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Loretta Young was born Gretchen Young in Salt Lake City, Utah on January 6, 1913, to Gladys (Royal) and John Earle Young. Her parents separated when Loretta was three years old. Her mother moved Loretta and her two older sisters to Southern California, where Mrs. Young ran a boarding house. When Loretta was 10, her mother married one of her boarders, George Belzer. They had a daughter, Georgianna, two years later. Loretta was appearing on screen as a child extra by the time she was four, joining her elder sisters, Polly Ann Young and Elizabeth Jane Young (later better known as Sally Blane), as child players. Mrs. Young's brother-in-law was an assistant director and got young Loretta a small role in the film The Only Way (1914). The role consisted of nothing more than a small, weeping child lying on an operating table. Later that year, she appeared in another small role, in The Primrose Ring (1917). The film starred Mae Murray, who was so taken with little Loretta that she offered to adopt her. Loretta lived with the Murrays for about a year and a half. In 1921, she had a brief scene in The Sheik (1921). Loretta and her sisters attended parochial schools, after which they helped their mother run the boarding house. In 1927, Loretta returned to films in a small part in Naughty But Nice (1927). Even at the age of fourteen, she was an ambitious actress. Changing her name to Loretta Young, letting her blond hair revert to its natural brown and with her green eyes, satin complexion and exquisite face, she quickly graduated from ingenue to leading lady. Beginning with her role as Denise Laverne in The Magnificent Flirt (1928), she shaped any character she took on with total dedication. In 1928, she received second billing in The Head Man (1928) and continued to toil in many roles throughout the '20s and '30s, making anywhere from six to nine films a year. Her two sisters were also actresses but were not as successful as Loretta, whose natural beauty was her distinct advantage. The 17-year-old Young made headlines in 1930 when she and Grant Withers, who was previously married and nine years her senior, eloped to Yuma, Arizona. They had both appeared in Warner Bros.' The Second Floor Mystery (1930). The marriage was annulled in 1931, the same year in which the pair would again co-star on screen in a film ironically titled Too Young to Marry (1931). By the mid-'30s, Loretta left First National Studios for rival Fox, where she had previously worked on a loan-out basis, and became one of the premier leading ladies of Hollywood. In 1935, she made Call of the Wild (1935) with Clark Gable. They had an affair, and Loretta became pregnant. Because of the strict morality clauses in their contracts - and the fact that Clark Gable was married - they could not tell anybody except Loretta's mother. Loretta and her mother left for Europe after filming on The Crusades finished. They returned in August 1935 to the United States, at which time Gladys Belzer announced Loretta's 'illness' to the press. Filming on Loretta's next film, Ramona, was also canceled. During this time, Loretta was living in a small house in Venice, California, her mother rented. On November 6, 1935, Loretta delivered a healthy baby girl whom she named Judith. In 1938, Loretta starred as Sally Goodwin in Kentucky (1938), an outstanding success. Her co-star Walter Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Peter Goodwin. In 1940, Loretta married businessman Tom Lewis, and from then on her child was called Judy Lewis, although Tom Lewis never adopted her. Judy was brought up thinking that both parents had adopted her and did not know, until years later, that she was actually the biological daughter of Loretta and Clark Gable. Four years after her marriage to Tom Lewis, Loretta had a son, Christopher Lewis, and later another son, Peter Charles. In the 1940s, Loretta was still one of the most beautiful ladies in Hollywood. She reached the pinnacle of her career when she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in The Farmer's Daughter (1947), the tale of a farm girl who rises through the ranks and becomes a congresswoman. It was a smash and today is her best remembered film. The same year, she starred in the delightful fantasy The Bishop's Wife (1947) with David Niven and Cary Grant. It was another box office success and continues to be a TV staple during the holiday season. In 1949, Loretta starred in the well-received film, Mother Is a Freshman (1949) with Van Johnson and Rudy Vallee and Come to the Stable (1949). The latter garnered Loretta her second Oscar nomination, but she lost to Olivia de Havilland in The Heiress (1949). In 1953, Loretta made It Happens Every Thursday (1953), which was to be her final big screen role. She retired from films in 1953 and began a second, equally successful career as hostess of The Loretta Young Show (1953), a half-hour television drama anthology series which ran on NBC from September 1953 to September 1961. In addition to hosting the series, she frequently starred in episodes. Although she is most remembered for her stunning gowns and swirling entrances, over the broadcast's eight-year run she also showed again that she could act. She won Emmy awards for best actress in a dramatic series in 1954, 1956 and 1958. After the show ended, she took some time off before returning in 1962 with The New Loretta Young Show (1962), which was not so successful, lasting only one season. For the next 24 years, Loretta did not appear in any entertainment medium. Her final performance was in a made for TV film Lady in the Corner (1989). By 1960, Loretta was a grandmother. Her daughter Judy Lewis had married about three years before and had a daughter in 1959, whom they named Maria. Loretta and Tom Lewis divorced in the early 1960's. Loretta enjoyed retirement, sleeping late, visiting her son Chris and daughter-in-law Linda, and traveling. She and her friend Josephine Alicia Saenz, ex-wife of John Wayne, traveled to India and saw the Taj Mahal. In 1990, she became a great-grandmother when granddaughter Maria, daughter of Judy Lewis, gave birth to a boy. Loretta lived a quiet retirement in Palm Springs, California until her death on August 12, 2000 from ovarian cancer at the home of her sister Georgiana and Georgiana's husband, Ricardo Montalban.

Jeanette Anna MacDonald (June 18, 1903 – January 14, 1965) was an American singer and actress best remembered for her musical films of the 1930s with Maurice Chevalier (The Love Parade, Love Me Tonight, The Merry Widow and One Hour With You) and Nelson Eddy (Naughty Marietta, Rose-Marie, and Maytime). During the 1930s and 1940s she starred in 29 feature films, four nominated for Best Picture Oscars (The Love Parade, One Hour with You, Naughty Marietta and San Francisco), and recorded extensively, earning three gold records. She later appeared in opera, concerts, radio, and television. MacDonald was one of the most influential sopranos of the 20th century, introducing opera to film-going audiences and inspiring a generation of singers.

Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg was born on September 29, 1931 in Malmo, Sweden. Growing up with seven brothers and sisters was not an adventure, but Anita's adventure began when she was elected Miss Sweden in 1950. She did not win the Miss Universe contest but she got a modeling contract in the United States. She quickly got a film contract with Howard Hughes's RKO that did not lead anywhere (but Anita herself has said that Hughes wanted to marry her). Instead, she started making movies with Universal, small roles that more often than not only required her to look beautiful. After five years in Hollywood, she found herself in Rome, where Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita (1960) meant her breakthrough. She stayed in Italy and made around 20 movies during the next ten years, some roles memorable, some to be forgotten. Her two marriages gave her a great deal of attention from the press. During the 1970s, the roles became less frequent, but she made a marvellous comeback with Fellini's Intervista (1987). Anita Ekberg retired from acting in 2002 after 50 years in the motion picture industry. In December 2011, she was destitute following three months in a hospital with a broken thigh in Rimini, during which her home was robbed of jewelry and furniture, and her villa was badly damaged in a fire. Ekberg applied for help from the Fellini Foundation, which also found itself in difficult financial straits. She died at age 83 from complications of an enduring illness on January 11, 2015 at the clinic San Raffaele in Rocca di Papa, Italy. Anita Ekberg had a new film project with exclusively female Italian producer "Le Bestevem", in which her character, as movie star, should've been recovered again as an icon of the big screen, a project that was interrupted by her death. Her funeral was held on January 14, 2015, at the Lutheran-Evangelical Christuskirche in Rome, after which her body was cremated and her remains were buried at the cemetery of Skanor Church in Sweden.

Anna May Wong was born Wong Liu Tsong on January 3, 1905, in Los Angeles, California. Her parents ran a laundry in the city's Chinatown section. Anna became a photographer's model when she was still attending Hollywood High School. She was fascinated with the movie industry at a young age, having observed several films being shot in and around her neighborhood. At almost 14 years old, her actor cousin, James Wong Howe, showed a photograph of her to a director, which resulted in her getting a bit part in Dinty (1920) (unfortunately for film buffs, there are no prints of the movie in existence, because of deterioration). The next year she appeared in two more films, Shame (1921) and Bits of Life (1921) (in which she received billing). Anna's big break came when she landed the role of a Mongolian slave girl in The Thief of Bagdad (1924). This film put her in the position of being the first (and for a long time the only) U.S. Chinese performer to become a bona fide movie star. It led to bigger parts in other movies with a Chinese or other East Asian theme, in which she alternated between playing the heroine or the heroine's evil nemesis. Another hit for her was A Trip to Chinatown (1926), in which her trademark bangs and East Asian dress only accentuated her beauty, enhancing her status with the movie-going public. Before long her name was synonymous with 'exotic', East Asian-themed productions, and films such as The Devil Dancer (1927), Across to Singapore (1928) and The Crimson City (1928) kept fans coming to the theatres. Anna's talent and beauty carried her through a successful transition into talkies, and she also traveled to Europe to act in films there. Upon her return to the U.S. after three years, she was signed to a contract with Paramount. Her career reached its zenith with her casting in Shanghai Express (1932) with Marlene Dietrich. Another in her string of successes was Dangerous to Know (1938) with Charles Laughton, Lloyd Nolan and Anthony Quinn, in which she played Lin Yang, a "kept" woman who seeks revenge when her gangster lover tries to replace her. By the 1940s, however, Anna's career had begun to stall. Theatre patrons were finding escapist fare elsewhere, and her Chinese melodramas were no longer in demand. Also, attitudes towards race in the U.S. made it almost impossible for Anna to get good parts in pictures other than East Asian-themed ones. After Lady from Chungking (1942), Anna didn't appear on-screen again until Impact (1949), and then only in a minor supporting role. She had an early television series, The Gallery of Madame Liu-Tsong (1951), but it didn't last long. Anna appeared sporadically on television throughout the 1950s. Her career problems were exacerbated by a drinking problem, and by the mid-1950s she learned that she was suffering from heart problems and cirrhosis of the liver. She made a final effort to recharge her career with Portrait in Black (1960). Although the first was a modest hit, the second film was released to mixed reviews and meager box office receipts. On February 2, 1961, Anna died of a heart attack in Santa Monica, California. She had never married.

She was born Vina Fay Wray near Cardston, Alberta, Canada, on September 15, 1907. Fay was from a large family that included five siblings. She moved to Arizona when she was still small in order for her father to find better work than what was offered in Alberta. After moving again to California, her parents divorced, which put the rest of the family in hard times. Being in entertainment-rich Los Angeles, there was ample opportunity to take advantage of the chances that might come her way in the entertainment industry. At the age of 16, Fay played her first role in a motion picture, albeit a small one. The film was Gasoline Love (1923) in 1923. The film was not a hit, nor was it a launching vehicle for her career. It would be two more years before she ever got another chance. When it did come, it was another lackluster film called The Coast Patrol (1925). The only thing it did for Fay was give her a slightly more prominent role than the film two years earlier. Four more films followed in 1926, and her career finally left the ground. She was noticed to the extent that the Western Association of Motion Pictures chose her as one of thirteen starlets most likely to succeed in film. After three films in 1927, the following year established Fay as an actress to be reckoned with. She played the lead, Mitzi Schrammell, in the hit The Wedding March (1928). She had made the successful transition into the "talkie" era when most performers' services were no longer needed because of the sound of their voices on film. In 1933, Fay appeared in eleven films, including The Big Brain (1933), The Vampire Bat (1933), and Ann Carver's Profession (1933). But it was another film that placed her in a role that is remembered to this day. That year she played Ann Darrow in the classic _King Kong_. After that, Fay came by more and better roles, but she is best remembered for that one performance. The movie wound up being named one of the 100 greatest films of all time by the American Film Institute in 1998. She continued her pace in films, making eleven films again in 1934, including Once to Every Woman (1934), Viva Villa! (1934), and Alias Bulldog Drummond (1935). But her career was now beginning the proverbial backward slide. Movie roles were becoming fewer and fewer with new stars on the horizon. Now it was Fay's services which were being curtailed. Her 11-year marriage to John Monk Saunders ended in a painful divorce. After Not a Ladies' Man (1942), Fay was not in another film until Treasure of the Golden Condor (1953). The films she appeared in during the latter '50s were not much to write home about, and several were some of the weakest ever projected. Her last performance before the cameras was a made-for-television movie called Gideon's Trumpet (1980). Fay Wray died of an natural causes on August 8, 2004. She was an excellent actress who never was given a chance to live up to her potential, especially after being cast in a number of horror films in the '30s. Given the right role, Fay could have had her star up alongside the great actresses of the day. No matter. She remains a bright star from cinema's golden era.

Gloria Swanson was born on March 27, 1899 in Chicago, Illinois, USA as Gloria May Josephine Svensson in Chicago, Illinois. She was destined to be perhaps one of the biggest stars of the silent movie era. Her personality and antics in private definitely made her a favorite with America's movie-going public. Gloria certainly didn't intend on going into show business. After her formal education in the Chicago school system and elsewhere, she began work in a department store as a salesclerk. In 1915, at the age of 18, she decided to go to a Chicago movie studio with an aunt to see how motion pictures were made. She was plucked out of the crowd, because of her beauty, to be included as a bit player in the film The Fable of Elvira and Farina and the Meal Ticket (1915). In her next film, she was an extra also, when she appeared in At the End of a Perfect Day (1915). After another uncredited role, Gloria got a more substantial role in Sweedie Goes to College (1915). In 1916, she first appeared with future husband Wallace Beery. Once married, the two pulled up stakes in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles to the film colony of Hollywood. Once out west, Gloria continued her torrid pace in films. She seemed to be in hit after hit in such films as The Pullman Bride (1917), Shifting Sands (1918), and Don't Change Your Husband (1919). By the time of the latter, Gloria had divorced Beery and was remarried, but it was not to be her last marriage, as she collected a total of six husbands. By the middle 1920s, she was the highest-paid actress in Hollywood. It has been said that Gloria made and spent over $8 million in the '20s alone. That, along with the seven marriages she had, kept the fans spellbound with her escapades for over 60 years. They just couldn't get enough of her. Gloria was 30 when the sound revolution hit, and there was speculation as to whether she could adapt. She did. In 1928, she received an Oscar nomination for Best Actress for her role of Sadie Thompson in the film of the same name but lost to Janet Gaynor for 3 different films. The following year, she again was nominated for the same award in The Trespasser (1929). This time, she lost out to Norma Shearer in The Divorcee (1930). By the 1930s, Gloria pared back her work with only four films during that time. She had taken a hiatus from film work after 1934's Music in the Air (1934) and would not be seen again until Father Takes a Wife (1941). That was to be it until 1950, when she starred in Sunset Blvd. (1950) as Norma Desmond opposite William Holden. She played a movie actress who was all but washed up. The movie was a box office smash and earned her a third Academy Award nomination as Best Actress, but she lost to Judy Holliday in Born Yesterday (1950). The film is considered one of the best in the history of film and, on June 16, 1998, was named one of the top 100 films of all time by the American Film Institute, placing 12th. After a few more films in the 1950s, Gloria more or less retired. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared mostly on television. Her last fling with the silver screen was Airport 1975 (1974), wherein she played herself. Gloria died on April 4, 1983, in New York City at the age of 84. There was never anyone like her, before or since.

Susan Hayward was born Edythe Marrener in Brooklyn, New York, on June 30, 1917. Her father was a transportation worker, and Susan lived a fairly comfortable life as a child, but the precocious little redhead had no idea of the life that awaited her. She attended public school in Brooklyn, where she graduated from a commercial high school that was intended to give students a marketable skill. She had planned on becoming a secretary, but her plans changed. She started doing some modeling work for photographers in the NYC area. By 1937, her beauty in full bloom, she went to Hollywood when the nationwide search was on for someone to play the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind (1939). Although she--along with several hundred other aspiring Scarletts--lost out to Vivien Leigh, Susan was to carve her own signature in Hollywood circles. In 1937 she got a bit part in Hollywood Hotel (1937). The bit parts continued all through 1938, with Susan playing, among other things, a coed, a telephone operator and an aspiring actress. She wasn't happy with these bit parts, but she also realized she had to "pay her dues". In 1939 she finally landed a part with substance, playing Isobel Rivers in the hit action film Beau Geste (1939). In 1941 she played Millie Perkins in the offbeat thriller Among the Living (1941). This quirky little film showed Hollywood Susan's considerable dramatic qualities for the first time. She then played a Southern belle in Cecil B. DeMille's Reap the Wild Wind (1942), one of the director's bigger successes, and once again showed her mettle as an actress. Following that movie she starred with Paulette Goddard and Fred MacMurray in The Forest Rangers (1942), playing tough gal Tana Mason. Although such films as Jack London (1943), And Now Tomorrow (1944) and Deadline at Dawn (1946) continued to showcase her talent, she still hadn't gotten the meaty role she craved. In 1947, however, she did, and received the first of five Academy Award nominations, this one for her portrayal of Angelica Evans in Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947). She played the part to the hilt and many thought she would take home the Oscar, but she lost out to Loretta Young for The Farmer's Daughter (1947). In 1949 Susan was nominated again for My Foolish Heart (1949) and again was up against stiff competition, but once more her hopes were dashed when Olivia de Havilland won for The Heiress (1949). Now, however, with two Oscar nominations under her belt, Susan was a force to be reckoned with. Good scripts finally started to come her way and she chose carefully because she wanted to appear in good quality productions. Her caution paid off, as she garnered yet a third nomination in 1953 for With a Song in My Heart (1952). Later that year she starred as Rachel Donaldson Robards Jackson in The President's Lady (1953). She was superb as Andrew Jackson's embittered wife, who dies before he was able to take office as President of the United States. After her fourth Academy Award nomination for I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955), Susan began to wonder if she would ever take home the coveted gold statue. She didn't have much longer to wait, though. In 1958 she gave the performance of her lifetime as real-life California killer Barbara Graham in I Want to Live! (1958), who was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in the gas chamber. Susan was absolutely riveting in her portrayal of the doomed woman. Many film buffs consider it to be one of the finest performances of all time, and this time she was not only nominated for Best Actress, but won. After that role she appeared in about one movie a year. In 1972 she made her last theatrical film, The Revengers (1972). She had been diagnosed with cancer, and the disease finally claimed her life on March 14, 1975, in Hollywood. She was 57. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Denny Jackson The youngest of three children, Edythe Marrenner was born in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York. Her father and mother, who were of Irish and Swedish descent respectively, endowed her with the milky complexion and ruby mane that would become her trademark. She grew up in poverty in the shadow of her older sister Florence who was her mother's favorite. Edythe would nurse a life-long grudge over what she perceived as her mother's neglect. As a teenager, Edythe was brought to Hollywood as one of the hundreds of girls who had won a chance to screen test for the part of Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind (1939). The test was abysmal. It would take several years of studio subsidized acting and voice lessons before her talent would emerge and she would be renamed Susan Hayward. Susan's personality is usually described as cold, icy, and aloof. She did not like socializing with crowds. She disliked homosexuals and effeminate men. Her taste in love ran strictly to the masculine, and both of her husbands were rugged Southerners. She loved sport fishing, and owned three ocean going boats for that purpose. Movie directors enjoyed Susan's professionalism and her high standards. She was considered easy to work with, but she was not chummy after the cameras stopped. Her greatest roles were in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955) and I Want to Live! (1958). The latter won her an Academy Award for best actress. A two-pack a day smoker with a taste for drink, Susan was diagnosed with brain cancer in March of 1972. On 14 March 1975, after a three year struggle against the disease, Susan died at her Hollywood home. Susan Hayward was laid to rest in a grave adjacent that of her husband Eaton Chalkley in the peace of Carrollton, Georgia where they had spent several happy years together in life.

Shirley MacLaine was born Shirley MacLean Beaty in Richmond, Virginia. Her mother, Kathlyn Corinne (MacLean), was a drama teacher from Nova Scotia, Canada, and her father, Ira Owens Beaty, a professor of psychology and real estate agent, was from Virginia. Her brother, Warren Beatty, was born on March 30, 1937. Her ancestry includes English and Scottish. Shirley was the tallest in her ballet classes at the Washington School of Ballet. Just after she graduated from Washington-Lee High School, she packed her bags and headed for New York. While auditioning for Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II's "Me and Juliet", the producer kept mispronouncing her name. She then changed her name from Shirley MacLean Beaty to Shirley MacLaine. She later had a role in "The Pajama Game", as a member of the chorus and understudy to Carol Haney. A few months into the run, Shirley was going to leave the show for the lead role in "Can-Can" but ended up filling in for Haney, who had broken her ankle and could not perform. She would fill in for Carol, again, three months later, following another injury, the very night that movie producer Hal B. Wallis was in the audience. Wallis signed MacLaine to a five-year contract to Paramount Pictures. Three months later, she was off to shoot The Trouble with Harry (1955). She then took roles in Hot Spell (1958) and Around the World in 80 Days (1956), completed not too long before her daughter, Sachi Parker (born Stephanie), was born. With Shirley's career on track, she played one of her most challenging roles: "Ginny Moorhead" in Some Came Running (1958), for which she received her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. She went on to do The Sheepman (1958) and The Matchmaker (1958). In 1960, she got her second Academy Award nomination for The Apartment (1960). Three years later, she received a third nomination for Irma la Douce (1963). In 1969, she brought her friend Bob Fosse from Broadway to direct her in Sweet Charity (1969), from which she got her "signature" song, "If My Friends Could See Me Now". After a five-year hiatus, Shirley made a documentary on China called The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975), for which she received an Oscar nomination for best documentary. In 1977, she got her fourth Best Actress Oscar nomination for The Turning Point (1977). In 1979, she worked with Peter Sellers in Being There (1979), made shortly before his death. After 20 years in the film industry, she finally took home the Best Actress Oscar for Terms of Endearment (1983). After a five-year hiatus, Shirley made Madame Sousatzka (1988), a critical and financial hit that took top prize at the Venice Film Festival. In 1989, she starred with Dolly Parton, Sally Field and Julia Roberts in Steel Magnolias (1989). She received rave reviews playing Meryl Streep's mother in Postcards from the Edge (1990) and for Guarding Tess (1994). In 1996, she reprised her role from "Terms of Endearment" as "Aurora Greenway" in The Evening Star (1996), which didn't repeat its predecessor's success at the box office. In mid-1998, she directed Bruno (2000), which starred Alex D. Linz. In February 2001, Shirley worked with close friends once again in These Old Broads (2001), and co-starred with Julia Stiles in Carolina (2003) and with Kirstie Alley in Salem Witch Trials (2002). MacLaine as her own website which includes her own radio show and interviews, the Encounter Board, and Independent Expression, a members-only section of the site. In the past few years, Shirley starred in a CBS miniseries based on the life of cosmetics queen Mary Kay Ash--The Battle of Mary Kay (2002), and wrote two more books, "The Camino" in 2001, and "Out On A Leash" in 2003. After taking a slight hiatus from motion pictures, Shirley returned with roles in the movies that were small, but wonderfully scene-stealing: Bewitched (2005) with Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell, In Her Shoes (2005) with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette, in which Shirley was nominated for a Golden Globe in the best supporting actress category, and Rumor Has It... (2005) with Jennifer Aniston and Kevin Costner. Shirley completed filming of Closing the Ring (2007), directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, in 2007. Her latest book is entitled "Sage-ing While Ag-ing"; Shirley's latest film is Valentine's Day (2010), which debuted in theaters on February 12, 2010.

Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson was born in India on February 19, 1911. She was educated in that country until the age of 17, when she left for London. Merle began her career in British films with mostly forgettable roles or bit parts. She appeared in an uncredited role in Alf's Button (1930), a pattern that would unfortunately repeat itself regularly over the next three years. However, movie moguls eventually saw an an untapped talent in their midst and began grooming Merle for something bigger. Finally she landed a part with substance: the role of Ysobel d'Aunay in Men of Tomorrow (1932). That was quickly followed by The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933). After her portrayal of Lady Marguerite Blakeney in The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934), Hollywood beckoned and she left to try her hand in US films. American movie executives already had some idea of her talent because her film Vagabond Violinist (1934) (US title: Vagabond Violinst) was a success in that country. With her nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress as Kitty Vane in The Dark Angel (1935), Merle became a star in both Britain and the US. Her work in that film resulted in offers for more quality pictures, and she appeared in several well received films, such as These Three (1936), Over the Moon (1939) and The Divorce of Lady X (1938). Her most critically acclaimed performance--hailed by some critics as "masterful"--was as Cathy Linton in Wuthering Heights (1939). The 1940s proved to be a very busy decade for her, as she appeared in no less than 15 films. After her role in Berlin Express (1948) she would not be seen on the screen again until four years later, as Elizabeth Rockwell in The Lady from Boston (1951). She was off the screen again for more than a year, returning in Désirée (1954). Unfortunately, she began appearing in fewer and fewer films over the ensuing years. There were no films for her in 1955, only one in 1956 and then none until Of Love and Desire (1963). In between she did appear on television as host of the TV series Assignment Foreign Legion (1956). Her final film was Interval (1973). After her career finally ended she lived in quiet retirement until her death of a massive stroke on November 23, 1979, in Malibu, California. She was 68 and had kept her beauty to the end. - IMDb Mini Biography By: Denny Jackson Merle Oberon was born in Bombay, of mixed Welsh-Indian parentage, as Estelle "Queenie" Thompson. According to Michael Korda, she "became a feature of Bombay nightlife while still in her early teens and eventually made her way to England as the girlfriend of a wealthy young Englishman." In early-30s London, Oberon became a star at the famous Cafe de Paris and also the girlfriend of the popular (and somewhat notorious) Grenada-born jazz musician, Leslie "Hutch" Hutchinson. The three Korda brothers, Alexander, Zoltan and Vincent, were Hungarian Jews who made careers in the movie business, first in London and later in Hollywood. Alexander Korda discovered Queenie in the tea line at the movie studio. He changed her name and cast her as Anne Boleyn in The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933), the first British picture to be nominated for an Academy Award as Best Picture. Merle Oberon and Alexander Korda married in 1939 and she became the first Lady Korda when he was knighted. In 1979 Vincent's son Michael Korda, now editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster, published 'Charmed Lives', a history of the three flamboyant brothers and their actress wives. Twenty years later, in 1999, Michael wrote 'Another Life: A Memoir of Other People'. In the "Memoir" he says that he had been "more than usually circumspect on the subject of Merle" when he wrote 'Charmed Lives', but Merle's lawyer had reviewed the bound galley proofs and called. Korda, faced with a "time-consuming and expensive lawsuit," took Oberon "virtually out of the book altogether."

Kim Novak was born in Chicago, Illinois on February 13, 1933 with the birth name of Marilyn Pauline Novak. She was the daughter of Joseph Novak, a former teacher turned transit clerk and his wife, Blanche Kral Novak, also a former teacher. Throughout elementary and high school, Kim did not get along well with teachers. She even admitted that she didn't like being told what to do and when to do it. Her first job, while in high school, was modeling teen fashions for a local department store. Kim, an avid painter, won a scholarship to the Art Institute of Chicago, but ended up going to Wright Junior College instead. While on a break from school, Kim and two of her classmates decided to go to Los Angeles and stand in line to be an extra in a movie called The French Line (1953). An agent took notice of Kim's striking beauty arranged for a screen test with Columbia Pictures, and Kim was signed to a contract. After taking some acting lessons, Kim made her film debut in the detective drama Pushover (1954) with Fred MacMurray, followed by the comedy Phffft (1954) with Jack Lemmon and Judy Holliday. These two films set the tone for her career, and she was so poised that most people had no idea she was only 21. As a result, the studio continued to pair Kim with fatherly older actors. Kim received a Golden Globe nomination for "Most Promising Newcomer" in 1955, and had big parts in three films released that year, first appearing as "Kay Greylek" in 5 Against the House (1955). Her next role was in the controversial Otto Preminger film The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), which was a big hit. Then came Picnic (1956), Kim's breakthrough film. Kim did a superb job of acting in the film as did her costars, and now fans were eager to see more of this bright and beautiful new star. In 1957, Kim played "Linda English" in the hit movie Pal Joey (1957) with Frank Sinatra and Rita Hayworth. The film did well at the box-office, but was condemned by the critics. Kim really didn't seem that interested in the role. She even said she couldn't stand people such as her character. In 1958, Kim appeared in the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo (1958), which, though poorly received at the time of its release, is now considered a classic. The film was one in which a retired detective, played by James Stewart, follows a suicidal blonde (Kim), only to find out Kim was only masquerading as that person and is actually a brunette shop girl who duped him as part of an elaborate murder scheme. Kim's other film that year, the supernatural comedy Bell Book and Candle (1958), was a modest success, but her follow-up, Middle of the Night (1959), was not in spite of drawing good reviews. Unfortunately, the hype that Columbia generated for Kim never materialized, and her career began to fade in the early 1960s as the studio system came to an end. She was being overpowered by the rise of new stars or stars that were remodeling their status within the film community. Kim said she didn't have it in herself to audition for good roles, so she took the best of what she was offered. She starred in the ensemble romantic drama Strangers When We Meet (1960), which moderately successful. With a few more nondescript films between 1960 and 1964, she landed the role of "Mildred Rogers" in the remake of Of Human Bondage (1964) opposite Laurence Harvey. The film debuted to mostly negative reviews and was not a success. Later that same year, she co-starred in the Billy Wilder sex satire Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) with Dean Martin, but the film drew intensely hostile reviews and condemned by many civic groups, causing its studio to distance itself from the film. In 1965, Kim played the title role in the comedy The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders (1965), and married her co-star, Richard Johnson. The marriage only lasted 14 months, but they remained friends. Kim stepped away from the cameras for a while, returning in 1968 to star in The Legend of Lylah Clare (1968). The film only had a limited release and was a resounding flop. Though only 35, Kim said she basically didn't see herself as having a career after that. Following The Great Bank Robbery (1969), Kim took another four-year hiatus until 1973, when she was seen in a television film called The Third Girl from the Left (1973), a romantic drama, and appeared in a segment of the British horror anthology film Tales That Witness Madness (1973). Kim's next appearances on the screen were a leading role in the television film Satan's Triangle (1975) and a cameo in the Charles Bronson western The White Buffalo (1977). Kim ended the 1970s by appearing in Just a Gigolo (1978) with David Bowie. The film was a critical and commercial failure. Opening the 1980s, Kim gained some attention for the mystery/thriller The Mirror Crack'd (1980), but it did nothing for her career. For the rest of the decade, Kim was out of movies and only had a few television gigs. In 1983, Kim appeared in the ensemble TV movie, Malibu (1983). She had a cameo role in the pilot episode of the short-lived Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1985) redux in 1985. From 1986 to 1987, Kim played the mysterious "Kit Marlowe" in 19 episodes of the TV series Falcon Crest (1981). In 1990, Kim starred in The Children (1990), and gave a great performance opposite Ben Kingsley. However, the film had a very limited release. Kim's last film to date was 1991's Liebestraum (1991), in which she played a terminally ill woman with a past. The film was a major disappointment in every aspect. Making it was an especially unhappy experience for Kim, who clashed with director Mike Figgis over how to play her character. Kim hasn't acted since then, and admittedly never reached her potential. Although she has regrets about her career, she has ruled out any plans for a comeback. Kim says she just isn't cut for a Hollywood life. Fortunately, Kim's personal life has been the contrary to her career. Since 1976, Kim has been happily married to Robert Malloy, a veterinarian who shares her passion for animals and nature. Kim and her husband live on a ranch in Oregon where they raise llamas and horses, and frequently go canoeing. Kim is also an accomplished artist who expresses herself in oil paintings and sculptures.