People (Births)

• 1930 – Windsor Davies, British actor (d. 2019).
• 1959 – Brian Thompson, American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter.
• 1962 – David Fincher, American director and producer.

People (Deaths)

• 1978 – Robert Shaw, English actor (b. 1927).

Windsor Davies

Windsor Davies (28 August 1930 to 17 January 2019) was a Welsh actor.

He is best remembered for playing Battery Sergeant Major Williams in the sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot Mum (1974-1981) over its entire run. The show’s popularity resulted in Davies and his co-star Don Estelle achieving a UK number one hit with a version of “Whispering Grass” in 1975. He later starred with Donald Sinden in Never the Twain (1981-1991), and his deep Welsh-accented voice was heard extensively in advertising voice-overs.

Brian Thompson

Brian Earl Thompson (born 28 August 1959) is an American actor.

His career began with a small role in the 1984 film The Terminator. He played the villainous “Night Slasher” in the 1986 film Cobra. His first named role was on Werewolf, a horror series that ran during Fox’s inaugural broadcasting year of 1987-1988. Thompson has played several characters in the Star Trek franchise, the Alien Bounty Hunter on The X-Files, and Eddie Fiori on Kindred: The Embraced. In 2014, he produced, wrote and starred in the B movie parody The Extendables.

David Fincher

David Andrew Leo Fincher (born August 28, 1962) is an American film director. His films, mostly psychological thrillers and biographical dramas, have received 40 nominations at the Academy Awards, including three for him as Best Director.

Born in Denver, Colorado, Fincher was interested in filmmaking at an early age. He directed numerous music videos, most notably Madonna’s “Express Yourself” in 1989 and “Vogue” in 1990, both of which won him the MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction. He made his feature film debut with Alien 3 (1992), which garnered mixed reviews, followed by the thriller Seven (1995), which was better received. Fincher found lukewarm success with The Game (1997) and Fight Club (1999), but the latter eventually became a cult classic. In 2002, he returned to prominence with the thriller Panic Room starring Jodie Foster.

Fincher also directed Zodiac (2007), The Social Network (2010), The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), and Mank (2020). For The Social Network, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director and BAFTA Award for Best Direction. His biggest commercial successes are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) and Gone Girl (2014), both of which grossed more than $300 million worldwide, with the former earning thirteen nominations at the Academy Awards, and eleven at the British Academy Film Awards.

He also served as an executive producer and director for the Netflix series House of Cards (2013-2018) and Mindhunter (2017-2019), winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Drama Series for the pilot episode of House of Cards. Fincher was the co-founder of Propaganda Films, a film and music video production company.

Robert Shaw

Robert Archibald Shaw (09 August 1927 to 28 August 1978) was an English actor, novelist, playwright and screenwriter.

Beginning his career in theatre, Shaw joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre after the Second World War and appeared in productions of Macbeth, Henry VIII, Cymbeline, and other Shakespeare plays. With the Old Vic company (1951-1952), he continued primarily in Shakespearean roles. In 1959 he starred in a West End production of The Long and the Short and the Tall.

Shaw was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his role as Henry VIII in the drama film A Man for All Seasons (1966). His other film roles included the mobster Doyle Lonnegan in The Sting (1973) and the shark hunter Quint in Jaws (1975). He also played roles in From Russia with Love (1963), Battle of Britain (1969), Young Winston (1972), The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), Robin and Marian (1976) and, Black Sunday and The Deep, both of which were released in 1977.