Maidie Norman
Also Known As: Mady Norman, Madie Norman
Biography: Maidie Norman was born Maidie Ruth Gamble on October 16, 1912, in Villa Rica, Georgia, to Louis and Lila Gamble. She received a B.A. from Bennett College in 1934 and a master's degree from Columbia University three years later. She also attended the Actors Lab in Hollywood from 1946 to 1949. Norman first appeared on film in The Peanut Man in 1947. Throughout the fifties-not a good time for film roles for black women-she appeared in a number of films, such as Bright Road with Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier and Torch Song, both in 1953; About Mrs. Leslie and Susan Slept Here in 1954; and 1956's Written on the Wind. These were often servant roles, with a special fifties blandness. Still, Norman was skillful and professional in her execution of them. In 1962, she got a chance to chew up the scenery with Bette Davis and Joan Crawford in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? In 1968-69, Norman was an artist-in-residence at Stanford University and, throughout the seventies, she was lecturer, director, and acting teacher at UCLA. At the same time, Norman was highly visible on television, appearing in Mannix, Adam 12, Streets of San Francisco, Kung Fu, The Jeffersons, and others. She was also part of the cast of Roots: The Next Generation in 1979. Norman was a founding member of the American Negro Theater West; in 1977, she was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame; and an award in her name is presented each year for outstanding research by an undergraduate in Black Theater at UCLA. She died on May 6, 1998.
Department: Acting
Place of Birth: Villa Rica, Georgia, USA
Adult: No
Birthday: October 16, 1912
Age: 112 years old
Gender: Female
Deathday: May 02, 1998
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Known For:
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
Overview: A former child star torments her paraplegic sister in their decaying Hollywood mansion.
Genres: Thriller Drama Horror
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1962-10-31
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Halloween III: Season of the Witch
Overview: A terrified toy salesman is mysteriously attacked, and at the hospital, babbles and clutches the year's most popular Halloween costume, an eerie pumpkin mask. Suddenly, Doctor Daniel Challis finds himself thrust into a terrifying nightmare.
Genres: Horror Science Fiction
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1982-10-22
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The Well
Overview: In a racially mixed American town, a five-year-old black girl falls unnoticed into a hidden, forgotten well on her way to school. Having nothing better to go on, the police follow up a report that the child was seen with a white stranger, and rumors run wild. Before hapless, innocent Claude Packard is even found, popular hysteria has him tried and convicted. But is he guilty?
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1951-09-24
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Executive Suite
Overview: When the head of a large manufacturing firm dies suddenly from a stroke, his vice-presidents vie to see who will replace him.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1954-04-30
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Written on the Wind
Overview: Mitch Wayne is a geologist working for the Hadleys, an oil-rich Texas family. While the patriarch, Jasper, 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.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1956-10-04
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Susan Slept Here
Overview: On Christmas Eve, suffering from a case of writer's block, screenwriter Mark Christopher and his gofer Virgil get an unexpected visit from Sergeant Maizel. Knowing Christopher is working on a juvenile delinquent script, the sergeant brings by delinquent Susan thinking she will inspire Christopher while providing a place for her to spend the holidays outside of juvenile hall.
Genres: Comedy Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1954-07-28
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Tarzan's Hidden Jungle
Overview: Hunters trespass into Sukulu country, where animals are sacred, posing as photographers.
Genres: Romance Adventure Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1955-02-16
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Bright Road
Overview: Teachers at an all-black school fight to save a problem child.
Genres: Drama Music
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1953-04-17
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About Mrs. Leslie
Overview: A lonely, unhappy owner of a Beverly Hills boarding house reflects on her lonely, unhappy life and the lonely, unhappy man she once loved.
Genres: Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1954-08-03
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Forever Female
Overview: An aging actress has a hard time admitting she is too old to play the ingenue role anymore.
Genres: Comedy Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1953-11-28
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The Lie
Overview: An Ingmar Bergman script. Produced for Swedish Television as "Reservatet" (1970) and for BBC as "The Lie" (1971). An American couple is trapped in their marriage and way of life. Locked up in their bourgeois inferno.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1973-04-24
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Airport '77
Overview: Flight 23 has crashed in the Bermuda Triangle after a hijacking gone wrong. Now the surviving passengers must brave panic, slow leaks, oxygen depletion, and more while attempting a daring plan, all while 200 feet underwater.
Genres: Action Adventure Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1977-03-11
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A Star Is Born
Overview: Drunken, has-been rock star John Norman Howard falls in love with unknown singer Esther Hoffman after seeing her perform at a club. He lets her sing a few songs at one of his shows and she becomes the talk of the music industry. Esther's star begins to rise, while John's continues to fall. She tries desperately to get John to sober up and focus on his music, but it may be too late to save him.
Genres: Drama Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1976-12-17
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Manhandled
Overview: Merle Kramer works as a stenographer for a psychiatrist. She is casually dating Karl Benson, a private eye and former cop. Merle mentions in passing that one of her boss's patients is an author with recurring dreams of murdering his wife, and she includes the fact that the wife owns valuable jewels. When the wife is found murdered in a manner identical to that of her husband's dream, the husband is naturally the prime suspect. But as the investigation of the police and insurance investigator Joe Cooper proceeds, it turns out that several people in the case, including Merle, are not what they seem.
Genres: Crime Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1949-07-21
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Sixteen
Overview: Hickspoiltation film from the early 1970s ostensibly starring Oscar nominee Mercedes McCambridge, but really more a film looking for an excuse to show off Simone Griffeth's beauty. She plays a daughter of a swamp family. The whole family goes to a carnival where she is seduced by an older male performer, while her teen brother is seduced by an older female performer.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-06-03
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Another Part of the Forest
Overview: A television adaptation of Lillian Hellman's play about the Hubbards, a rich Southern family of greedy, ruthless individuals.
Genres: TV Movie Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-10-02
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Maurie
Overview: When an African-American basketball star suffers sudden paralysis, his white friend and teammate assists in his rehabilitation.
Genres: Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1973-08-01
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The Opposite Sex
Overview: Former radio singer Kay learns from her gossipy friends that her husband, Steve, has had an affair with chorus girl Crystal. Devastated, Kay tries to ignore the information, but when Crystal performs one of her musical numbers at a charity benefit, she breaks down and goes to Reno to file for divorce. However, when she hears that gold-digging Crystal is making Steve unhappy, Kay resolves to get her husband back. The Opposite Sex is a remake of the 1939 comedy The Women.
Genres: Comedy Music Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1956-11-15
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The Peanut Man
Overview: At the offices of Consolidated Producers Corporation, producer Tony Paton is determined to make a film about the great African American chemist, George Washington Carver. His backer, Murphy, is skeptical about the marketability of such a project, but Paton convinces him that it is time to depict the truth about races, creeds, and religions.
Genres: Drama History
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1947-06-01
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Torch Song
Overview: Jenny Stewart is a tough Broadway musical star who doesn't take criticism from anyone. Yet there is one individual, Tye Graham, a blind pianist who may be able to break through her tough exterior.
Genres: Music Drama Romance
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1953-10-01
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Say Goodbye, Maggie Cole
Overview: Maggie Cole is a research scientist who, after the sudden death of her husband, takes a position as an on-call doctor in an inner-city clinic. There, she must fight a battle on two fronts: against the medical conditions endangering her patients and against sexism toward a female doctor.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1972-09-27
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Thornwell
Overview: The story of James Thornwell, whose accusation that the U.S. Army used mind control drugs on him to force him to confess to stealing secret documents while stationed in Orleans, France, in 1961, led Congress to award him $625,000 in damages nearly 20 years later.
Genres: Drama History TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1981-01-28
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Secrets of a Mother and Daughter
Overview: A widowed mother, Ava Pryce (Katharine Ross) and daughter Susan Decker (Linda Hamilton) clash over the same man, a West Coast restaurant the owner named Alex Shepherd (Michael Nouri).
Genres: TV Movie Drama
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1983-10-04
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4 for Texas
Overview: In the 1870s, two rival businessmen, Zack Thomas and Joe Jarrett, on a stagecoach heading to Galveston, Texas, must pull together to protect $100,000 from an outlaw named Matson. Once in Galveston, however, their rivalry continues, as Thomas joins up with Elya Carlson and Jarret with Maxine Richter. But Matson is still on the loose, and a scheming banker threatens both Thomas and Jarrett.
Genres: Comedy Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1963-12-21
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A Dream for Christmas
Overview: A Southern minister is assigned to a poor church in California where the congregation is drifting away and the church itself is scheduled for demolition.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1973-12-24
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Mad at the World
Overview: A neighborhood is terrorized by group of young juvenile delinquents called The WolfPack. When a young father's infant child is seriously injured because of the WolfPack, he decides that the police aren't working fast enough to catch the ones who hurt his baby and sets out to infiltrate the gang himself and mete out the punishment they deserve.
Genres: Crime Drama Thriller
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1955-05-13
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Sty of the Blind Pig
Overview: After moving to Chicago from the South just as the civil rights movement takes hold, the members of an African American family led by steely matriarch Weedy Warren have different reactions to the social upheaval surrounding them.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1974-05-29
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Movie Movie
Overview: Three movie genres of the 1930s, boxing films, WWI aviation dramas, and backstage Broadway musicals, are satirized using the same cast.
Genres: Comedy
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1978-11-01
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Man with the Gun
Overview: A stranger comes to town looking for his estranged wife. He finds her running the local girls. He also finds a town and sheriff afraid of their own shadow, scared of a landowner they never see who rules through his rowdy sidekicks. The stranger is a town tamer by trade, and he accepts a $500 commission to sort things out.
Genres: Western
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1955-11-05
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Be Pretty and Shut Up!
Overview: The film is a series of interviews with various well-known film actresses, including Jenny Agutter, Maria Schneider, and Jane Fonda. The title, which is borrowed from a 1958 film with the same name by Marc Allegret, refers to the sense the actresses have of what is expected of them by the film industry.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 1981-03-04
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Delphine and Carole
Overview: In the 70s, actress Delphine Seyrig and director Carole Roussopoulos, both militant feminists, were the pioneers of video activism in France. They documented the demonstrations of French feminists and used the new technologies to counter the poor representation of women in the public media.
Genres: Documentary
Original Language: fr
Release Date: 2020-01-14
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Terrorist on Trial: The United States vs. Salim Ajami
Overview: There is no question that the Arab terrorist portrayed by Robert Davi is guilty of killing five US citizens in Barcelona. Even his lawyers have zero respect for the rabidly sociopathic Davi. But Jewish defence attorney Ron Leibman is obsessed with the concept of Due Process, and has vowed that Davi will receive a scrupulously fair trial when the terrorist is extradited to America. The defence mounted by Leibman confounds and aggravates government prosecutor Sam Waterston--but he, like Leibman, remains a man of judiciary integrity.
Genres: Drama TV Movie
Original Language: en
Release Date: 1988-12-30
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