Trivia: Lead actor, onscreen from the early '70s.

Trivia: Lanky, laconic actor Warren Oates made his first stage appearance in a student play at the University of Louisville. Moving to New York in 1954, Oates took a variety of jobs to sustain himself, including a "stunt tester" for the TV audience-participation series Beat the Clock (one of Oates' predecessors in this endeavor was James Dean). He worked in live New York-based TV dramas before moving to Hollywood in 1957, where thanks to such Western TV series as Have Gun Will Travel, he established himself as a brooding villain. One of his rare opportunities to exhibit anything other than menace was his semicomic supporting role on the 1962 Jack Lord TV weekly Stoney Burke. One of director Sam Peckinpah's favorite actors, Oates was well served with meaty roles in such Peckinpah films as Ride the High Country (1962), Major Dundee (1965), and, best of all, The Wild Bunch (1969). With his remarkable performance as an ageing hot rodder in 1971's Two-Lane Blacktop, Oates began a fruitful association with director Monte Hellman, who provided Oates with his best-ever film assignments in Cockfighter (1974) and China 9 Liberty 37 (1982). Shortly after completing work on Blue Thunder (1982), Warren Oates' long-overdue rising stardom came to a tragic halt as a result of a sudden, fatal heart attack.

Trivia: Possessing an almost hypnotic earthy beauty that perfectly compliments her effectively understated acting style, Jenny Agutter made a lasting impression on cinema lovers worldwide with appearances in such films as The Railway Children (1970), Walkabout (1971), and Logan's Run (1976). Although she continued to appear in features in the ensuing decades, the actress also made a notable name for herself as both a high-profile philanthropist and photographer. Born in Taunton, Somerset, England, in the winter of 1952 of military parents, Agutter had seen most of the world by the age of 11, when she was enrolled in the Elmhurst Ballet School in Cambury, Surrey. She made her film debut in East of Sudan (1964) when only 12, and, after utilizing her dance skills in Ballerina the following year, she made her biggest impression to date in the feature version of The Railway Children (1970). (She had previously appeared in a television series based on the story.) Entering drama school at the age of 17 while living in London, the demands of her studies frequently conflicted with an increasingly busy film schedule. Around the time of her appearance in Nicolas Roeg's surreal outback drama Walkabout, Agutter decided to move to Hollywood. There, she quickly gained a reputation as a formidable talent, and her 1971 performance in a made-for-TV production of The Snow Goose (opposite Richard Harris) earned the actress her first Emmy award. Frequently alternating between television and film during the following few years, Agutter once again turned heads as the heroine of Logan's Run (1976). A fugitive of a system that terminates all citizens over the age of 30, the futuristic movie proved to be a hit and the actress became well known to stateside science fiction aficionados. Agutter was appeared on-stage frequently during this period, and her love for the theater was clearly on display in such efforts as The Man in the Iron Mask (1976) and Othello (1981). Following her high-profile role as a nurse who falls for a lycanthrope in John Landis' An American Werewolf in London, Agutter kept things low-key through the remainder of the '80s, although eagle-eyed fans could catch a quick glimpse of her in such features as Amazon Women on the Moon (1987) and King of the Wind (1988). In the late '80s, she met Swedish hotelier Johan Tham while attending an arts festival in Bath, and the two were married the following year; a son following shortly thereafter. Moving back to England following their marriage, the couple made a home in Cornwall. Although her film roles would become increasingly sporadic over the next decade, Agutter did appear in small capacities in such features as Darkman (1990), Child's Play 2 (1990), and Blue Juice (1995). More frequent during this period were television roles, which included The Buccaneers (1995), Bramwell (1998), and a small-screen remake of The Railway Children in 2000 (this time playing the mother). Drawn back into films at the dawn of the new millennium, Agutter appeared in The Parole Officer (2001) and Number One Longing, Number Two Regret (2002). In addition to her acting career, Agutter published a book of photography in 1984, Snap: Observations of London and Los Angeles, and, over the years, became increasingly involved with such charitable causes as The Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Action for Children, an organization which provides shelter and resources for homeless children.

Trivia: Believing real-life turmoil bred peerless creativity, Sam Peckinpah left an indelible mark on post-1960s cinema with a relatively small body of work that was not for the faint of heart, either in the audience or his collaborators. Peckinpah's unruly, incendiary vision turned such films as Ride the High Country (1962), The Wild Bunch (1969), and the non-Western Straw Dogs (1971) into forceful, complex ruminations on violence, morality, and manhood.Born in Fresno, CA, and raised on a ranch on nearby Peckinpah Mountain by his sober mother and judge father, descendants of pioneer settlers, Peckinpah learned to ride and shoot as a child and idolized his hardy Superior Court jurist grandfather. A boozing, violence-prone troublemaker by his teens, Peckinpah spent his senior year at military school, joining the Marines in 1943 after graduation. Enrolling at Fresno State College in 1947, Peckinpah discovered his calling when his schoolmate and first wife-to-be turned him on to drama. Relocating to Los Angeles to get his master's degree at U.S.C., Peckinpah began directing theater and took a job at KLAC-TV as a stagehand. He was subsequently fired from his menial job on Liberace's TV show for not wearing a suit. Peckinpah's luck changed when he was hired as Don Siegel's assistant at Allied Artists. Well matched in cinematic temperament, Siegel became Peckinpah's mentor as he learned the craft on five Siegel films. Peckinpah also began writing scripts for TV Westerns in 1955, contributing episodes to several shows, including Gunsmoke and Have Gun, Will Travel. Getting a shot at directing with an episode of Broken Arrow in 1958, Peckinpah further honed his skills with episodes of The Rifleman and The Westerner. Peckinpah got his first feature to direct when The Westerner star Brian Keith suggested him for The Deadly Companions (1961). Though more a vehicle for star Maureen O'Hara than the director, The Deadly Companions nevertheless helped Peckinpah land his second film, Ride the High Country (1962). A spectacular meditation on the passing of the West starring wizened screen cowboys Joel McCrea and Randolph Scott as two gunfighters confronting their mortality, Ride the High Country proved that Peckinpah could already enter his house justified as a filmmaker. The studio thought otherwise, dumping it on its first release; critical accolades and foreign film prizes, however, gave Ride the High Country another shot stateside. With a considerable budget and an unfinished script, Peckinpah embarked on his third Western, Major Dundee (1965), starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris as two former comrades who clash during an Apache roundup. Shot in Mexico, the production of Major Dundee fell into chaos as Peckinpah fired crew members, fought with producers, and was threatened with grievous bodily harm by a (literally) saber-rattling Heston. When the studio decided to fire Peckinpah, however, Heston gave back his salary to let Peckinpah finish. After Peckinpah's cut came in at over two hours, though, he was ousted and the studio eviscerated the movie, removing scenes that reportedly gave Major Dundee even more thematic heft than Ride the High Country. The resulting mess left critics and audiences cold; Peckinpah's deteriorating reputation (and his obstreperousness) got him fired from The Cincinnati Kid (1965).Blackballed for several years, Peckinpah survived by writing scripts. By the time he got to direct again in the late '60s, the parameters of movie violence had changed. Reuniting with High Country cinematographer Lucien Ballard, stock company regulars Warren Oates and L.Q. Jones, and adding stars William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, and Robert Ryan to the mix, Peckinpah explosively probed the nature of mythic Western violence and moral relativity in The Wild Bunch (1969). Greeted by reactions ranging from "brilliant" to "sick," The Wild Bunch was only a modest hit, even after Warner Bros. cut ten minutes of exposition, but its impact on Hollywood cinema reverberated for years to come. Peckinpah followed The Wild Bunch with a distinctly different Western elegy, The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970). Starring Jason Robards as another Westerner who can't handle the end of the West, Cable Hogue was gentle and funny; its botched release, however, did it no justice. After this respite, Peckinpah returned to plumbing the depths of man's bestiality in his most controversial film, Straw Dogs (1971). Starring Dustin Hoffman as a nerdy American math teacher and Susan George as his wanton British wife, Straw Dogs chillingly surmised that even the most pacifist soul harbors an abyss of lethal, instinctual violence. Provoking heated objections to its rape scene in particular and visceral cruelty and nihilism in general, Straw Dogs nevertheless drew an audience and confirmed the potency of Peckinpah's methods. As if to prove his assertions that he himself abhorred the kind of violence portrayed in Straw Dogs, Peckinpah eschewed guns and bloodletting in his next film, Junior Bonner (1972). Another mild, wistful take on Western masculine values and their modern demise, Junior Bonner starred Steve McQueen as a rodeo rider past his prime who has a comic and sad return to his hometown. Though Junior Bonner was a poorly distributed financial failure, Peckinpah got along well enough with his former Cincinnati Kid star to re-team with McQueen for the more conventional action vehicle The Getaway (1972). The Getaway's success didn't prevent Peckinpah's next film, and last western, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973), from turning into, as he put it, his "worst experience since Major Dundee." Locking horns with the studio during the Mexico shoot, the on-set battles escalated until the unit manager's threat during an argument to have Peckinpah killed resulted in a Peckinpah crony hiring local gunmen to off the unit manager. The hit was canceled and the manager exited; Pat Garrett was sloppily recut by the studio, and the incoherent release version failed. After the scenes were restored in 1988, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was revealed to be a fitting exit from the genre for Peckinpah. Peckinpah went on to throw himself into Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). A strange, bloody revenge story starring Warren Oates as a hapless American in Mexico determined to fulfill the title edict his way, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia was dumped in the U.S. and lavishly praised abroad. Always a hardcore alcoholic, Peckinpah discovered cocaine while shooting his next film, espionage actioner The Killer Elite (1975). Though The Killer Elite was a reasonably successful endeavor, one Peckinpah biographer later surmised that the cocaine addiction crippled Peckinpah's creative powers. Still, Peckinpah's sole war movie, Cross of Iron (1977), delivered a powerful antiwar message in depicting two philosophically opposed German officers on the Russian front in World War II. His final two films, comic trucker adventure Convoy (1978) and Robert Ludlum adaptation The Osterman Weekend (1983), however, were strictly mediocre. Though Peckinpah suffered a heart attack in 1979, he never retired. Along with branching out into music video with two clips for Julian Lennon, Peckinpah was preparing a Stephen King adaptation when he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1984. Peckinpah's five marriages (three to the same woman) all ended in divorce.

Trivia: During the 1950s, Italian actor Franco Interlenghi was one of the most popular leading men in his country, and one who, though never gaining international stardom, was just as revered as Marcello Mastroianni. Interlenghi's best known film may be Fellini's I Vitelloni (1953). He got his start in the early '50s in De Sica's Shoeshine. In addition to films, Interlenghi also appeared in many successful theatrical productions.

Trivia: Bespectacled Sidney Lassick looked more like a vice-principal or shop steward than an actor. This lack of showbiz slickness came in handy for the "everyman" roles assigned him. Lassick played the manic-depressive Cheswick in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and the sarcastic English teacher in Carrie (1976), to cite two roles among dozens. More recently, Sidney Lassick was seen in The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck (1988) and Deep Cover (1992)