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León Klimovsky

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. León Klimovsky (16 October 1906–8 April 1996) was an Argentine film director. A trained dentist, born in Buenos Aires, his real passion was always the cinema. He pioneered Argentine cultural movement known as cineclub and financed the first movie theater to show art movies. He also founded Argentina's first film club in 1929. After participating as scriptwriter and assistant director of 1944's Se abre el abismo he filmed his first movie, an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Player. From this first phase, it can be also highlighted the adaptations of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo and Ernesto Sabato's The Tunnel. On the 1950s Klimovsky settled in Spain, where he becomes a "professional" director. He went into spaghetti westerns and so-called exploitation films, filming in Mexico, Italy and Egypt. Perhaps he is best remembered for his contribution to Spain's horror film genre, beginning with La noche de Walpurgis. León Klimovsky confessed to have always dreamt of doing great vanguard movies but ended on filming commercial ones, but without remorse, as doing cinema was a vocational mandate for him. On 1995 he won the "Honor Award" of the Spanish Film Director Association. He died in Madrid of a heart attack. He was brother to the Argentine mathematician and philosopher Gregorio Klimovsky. Description above from the Wikipedia article León Klimovsky, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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Ralph Fiennes

Biography

Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes (born 22 December 1962) is an English actor, film producer, and director. He has received various accolades, including a British Academy Film Award and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for three Academy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. Born in Ipswich, Suffolk, Fiennes was trained at and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1985. A Shakespeare interpreter, he excelled onstage at the Royal National Theatre before succeeding at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1995, Fiennes made his Broadway debut playing Prince Hamlet in the revival of the William Shakespeare play Hamlet, for which he won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play. He was later Tony-nominated for his role as a travelling faith healer in the Brian Friel play Faith Healer (2006). Fiennes made his film debut playing Heathcliff in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights (1992). He has earned three Academy Award nominations for his performances in the films Schindler's List (1993), The English Patient (1996), and Conclave (2024). He has also acted in Quiz Show (1994), Maid in Manhattan (2002), The Constant Gardener (2005), In Bruges (2008), The Reader (2008), The Duchess (2008), The Hurt Locker (2009), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), A Bigger Splash (2015), Hail, Caesar! (2016), and The Menu (2022). Fiennes gained wider recognition for playing Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter film series (2005–2011) and Gareth Mallory / M in the James Bond films (2012–2021); and has voiced roles in the animated films The Prince of Egypt (1998), Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), and The Lego Batman Movie (2017). He directed and starred in the films Coriolanus (2011) and The Invisible Woman (2013). Aside from acting, Fiennes has been an ambassador for UNICEF UK since 1999.
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Matthew Lewis

Biography

Matthew David Lewis (born 27 June 1989) is an English actor. He is best known for his role as Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter film series. Born in Leeds, Lewis made his acting debut in Some Kind of Life (1995), guest-starring on dramas for ITV and BBC One before appearing in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001). Lewis played the role for ten years, concluding with the final film, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011), for which he received critical praise. Following the series, Lewis reoccured in The Syndicate and performed his first theatre role in Our Boys at the Duchess Theatre in 2012. Lewis starred in The Rise (2012) which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival to positive reviews and made appearances on BBC dramas Bluestone 42 and Death in Paradise in 2013 and 2015, respectively. Lewis had a supporting role in Me Before You (2016), which became a box office success. He was cast in the crime dramas Ripper Street and Happy Valley before starring on the ITV drama Girlfriends in 2018. Lewis appeared in Terminal (2018), which premiered at the Edinburgh International Film Festival as well as Baby Done (2020). Since 2020, Lewis has starred in Channel 5 television series All Creatures Great and Small to critical praise.
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Alan Rickman

Biography

Alan Sidney Patrick Rickman (February 21, 1946 – January 14, 2016) was an English actor and director. Known for his deep, languid voice, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), performing in modern and classical theatre productions. He played the Vicomte de Valmont in the RSC stage production of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in 1985, and after the production transferred to the West End in 1986 and Broadway in 1987, he was nominated for a Tony Award. Rickman's first cinema role came when he was cast as the German terrorist leader Hans Gruber in Die Hard (1988). He also appeared as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), for which he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role; Elliott Marston in Quigley Down Under (1990); Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991); Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility (1995); Eamon DeValera in Michael Collins (1997); Alexander Dane in Galaxy Quest (1999); Metatron in Dogma (1999); Severus Snape in the Harry Potter series (2001–2011); Harry in Love Actually (2003); Marvin the Paranoid Android in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005); and Judge Turpin in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007). Rickman made his television acting debut playing Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1978) as part of the BBC's Shakespeare series. His breakthrough role was in the BBC television adaptation of The Barchester Chronicles (1982). He later starred in television films, playing the title character in Rasputin: Dark Servant of Destiny (1996), which won him a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, and Alfred Blalock in Something the Lord Made (2004). Rickman died of pancreatic cancer on 14 January 2016 at age 69. His final film roles were as Lieutenant General Frank Benson in the thriller Eye in the Sky (2015), and reprising his role as the voice of the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland (2010) in Alice Through the Looking Glass (2016).
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Debbie Flint

Biography

Debbie Flint is the proud presenter of QVC Home Shopping Channel in the UK. But she’s had her fair share of jobbing presenter work! She was the first girl in the hot seat on children’s BBC TV, replacing Phillip Schofield in the broom cupboard, (’86/87). Then she shared a couch with Eamon Holmes to help launch BBC Daytime TV, on Open Air (’86/87). Years later, she finally hosted her own BBC1 game show (Meet The Challenge, ’98) and has co-presented and reported on numerous other live magazine and entertainment and news shows on Living, BSB, Telewest, SSVC Forces TV, and many radio shows, Piccadilly, LBC, Mercury, Eclipse, BFBS. She has clocked up over 20000 hours of live ad-lib presenting on shopping TV – QVC, Ideal World, Bid TV, HSE, Simply Television – and has been one of the country’s foremost DRTV consultants, writing, producing and presenting infomercials, including two of the most successful shows in the UK in the early 2000’s.
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Sherman Howard

Biography

Sherman Howard (born June 11, 1949) is an American actor and writer, best known for his iconic performance as the zombie Bub in George A. Romero’s "Day of the Dead" (1985), as well as for his recurring roles in popular television series including "Seinfeld," "Superboy" (as Lex Luthor), and miniseries such as "The Stand". With a career spanning over four decades in film, TV, and theater, Howard has also provided voice work for notable animated series like "Batman Beyond" and "Jumanji," and appeared on shows such as "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and "Law & Order". Born Howard Lee Sherman in Chicago, he has been married to actress Donna Bullock since 1988
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Michael Mack

Biography

Michael Mack is an Actor, Writer, Producer and Founder/Instructor of the Fearless Acting Workshop in Washington D.C. A native of Washington D.C., Mack was fortunate enough to work at the K-B MacArthur Theater when it featured the world premiere of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. On opening night, Mack met the entire lead cast. As a budding writer, one of his dreams was to write for Star Trek: The Next Generation, in part, because they were the most writer friendly series to work for. He was fortunate enough to join the TNG writing team for a six-week internship in 1994 during the series' seventh season, working with such greats as Jeri Taylor, Brannon Braga, Ronald D. Moore, and René Echevarria. Though he was not allowed to write an episode themselves, he was allowed to contribute ideas to the episodes. His main job was to review the unsolicited scripts that were submitted to the series, where on one occasion he found an idea in one of the submitted scripts that he successfully pitched. Because of Mack's Shakespearean background, he was approached by Taylor, who encouraged him to audition for any guest roles that might arise during his stay. Initially he was offered a role in "Parallels" to portray one of the Enterprise-D captains from another quantum reality, a role that eventually became that of Riker from the alternate Borg conquered Federation. He turned the audition for role down because he felt that it was simply too short and there was no way to play it "credibly" because all the performance required was a "freak out". When the next episode, "The Pegasus", was being cast, he told Taylor that he wanted to audition for the role of the Romulan Commander Sirol, who was originally written as a female character with a single scene. In spite of being a black actor auditioning for a species traditionally depicted by white actors, he reminded Taylor of the black "Vulcan midwife" who appeared in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, and seeing as Romulans were "cousins" to the Vulcans, he saw no reason why there couldn't also be black Romulans. Taylor gave Mack her answer the next morning by offering him an opportunity to audition, and after Mack impressed both Taylor and episode director LeVar Burton, he was given the role, becoming not only the first writing intern to act on the show, but more importantly the first actor to portray a black Romulan. Following his being cast in the role, Braga and Moore expanded the role and made the character a bit more complex on Mack's behalf.
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Larry Bird

Biography

Larry Joe Bird is a former American NBA basketball player and coach. Drafted into the NBA sixth overall by the Boston Celtics in 1978, Bird started at small forward and power forward for thirteen seasons, spearheading one of the NBA's most formidable frontcourts that included center Robert Parish and forward Kevin McHale. Due to chronic back problems, he retired as a player in 1992. Bird was voted to the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1996 and inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1998. He served as head coach of the Indiana Pacers from 1997 to 2000. In 2003, he assumed the role of president of basketball operations for the Pacers, which he currently holds.
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Julie K. Smith

Biography

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Julie K. Smith (born August 18, 1967) is a German actress. She was the Penthouse Pet of the Month for February 1993. Smith appeared in a number of mainstream Hollywood films and B-movies before settling into the world of softcore pornography. She had an early starring role in the 1987 sex comedy Pretty Smart, alongside Patricia Arquette, as a rich sexpot at a private school in Greece, but her other roles in mainstream films of the late 1980s and early 1990s (such as The Last Boy Scout and Disorderlies) were minor. She had an uncredited role in the 1976 Alan Parker film Bugsy Malone. With her entry into softcore films came more leading roles. She became a staple of the softcore scene in the late 1990s, appearing in three episodes of Erotic Confessions in 1996-97, The Bare Wench Project series, and several Andy Sidaris films, such as L.E.T.H.A.L. Ladies: Return to Savage Beach. Smith had a long-running professional relationship with director Jim Wynorski, having appeared in numerous films of his during the 1990s and 2000s. According to the documentary Popatopolis, Smith announced her retirement from acting in 2005, after the completion of The Witches of Breastwick. However, in 2007, she came out of retirement and resumed making films with Wynorski.
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Muhammad Ali

Biography

Muhammad Ali (born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer, activist, entertainer and philanthropist. Nicknamed The Greatest, he is widely regarded as one of the most significant and celebrated figures of the 20th century and as one of the greatest boxers of all time. Ali was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. He began training as an amateur boxer at age 12. At 18, he won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics and turned professional later that year. He became a Muslim after 1961. He won the world heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in a major upset on February 25, 1964, at age 22. On March 6, 1964, he announced that he no longer would be known as Cassius Clay but as Muhammad Ali. In 1966, Ali refused to be drafted into the military, citing his religious beliefs and ethical opposition to the Vietnam War. He was found guilty of draft evasion so he faced 5 years in prison and was stripped of his boxing titles. He stayed out of prison as he appealed the decision to the Supreme Court, which overturned his conviction in 1971, but he had not fought for nearly four years and lost a period of peak performance as an athlete. Ali's actions as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War made him an icon for the larger counterculture generation, and he was a very high-profile figure of racial pride for African Americans during the civil rights movement and throughout his career. As a Muslim, Ali was initially affiliated with Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam (NOI). He later disavowed the NOI, adhering to Sunni Islam, and supporting racial integration like his former mentor Malcolm X. Ali was a leading heavyweight boxer of the 20th century, and he remains the only three-time lineal champion of that division. His joint records of beating 21 boxers for the world heavyweight title and winning 14 unified title bouts stood for 35 years. He is the only fighter to have been ranked as the world's best heavyweight by BoxRec twelve times. He has been ranked among BoxRec's ten best heavyweights seventeen times, the third most in history. He won 8 fights that were rated by BoxRec as 5-Star, the third most in the history of the heavyweight division. Ali is the only boxer to be named The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year six times. He has been ranked the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, and as the greatest athlete of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated, the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC, and the third greatest athlete of the 20th century by ESPN SportsCentury. He was involved in several historic boxing matches and feuds, most notably his fights with Joe Frazier, such as the Fight of the Century and the Thrilla in Manila, and his fight with George Foreman, known as The Rumble in the Jungle, which has been called "arguably the greatest sporting event of the 20th century" and was watched by a record estimated television audience of 1 billion viewers worldwide, becoming the world's most-watched live television broadcast at the time. Ali thrived in the spotlight at a time when many fighters let their managers do the talking, and he was often provocative and outlandish. He was known for trash-talking, and often free-styled with rhyme schemes and spoken word poetry, anticipating elements of hip hop.
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