On April 7, 1970, the legendary actor John Wayne won 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. He established his tough,
rugged, uniquely American screen persona most vividly
in the many acclaimed films he made for the directors
John Ford and Howard Hawks from the late 1940s into the
early 1960s.

He earned his first Oscar nomination, in the Best Actor
category, for Sands of Iwo Jima (1949). The Alamo (1960),
which Wayne produced, directed and starred in, earned a
Best Picture nomination.

Wayne’s Oscar for True Grit at the 42nd annual Academy
Awards in 1970 was generally considered to be a largely
sentimental win, and a long-overdue reward for one of
Hollywood’s most enduring performers.

The Academy had failed to even nominate Wayne for any
of his most celebrated performances, in films such as
Stagecoach (1939), Red River (1948), The Quiet Man (1952),
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962) and especially
Ford’s The Searchers (1956), considered by many to be
the greatest Western ever made.

A true story about an Englishman working as a game
warden in Kenya who is disgusted by the ongoing
destruction of African wildlife, and decides to create
a national park to protect them. He acquires more than
1000 square miles of land, but he finds himself up
against ivory poachers and local tribesmen in their
employ.

Douglas James Rain (May 9, 1928 – November 11, 2018)

Douglas Rain was a Canadian actor. Although primarily a stage
actor, he is best-known for voicing HAL 9000, the supercomputer
in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and its sequel 2010:
The Year We Make Contact (1984).

He co-founded the Stratford Festival, and was nominated for a
Tony Award for the Broadway play Vivat! Vivat Regina!.     

Chameleonic actor-comedian who leapt from the sketch comedy
show Saturday Night Live on NBC, for which he was a regular
cast member from 1980 to 1984 to "Beverly Hills Cop" and
"The Nutty Professor" film series.

Buckwheat

(FOX NEWS) – Actor Val Kilmer, who starred in many high-
profile films, including "Top Gun," "Batman Forever" and
"Tombstone," died Tuesday (April 1).

The New York Times reported that Kilmer died of pneumonia.

Kilmer, who played Tom "Iceman" Kazansky in the original
"Top Gun" in 1986, died in Los Angeles, according to his
daughter, Mercedes Kilmer. 

In 2015, Kilmer was diagnosed with throat cancer. He
subsequently underwent a tracheal procedure that
damaged his vocal cords, leaving him with severe
difficulty speaking. He also underwent chemotherapy
and two tracheotomies.

Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise in Top Gun (1986)

Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer (1993)

 
   
  1995