John Houseman
Birth : 1902-09-22, Bucharest, Romania
Death : 1988-10-31
History
John Houseman (September 22, 1902 – October 31, 1988) was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane. He is perhaps best known for his role as Professor Charles Kingsfield in the 1973 film The Paper Chase for which he won a best supporting actor Oscar. He reprised his role as Kingsfield in the subsequent TV series adaptation of The Paper Chase. Houseman was also known for his commercials for the brokerage firm Smith Barney. He had a distinctive Mid-Atlantic English accent, in common with many actors of his generation.
Description above from the Wikipedia article John Houseman, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Self - 1980 Interviewee (archive footage)
Documentary looking at the life and career of 1930s film star Leslie Howard. It features exclusive home movie footage, including footage from the Gone with the Wind set. The film includes extensive interviews with Howard's daughter, Leslie Ruth "Doodie" Howard, and contributions from friends and colleagues.
Self - Actor (archive footage)
The extraordinary life of Orson Welles (1915-85), an enigma of Hollywood, an irreducible independent creator: a musical prodigy, an excellent painter, a master of theater and radio, a modern Shakespeare, a magician who was always searching for a new trick to surprise his audience, a romantic and legendary figure who lived only for cinema.
Producer
This film was not intended to stand by itself, but was designed as the cinematic aspect of Welles' Mercury Theatre stage presentation of William Gillette's 1894 comedy about a New York playboy who flees from the violent husband of his mistress and borrows the identity of a plantation owner in Cuba who is expecting the arrival of a mail order bride. The film component of the performance was ultimately never screened due to the absence of projection facilities at the venue. Long-believed to be lost, a workprint was discovered in 2008 and the film had its premiere in 2013.
Duelist
This film was not intended to stand by itself, but was designed as the cinematic aspect of Welles' Mercury Theatre stage presentation of William Gillette's 1894 comedy about a New York playboy who flees from the violent husband of his mistress and borrows the identity of a plantation owner in Cuba who is expecting the arrival of a mail order bride. The film component of the performance was ultimately never screened due to the absence of projection facilities at the venue. Long-believed to be lost, a workprint was discovered in 2008 and the film had its premiere in 2013.
Driving Instructor (uncredited)
When the incompetent Lieutenant Frank Drebin seeks the ruthless killer of his partner, he stumbles upon an attempt to assassinate Queen Elizabeth II.
Self
Frank Cross is a wildly successful television executive whose cold ambition and curmudgeonly nature has driven away the love of his life. But after firing staff member Eliot Loudermilk on Christmas Eve, Frank is visited by a series of ghosts who give him a chance to re-evaluate his actions and right the wrongs of his past.
Marion's Father
Marion is a woman who has learned to shield herself from her emotions. She rents an apartment to work undisturbed on her new book, but by some acoustic anomaly she can hear all that is said in the next apartment in which a psychiatrist holds his office. When she hears a young woman tell that she finds it harder and harder to bear her life, Marion starts to reflect on her own life. After a series of events she comes to understand how her unemotional attitude towards the people around her affected them and herself.
Mr. Vogel
A disillusioned young writer living in New York City turns to drugs and drinking to block out the memories of his dead mother and estranged wife.
Executive Producer
Jeannie Donovan, a party-girl searching for that something missing in her life, finds it in El Salvador, hooking up with three nuns and a heartful of ache, love, and horror in the midst of a civil war. This is a true story of the four American churchwomen murdered in the Central American countryside, and the indifference of the American government to their sad and desperate story.
Narrator (voice)
Townsfolk discover a warped secret while clearing out the house of a recently deceased, aristocratic spinster.
Network Newscaster
Production of Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer-winning play "The Skin of Our Teeth."
Stanley Markowitz
A disgruntled phone company employee develops a device whereby those answering a phone can be murdered, and it's up to Nat Bridger to stop the killer.
Sears James
Four successful elderly gentlemen, members of the Chowder Society, share a gruesome, 50-year-old secret. When one of Edward Wanderley's twin sons dies in a bizarre accident, the group begins to see a pattern of frightening events developing.
The Arts Project of the Work Projects Administration (1935-1942) was a USA government agency established to support writers, theater people, painters, sculptors, and photographers.
Ephraim Adams
A divorced woman (Michael Learned) moves to San Francisco from Omaha with her young son. She's trying to re-build her life after her divorce, she leaves her son with his grandmother. She joins the choir of a local church. She has some issues with the choirmaster (John Houseman) who tries to get the choir into shape before the Christmas concert. The choir overcome some personal setbacks as they all deal with personal issues. Zoe (Michael Learned) thinks of quitting the choir all together when push comes to shove.
Dr. Lindquist
Overprotective mother Liz Benedict meets 18-year-old orphan Joanna Redwine and hires her as house help and live-in companion to rambunctious daughter Tara. Liz's husband Jeff isn't too thrilled with the arrangement, and his fears soon prove justified when Joanna begins to manipulate everyone and to slowly destroy the family. Meanwhile, next-door neighbor Dr. Linquist investigates and discovers Joanna has a disturbing past.
Dobbs
Clifford Peach, an easygoing teenager, is finding less than easy to fit in at his new high school, where a tough-talking bully terrorizes his classmates and extorts their lunch money. Refusing to pay up, Clifford enlist the aid of an overgrown misfit whose mere presence intimidates students and teachers alike. But their "business relationship" soon turns personal as Clifford and the troubled loner forge a winning alliance against their intimidators - and a very special friendship with each other.
The Archangel
Harvey and Zoey, two tourists in Israel, discover an ancient scroll about Herschel, the man who was almost Moses. Herschel receives the command from God to free his people from slavery, but Moses keeps getting all the credit.
Executive Producer
True story of Clarence Gideon's fight to be appointed counsel at the expense of the state. This landmark case led to the Supreme Court's decision which extended this right to all criminal defendants.
Chief Justice / Offscreen Narrator
True story of Clarence Gideon's fight to be appointed counsel at the expense of the state. This landmark case led to the Supreme Court's decision which extended this right to all criminal defendants.
Mr. Machen
Strange things begin to occurs as a tiny California coastal town prepares to commemorate its centenary. Inanimate objects spring eerily to life; Rev. Malone stumbles upon a dark secret about the town's founding; radio announcer Stevie witnesses a mystical fire; and hitchhiker Elizabeth discovers the mutilated corpse of a fisherman. Then a mysterious iridescent fog descends upon the village, and more people start to die.
Dr. Hoffman
When her marriage falls apart, a psychiatrist seeks out those of her former boyfriends who left the biggest impact on her life, mostly in a bad way.
Jasper Blubber
A spoof of the entire 1940s detective genre. San Francisco private detective, Lou Pekinpaugh is accused of murdering his partner at the instigation of his mistress—his partner's wife.
Father Flynn
A conscientious but driven Polish refugee disrupts the hierarchy of power on a Georgia farm in the 1940s.
The Director
A rehearsal is disrupted when six figures mysteriously appear on the stage, claiming to be fictional characters from an unfinished play searching for an author to tell their tragic story. An adaptation of the classic Luigi Pirandello play, updated to take place in a 1970s television studio.
Abner Procane
A dabbler-in-crime and his assistant hire an ex-police reporter to recover some stolen papers.
Mike Collins
The story of John Henry Faulk, a radio/TV personality of the 1950s, who was blacklisted during the McCarthy era. Faulk sued the organization that was behind the blacklisting, and the resultant trial, and Faulk's victory, helped to put an end to the blacklisting period.
Mr. Wabash
A bookish CIA researcher finds all his co-workers dead, and must outwit those responsible until he figures out who he can really trust.
Dr. Fawcett
On a Connecticut farm, James Mayo's two sons both love Ruth Atkins. Robert, the younger son, is sickly and dreams of escaping to a romantic life somewhere "beyond the horizon." Andy is hard-working and steadfast and loves his brother deeply. When Ruth reveals that she loves Robert and not, as everyone believed, Andy, Robert's plans to go to sea with his uncle are disrupted. He decides to stay at home and marry Ruth, while Andy, unwilling to remain close at hand as his brother marries the girl he loves, takes Robert's place on the voyage. This turn of events leads to heartache and tragedy for everyone involved.
Bartholomew
In a corporate-controlled future, an ultra-violent sport known as Rollerball represents the world, and one of its powerful athletes is out to defy those who want him out of the game.
Self
A portrait of legendary filmmaker Nicholas Ray while he is working as a film professor at a college in upstate New York.
Charles W. Kingsfield Jr.
A first-year law student struggles with balancing his coursework and his relationship with the daughter of a stern professor.
Executive Producer
A young poet gets the brilliant idea to live in a department store, hiding by day, and courting his muse by night where it's quiet, and he can have all his needs met. But, to his surprise, he learns his brilliant idea's not exactly original; there are other residents who dodge the night watchmen, and who keep their existence secret at all costs. And one of them is a young woman who wants to leave, but is too frightened to go. And Charles finds that he wants to show her the larger world outside.
Producer
A railroad official, Owen Legate comes to Dodson, Mississippi to shut down much of the town's railway (town's main income). Owen unexpectedly finds love with Dodson's flirt and main attraction, Alva Starr. Alva and Owen then try to escape Alva's mother's (Hazel) clutches and the town's revenge.
Vice Adm. Farley C. Barnswell (uncredited)
A U.S. Army colonel alerts the president of a planned military coup against him.
Producer
After he mends a marital rift between a vacationing young couple, the bored, fragile wife falls hopelessly in love with the husband's ex-colleague who is married to a long-suffering and emotionally and physically scarred woman. The couple soon runs off to Greece together to pursue the romance.
Producer
After spending three years in an asylum, a washed-up actor views a minor assignment from his old director in Rome as a chance for personal and professional redemption.
Producer
Ralph and Annabell Willart are a feuding couple who are constantly bickering over their worthless, good-for-nothing son Berry-Berry. When Berry-Berry begins yet another meaningless love affair, this time with an older woman named Echo O’Brien, he really gets his parents at each others’ throats.
Himself
Producer
An intense and imaginative artist, revered Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh possesses undeniable talent, but he is plagued by mental problems and frustrations with failure. Supported by his brother, Theo, the tormented Van Gogh eventually leaves Holland for France, where he meets volatile fellow painter Paul Gauguin and struggles to find greater inspiration.
Producer
Set in the eighteenth century, Moonfleet is about John Mohune, a young orphan who is sent to the Dorset village of Moonfleet to stay with an old friend of his mother's, Jeremy Fox. Fox is a morally ambiguous character, an elegant gentleman involved with smugglers and pirates.
Producer
Patients and staff at a posh psychiatric clinic clash over who chooses the clinic’s new drapes - but drapes are the least of their problems.
Producer
An inexperienced female teacher is hired at a private elite school for boys where she raises a few eyebrows among the all-male faculty.
Producer
When the head of a large manufacturing firm dies suddenly from a stroke, his vice-presidents vie to see who will replace him.
Producer
The assassination of the would be ruler of Rome at the hands of Brutus and company has tragic consequences for the idealist and the republic.
Producer
Told in flashback form, the film traces the rise and fall of a tough, ambitious Hollywood producer, Jonathan Shields, as seen through the eyes of various acquaintances, including a writer, James Lee Bartlow; a star, Georgia Lorrison; and a director, Fred Amiel. He is a hard-driving, ambitious man who ruthlessly uses everyone on the way to becoming one of Hollywood's top movie makers.
Producer
Three old friends reunite during Mardi Gras and try to forget their problems.
Producer
A big-city cop is reassigned to the country after his superiors find him too angry to be an effective policeman. While on his temporary assignment he assists in a manhunt of a suspected murderer.
Producer
A lady con artist sets out to steal her parole officer's fiance.
Producer
An escaped convict, injured during a robbery, falls in love with the woman who nurses him back to health, but their relationship seems doomed from the beginning.
Producer
A pianist about to flee from a duel receives a letter from a woman he cannot remember. As she tells the story of her lifelong love for him, he is forced to reinterpret his own past.
Producer
Soon after a veteran's return from war his cheating wife is found dead. He evades police in an attempt to find the real murderer.
Associate Producer
A student nurse falls in love with a young intern in 1910 Baltimore, but tragedy ensues when he contracts a fatal disease.
Associate Producer
David Fielding, who has recently lost his wife, moves into a new neighborhood under a cloud of suspicion. Many feel that his wife's death in a car crash was no accident. Elizabeth Howard, the governess he hires to look after his children, makes it her mission to find out the truth. When other murders seem to be following David to his new town, Elizabeth investigates with the help of David's son Barnaby.
Screenplay
After a harsh childhood, orphan Jane Eyre is hired by Edward Rochester, the brooding lord of a mysterious manor house to care for his young daughter.
