Sally Field
"You like me! You really like me!" Almost more famous for the sweet, endearing Oscar acceptance speech that she gave after winning the gold statue for her performance as the title character in the 1979 movie Norma Rae. Field has cemented herself into the hearts of the movie-going public all over the world for her open, down-to-earth and raw performances in dramas, thrillers and comedies alike. She began her career on television in 1965, and just five years later gave a critically acclaimed performance as Dennie in a television movie that was not particularly well-received, but in which her performance stood out.
One of Field's most popular roles was alongside Burt Reynolds in the Smokey and the Bandit franchise. The 1980s and 1990s saw her star continue to burn brightly with performances in the weepy Steel Magnolias and the hugely successful Forrest Gump. Six years later she returned to her smaller screen roots, appearing on the hit medical drama E.R. in a recurring guest role, and winning a Primetime Emmy Award in the Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series category.
In 2017 Field received the Tony Award nomination in the Best Actress in a Play category for her performance in the revival of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie which marked her return to the stage after seventeen years. One of Hollywood's rarest commodities - an actress whose career spans more than fifty years of popularity and leading roles - Field continues to blaze a trail that is both critically acclaimed and commercially well-received.
Lane Bradbury
Although she was actually a few years older than Sally Field, Lane Bradbury played the younger of the two Miller girls in the movie. As a child she was a dedicated ballet dancer but after growing too tall for professional ballet at the time, she found herself drawn to the stage as an actress and moved to New York from her native Atlanta, and became a member of the Actor's Studio. She made her Broadway debut opposite Christopher Plummer and also starred in Night of the Iguana alongside veteran star Bette Davis, a daunting prospect for any young and pretty newcomer. A stellar performance led to her first starring role, and she was the first actress to play the part of Dainty June in the original Broadway version of Gypsy.
Bradbury was not nearly as well known as a television actress as her co-star field, but she worked constantly as a guest actor on television series that ranged from The Fugitive to The Partridge Family.
In recent years, Bradbury and her husband began a non-profit introducing children and teens from at-risk situations to the theater, dance and the cinematic arts.
David Carradine
Best known for his role in the hit television series Kung Fu, Carradine was part of an acting dynasty that began with his father, John Carradine, and included his niece, Martha Plimpton. His sixty year career saw him appear in more than one hundred films, and for his work on Kung Fu he received an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe nomination and a plethora of People's Choice awards. He was also nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill II, winning a Saturn Award in the Best Supporting Actor category. He was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1997.
Eleanor Parker
Doug McLelland, her biographer, called Parker "the woman of a thousand faces", due to the more than eighty roles on big and small screen movies. She was signed by Warner Brothers at the age of eighteen in 1941 when the "studio system" was in its heyday. In the 1950s she was one of the most popular and respected actresses in Hollywood, nominated three times for an Academy Award in the Best Actress category. However, her most popular and universally-loved role is that of the Baroness von Schraeder, ostensibly Maria von Trapp's love rival, in The Sound of Music.
Parker broke free from her golden handcuffs deal at Warner Brothers because she wanted only to work on projects that she had faith in, and not those to which she was contractually obligated but were nonetheless obvious box office bombs waiting to happen. She began to explore the possibilities of television work in the early 1960s, and was nominated for an Emmy Award for her performance on the NBC medical drama The Eleventh Hour. Her final role came on the Angela Lansbury-driven detective drama Murder She Wrote.
Jackie Cooper
Cooper was a child star who made the successful and somewhat rare transition from child to adult role onscreen with apparent ease. He was the first child actor to receive an Academy Award Nomination and was also the first child actor to receive an Oscar nomination in the Best Leading Actor category - this nomination came for his role in the 1931 film Skippy.
Cooper joined the military as a teen and attained the rank of Naval Captain during World War II. Returning to civilian life after the war, he resumed his acting career with two popular television sit-coms before working as a guest actor on a variety of popular television series including Hawaii 5-0 and The Rockford Files.
The Superman franchise brought about something of a career resurgence for Cooper who was cast in the role of Perry White, the Editor of the Daily Planet, after Keenan Wynn suffered a heart attack and became unavailable for the film. He had originally auditioned for the role of Lex Luthor's sidekick Otis, and won the role of White because he had a passport and could travel at short notice.
In 1987, Cooper worked with his Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring co-star Sally Field one last time, appearing alongside Field, Steve Guttenberg, and Michael Caine in the movie Surrender.
