Digital Archive

Cicely Tyson

Entity type: Individual

Cicely Louise Tyson was an American actress. In a career which spanned more than seven decades in film, television and theatre, she became known for her portrayal of strong African-American women. Tyson received various awards including three Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Tony Award, an Honorary Academy Award, and a Peabody Award. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Jane Alexander

Entity type: Individual

Polly Bergen

Entity type: Individual

Polly Bergen was an American actress, singer, television host, writer and entrepreneur. She won an Emmy Award in 1958 for her performance as Helen Morgan in The Helen Morgan Story. For her stage work, she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her performance as Carlotta Campion in Follies in 2001. Her film work included Cape Fear (1962) and The Caretakers (1963), for which she was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama. She hosted her own weekly variety show for one season (The Polly Bergen Show), was a regular panelist on the TV game show To Tell the Truth, and later in life had roles in The Sopranos and Desperate Housewives. She wrote three books on beauty, fashion, and charm. She is also the inspiration behind Mother Goose in The Land of Stories. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Ellen Burstyn

Entity type: Individual

Ellen Burstyn is an American actress. Known for her portrayals of complicated women in dramas, she is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards, making her one of the few performers to achieve the "Triple Crown of Acting". Born in Detroit, Michigan, Burstyn left school and worked as a dancer and model. At age 24, she made her acting debut on Broadway in 1957 and soon started to make appearances in television shows. Stardom followed several years later with her acclaimed role in The Last Picture Show (1971), which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. Her next appearance in The Exorcist (1973), earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actress. The film has remained popular and several publications have regarded it as one of the greatest horror films of all time. She followed this with Martin Scorsese's Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974), winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in the title role. In 1975 she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role in Same Time, Next Year. Her performance in the 1978 film adaptation won her a Golden Globe Award. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Ruby Dee

Entity type: Individual

Joan Ganz Cooney

Entity type: Individual

Joan Ganz Cooney is an American television writer and producer. She is one of the founders of Sesame Workshop (formerly Children's Television Workshop or CTW), the organization famous for the creation of the children's television show Sesame Street, which was also co-created by her. Cooney grew up in Phoenix and earned a Bachelor of Arts in education from the University of Arizona in 1951. After working for the State Department in Washington, D.C., and as a journalist in Phoenix, she worked as a publicist for television and production companies in New York City. In 1961, she became interested in working for educational television, and became a documentary producer for New York's first educational TV station WNET (Channel 13). Many of the programs she produced won local Emmys. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License

Julie Harris

Entity type: Individual

Lena Horne

Entity type: Individual

Lena Mary Calhoun Horne was an American dancer, actress, singer, and civil rights activist. Horne's career spanned more than seventy years, appearing in film, television, and theatre. Horne joined the chorus of the Cotton Club at the age of sixteen and became a nightclub performer before moving to Hollywood. Horne advocated for human rights and took part in the March on Washington in August 1963. Later she returned to her roots as a nightclub performer and continued to work on television while releasing well-received record albums. She announced her retirement in March 1980, but the next year starred in a one-woman show, Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music, which ran for more than 300 performances on Broadway. She then toured the country in the show, earning numerous awards and accolades. Horne continued recording and performing sporadically into the 1990s, retreating from the public eye in 2000. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Shari Lewis

Entity type: Individual

Shirley MacLaine

Entity type: Individual

Shirley MacLaine (born Shirley MacLean Beaty; April 24, 1934) is an American actress and author. With a career spanning over 70 years, she has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, an Emmy Award, two BAFTA Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Volpi Cups, and two Silver Bears. She has been honored with the Film Society of Lincoln Center Tribute in 1995, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1998, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2012, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 2014. MacLaine is one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Sonia Manzano

Entity type: Individual

Rita Moreno

Entity type: Individual

Rita Moreno is a Puerto Rican actress, dancer, and singer. She is noted for her work on stage and screen in career spanning over seven decades. Among her numerous accolades, she is one of a few performers to have been awarded an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony (EGOT) and the Triple Crown of Acting, with individual competitive Academy, Emmy and Tony awards. She has also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004, the National Medal of Arts in 2009, and Kennedy Center Honor in 2015. Moreno's work includes supporting roles in the classic musical films Singin' in the Rain (1952), and The King and I (1956), before her breakout role as Anita in 1961 film West Side Story, which earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She made history becoming the first Hispanic woman to win an Academy Award.[5] She later portrayed Valentina in the 2021 remake directed by Steven Spielberg. Her other notable films include Popi (1969), Carnal Knowledge (1971), The Four Seasons (1981), I Like It Like That (1994) and the cult film Slums of Beverly Hills (1998). This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Patricia Neal

Entity type: Individual

Patricia Neal was an American actress of stage and screen. A major star of the 1950s and 1960s, she was the recipient of an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, and two British Academy Film Awards, and was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards. Her most popular film roles were: World War II widow Helen Benson in The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), radio journalist Marcia Jeffries in A Face in the Crowd (1957), wealthy matron Emily Eustace Failenson in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and the worn-out housekeeper Alma Brown in Hud (1963), for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. She featured as the matriarch in the television film The Homecoming: A Christmas Story (1971); her role as Olivia Walton was re-cast for the series it inspired, The Waltons. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Let it Ripple Studio

Entity type: Organization

supersisters™

Entity type: Organization

Marlo Thomas

Entity type: Individual

Lily Tomlin

Entity type: Individual

Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin is an American actress, comedian, writer, singer, and producer. She started her career as a stand-up comedian as well as performing off-Broadway during the 1960s. Her breakout role was on the variety show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In from 1969 until 1973. She starred as Frankie Bergstein on the Netflix series Grace and Frankie, which debuted in 2015 and earned her nominations for four Primetime Emmy Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. In 1975, Tomlin made her film debut with Robert Altman's Nashville, which earned her a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1977, her performance as Margo Sperling in The Late Show won her the Silver Bear for Best Actress and nominations for the Golden Globe and BAFTA Award for Best Actress. Her other notable films include 9 to 5 (1980), All of Me (1984), Big Business (1988), Flirting with Disaster (1996), Tea with Mussolini (1999), I Heart Huckabees (2004), and Grandma (2015). Her signature role was written by her then-partner (now wife), Jane Wagner, in a show titled The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe which opened on Broadway in 1985 and won Tomlin the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Play. She is also known as the voice of Ms. Frizzle on the children's series The Magic School Bus. She won her first Emmy Awards in 1974 for writing and producing her own television special, Lily. Tomlin won a Grammy Award for her 1972 comedy album This Is a Recording. In 2014, she was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor and in 2017 she received the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.

Leslie Uggams

Entity type: Individual

Claudia Weill

Entity type: Individual

Contributor

Claudia Weill is an American film director best known for her film Girlfriends (1978), starring Melanie Mayron, Christopher Guest, Bob Balaban and Eli Wallach, made independently and sold to Warner Brothers after multiple awards at Cannes, Filmex and Sundance. Girlfriends would be one of 82 films made by a female director to compete at Cannes. In 2019, Girlfriends was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". This biography is from Wikipedia under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.