Long Beach

Michael Stephen "Mike" Portnoy is an American drummer primarily known as the former drummer, backing vocalist, and a co-founder of the progressive... metal band Dream Theater. Known for his drumming prowess and technical skill, Portnoy has won 26 awards from the Modern Drummer magazine . He co-produced six Dream Theater albums with guitarist John Petrucci, starting from Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory through Black Clouds and Silver Linings. From A Change of Seasons onwards, Portnoy had been writing a significant amount of Dream Theater's lyrics. He is the second youngest person to be inducted into the Modern Drummer's Hall of Fame . Besides his work with Dream Theater, Portnoy is known for his many side projects and tribute bands. He is a founding member of Liquid Tension Experiment, an instrumental progressive rock band featuring fellow DT members John Petrucci and Jordan Rudess along with bass legend Tony Levin.
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Richard Hanley Jaeckel was an American actor of film and television. Jaeckel was born in Long Beach, New York. A short, but tough guy, he played a... variety of characters during his fifty years in movies and television and became one of Hollywood's best known character actors. Jaeckel got his start in the business at the age of seventeen while working as a mailboy at 20th Century Fox studios in Hollywood. A casting director auditioned him for a key role in the 1943 film Guadalcanal Diary, Jaeckel won the role and settled into a lengthy career in supporting parts. He served in the United States Merchant Marine from 1944 to 1949 then starred in two of the most remembered war films of 1949: Battleground and Sands of Iwo Jima with John Wayne. One of Jaeckel's shortest film roles was in The Gunfighter, in which his character is killed by Gregory Peck's character in the opening scene. He also played the role of Turk, the roomer's boyfriend, in the Oscar-winning 1952 film Come Back, Little Sheba, co-starring with Shirley Booth, Burt Lancaster, and Terry Moore. In 1960, he appeared as Angus Pierce in the Western Flaming Star which starred Elvis Presley.
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Edward Lauter is an American actor. He has appeared in numerous movies and was a stand up comic before getting into acting. Lauter was born in Long... Beach, Long Island, New York. His films include The Last American Hero , Executive Action , The Midnight Man , The Longest Yard , Breakheart Pass , King Kong , Magic , Death Hunt , Cujo , Real Genius , Girls Just Want To Have Fun , Death Wish 3 , Youngblood , Raw Deal , Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise , Born on the Fourth of July , The Rocketeer , School Ties , True Romance , Under Wraps Not Another Teen Movie , Purple Heart , Camille , A Modern Twain Story: The Prince and the Pauper and The Artist . He starred with Bruce Dern, Barbara Harris, Karen Black and William Devane in the final film of director Alfred Hitchcock, Family Plot.
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Lu Leonard was an American actress. She made over 45 film and television appearances between 1956 and 1995. Due to her rotund figure, Leonard was... often cast as a love interest who often intimidated her husband or boyfriend. Leonard's first major appearance was as the wife of Three Stooges member Larry Fine in the film Husbands Beware. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Leonard made television appearances on such shows as Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy and Married with Children. Her most memorable was in a recurring role as William Conrad's wise-cracking secretary in Jake and the Fatman. Also during this time she became a regional celebrity in the Los Angeles Theatre circuit for her outrageous portrayal as a lesbian head matron in the play Women Behind Bars. She has also done voices in the Hanna-Barbera version of the animated TV series Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures. Leonard, who was the daughter of late 1930s-1950s character actor Hal Price, died on May 14, 2004.
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