IN: La Strada (lit. "The Road") is a 1954 Italian drama film directed by Federico Fellini from his own screenplay co-written with Tullio Pinelli and Ennio Flaiano. The film portrays a naive young woman (Giulietta Masina) bought from her mother by a brutish strongman (Anthony Quinn) who takes her with him on the road. Fellini has called La Strada "a complete catalogue of my entire mythological world, a dangerous representation of my identity that was undertaken with no precedent whatsoever."

Fellini secured financing through the producers Dino De Laurentiis and Carlo Ponti, who wanted to cast Silvana Mangano (De Laurentiis' wife) as Gelsomina and Burt Lancaster as Zampano, but Fellini refused these choices. Giulietta Masina had been the inspiration for the entire project, so Fellini was determined never to accept an alternative to her. For Zampano, Fellini had hoped to cast a nonprofessional and, to that end, he tested a number of circus strongmen, to no avail. He also had trouble finding the right person for the role of Il Matto. His first choice was the actor Moraldo Rossi, who was a member of Fellini's social circle and had the right type of personality and athletic physique, but Rossi wanted to be the assistant director, not a performer. Alberto Sordi, the star of Fellini's earlier films The White Sheik and I Vitelloni, was eager to take the role, and was bitterly disappointed when Fellini rejected him after a tryout in costume.  Ultimately, Fellini drew his three leading players from people associated with the 1954 film Donne Proibite (Angels of Darkness), directed by Giuseppe Amato, in which Masina played the very different role of a madam. Anthony Quinn was also acting in the film, while Richard Basehart was often on the set visiting his wife, actress Valentina Cortese. When Masina introduced Quinn to her husband, the actor was disconcerted by Fellini's insistence that the director had found his Zampano, later remembering: "I thought he was a little bit crazy, and I told him I wasn't interested in the picture, but he kept hounding me for days." Not long afterwards, Quinn spent the evening with Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman, and after dinner they watched Fellini's 1953 Italian comedy-drama I Vitelloni. According to Quinn: "I was thunderstruck by it. I told them the film was a masterpiece, and that the same director was the man who had been chasing me for weeks."  Fellini was particularly taken with Basehart, who reminded the director of Charlie Chaplin. Upon being introduced to Basehart by Cortese, Fellini invited the actor to lunch, at which he was offered the role of Il Matto. When asked why by the surprised Basehart, who had never before played the part of a clown, Fellini responded: "Because, if you did what you did in Fourteen Hours you can do anything." A great success in Italy, the 1951 Hollywood drama starred Basehart as a would-be suicide on a hotel balcony. Basehart, too, had been greatly impressed by I Vitelloni, and agreed to take the role for much less than his usual salary, in part because he was very attracted by Fellini's personality, saying: "It was his zest for living, and his humor."

Was he familiar with Basehart previous to this casting?

OUT: Richard Basehart was often on the set visiting his wife, actress Valentina Cortese.


IN: Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901 - December 15, 1966) was an American entrepreneur, animator, voice actor and film producer. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons.

Disney received 59 Academy Award nominations, including 22 awards: both totals are records. He was nominated for three Golden Globe Awards, but did not win, but he was presented with two Special Achievement Awards--for Bambi (1942) and The Living Desert (1953)--and the Cecil B. DeMille Award. He also received four Emmy Award nominations, winning once, for Best Producer for the Disneyland television series. Several of his films are included in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant": Steamboat Willie, The Three Little Pigs, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi and Mary Poppins. In 1998, the American Film Institute published a list of the 100 greatest American films, according to industry experts; the list included Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (at number 49), and Fantasia (at 58).  In February 1960, Disney was inducted to the Hollywood Walk of Fame with two stars, one for motion pictures and the other for his television work; Mickey Mouse was given his own star for motion pictures in 1978. Disney was also inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1986, the California Hall of Fame in December 2006, and was the inaugural recipient of a star on the Anaheim walk of stars in 2014.  The Walt Disney Family Museum records that he "along with members of his staff, received more than 950 honors and citations from throughout the world". He was made a Chevalier in the French Legion d'honneur in 1935, and in 1952 he was awarded the country's highest artistic decoration, the Officer d'Academie. Other national awards include Thailand's Order of the Crown; Brazil's Order of the Southern Cross and Mexico's Order of the Aztec Eagle. In the United States, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on September 14, 1964 and, in 1969, he was posthumously awarded the Congressional Gold Medal. He received the Showman of the World Award from the National Association of Theatre Owners, and, in 1955, the National Audubon Society awarded Disney its highest honor, the Audubon Medal, for promoting the "appreciation and understanding of nature" through his True-Life Adventures nature films. A minor planet discovered in 1980 by astronomer Lyudmila Karachkina, was named 4017 Disneya, and he was also awarded honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles.

is that where he kept his awards and such?

OUT:
The Walt Disney Family Museum