Portal:20th Century Studios/Selected biography

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William Fox (born Wilhem Fuchs; Hungarian: Fried Vilmos; January 1, 1879 – May 8, 1952) was a Hungarian-American film executive who founded the Fox Film Corporation in 1915 and the Fox West Coast Theatres chain in the 1920s. Although he lost control of his movie businesses in 1930, his name was used by 20th Century Fox and continues to be used in the trademarks of the present-day Fox Corporation, including the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox News, and Fox Sports.

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James Francis Cameron CC (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker. Best known for making science fiction and epic films, he first gained recognition for directing The Terminator (1984). He found further success with Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), and the action comedy True Lies (1994). He also directed Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009), with Titanicearning him Academy Awards in Best Picture, Best Director and Best Film Editing. Avatar, filmed in 3D technology, earned him nominations in the same categories.

Cameron co-founded the production companies Lightstorm Entertainment, Digital Domain, and Earthship Productions. In addition to filmmaking, he is a National Geographic sea explorer and has produced many documentaries on the subject, including Ghosts of the Abyss (2003) and Aliens of the Deep (2005). Cameron has also contributed to underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies and helped create the digital 3D Fusion Camera System. In 2012, Cameron became the first person to do a solo descent to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the Earth's ocean, in the Deepsea Challenger submersible.

Cameron's films have grossed approximately US$2 billion in North America and US$6 billion worldwide. Avatar and Titanic are the highest and third highest-grossing films of all time, earning $2.85 billion and $2.19 billion, respectively. Cameron holds the achievement of having directed the first two of the five films in history to gross over $2 billion worldwide. In 2010, Time magazine named Cameron as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Cameron is also an environmentalist and runs several sustainability businesses.

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Hugh Michael Jackman AC (born 12 October 1968) is an Australian actor. Beginning in theatre and television, he landed his breakthrough role as James "Logan" Howlett / Wolverine in the X-Men film series (2000–2017), a role that earned him the Guinness World Record for "longest career as a live-action Marvel character", until his record was surpassed in 2021. Jackman has received a Golden Globe Award, Grammy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards.

During his career, Jackman has headlined films in various genres, including the romantic comedy Kate & Leopold (2001), the action-horror Van Helsing (2004), the drama The Prestige (2006), the period romance Australia (2008), the epic musical Les Misérables (2012), the thriller Prisoners (2013), the musical The Greatest Showman (2017), the political drama The Front Runner (2018), and the crime thriller Bad Education (2019). For his role as Jean Valjean in Les Misérables, Jackman was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, and for The Greatest Showman, he received a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album. He also provided voice roles in the animated films Flushed Away, Happy Feet (both 2006), Rise of the Guardians (2012), and Missing Link(2019).

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John Alberto Leguizamo Peláez (/ˌlɛɡwɪˈzɑːmoʊ/; Colombian Spanish: [leɣiˈsamo]; born July 22, 1960) is an American actor, comedian, producer, writer and director. He rose to fame with a co-starring role in Super Mario Bros. (1993) as Luigi, and a supporting role in the crime drama Carlito's Way (1993). He later notably starred in the film To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar(1995), for which he was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has since appeared in Romeo + Juliet (1996), A Brother's Kiss (1997), Body Count (1998), Summer of Sam (1999), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Collateral Damage (2002), The Alibi (2006), Righteous Kill (2008), Repo Men(2010), The Counselor (2013), and John Wick (2014). He has provided voice-work for Sid the Sloth in the animated Ice Age film series (2002–2016), as the narrator of the sitcom The Brothers García (2000–2004), and as Bruno in Encanto (2021). Leguizamo had a recurring role on ER and was a series regular on The Kill Point. He is also known for his role as Ozzy Delvecchio on Bloodline.

As of 2021, Leguizamo has appeared in over 100 films, produced over 20 films and documentaries, starred on Broadway in several productions (winning several awards, including a Special Tony Award), made over 30 television appearances, and has produced or starred in many other television shows. He has been nominated for four Primetime Emmy Awards, winning one in 1999 for his performance in Freak.

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Ewan Gordon McGregor OBE (/ˈjuːən/ YOO-ən; born 31 March 1971) is a Scottish actor who has starred in numerous film and musical roles. His first professional role was in 1993, as a leading role in the British Channel 4 series Lipstick on Your Collar. He then achieved international fame with his portrayals of heroin addict Mark Renton in the drama films Trainspotting (1996) and T2 Trainspotting (2017), Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequel trilogy (1999–2005), poet Christian in the musical film Moulin Rouge! (2001), SPC John Grimes in Black Hawk Down (2001), young Edward Bloom in Big Fish (2003), Rodney Copperbottom in Robots (2005), Camerlengo Father Patrick McKenna in Angels and Demons (2009), "the ghost" in Roman Polanski's political thriller The Ghost Writer (2010), Dr. Alfred Jones in the romantic comedy-drama Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (2011), Lumière in the live-action adaptation of the musical romantic fantasy Beauty and the Beast (2017), the adult version of the titular character in the fantasy comedy-drama Christopher Robin (2018), the adult version of Dan Torrance in the horror film Doctor Sleep (2019), and Black Mask in the DC Extended Universe superhero film Birds of Prey (2020). In 2021, he portrayed fashion designer Halston in a Netflix miniseries Halston for which he won a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie.

In 2018, McGregor won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Miniseries or Television Film for his dual role as brothers Ray & Emmit Stussy in the third season of FX anthology series Fargo, and received Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy for both Moulin Rouge! and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. McGregor has also starred in theatre productions of Guys and Dolls (2005–2007) and Othello (2007–2008). He was ranked number 36 on Empire magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list in 1997. In a 2004 poll for the BBC, McGregor was named the fourth most influential person in British culture.

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William John Neeson OBE (born 7 June 1952) is an actor from Northern Ireland. He has received several accolades throughout his career, including nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, two Tony Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, Neeson was listed at number 7 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's 50 greatest film actors.

In 1976, Neeson joined the Lyric Players' Theatre in Belfast for two years. He then acted in the Arthurian film Excalibur (1981). He starred in five films between 1982 and 1987, most notably The Bounty (1984) and The Mission (1986). He landed a leading role in Next of Kin (1989) and rose to prominence when he starred as Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List (1993). He has since starred in highly successful films such as the drama Nell (1994), the historical biopic Michael Collins (1996), Les Misérables (1998), the space opera Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999), the biographical drama Kinsey (2004), the superhero film Batman Begins (2005), the action thriller series Taken (2008–2014), the survival film The Grey (2011), and Martin Scorsese's religious epic Silence (2016). He also provided the voices of Aslan in The Chronicles of Narniatrilogy (2005–2010) and the titular monster in A Monster Calls (2016).

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Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian-Americanactor, producer, comedian, and businessman. Throughout his 30-year career in film and television, he has received multiple accolades, including a Critics' Choice Movie Award, three People's Choice Awards, a Grammy and Golden Globe nomination, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Led by his several appearances as Deadpool in Marvel films, he is one of the highest-grossing film actors of all time, with a worldwide box-office gross of over $5 billion worldwide.

He began his career starring in the Canadian teen soap opera Hillside (1991–1993), and had minor roles before landing the lead role on the sitcom Two Guys and a Girl between 1998 and 2001. Reynolds then starred in a range of films, including comedies such as National Lampoon's Van Wilder (2002), Waiting...(2005), and The Proposal (2009). He also performed in dramatic roles in Buried(2010), Woman in Gold (2015), and Life (2017), starred in action films such as Blade: Trinity (2004), Green Lantern (2011), 6 Underground (2019) and Free Guy(2021), and provided voice acting in the animated features The Croods film series (2013–2020), Turbo (2013) and Pokémon: Detective Pikachu (2019).

Reynolds's biggest commercial success came with the superhero films Deadpool(2016) and Deadpool 2 (2018), in which he played the title character. The former set numerous records at the time of its release for an R-rated comedy and his performance earned him nominations at the Critics' Choice Movie Awards and the Golden Globe Awards.

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Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the best comedians of all time.

Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during the mid-1970s, and rose to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABCsitcom Mork & Mindy (1978–1982). After his first leading film role in Popeye(1980), he starred in several critically and commercially successful films, including The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), The Fisher King (1991), Patch Adams (1998), One Hour Photo (2002), and World's Greatest Dad (2009). He also starred in box office successes such as Hook (1991), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Good Will Hunting (1997), and the Night at the Museum trilogy(2006–2014). He was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting. He also received two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.

On August 11, 2014, at age 63, Williams committed suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California. His autopsy revealed undiagnosed Lewy body disease.

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Carmen Miranda, GCIH, OMC (Portuguese pronunciation: [ˈkaɾmẽȷ̃ miˈɾɐ̃dɐ]; born Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha, 9 February 1909 – 5 August 1955) was a Portuguese-born Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress and film star who was active from the late 1920s onwards. Nicknamed "The Brazilian Bombshell", Miranda was known for her signature fruit hat outfit that she wore in her American films. As a young woman, she designed hats in a boutique before making her first recordings with composer Josué de Barros in 1929. Miranda's 1930 recording of "Taí (Pra Você Gostar de Mim)", written by Joubert de Carvalho, catapulted her to stardom in Brazil as the foremost interpreter of samba.

During the 1930s, Miranda performed on Brazilian radio and appeared in five Brazilian chanchadas, films celebrating Brazilian music, dance and the country's carnival culture. Hello, Hello Brazil! and Hello, Hello, Carnival! embodied the spirit of these early Miranda films. The 1939 musical Banana da Terra (directed by Ruy Costa) gave the world her "Baiana" image, inspired by Afro-Brazilians from the north-eastern state of Bahia.

In 1939, Broadway producer Lee Shubert offered Miranda an eight-week contract to perform in The Streets of Paris after seeing her at Cassino da Urca in Rio de Janeiro. The following year she made her first Hollywood film, Down Argentine Way with Don Ameche and Betty Grable and her exotic clothing and Lusophoneaccent became her trademark. That year, she was voted the third-most-popular personality in the United States; she and her group, Bando da Lua, were invited to sing and dance for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1943, Miranda starred in Busby Berkeley's The Gang's All Here, which featured musical numbers with the fruit hats that became her trademark. By 1945, she was the highest-paid woman in the United States.

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Shirley Temple Black (born Shirley Jane Temple; April 23, 1928 – February 10, 2014) was an American actress, singer, dancer, and diplomat who was Hollywood's number one box-office draw as a child actress from 1934 to 1938. As an adult, she was named United States ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia, and also served as Chief of Protocol of the United States.

Temple began her film career at the age of three in 1931. Two years later, she achieved international fame in Bright Eyes, a feature film designed specifically for her talents. She received a special Juvenile Academy Award in February 1935 for her outstanding contribution as a juvenile performer in motion pictures during 1934. Film hits such as Curly Top and Heidi followed year after year during the mid-to-late 1930s. Temple capitalized on licensed merchandise that featured her wholesome image; the merchandise included dolls, dishes, and clothing. Her box-office popularity waned as she reached adolescence. She appeared in 29 films from the ages of 3 to 10 but in only 14 films from the ages of 14 to 21. Temple retired from film in 1950 at the age of 22.

In 1958, Temple returned to show business with a two-season television anthology series of fairy tale adaptations. She made guest appearances on television shows in the early 1960s and filmed a sitcom pilot that was never released. She sat on the boards of corporations and organizations, including The Walt Disney Company, Del Monte Foods, and the National Wildlife Federation.

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Joseph Leo Mankiewicz (/ˈmæŋkəwɪts/; February 11, 1909 – February 5, 1993) was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career, and won both the Academy Award for Best Director and the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in consecutive years for A Letter to Three Wives (1949) and All About Eve (1950), the latter of which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. Comfortable in a variety of genres and able to elicit career performances from actors and actresses alike, Mankiewicz combined ironic, sophisticated scripts with a precise, sometimes stylized mise en scène.

Mankiewicz worked for seventeen years as a screenwriter for Paramount Pictures and as a writer and producer for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer before getting a chance to direct at 20th Century Fox. Over six years, he made 11 films for Fox. During his over 40-year career in Hollywood, Mankiewicz wrote 48 screenplays. He also produced more than 20 films including The Philadelphia Story (1940) which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, and Woman of the Year (1942), for which he introduced Katharine Hepburn to Spencer Tracy.

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Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson; June 1, 1926 – August 4, 1962) was an American actress and model. Famous for playing comedic "blonde bombshell" characters, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1950s and early 1960s and was emblematic of the era's sexual revolution. She was a top-billed actress for a decade, and her films grossed $200 million (equivalent to $2 billion in 2021) by the time of her death in 1962. Long after her death, Monroe remains a major icon of pop culture. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked her sixth on their list of the greatest female screen legends from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Monroe spent most of her childhood in foster homes and an orphanage; she married at age sixteen. She was working in a factory during World War II when she met a photographer from the First Motion Picture Unit and began a successful pin-up modeling career, which led to short-lived film contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia Pictures. After a series of minor film roles, she signed a new contract with Fox in late 1950. Over the next two years, she became a popular actress with roles in several comedies, including As Young as You Feel and Monkey Business, and in the dramas Clash by Night and Don't Bother to Knock. She faced a scandal when it was revealed that she had posed for nude photographs prior to becoming a star, but the story did not damage her career and instead resulted in increased interest in her films.

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Dame Joan Henrietta Collins DBE (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author, and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awardsand a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. In 1983, she was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She has been recognized for her philanthropy, particularly her advocacy towards causes relating to children, which has earned her many honours. In 2015, she was made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II for her charitable services. In 2021 she celebrated her 70th year in the entertainment industry.

Collins was born in Paddington, London, and trained as an actress in her teens at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. She signed to The Rank Organisation at the age of 17, and had small roles in the British films Lady Godiva Rides Again(1951) and The Woman's Angle (1952) before taking on a supporting role in Judgment Deferred (1952). Collins went under contract to 20th Century Fox in 1955, and in that same year starred as Elizabeth Raleigh in The Virgin Queenand Princess Nellifer in Land of the Pharaohs, the latter garnering a cult following. Collins continued to take on film roles throughout the late 1950s, which include appearing in The Opposite Sex (1956), Sea Wife (1957), and The Wayward Bus (1957). After starring in the epic film Esther and the King (1960), she was released on request from her contract with 20th Century Fox

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Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor DBE (February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011) was a British-American actress. She began her career as a child actress in the early 1940s and was one of the most popular stars of classical Hollywood cinemain the 1950s. She then became the highest paid movie star in the 1960s, remaining a well-known public figure for the rest of her life. In 1999, the American Film Institute named her the seventh-greatest female screen legend of Classic Hollywood cinema. Born in London to socially prominent American parents, Taylor moved with her family to Los Angeles in 1939. She made her acting debut with a minor role in the Universal Pictures film There's One Born Every Minute (1942), but the studio ended her contract after a year. She was then signed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayerand became a popular teen star after appearing in National Velvet (1944). She transitioned to mature roles in the 1950s, when she starred in the comedy Father of the Bride (1950) and received critical acclaim for her performance in the drama A Place in the Sun (1951).

Despite being one of MGM's most bankable stars, Taylor wished to end her career in the early 1950s. She resented the studio's control and disliked many of the films to which she was assigned. She began receiving more enjoyable roles in the mid-1950s, beginning with the epic drama Giant (1956), and starred in several critically and commercially successful films in the following years. Taylor won a Golden Globe for Best Actress for the latter. Although she disliked her role as a call girl in BUtterfield 8 (1960), her last film for MGM, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance.During the production of the film Cleopatra in 1961, Taylor and co-star Richard Burton began an extramarital affair, which caused a scandal. Despite public disapproval, they continued their relationship and were married in 1964. Dubbed "Liz and Dick" by the media, they starred in 11 films together, including The V.I.P.s (1963), The Sandpiper (1965), The Taming of the Shrew (1967), and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Taylor received the best reviews of her career for Woolf, winning her second Academy Award and several other awards for her performance.

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Cary Grant (born Archibald Alec Leach; January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986) was a British-American actor. Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor, light-hearted approach to acting, and sense of comic timing, he was one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men from the 1930s until the mid-1960s.

Grant was born and brought up in Bristol, England. He became attracted to theater at a young age when he visited the Bristol Hippodrome. At the age of 16, he went as a stage performer with the Pender Troupe for a tour of the US. After a series of successful performances in New York City, he decided to stay there. He established a name for himself in vaudeville in the 1920s and toured the United States before moving to Hollywood in the early 1930s.

Grant initially appeared in crime films or dramas such as Blonde Venus (1932) with Marlene Dietrich and She Done Him Wrong (1933) with Mae West, but later gained renown for his performances in romantic screwball comedies such as The Awful Truth (1937) with Irene Dunne, Bringing Up Baby (1938) with Katharine Hepburn, His Girl Friday (1940) with Rosalind Russell, and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Hepburn and James Stewart. These pictures are frequently cited among the greatest comedy films of all time. Other well-known films in which he starred in this period were the adventure Gunga Din (1939) and the dark comedy Arsenic and Old Lace (1944). He also began to move into dramas such as Only Angels Have Wings (1939) with Jean Arthur, Penny Serenade(1941) again with Dunne, and None but the Lonely Heart (1944) with Ethel Barrymore; he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for the latter two.

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Jayne Mansfield (born Vera Jayne Palmer; April 19, 1933 – June 29, 1967) was an American actress, singer, nightclub entertainer, and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s while under contract at 20th Century Fox, Mansfield was known for her well-publicized personal life and publicity stunts. Her film career was short-lived, but she had several box-office successes and won a Theatre World Award and a Golden Globe Award.

Mansfield enjoyed success in the role of fictional actress Rita Marlowe in the Broadway play Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? (1955–1956), which she reprised in the film adaptation of the same name (1957). Her other film roles include the  musical comedy The Girl Can't Help It (1956), the drama The Wayward Bus (1957), the neo-noir Too Hot to Handle (1960), and the sex comedy Promises! Promises! (1963); the latter established Mansfield as the first major American actress to perform in a nude scene in a post-silent era film.

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Keith Rupert Murdoch AC KCSG (/ˈmɜːrdɒk/ MUR-dok; born 11 March 1931) is an Australian-born American businessman, media tycoon, and investor.Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the UK (The Sun and The Times), in Australia (The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun and The Australian), in the US (The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post), book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News (through the Fox Corporation). He was also the owner of Sky (until 2018), 21st Century Fox (until 2019), and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world.

After his father's death in 1952, Murdoch took over the running of The News, a small Adelaide newspaper owned by his father. In the 1950s and 1960s, Murdoch acquired a number of newspapers in Australia and New Zealandbefore expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World, followed closely by The Sun. In 1974, Murdoch moved to New York City, to expand into the US market; however, he retained interests in Australia and Britain. In 1981, Murdoch bought The Times, his first British broadsheet, and, in 1985, became a naturalized US citizen, giving up his Australian citizenship, to satisfy the legal requirement for US television network ownership.

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Bryan Jay Singer (born September 17, 1965) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced or co-produced almost all of the films he has directed.

After graduating from the University of Southern California, Singer directed his first short film, Lion's Den (1988). On the basis of that film, he received financing for his next film, Public Access (1993), which was a co-winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival. In the mid-1990s, Singer received critical acclaim for directing the neo-noir crime thriller The Usual Suspects(1995). He followed this with another thriller, Apt Pupil (1998), an adaptation of a Stephen King novella about a boy's fascination with a Nazi war criminal. In the 2000s, he became known for big budget superhero films such as X-Men (2000), for which Singer won the 2000 Saturn Award for Best Direction, its sequel X2(2003), and Superman Returns (2006). He then directed the World War II historical thriller Valkyrie (2008), co-wrote/co-produced X-Men: First Class(2011), and directed the fantasy adventure film Jack the Giant Slayer (2013), as well as two more X-Men films, X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016). Singer also directed the Queen biographical film Bohemian Rhapsody (2018), although he was fired from the film shortly before its completion.

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Don Ameche (/əˈmiːtʃi/; born Dominic Felix Amici; May 31, 1908 – December 6, 1993) was an American actor, comedian and vaudevillian. After playing in college shows, stock, and vaudeville, he became a major radio star in the early 1930s, which led to the offer of a movie contract from 20th Century Fox in 1935.

As a handsome, debonair leading man in 40 films over the next 14 years, he starred in comedies, dramas, and musicals. In the 1950s he worked on Broadway and in television, and was the host of NBC's International Showtimefrom 1961 to 1965. Returning to film work in his later years, Ameche enjoyed a fruitful revival of his career beginning with his role as a villain in Trading Places(1983) and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Cocoon (1985).

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Tyrone Edmund Power III (May 5, 1914 – November 15, 1958) was an American actor. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Power appeared in dozens of films, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. His better-known films include The Mark of Zorro, Marie Antoinette, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan, Prince of Foxes, Witness for the Prosecution, The Black Rose, and Captain from Castile. Power's own favorite film among those that he starred in was Nightmare Alley.

Though largely a matinee idol in the 1930s and early 1940s and known for his striking good looks, Power starred in films in a number of genres, from drama to light comedy. In the 1950s he began placing limits on the number of films he would make in order to devote more time to theater productions. He received his biggest accolades as a stage actor in John Brown's Body and Mister Roberts. Power died from a heart attack at the age of 44.

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Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American film and stage actor who had a career that spanned five decades on Broadway and in Hollywood. Fonda cultivated a strong, appealing screen image in several films now considered to be classics.

Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made his Hollywood film debut in 1935. He rose to film stardom with performances in such films as; Jezebel (1938), Jesse James (1939), and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). His career further progressed with his portrayal of Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), receiving a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

In 1941 he starred opposite Barbara Stanwyck in the screwball comedy classic The Lady Eve. Book-ending his service in WWII were his starring roles in two highly regarded Westerns: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) and My Darling Clementine (1946), the latter directed by John Ford, and he also starred in Ford's Western Fort Apache (1948). After a seven-year break from films, during which Fonda focused on stage productions, he returned with the WWII war-boat ensemble Mister Roberts (1955). In 1956, at the age of fifty-one, he played the title role as the thirty-eight-year-old Manny Balestrero in Alfred Hitchcock's thriller The Wrong Man. In 1957, he starred as Juror 8, the hold-out juror, in 12 Angry Men. Fonda, who was also the co-producer of this film, won the BAFTA award for Best Foreign Actor.

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Gene Eliza Tierney (November 19, 1920 – November 6, 1991) was an American film and stage actress. Acclaimed for her great beauty, she became established as a leading lady. Tierney was best known for her portrayal of the title character in the film Laura (1944), and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ellen Berent Harland in Leave Her to Heaven (1945).

Tierney's other roles include Martha Strable Van Cleve in Heaven Can Wait(1943), Isabel Bradley Maturin in The Razor's Edge (1946), Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Ann Sutton in Whirlpool (1949), Maggie Carleton McNulty in The Mating Season (1950), and Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God(1955).

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Elizabeth Ruth Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973) was an American actress, pin-up girl, dancer, model, and singer. Her 42 films during the 1930s and 1940s grossed more than $100 million; for 10 consecutive years (1942–1951) she reigned in the Quigley Poll's top 10 box office stars (a feat only matched by Doris Day, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, although all were surpassed by Mary Pickford, who was in for 13 times). The U.S. Treasury Department in 1946 and 1947 listed her as the highest-salaried American woman; she earned more than $3 million during her career ($22 million in 2021 dollars).

Grable began her film career in 1929 at age 12, after which she was fired from a contract when it was learned she signed up under false identification. She had contracts with RKO and Paramount Pictures during the 1930s, and appeared in a string of B movies, mostly portraying college students. Grable came to prominence in the Broadway musical DuBarry Was a Lady (1939), which brought her to the attention of 20th Century-Fox.

She replaced Alice Faye in Down Argentine Way (1940), her first major Hollywood film, and became Fox's biggest film star throughout the next decade. Fox cast Grable in a succession of Technicolor musicals during the decade that were immensely popular, co-starring with such leading men as Victor Mature, Don Ameche, John Payne, and Tyrone Power. In 1943, she was the number-one box office draw in the world and, in 1947, she was the highest-paid entertainer in the United States. Two of her biggest film successes were the musical Mother Wore Tights (1947) and the comedy How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), one of her last films. Grable retired from screen acting in 1955 after she withdrew from her Fox contract, although she continued to perform on the stage and on television.

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Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. He has directed, among others, the science fiction films Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982) and The Martian (2015), the road crime film Thelma & Louise (1991), the historical drama film Gladiator (2000), and the war film Black Hawk Down (2001).

Scott began his career in television as a designer and director before moving into advertising, where he honed his filmmaking skills by making inventive mini-films for television commercials. He made his debut as a film director with The Duellists (1977) and gained wider recognition with his next film, Alien. His work is known for its atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. Though his films range widely in setting and period, they frequently showcase memorable imagery of urban environments, spanning 2nd-century Rome in Gladiator, 12th-century Jerusalem in Kingdom of Heaven (2005), Medieval England in Robin Hood (2010), contemporary Mogadishu in Black Hawk Down, or the futuristic cityscapes of Blade Runner and distant planets in Alien, Prometheus (2012), Alien: Covenant (2017), and The Martian. Several of his films are also known for their strong female characters. In 2021, his films The Last Duel and House of Gucci were released.

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Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English filmmaker widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Known as the "Master of Suspense", he became as well known as any of his actors thanks to his many interviews, his cameo roles in most of his films, and his hosting and producing the television anthology Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955–65). His films garnered 46 Academy Award nominations, including six wins, although he never won the award for Best Director despite five nominations.

Hitchcock initially trained as a technical clerk and copy writer before entering the film industry in 1919 as a title card designer. His directorial debut was the British-German silent film The Pleasure Garden (1925). His first successful film, The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog (1927), helped to shape the thriller genre, and Blackmail (1929) was the first British "talkie". His thrillers The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938) are ranked among the greatest British films of the 20th century. By 1939, he had international recognition and producer David O. Selznick persuaded him to move to Hollywood. A string of successful films followed, including Rebecca (1940), Foreign Correspondent (1940), Suspicion(1941), Shadow of a Doubt (1943), and Notorious (1946). Rebecca won the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Hitchcock nominated as Best Director;he was also nominated for Lifeboat (1944) and Spellbound (1945). After a brief commercial lull, he returned to form with Strangers on a Train (1951) and Dial M for Murder (1954); he then went on to direct four films often ranked among the greatest of all time: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), North by Northwest(1959) and Psycho (1960), the first and last of these garnering him Best Director nominations.  The Birds (1963) and  Marnie (1964) were also financially successful and are highly regarded by film historians.