Gargoyles

Cornel Wilde (Actor) .. Dr. Mercer Boley

Born: October 13, 1912
Died: October 16, 1989
Birthplace: Prievidza, Hungary

Trivia: His father was a traveling salesman who did a lot of business in Europe, and Wilde spent much of his youth traveling in Europe with him, where he became fluent in several languages. For several years he studied medicine in college, but he gave it up to pursue acting; he also gave up a spot on the 1936 U.S. Olympic fencing team. He appeared in a number of plays in New York and on the road, playing everything from bit parts to leads. In 1940 he was hired as a fencing instructor and a featured player for the Broadway production of Hamlet with Laurence Olivier; some of the rehearsals were in Hollywood, where he landed a film contract. On-screen from 1940, Wilde played small roles as heavies in several films, then switched studios and began getting leads in B movies. His career took off after he played Chopin in A Song to Remember (1945), for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination. For several years he starred in major productions, such as the 1952 Best Picture winner The Greatest Show on Earth, then in the mid-late '50s he was back in B movies, often playing swashbucklers. In 1955 he formed his own company, Theodora Productions, to produce, direct, and star in his own films; he ultimately made 11 films in that capacity, but earned little critical respect for his work. Divorced from actress Patricia Knight, Wilde married his frequent costar, actress Jean Wallace.

Jennifer Salt (Actor) .. Diana Boley

Born: September 04, 1944
Birthplace: Los Angeles, California, United States

Trivia: Actress Jennifer Salt made her first screen appearance in Midnight Cowboy (1969), a film co-scripted by her screenwriter father, Waldo Salt. Salt went on to play hippielike roles in such counterculture efforts as Hi, Mom (1969), The Revolutionary (1970), and Brewster McCloud (1972). She made a more mainstream appearance as Woody Allen's mortified blind date in Play It Again Sam (1972). From 1977 through 1980, Jennifer Salt was seen as Eunice Tate on the satirical TV serial Soap.

Bernie Casey (Actor) .. The Gargoyle

Born: June 08, 1939

Trivia: Former pro football player Bernie Casey turned to acting in the early 1970s. He has been steadily employed in theatrical films ever since, playing supporting roles in such films as Boxcar Bertha (1972), Cleopatra Jones (1976), Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989), and all three Revenge of the Nerds epics (as "U.N. Jefferson"). Casey's series-TV assignments included the title character (a blue-collar father of five children) in 1979's Harris and Company and the role of baseball coach Ozzie Peoples in Bay City Blues (1983). A ubiquitous TV-movie actor, Bernie Casey was seen in such highly-rated efforts as Brian's Song (1971), Gargoyles (1972) and The Sophisticated Gents (1981).

Grayson Hall (Actor) .. Mrs. Parks

Born: January 01, 1927
Died: August 27, 1985

Trivia: Educated at Cornell University, American actress Grayson Hall established her reputation on stage. Among her many theatrical achievements were Six Characters in Search of an Author, under the direction of Tyrone Guthrie, and The Balcony, supervised by Jose Quintero. Hall's first film was Night of the Iguana (1964), for which she received an Oscar nomination. The actress then played the kidnapped bank teller in Disney's That Darn Cat (1965), probably the biggest moneymaker with which she was associated. In 1966, Grayson signed on for ABC's supernatural soap opera Dark Shadows, playing a doctor who tried to cure Barnabas Collins of his vampirism but who wound up falling in love with him instead. Grayson Hall left Dark Shadows in 1971 for a long stint on another, more sedate daytime drama, One Life to Live.

Scott Glenn (Actor) .. James Reeger

Born: January 26, 1941
Birthplace: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States

Trivia: Ex-marine and ex-newspaper reporter Scott Glenn was ideally suited to the action-oriented films that would become his lot in the 1980s and 1990s. After learning the rudiments of his craft at the Actors Studio and appearing off-Broadway, Glenn made his film bow in 1970's The Baby Maker. He was rescued from low-budget cycle flicks by director Robert Altman, who cast Glenn as Pfc. Glenn Kelly in Nashville (1975). As rangy and rugged off-camera as on, Glenn was one of the few film actors of recent years to flourish in western roles: among his more impressive credits within this genre are Cattle Annie and Little Britches (1981), Silverado (1985), My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys (1993), and, stretching a point a bit, Urban Cowboy (1980). Glenn has been equally laudable in such suit-and-tie roles as Jodie Foster's FBI chief in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), in "military" assignments like astronaut Alan Shepard in The Right Stuff (1981) and the U.S. sub commander in Hunt for Red October (1990). As a tribute to Robert Altman, the director who elevated him to "A" pictures back in 1975, Scott Glenn accepted a drastic cut in salary to portray "Himself" in Altman's The Player (1992). Over the next several years, Glenn remained active on screen, appearing in films like Training Day, The Virgin Suicides, The Bourne Ultimatum, W., and The Paperboy.

Richard Moll (Actor) .. Goliath

Born: January 13, 1943
Birthplace: Pasadena, California, United States

Trivia: Six feet tall by the time he was twelve, Richard Moll would eventually peak at 6'8". To ward off jokes about his height, Moll adopted the "class clown" pose in school, eventually developing a taste for play-acting. Moving from his hometown of Pasadena to Hollywood in 1968, Moll spent the next decade or so with various theatrical troupes, and for a while toured schools in the role of Abraham Lincoln. Whenever he made the movie and TV casting rounds, Moll was greeted with an astonished "What a monster!"; thus, a monster he became, playing a steady succession of "bikers and snake men and one-eyed mutants." He was one of the title characters in the 1972 TV movie Gargoyles, was seen as an abominable snowman in Caveman (1981), and played various and assorted hulking goons in such adventure flicks as Metalstorm (1982) and The Sword and the Sorceror (1984). He was finally allowed to exhibit his "human" side--not to mention his considerable flair for light comedy--as court guard Bull Shannon on the long-running (1984-92) TV sitcom Night Court. Back to monstrosities and villains again in the 1990s--this time by choice rather than necessity-- Richard Moll has continued appearing in sizeable (in more ways than one) TV guest-star roles, and has lent his vocal talents to the role of Harvey Dent, aka Two-Face, in Batman: The Animated Series.

Woodrow Chambliss (Actor) .. General Storekeeper

Born: January 01, 1914
Died: January 01, 1981

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