#7- Today's actors:
Apologies. I have been neglecting this journal due to settling in to a new job and a new roommate. I hope everyone had a great New Years, congrats to Obama for being president (I didn't vote for him, I don't like him, but hey, history was made), and Happy Birthday to fluffydragon!
A child of a broken home, Gene Hackman left home at 16 for a 3-year hitch with the Marines (he actually lied about his age so he could join, and left as soon as his initial tour was done). Moving to New York after being discharged, he worked in a number of menial jobs before studying journalism and television production on the G.I. Bill at the University of Illinois. Hackman would be over 30 years old when he finally decided to take his chance at acting by enrolling at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. Legend says that Hackman and Dustin Hoffman were voted "least likely to succeed" (that story always makes me laugh! Irony's bittersweet sting is always hysterical!). Hackman next moved back to New York, where he worked in summer stock and off-Broadway. In 1964, he was cast as the young suitor in the Broadway stage play "Any Wednesday." This role would lead to him being cast in the small role of Norman in Lilith (1964), starring Warren Beatty. When Beatty was casting for Bonnie and Clyde (1967), he cast Hackman as Buck Barrow, Clyde's brother. That role earned Hackman a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, an award for which he would again be nominated in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). In 1972, he won the Oscar for his role as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle in The French Connection (1971). At 40 years old, Hackman was a Hollywood star whose work would rise to the heights with Night Moves (1975) and Bite the Bullet (1975), or fall to the depths with The Poseidon Adventure (1972) and Eureka (1983). Hackman is a versatile actor who can play comedy (the blind man in Young Frankenstein (1974)) or villainy (the evil Lex Luthor in Superman (1978)). He is the doctor who puts his work above people in Extreme Measures (1996) and the captain on the edge of nuclear destruction in Crimson Tide (1995). After initially turning down the role of Little Bill Daggett in Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992), Hackman finally accepted it as a different slant on the western that interested him. After that movie, he refused to work any violent movies, saying he was "fed up with them". For his performance he won the Oscar and Golden Globe and decided that he wasn't tired of westerns after all. He has since appeared in Geronimo: An American Legend (1993), Wyatt Earp (1994), and The Quick and the Dead (1995). One of the most sustaining actors of all time, he still averages 2 films a year in his 70s, having starred in 5 in 2001 alone ("The Mexican", "Heartbreakers", "Heist", "The Royal Tenenbaums", and "Behind Enemy Lines").
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Bale made his professional debut opposite British comedian Rowan Atkinson on the London West End stage. He auditioned with 4000 other kids for the coveted role of James Graham in Spielberg's Empire of the Sun (1987). Bale received a special citation for Best Performance by a Juvenile Actor from the National Board of Review -- an award specially created for his performance in "Empire". In the following decade, Welsh-born Bale has appeared in Shakespeare, dramas and comedies demonstrating a versatility, depth and range that has made him one of the best reviewed actors today and one of the most popular actors on the Internet. Bale is the youngest in a family of 3 older sisters (Erin, Sharon, and Louise Bale).The 10th Anniversary issue of "Entertainment Weekly" crowned Christian Bale as one of the "Top 8 Most Powerful Cult Figures" of the past decade, citing his incredible and legendary cult status on the Internet. EW also calls Bale one of the "Most Creative People in Entertainment" after his brilliant turn as the psychopathic yuppie serial killer in American Psycho (2000). And "Premiere" lauded him as one of the "Hottest Leading Men Under 30". Christian Bale has garnered a huge international audience ever since he wowed critics with his devastating performance in Steven Spielberg's WWII epic Empire of the Sun (1987). His latest movie, "The Dark Knight", co-starring Heath Ledger, broke the box office opening weekend at $158,411,483 in the US alone. (it scored $16,023,319.28 in the UK, and $2,531,178.55 in Italy, please note I converted the British pound and the Euro to dollars.)