Acting
Apr 4, 1901
Macon, Georgia, USA
Melvyn Douglas
Acting
Biography
Melvyn Douglas (born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg; April 5, 1901 – August 4, 1981) was an American actor. Douglas came to prominence in the 1930s as a suave leading man, perhaps best typified by his performance in the 1939 romantic comedy Ninotchka with Greta Garbo. Douglas later played mature and fatherly characters, as in his Academy Award–winning performances in Hud (1963) and Being There (1979) and his Academy Award–nominated performance in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). In the last few years of his life Douglas appeared in films with supernatural stories involving ghosts. Douglas appeared as "Senator Joseph Carmichael" in The Changeling in 1980 and Ghost Story in 1981 in his final completed film role.
Feature Films (100)
A stern Russian woman sent to Paris on official business finds herself attracted to a man who represents everything she is supposed to detest.
Ninotchka
A simple-minded gardener named Chance has spent all his life in the Washington D.C. house of an old man. When the man dies, Chance is put out on the street with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television.
Being There
Billy is an innocent, naive seaman in the British Navy in 1797. When the ship's sadistic master-at-arms is murdered, Billy is accused and tried.
Billy Budd
Bill McKay is a candidate for the U.S. Senate from California. He has no hope of winning, so he is willing to tweak the establishment.
The Candidate
A quiet and inconspicuous man rents an apartment in Paris where he finds himself drawn into a rabbit hole of dangerous paranoia.
The Tenant
In a remote region of Wales, five travelers beset by a relentless storm find shelter in an old mansion.
The Old Dark House
Four successful elderly gentlemen, members of the Chowder Society, share a gruesome, 50-year-old secret. When one of Edward Wanderley's twin sons dies in a bizarre accident, the group begins to see a pattern of frightening events developing.
Ghost Story
Hud Bannon is a ruthless young man who tarnishes everything and everyone he touches. Hud represents the perfect embodiment of alienated youth, out for kicks with no regard for the consequences. There is bitter conflict between the callous Hud and his stern and highly principled father, Homer. Hud's nephew Lon admires Hud's cheating ways, though he soon becomes too aware of Hud's reckless amorality to bear him anymore. In the world of the takers and the taken, Hud is a winner. He's a cheat, but, he explains, "I always say the law was meant to be interpreted in a lenient manner."
Hud
An advertising executive dreams of getting out of the city and building a perfect home in the country, only to find the transition fraught with problems.
Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House
A female blackmailer with a disfiguring facial scar meets a plastic surgeon who offers her the possibility of looking like a normal woman.
A Woman's Face
After a tragic event happens, composer John Russell moves to Seattle to try to overcome it and build a new and peaceful life in a lonely big house that has been uninhabited for many years. But, soon after, the obscure history of such an old mansion and his own past begin to haunt him.
The Changeling
American sailor Charlie Madison falls for a pretty Englishwoman while trying to avoid a senseless and dangerous D-Day mission concocted by a deranged admiral.
The Americanization of Emily
Television & Series (26)
An American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC. Studio One, presented by Westinghouse, was one of the first of the anthology TV programs. The episodes were often abridged remakes of movies from years gone by and many future well-known television and movie actors appeared in the productions.
Studio One
General Electric Theater is an American anthology series hosted by Ronald Reagan that was broadcast on CBS radio and television. The series was sponsored by General Electric's Department of Public Relations.
General Electric Theater
Long-running anthology program sponsored by Hallmark Cards. Beginning in 1951 and continuing into 2019, the series received 80 Emmy Awards, 24 Christopher Awards, 11 Peabody Awards, 9 Golden Globes, and 4 Humanitas Prizes. Early seasons were a weekly live drama, eventually transitioning to videotaped and then filmed productions broadcast as occasional specials.
Hallmark Hall of Fame
The ABC Weekend Specials is a weekly 30-minute anthology TV series for children that aired Saturday mornings on ABC from 1977 to 1997. It featured a wide variety of stories that were both live-action and animated. Similar to both the ABC Afterschool Special and The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie that had started five years previous, the ABC Weekend Specials differed in that it was primarily aimed at younger viewers following ABC's Saturday Morning cartoon lineup, whereas the ABC Afterschool Special was known for its somewhat more serious, and often dramatic storylines dealing with issues concerning a slightly older teen and pre-teen audience. With the debut of the ABC Weekend Specials, some of the early ABC Afterschool Specials that had been targeted towards younger viewers were subsequently repackaged and re-run instead as ABC Weekend Specials.
