LIKE SHOW BUSINESS

A Century of Western New Yorkers
On the Big and Small Screen

It would be impossible to construct a comprehensive list of Buffalo residents who have worked in motion pictures or television (so please hold off on those angry letters pointing our countless shameful omissions). What we’ve attempted to do instead is to skim the past 100 years of entertainment history in search of interesting, often long-forgotten, individuals on both sides of the camera. To simplify things slightly, we’ve tried to limit ourselves to persons actually born in or near Buffalo, which sadly obscures the truly major contributions of artists drawn to the city in later life by the exemplary media programs at both UB and Buffalo State College (as both students and instructors), Hallwalls, the late Media Study Buffalo, Squeaky Wheel, CEPA, and other institutions in our media-rich community.

—R.E., E.L


ARLEN, HAROLD
(1905-86)
Composer of such film music staples as “Stormy Weather,” “Paper Moon,” “Get Happy,” and a little ditty called “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Got his start as bandleader of local dance band The Buffalodians.

ARRAS, HARRY
(1881-1942)
Character actor who appeared in both Chaplin’s Gold Rush and Laurel and Hardy’s Our Relations.

BAKAY, NICK
(b. 1959)
Actor and screenwriter. Voice of Salem the Cat on sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch; cameo in the “Smelly Car” episode of Seinfeld.

BARANSKI, CHRISTINE
(b. 1952)
Comic actor of stage and screen. Featured role on the sitcom Cybill, among many other highly regarded parts.

BECKER, GERRY
(b. 1950)
Character actor. Roles in Spider-Man, The Cell, and Donnie Brasco, among others.

BLAKE, AMANDA
(1929-89)
Actor best known for her role as Miss Kitty on the long-running television series Gunsmoke.

BOASBERG, AL
(1892-1937)
Screenwriter and script doctor who worked behind the scenes on Buster Keaton’s The General, Todd Browning’s Freaks, and the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera.

BOBBIT, JOHN WAYNE
(b. 1967)
Parlayed his international notoriety after being maimed by his then-wife Lorena into a brief adult-film career, including the cleverly titled John Wayne Bobbitt Uncut (1994).

BROOKE, SORRELL
(1930-94)
Character actor best known for his role as “Boss Hogg” on the late-70s series The Dukes of Hazzard, though he also appeared in such films as The Iceman Cometh, the original Freaky Friday, Fail-Safe, and Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H.

DANIELS, HAROLD
(1903-1971)
Actor and director with a string of obscure but incredibly cool titles in his filmography, including Doomed at Sundown, Danger on Wheels, Secrets of a Model, Where Did You Get That Girl?, My Favorite Spy, and Purple Death from Outer Space.

DIFRANCO, ANI
(b. 1970)
Singer-songwriter whose music has been featured in several motion pictures, including the opening credits of My Best Friend’s Wedding.

ENGLISH, DIANE
(b. 1948)
Creator of the Murphy Brown sitcom and several other television series.

FONTANA, TOM
(b. 1951)
Television writer and producer, responsible for Oz, Homicide: Life on the Street, The Jury, and many other series.

GALLO, VINCENT
(b. 1962)
Writer, director, actor, and composer whose very personal projects include Buffalo ’66 and The Brown Bunny.

GREENE, JOHN L.
(1912-95)
Creator of the sitcom My Favorite Martian and screenwriter for many episodes of Bewitched.

HESSLER, CORT “CORKY”
(b. 1969)
Stunt man whose sixty-plus films and TV series include Spider-Man 2, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Hannibal, and Men in Black II.

HOPKINS, JACK
(b. 1876)
Silent film actor whose filmography includes roles in The Human Torpedo, A Nearsighted Chaperone, Zongar, The Unchastened Woman, Unrestrained Youth, and the “Gay Time” series of comic shorts from 1911.

HUMBERSTONE, H. BRUCE
(1901-1984)
Silent-era child actor who later directed three Tarzan and four Charlie Chan films, in addition to over thirty additional motion pictures. Alleged to have kept Chan star Warner Oland drunk so the actor would deliver his lines properly.

JACKSON, EUGENE
(1916-2001)
Child singer, dancer, and vaudevillian who performed as “Pineapple” in six early Our Gang shorts; billed in the 1920s as “Hollywood’s most famous colored kid star.” Later film roles included small parts in North by Northwest, Cleopatra Jones, and American Gigolo.

JEWELL, GERI
(b. 1956)
Actor/comedian best known for her many guest appearances on The Facts of Life, now a recurring character on Deadwood.

JONES, JEFFREY
(b. 1946)
Character actor known for parts in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Amadeus, Beetlejuice, and Ed Wood, among many others.

LAMOREAUX, ROBERT
Writer and producer for several animated series, including CatDog, Totally Spies, and Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi. Studied at UB with avant-garde film legend Paul Sharits.

LURIE, MARTY
(b. 1972)
Producer of NJPW-USA Toukon Fighting Spirit, the only wrestling show on television that airs in both the United States and Japan.

MALICK, WENDIE
(b. 1950)
Actor best known for her key role on the sitcom Just Shoot Me!

MARCHAND, NANCY
(1928-2000)
Stage actor whose stints on television included major roles on the series Lou Grant and The Sopranos.

MEREDYTH, BESS
(1890-1969)
One of the first female screenwriters in the film industry, whose three-decade career  started in 1910 and included over 125 scripts; also an actor in the silent era and one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

MULLAVY, GREG
(b. 1939)
Character actor best known as the long-suffering husband on Norman Lear’s satirical 1976 soap opera, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.

MURRAY, CHAD MICHAEL
(b. 1981)
Recurring roles on The Gilmore Girls and Dawson’s Creek. Starring roles in the Freaky Friday remake and A Cinderella Story.

NATHAN, STEPHEN
(b. 1948)
Writer and producer on Joan of Arcadia, Jesse, Everyone Loves Raymond, Tracey Takes On New York, and many others. As an actor, originated the role of Jesus in the first performance of Godspell in 1971.

READ, JAMES
(b. 1953)
Small roles in a number of films including Legally Blonde (2001) and Legally Blonde 2 (2003) as well as starring roles in the North and South made-for-TV series (1985-1994).

RICH, IRENE
(1891-1988)
Frequent co-star of Will Rogers; leading lady to such silent-era icons as Harry Carey, Lon Chaney, and John Barrymore.

RODRIGUEZ, SPAIN
(b. 1940)
Acclaimed underground comix artist who got his start drawing a strip for UB’s student newspaper.  Appears in the documentaries Crumb and Comic Book Confidential.

ROOT, WELLS
(1900-93)
Writer with over sixty screenplays and teleplays to his credit (including I Cover the Waterfront and Magnificent Obsession); founding member of the Writers’ Guild of America.

RZEZNIK, JOHN
(b. 1965)
Member of the Goo Goo Dolls; composer of the theme song to the sitcom Good Morning, Miami and the song “Iris” from the film City of Angels.

SADLER, WILLIAM
(b. 1950)
Character actor known for roles in The Shawshank Redemption, Die Hard 2, Kinsey, and almost fifty other films.

SHAWN, DICK
(1927-83)
Comedian who created the role of a singing Hitler in Mel Brooks’ original film of The Producers.

SHIRE, DAVID
(b. 1937)
Composer of scores for more than 100 films and television series.

SMITH, “BUFFALO BOB”
(1917-1998)
Host of the long-running children’s TV show that introduced Howdy Doody to the world.

SULLIVAN, DAVID
(b. 1968)
Digital artist whose credits include the two most recent Star Wars films, Men in Black II, and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

TAYLOR, F. CHASE.
(1897-1950)
Creator of the character Colonel Lemuel Q. Stoopnagle as half of the radio comedy team Stoopnagle and Budd, who appeared in several films in the 1930s.

TOLES, GEORGE.
(b. 1948)
Screenwriter for several films by Canadian director Guy Maddin.

VOGT, PETER AND PAUL
(b. 1964)
Identical twin brothers, both with extensive credits, including roles as identical twin brothers in the series Maximum Bob.

WEINSTEIN, BOB
(b. 1953)
Founder of Dimension Films and producer of over 150 motion pictures.

WEINSTEIN, HARVEY
(b. 1952)
Founder of Miramax Films and producer of over 150 motion pictures.

WHITE, JESSE
(1917-1997)
Film and television character actor whose best-known role was the Maytag Repairman in a long-running series of commercials.


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