Résultats Éditeur "Charles River Editors" dans Divertissement et célébrités

Like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin is an American legend for his longevity and success across a garden variety of different platforms. Martin began as a nightclub singer, performed in a comedy act, starred in films, recorded hit albums, and capped his career by serving as a television host. In fact there may be no star who was better able to transcend the different avenues of entertainment.

Hollywood has never lacked leading men who could captivate viewers with dramatic performances that depict them as suave romantics or dashing heroes, especially during the Golden Age of Hollywood when stars like Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, and Cary Grant graced screens. But in 1940, the 4th most popular star in the U.S. was a foreign actor from Australia, and unlike other movie stars, he was more notorious for his pursuits off the screen than on it.

Few figures in Hollywood's history have been as acclaimed and controversial as director Roman Polanski, whose legendary films would stand out if not for the fact that they're often eclipsed by the turbulent life he's led.

Hollywood has never had a shortage of actors who thrived in one genre, whether it was John Wayne in Westerns or James Cagney in gangster films, but few had success across the entire spectrum like Gary Cooper, who managed to earn five Academy Award nominations despite an untimely death that cut short his career. Those nominations came for comedies, Westerns, and dramas, with wins for High Noon and the World War I film Sergeant York.

In the history of television programming, no show was as consistently excellent in the ratings as The Ed Sullivan Show, a variety show that brought on all kinds of acts, from dancers to artists and singers. It was the longest-running show to maintain one time slot, and today it is widely remembered for introducing the nation to the likes of Elvis Presley and the Beatles. When Elvis was on the show in 1956, over 82% of the nation's entire television audience tuned in, a rating that would make even the Super Bowl blush.

In 1994 the American Film Institute gave a Lifetime Achievement Award to Jack Nicholson, who became one of the youngest actors ever to receive the award. Such tributes typically come as a capstone to a star's career, not when the actor is still in his 50s. In fact Nicholson would go on to win the Oscar for Best Actor just a few years after receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award as a result of As Good As It Gets (1997), and he would earn another Academy Award nomination for About Schmidt (2002).

Despite the enormous esteem he has garnered from virtually every corner of the music world, Jerry Garcia has continued to elude both fans and music historians as they attempt to determine his origins and categorize his art and influence on American music. Part of their difficulty lies in the fact that his work as the frontman for the Grateful Dead, "one of the most prolific and iconic guitarists of the twentieth century", tended toward a blending of the traditional with the experimental.

In 1948 American polls rated Bing Crosby "the most admired man alive", and it's no surprise given how popular he was across every major form of entertainment during the decade. With a string of major hits, Crosby was the most popular singer in the country during that era. Of all the show business icons in American history, one of the most beloved was Bob Hope, whose career spanned over six decades across film, television, vaudeville, comedy, and touring and earned him uncountable accolades.

A lot of ink has been spilled covering the lives of history's most influential figures, but how much of the forest is lost for the trees?

During the golden era of Hollywood, few actresses proved as versatile as Lana Turner, who got her start playing the wholesome, innocent young beauty as a teenager before shifting to femme fatale roles and starring in horror classics like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

In the early 20th century, Westerns were one of the most popular genres in Hollywood. One of the young stars at the forefront was Gene Autry, a Texan whose life story made him a natural to be the country's most famous "singing cowboy". Autry came of age at a time when the "singing cowboy" was at the apex of his popularity, and like his most famous successor, Roy Rogers, Autry actually got his start in show business as a singer. Of course, the popularity of Autry's music and country music in general was bolstered by the fact that he became one of the biggest stars in Hollywood.

While actors like Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant remain household names, and actresses like Greta Garbo are still widely remembered, few had careers that enjoyed the success of William Powell. In a career spanning several decades, Powell would receive three Oscar nominations for Best Actor for critically acclaimed movies, so it is somewhat ironic that he is mostly remembered today for his association with the more famous Myrna Loy. Together, they starred in 14 films, including the 1934 box office hit, The Thin Man.

The life of Joan Crawford is one of the most famous Hollywood rags-to-riches tales. While it is common to think of Hollywood as a land offering great opportunity to hardworking actresses, the Horatio Alger myth rarely applies in reality, but it applied almost perfectly to Joan Crawford. Joan Crawford's life and career also shed light on the treatment of women in pop culture and in cinema during the early 20th century. Her career was not only limited to film acting, as she acted in musical revues and was previously an unabashed flapper during the Roaring Twenties.

When Robert Redford first entered the national spotlight in the early 1960s, he was hardly viewed as a serious actor, and with his red hair, blond complexion, and athletic build, he was seen more as a handsome man than a skilled one. On top of that, he came at a time in which most Hollywood stars were tall, dark, and slender - like one of his most famous costars, Paul Newman - and by comparison, Redford looked more like a surfer.

Despite a general dearth of African American names rising to musical prominence during the years of Reconstruction, Black talent existed in good measure for both popular and classical genres. And among the most notable musicians celebrated in the present day is composer Scott Joplin, who in his day earned the moniker “King of Ragtime”.

Many Americans remember Burns today as the funny comedian who lived (and worked) for an incredibly long time, but Burns' prolific career, which lasted almost the last 75 years of the 20th century, not only demonstrates the enduring influence of vaudeville on radio, television, and cinema but also evidences important ideological developments, particularly related to ethnicity and gender.

When the American Film Institute assembled its top 100 actors of all time at the close of the 20th century, Jimmy Stewart ranked third, behind only Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant. There is a certain inevitability to these three actors ranking at the top of the list; after all, they were the dominant faces of Hollywood during the height of the era known as classical Hollywood cinema, a time before the onset of television when the movies still enjoyed relatively uncontested supremacy over American entertainment.

When people think of musicals, two of the first names that immediately spring to mind are Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, two giants of one of Hollywood's most distinctive genres. Without question, both men played an instrumental role in popularizing and sustaining the musical from the 1930s through the 1950s, the final decades of Hollywood's Golden Age. Although they did collaborate on two occasions, in many ways Gene Kelly's rise to popularity in the 1940s amounted to a changing of the guard.

Virtually all famous actors are regaled by the public, but even still, Fred Astaire occupies a privileged position in American pop culture. The specific films in which Astaire acted may not be especially famous in their own right - most people likely cannot recall the title of Top Hat (1935), his most decorated film - but Astaire's dancing prowess invariably creates a lasting impact on viewers.

In the opening pages of his seminal book-length study of Alfred Hitchcock, Hitchcock's Films (1965), Robin Wood famously asked, "Why Should We Take Hitchcock Seriously?" Wood then proceeded to offer a detailed examination of Hitchcock's career to that point, arguing that the Master of Suspense belonged among the ranks of the preeminent directors in Hollywood, and that his films were among the most important in American culture.