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Howy Bratherton
Biography
Howy is a multiple award-winning actor and writer born in Wirral, United Kingdom, in 1985. He discovered a taste for acting at the age of 18 before leaving school. He graduated from the University of Central Lancashire with a BA Hons in Drama with English Literature in 2007. In 2009, after a one-year post-graduate course, Howy graduated from the International School of Screen Acting with a diploma in Screen Acting. Howy joined forces with his long-time friend, Peter Morrell, to create Party Hard Films.
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Wolf Koenig
Biography
Wolf Koenig (October 17, 1927 – June 26, 2014) was a Canadian film director, producer, animator, cinematographer, and a pioneer in Direct Cinema at the National Film Board of Canada.
Born in Dresden, Germany, Koenig emigrated to Canada with his family in 1937, when they fled Nazi Germany. They settled in 145-acre (0.59 km2) farm along the Grand River, outside what is now known as Cambridge, Ontario. In 1948, a local representative for the Canadian department of agriculture needed the family's tractor to demonstrate a new tree-planting machine. As the young Koenig pulled the machine across a field, he noticed a small film crew from the NFB's former agricultural film unit, recording the demonstration. After filming was complete, he approached the men, who included director Raymond Garceau, and told them he loved films, especially animation, and hoped to work in filmmaking. They suggested he send in a job application and approximately six weeks later he received a letter offering him the position of a junior splicer for $100 per month.
His younger brother Joe Koenig was also a filmmaker.
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Leonardo DiCaprio
Biography
Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (born November 11, 1974) is an American actor and film producer. Known for his work in biopics and period films, DiCaprio is the recipient of numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and three Golden Globe Awards. As of 2019, his films have grossed over $7.2 billion worldwide, and he has been placed eight times in annual rankings of the world's highest-paid actors.
Born in Los Angeles, DiCaprio began his career in the late 1980s by appearing in television commercials. In the early 1990s, he had recurring roles in various television shows, such as the sitcom Parenthood, and had his first major film part as author Tobias Wolff in This Boy's Life (1993). At age 19, he received critical acclaim and his first Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for his performance as a developmentally disabled boy in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993). He achieved international stardom with the star-crossed romances Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997).
After the latter became the highest-grossing film at the time, he reduced his workload for a few years. In an attempt to shed his image of a romantic hero, DiCaprio sought roles in other genres, including crime drama in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002); the latter marked the first of his many successful collaborations with director Martin Scorsese. DiCaprio portrayed Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004) and received acclaim for his performances in the political thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the crime drama The Departed (2006), and the romantic drama Revolutionary Road (2008).
In the following decade, DiCaprio starred in several high-profile directors' projects, including the science fiction thriller Inception (2010), the western Django Unchained (2012), the biopic The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), the survival drama The Revenant (2015), for which he won an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role, and the comedy-drama Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019), all of which were critical and commercial successes.
DiCaprio is the founder of Appian Way Productions, a production company that has produced some of his films and the documentary series Greensburg (2008–2010), and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting environmental awareness. He regularly supports charitable causes and has produced several documentaries on the environment. In 2005, he was named a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for his contributions to the arts, and in 2016, he appeared in Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world.
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Mark Margolis
Biography
Mark Margolis (November 26, 1939 – August 3, 2023) was an American actor, who had been making films since 1976.
Margolis went to Temple University briefly before moving to New York City, where he studied drama with Stella Adler and at the Actors Studio. He was perhaps most famous for his supporting roles in Scarface and the films of Darren Aronofsky: π, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, The Wrestler, and Black Swan. Aronofsky wrote the role of Father Avila in The Fountain specifically for Margolis.
He had recurring roles on numerous TV shows, including The Equalizer, HBO's Oz, Law And Order, Crossing Jordan and most recently Showtime's Californication and Breaking Bad. He also appeared in a first season episode of Quantum Leap.
In 1991, he also played Helmut Dieter in soap opera Santa Barbara.
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Ernie Roth
Biography
Irwin "Ernie" Roth, known by the ring names The Grand Wizard of Wrestling and Abdullah Farouk, was an American professional wrestling manager. Not a wrestler himself due to his small stature, he was noted for his flamboyant outfit of sequined jackets, wraparound sunglasses, and a brightly colored turban decorated with jewels and feathers. He was inducted into the WWE's Hall of Fame class of 1995. Ernie Roth got his start in the entertainment business as a disc jockey. He was discovered by Jim Barnett who helped Roth get into the wrestling industry. He became involved in professional wrestling as a manager in the 1960s in Detroit-based territories. Roth first worked under the names "Mr. Clean" and "J. Wellington Radcliffe." He also portrayed "Abdullah Farouk", the heel (villainous) manager of The Sheik. He frequently appeared on the Toronto wrestling circuit, where local announcer Lord Athol Layton would usually refer to him as "The weasel, Abdullah Farouk". Sporting a turban, Farouk took great pains in trying to control his madman protégé. But he also carved a niche for himself as a deceitful, underhanded character who insulted US fans whenever he had a chance. Farouk was a pioneer of "manager interference", as he physically would attempt to alter a match's outcome in the Sheik's favor. This sort of interference was rare at the time. Roth began a stint with the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in the 1970s, where he became known as The Grand Wizard. Roth, who was Jewish, reportedly took the name "The Grand Wizard" as a snub to the white supremacy organization the Ku Klux Klan, whose leaders were called Grand Wizard. Almost immediately after arrival in 1971, the Wizard managed Black Jack Mulligan and "Beautiful Bobby" Harmon. He later led Mr. Fuji and Prof. Toru Tanaka to two reigns with the WWWF World Tag Team Championship. A year later, the Wizard led Stan Stasiak to victory over Pedro Morales for the WWF Championship in Philadelphia on December 1, 1973. The Wizard guided a second protégé, Superstar Billy Graham, to the very same championship on April 30, 1977, when Graham overcame Bruno Sammartino in Baltimore. On February 20, 1978, Bob Backlund dethroned Graham at Madison Square Garden. The Wizard made it his duty to gain revenge on Backlund, sending charges such as Don Muraco, Ken Patera and Greg Valentine after him. The Wizard managed the first Intercontinental Champion Pat Patterson, and later Patera (who defeated Patterson for the title in April 1980 after the Wizard and Patterson parted ways) and Muraco to the same championship.[3] Other protégés of the Wizard included "Beautiful Bobby" Harmon, Killer Kowalski, "Crazy Luke" Graham, Sgt. Slaughter, "Big Cat" Ernie Ladd, Ox Baker, "Cowboy" Bob Orton and The Masked Superstar.
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Sebastian Stan
Biography
Sebastian Stan (born August 13, 1982) is a Romanian-American actor. He gained recognition for his role as Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier in the Marvel Cinematic Universe media franchise, beginning with 2011's Captain America: The First Avenger. He later returned in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014), and went on to star in Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Avengers: Endgame (2019) and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021).
On television, he has played Carter Baizen in Gossip Girl, Prince Jack Benjamin in Kings, Jefferson in Once Upon a Time, and T.J. Hammond in Political Animals. The latter earned him a nomination for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Movie/Miniseries. In films, he co-starred in Jonathan Demme's comedy-drama Ricki and the Flash and Ridley Scott's science fiction film The Martian. In 2017, he portrayed Jeff Gillooly in the biopic I, Tonya, and in 2022, he stars in the miniseries Pam & Tommy.
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Ahmad Ahmadi
Biography
He was started his career in the cinema industry at 1992 as a backstage cinematograph in the Judgement Day movie, whose director was Shahram Asadi. From 1995 he officially started to work in Iranian cinema photography with the movie Shade to Shade whose director was Ali Jakan, and recognized as the youngest Iranian cinema photographer in the mass media and specialized journals. Besides photography, he was working in the short and experimental cinema as a cameraman. He filmed his first short movie as a director of photography in Nader, son of the sword, whose director was Mohsen Amir yousefi and produced by community of Young Iranians’ cinema. Since 2006 he has actively started to work as a director of photography in the Islamic Republic of Iran’s cinema and Broadcasting. Currently, besides working in photography, he is actively engaged in producing long and short films. One of his recent movies as a producer is Roshanak, whose director is Hosein Ghanaaat.
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Jean-Christophe Averty
Biography
Jean-Christophe Averty (6 August 1928 – 4 March 2017[1]) was a French television and radio director, and Satrap of the College of 'Pataphysique.
Many of his television productions from the 1960s were early examples of French video art. His studies were used in the following decades by the research groups of the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA).
Averty was born in Paris. A graduate of the IDHEC film school, he started in television in 1952 at the then French Television Office. He directed over five hundred programs for television and radio, across all disciplines: fiction, documentary, drama, variety, and jazz. His many awards include an Emmy award in the United States.
Averty was appointed Satrap of the College of 'Pataphysique in 1990, due to his fascination for Alfred Jarry and Pataphysique.
Averty made his reputation on his strong character, his taste for provocation and his sense for innovative television. His 1963 series The Green Grapes was infamous for a recurring sequence of a baby being put through a grater.
A keen connoisseur of jazz, Averty filmed the Jazz à Juan festival for many years. The pianist Martial Solal paid him a tribute in one of his compositions: Averty, c'est moi (Averty that's me).
Over 28 years, he hosted 1,805 episodes of his radio show Les Cinglés du music-hall, based on his own collection of jazz and variety 78s that he had bought in flea markets around the world. The show was cancelled in 2006 under Jean-Paul Cluzel's chairmanship of Radio France. The French section of the shows was based on notebooks entrusted to him by André Cauzard, filled with daily details of pre-war jazz music events.
Averty directed television shows where he applied his singular style to showcase the greatest francophone singers such as Françoise Hardy, Yves Montand, Johnny Hallyday, Sylvie Vartan, Juliette Greco, Georges Brassens, Dalida, France Gall, Serge Gainsbourg, Gilbert Bécaud, Guy Marchand, Léo Ferré, Tino Rossi, and Jean Sablon, and as well as foreign musicians such as Patty Pravo.
In 1969 Averty directed the TV movie Le Songe d'une nuit d'été, starring Claude Jade, Christine Delaroche and Jean-Claude Drouot, and filmed entirely in bluescreen.
His television creations are landmarks in their use of video as a mode of artistic expression. Averty made great use of characters filmed against a blue screen, overlaid on a drawn background. Examples are Sapeur Camembert, based on the eponymous work of Georges Colomb, and a production of Edmond Rostand's classic play Chantecler.
Averty was one of the last salaried directors of the French Production Company. In 2012, he entrusted the management, conservation and safeguarding of the rights of all of his television and radio works to the French National Audiovisual Institute (INA); nearly a thousand television programs on jazz, sports, fashion, variety and the theater.
Source: Article "Jean-Christophe Averty" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0.
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Gilbert Roland
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gilbert Roland (born Luis Antonio Dámaso de Alonso, December 11, 1905 – May 15, 1994) was a Mexican-born American film and television actor whose career spanned seven decades from the 1920s until the 1980s. He was twice nominated for the Golden Globe Award in 1952 and 1964, and inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960.
Roland was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. When Pancho Villa took control of their town, Roland and his family fled to the United States. He lived in Texas until at age 14 he hopped on a freight train and went to Hollywood. He chose his screen name by combining the names of his favorite actors, John Gilbert and Ruth Roland. He was often cast in the stereotypical Latin lover role.
Roland's first film contract was with Paramount. His first major role was in the collegiate comedy The Plastic Age (1925) together with Clara Bow, to whom he became engaged. In 1926, he played Armand in Camille opposite Norma Talmadge, with whom he was romantically involved, and they starred together in several productions. With the advent of sound films, Roland frequently appeared in Spanish language adaptations of American films, in romantic lead roles. Roland served in the United States Army Air Corps during World War II.
Beginning in the 1940s, critics began to take notice of his acting and he was praised for his supporting roles in John Huston's We Were Strangers (1949), The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), Thunder Bay (1953), and Cheyenne Autumn (1964). He also appeared in a series of films in the mid-1940s as the popular character "The Cisco Kid". He played Hugo, the agnostic friend of the three shepherd children in The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima. In 1953, Roland played Greek-American sponge diver Mike Petrakis in the epic Beneath the 12-Mile Reef. His last film appearance was in the 1982 western Barbarosa.
Roland married actress Constance Bennett in 1941. They were married until 1946 and had two daughters. His second marriage, to Guillermina Cantú in 1954, lasted until his death 40 years later.
Gilbert Roland died of cancer in Beverly Hills, California in 1994, aged 88.
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Hayden Panettiere
Biography
Hayden Lesley Panettiere (/ˌpænətiˈɛər/ PAN-ə-tee-AIR; born August 21, 1989) is an American actress and singer. She has starred as Claire Bennet on the NBC superhero series Heroes (2006–2010), Kirby Reed in the slasher horror franchise Scream (2011–2023), and Juliette Barnes in the ABC/CMT musical drama series Nashville (2012–2018). The latter earned her two nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Miniseries or Television Film.
Panettiere first appeared on-screen in a commercial in 1990 at eleven months old. Her full-time acting career began in 1994 when she played Sarah Roberts in the ABC soap opera series One Life to Live until 1997. She played Lizzie Spaulding in the CBS soap opera Guiding Light from 1996 to 2000. For her role in the Pixar film A Bug's Life (1998), she was nominated for a Young Artist Award and a Grammy Award, making her the 5th youngest nominee for a Grammy.
Panettiere has starred in the Lifetime Television film "If You Believe", Disney football drama film Remember the Titans (2000), the final season of the Fox legal comedy-drama series Ally McBeal (2002), the comedy-drama film Raising Helen (2004), the Disney Channel original patriotic film Tiger Cruise (2004), the horse racing comedy film Racing Stripes (2005), the figure skating drama film Ice Princess (2005), the teen cheerleading film Bring It On: All or Nothing (2006), the romantic comedy film I Love You, Beth Cooper (2009), the true crime drama film Amanda Knox: Murder on Trial in Italy (2011), and the drama film Custody (2016). She voiced Kairi and Xion in the video game series Kingdom Hearts (2002–2017) and Samantha "Sam" Giddings in the video game Until Dawn (2015).
Description above from the Wikipedia article Hayden Panettiere, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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