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- This wholesome "Chatty Cathy" delight had all the earmarks of becoming a dithery TV star in the early 70s and a couple of sitcom vehicles were handed to her with silver platter-like enthusiasm. Neither, however, made the best use of her elfin charm and both series died a quick, and deserved, death. Nonetheless, Sandy Duncan went on to become a Disney film lead, a TV commodity pitching crackers and arguably the best Peter Pan Broadway has ever offered. Like Sally Field and Karen Valentine before her, Sandy had a potentially terminal case of the cutes that often did her more harm than good. But also, like the others, her talent eventually won out.
The story goes that wistful tomboy Sandra Kay Duncan, born February 20, 1946, felt like an outsider growing up in her native Texas because of her desire to become an actress. The elder of two girls born to a gas station owner, she trained in dance and appeared in productions of "The King and I" and "The Music Man" as a teen. She cast all negativity and self doubt aside and packed her bags for New York upon leaving Lon Morris Junior College (in Texas).
Sandy made an enchanting Wendy in "Peter Pan" and soon poised herself as a triple threat on stage (singer/dancer/actress). She married Broadway actor Bruce Scott in 1968 and appeared in the rock musical "Your Own Thing" that same year. Taking her first Broadway curtain call and grabbing a Tony nomination in a bawdy musical version of Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", she next won the soubrette role of Maisie in the Jazz-age musical "The Boy Friend". She managed to steal the thunder right from under star Judy Carne (who had just left the cast of TV's "Laugh-In" in order to branch out) and earned her second Tony nomination -- this time as "Best Actress".
The toothy strawberry blonde was a sensation and in 1970 Time Magazine named her "the most promising face of tomorrow". All this buildup reached the ears of Disney who decided to take a chance and cast her opposite Disney perennial Dean Jones in the featherweight comedy film The Million Dollar Duck (1971). TV also saw her potential and featured her sparkling mug more and more in commercials. She then took on the title role in the film version of Neil Simon's comedy hit Star Spangled Girl (1971), which turned out to be a major disappointment.
An untried talent on the prime-time scene, CBS decided Sandy had enough promise and star quality to be given her own TV sitcom. Replacing Melba Moore at the last minute in the weekly show Funny Face (1971), the story line had Duncan playing single, independently-minded Sandy Stockton, a corn-fed Midwesterner who heads to the big-city (Los Angeles) where she winds up in TV commercials while pursuing a teaching degree at UCLA. The series was a success and was a Top 10 show, but Duncan began experiencing severe headaches on the set and a tumor was discovered on her optic nerve. She had to leave the series and it was consequently pulled from the air. The series' sudden departure led to a misconception among some viewers that it had been canceled. Following a lengthy and delicate operation, the doctors managed to save her eye but she lost all vision in it.
The following year the show was revamped and retitled. Duncan returned as Sandy Stockton. This time she was a single working girl who created chaos at an ad agency. This second incarnation of her series failed to regain the audience that the first incarnation had had. The Sandy Duncan Show (1972) was canceled by mid-December. In the meantime, she divorced her first husband in 1972 and married Dr. Thomas Calcateera a year later, whom she met while undergoing her eye operation. They would divorce six years later.
After the demise of her second series, Sandy refocused on her strengths -- musical comedy -- and maintained her profile as a guest star on such variety shows as "The Sonny & Cher Show", "The Flip Wilson Show", "The Tonight Show" and "Laugh-In". She also was seen around the game show circuit as panelist on "What's My Line?" and "Hollywood Squares", among others. In 1979 Sandy retook Broadway by storm. Instead of the role of Wendy, she played the title tomboy in the musical "Peter Pan" and was nominated for a third time for a Tony Award. Born to play this role, she followed this spectacular success by locking arms with a carefree Tommy Tune in the tuneful Broadway show "My One and Only" replacing Twiggy in 1984.
Sandy also appeared again for Disney both co-starring in the lightweight film comedy The Cat from Outer Space (1978) opposite fellow hoofer Ken Berry and providing a foxy voice for their popular The Fox and the Hound (1981) animated feature. Taking on a more serious tone, she garnered critical respect for her Emmy-nominated role in the epic mini-series Roots (1977), but these dramatic offerings were few and far between.
In the 1980s Sandy became a household name once again with her popular Wheat Thins commercials in which she periodically shared the camera with her two sons, Jeffrey and Michael, her children by Tony-nominated choreographer/dancer Don Correia, whom she married in 1980. In 1987, she returned to prime-time TV, but not in her own tailor-made vehicle. Instead Sandy replaced Valerie Harper in HER tailor-made vehicle after Harper departed in a well-publicized contractual dispute with producers after only one season. The show was simple changed in title from Valerie (1986) to "The Hogan Family" and Sandy entered the proceedings as a close relative and new female head of household after Harper's character "died". As a testament to her audience appeal, the show managed to run for four more healthy seasons.
In later days, the pert, indefatigable Sandy hosted Thanksgiving Day parades, dance competitions and teen pageants. Always a formidable star on stage, she portrayed Roxie Hart on Broadway in "Chicago" (1999), and headlined touring companies "Anything Goes" and "The King and I." In 2008, she performed in the musical "No, No, Nanette," and a year later played the leads in both "Driving Miss Daisy" and "The Glass Menagerie." Sporadically on TV, she played both a defense attorney and judge on the "Law & Order" shows and was featured as one of Jill Clayburgh's girlfriends in the romantic comedy film Never Again (2001).
Sandy has also been a volunteer for the non-profit organization "RFB&D" (Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic) and was a recipient of the National Rehabilitation Hospital Victory Award, which is given to individuals who exhibit exceptional courage and strength in the face of adversity. - Kingston Foster rose to fame for her lead role as Cindy in the Sundance premiered film, Bitch at the age of 6. She has gained television roles for popular series such as Days of Our Lives, Fuller House, American Horror Story, Great News, and Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders to name a few. She also stars in the Disney Zombies' trilogy as the character Zoey. Singing is a passion and she has performed and recorded songs for various television and film projects. In addition to singing, Kingston is a dancer and aerialist. Kingston Foster is excited to be seen as Edda in Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon: A Child of Fire and Rebel Moon: The Scargiver. She is also in the upcoming Zombies: The Re-Animated Series.
- Emelina Adams was born in Henderson, Nevada, USA. She is an actress, known for Bullet Train (2022), 13 Reasons Why (2017) and Back on the Strip (2023).
- Braeden Cooper Sorbo was born on August 22, 2001 in Henderson, Nevada to Sam and Kevin Sorbo and raised in Thousand Oaks, California. He is of mostly Norwegian descent. He graduated from Classical Conversations in 2019, and has two younger siblings, Shane and Octavia. Braeden came to prominence during his first film, "Let There Be Light", where he portrayed honest Gus Harkins. More recently he has taken on roles in "Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist", "A Wave of Kindness", "Success Camp", "Miracle In East Texas", and "Cuisine de la 'Pocalypse."
- Austin 'Chumlee' Russell was born on 8 September 1982 in Henderson, Nevada, USA. He is an actor and director, known for Driven: The Story of Tanner Godfrey (2013), Pop Star (2013) and iCarly (2007).
- Charlie Rose is the elegant, handsome, fiercely intelligent and inquisitive host of the self-titled Charlie Rose (1991).
Rose was born Charles Peete Rose, Jr. on January 5, 1942 in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret (Frazier) and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers. The Rose family lived near the railroad tracks in Henderson, in rooms above the general store that his parents owned and managed, and where Charlie helped out. After graduating from high school, where he starred on the basketball team, Rose entered Duke University as a pre-med student. His extra-curricular activities included working with children in a Head Start program. One summer, he secured an internship in the office of North Carolina senator B. Everett Jordan. According to him, his experiences as an intern turned him into a "political junkie" and, upon returning to college, he changed his major to history. After receiving an A.B. degree in 1964, he entered the Duke University School of Law but, sometime before or shortly after earning a J.D. degree in 1968, he realised that the practice of law held little interest for him. Inspired by the idea of "building something" as an entrepreneur, he started taking classes at the New York University Graduate School of Business (he had moved to New York City in 1968) and accepted a job at Bankers Trust. Through his wife, who was doing research for the CBS television show 60 Minutes (1968), Rose became friendly with people employed in broadcasting and he developed what soon became a passionate interest in the broadcast media. After his wife was hired by the BBC in the United States, he handled some assignments for the BBC on a freelance basis. In 1972, while continuing to work at Bankers Trust, he landed a job as a weekend reporter for WPIX-TV, in New York City. During his approximately one-year stint at WPIX, Rose tried several times, without success, to contact Bill Moyers for an interview.
In 1974, Moyers telephoned Rose, after Rose's wife spoke to Moyers about him at a social gathering. At their first meeting, he and Moyers felt an "instant chemistry" and, within weeks, he began working as the managing editor of the PBS series "Bill Moyers' International Report"). (Moyers has said that Rose served as his "alter ego" as well at that time.) In 1975, Moyers named him the executive producer of Bill Moyers' Journal (1972), a PBS documentary and conversation series although, by his own account, Rose had "no great desire to be on camera". In the following year, he became the correspondent for U.S.A.: People and Politics, Moyers's new weekly PBS political magazine series. "A Conversation with Jimmy Carter", one installment of that series, won a 1976 Peabody Award. Later in 1976, after Moyers left public television to work for CBS, Rose accepted a Washington, D.C.-based job as a political correspondent for NBC News. In the belief that he lacked sufficient training to do a proper job and that he should "get the maximum amount of on-air experience", as he put it, he seized opportunities to host interview shows. He first appeared as a guest host on "Panorama", on WTTG-TV, in Washington, D.C. In 1978, after leaving NBC, he served as a co-host with AM/Chicago, on WLS-TV. A year later, Blake Byrne, the general manager of KXAS-TV in Dallas-Fort Worth, hired him as programme manager and, although the station had no budget to pay Rose to do a talk show, he also offered him a time slot for what became Charlie Rose (1991).
In 1981, with the goal of securing national syndication, Rose moved Charlie Rose (1991) to Washington, D.C. where, for the next two years or so, it was broadcast on the NBC-owned station WRC-TV. At the same time, he hosted another weekly interview show for WRC-TV. At the end of 1983, CBS hired Rose to anchor CBS News Roundup (1982), an interview program that was taped during the day and was broadcast five times a week between 2:00 A.M. and 6:00 A.M. Rose has recalled having "a wonderful time" during his six-and-a-half years as the CBS News Nightwatch host. Like that of Charlie Rose, the CBS News Nightwatch guest list was not confined to the world's movers and shakers. Among the other people whose activities or histories caught Rose's interest was the convicted murderer Charles Manson, with whom he talked for three hours. The CBS News Nightwatch broadcast of Rose's interview with Manson won an Emmy Award in 1987.
In 1990, Rose left CBS to serve as anchor of "Personalities", a syndicated programme produced by Fox Television. Angry to find himself hosting a tabloid-like news show, he broke his contract after just six weeks. About ten months later, he approached PBS-affiliated station Thirteen/WNET-TV in New York City, with a proposal for a new interview show. Charlie Rose premiered on Thirteen/WNET on September 30, 1991. During nine months in 1992, it also on the Learning Channel. Syndicated nationally since January 1993, it airs on 215 PBS affiliate stations. The show's premise is simple; engage the best politicians, thinkers, personalities, celebrities, sports figures, artists, writers and scientists in one-on-one conversation without any gimmicks and irritating commercial breaks. The show's simple black background and round oak table serve to do just that, along with Rose's intelligent interviewing style and ability to ask pertinent questions, forcing the essence of the personalities to come out.
Rose has interviewed the likes of President Nelson Mandela, President Bill Clinton, Salman Rushdie, Madonna, Bono of U2, Bill Gates, Meryl Streep, Warren Beatty and countless others. According to a conversation he had with Chuck D of Public Enemy fame, he has conducted over 100,000 interviews. Divorced, Rose splits his time between a rented townhouse in Manhattan (that, according to him, is filled with an "embarrassing amount" of electronic equipment) and Bellport, Long Island. On weekends, when not enjoying the rich, cultural life of New York City or preparing for his show, he travels to his farm near Oxford, North Carolina or to the upstate New York farm of a friend. - Ryan Urich was born on 25 December 1978 in Henderson, Nevada, USA. He is an actor, known for The Killer Within Me (2003), Survive the Savage Sea (1992) and Night Walk (1989).
- Caroline Reitman was born on 11 December 1988 in Henderson, Nevada, USA. She is an actress, known for Fathers' Day (1997) and Life and Times (1996).
- Christian Stokes was raised in East Texas and has worked steadily in show business for 20 years. He is an 8-year veteran of the Hollywood film scene, winning roles from such celebrated directors as Richard Linklater, Penelope Spheeris and LeVar Burton. Christian has performed with such actors as Jennifer Garner, Brad Douriff, Matthew McConaughey, Bruce Dern, Kenny Johnson and with Charlize Theron in her Academy Award winning turn in the feature film "Monster".
While pursuing his film career, Christian split time as a stuntman, creating and performing in shows across the planet for companies like NBC Universal, Six Flags and Knott's Berry Farm. He was recently selected to join the Emmy award winning stunt team for the NBC hit "Revolution" as actor Zak Orth's ("Aaron Pittman") stunt double. He can also be seen in the role of Babcock opposite Sylvester Stallone in the action blockbuster Escape Plan in theaters now. Other highlighted credits include "Stop-Loss", "No Ordinary Family", "Lake Dead", "Chase", "Alias", "Charmed" and "Bernie" starring Jack Black. Christian relocated to the South from Los Angeles to be close to family and to help expand its ever-growing film industry.
With his relocation, Christian created the L.A. Standard Acting Studio, where his skills and experiences have helped his students prepare for the business that is show business. Christian recently launched his own production company, StokerAce Films. His first project, a 15 minute short titled "Conviction". - Shane Dax Taylor was born on 7 August 1975 in Henderson, Kentucky, USA. Shane Dax is a producer and director, known for Murder Company (2024), The Christmas Classic (2023) and The Best Man (2023). Shane Dax has been married to Robyn Corum since 28 May 2005.
- Eddy Arnold was born on 15 May 1918 in Henderson, Tennessee, USA. He was an actor, known for Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008), Groundhog Day (1993) and The Brave One (2007). He was married to Sally Gayhart. He died on 8 May 2008 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA.
- Sheryl Leach was born on 31 December 1952 in Henderson County, Texas, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for Barney & Friends (1992), Barney's Great Adventure (1998) and Barney in Outer Space (1998). She is married to Howard Rosenfeld. She was previously married to James Edmund Leach.
- Bito Boucher is an accomplished Actor, Director, Playwright, and Creative Artist with over eight years of stage and screen experience. A student of NYU Tisch School of Drama with Atlantic Acting School, Experimental Theatre Wing, and Abroad programs in Berlin and Amsterdam studying avant-garde forms of theatre and film. He is dedicated to creating innovative work that pushes the vanguard of political activism through expressionism, physical acting, surrealist philosophies, theater forms, and technology, reflecting contemporary societal issues. He is skilled in utilizing the human body to create compelling performances, drawing from extensive experience as a dancer and actor, and committed to producing thought-provoking and transformative art.
- Ben E. King was born on 28 September 1938 in Henderson, North Carolina, USA. He was a music artist and actor, known for Stand by Me (1986), Love and Monsters (2020) and Cloverfield (2008). He was married to Betty Nelson. He died on 30 April 2015 in Hackensack, New Jersey, USA.
- James was born in a small town in Western Kentucky. His parents moved to St. Louis, Missouri when he was three. James always had an interest in Films and TV. His folks, Jim and Lois, enjoyed the same enthusiasm for movies. In the Summer time it was the Drive-In Theater on Friday nights. The cost of this was $1.50 for adults and children under 12 were free. Popcorn and soda, Blankets on the roof of the car. The sound of a mono speaker, there were 3 Films shown. His earliest memories of Films, Cool Hand Luke, The Graduate, Midnight Cowboy. Fortunately for James his parents didn't edit the movies the family saw. Late at night he would sneak down to the Famly living room and watch the "Bijuo Picture Show". Late night movies, for free. All the best Gangster Pictures and Westerns, Bogie, Grant, McQueen, Neuman, Redford and on and on. James went to College in Southern Missouri but had no interest in Theater or the Arts. It was not until a friend of his asked him to read the stage directions of a play he had written, did his interest begin. Since that time he has improved his craft and has had success in the business.
