MIKE GRACIA

Henry Jaynes Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982)

Henry Fonda had a career that spanned five decades on
Broadway and in Hollywood. Fonda cultivated a strong,
appealing screen image in several films now considered
to be classics.

Fonda made his mark early as a Broadway actor and made
his Hollywood film debut in 1935. He rose to film stardom
with performances in such films as; Jezebel (1938), Jesse
James (1939), and Young Mr. Lincoln (1939). His career
further progressed with his portrayal of Tom Joad in The
Grapes of Wrath (1940), receiving a nomination for the
Academy Award for Best Actor.

1981

On April 9, 1962, Puerto Rican actress Rita Moreno become the first Hispanic woman to win an Oscar, for her role of Anita in West Side
Story (1961).

Moreno, who was born in Puerto Rico in 1931 and grew up in Long Island, New York, began acting at a young age, landing her first Broadway role at the age of 13. She will turn 91 in December.

Barbra Streisand plants a kiss Duke’s cheek after presenting
him with his career’s only Academy Award.

On April 7, 1970, the legendary actor John Wayne wins his first—
and only—acting Academy Award, for his star turn in the director
Henry Hathaway’s Western True Grit.

Wayne appeared in some 150 movies over the course of his long
and storied career.

John Wayne (Marion Robert Morrison)
(May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979)

Sidney L. Poitier ( February 20, 1927 – January 6, 2022)

In 1964, Sidney Poitier won the Academy Award for Best Actor becoming
the first Black male and Bahamian actor to win the award.

He also received two further Academy Award nominations, ten
Golden Globes nominations, two Primetime Emmy Awards
nominations, six BAFTA nominations, eight Laurel nominations,
and one Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination. Poitier was
one of the last surviving major stars from the Golden Age of
Hollywood cinema, and after the death of Kirk Douglas in 2020,
was the oldest living and earliest surviving male Academy Award
winner

The star’s death was confirmed to Fox News on Friday by the
Bahamian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Office.

Sidney Poitier was awarded the 1964 Academy Award for
Best Actor for his role in the movie Lilies of the Field.

On August 11, 1973, the nostalgic teenage coming-of-age movie American Graffiti, directed and co-written by George Lucas,
opened  in theaters across the United States. Set in California
in the summer of 1962, American Graffiti was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture, and
helped launch the big-screen careers of Richard Dreyfuss and
Harrison Ford, as well as the former child actor and future Oscar-
winning filmmaker Ron Howard. The film’s success enabled
Lucas to get his next movie made, the mega-hit Star Wars (1977).

Robert Weston Smith, known as Wolfman Jack
(January 21, 1938 – July 1, 1995)