Jon Favreau: The Real First Avenger

When we think of “multi-talented” people in the entertainment industry, it’s those who literally do it all: act, sing, produce, executive produce, direct, compose, etc. Few names come to mind who are able to master all those tasks simultaneously, but examples include Tom Hanks, who wrote, directed, wrote the music for and acted in That Thing You Do! (1996) and all the same in addition to producing Larry Crowne (2011). Lin-Manuel Miranda composed the music, wrote lyrics, was the librettist for, and originated the role of Alexander Hamilton in the Broadway musical Hamilton (2015), which won Miranda Tony’s in all of those categories, except acting. Jon Favreau is a member of this illustrious group, as well. A writer, producer, executive producer, director, and actor and for a little over three decades, he has been juggling all of these talents in addition to being a husband and father. 

Born in October 19th, 1966 in Queens, New York, his mother, Madeline, was a schoolteacher who was of Russian Jewish descent. She unfortunately died of leukemia when Favreau was only 13. His father was a Catholic of Italian and French-Canadian descent. Favreau graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1984 and attended Queens College from ’84-’87. He worked for Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. for a short time but decided to go back to Queens College for another semester in early 1988. He ultimately dropped out of college for good in the summer of ’88 and moved to Chicago where he pursued a career in comedy. He performed at improvisational theaters, including ImprovOlympics and the Improv Institute.

Favreau made his film debut in the comedy Folks! (1992) opposite Tom Selleck and Don Ameche. The next year he landed a role in the film Rudy (1993) opposite Sean Astin. While filming “Rudy” he met and befriended Vince Vaughan, who also had a small role in the film. He later moved to Los Angeles where he appeared in an episode of Seinfeld (1989-1994) as Eric the Clown in 1994 and co-wrote, co-produced and starred in the film The Swingers (1996), along with pal Vince Vaughan. He also landed a recurring role on the third season of Friends (1994-2004). Around this time, he created his production company, Fairview Entertainment and is still releasing films under that label. Favreau’s directorial debut reunited him with Vaughan in the film Made (2001), and the year before, he married physician Joya Tillem with whom he has three children with: a son, Max and two daughters, Madeline and Brighton Rose Favreau. The same year as “Made,” he produced a comedy talk-show series called Dinner for Five (2001-2005) which earned him and his fellow producers a Primetime Emmy Nomination in its fifth season. Two years following “Made,” he directed the Christmas cult classic Elf (2003), playing the role of the doctor who confirms Buddy the Elf’s parentage.

In 2006, Jon Favreau was hired by Marvel Entertainment to direct the first Iron Man (2008). He was offered the chance to direct Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) but chose to do “Iron Man,” instead. In the film, he portrayed the role of Happy Hogan, Tony Stark’s chauffeur/bodyguard/Head of Stark Industries in the film and was an executive producer. There is also a roadster in the film that Tony Stark works on that in real life is owned by Jon Favreau. He reprised the role of Happy Hogan, and continued as executive producer and director for Iron Man 2 (2010), though remained only as an executive producer for Iron Man 3 (2010). He was also an executive producer on The Avengers (2012), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and The Avengers 4 (2019). He also reprised the role of Happy Hogan for Spiderman: Homecoming (2017) and will do the same for “Avengers 4.” 

In 2014, Favreau made Chef (2014), a film that he wrote, produced, directed, and acted in. In preparation for the film, Favreau hired chef Roy Choi to be his mentor and Choi is also credited as a producer of the film. “Chef,” reunited him with “Iron Man 2,” co-stars Robert Downey Jr. and Scarlett Johansson. Not long after that film, Favreau was hired by Disney to direct the all-new live-action adaptation of The Jungle Book (2016) where he cast Johansson as the voice of Kaa the Snake. Favreau cast Gary Shandling, whom he had directed in “Iron Man 2,” as the voice of Ikki the porcupine in “Jungle Book.” Shandling unfortunately passed away before the film was released, and there is a dedication to him at the very end of the film. The film received 2016’s Best Visual Effects Oscar for its unique use of Motion-Capture Technology. Jon Favreau’s three children are all the voices of three of the wolf cubs whose parents adopted the boy Mowgli as part of their family in the movie. He is currently directing a new live-action adaptation of The Lion King for Disney which will be released in July of 2019. 

In addition to the films he has directed for Disney, Jon Favreau has also lent his voice to several Disney animated television series and films. He was a voice for the series Hercules (1998-1999) based on the 1997 film of the same name, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000-2001), and was the voice of Hurley the guinea pig in G-Force (2009) and played the role of the Thark Bookie in Disney’s John Carter (2012). He will have a voice-over role in the upcoming film Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018). He is currently working with Disney to produce a new “Star Wars,” series, a possible sequel to “Jungle Book,” and a film called “Magic Kingdom,” which will tell a story of a family at Disneyland noticing the attractions of the park coming to life. The release of all three of the projects have yet to be determined.

Jon Favreau is an exceptional prodigy of movie-making. His films have made us laugh, cry, and have taken us as a movie audience on adventures that we never could have imagined. From “Iron Man 1 and 2,” to “Elf,” and “Chef,” to “Jungle Book,” and the forthcoming “Lion King,” his films are just great, period. 

Mary Blair: Disney’s “Modern Woman”

In the early days of the Walt Disney Studios, it was primarily populated by male staff members. The majority of animators, in-betweeners, layout artists, etc. were all men. There were, however a few “unsung” female artists, and one of the studios greatest was Mary Blair. During her career, Blair developed a style very unique to classic Disney, driving development of conceptual art. She introduced modernism, in which color is used to form deep contrast and may be unnatural to the image that they are illustrating. She also applied that style to the “It’s a Small World” Attraction at the Disney Parks, and many other projects outside of Disney. 

Mary Blair was born in McAlester, Oklahoma on October 21st, 1911. She moved with her family to Texas and later to Morgan Hill, California in the early 1920s. She graduated from San Jose State University in 1931 and won a scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles, where she graduated in 1933. The next year she married an artist named Lee Blair and the two of them became members of the California School of Watercolor, where Mary also gained a reputation for being an imaginative colorist and designer. 

Her first job out of school was as animator at MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). She joined Disney in 1940 and her first assignment was working on concept art for Dumbo (1941). Following that, she worked on a second version of Fantasia (1940), Bambi (1942) an earlier version of Lady and the Tramp (1955). She also accompanied Walt and Lillian Disney, along with a group of other artists, on a special tour of South America during the 1940s studio strike. Because of her imaginative use of watercolors, she became known for “creating new worlds,” and as a result, Walt promoted her to a art supervisor on the films Saludos Amigos (1943), The Three Caballeros (1944), and The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949). She was also able to apply her skills to the studios’ early live-action/animated films Song of the South (1946), Fun & Fancy Free (1947), and So Dear to My Heart (1949).

As the Walt Disney Studios transitioned into the 1950s, Blair worked as a color stylist on several feature-length films: Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953) and the short films Susie the Blue Coupe (1952), The Little House (1952), and Donald Duck Visits Lake Titicaca (1955). After “Peter Pan,” she resigned from Disney and moved to New York where she worked as a freelance graphic designer and illustrator creating the advertising for companies such as Nabisco, Pepsodent, Maxwell House, and Beatrice Foods. She also illustrated several Little Golden Books published by Simon & Schuster, created clothing designs, and even designed Christmas and Easter sets for the Radio City Music Hall. However, Walt Disney invited her back to the studio to apply her style to the “It’s a Small World,” attraction at Disneyland, which opened at the park on May 28th, 1966. 

Blair later created a mural patterned after “It’s a Small World,” for Dr. Jules Stein’s Pediatric Surgery’s waiting room. Stein had summoned Walt Disney to create a mural for his waiting room to ease children’s tension as they were waiting for surgery, and Walt asked Blair to do it. (The mural can be seen today in UCLA’s Stein Eye Institute’s Pediatric Center.) Not long after Walt Disney’s death, in 1967, Mary Blair created mural art for the Tomorrowland Promenade. Since then, her murals have been replaced by other park attractions, however there is still a 90-foot mosaic of her work that can be seen inside Disney’s Contemporary Resort in Walt Disney World. She also created sets of Walt Disney note cards for Hallmark.

Mary Blair retired to Soquel, California where she tragically died of a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 66 on July 26th, 1978. She was honored as a Disney Legend in 1991, being one of the first women to be given that honor. Her artwork was featured in an exhibition called “The Colors of Mary Blair,” which was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, Japan in July 2009. The Walt Disney Family Museum also held an exhibition of her work called “Magic, Color, Flair: The World of Mary Blair,” from March 13th to September 7th, 2014. In August 2017, Simon & Schuster published Pocketful of Colors, which is a picture book biography on Mary Blair. Blair was undoubtedly a pioneer among women animators and an artist who changed the face of Disney.   

Dorothy McGuire: Triple Crown of Disney Movie Mothers

When we think of mothers/motherly figures in Disney films, there aren’t necessarily many animated characters which comes which come to mind, considering most of the mothers of the Disney princesses are deceased in each of their movies-typically it’s a father or their stepmothers. (But Sleeping Beauty (1959), Mulan (1998) and Tangled (2010) are notable exceptions). There are, however, many mothers as key parts of Disney’s live-action films. Maureen O’Hara played the role of Margaret McKendrick, mother of Sharon and Susan McKendrick-Evers in The Parent Trap (1961), Glynis Johns played Mrs. Winifred Banks, mother of Jane and Michael Banks in Mary Poppins (1964), and in more recent years Caroline Goodall portrayed Helen Thermopolis, mother of Anne Hathaway as Mia Thermopolis in The Princess Diaries (2001) and its sequel The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004). Another person who is right up there with these actresses is Dorothy McGuire. McGuire played the mother of many different children, starring as the loving mother in three different Disney films, as well as several other films, including the role of Mary, the mother of Jesus at one point.

Dorothy McGuire was born in Omaha, Nebraska on June 14th, 1916. She was the only child of Thomas Johnson McGuire and Isabelle Flaherty McGuire. Her acting career started in the Omaha Community Playhouse where as a teenager she was in “A Kiss for Cinderella,” which starred visiting alumni member, Henry Fonda. She moved with her parents to Indianapolis, Indiana and later to Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts where she attended Pine Manor Junior College, serving as the president of the school’s drama club. She graduated from Pine Manor at the age of 19, with the intent of pursuing acting full-time.

McGuire began her career on Radio in the soap opera Big Sister in 1936. Two years later, she was cast as an understudy in the original Broadway cast of Our Town in 1938. Three years later, she was permanently cast as the female lead in the comedy Claudia. Her performance in the play caught the attention of David O. Selznick, who called her a “born actress” and asked her to reprise her role for Selznick Studios and Twentieth Century Fox’s film adaptation of “Claudia” in 1943. The film spawned a sequel, Claudia and David, in 1946. In between those films she reunited with her co-star who had played her husband, Robert Young in the drama The Enchanted Cottage (1945). The same year as “Claudia,” she married photographer John Swope, who she was introduced to by fellow Omaha Nebraska Playhouse member, Henry Fonda. (Fonda’s close friend, Jimmy Stewart served as the best man at their wedding.) She had two children with Swope: a son, Mark Swope, who like his father, became a photographer, and a daughter, Topo Swope, who like her mother, became an actress. 

The year after “Claudia and David,” she starred in Gentlemen’s Agreement (1947) opposite Gregory Peck and Celeste Holm. (The film was a remake of an older film of the same name which starred Vivien Leigh and Frederick Peisley). The film was nominated for eight academy awards, including Best Picture and Best Actress for McGuire. While McGuire unfortunately did not win, the film did receive the trophies for Best Picture, Best Supporting Actress for Celeste Holm, and Best Director for Elia Kazan. After making the film, she, along with Gregory Peck and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse on the campus of the University of California in San Diego, California. In 1951, Dorothy McGuire made the movies Callaway Went Thataway and I Want You and also made her television debut in the “Dark Victory” episode of Robert Montgomery Presents. She received an Emmy Nomination for her performance in an episode of the show Climax! (1954-1958) in 1954.

In 1957, she was cast by the Walt Disney Studios as the mother Katie Coates in Old Yeller. Her children were portrayed by Tommy Kirk and Kevin Corcoran. She reunited with Kirk and Corcoran three years later where she again played their mother in Disney’s epic, action-packed blockbuster Swiss Family Robinson (1960). In this film, James MacArthur played her oldest son, and Sir John Mills played her husband. Around this time, Mills’ daughter, Disney child star legend, Hayley Mills, was working on Pollyanna, which also came out in 1960, and also featured Kevin Corcoran. McGuire, herself, later played Hayley’s mother in a film called Summer Magic (1963), which would be McGuire’s last film with Disney. In between “Old Yeller,” and “Swiss Family Robinson,” she played mothers that were more on the flawed/not-so-redeeming side in the films  A Summer Place (1959) and The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (1960). And at 49 years of age, Dorothy McGuire played the Mary, Christ’s mother, in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

After “Greatest Story Ever Told,” McGuire continued to act primarily in television, though she did make a few more movies. Her last theatrical film appearance was as Granny O’Flaherty in Flight of the Doves (1971). She made guest appearances on The Love Boat (1977-1986) and Fantasy Island (1977-1984) and she played Marmee March in the mini series of Little Women (1978). Her final acting role was in the made-for-television movie The Last Best Year (1990) starring opposite Bernadette Peters and Mary Tyler Moore, as Peters’ mother. She passed away on September 13th, 2001 of cardiac arrest, following a short illness, three days after 9/11. She will always be remembered for her motherly roles, particularly in three of Disney’s live-action classics. 

Jerry Orbach: He’s Our Guest

He was a performer of Broadway, Television, and Film and his debonair smile helped create the souls of the characters he portrayed from Jake Houseman (father of Baby Houseman) in Dirty Dancing (1987) to Detective Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order (1990-2010). On the Broadway stage, he received a total of four Tony Award Nominations (and won one) for a variety of leading male roles. And in later movies, he even provided the voice of the beloved candelabra from Beauty and the Beast (1991). Through every role he played, Jerry Orbach never ceased to entertain audiences with his own unique definition of charm.

Jerome Bernard Orbach was born in the Bronx, New York on October 20th, 1935. He was the only child of Leon Orbach, who was a restaurant manager and vaudevillian performer, and Emily, who was a radio singer and a greeting card manufacturer. Throughout his childhood, he moved very often with his folks, from Mount Vernon, New York, Wilkes-Bare, Nanticoke, and Scranton, Pennsylvania, Springfield Massachusetts, and Waukegan, Illinois. Young Jerry attended Waukegan High School and graduated in 1952 at the age of 17 because he was fortunate enough to skip two grades in elementary school due to a high IQ. Although he played on the high school football team, he learned about acting in a speech class and decided to pursue it full-time. The summer after he graduated high school, he worked at the theatre of Chevy Chase Country Club in Wheeling, Illinois and later enrolled at Northwestern University in Chicago. He left Northwestern University before his senior year and moved to New York City in 1955 to pursue acting full-time and study at the Actor’s Studio under Lee Strasberg. He found himself a home in a high-rise on 53rd Street off of 8th Avenue in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan and was a regular at some of the Italian restaurants nearby. (In 2007, the intersection of 53rd Street and 8th Avenue was named in honor of him).

It didn’t take long for Jerry Orbach to find success. The same year he moved to New York, he landed three different roles in the off-Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht. Five years later, he got his first major role as El Gallo in the original off-Broadway Production of The Fantasticks. (I once had the privilege of seeing an off-Broadway revival of “The Fantasticks,” in the Jerry Orbach Theatre in 2011). Orbach made his official Broadway debut in 1961 in the musical Carnival! (the stage version of the film Lili, which starred Leslie Caron.) He received his very first Tony Award Nomination for the role of Sky Masterson in a revival of Guys and Dolls in 1965. In 1968, he starred in the musical Promises, Promises which was based on the 1960 film The Apartment. In this show, Jerry Orbach recreated the role of Chuck “C.C.” Baxter which was originated by Jack Lemmon in the film version and Orbach was awarded his first and only Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical as well as a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Musical. Orbach later originated the roles of Billy Flynn in Chicago in 1975 and Julian Marsh in 42nd Street in 1980 and both roles earned him two more Tony Award Nominations.

While he was on Broadway, he also made some uncredited appearances in the film version of Guys and Dolls (1955) and Marty (1955) which won the Best Picture Oscar that year, and in Ensign Pulver (1964), the sequel to Mister Roberts (1955). He played the Gang Leader “Mumzer,” in the movie Cop Hater (1958) and Joe Clegg in Mad Dog Coll (1961). In the 1980s, he transitioned to Television and Film full-time. He landed a recurring role as Detective Harry McGraw on the murder-mystery/drama series Murder, She Wrote (1984-1996) which starred Orbach’s good “Broadway” friend, Angela Lansbury. His first appearance on the show was so well-received, that it led the creation of a short-lived spin-off series called The Law and Harry McGraw (1987-1988). In 1987 he was cast as Dr. Jake Houseman in “Dirty Dancing,” and three years later, in 1990 made a guest appearance on NBC’s The Golden Girls (1985-1992) which reunited him with former “Threepenny Opera,” co-star, Beatrice Arthur. The appearance earned him his first of Three Emmy Nominations. In 1991, he was hired by the Walt Disney Studios to provide the voice of Lumiere in “Beauty and the Beast,” which reunited him with Angela Lansbury as Mrs. Potts. Both he and Lansbury reprised their roles for the direct-to-video sequels to the film, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas (1997), and Beauty and the Beast: Belle’s Magical World (1998). Orbach also lent his voice to the character of Sa’Luk in Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996), the direct-to-video sequel to Aladdin (1992), and provided the voice of Pierre the Bird at the Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management) Attraction which opened at Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom in Disney World in 1998 and closed in 2011. 

After lending his voice to “Beauty and the Beast,” he was cast in the role with which he would be most often identified: Detective Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order (1990-2010). He was on the show for 12 of its 20 year-run on television and in 2000, he earned his third Emmy nomination in the category of Best Actor in a Drama Series. He also became the show’s third longest-serving main cast member as well as one of its most popular just behind S. Epatha Merkerson and Sam Waterston, with whom Jerry Orbach had previously worked with on Woody Allen’s Crime and Misdemeanors (1989). Both of his children guest-starred on the show. His older son, Anthony “Tony” Orbach, guest-starred in the “Doubles” episode of the show as a reporter, and his younger son, Chris Orbach, guest starred as his Lennie Briscoe’s nephew, Ken Briscoe, on the first season of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (1999-present).

Jerry Orbach tragically died of prostate cancer on December 28th, 2004 in Manhattan, New York at the age of 69. Many of his close friends attended the memorial service including his “Law & Order,” co-stars, S. Epatha Merkerson, Chris Noth, and Angela Lansbury. Lansbury also spoke at the funeral, saying “….to have Jerry on the set with me, it was like a breath of Broadway. Jerry was a warm and accessible person, so kind and generous-hearted. I’m so very proud to have known Jerry and to have been a part of his circle.” Jerry Orbach will always be remembered by adults as Detective Lennie Briscoe on “Law and Order,” but to kids and kids at heart, he will always be the voice of Lumiere in “Beauty and the Beast.”