Wilkes-Barre

Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles as Stands With A Fist... in Dances with Wolves and Mary-Alice Culhane in Passion Fish, she is also well known for her performance as President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, the President's wife in Independence Day, and for her starring role in Donnie Darko as the title character's mother. McDonnell was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in Ithaca, New York. After graduating from the State University of New York at Fredonia, she attended drama school and joined the East Coast's prestigious Long Wharf Theatre Company, with which she worked for over 20 years. McDonnell is married to Randle Mell, who is also an actor. They have two children, Olivia and Michael. In a question and answer session for SyFy regarding her role as Laura Roslin, she was asked if any of her character's political views caused her any discomfort because of her own views.
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Jerome Bernard "Jerry" Orbach was an American actor and singer. He was well known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe in the Law &... Order television series and as the voice of Lumière in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. Orbach was also a noted musical theatre star. His prominent roles included originating the character of El Gallo in The Fantasticks, the longest-running musical play in history, Chuck Baxter in the original production of Promises, Promises , Julian Marsh in 42nd Street and Billy Flynn in the original production of Chicago. Orbach was born in The Bronx, the only child of Emily , a greeting card manufacturer and radio singer, and Leon Orbach, a restaurant manager and vaudeville performer. His father was a Jewish immigrant from Hamburg, Germany. His mother, a native of Pennsylvania, was Polish American and Catholic, and Orbach was raised Catholic .
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Michael Schoeffling is an American former actor, and male model, best known for playing Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles, Kuch in Vision Quest, and Joe... in Mermaids. Schoeffling was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in South Jersey. He graduated from Cherokee High School in New Jersey, and majored in Liberal Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia. In the mid-1980s he began modeling for GQ, and star photographer Bruce Weber paid for his acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Manhattan. Michael Schoeffling was found in a mall by a famous designer. An accomplished youth and collegiate wrestler, Michael has won medals in various national and international tournaments. He won a gold medal for the United States in freestyle wrestling, as a member of the National Junior Wrestling Team in a meet held in Munich, Germany in 1978. His considerable wrestling skills were downplayed as 'Kuch' in Vision Quest, where he wrestled Matthew Modine, his teammate in the movie, and lost by fall in a wrestle off.
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Benjamin Jackson Burnley IV is an American musician, best known as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and primary songwriter for the band Breaking... Benjamin. Benjamin Burnley was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey and grew up there and in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. At 18, he dropped out of high school and moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, where he became a roommate of former Breaking Benjamin bass player Jonathan Price. He taught himself to play guitar by listening to Nirvana's Nevermind . Before Breaking Benjamin was formed, Burnley earned money playing cover songs in various coffee houses as a solo artist. It was during this era that his band got its name. After performing a Nirvana cover, Ben knocked over a microphone and cracked it. The mic's owner walked onstage and said, "I'd like to thank Benjamin for breaking my fucking microphone." In 1998, Burnley and former lead guitarist Aaron Fink, got together and started the band “Breaking Benjamin.
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James Karen is an American character actor of Broadway, film and television. Karen was born Jacob Karnofsky in Wilkes-Barre, in northeastern... Pennsylvania, the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Mae and Joseph H. Karnofsky, a produce dealer. As a young man, Karen was encouraged to be an actor by U.S. Congressman Daniel J. Flood, who was an amateur thespian himself, recruiting him into a production at the Little Theatre of Wilkes-Barre. He attended the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. His big break came when he was asked to understudy Karl Malden in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. On television he played Dr. Burke on As the World Turns and was the original Lincoln Tyler on All My Children. He is perhaps best known for his recurring role on the television series Eight Is Enough. He is also well-known on the east coast for his 20 years as television and radio spokesman for the Pathmark supermarket chain. He also appeared in the Golden Girls as a prospective love interest for Dorothy.
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Raghib Ramadian "Rocket" Ismail is an American former American and Canadian football player. A wide receiver and kick returner he played in both the... Canadian Football League and the National Football League, after playing college football at Notre Dame. Ismail recorded two 1,000-yard receiving seasons in the NFL and was a CFL All-Star in 1991, as well as the Most Valuable Player of the 79th Grey Cup. In 2004, CollegeFootballNews.com named Ismail the No. 75 player on its list of the Top 100 Greatest College Football Players of All-Time. Ismail grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania and attended Elmer L. Meyers Junior/Senior High School. He first came to prominence as a receiver for the University of Notre Dame. Notre Dame won the College Football National Championship in 1988, placed second in 1989 winning the 1990 Orange Bowl against Colorado, and again went to the 1991 Orange Bowl, losing to Colorado 10–9. In that game, he returned a punt 91 yards for a touchdown that would have won the game for Notre Dame and stopped Colorado from winning a share of the National Championship, however the play was called back on a clipping penalty sealing the Irish defeat.
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Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the... writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J. Mankiewicz who also won an Oscar for co-writing Citizen Kane . Joseph Mankiewicz was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania to Franz Mankiewicz and Johanna Blumenau, Jewish immigrants from Germany. He had a sister, Erna Mankiewicz , and a brother, Herman J. Mankiewicz, who became a screenwriter. At age four, Mankiewicz moved with his family to New York City where he graduated in 1924 from Stuyvesant High School. In 1928, he obtained a bachelor's degree from Columbia University. For a time he worked in Berlin, Germany, as a foreign correspondent for the Chicago Tribune newspaper before entering the motion picture business. Comfortable in a variety of genres and able to elicit career performances from actors and actresses alike, Joseph L.
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Mary Eileen McDonnell is an American film, stage, and television actress. She received Academy Award nominations for her roles as Stands With A Fist... in Dances with Wolves and Mary-Alice Culhane in Passion Fish, she is also well known for her performance as President Laura Roslin in Battlestar Galactica, the President's wife in Independence Day, and for her starring role in Donnie Darko as the title character's mother. McDonnell was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in Ithaca, New York. After graduating from the State University of New York at Fredonia, she attended drama school and joined the East Coast's prestigious Long Wharf Theatre Company, with which she worked for over 20 years. McDonnell is married to Randle Mell, who is also an actor. They have two children, Olivia and Michael. In a question and answer session for SyFy regarding her role as Laura Roslin, she was asked if any of her character's political views caused her any discomfort because of her own views.
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Michael Schoeffling is an American former actor, and male model, best known for playing Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles, Kuch in Vision Quest, and Joe... in Mermaids. Schoeffling was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and raised in South Jersey. He graduated from Cherokee High School in New Jersey, and majored in Liberal Arts at Temple University in Philadelphia. In the mid-1980s he began modeling for GQ, and star photographer Bruce Weber paid for his acting classes at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute in Manhattan. Michael Schoeffling was found in a mall by a famous designer. An accomplished youth and collegiate wrestler, Michael has won medals in various national and international tournaments. He won a gold medal for the United States in freestyle wrestling, as a member of the National Junior Wrestling Team in a meet held in Munich, Germany in 1978. His considerable wrestling skills were downplayed as 'Kuch' in Vision Quest, where he wrestled Matthew Modine, his teammate in the movie, and lost by fall in a wrestle off.
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Harley Jane Kozak is an American actress and author. Kozak was born Susan Jane Kozak in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, the daughter of Dorothy , a... university music teacher, and Joseph Aloysius Kozak, an attorney. She has seven siblings: brothers John, Joseph, Peter and Andrew and sisters Dorothy, Mary and Ann. Harley is the youngest of them. Their father died when Harley was a year old. She was raised in Nebraska and attended New York University's Graduate Acting Program at the Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in 1980. In her early 20s she changed her name from Susan to Harley in honor of a close friend. Kozak starred in movies such asThe Favor, Parenthood, Arachnophobia, All I Want for Christmas and the soap operas Texas , Guiding Light and Santa Barbara .
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James Karen is an American character actor of Broadway, film and television. Karen was born Jacob Karnofsky in Wilkes-Barre, in northeastern... Pennsylvania, the son of Russian-born Jewish immigrants Mae and Joseph H. Karnofsky, a produce dealer. As a young man, Karen was encouraged to be an actor by U.S. Congressman Daniel J. Flood, who was an amateur thespian himself, recruiting him into a production at the Little Theatre of Wilkes-Barre. He attended the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York. His big break came when he was asked to understudy Karl Malden in the original Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire. On television he played Dr. Burke on As the World Turns and was the original Lincoln Tyler on All My Children. He is perhaps best known for his recurring role on the television series Eight Is Enough. He is also well-known on the east coast for his 20 years as television and radio spokesman for the Pathmark supermarket chain. He also appeared in the Golden Girls as a prospective love interest for Dorothy.
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Raye Hollitt is an American actress and female bodybuilder, also known by her stage name Zap, one of the original cast members of American... Gladiators. She was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Raye Hollitt appeared in Season 1 of American Gladiators in 1989, taking off the second season for maternity leave, before returning for Season 3 and continuing on the show through 1995. She reappeared for an alumni show in the final season . Hollitt married actor Ted Prior in 1990. Ted remarried in 1992 and has three children, as well as, their daughter, Teddi Rae. She is not married to date. Before she was famous as Zap, Hollitt was a contestant on the game show Card Sharks.
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