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Marni Nixon
Biography
"Loverly" soprano Marni Nixon has ensured herself a proper place in film history although most moviegoers would not recognize her if they passed her on the street. But if you heard her, that might be a horse of a different color. Marni is one of those unsung heroes (or should I say "much sung" heroes) whose incredible talents were given short shrift at the time. For those who think film superstars such as Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, and Audrey Hepburn possessed not only powerhouse dramatic talents but amazing singing voices as well...think again. Kerr's Anna in The King and I (1956), Natalie's Maria in West Side Story (1961), and Audrey's Eliza in My Fair Lady (1964) were all dubbed by the amazing Marni Nixon, and nowhere in the credits will you find that fact. Born Marni McEathron in Altadena, California, she was a former child actress and soloist with the Roger Wagner Chorale in the beginning. Trained in opera, yet possessing a versatile voice for pop music and easy standards as well, she not only sang for Arnold Schönberg and Igor Stravinsky but also recorded light songs. Marni made her Broadway musical debut in 1954 in a show that lasted two months but nothing came from it. In 1955, the singer contracted to dub Deborah Kerr in The King and I (1956) was killed in a car accident in Europe and a replacement was needed. Marni was hired...and the rest is history. Much impressed, the studios brought her in to "ghost" Ms. Kerr's voice once again in the classic tearjerker An Affair to Remember (1957). From there she went on to make Natalie Wood and Audrey Hepburn sound incredibly good with such classic songs as "Tonight" and "Wouldn't It Be Loverly."
She finally appeared on screen in a musical in The Sound of Music (1965) starring Julie Andrews, who physically resembles Marni. The role is a small one, however, and she is only given a couple of solo lines in "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" as a singing nun. Marni's vocal career in films dissolved by the mid 1960s, but she continued on with concerts and in symphony halls, while billing herself as "The Voice of Hollywood" in one-woman cabaret shows. Throughout the years, she has played on the legit stage, including the lead roles in "The King and I" and "The Sound of Music," and in her matronly years has been seen as Fraulein Schneider in "Cabaret," and in the musicals "Follies" and "70 Girls 70." Her last filmed singing voice was as the grandmother in the animated feature Mulan (1998) in the 1990s. Married three times, twice to musicians; one of her husbands, Ernest Gold, by whom she had three children, was a film composer and is best known for his Academy Award-winning epic Exodus (1960).
Marni Nixon died July 24, 2016 (age 86), in New York City, New York, USA
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Sean Connery
Biography
Sir Thomas Sean Connery (August 25, 1930 – October 31, 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer. He won an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award. Connery was the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films (every film from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, plus Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again), between 1962 and 1983. In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. His films also include Marnie (1964), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996), The Rock (1996), and Finding Forrester (2000).
Connery was polled in a 2004 The Sunday Herald as "The Greatest Living Scot" and in a 2011 EuroMillions survey as "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". He was voted by People magazine as both the “Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century” in 1999. He received a lifetime achievement award in the United States with a Kennedy Center Honor in 1999. Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.
On October 31, 2020, Connery died at the age of 90.
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Marie von Bülow
Biography
After training as an actress, Marie secured her first engagement in Karlsruhe, where Hans von Bülow saw her for the first time in 1877, in the title-role of Lessing's comedy Minna von Barnhelm. She subsequently became an actress at the court theatre in Meiningen, where she played leading roles in plays by Schiller, Goethe, and Shakespeare. In July 1882 Marie became the second wife of Bülow, who was then also based in Meiningen, building the court orchestra into one of the finest ensembles in Germany. Bülow had hoped that after remarrying he would be invited to the second Bayreuth Festival that summer for the premiere of Parsifal (through several fund-raising recitals he had raised 50,000 francs for the festival). This did not work out, however, as Bülow was informed that his presence in Bayreuth would be unwelcome to his former wife Cosima and Wagner.
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Mitzi Gaynor
Biography
Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber (September 4, 1931 – October 17, 2024), known professionally as Mitzi Gaynor, was an American actress, singer, and dancer of Hungarian descent. A leading lady of light musicals, the bright-eyed star is best remembered for South Pacific (1958) – for which she earned a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Comedy or Musical. She also hosted a string of successful annual musical TV specials in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was added as a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
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Maitê Proença
Biography
Maitê Proença Gallo (São Paulo, January 28, 1958) is a Brazilian actress, presenter and writer.
Proença has worked on Brazilian telenovelas, films and plays. Her role in the telenovela Dona Beija was her first major TV success in Brazil, Portugal and some 50 other countries where it was shown.
Proença has written two books. Her first book, Entre ossos e a escrita, published in 2005, contained the best of her essays. The second book, Uma Vida Inventada, sold 100,000 copies in Brazil and was exported to Portugal. She has also written two plays one of which, As Meninas, won her several prizes. She has a column in the Brazilian magazine Época.
Proença has been a TV host for Video Show (1983), Programa de Domingo (1987) and Saia Justa (2006/2007). In 2006, Proença wrote her first theater play, Achadas e Perdidas. In 2002, she made her debut as a theater producer with the play Buda.
In 2009, due to controversial remarks on the Brazilian TV show Saia Justa, Proença prompted public outrage in Portugal and was accused of being Lusophobic, though she has since affirmed numerous times her love for Portugal. She has since denied the accusation and recorded several apologies, as well as issuing one on her official blog. Proença emphasized that despite the misunderstanding, she is of recent Portuguese ancestry and likes Portugal and the Portuguese. For about a week, the affair was discussed or reported on several Portuguese television networks and major newspapers.
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Ameer
Biography
Ameer Sultan is an Indian film director, producer and actor hailing from the Madurai district of Tamil Nadu. He is recognized as a member of the movement of directors in the late 1990s to early 2000s dubbed the Tamil New Wave. His filmography includes the romantic comedy Mounam Pesiyadhe, the mystery thriller Raam, and the tragedy Paruthiveeran. Paruthiveeran was highly successful, running for over a year at theaters and garnering widespread acclaim from critics. It received numerous accolades, including two National Film Awards, six Southern Filmfare Awards and two Tamil Nadu State Film Awards, among others, whilst being screened at several international film festivals such as the Berlin International Film Festival and the Osian's Cinefan Festival of Asian and Arab Cinema. Ameer made his acting debut in Yogi in 2009, and later on appeared in the acclaimed and commercially successful Vetrimaaran feature Vada Chennai, for which he won the Best Supporting Actor Award at the 2018 Ananda Vikatan Cinema Awards.
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Zhang Ze Tong
Biography
Zhang Ze Tong is a Malaysian-Singaporean actor who joined Star Search 2019, one of Singapore's largest talent competition shows. He emerged as the champion, and began his acting career from there. With his commanding presence coupled with guy-next-door charisma on stage, Ze Tong wowed the panel of judges comprising of Hong Kong superstars Carina Lau, Simon Yam and Stephen Fung. Barely a month after his win, he got involved in the filming of All Around You as the first male lead, followed by subsequent involvements in A Jungle Survivor and Slow Dancing (an English blockbuster collaboration with Wattpad), the project he is most known for.
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Milton Santos
Biography
Milton Almeida dos Santos (May 3, 1926 – June 24, 2001) was a Brazilian geographer and geography scholar who had a degree in law. He became known for his pioneering works in several branches of geography, notably urban development in developing countries. He is considered the father of critical geography in Brazil. Santos was a recipient of the Vautrin Lud Prize, often seen as geography's equivalent of the Nobel Prize, and a posthumous recipient of the Anísio Teixeira Award, given every five years by CAPES (the Brazilian agency for the improvement of higher education personnel) to distinguished contributors to research and development in the country. (Wikipedia)
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Jorge Amado
Biography
Jorge Leal Amado de Faria (10 August 1912 – 6 August 2001) was a Brazilian writer of the modernist school. He remains the best known of modern Brazilian writers, with his work having been translated into some 49 languages and popularized in film, notably Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands in 1976. His work reflects the image of a Mestiço Brazil and is marked by religious syncretism. He depicted a cheerful and optimistic country that was beset, at the same time, with deep social and economic differences.
He occupied the 23rd chair of the Brazilian Academy of Letters from 1961 until his death in 2001. He won the 1984 International Nonino Prize in Italy. He also was Federal Deputy for São Paulo as a member of the Brazilian Communist Party between 1947 and 1951.
Amado was born on Saturday, 10 August 1912, on a farm near the inland city of Itabuna, in the south of the Brazilian state of Bahia. He was the eldest of four sons of João Amado de Faria and D. Eulália Leal. The farm was located in the village of Ferradas, which, though today is a district of Itabuna, was at the time administered by the coastal city of Ilhéus. For this reason he considered himself a citizen of Ilhéus. From his exposure to the large cocoa plantations of the area, Amado knew the misery and the struggles of the people working the land and living in almost enslaved conditions. This was to be a theme present in several of his works (for example, The Violent Land of 1944).
As a result of a smallpox epidemic, his family moved to Ilhéus when he was one year old, and he spent his childhood there. He attended high school in Salvador, the capital of the state. By the age of 14 Amado had begun to collaborate with several magazines and took part in literary life, as one of the founders of the Modernist "Rebels' Academy".
He was the cousin of Brazilian lawyer, writer, journalist and politician Gilberto Amado, and of Brazilian actress and screenwriter Véra Clouzot.
Amado published his first novel, The Country of Carnival, in 1931, at age 18. He married Matilde Garcia Rosa and had a daughter, Lila, in 1933. The same year he published his second novel, Cacau, which increased his popularity.
He studied law at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro Faculty of Law but never became a practising lawyer. His leftist activities made his life difficult under the dictatorial regime of Getúlio Vargas. In 1935 he was arrested for the first time, and two years later his books were publicly burned. His works were banned from Portugal, but in the rest of Europe he gained great popularity with the publication of Jubiabá in France. The book received enthusiastic reviews, including that of Nobel prize Award winner Albert Camus.
In the early 1940s, Amado edited a literary supplement for the Nazi-funded political newspaper "Meio-Dia". Being a communist militant, from 1941 to 1942 Amado was compelled to go into exile to Argentina and Uruguay. When he returned to Brazil he separated from Matilde Garcia Rosa. In 1945 he was elected to the National Constituent Assembly, as a representative of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) (he received more votes than any other candidate in the state of São Paulo). He signed a law granting freedom of religious faith. ...
Source: Article "Jorge Amado" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Lucille Ricksen
Biography
Lucille Ricksen was born Ingeborg Erickson in Chicago, Illinois on August 22, 1910. She worked a child model and made her film debut at age 5. Her parents separated and her mother took her to Hollywood in 1920, and 10-year-old Lucille was offered a contract with Samuel Goldwyn and starred in a series of short films. She often had to work long hours but she always said she was having fun. In 1922 she starred opposite Marie Prevost in "The Married Flapper." The following year she was given a starring role in the drama "The Rendezvous"; although she was only 13, the studio lied that she was actually 16. The press called her "the youngest leading lady in movies". Lucille developed a close relationship with producer Sydney Chaplin (brother of Charlie Chaplin), who was 25 years her senior. She became one of Hollywood's busiest starlets and was chosen as one of the WAMPAS Baby Stars.
Unfortunately, the 14-year-old started to suffer from exhaustion and malnutrition. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis and became bedfast. Her mother kept a bedside vigil, but the stress brought on a fatal heart attack. Following her mother's death, Lucille was looked after by family friends including actress Lois Wilson. During one of her conscious moments Lucille said "Mother wouldn't want me--die--Mother said--Wonderful future--Going to do big things--Won't die! I won't!" But on March 13, 1925, she passed away from complications of tuberculosis, still at only 14 years old. There were rumors that her death had actually been caused by a botched abortion. Lucille was cremated and she was buried with her mother at Forest Lawn in Glendale, California. Her final film, "The Denial," came out 10 days after her death.
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