produced a musical about Dusty Springfield in Los Angeles and New York City called "Stay Forever: The Life and Music of Dusty Springfield" and four feature documentaries.
Fox is also a long-time environmental and animal welfare advocate.Lesbian- Actress
- Music Department
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Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, MO, in 1906 to Carrie McDonald, a laundress, and Eddie Carson, a musician. Her early life hinted at her future career. She first danced for the public on the streets of St. Louis for nickels and dimes. Later she became a chorus girl on the St. Louis stage. At age 15 she married Pullman porter William Howard Baker, but left him when she ran away from St. Louis at age 17, feeling there was too much racial discrimination in the city. She eventually made her way to Paris, France. Her first job in Paris was in "La revue negre". Her next significant job was at the Folies Bergere, where she was a member of the club's all-black revue. It was there, in 1925, that she first performed her famous "banana dance". She quickly became a favorite of the French, and her fame grew, but she had many ups and downs during her career. Although popular in France, during the "Red Scare" era of the 1950s, she was falsely accused of being a Communist and informed that she was no longer welcome in the US (in 1937 she had renounced her American citizenship, utterly disgusted by the blatant and official racism against blacks, and became a French citizen).
In 1961 Josephine was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest award. In the late 1960s she began having financial difficulties, and stopped performing in 1968. Grace Kelly, who by that time had married Prince Rainier of Monaco and was now known as Princess Grace of Monaco, offered her a home in Monaco when she learned of Josephine's financial problems. At the request of Princess Grace, Josephine performed at Monaco's summer ball in 1974 and was a great success. That same year she staged a week of performances in New York City and called the show "An Evening with Josephine Baker". She had just begun a Paris revue celebrating her half-century on the stage when on April 10, 1975, she was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage and went into a coma. She died without regaining consciousness. Her funeral was held in Paris, and she was buried in Monaco.Bisexual- Actress
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Dame Judith Anderson was born Frances Margaret Anderson on February 10, 1897 in Adelaide, South Australia. She began her acting career in Australia before moving to New York in 1918. There she established herself as one of the greatest theatrical actresses and was a major star on Broadway throughout the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Her notable stage works included the role of Lady Macbeth, which she played first in the 1920s, and gave an Emmy Award-winning television performance in Macbeth (1960). Anderson's long association with Euripides' "Medea" began with her acclaimed Tony Award-winning 1948 stage performance in the title role. She appeared in the television version of Medea (1983) in the supporting character of the Nurse.
Anderson made her Hollywood film debut under director Rowland Brown in a supporting role in Blood Money (1933). Her striking, not conventionally attractive features were complemented with her powerful presence, mastery of timing and an effortless style. Anderson made a film career as a supporting character actress in several significant films including Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), for which she was Oscar nominated for Best Supporting Actress. She worked with director Otto Preminger in Laura (1944), then with René Clair in And Then There Were None (1945). Her remarkable performance in a supporting role in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) fit in a stellar acting ensemble under director Richard Brooks.
Anderson was awarded Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1960 Queen's New Year's Honours List for her services to the performing arts. Living in Santa Barbara in her later years, she also had a successful stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara (1984) and was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in 1984. In the same year, at age 87, she appeared in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) as the High Priestess, and was nominated for a Saturn Award for that role. She was awarded Companion of the Order of Australia in the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to the performing arts. Anderson died at age 94 of pneumonia on January 3, 1992 in Santa Barbara, California.Lesbian- Actress
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Agnes was born of Anglo-Irish ancestry near Boston, the daughter of a Presbyterian minister (her mother was a mezzo-soprano) who encouraged her to perform in church pageants. Aged three, she sang 'The Lord is my Shepherd' on a public stage and seven years later joined the St. Louis Municipal Opera as a dancer and singer for four years. In keeping with her father's dictum of finishing her education first (then being permitted to do whatever she wished with her career), Agnes attended Muskingum College (Ohio), and, subsequently, the University of Wisconsin. She graduated with an M.A. in English and public speaking and later added a doctorate in literature from Bradley University to her resume. When her family moved to Reedsburg, Wisconsin, where her father had a pastorate, Agnes taught public school English and drama for five years. In between, she went to Paris to study pantomime with Marcel Marceau.
In 1928, she began training at the American Academy for Dramatic Arts and graduated with honors the following year. In order to supplement her income , Agnes had turned to radio early on. She had her first job in 1923 as a singer for a St. Louis radio station. Her love for that medium remained with her all her life. From the 1930s to the 50s, she appeared on numerous serials, dramas and children's programs. She was Min Gump in "The Gumps" (1934), the 'dragon lady' in "Terry and the Pirates" (1937), Margot Lane of classic comic strip fame in "The Shadow", Mrs.Danvers in "Rebecca" and the bed-ridden woman about to meet her end in "Sorry, Wrong Number". Acting on the airwaves was so important to her that she would insist on its continuation as a precondition of a later contract with MGM. Significantly, through her radio work on "The Shadow"and "March of Time" in 1937, she met and befriended fellow actor Orson Welles. Welles soon invited her to join him and Joseph Cotten as charter members of his Mercury Theatre on the Air. Agnes was involved in the famous "War of the Worlds" broadcast of 1938 which attracted nationwide attention and resulted in a lucrative $100,000 per picture deal with RKO in Hollywood. The Mercury players (the other principals were Ray Collins, Everett Sloane, Paul Stewart and George Coulouris) packed up and went west.
An ebullient and versatile character actress, Agnes was impossible to typecast: she could play years older than her age, appear as heroine or villainess, tragedienne or comedienne. In her first film, the iconic Citizen Kane (1941), she played the titular character's mother. She received her greatest critical acclaim for her emotive second screen performance as Aunt Fanny Minafer in The Magnificent Ambersons (1942). In addition to being voted the year's best female performer by the New York Film Critics she was also nominated for an Academy Award. Through the years, Agnes would be nominated three more times: for her touching portrayal of the jaded but sympathetic Baroness Conti in Mrs. Parkington (1944); for her role as the title character's Aunt Aggie in Johnny Belinda (1948) and for playing Velma, the hard-boiled, suspicious housekeeper of Bette Davis in Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), co-starring her old friend Joseph Cotten. Other notable film appearances included Jane Eyre (1943), with Orson Welles, The Woman in White (1948) as Countess Fusco), The Lost Moment (1947) (as a 105-year old woman) and Dark Passage (1947), a classic film noir in which she had third billing behind Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall as the treacherous , malevolent Madge Rapf. She had a rare starring role in the campy horror flick The Bat (1959), giving (according to the New York Times of December 17) 'a good, snappy performance'.
On Broadway, she appeared in such acclaimed plays as "All the King's Men" and "Candlelight". She enjoyed success with "Don Juan in Hell", touring nationally: the first time (1951-2) with Charles Laughton and Cedric Hardwicke, the second time (though receiving fewer critical plaudits) with Ricardo Montalban and Paul Henreid in 1973. She also starred with Joseph Cotten in "Prescription Murder" (1962). While not a great critical success, this was much liked by audiences and it introduced a famous detective named Lieutenant Columbo. From 1954, she also toured the U.S. and Europe with her own a one-woman show entitled "The Fabulous Redhead". Agnes performed numerous times on television before landing the role of Endora on Bewitched (1964). One particularly interesting part came her way through the director Douglas Heyes who remembered her from "Sorry, Wrong Number". He cast her in the starring - and indeed, only role in The Invaders (1961). As the lonely old woman confronted by tiny alien invaders in her remote farmhouse, Agnes never utters a single word and cleverly acts her scenes as a pantomime of unspoken terror.
Of course, the genial Agnes Moorehead has been immortalized as Elizabeth Montgomery's flamboyant witch-mother, Endora, although that was not a role the actress wished to be remembered for (in spite of several Emmy Award nominations). Indeed, she had thought this whole witchcraft theme to be rather far-fetched and was somewhat taken aback by the show's huge popularity. Agnes had a special clause inserted in her contract which limited her appearances to eight out of twelve episodes which gave her the opportunity to also work on other projects. Commenting on the acting profession in one of her many interviews (New York Times, May 1, 1974), she found the key to success in being " sincere in your work " and to "just go right on whether audiences or critics are taking your scalp off or not".Bisexual- Actress
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Diane Youdale was born on 13 February 1970 in Billingham, England, UK. She is an actress, known for She-Wolf of London (1990), The New Adventures of Robin Hood (1997) and Anna (1988).Bisexual- Actress
- Producer
Judith Furse was born on 4 March 1912 in Camberley, Surrey, England, UK. She was an actress and producer, known for Black Narcissus (1947), Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939) and Carry on Spying (1964). She died on 29 August 1974 in Canterbury, Kent, England, UK.Lesbian- Actress
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Nancy Kulp wore many hats: Publicity person, actress, linguist, would-be politician, and teacher. Originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Kulp attended college in Florida, then headed for Hollywood to work in publicity for the movies, not star in them. Soon after arriving in Hollywood, Kulp was convinced by director George Cukor and casting director Billy Gordon that she should be in front of the camera, not behind the scenes. She then began a solid career as a character actress in films and television, including two memorable roles: on The Bob Cummings Show (1955) as bird-loving "Pamela Livingstone", and on The Beverly Hillbillies (1962) as the long-suffering, lovesick, and bird-loving "Miss Jane Hathaway". After the Hillbillies ended its 9-year run, Kulp found work in theater, Broadway, and television, and dabbled in politics, making an unsuccessful 1984 run for Congress in Pennsylvania. Later, she taught acting and retired to a farm in Connecticut and, later, Palm Springs, where she died of cancer in 1991.Lesbian- Actress
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Evan Rachel Wood was born September 7, 1987, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Her father, Ira David Wood III, is a theatre actor, writer and director, and her mother, Sara Wood, is an actress and acting coach. She has two older brothers--Dana Wood, a musician, and Ira David Wood IV, who has also acted. Evan and her brothers sometimes performed at Theatre In The Park in Raleigh, which her father founded and where he serves as executive director.
At the age of five she screen-tested against Kirsten Dunst for the lead role in Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) after a long auditioning process. She moved to Los Angeles with her mom and brother Ira in 1996 and has had success ever since, appearing in a TV series, TV movies and feature films. She has appeared in Practical Magic (1998), starred in the comedy S1m0ne (2002) as Al Pacino's daughter, and followed that with Thirteen (2003), with Holly Hunter. Her breakout role as Tracy in "Thirteen" garnered her a Golden Globes nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture: Drama and for a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role. At the time of this SAG nomination, she was the youngest actress to be nominated in the Leading Role category. She received a Golden Globe and Emmy nomination for "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie" for her portrayal of Veda Pierce in the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce (2011).
She also earned acclaim for her powerful performance as Stephanie, Mickey Rourke's estranged daughter, in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (2008).Bisexual- Actress
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Anna May Wong, the first Chinese-American movie star, was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California, to laundryman Wong Sam Sing and his wife, Lee Gon Toy. A third-generation American, she managed to have a substantial acting career during a deeply racist time when the taboo against miscegenation meant that Caucasian actresses were cast as "Oriental" women in lead parts opposite Caucasian leading men. Even when the role called for playing opposite a Caucasian in yellowface, as with Paul Muni's as the Chinese peasant Wang Lung in The Good Earth (1937), Wong was rejected, since she did not fit a Caucasian's imagined ideal look for an Asian woman. The discrimination she faced in the domestic industry caused her to go to Europe for work in English and German films. Her name, which she also spelled Wong Lew Song, translates literally as "Frosted Yellow Willows" but has been interpreted as "Second-Daughter Yellow Butterfly." Her family gave her the English-language name Anna May. She was born on Flower Street in downtown Los Angeles in an integrated neighborhood dominated by Irish and Germans, one block from Chinatown, where her father ran the Sam Kee Laundry.
The Wong family moved back to Chinatown two years after Liu Tsong's birth, but in 1910 they uprooted themselves, moving to a nearby Figueroa Street neighborhood where they had Mexican and East European neighbors. There were two steep hills between the Wongs' new home and Chinatown, but as her biographer, Colgate University history professor Graham Russell Gao Hodges, points out, those hills put a psychological as well as physical distance between Liu Tsong and Chinatown. Los Angeles' Chinatown already was teeming with movie shoots when she was a girl. She would haunt the neighborhood nickelodeons, having become enraptured with the early "flickers." Though her traditional father strongly disapproved of his daughter's cinephilia, as it deflected her from scholastic pursuits, there was little he could do about it, as Liu was determined to be an actress. The film industry was in the midst of relocating from the East Coast to the West, and Hollywood was booming. Liu Tsong would haunt movie shoots as she had earlier haunted the nickelodeons. Her favorite stars were Pearl White, of The Perils of Pauline (1914) serial fame, and White's leading man, Crane Wilbur. She was also fond of Ruth Roland.
Educated at a Chinese-language school in Chinatown, she would skip school to watch film shoots in her neighborhood. She made tip money from delivering laundry for her father, which she spent on going to the movies. Her father, if he discovered she had gone to the movies during school hours, would spank her with a bamboo stick. Around the time she was nine years old, she began begging filmmakers for parts, behavior that got her dubbed "C.C.C." for "curious Chinese child."
Liu Tsong's first film role was as an uncredited extra in Metro Pictures' The Red Lantern (1919), starring Alla Nazimova as a Eurasian woman who falls in love with an American missionary. The film included scenes shot in Chinatown. The part was obtained for her by a friend of her father's (without his knowledge) who worked in the movie industry. Retaining the family surname "Wong" and the English-language "Christian" name bestowed on her by her parents, Liu Tsong Americanized herself as "Anna May Wong" for the movie industry, though she would not receive an on-screen credit for another two years.
The rechristened Anna May Wong appeared in bit parts in movies starring Priscilla Dean, Colleen Moore and the Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa, the first Asian star of American movies. Due to her father's demands, she had an adult guardian at the studio, and would be locked in her dressing room between scenes if she was the only Asian in the cast. Initially balancing school work and her budding film career, she eventually dropped out of Los Angeles High School to pursue acting full time. She was aided by the fact that, though still a teenager, she looked more mature than her real age.
Director Marshall Neilan cast the teenage Anna May in a bit part in his film Dinty (1920), then gave her her first credited role in the "Hop" sequence of Bits of Life (1921), the American movie industry's first anthology film. In "Hop" Wong played Toy Ling, the abused wife of Lon Chaney's character Chin Gow, which the Man of a Thousand Faces played in yellowface. She next appeared in support of John Gilbert in Fox's Shame (1921) before being cast in her first major role at the age of 17, the lead in The Toll of the Sea (1922). She played Lotus Flower in this adaptation of the opera "Madame Butterfly," which moved the action from Japan to China. "The Toll of the Sea" was the first feature film shot entirely in Technicolor's two-strip color process. By appearing top-billed in this romantic melodrama, Anna became the first native-born Asian performer to star in a major Hollywood movie. Most portrayals of Asian women were done by Caucasian actresses in "yellow-face," such as the 1915 Madame Butterfly (1915) starring "America's Sweetheart" Mary Pickford (who was born in Toronto, Canada) in the title role. In "The Toll of the Sea," Anna May's character perpetuates the stereotype of the Asian "lotus blossom," a self-sacrificial woman who surrenders her life for the love of a Caucasian man. The film was a hit, and it showcased Wong in a preternaturally mature and restrained performance. This breakthrough should have launched Anna May Wong as a star, but for one thing: She was Chinese in a country that excluded (by law) Chinese from emigrating to the US, that forbade (by law) Chinese from marrying Caucasians and that generally excluded (by law or otherwise) Chinese from the culture at large, except for bit roles as heavies in the national consciousness.
"The Toll of the Sea" made Anna May Wong a known, and thus a marketable, commodity in Hollywood. She became the #1 actress when a young Asian female part had to be cast, but unfortunately lead roles for Asians were few and far between. Instead of becoming a star, this beautiful woman with a complexion described as "a rose blushing through old ivory" continued to be stuck in supporting roles, as in Tod Browning's melodrama Drifting (1923) and the western Thundering Dawn (1923). She even played an Eskimo in The Alaskan (1924). She appeared as Tiger Lily, "Chieftainess of the Indians," in Paramount's prestigious production of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan (1924), but the role was very small (the film was shot on Santa Catalina Island, where the cast stayed during the production.
The 170-cm-tall (5'7", although other sources cite her height as 5'4½") beauty was known as the world's best-dressed woman and widely considered to have the loveliest hands in the cinema. Her big breakthrough after her auspicious start with "The Toll of the Sea" finally came when Douglas Fairbanks cast her in a supporting role as a treacherous Mongol slave in his Middle Eastern/Arabian Nights extravaganza The Thief of Bagdad (1924). The $2-million blockbuster production made her known to critics and the movie-going public. For better or worse, a star, albeit of the stereotypical "Dragon Lady" type, was born.
Despite her waxing fame, she was limited to supporting roles, as Caucasian actresses, including most improbably Myrna Loy, continued to be cast as Asian women in lead roles from the 1920s through the 1940s, despite the ready availability of Anna May Wong. She was unable to attract lead parts despite her beauty and proven acting talent, even in films featuring Asian women, but she did carve out a career as a supporting player in everything from A-list movies to two-reel comedies and serials. The characters she played typically were duplicitous or murderous vamps who often reaped the wages of their sin by being raped. It was a demeaning apprenticeship that most Caucasian actresses did not have to go through. Anna wanted was to play modern American women all through her career but was thwarted because of racism. Later, when she journeyed to Europe to escape the typecasting of Hollywood, she told journalist Doris Mackie, "I was so tired of the parts I had to play. Why is it that the screen Chinese is always the villain? And so crude a villain--murderous, treacherous, a snake in the grass."
Wong embodied the Caucasian ideal of a foreign exotic beauty, an alien presence despite her American citizenship. The movie magazine "Pictures" published a memoir of hers in 1926 in which she complained, "A lot of people, when they first meet me, are surprised that I speak and write English without difficulty. But why shouldn't I? I was born right here in Los Angeles and went to the public schools here. I speak English without any accent at all. But my parents complain that the same cannot be said of my Chinese. Although I have gone to Chinese schools, and always talk to my father and mother in our native tongue, it is said that I speak Chinese with an English accent!". Many Chinese-Americans considered themselves "Chinese in America," an attitude bolstered by the anti-Chinese, anti-Asian attitude of the US government and the American culture. In her memoir, Wong referred to herself as "Chinese" or "Americanized Chinese," but not as an "American" or "Chinese-American."
Anna May Wong appeared as a dancer in a play within a movie shot in Technicolor for the Ronald Colman vehicle His Supreme Moment (1925), but her Hollywood output generally was undistinguished. In 1926 she seems to have appeared in a "race" film made by Chinese-Americans for a Chinese-American audience, The Silk Bouquet (1926) (aka "The Dragon Horse"). Moving between Poverty Row and the majors, she appeared again with Lon Chaney in Mr. Wu (1927) at MGM and with Warner Oland and Dolores Costello in Old San Francisco (1927) at Warner Brothers. Warners also cast her in support of Oriental yellowface queen Myrna Loy in The Crimson City (1928). Despite her WASP looks and red hair, Loy in Chinese yellowface had become a major "Oriental" star in American films desiring an exotic element. This indignity may have been what pushed Wong to seek her future somewhere other than Hollywood.
She moved to Europe in 1928, where she made movies in the UK and Germany. She made her debut on the London stage with the young up-and-coming Laurence Olivier in the play "The Circle of Chalk." After receiving a drubbing for her voice and singing from the London critics, she paid a Cambridge University tutor to improve her speech, with the result that she acquired an upper-crust English accent. Later she appeared in Vienna, Austria, in the play "Springtime."
European directors appreciated Wong's unique talents and beauty, and they used her in ways that stereotype-minded Hollywood, hemmed in by American prejudice, would not or could not. Moving to Germany to appear in German films, she became acquainted with German film personalities, including Marlene Dietrich and actress-filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl. She learned German and French and began to develop a continental European attitude and outlook. In Europe she was welcomed as a star. According to her biographer Graham Russell Gao Hodges, Wong hobnobbed with "an intellectual elite that included princes, playwrights, artists and photographers who clamored to work with her." Anna May Wong was featured in magazines all over the world, far more than actresses of a similar level of accomplishment. She became a media superstar, and her coiffure and complexion were copied, while "coolie coats" became the rage. According to Hodges, "[S]he was the one American star who spoke to the French people, more than Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford or Mary Pickford, the top American actresses of the time." But, ironically, "[S]he's the one who's now forgotten." Wong was cast in Ewald André Dupont's silent film Piccadilly (1929) as a maid who is fired from her job at a London nightclub after dancing on top of a table, then rehired as a dancer to infuse the club with exotic glamour. Her first talkie was The Flame of Love (1930) (aka "The Road to Dishonour", although some sources claim it was "Song" aka "Wasted Love" in that same year), which was released by British International Pictures. In a time before dubbing, when different versions of a single film were filmed in different languages, Wong played in the English, French and German versions of the movie.
Paramount Pictures offered her a contract with the promise of lead roles in major productions. Returning to the US in 1930, Wong appeared on Broadway in the play "On the Spot." It was a hit, running for 167 performances, and she moved on to Hollywood and Paramount, where she starred in an adaptation of Sax Rohmer's novel "Daughter of Fu Manchu" called Daughter of the Dragon (1931). She was back in stereotype-land, this time as the ultimate "Dragon Lady," who with her father Fu Manchu (played by ethnic Swede Warner Oland, the future Charlie Chan) embodied the evil "Yellow Peril." While "Daughter of the Dragon" may have been B-movie pulp, it enabled Wong to show off her talent by delivering a powerful performance.
Her best role in Hollywood in the early 1930s was in support of Marlene Dietrich in Josef von Sternberg's Oscar-winning classic Shanghai Express (1932). However, Hollywood in the 1930s was as racist as it had been in the Roaring Twenties, and MGM refused to cast her in its 1932 production of The Son-Daughter (1932), for which she did a screen-test, as she was "too Chinese to play a Chinese." Helen Hayes played the role in yellow-face. Similarly, she was later kept out of both a lead and supporting role in MGM's prestige production of The Good Earth (1937), its filming of Pearl S. Buck's popular novel, after flunking another screen test for failing to live up to a white man's idea of what "looked" Chinese. MGM screen-tested her for the lead role of O-Lan, the sympathetic wife of Chinese farmer Wang Lung (to be played by Paul Muni, personally cast in the part by Irving Thalberg). She also was considered for the supporting role of Lotus, Wang Lung's concubine. Anna, an ethnic Chinese, lost out on both roles to two Austrian women, Luise Rainer and Tilly Losch, as Albert Lewin, the Thalberg assistant who was casting the film, vetoed Wong and other ethnic Chinese because their looks didn't fit his conception of what Chinese people should look like. Ironically, the year "The Good Earth" came out, Wong appeared on the cover of Look Magazine's second issue, which labeled her "The World's Most Beautiful Chinese Girl." Stereotyped in America as a dragon lady, the cover photo had her holding a dagger. Luise Rainer would win the Best Actress Oscar for her performance of O-Lan in Chinese yellowface.
There were practical considerations for MGM's refusal to cast Wong opposite Muni. It was illegal in many states, including California, for Asians to marry Caucasians, and featuring an interracial couple, even if they were playing the same race, likely would mean the movie would be rejected by many theater chains in regions in which anti-Asian prejudice was particularly severe, such as the South. The new Motion Picture Production Code of 1934 forbid black/white miscegenation and MGM did cast Walter Connelly (a white actor) opposite Soo Yong (a Chines-American actress) as a married couple. Anna May returned to England, reportedly distraught at the injustice perpetrated by MGM and her home country. In England she alternated between films and the stage, but she was obliged to return to the US to fulfill her Paramount contract. She appeared in two Robert Florey-directed pictures, Daughter of Shanghai (1937) as a non-stereotypical Asian-American female lead, and Dangerous to Know (1938). She also appeared in major roles in King of Chinatown (1939) and Island of Lost Men (1939).
Anna May Wong did not appear in films from 1939-41, when she was cast as a supporting player in Ellery Queen's Penthouse Mystery (1941), an entry in the B-movie series. Her last two starring roles in films were in a pair of anti-Japanese propaganda films, Bombs Over Burma (1942) and Lady from Chungking (1942), both of which were made by Producers Releasing Corp., the lowest of the Poverty Row studios. The major studios, when shooting propaganda films requiring a sympathetic Asian lead, reverted to the old practice of casting Caucasians in yellow-face, no matter how absurd the result.
As her movie career went into eclipse in the 1940s (she would not appear in another motion picture until 1949), she found work on the stage and in radio and then in the new medium of television. Wong wrote a preface to the book "New Chinese Recipes" in 1942, which was one of the first Chinese cookbooks printed in the US. The proceeds from the cookbook were dedicated to United China Relief.
Though Wong was vocal in her opposition to stereotypes and typecasting, and was one of Hollywood's more memorable victims of racism in being denied leading roles in A-list pictures because the racist mores of the times prevented an Asian woman from kissing a Caucasian actor, she was considered socially suspect by her own people. The roles she was forced to accept in order to have an acting career, as well as her status as a single woman, disgusted many Chinese in America and in her ancestral homeland, where actresses were equated with prostitutes and where women were still played by men in classical opera. On a trip to China in 1936, Anna May was welcomed by the country's cultural elite in cosmopolitan Beijing and Shanghai, but she had to abandon a trip to her parents' ancestral village when her progress was blocked by a crowd of protesters. Someone in the crowed denounced her with "Down with Huang Liu Tsong, the stooge that disgraces China. Don't let her go ashore." Upon her return from China, Wong was determined to play Chinese characters more authentically, but her only options were to reject roles she deemed racist or to try to soften them from within the belly of the beast. Ultimately for this proud woman, it was a losing battle.
Chinese nationalism had been on the upswing since Yat-sen Sun ended the Manchu Empire in 1911 and was rife in reaction to the war of aggression launched against China by the Empire of Japan. Chinese nationalists, concerned about the portrayal of Chinese people as evil incarnate in American popular culture, were offended by Wong's portrayals of Asians and exotics. Though she would spend the World War II years working for Chinese charities and relief agencies, she was snubbed by Madame Chiang, the sister-in-law of Yat-sen Sun and wife of Kai-Shek Chiang, the army general who led the Nationalist Chinese, during Madame Chiang's 1942-43 propaganda tour of the US. Her biographer Hodges claims this was the beginning of a consensus among Chinese and Chinese-Americans that Wong was an embarrassment. Chinese and Chinese-Americans chose to blame her rather than Hollywood for the demeaning stereotypes she had to play in order to work. The result of this new consensus, according to Hodges, was that "her memory has been washed away."
Anna May's career in motion pictures was virtually finished after the war. She got her own TV series, The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (1951), on the Dumont Network, playing a Chinese detective in a role written expressly for her, a character who was even given her real Chinese name. The half-hour program, which ran weekly from August 27 to November 21, 1951, was the first TV show to star an Asian-American.
Wong's personal relationships typically were with older Caucasian men, but California law forbade marriage between Asians and Caucasians until 1948. One of her white lovers offered to marry her in Mexico, but the couple's intentions became known and he backed off when his Hollywood career was jeopardized. Wong mused about marrying a Chinese man at times, but the Chinese culture held actresses to be on a par with prostitutes, which made her suspect marriage material. She was afraid that the mores of her culture likely meant that marrying a Chinese would force her to quit her career and be an obedient wife.
Anna May Wong appeared in over 50 American, English and German films in her career, making her the first global Chinese-American movie star. She was forced to fight against racism and stereotyping all her professional life, while simultaneously being criticized by Chinese at home and abroad for perpetuating stereotypes in the media. Despite this tremendous burden, the beautiful woman assayed an elegance and sophistication on-screen that made her the paradigm of Asian women for a generation of movie audiences.
Anna May Wong loved reading, and her favorite subjects spanned a wide range, everything from Asian history and Tzu Lao to William Shakespeare. She never married but occupied her time with golf, horses, and skiing. Wong smoked, drank too much, and suffered from depression. She was poised to make a comeback as a character actress on the big screen toward the end of her life, having appeared as Lana Turner's maid in Ross Hunter's sudsy potboiler Portrait in Black (1960). She was cast in the role of Madame Liang in Flower Drum Song (1961), the movie version of Richard Rodgers's and Oscar Hammerstein II's Broadway musical "Flower Drum Song," but before shooting could begin she passed away.
Anna May Wong died of a massive heart attack on February 3, 1961, in Santa Monica, CA, after a long struggle against Laennec's cirrhosis, a disease of the liver. She was 56 years old. Her fame lives on, four decades after her death. She is a part of American popular consciousness, chosen as one of the first movie stars to be featured on a postage stamp. And the interest in her continues: a play about Anna entitled "China Doll--The Imagined Life of an American Actress," written by Elizabeth Wong, had its premiere at Maine's Bowdoin College in 1997. A lecture and film series, "Rediscovering Anna May Wong," was held at the UCLA Film and Television Archive in 2004, sponsored by "Playboy" publisher Hugh Hefner. That same year New York City's Museum of Modern Art held its own tribute to Wong, "Retrospective of a Chinese-American Screen Actress." Finally she was getting the respect in her own country that was denied her during her career.
A biography by Colgate University history professor Graham Russell Gao Hodges, "Anna May Wong: From Laundryman's Daughter to Hollywood Legend," was published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2004. Hodges considers Anna May's life and career to be amazing, particularly in light of the fact that her star has yet to be eclipsed by any other Asian-American female star, despite the change in attitudes. Finally, in 2004, the British Film Institute restored E.A. Dupont's 1929 silent film "Piccadilly".Lesbian- Actress
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A veteran of stage and screen, award-winning actress Miriam Margolyes has achieved success on both sides of the Atlantic. Winner of the BAFTA Best Supporting Actress award in 1993 for The Age of Innocence (1993), she received Best Supporting Actress at the 1989 LA Critics Circle Awards for her role in Little Dorrit (1987) and a Sony Radio Award for Best Actress in 1993. She voiced "Fly, the dog" in Babe (1995).
Major credits include Yentl (1983), Little Shop of Horrors (1986), I Love You to Death (1990), End of Days (1999), Sunshine (1999), Cold Comfort Farm (1995), Cats & Dogs (2001), and Magnolia (1999). She played "Prof. Sprout" in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002). More recently, she appeared in Stephen Hopkins', The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004), Modigliani (2004), István Szabó's Being Julia (2004) and Ladies in Lavender (2004) (with Dames Maggie Smith and Judi Dench).
Memorable television credits include Old Flames (1990), Freud (1984), The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986), Blackadder (1982), The Girls of Slender Means (1975), Oliver Twist (1985), The History Man (1981), Vanity Fair (2004), and Supply & Demand (1997).
Stage credits include Peter Hall's Los Angeles production of "Romeo & Juliet"; "She Stoops to Conquer" and "Orpheus Descending" (both also for Peter Hall); "The Threepenny Opera" (directed by Tony Richardson); "The White Devil" at The Old Vic (for Michael Lindsay-Hogg); the Bristol Old Vic production of "The Canterbury Tales"; and her own award-winning one-woman show, "Dickens' Woman".
In the 2002 Queen's New Years Honours List, Queen Elizabeth II awarded her the OBE for her services to Drama.Lesbian- Actress
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Jasika Nicole grew up in Birmingham, AL and studied musical theatre, dance and studio art at Catawba College in Salisbury, NC before moving to NYC to work in theatre. There she performed in Off and Off-Off Broadway musicals and plays before starting her career in TV and film. Identifying as a queer, biracial and black woman, Nicole has been with her wife, Claire Savage, since 2006 and has most recently voiced the role of the queer, WOC narrator, Keisha Taylor, in the cult favorite Night Vale Presents podcast 'Alice Isn't Dead'. Outside of TV and film, Nicole is an avid craftsperson, penning essays and blog posts about intersectional feminism in the crafting world. She sews her own clothes, makes shoes, builds and reupholsters furniture, and draws and writes her own web comics.Lesbian- Clementine Ford was born to actress Cybill Shepherd and her first husband, David Ford, in Memphis, Tennessee in 1979. Her parents divorced when she was still a baby, and Cybill went back to California to restart her acting career, becoming a celebrated television star on Moonlighting (1985). She also had a brief second marriage to Bruce Oppenheim, giving birth to twins Ariel Ladensohn and Zachariah Oppenheim. Cybill also paid for Clementine's father to move to California and for his bartending lessons, so he and Clementine can have a close father-daughter relationship, which continues to this day. Since Clementine grew up with a famous actress, she dreamed of an acting career, making her debut on her mother's other show, Cybill (1995), in 1997. She was named Miss Golden Globe in 1998, a title bestowed upon off-spring of famous actors. Clementine wasn't happy with her acting, so she enrolled in acting classes, where she met her first husband, actor Chad Todhunter. They divorced a few years later. Clementine made several guest appearances, playing daughter to her real-life mother on The L Word (2004), from 2007-2009. After that, she moved on to the daytime soap opera, The Young and the Restless (1973), and was there, for a contract role as "Mackenzie", for one year. Clementine also entered into a relationship with musician Linda Perry. When that ended, she married her second husband, actor Cyrus Wilcox, in 2013 and gave birth to a son, Elijah Wilcox, in 2014, and a daughter, Welles Wilcox, in 2016. She maintains a blog and continues to act, such as when she appeared in a play written by her half-sister, Ariel.Bisexual
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Kristanna Sommer Loken was born in Ghent, New York, to Rande (Porath) and Merlin "Chris" Loken. She is of half Norwegian and half German descent. She began her modeling career at the early age of 15. Encouraged by her mother, who was a model prior to her daughter's birth, Kristanna's modeling career, as well as her aspirations in acting brought her to New York where she now resides. The glamorous actress/ model seems to have stayed true to her roots: her father owns an apple farm in upstate New York where he writes novels and screenplays. Aside from establishing herself as a supermodel with an Elite contract, Kristanna has made numerous television appearances as well as what could be her breakthrough film role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger, released in 2003.Bisexual