A California native, this actress/dancer broke onto the scene at age 16 when she won the Dorothy Chandler Spotlight Award leading to an appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. After continuing to pursue acting and dance training, she toured as a dancer with Jane’s Addiction and has appeared in television, commercials and film. Her striking African-American/Cherokee good looks have made her a recurring favorite model for CGI technologist Paul Debevec.

Spouse:

Cristos (? – ?)

Trivia:

Speaks Italian fluently.

Birth Name: Raffaele Vallone

Mini Biography:

Raf Vallone was an internationally acclaimed Italian movie star known for his rugged good looks. The athletic Vallone, a former soccer player who often was compared to Burt Lancaster, was born Raffaele Vallone in 1916 in Tropea in Cambria, Italy, the son of a prominent lawyer and his aristocratic wife. At the University of Turin, Vallone took degrees in law and philosophy and then entered his father’s law firm.Vallone played semi-professional soccer but never realized his dream of becoming a professional athlete. Subsequently, he became a sports reporter for L’Unita, a communist newspaper, and also a drama critic for La Stampa. During World War II, Vallone served with the anti-Fascist resistance.His first job as a movie actor was a bit part in Noi vivi (1942) (aka, “We the Living”), but Vallone was not serious about acting as a career. Hired as a researcher on a film about labor unrest, director Giuseppe De Santis cast Vallone as a soldier competing with Vittorio Gassman for the love of Silvana Mangano in what became the neo-realist classic Riso amaro (1949) (“Bitter Rice”). The film propelled Vallone, pronounced a natural actor by De Santis, into international stardom and ended his journalism career.Vallone became a major star in Italy in the 1950s and then a player in the global film industry, making movies in Italian, French and English. Vallone achieved popularity with American audiences in the 1960s, starting with his supporting roles in La ciociara (1960) (“Two Women”) and El Cid (1961), both co-starring Sophia Loren. Other major actresses he co-starred with on film and stage included Gina Lollobrigida, Anna Magnani, Melina Mercouri, Simone Signoret, and Elena Varzi, to whom he was married for 52 years, until his death in 2002.Vallone’s first “American” role was as the incest-minded Italian-American longshoreman Eddie Carbone in Sidney Lumet’s film of Arthur Miller’s Vu du pont (1962) (“A View from the Bridge”). Other prominent roles in American films included Otto Preminger’s The Cardinal (1963), Roger Corman’s The Secret Invasion (1964), Harlow (1965/I) starring Carroll Baker, and Henry Hathaway’s Nevada Smith (1966).Vallone played many priests during his long career, culminating with the cardinal-confessor of mobster Michael Corleone, a priest who becomes pope and is murdered by the Mafia, in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather: Part III (1990). Appearing for the other side, Vallone was memorable as the Mafia boss Altabani in the original The Italian Job (1969).

Spouse:

Elena Varzi (1952 – 31 October 2002) (his death) 2 children

Trivia:

Father of actors Eleonora Vallone and Saverio Vallone.

Personal Quotes:

“To be an actor is to be someone who likes to express himself, to integrate himself with his part. I have missed occasions to transmit my joy, my optimism, about life. It is my particular attitude to be generous, to look for the positive, in front of the mistakes of other people … my sympathy for the human being.”
“I am not afraid of dying, I’m afraid of getting old.”

Mini Biography:

Anthony studied filmmaking at Eastern Michigan University and in 1998 produced his first short film, In The Bag, that can be found at IFILM.com. Anthony, realizing his passion for film set out to produce another short film, Simplicity Patterns, directed by life-long friend Konstantinos ‘Dino’ Kovas (New Monkees).Anthony is one half of ValloNicka Films and is the Director, Writer, Producer, and Editor on the companies first two projects, The Mongol King, and Sometimes In Life.Recognized as a rising maverick in the industry, Anthony has an uncanny knowledge of auteur indie filmmaking with extremely limited resources.

James Vallo started acting in Chicago supported by his waiter job for many years living on the edge he soon moved to Hollywood living on the streets with no money and homeless. But pursuing his dreams of working in films and TV constantly. He met and became great friends with Edward Asner and Eric Morris both incredible figures in the entertainment world who supported his drive in acting. They both to this day are Icons for James. Living in Eric Morris studio alone and working in a sandwich shop in Hollywood to be able to eat was tough. But he stuck it out, advice given to him by life long friend Ed Asner. James then turned to producing and further acting training at the Loft Studio with Bill Traylor. James now owns his own production company with Robert Foreman, West Bridge Entertainment.

Birth Name: Eric Efron

Mini Biography:

Reliable “B” character actor Rick Vallin had the rangy physique, prominent cheekbones and swarthy look ideal for rugged films. In the 1940s and ’50s he was seen almost everywhere — in mysteries, musicals, oaters and, especially, the ever-popular edge-of-your-seat cliffhangers. Born in Russia in 1919, he was the son of Nedja Yatsenko, an aspiring ballerina. He came to America while still young. By the time he was in his late teens, he was doing stock productions and had somehow elbowed his way into the radio and movie business. He later joined the Pasadena Playhouse in 1942.After a few years of unbilled parts, he finally made some leeway in “poverty row” pictures and received his first co-star billing in the whodunnit film The Panther's Claw (1942) with Sidney Blackmer. He also showed promising leading man material in such films as Secrets of a Co-Ed (1942), Smart Guy (1943), Secrets of a Sorority Girl (1945), and Two Blondes and a Redhead (1947). He played the first of many Indians in the serial Perils of the Royal Mounted (1942) and the feature-length King of the Stallions (1942). Vallin found himself caught between a rock and a hard place, however, when it came to moving up. In the minds of studio filmmakers, he had a tight “B” movie image and found any advance to the “A” ranks an almost impossibility. Making do, he continued along on the lowbudget assembly-line, appearing in a few of the Bowery Boys capers such as Clancy Street Boys (1943) and Ghosts on the Loose (1943) and the Charlie Chan mystery Dangerous Money (1946).By the late 1940s Vallin had moved considerably down the credits list. He forged a successful union with Columbia Studios where he kept active in minor roles in Johnny Weissmuller’s “Jungle Jim” movies, including Jungle Jim (1948), Captive Girl (1950), Jungle Manhunt (1951), and Voodoo Tiger (1952) playing both civil and savage natives. Vallin also became a mainstay in Columbia’s serials that started with The Sea Hound (1947). Usually a shady or villainous character, he showed up in several including Batman and Robin (1949), Cody of the Pony Express (1950), Son of Geronimo: Apache Avenger (1952), King of the Congo (1952), and Perils of the Wilderness (1956), one of the last multi-chaptered serials ever made. Occasionally he stood out more when cast as the hero’s dullish sidekick such as in the cliffhangers Brick Bradford (1947), Blackhawk: Fearless Champion of Freedom (1952), Riding with Buffalo Bill (1954), and Adventures of Captain Africa, Mighty Jungle Avenger! (1955), but, for the most part, his leaden look and dark complexion kept him a secondary villain (henchman, outlaw) or ethnic type (Indian, Arab, Russian).Vallin also picked up dusty work on most of the popular 50s western TV series: “Cowboy G-Men,” “Annie Oakley,” “Wild Bill Hickok,” “The Lone Ranger” and both Gene Autry and Roy Rogers’ weekly shows. Work grew scarce in the late 1950s unfortunately, and he developed a drug problem, retiring in 1967. One of his last programs was a guest role on “Daniel Boone.” Vallin died a decade later in Los Angeles at age 57, and was buried in Eden Memorial Park in Chatsworth, California.

Mini Biography:

Michael Vallier II, a US Army and Iraq War veteran, has been making films for the past 8 years. While studding video production at New England Tech in Warwick, RI, Michael was running a full-time production company, “Moon Drop Studios” and getting a jump start in his career. He then spent a full year working in Washington, DC for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) as a Producer and Director for internal agency productions. After leaving NGA in spring of 2009, he went back to his hometown in RI to start a new production company and produce his first feature film “Kill Everyone”. After the completion of “Kill Everyone” He now primarily resides in Frankfurt Germany with his wife and manages AnyTek Productions as a world wide production company.

Spouse:

Eva Von Der Born-Vallier (7 February 2003 – present)

Mini Biography:

Sonny Vallie was born James Archibald Brandon on the 8 July, 1926 in Palm Beach, Florida. He has had several stage names including Billie “Bill” Brandon, Youth Vallie and Sonny Vallie. His mother Bell Brandon was a Vaudeville Comediene, actress and a costume designer – and his father Arthur Brandon appeared in many silent movies.He began his movie career at the Mary Pickford Movie Studios and at the Hal Roach Studios.Mary Pickford Movie Studios 1928 Baby Boy (uncredited) Sonny Side Up 1929 Boy (uncredited) Harmony At Home 1930 Boy (uncredited) Strong Boy 1930 Fat Boy Mickey Mcquire Comedies 1930 (uncredited) Our Gang Comedies 1930-40 (uncredited) Here Come The Girls 1953 (uncredited) 3 Ring Circus 1954 Clown Bell Boy 1960 Bell Boy (uncredited) Thunder Ball 1963 Bit Part (uncredited).Howdy Doodee Captain Kangaroo

Birth Name: Alida Maria Laura von Altenburger

Height: 5′ 5″ (1.65 m)

Mini Biography:

This enigmatic, dark-haired foreign import was dubbed “The Next Garbo” but didn’t live up to post-war expectations despite her cool, patrician beauty, remote allure and significant talent. Born in Pola, Italy (now Croatia), on May 3, 1921, the daughter of a Tridentine journalist and professor and Istrian homemaker, she studied dramatics as a teen at the Motion Picture Academy of Rome and Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia before beginning in bit roles in such films as Il cappello a tre punte (1934) [The Three-Cornered Hat] and I due sergenti (1936) [The Two Sergeants]. She made a leading name for herself in Italy during WWII with the film Manon Lescaut (1940) (title role), won a Venice Film Festival award for Piccolo mondo antico (1941) [Little Old World], and was a critical sensation in Noi vivi (1942) [We the Living]. She briefly abandoned her career, however, in 1943, refusing to appear in what she considered Fascist propaganda, and was forced into hiding. The next year she married surrealist painter/pianist/composer Oscar De Mejo. They had two children, and one of them, Carlo De Mejo, became an actor. The marriage later dissolved amid a 1954 drug, sex and murder scandal that involved her former husband and his mistress, a public outbreak that nearly ruined her career.Following her potent, award-winning work in the title role of Eugenia Grandet (1947), she was discovered and contracted by David O. Selznick to play the murder suspect Maddalena Paradine in Alfred Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case (1947). Billed during her Hollywood years simply as “Valli,” Selznick also gave her top femme female billing in Carol Reed’s classic film noir The Third Man (1949), but for every excellent turn in the above-mentioned films, she experienced such failures as The Miracle of the Bells (1948), and the audiences stayed away. In 1951, she bid a quick farewell to Hollywood and returned to her beloved Italy. In Europe again, she became well sought after by the best of directors. Her countess in Luchino Visconti’s Senso (1954) was widely heralded, and she moved easily from ingénue to vivid character roles. Later stand-out films encompassed costume dramas as well as shockers and had her playing everything from baronesses to grandmothers, including Les yeux sans visage (1960) [Eyes Without a Face], Le gigolo (1960), Edipo re (1967) [Oedipus Rex], Tendre Dracula (1974), _1900 (1976)_ , Suspiria (1977), La luna (1979), Inferno (1980), Aspern (1985), A Month by the Lake (1995), and, her most recent, Semana Santa (2002).

Spouse:

Oscar De Mejo (1944 – 1952) (divorced) 2 children
Giancarlo Zagni (195? – 1969) (separated)

Trivia:

Refused to make any more films for fascist Italy and she had to go into hiding to avoid arrest and execution.
Her mother was shot by anti-fascists in 1945.
Involved in an infamous drug, sex and murder scandal in 1954.
Mother of actor Carlo De Mejo and of Lorenzo De Mejo.
Her name Alida means “flies like a bird.”
Gregory Peck, who worked with Alida in The Paradine Case (1947), said of her, “Not only are her shapes and features perfect: from her eyes radiates an irresistible flashing of love.”
Voiced the character Dr. Constance Petersen in a 1940s radio broadcast of Hitchcock’s classic Spellbound.
Received a special tribute as part of the Annual Memorial tribute at The 79th Annual Academy Awards (2007) (TV).
Grandmother of actor-director Pierpaolo De Mejo.