Red Buttons (February 5 1919 – July 13 2006) was the stage name of American comedian and actor Aaron Chwatt. He won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Airman Joe Kelly in Sayonara (1957), a rare dramatic role.
Chwatt was born in New York City to Jewish immigrants. At sixteen years old, Chwatt got a job as an entertaining bellhop at Ryan's Tavern in City Island, Bronx. The combination of his red hair and the shiny buttoned bellhop uniform inspired orchestra leader Charles "Dinty" Moore to call him Red Buttons, the name under which he would later perform.
Later that same summer, Buttons worked on the Borscht Belt; his straight man was Robert Alda. In 1939, Buttons started working for Minsky's Burlesque; in 1941, José Ferrer chose Buttons to appear in a Broadway show The Admiral Had a Wife. The show was a farce set in Pearl Harbor, and it was due to open on December 8 1941. It never did, as it was deemed inappropriate after the Japanese attack. In later years...
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Last updated: 03/11/10 at 03:40 PM
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The Story of Us is a 1999 film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer as a married couple of 15 years. Ben and Katie have two children, Josh and Erin. Their marriage hasn't always been perfect. They've fought. The movie shows us in flashbacks when their relationship has been like. Ben, Katie, Josh, and Erin sit around the dinner table every night and tell everyone how their day went. When Josh and Erin go to summer camp, Ben moves out of the house. He and Katie decide to get a divorce. Through the flashbacks, we learn that Ben and Katie's old apartment is being demolished. We also also learn that Ben wanted a third child, but Katie refused. The couple went on a vacation to Italy. Other flashbacks show Katie telling Ben she is pregnant both times. We see Ben and Katie's first date. When Ben and Katie go to parents weekend at the camp, they decide not to tell their children of their impending divorce. They decide to tell them when summer camp is over....,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0160916
The Ambulance is a 1990 thriller film written and directed by Larry Cohen. It stars Eric Roberts, James Earl Jones, Janine Turner, Megan Gallagher, Red Buttons, and Eric Braeden as the Doctor.Picture Of The Movie Carhttp://www.100megsfree4.com/cadillac/cad1970/1973/73ambulance.jpgThe Ambulance is a Hitchcock-style thriller in which a man (Roberts) witnesses the kidnapping of a young woman and investigates her disappearance, much to the disdain of a gum-chomping policeman (James Earl Jones)....
This 1985 adaptation of Lewis Carroll's books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass was a two-part special made for television and used a huge all-star cast of notable actors and actresses. The role of Alice was played by Natalie Gregory. Alice in Wonderland was first telecast Dec 9, 1985, (part one) and Dec 10, 1985 (part two), at 8:00pm EST on CBS. The movie was released on DVD August 1st, 2006.
The first part opens with Alice helping Mother set the table for tea time. Although thankful for her daughter's help, Mother tells Alice that she is still not grown up enough to join the grown-ups at tea. Alice goes outside to see her sister, but gets bored at the "dull thought" of reading a book with no pictures. Her sister tells her that she will understand when she grows up. But Alice thinks she is already grown up (after all she's already seven and a half). While playing with her cat, Dinah, all of a sudden The White Rabbit comes running by, saying he's late....
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088693
Produced by the "Master of Disaster," Irwin Allen, When Time Ran Out... is loosely based on a novel detailing the factual 1902 volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée on Martinique, which killed 30,000 people in five minutes (by pyroclastic flow). When Time Ran Out... has the distinction of being both the last notable "disaster film" produced at the tail-end of the 1970s cycle of the genre, and Irwin Allen's last theatrically-released picture.
When Time Ran Out... deals with the eruption of a volcano on a remote Pacific island, threatening a newly-constructed, multi-million dollar resort, an oil drilling project, and a volcano observatory perched on the edge of the caldera. After a major eruption causes a lava flow to head directly towards the resort, a small group of people attempt to escape to safety on the opposite side of the island, while others remain behind.
Allen recycled many of the ideas and scenarios presented in his two huge hits, The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0081747
Viva Knievel! is a 1977 action movie starring Evel Knievel as himself, Gene Kelly as Will Atkins, and Lauren Hutton as photojournalist Kate Morgan.
Daredevil motorcycle rider Evel Knievel stars as himself in this fictional story. The film opens with Knievel sneaking into an orphanage late at night to deliver presents: Evel Knievel action figures. One of the boys casts away his crutches, telling Knievel that if he could walk after his crashes, then he (the boy) can, too.
Knievel then prepares for another of his stunt jumps. We are introduced to his alcoholic mechanic Wil Atkins (film legend Gene Kelly), who was a former stunt rider himself before his wife died, driving him to drink. While signing autographs, Knievel is ambushed by feminist photojournalist Kate Morgan (Lauren Hutton), who has been sent to photograph the jump: if Knievel is killed, it will be a great story.
As it happens, Evel does crash while attempting the stunt (shown using footage from one of Knievel's real jumps),...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076890
Pete's Dragon (first released on November 3, 1977) is a live-action/animated musical feature film from Walt Disney Productions. It is a live-action film but its title character, a dragon named Elliott, is animated. It is about a young orphan named Pete (played by Sean Marshall) who enters a small fishing community in Maine in the early 20th century. His only friend is a dragon, Elliott (voiced by Charlie Callas and animated by Don Bluth), who also acts as his sentinel. Elliott can make himself invisible and is generally visible only to Pete, which occasionally lands Pete in trouble with the locals.
Also featured in the film are Helen Reddy, Mickey Rooney, Jim Dale, Red Buttons, Jeff Conaway and Shelley Winters. The film was directed by Don Chaffey, and the songs are by Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn. The song "Candle on the Water" received an Academy Award nomination, and Helen Reddy's recording (with a different arrangement than the one her character sings in the film) was released...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076538
The Poseidon Adventure is a 1972 action adventure/disaster/thriller film based on a novel by Paul Gallico. It concerns the capsizing of a luxurious ocean liner by a tsunami and the desperate struggles of a handful of survivors to journey up to the bottom of the hull of the liner before it sinks.It won the Academy Award for Best Song for "The Song from 'The Poseidon Adventure'" (aka "The Morning After"), which became a hit single for Maureen McGovern, as well as winning an Academy Award for Special Achievement in Visual Effects. Shelley Winters was also nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a film for the role.The plot centers upon the SS Poseidon, an aged luxury liner from the golden age of travel, on its final voyage from New York City to Athens before being sent to the scrapyard. On New Year's Eve, it is overturned by a tsunami wave caused by an underwater earthquake, trapping...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069113
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a 1969 film which tells the story of several contestants in a Depression-era dance marathon. The movie was adapted by James Poe and Robert E. Thompson from the 1935 novel by Horace McCoy. It was directed by Sydney Pollack.
It stars Jane Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, Susannah York, Gig Young, Red Buttons, Bonnie Bedelia, Michael Conrad and Bruce Dern.
Sydney Pollack's dark and impassioned adaptation of Horace McCoy's novel examines the limits of devotion and endurance. The intricately interwoven plot centers on a marathon dance contest that takes place in the 1930s during the Great Depression. The poverty-stricken participants struggle to keep their footing in order to survive the hard times, with hope for the cash prize the sole reason for continuing to dance.
Jane Fonda was originally uninterested in acting in the movie, saying that "the script wasn't very good." However, then-husband Roger Vadim, a fan of the leftist-themed McCoy novel, urged her to...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065088
Harlow is the title of two competing biographical films released through Paramount Pictures and the foreign film distributor Magna Pictures, both released in 1965 and portraying the life of actress Jean Harlow. The Paramount version starred Carroll Baker in title role, while the Magna release starred Carol Lynley.
Filmed in black-and-white electronovision (a photographic technique relegated to television by 1965), the Magna version was released five weeks before Paramount's with a more limited release. Directed by television veteran Alex Segal, the film was made with a very low budget, serving as a second feature at most theaters. While Carol Lynley was arguably the better Harlow, being closer to Jean Harlow's actual age than Baker, the film's contrived plot and poor budget prevented it from gaining as much attention as Paramount's big budget version.
In the film, Efrem Zimbalist Jr's character, William Mansfield, is based on William Powell, who the real Harlow was about to marry...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059252
The Longest Day is a 3-hour-long 1962 war film with a very large cast, based on the 1959 history The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan, about "D-Day", the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, during World War II.
The movie was adapted by Romain Gary, James Jones, David Pursall, Cornelius Ryan and Jack Seddon from the Ryan book. It was directed by Ken Annakin (British and French exteriors), Andrew Marton (American exteriors), Gerd Oswald (parachute drop scene), Bernhard Wicki (German scenes) and Darryl F. Zanuck (uncredited).
Many of the military consultants and advisors who helped with the film's production were actual participants in the action on D-Day, and are portrayed in the film. The producers drew them from both sides. Among them are GĂĽnther Blumentritt (a former German general), James M. Gavin (an American general), Frederick Morgan (Deputy Chief of Staff at SHAEF), John Howard (who led the airborne assault on the Pegasus Bridge), The Earl of Lovat (who commanded the 1st Special...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056197
Hatari! is a 1962 American film directed by Howard Hawks and starring John Wayne.
The plot involves a group of trappers catching wild animals in Africa and selling them to zoos. A female wildlife photographer arrives to take photos of the captures for the zoo which will be buying the bulk of that season's captures, and in the process becomes known as Momma Tambo (Mother of Elephants) due to some baby elephants that she takes care of.
The film gathers its several characters from different parts of the world: Sean Mercer (John Wayne), Anna Maria 'Dallas' D'Allesandro (Elsa Martinelli), Kurt Mueller (Hardy KrĂĽger), Charles 'Chips' Maurey (Gerard Blain), Luis Francisco Garcia Lopez (Valentin De Vargas) are, respectively, from USA, Italy, Germany, France and Mexico. The title means "danger" in Swahili, which was mentioned in the film as well.
Hatari! has a very loose script and, like many other major works of Hawks, is principally structured on the relationships between the characters....,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056059
One, Two, Three is a 1961 comedy directed by Billy Wilder, written by I.A.L. Diamond and starring James Cagney, Horst Buchholz, Pamela Tiffin, Arlene Francis, and Howard St. John . It was nominated for four awards[citation needed] in 1962, including the Laurel Awards' "Top Comedy".The film is set in Berlin during the Cold War, before the building of the Berlin Wall, and politics is predominant in the setup. Diamond and Wilder's social satire and sharp humor skewers targets on all sides of the divide — capitalists and communists, Americans, Germans, and Russians, men and women alike exhibit their own weaknesses and quirky foibles. As in Avanti! (1972), the humour of the film is partly based on the contrast between people from different cultures.C. R. "Mac" MacNamara is a high-ranking executive in the Coca-Cola corporation, assigned to West Berlin after a business fiasco a few years earlier (about which he is still bitter). After an arrangement to bring Coke across the Iron Curtain, Mac...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055256
Sayonara is a 1957 film which tells the story of an American Air Force flier who was a fighter "Ace" during the Korean War. It was adapted by Paul Osborn from the novel by James Michener. Produced by William Goetz, it was directed by Joshua Logan. Unlike most '50s romantic dramas, Sayonara deals squarely with racism and prejudice. [1]"Ace" Gruver, stationed at Itami Air Force Base (now Osaka International Airport) near Kobe, Japan, falls in love with a Japanese entertainer who is a performer for a Takarazuka-like theater company, who he meets through his enlisted crew chief, Airman Kelly. Kelly married a Japanese woman, Katsumi, in spite of the disapproval of the United States military, which will not recognize the marriage.
When Kelly is ordered back to the United States without being allowed to take his pregnant Japanese wife, Kelly and Katsumi commit suicide, which strengthens Major Gruver's resolve to marry his Japanese lover. When asked by a Stars and Stripes reporter what will...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050933
Stagecoach is a 1939 western film, starring Claire Trevor and John Wayne in his breakthrough role. The screenplay, written by Dudley Nichols and Ben Hecht, is an adaptation of "The Stage to Lordsburg", a 1937 short story by Ernest Haycox.
Although Ford had made many silent films in the Western genre prior to Stagecoach, this was his first using sound. It was also the first of many films which Ford made on location in Monument Valley, in the American southwest on the Arizona - Utah border, many of which starred John Wayne.
A motley group of strangers boards the stagecoach to Lordsburg, New Mexico, among them are the local prostitute Dallas (Claire Trevor) and alcoholic Doc Boone (Thomas Mitchell), who are both being driven out of town by a "morality league"; pompous banker Henry Gatewood (Barton Churchill); Southern gentleman Hatfield (John Carradine); pregnant cavalry officer's wife Lucy Mallory (Louise Platt); whisky salesman Samuel Peacock (Donald Meek); Marshal Curly Wilcox (George...,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031971
Red Buttons was born in New York, New York, United States
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