Hollywood Idols

This program features Marilyn Monroe's great moments on film- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How To Marry a Millionaire, The Seven-Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, Bus Stop and The Misfits and includes archival footage as well as home video clips. Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Sheree North, Susan Strasberg, Don Murray, Celeste Holm and Josh Logan share their fond memories.

Steve McQueen's rise to icon and the inevitable descent are told by those who watched it happen. Featuring clips from The Magnificent Seven, Love With the Proper Stranger and The Thomas Crown Affair. His life story is told with home movies and the memories of his first wife, his children, actor Chuck Norris, and all of the actors, directors, agents and racing buddies who knew and understood him.

It was said that, in his more-than-70 films, William Holden never gave a bad performance. Handsome, charming and unconventional, he had a compulsion to take risks. Determined to reject the adulation of stardom, he was immensely popular on the set and off. Clips include scenes from Golden Boys, Born Yesterday, The Country Girl, Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, and The Bridge on the River Kwai.

An actor of many faces, Mexican-born Anthony Quinn has appeared in over 270 films in ethnically diverse roles from an American Indian to a Greek peasant. Quinn himself tells his fascinating story with help from his daughter and son, actors and directors including Kirk Douglas, Julie Harris and Stanley Kramer. Including clips from such acclaimed films as La Strada, Viva Zapata! and Zorba the Greek.

As the first "blonde bombshell," Mae West reigned supreme and changed the nation's view of women, sex and race- on stage, in films, on radio and television. Including clips from Night After Night, She Done Him Wrong, I'm No Angel, Belle of the Nineties, and Klondike Annie. In addition to home movies and archival footage, Anthony Quinn, Rex Reed and Robert Wise provide interviews.

He has played king and slave, hero and villain, and is renowned throughout the movie-going world for the heroic figures he played during his early years in Hollywood: Moses, Ben-Hur, El Cid and Michelangelo. With Heston as narrator himself, learn his life story as well as the highlights of a career that resulted in more than 60 motion pictures.

Roger Moore has traveled from working-class South London to the Riviera's glamorous St. Paul de Vence, from just another contract player to The Saint and 007, from struggling film extra to Hollywood superstar, from unknown office boy to UNICEF's Ambassador-at-Large. Here is Roger Moore's own story, as told by the famous actor himself.

This glamorous and hugely popular actress raised herself from brutal poverty to Academy Award-winning stardom through guts, determination and hard work. During her 50-year career, she made more than 80 films. But her obsessive perfectionism led to a later caricature of coat-hanger-wielding harridan that even the adoration of her fans could not counter.

Amiable and unassuming, Fred MacMurray went from small-town boy to one of Hollywood and television's most enduring stars. This program includes clips from some of MacMurray's most notable films, such as The Gilded Lily, The Apartment, The Absent Minded Professor, Swing High, Swing Low and the TV series, My Three Sons.

Barbara Stanwyck was one of the 20th century's most enduring stars, known to generations of Americans. Orphaned at age four and a Zeigfield Girl by age 17, Ruby Stevens, by age 20 she earned excellent reviews for a bit part in a broadway play and adopted a new name: Barbara Stanwyck. She went on to have a long successful career in the movies and later on television.

Actor Walter Matthau was barely three when his father deserted the family. Poverty and New York street smarts produced a self-deprecating humor that never left. He began studying acting and by 1951 he earned a New York Drama Critics Award. Television dramas followed and then came Hollywood where his fame grew to new heights creating millions of fans and admirers in the entertainment industry.

In the film This Gun for Hire, as supporting actor, Alan Ladd's performance as a cold, ruthless killer with a core of sadness had an impact on audiences. He became an immediate star and helped launch the age of film noir. In 1954, Photoplay magazine voted him the world's most popular male film star. Ironically, Ladd and the female star of the year, Marilyn Monroe, both headed for self-destruction.