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Curated category

20th-century American male actors

  • Louis ArmstrongLouis Armstrong borrowed his stepfather's gun without permission on the 31st of December 1912, fired a blank into the air, and spent the night at New Orleans…
  • Rob PaulsenRob Paulsen's most famous moment may have happened before most people knew his name. In 1993, a radio announcer asks a desperate question about Alexander…
  • Christopher WalkenChristopher Walken was born Ronald Walken on the 31st of March 1943, in Astoria, Queens, New York City. His parents were Rosalie Russell, a Scottish…
  • Fred TatascioreFred Tatasciore was born on the 15th of June 1967 to Fred Sr and Marianne Ryan Tatasciore. As a child, he used his father's recorder to capture voice…
  • Greg EaglesGreg Eagles has spent decades giving voice to characters on opposite ends of the moral spectrum: a hockey-masked warrior in the Metal Gear Solid franchise, a…
  • Elvis PresleyElvis Aaron Presley walked onto the stage of the International Hotel in Las Vegas on the 31st of July 1969, without a single word of introduction.
  • Frank SinatraFrancis Albert Sinatra weighed 13.5 pounds when he was born on the 12th of December 1915, in a tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey.
  • Martin ScorseseMartin Scorsese had asthma as a boy and could not play sports or join in games with the other children. So his parents and his older brother took him to the…
  • Woody AllenWoody Allen has made 50 feature films. That single fact sits at the center of a career so long and so productive it resists easy summary.
  • Humphrey BogartHumphrey Bogart kept a small gold whistle, part of a charm bracelet he had given Lauren Bacall before they married. Engraved on it were the words, "If you…
  • Ronald ReaganRonald Wilson Reagan was born on the 6th of February 1911 in a rented apartment above a bakery in Tampico, Illinois, the younger son of a dreaming salesman…
  • Al PacinoAl Pacino was born Alfredo James Pacino on the 25th of April 1940, in East Harlem, Manhattan, to Sicilian Italian-American parents.
  • Orson WellesOrson Welles was born on the 6th of May 1915, in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and died on the 10th of October 1985. In between those dates, he directed what is…
  • Quentin TarantinoQuentin Tarantino was born on the 27th of March 1963, in Knoxville, Tennessee, to a mother who let him watch R-rated films as a child and a father he never…
  • Clark GableClark Gable arrived in Hollywood as an extra in 1924, barely able to afford a meal, and left it more than three decades later as the man the American Film…
  • James StewartJames Stewart gave away his only competitive Academy Award. He won Best Actor for the 1940 romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, then handed the statuette…
  • Kevin SmithKevin Patrick Smith was born on the 2nd of August 1970, in Red Bank, New Jersey. He grew up in the nearby clamming town of Highlands as the son of Grace and…
  • Prince (musician)Prince Rogers Nelson arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis on the 7th of June, 1958, and for the next 57 years he operated at a pitch that most…
  • Samuel L. JacksonSamuel Leroy Jackson was born on the 21st of December, 1948, in Washington, D.C., the only child of Elizabeth Harriett and Roy Henry Jackson.
  • Marlon BrandoMarlon Brando Jr. was born on the 3rd of April 1924 in Omaha, Nebraska, and by the time he died on the 1st of July 2004, he had remade what it means to act…
  • Kirk DouglasKirk Douglas was born Issur Danielovitch on the 9th of December 1916, the only son among seven children in a Russian-Jewish immigrant family in Amsterdam…
  • Harrison FordHarrison Ford was born on the 13th of July, 1942, at the Swedish Covenant Hospital in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago.
  • William HurtWilliam McChord Hurt was born on the 20th of March 1950 in Washington, D.C., the son of a State Department official who would take the family to Lahore…
  • Stephen ColbertStephen Colbert walked to the podium at the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, stood a few yards from President George W.
  • Jack NicholsonJack Nicholson improvised a single line for a 1980 horror film, and it outlived almost everything else he ever filmed. "Here's Johnny!" was not in Stanley…
  • Jim HensonJim Henson made his first Kermit the Frog from a halved table tennis ball and fabric cut from an old coat that belonged to his mother.
  • Clint EastwoodClinton Eastwood Jr. entered the world at Saint Francis Memorial Hospital in San Francisco on the 31st of May, 1930, weighing 11 pounds 6 ounces.
  • Elia KazanElia Kazan was born Elias Kazantzoglou in Constantinople on the 7th of September, 1909, to Cappadocian Greek parents whose surname derived from the Turkish…
  • John WayneMarion Robert Morrison weighed thirteen pounds when he was born at 224 South Second Street in Winterset, Iowa, on the 26th of May 1907.
  • Miles DavisMiles Dewey Davis III was born on the 26th of May 1926 in Alton, Illinois, to a family that owned a 200-acre estate in Arkansas with a profitable pig farm.
  • Michael DouglasMichael Kirk Douglas was born on the 25th of September, 1944, into a household already saturated with Hollywood ambition.
  • Tom HanksTom Hanks lost 35 pounds for a single role. He thinned his hair, learned to walk differently, and prepared to play a dying man on screen.
  • Bing CrosbyBing Crosby's recording of "White Christmas" has sold over 50 million copies worldwide, making it the bestselling single of all time.
  • Bruce LeeBruce Lee was born in San Francisco on the 27th of November, 1940, during the hour of the Dragon, in the year of the Dragon.
  • Johnny CashJohnny Cash began his concerts the same way for decades, walking to the microphone and saying four words: "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash." The man who said them was…
  • William WylerWilliam Wyler walked away from the set of Ben-Hur in 1959 having just overseen a chariot race that took six months to film.
  • Will SmithWill Smith was born on the 25th of September 1968 in Philadelphia, and before he turned thirty, he had already won Grammy Awards as a rapper, anchored a hit…
  • Ryan ReynoldsRyan Rodney Reynolds chose not to get paid for Deadpool to make sure the film would actually get made. That detail, small as it sounds, tells you almost…
  • Sam RockwellSam Rockwell was ten years old when he stepped onto a stage in an East Village improv sketch and played Humphrey Bogart opposite his mother.
  • Buster KeatonBuster Keaton never smiled on screen. Not when a two-ton building facade toppled directly onto him, leaving only the gap of an open window between his body…
  • Snoop DoggCalvin Cordozar Broadus Jr. was born on the 20th of October 1971, in Long Beach, California, to a Vietnam War veteran who walked out on the family just three…
  • Bradley CooperBradley Charles Cooper was born on the 5th of January 1975, in Abington Township, Pennsylvania, a child who wanted to move to Japan and become a ninja.
  • Robert Downey Jr.Robert Downey Jr. was born on the 4th of April 1965 in Manhattan, into a world already saturated with film sets and controlled substances.
  • Walt DisneyWalt Disney holds the record for most Academy Awards won by an individual, with 22 wins from 59 nominations. Yet the man behind that record was, in private…
  • David LettermanDavid Michael Letterman was born on the 12th of April 1947, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and over the next six decades he would reshape what American late-night…
  • Tupac ShakurTupac Amaru Shakur was born on the 16th of June 1971, in East Harlem, Manhattan, not yet carrying the name the world would know him by.
  • Conan O'BrienConan Christopher O'Brien was born on the 18th of April 1963, in Brookline, Massachusetts, into a family defined by high achievers.
  • J. K. SimmonsJ. K. Simmons has accumulated more than 200 screen and stage credits since his 1986 debut, and yet for decades most audiences could not quite name him.
  • James SpaderJames Todd Spader was born on the 7th of February, 1960, in Boston, Massachusetts, and somewhere along the way he became the actor nobody wanted in their…
  • Vin DieselMark Sinclair Vincent arrived in New York City during the late 1960s, born on the 18th of July 1967. He grew up in Alameda County before moving to Manhattan…