Burbank

Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as... Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and for blockbusters such as Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Batman, Batman Returns, Planet of the Apes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, 9 and Alice in Wonderland, his most recent film, which was the second highest-grossing film of 2010 as well as the ninth highest-grossing film of all time. Among Burton's many collaborators are Johnny Depp, who became a close friend since their first film together, musician Danny Elfman and domestic partner Helena Bonham Carter. He also wrote and illustrated the poetry book The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories, published in 1997, and a compilation of his drawings, entitled The Art of Tim Burton, was released in 2009. Burton has directed 14 films as of 2010, and has produced 10 as of 2009.
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Ronald William "Ron" Howard is an American film director, producer and former child actor. He came to prominence playing Opie Taylor in the sitcom... The Andy Griffith Show for eight years, and later the teenaged Richie Cunningham in the sitcom Happy Days for six years. He is often credited as one of the greatest gingers of all-time. He appeared in the films American Graffiti in 1973 and The Shootist in 1976, the latter during his run on Happy Days. Howard made his directorial debut with the 1977 comedy Grand Theft Auto, and left Happy Days in 1980 to focus on directing. His films include the Academy Award-winning Cocoon, Apollo 13, and A Beautiful Mind. In 2003, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Asteroid 12561 Howard is named after him. Howard was born in Duncan, Oklahoma, the son of Jean Speegle Howard, an actress, and Rance Howard, a director, writer and actor, who was serving three years in the United States Air Force at the time. The family moved to Hollywood in 1958, the year before the birth of his younger brother, Clint Howard. They rented a house on the block south of the Desilu Studios, where The Andy Griffith Show would later be filmed.
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Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III is an American actor and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the... television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers. As a writer, he is best known for his blogs Wil Wheaton Dot Net and WWdN: In Exile. Wheaton was born in Burbank, California, to Debbie , an actress, and Richard William Wheaton, Jr., a medical specialist. He has a brother, Jeremy, and a sister, Amy. Both appeared uncredited in the episode "When the Bough Breaks" of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wheaton made his acting debut in the 1981 TV film A Long Way Home, and his first cinema role was as Martin Brisby in the 1982 animated film The Secret of NIMH, the movie adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. He had a minor role in the 1984 movie The Last Starfighter. He first gained widespread attention in 1986 as Gordie Lachance in Stand by Me, the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Body. In 1991, he played Joey Trotta in the film Toy Soldiers.
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Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed... roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially accessible recordings in the 1990s including "Nick of Time", "Something to Talk About", "Love Sneakin' Up on You", and the slow ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me". Raitt has received nine Grammy Awards in her career and is a lifelong political activist. Raitt, the daughter of Broadway musical star John Raitt and his first wife, pianist Marjorie Haydock, began playing guitar at an early age, something few of her high school female friends did. Later she would become famous for her bottleneck-style guitar playing. "I had played a little at school and at camp", she later recalled in a July 2002 interview. The camp Raitt refers to is Camp Regis-Applejack, located in the heart of the Adirondacks.
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Soleil Moon Frye is an American actress, director and screenwriter. Frye is best known for her childhood role as the title character in sitcom Punky... Brewster, and as Roxie King in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Frye was born in Glendora, California. Her father is actor Virgil Frye, and her mother is talent agent Sondra Peluce Londy. She has two half-brothers, Sean Frye and Meeno Peluce, both former child actors. Frye's parents divorced when she was two. Frye made her acting debut in the 1982 television movie Missing Children: A Mother's Story. At the age of eight, she starred in the title role of Punky Brewster, a sitcom that aired on NBC and in syndication from 1984 to 1988. She also voiced the lead role in the animated series It's Punky Brewster. After the series ended in 1986, Frye landed the lead role in the short lived 1988 sitcom Cadets. During the 1990s, she guest starred on several television series including The Wonder Years, Saved by the Bell, and Friends, and voiced characters for the animated series Tiny Toon Adventures and The Cartoon Cartoon Show.
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Sean Justin Penn is an American humanitarian, actor, screenwriter and film director, also known for his political and social activism. He is a... two-time Academy Award winner for his roles in Mystic River and Milk , as well as the recipient of a Golden Globe Award for the former and a Screen Actors Guild Award for the latter. Penn began his acting career in television with a brief appearance in a 1974 episode of Little House on the Prairie, directed by his father Leo Penn. Following his film debut in 1981's Taps and a diverse range of film roles in the 1980s, including a memorable role as surfing enthusiast Jeff Spicoli in the 1982 film Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Penn subsequently emerged as a prominent leading actor with the 1995 drama film Dead Man Walking, for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination and the Best Actor Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Penn subsequently received another two Oscar nominations for Sweet and Lowdown and I Am Sam , before winning his first Academy Award for Best Actor in 2003 for Mystic River and a second one in 2008 for Milk.
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Ami Dolenz is an American television and film actress and producer. Born in Burbank, California into a show business family, Dolenz is the daughter... of Micky Dolenz of the 1960s group the Monkees, and British television presenter Samantha Juste. Her paternal grandparents were the film actors George Dolenz and Janelle Johnson. At age 15, Dolenz won a junior talent contest and decided to become an actress. She dropped out of high school and began appearing in roles on various television series. One of her first acting roles was in the television movie The Children of Times Square, followed by a two episode stint on Growing Pains. In 1987, she appeared in a small role in the comedy Can't Buy Me Love. Later that year, she landed the role of Melissa McKee in the long running soap opera General Hospital. The role garnered Dolenz attention, earning her two nominations for a Young Artist Award. After leaving General Hospital in 1989, Dolenz landed a co-starring role opposite Tony Danza in She's Out of Control. The following year she portrayed Sloan Peterson in the television series of Ferris Bueller.
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Richard William "Wil" Wheaton III is an American actor and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Wesley Crusher on the... television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Gordie Lachance in the film Stand by Me and Joey Trotta in Toy Soldiers. As a writer, he is best known for his blogs Wil Wheaton Dot Net and WWdN: In Exile. Wheaton was born in Burbank, California, to Debbie , an actress, and Richard William Wheaton, Jr., a medical specialist. He has a brother, Jeremy, and a sister, Amy. Both appeared uncredited in the episode "When the Bough Breaks" of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Wheaton made his acting debut in the 1981 TV film A Long Way Home, and his first cinema role was as Martin Brisby in the 1982 animated film The Secret of NIMH, the movie adaptation of Robert C. O'Brien's Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. He had a minor role in the 1984 movie The Last Starfighter. He first gained widespread attention in 1986 as Gordie Lachance in Stand by Me, the film adaptation of Stephen King's The Body. In 1991, he played Joey Trotta in the film Toy Soldiers.
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Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed... roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially accessible recordings in the 1990s including "Nick of Time", "Something to Talk About", "Love Sneakin' Up on You", and the slow ballad "I Can't Make You Love Me". Raitt has received nine Grammy Awards in her career and is a lifelong political activist. Raitt, the daughter of Broadway musical star John Raitt and his first wife, pianist Marjorie Haydock, began playing guitar at an early age, something few of her high school female friends did. Later she would become famous for her bottleneck-style guitar playing. "I had played a little at school and at camp", she later recalled in a July 2002 interview. The camp Raitt refers to is Camp Regis-Applejack, located in the heart of the Adirondacks.
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Rene Marie Russo is an American film actress, musician and former model. Russo was born in Burbank, California, the daughter of Shirley , a factory... worker and barmaid, and Nino Russo, a sculptor and car mechanic who left the family when Rene was two. Her father and maternal grandfather were of Italian descent. Russo grew up with her sister, Toni, and their single mother. She attended Burroughs High School , but eventually dropped out in the tenth grade. To help her family, she began taking a variety of part-time jobs including working in an eyeglass factory, and as a movie cashier. In 1972, at age 18 when at a Rolling Stones concert Rene was discovered by John Crosby from International Creative Management. Crosby suggested to her that she should be a model. Rene was very shy and insecure at the time, but she took Crosby's advice anyway. She had pictures taken and sent to Ford Modeling Agency who were impressed with her photos and signed her up. Rene went on to appear in magazine covers for Vogue, Mademoiselle, and several covers of Cosmopolitan.
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Jonathan Southworth "John" Ritter was an American actor, voice over artist and comedian perhaps best known for having played Jack Tripper and Paul... Hennessy in the ABC sitcoms Three's Company and 8 Simple Rules, respectively. He is also known for being the voice of the title character Clifford in the PBS television series Clifford the Big Red Dog. Don Knotts called him the "Greatest physical comedian on the planet". Ritter's final films—the screwball dark comedy Bad Santa and the two children's animated films Clifford's Really Big Movie and Stanley's Dinosaur Round-Up—were all dedicated in his memory. John Ritter was born in Burbank, California, the son of Dorothy Fay , an actress, and singing cowboy/matinee-star Tex Ritter. He attended Hollywood High School, where he was student body president. He went on to the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, and majored in psychology and minored in architecture. In 1966 at the age of 18, Ritter was a contestant on The Dating Game.
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Andrew Maurice Gold was an American singer, musician and songwriter. His works include the Top 10 single "Lonely Boy" , as well as "Thank You for... Being a Friend" , and "Never Let Her Slip Away" . Gold was a multi-instrumentalist, and he was also an artist, producer, film composer, session musician, actor, and painter. Gold was born in Burbank, California, and later joined a family business. His mother is singer Marni Nixon ; his father was Ernest Gold, the Academy Award-winning composer for the movie Exodus. He has two younger sisters. Gold began writing songs at the age of 13. By the early 1970s he was working as a musician, songwriter and record producer for many musicians. He was a member of the Los Angeles band Bryndle alongside Kenny Edwards, Wendy Waldman and Karla Bonoff. He played a major role as multi-instrumentalist and arranger for Linda Ronstadt's breakthrough album, 1974's Heart Like a Wheel, and her next four albums.
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