Robert Stack
Birth : 1919-01-13, Los Angeles, California, USA
Death : 2003-05-14
History
Robert Langford Modini Stack was a multilingual American actor and television host. In addition to acting in more than 40 films, he also appeared on the television series The Untouchables and later served as the host of Unsolved Mysteries.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Stack spent his early childhood growing up in Europe. Becoming fluent in French and Italian at an early age, and he did not learn English until returning to Los Angeles. Stack achieved minor fame in sporting, winning multiple championships including setting two world records and winning multiple honors in skeet shooting
Stack studied drama at Bridgewater State College, earning his first hollywood role at the age of 20 and continuing to star in numerous roles throughout the early 1940s.
After serving in the military, Stack returned to Hollywood to star in numerous films including stand out roles in The High and the Mighty (opposite John Wayne) and Written on the Wind (1957), for which he was awarded an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Stack later moved on to televised dramatic series, depicting the crime-fighting Eliot Ness in The Untouchables (1959–1963), which earned him a best actor Emmy Award in 1960. Stack also starred in multiple drama series, before returning to film, this time in comedies to satirize his famed stoic and humorless demeanor.
He began hosting Unsolved Mysteries in 1987, and served as the show's host throughout it's entire original run from 1987 to 2002.
(archive)
A history of anti-Asian racism and yellowface in Hollywood after the 1941 Pearl Harbor attack.
The stars and director of 'Written on the Wind' and 'The Tarnished Angels' talk about director Douglas Sirk's techniques. Archival interviews originally appeared in the documentary "Douglas Sirk: Uber Stars" (Eckhart Schmidt, 1980)
Host
First Look Studios released six theme-based DVD sets of "Unsolved Mysteries" in Region 1 in 2004/2005. The sets were re-released on June 21, 2005 with a lower suggested retail price. On March 21, 2006, a compilation set called The Best of Unsolved Mysteries was released, which contained selected segments from each of the earlier DVD sets along with some previously unreleased-on-DVD content. A special boxed set featuring the first six sets along with the new content from the Best of collection was also produced. List of DVD sets ---> Volume 1: UFOs, Volume 2: Ghosts, Volume 3: Miracles, Volume 4: Bizarre Murder, Volume 5: Psychics, Volume 6: Strange Legends, The Best of, The Ultimate Collection.
Self
A rare behind the scenes look at the tragedies and bitter disappointments that plagued one of MGM's most popular leading ladies
The Gooch
After losing another job, two idiots embark on an adventure of mythic proportion: to acquire "Feed Bags," the discontinued entire-meal-in-a-bag, to impress their two equally dim-witted dates. When the only convenience store in town that carries the discontinued food item is found closed, Waylon and Buzz break in and can't break out.
Superintendent (voice)
The school year is finally ending, and T.J. Detweiler is looking forward to summer. But boredom quickly sets in when his friends leave for camp — until T.J. uncovers an evil plot to do away with summer vacation! A crazy former principal, Dr. Benedict, is planning to use a laser beam to alter the weather and create permanent winter. Faced with the dire threat of year-round school, T.J. rounds up the RECESS gang and bands together with some unexpected allies — Miss Finster and Principal Prickly — in a nonstop adventure to save everyone's summer break. As the kids discover the heroes inside themselves, a platoon of wacky characters, far-out music, and sci-fi surprises turn this madcap mission into a major victory for fun!
Himself
In the small town of Mumford, a psychologist of the same name moves in and quickly becomes very popular, despite a questionable past.
Sumner Ethridge
Bennett, who's engaged to his boss's daughter, just lost a major client for his company. When a letter meant for someone else is accidentally mailed to his home, Bennett tries to return it to its author. She turns out to be Robbie, curator of the museum home of the poet Longfellow which is desperate for funding. Bennett is drawn to Robbie and decides to help her save the museum. In the process, he finds himself reevaluating his life.
Robert Stack
Two losers from Milwaukee, Coop and Remer, invent a new game playing basketball, using baseball rules. When the game becomes a huge success, they, along with a billionaire's help, form the Professional Baseketball League where everyone gets the same pay and no team can change cities. Theirs is the only team standing in the way of major rule changes that the owner of a rival team wants to institute.
Agent Flemming (voice)
Slacker duo Beavis and Butt-Head wake to discover their TV has been stolen. Their search for a new one takes them on a clueless adventure across America, during which they manage to accidentally become America's most wanted.
Eliot Ness
Detective Eliot Ness comes back to town to fight corruption and avenge a former partner's murder with the help of the son.
Dr. Ellison
Hypochondriac Joe Banks finds out he has six months to live, quits his dead end job, musters the courage to ask his co-worker out on a date, and is then hired to jump into a volcano by a mysterious visitor.
Louis Faciano
A college graduate is offered a deal of a lifetime - deliver a Porsche for a client and join the company of your dreams in return. When the car gets stolen, he and his friend must go to a beauty pageant run by the thief to get it back.
Mr. Gardner
To prove his brother's innocence, undercover officer Nick enrolls in high school again, dealing with crushes, bullies, humiliations, popularity swings, and quirky teachers and staff to find the real murderer.
Jordan White
Jordan White, a publisher friend of Perry, is called to a hotel where a guest, famous horror writer David Hall, has cleared out the hotel for a weekend and has called his "friends" - an actress, a fortune-teller, David's private assistant and the two remaining staff at the hotel to discuss business. They have come to the hotel as all of them are going to sue David over his new book - "The Resort" which characters are obviously based on Jordan and the guests. A practical joker, David plays tricks on them until he is thrown from the high tower of the hotel where Susan Warrenfield, the manager and owner of the hotel sees the fall and then Jordan at the tower causing the police to arrest Jordan. While Perry and Della try to solve the main mystery, Paul tries to find out who is trying to scare Susan away from the hotel. Could it really be a ghost or a more earthy visitor?
Ultra Magnus (voice)
The Autobots must stop a colossal planet-consuming robot who goes after the Autobot Matrix of Leadership. At the same time, they must defend themselves against an all-out attack from the Decepticons.
Winslow
Leonard Hoffman is an insurance salesman struggling to make ends meet. The fact that he has triplet sons who all want to go to Yale isn't making things any easier. Blanche Rickey is also worried about money; her husband is a millionaire with a weak heart, and she worries that he'll blow through all his cash before he finally dies. When Blanche meets Leonard, she devises a murderous plan that she claims will fix both their problems.
Drew Hammond
Set in Silicon Valley, California, follows the lives of a group of people involved in the competitive world of computer electronics and the greed, passion and intrigue amongst them.
MacGregor
A group of Vietnam War veterans re-unite to rescue one of their own left behind and taken prisoner by the Vietnamese...
Captain Rex Kramer
An ex-fighter pilot forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning.
Maj. Gen. Joseph W. Stilwell
In the days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, panic grips California, where a military officer leads a mob chasing a Japanese sub.
Host - Narrator
The true story of Gary Thomas Rowe, Jr., who worked undercover for the FBI to infiltrate a Ku Klux Klan group in his Alabama hometown and later testified as a key prosecution witness during the trial of several Klansmen for crimes of destruction and murder.
Self
Kermit the Frog throws a glamorous party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub to celebrate the premiere of the Muppets' first feature film, The Muppet Movie. Hosts Dick van Dyke and Rita Moreno interview the wide array of celebrities and Muppets who attend the event. Gary Owens serves as off-camera announcer, and appears on-screen to introduce Miss Piggy.
An aging dentist looks for a little liveliness by abandoning his wife in favor of a younger woman. When he learns that his mistress also has another younger lover, he gets jealous, but tries not to make an issue of it. In the end, he dumps her and returns to his wife, who is not about to stand for his middle-aged immaturity. She leaves him.
Captain Larkin
On a flight to London, a note is found stating that there will be murders taking place on the airliner before it lands.
Capt. James Morgan
A madman hijacks the luxury cruise liner, S.S. Queen, and threatens to blow it up unless a millionaire pays him the the contents of a safe deposit box. The crew regains control of the ship, but the hijacker dies, taking the codes to disarm the bomb with him.
Michael Rhodes
A family moves into a new home in an isolated area, and soon realizes that someone--or something--doesn't want them there.
Self (archive footage)
The Selling of the Pentagon, was an important documentary aired in primetime on CBS on 23 February 1971. The aim of this film, produced by Peter Davis, was to examine the increasing utilization and cost to the taxpayers of public relations activities by the military-industrial complex in order to shape public opinion in favor of the military.
David Frasier
Karin studies music in Rome and falls in love with Bruno. She learns that he is married and therefore returns to Sweden. She meets David. They marry and have a daughter. David is sent to Rome. Karin meets Bruno again.
Mark McPherson
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he’s investigating.
Jim Beckley
An American (Robert Stack) talks a retired French crook (Jean Gabin) into robbing a bank, but kidnappers demand the loot as ransom.
Cliff Wilder
Freelance photographer Cliff Wilder (Robert Stack) finds himself the target of various colorful villains in this quest for an ancient Chinese treasure when he accidentally acquires the key to its location, the Peking medallion.
General Sibert
Near the end of World War II, Gen. Dietrich von Choltitz receives orders to burn down Paris if it becomes clear the Allies are going to invade, or if he cannot maintain control of the city. After much contemplation Choltitz decides to ignore his orders, enraging the Germans and giving hope to various resistance factions that the city will be liberated. Choltitz, along with Swedish diplomat Raoul Nordling, helps a resistance leader organize his forces.
Ken Murray narrates his 16mm home movies shot over 35 years in Hollywood.
James Andrew Congers
A spy wants to "come in from the cold" since his last assignment resulted in the death of two innocent people. But the service cannot let a man quit.
Dr. Donovan MacLeod
This movie chronicles the trials of the mentally ill and their care-givers in an over-crowded ward of a hospital.
Cliff Henderson
The S. S. Claridon is scheduled for her five last voyages after thirty-eight years of service. After an explosion in the boiler room, Captain Robert Adams is reluctant to evacuate the steamship. While the crew fights to hold a bulkhead between the flooded boiler room and the engine room and avoid the sinking of the vessel, the passenger Cliff Henderson struggles against time trying to save his beloved wife Laurie Henderson, who is trapped under a steel beam in her cabin, with the support of the crew member Hank Lawson.
John Paul Jones
The career of Revolutionary War naval hero John Paul Jones, from his youth in Scotland through his service to Catherine the Great of Russia.
Eliot Ness
Story of how a group of incorruptible federal lawmen helped put 1920s' Chicago gangster Al Capone in prison.
William 'Bill' Beck
Fearing she will die, a physicist's wife hopes her husband will be consoled by the orphan she adopts.
Roger Shumann
In the 1930s, once-great World War I pilot Roger Shumann performs as a daredevil barnstorming pilot at aerial stunt shows while his wife, LaVerne, works as a parachutist. When newspaper reporter Burke Devlin arrives to do a story on the Shumanns’ act, he quickly falls in love with the beautiful--and neglected--LaVerne.
Kyle Hadley
Mitch Wayne is a geologist working for the Hadleys, an oil-rich Texas family. While the patriarch, Jared, works hard to establish the family business, his irresponsible son, Kyle, is an alcoholic playboy, and his daughter, Marylee, is the town tramp. Mitch harbors a secret love for Kyle's unsatisfied wife, Lucy -- a fact that leaves him exposed when the jealous Marylee accuses him of murder.
Owen Pentecost
After a card game, Southerner Owen Pentecost finds himself the owner of a Denver hotel. Involved with two women, he then has to make even more fundamental choices when, with the start of the Civil War, he becomes one of a small minority in a strongly Unionist town.
Dr Tom Baker
Beloved schoolteacher reflects back on her life and former students when she is hospitalized...
Mark Macpherson
A detective is assigned to a case of murder. During the investigation he finds himself taking a more than professional interest in the victim, the mysterious Laura.
Eddie Kenner
Eddie Kenner is given a special assignment by the Army to get the inside story on Sandy Dawson, a former GI who has formed a gang of fellow servicemen and Japanese locals.
John Sullivan
Dan Roman is a veteran pilot haunted by a tragic past. Now relegated to second-in-command cockpit assignments he finds himself on a routine Honolulu-to-San Francisco flight - one that takes a terrifying suspense-building turn when disaster strikes high above the Pacific Ocean at the point of no return.
Captain Charles Wogan
Irishman Charles Wogan wields his sword in the cause of James Stuart who seeks to replace George I on the throne of England.
Col. Gil Manton
The story of jet pilots flying over Korea by day, from their Itazuke Air Base in Japan, and of their wives, on station with them, who have dinner ready when they return. Jane Carter (Coleen Gray), a reporter for a large newspaper syndicate arrives... she's also the estranged wife of the assistant squadron commander, Colonel Gil Manton (Robert Stack.) At first, she goes at her assignment of getting a story on the pilots wives with the same ruthlessness and persistence that broke up her marriage - but a mirror isn't needed to peek around the corner to where this one is headed.
Maj. Tom Burke
A cavalry officer tries to keep a lid on a volatile situation when Indian leader Cochise is being prodded into starting a war.
Lt. Billings
An Indian and his beautiful sister attempt to destroy a cavalry patrol trying to deliver a peace treaty to their chief.
Bob Hayward
British railway workers in Kenya are becoming the favorite snack of two man-eating lions. Head engineer Bob Hayward becomes obsessed with trying to kill the beasts before they maul everyone on his crew.
Patrick O´Moore
Danny, a greenhorn from New York comes to the Mexican border in search for his older brother whom he has always looked up to. A Texas Ranger charged with bringing in, El Tigre and his gang of bandits, takes Danny under his wing.
John Regan
An American takes up bullfighting to impress the ladies but learns to respect the sport.
Jeff Blake
A golf-crazy songwriter tries to avoid the long, solitary hours of concentration needed to produce a hit musical. His producer and his secretary conspire to get him back on track.
Capt. Stuart L. Hamilton
During World War II, an insubordinate fighter pilot finds the shoe on the other foot when he's promoted.
Nickey Van Alen
After the accidental death of an idiot heir, a stunt man is hired to impersonate him while the family gathers to determine the dispersment of the estate of Miss Tatlock's millions.
Stephen Andrews
Best friends Judy and Carol compete for the affection of an older man during their high school dance. As Carol tries to rekindle Judy's relationship with Carol's bumbling brother, Oogie, Judy suspects that her father is having an affair with a beautiful dance instructor. The two girls team up to expose Judy's father -- who is only taking innocent dance lessons.
Himself
Actors are seen in their new roles as military men during WWII: Robert Stack displaying his remarkable skill as an artillery training officer; Tyrone Power as a Marine drill instructor; Rudy Vallee leading a military band; and Glenn Ford in the everyday grind of a Marine private.
Bob - Factory worker
Topical wartime short depicting the plight of civilians who must stay in shape in order to fight the good fight.
Barry Conovan
A Chicago reporter (Robert Stack) and photographer focus on a Confederate outlaw (Brod Crawford) in post-Civil War Texas.
Chuck S. Brewer
An American joins the British Royal Air Force just before Pearl Harbor is attacked, and falls in love with a beautiful English girl.
Lieut. Stanislav Sobinski
During the Nazi occupation of Poland, an acting troupe becomes embroiled in a Polish soldier's efforts to track down a German spy.
Jim Holliday
Up-and-coming Universal leading man Robert Stack made his western-movie debut in Badlands of Dakota. Set in the Dakotas during the days of the Great Gold Boom, the story finds brothers Jim and Bob Holliday (Stack and Broderick Crawford) dukeing it out over the affections of pretty Anne Grayson (Ann Rutherford). While all this is going on, Wild Bill Hickok (Richard Dix) does his best to neutralize the local criminal element-and to fend off the romantic overtures of boisterous Calamity Jane (Frances Farmer).
Don Webb
Jane is a nice girl and has had her eyes on a young man who seems more interested in his hand-built car than in Jane. She decides to shed her "nice girl" image when an associate of her father comes to town on his way to study Australian Aboriginal tribes.
Bob Terry
A child from the New York tenements sings on a radio quiz show and is eventually hired to a big-bucks contract, which allows her and her family to move into a posh apartment, with all the usual problems that accompany sudden wealth.
Otto Von Rohn
The Roth family leads a quiet life in a small village in the German Alps during the early 1930s. When the Nazis come to power, the family is divided and Martin Brietner, a family friend is caught up in the turmoil.
Ted Drake
In this reworking of Cinderella, orphaned Connie Harding is sent to live with her rich aunt and uncle after graduating from boarding school. She's hardly received with open arms, especially by her snobby cousin Barbara. When the entire family is invited to a major social ball, Barbara sees to it that Connie is forced to stay home. With the aid of her uncle, who acts as her fairy godfather, Connie makes it to the ball and meets her Prince Charming in Ted Drake, her cousin's boyfriend.
(archive footage)
An audiovisual essay on Douglas Sirk's The Tarnished Angel. Analyzes a central scene 40 minutes into the narrative, and also refers both backward and forward in order to show the film’s richly elaborated logic of part and whole, repetition and stasis, drama and entropy.
